321 items
The Civil War was the bloodiest in the nation’s history, with 618,000 Union and Confederate soldiers perishing in the war. Among the nearly 8,000 men mortally wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 were twelve commanding...
The Province of Massachusetts Bay requests aid from Queen Anne, 1708
Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) was the second of four great wars for empire fought among France and England and their Indian allies. This struggle broke out when the French raided English settlements on the New England frontier....
President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, 1861
On March 4, 1861, the day Abraham Lincoln was first sworn into office as President of the United States, the Chicago Tribune printed this special pamphlet of his First Inaugural Address. In the address, the new president appealed to...
The Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863
The Emancipation Proclamation was shaped by both pragmatic considerations and Lincoln’s deeply held, lifelong hatred of slavery. It was timed, after the Union victory at Antietam, to strike a military blow against the South’s economic...
President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, 1865
Just 701 words long, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address took only six or seven minutes to deliver, yet contains many of the most memorable phrases in American political oratory. The speech contained neither gloating nor rejoicing....
Best friends divided by the Civil War, 1861
On April 12, 1861, Confederate officials informed Major Robert Anderson, US commander at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, that they would allow one hour for him to surrender his forces. When he refused, Confederates...
Indian Wars: The Battle of Washita, 1868
The Battle of Washita on November 27, 1868, pitted US Army troops commanded by General George Custer against the Southern Cheyenne. An excerpt from Custer’s report on a return to the battlefield ten days later is presented here. The...
William T. Sherman on the western railroads, 1878
After Ulysses S. Grant’s election as president, William Tecumseh Sherman, known for leading the "March to the Sea" in the closing months of the Civil War, was appointed commanding general of the United States Army. Headquartered in St...
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775
By April 1775, reconciliation between England and the thirteen colonies had failed. Two months earlier, Parliament had declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion, and on April 14 General Thomas Gage received secret orders...
George Washington discusses Shays’ Rebellion and the upcoming Constitutional Convention, 1787
On January 25, 1787, Daniel Shays and his insurrectionists confronted a Massachusetts state militia force outside the Springfield armory. Shays’ Rebellion had begun in the summer of 1786, when Shays, a former Continental Army captain,...
Theodore Roosevelt on the sinking of the Lusitania, 1915
On May 7, 1915, the British passenger ship Lusitania , sailing from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The Lusitania sank, killing 1,195 people on board, including 123 Americans. The incident created sharp...
Recruiting posters for African American soldiers, 1918
These two World War I recruiting posters aim to encourage African Americans to enlist. In the first poster, “Colored Man Is No Slacker,” a black soldier takes his leave against a background of African American patriotism, self...
Treaty of Versailles and President Wilson, 1919 and 1921
The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was drafted at the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of 1919 and shaped by the Big Four powers—Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States. This souvenir copy of the Paris...
Discovering a mass grave in Iraq, 2003
Mark Rickert wrote this email while serving as a journalist with the 372nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment in Iraq. On this day, he and his group were investigating rumors of a mass grave. The letter is written to his grandfather,...
Christmas in Kuwait, 1990
Cpl. Brett G. Coughlin arrived with Delta Company in Saudi Arabia at the port of Al Jubail on September 13, 1990. For the next three months the company trained in the northern desert of Saudi Arabia. By Christmas, its headquarters...
Historical Context: Immigration Policy in World War II
The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt suspended naturalization proceedings for Italian, German, and Japanese immigrants, required them to register, restricted their mobility, and prohibited them from owning...
Historical Context: The Global Effect of World War I
A recent list of the hundred most important news stories of the twentieth century ranked the onset of World War I eighth. This is a great error. Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was in one way or...
Diary of World War I nurse Ella Osborn, 1918–1919
At the outbreak of World War I, Ella Jane Osborn was a surgical nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. In January 1918, she volunteered to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces as a member of the Red Cross’s nursing...
Rules for discharging disabled veterans, 1919
When World War I ended in 1918 more than 4.6 million men returned to the United States from war. The American people and the US government were unprepared to reintegrate and care for the men who returned with physical injuries and...
