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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.

Custer, Elizabeth Bacon, 1842-1933 to Mary F. Stoughton

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00785 Author/Creator: Custer, Elizabeth Bacon, 1842-1933 Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 1878 Pagination: 3 p. : Height: 20 cm, Width: 25 cm Order a Copy

Custer congratulates Stoughton on the appointment of her husband, Edwin W. Stoughton, to U.S. Minister to Russia (served from 1878-1879). She wishes her well on her trip and asks to be remembered to their Russian friends, particularly Admiral Poisson. In a despondent tone, she notes that "My work absorbs most of my time and I am so fatigued by it I can sleep now. My cousins are living here with me so I am not utterly alone." Letter written on mourning stationery and signed "Libbie B. Custer." Libbie's husband, George Armstrong Custer, died at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876.

Custer, Elizabeth Bacon, 1842-1933
Stoughton, Mary Fiske Bound Green, fl. 1878
Stoughton, E. W. (Edwin Wallace), 1818-1882

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