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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.

Confederate Quaker Guns at Centreville, Va. [March 1862]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05111.01.0374 Author/Creator: Place Written: Centreville, Virginia Type: Photograph Date: 1862/03 Pagination: 1 photograph Height: 14.1 cm, Width: 15.8 cm Order a Copy

Inscription on verso: "Battle of Bull Run. Confederate Quaker guns at Centreville, Va." Inscription in another hand "F. H. Meserve Collection" Numeric notation: "5430G/2" Image of Union soldiers posed inside a fort with "Quaker guns." The position was taken by the Federals after the Confederates evacuated it. "Quaker guns"--logs-- were often employed in deserted sections of a line to deceive the enemy into thinking a postion was more heavily defened than it really was. Zoauve in the foreground holds a bed roll [blanket] wrapped in a gum blanket that is slung over the shoulders. Crop marks on the front of the mount and on the photograph.
See GLC 5111.01.0037

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