This bold broadside, published in Boston, consists of an overview map of the entire eastern United States, with free states hand-colored red; maps of Baltimore; the District of Columbia; Norfolk Harbor and Hampton Roads with Fort Monroe. The largest maps, extending half the width of the broadside each are of Charleston Harbor with details of its fortifications and of the Pensacola Navy Yard and Fort Pickens. The broadside also includes images of Andrew Jackson with the quotation, “The union must & shall be preserved”; Abraham Lincoln; Winfield Scott, with the quotation “Please God, I will fight many years for this Union, and that too, under the protective folds of the star spangled banner”; and Major Robert Anderson, “The Hero of Sumter” and Routes and Distances by both steamboat and railroad from Boston and Washington to various parts of the nation.

This volume by Samuel Smith was the first general history of New Jersey, printed in a limited run of 600 copies on a press owned by Benjamin Franklin. Henry Remsen, a New York and New Jersey merchant, originally owned this copy.

A Union colonel, in command of the 48^th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, writes to his friend, Col. Julian E. Bryant, of the 46th Regiment of U.S.C.T., recounting his regiment’s  part in the Battle of Fort Blakely. “We have had hard marching & hard fighting. A week in trenches & a successful charge. The ‘Black bellied Yankee’ made their mark … everyone gives us credit for doing well & I think we did excellently well. … My loss was not very heavy, not over thirty all told. The other Regts in my Brigade suffered much more severely on the last charge, I being held in reserve & not being under fire but a few moments, they did gallantly…”

In February 1862, General Mansfield Lovell sends reinforcements to Albert Sidney Johnston, the chief Confederate commander in the West, so he can defend Nashville and Fort Donelson. The move was fruitless; Fort Donelson fell to Union troops a week after this letter was written.

“Read what they say…  Abraham Lincoln has usurped power, violated the Constitution, and put in peril the liberties of the people, but Jeff. Davis has not…. The South may make war on the North, but the North must not defend itself.... They have not a word to say in behalf of the Union, and our own imperiled liberties…”

The Peace Democrats, or Copperheads, were a vocal minority of Northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and the administration of President Abraham Lincoln, and were willing to recognize an independent Confederacy. This anti-Copperhead broadside, probably printed for the 1863 Connecticut gubernatorial, turns the resolutions of the February 1863 Hartford Convention against the Copperheads.

At top, a caricature shows Copperheads attacking Lady Liberty, who is holding a Union shield. First published in Harper’s Weekly on February 28, 1863, over the title, “The Copperhead Party.—In Favor of a Vigorous Prosecution of Peace!” this cartoon came to symbolize all those who opposed the Lincoln administration’s conduct of the war.

“The terms on which the Southern Confederacy desire Peace, are the union of the 15 Slave States and their Independence as a ‘Southern Confederacy’. For such recognition by the ‘United States’, they will concede, a condition to stand forever – towit Reciprocal Free trade between the two nations, in the Products of each.”

“EXTRA / PRESIDENT LINCOLN ASSASSINATED / HE IS DEAD / SEWARD ASSASSINATED.”  This vivid early account of the assassination of President Lincoln includes Booth’s name as the suspected assassin and an account of the attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward, incorrectly reporting his death.

“The influence, we are now able to wield, is a sacred trust, which should be exercised firmly, discreetly, in conformity with the Laws of Nations & with an anxious eye to the peace of the world, so as always to promote the great cause of Human Rights. Our example can do much”

This copy is stamped “THE PRESIDENT” at the top of the front page, indicating it belonged to President Andrew Johnson. The President would have read this copy of the act before Congress submitted it to him with some amendments on July 25. The report uses the early variant spelling of “Aliaska” for the territory and peninsula.

Frank Leslie published this print as a premium for his new family magazine, Frank Leslie’s Chimney Corner, and copyrighted it on April 8, 1865, just a week before Lincoln’s death. The image, created by engraver Henry B. Major and lithographer Joseph Knapp, portrays Lincoln, flanked by the First Lady and Vice President Andrew Johnson, greeting Julia Dent Grant, wife of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant who stands nearby.

According to a notice printed at the bottom right corner, “Every Person who pays Ten Cents each for numbers 1 and 2 of Frank Leslie’s Chimney Corner, The New Family Paper, is entitled to a copy of this PLATE without extra charge,” or individuals could purchase the print for $3.

An image of an older Garrison, as he appeared after his life’s work of abolition had been successfully completed.

After Virginia adopted the Declaration of Independence, George Mason and James Madison began drafting a state Constitution. For James Madison, helping draft his state’s Constitution would serve as a dress rehearsal for his future task of writing the U.S. Constitution. Virginia adopted its first constitution in 1776, and a major revision in 1830 loosened suffrage requirements. As more residents populated the western counties, they were underrepresented in the legislature because of continuing property requirements for voting.

The most significant changes in the 1851 Constitution included the extension of the suffrage to all white males of voting age, the creation of the office of lieutenant governor, and the election rather than appointment of judges. Because of these changes, this version has been called the Reform Constitution.

Shannon, a militia colonel and state agent for the impressment of slave labor, requests the discharge of a number of slaves impressed for labor on military fortifications in Charleston, from the chief of staff of General Beauregard. Local planters depended on Shannon to force the state governor and the Confederate army to abide by the terms of the legislation granting the power to impress slave labor, in this case for a month’s time. A rare document concerning the joint effort between the Confederate government and the local planters to use slave labor for military fortifications. “I am officially identified with the success of a scheme which I have labored earnestly to make efficient, outside of that motive no man can be more deeply interested than I am in the success of the defence of Charleston, but I feel constrained from a sense of duty to ask the discharge of those Negroes furnished under the call for the 15^th July, who have worked over thirty days and which are relieved by the supply rendered in the past few days. The motive prompting this direct application is that I am informed by the Engineer Department that the Negroes could not be discharged…”

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,...shall exist within the United States....”

“call us not weeds, we are flowers of the Sea.”

Report of the Select Committee Relative to the Soldier’s National Cemetery, Together with the Accompanying Documents, as Reported to the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, March 31, 1864.