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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.

Dahlgren, John Adolphus Bernard, 1809-1870 to Benjamin French

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09162 Author/Creator: Dahlgren, John Adolphus Bernard, 1809-1870 Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 18 March 1864 Pagination: 4 p. : Order a Copy

"Accept my grateful thanks for your note and the lines to the memory of my beloved son...when he undertook the mission of freedom to the weary captives who pined in the Rebel dungeons of Richmond, he did it with a fullness of purpose that know no limit; the danger that lay in the way never palsied his resolve for an instant...His name should stand in living light before the young men of our land and inspire their hearts with the same unselfish resolution to carry the glorious banner of the Union over the ruins of a causeless Rebellion." Includes a poem inspired by Ulric Dahlgren's death, later published in John Dahlgren's 1872 biography of his son, Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren. Also a carte-de-visit of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, inscribed by John Dahlgren. Both the poem and the carte-de-visite are tipped in and adhered.

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