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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.

Gates, Horatio, 1727-1806 A Journal of a Scout from Crown Point to St. John's Chamblee by Lieut Benjamin Whitcomb and four men

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC01072 Author/Creator: Gates, Horatio, 1727-1806 Place Written: s.l. Type: Manuscript document Date: circa August 1776 Pagination: 3 p. : docket ; Height: 34 cm, Width: 21 cm Order a Copy

Clerical copy of a report of Whitcomb's spying mission in Canada 14-27 July 1776. Details their progress, the weather, attempts to get prisoners, and sightings of British troops moving supplies, etc. Notes that Whitcomb fired on a British officer [Brigadier General Patrick Gordon], whom he ended up killing though he was not aware of Gordon's identity at the time. Includes a three-line autograph note signed by Continental Major General Horatio Gates to Richard Varick, who was serving as military secretary to General Philip Schuyler, advising that the report be forwarded to Schuyler.

Gates, Horatio, 1727-1806
Schuyler, Philip John, 1733-1804
Varick, Richard, 1753-1831
Whitcomb, Benjamin, fl. 1776

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