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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.

Hudson, A.L., fl. 1861 Ellsworth's Avengers

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC03617.10 Author/Creator: Hudson, A.L., fl. 1861 Place Written: New York, New York Type: Sheet music Date: circa 1861 Pagination: 1 p. : Height: 23 cm, Width: 14.8 cm Order a Copy

Published by J. Wrigley at 27 Chatham Street in New York. Marked No. 844 at the top. Sung to the tune of "Annie Lisle." That song is an 1857 ballad by Boston, Massachusetts songwriter H. S. Thompson. The song is about the death of a young maiden, by what some have speculated to be tuberculosis, an awful circumstance which mirrors the tragic death of the young Colonel Ellsworth in Alexandria, Virginia. Six stanza song, which includes the chorus: "Strike, freemen, for the Union! / Sheathe your swords no more, / While remains in arms a traitor / On Columbia's shore." Framed by several images of blacks, including angels holding a banner that says "Ethiopian." Slightly different version of song is at GLC03617.02 and .04. Last four lines different: By our hopes of your bright heaven, / By the land we love / By the God who reigns above us, / We'll avenge they blood."

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