American Indians' service in World War I, 1920
More than 11,000 American Indians served with the American forces during World War I. Nearly 5,000 Native men enlisted and approximately 6,500 were drafted—despite the fact that almost half of American Indians were not citizens and...
Allen Guelzo - "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion"
Allen C. Guelzo is the senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University and the director of the James Madison Program’s Initiative in Politics and Statesmanship. Order Gettysburg: The Last Invasion at...
Catherine Clinton - "Stepdaughters of History: Southern Women and the American Civil War"
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Rick Atkinson - "The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777"
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Susan Eisenhower - "How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions"
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Ed Ayers - "The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America"
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David Head - "A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution"
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Caroline Janney - "Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee's Army after Appomattox"
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H. W. Brands - "Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution"
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Inside the Vault: Fight the Red Menace
On the December 2, 2021, session of Inside the Vault , Professor Victoria Phillips discussed selected trading cards from the Fight the Red Menace: Children’s Crusade against Communism series . In 1951, the Bowman Bubblegum Company...
Joseph J. Ellis - "The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783"
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Allen C. Guelzo - "Robert E. Lee: A Life"
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Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks - "Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution"
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Michael S. Neiberg - "When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance"
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Inside the Vault: Washington's Crossing of the Delaware River
On January 6, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. Phillip Hamilton to learn about George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River on December 25–26, 1776, and the Battle of Trenton. We discussed Washington’s orders to his troops...
Inside the Vault: David Blight Discusses Frederick Douglass Documents
On February 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. David Blight to discuss his favorite Frederick Douglass documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Click here to download the slides from the presentation. Featured Documents...
Inside the Vault: Mary Katherine Goddard
On March 3, 2022, our curators were joined by Dr. Martha J. King to discuss Mary Katherine Goddard. Goddard was a newspaper publisher and printer, producing one of the first copies of the Declaration of Independence, and served as...
Woody Holton - "Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution"
Woody Holton is the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. Order Liberty Is Sweet at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank...
John Avlon - "Lincoln and the Fight for Peace"
John Avlon is a senior political analyst and anchor at CNN. Order Lincoln and the Fight for Peace at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
David Eltis - "Atlas of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade"
David Eltis is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History at Emory University. Order Atlas of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the...
Robert W. Lee - "A Sin by Any Other Name: Reckoning with Racism and the Heritage of the South"
Robert W. Lee is an author, activist, commentator, and clergyman. Order A Sin by Any Other Name at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for...
Inside the Vault: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
On May 5, 2022, our curators discussed documents written by President Theodore Roosevelt. Joined by his great-grandson Tweed Roosevelt, we learned more about Roosevelt and his legacy. This session of Inside the Vault was sponsored by...
Paul Ortiz - "An African American and Latinx History of the United States"
Paul Ortiz is an associate professor of history and the director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. Order An African American and Latinx History of the United States at the Gilder Lehrman Book...
Linda Colley - "The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen"
Linda Colley is the Shelby M. C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University. Order The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link...
Inside the Vault: D-Day in maps and letters from soldiers and families
On June 2, 2022, our curators discussed D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. They were joined by Professor Michael Neiberg, Chair of War Studies at the US Army War College, who gave an overview of the battle and...
Ricardo A. Herrera - "Feeding Washington's Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778"
Ricardo A. Herrera is a professor of military history in the School of Advanced Military Studies at the US Army Command and General Staff College. Order Feeding Washington’s Army at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
Denver Brunsman - "The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World"
Denver Brunsman is an associate professor of history at The George Washington University. Order The Evil Necessity at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided....
World War I, African American Soldiers, and America’s War for Democracy
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Peter Cozzens - "Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation"
Peter Cozzens is a retired US foreign service officer and winner of the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History. Order Tecumseh and the Prophet at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every...
Gary Gallagher - "The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis"
Gary Gallagher is the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War Emeritus at the University of Virginia. Order The Enduring Civil War at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from...
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