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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.

Hunter, David, 1802-1886 to Governor Andrew Curtain

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC08307 Author/Creator: Hunter, David, 1802-1886 Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 04 May 1863 Pagination: Order a Copy

Requests that several regiments of "colored troops" being raised in PA be sent to the Dept. of the South: "These regiments are very generous, temperate, patient, strictly obedient, possessing great natural aptitude for arms and deeply imbued with that religious sentiment - call it fanaticisim such as like, which made the soldiers of Cromvell invincible. They believe that now is the time appointed by God for their deliverance and under the heroic incitement of this faith I believe them capable of showing a courage and persistency of purpose which must in the end extort both victory & admiration.

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