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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Sawtelle, Charles Greene, 1834-1913 to Perley P. Pitkin

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02849 Author/Creator: Sawtelle, Charles Greene, 1834-1913 Place Written: Charles City, Virginia Type: Manuscript document signed Date: 24 July 1862 Pagination: 1 p. : docket Height: 21 cm, Width: 13 cm Order a Copy

General order instructs Pitkin to send "a competent person" to meet "five hundred contrabands" and bring them rations. "Contrabands" were freed enslaved people employed by the Union army. Written as Captain. Written at Harrison's Landing, Virginia.

Sawtelle, Charles Greene, 1834-1913
Pitkin, Perley Peabody, 1826-1891

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