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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.

A Traitor's Peace that the Northern Copperhead Leaders Would Force Upon the Country

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05986 Author/Creator: Place Written: Washington, District of Columbia Type: Broadside Date: circa 1864 Pagination: 1 p. : Height: 58.7 cm, Width: 42 cm Order a Copy

Election broadside printed by McGill & Witherow in Washington D.C. for the Congressional Union Committee, with an engraving by Thomas Nast, from Harper's Magazine. Very similar to GLC06032 - same image and text, but different title (although, this document is in better condition). Image at top half of broadside shows a ragged Northern soldier with an amputated leg shaking hands with an erect and proud Jefferson Davis in the uniform of a Confederate soldier over the freshly dug grave of "Union-Heroes who fell in a useless war." Davis's right foot is sitting on the grave and has snapped a sword with the words "northern power." The female image of liberty weeps at the foot of the Northern soldier. Bottom half of broadside reproduces Copperhead conditions of peace that were published in the Richmond Enquirer on 16 October 1864.

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