The Library recently acquired a rare surviving copy of the complete run of a Civil War regimental newspaper, the Soldier's Letter of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry of the American military. More than a hundred regiments on both sides of the conflict printed at least one edition of a camp newspaper, but few survive and a complete run of one paper is even harder fo find today. The four-page Soldier's Letter, staunchly against slavery and the Confederacy, ran for 50 editions between 1864 until after the war ended in 1865. Though mostly concerned with the regiment's history and daily details of camp life, the paper shows that soldiers were more concerned about warring Native American tribes than they were Confederate units, and they would eventually form a military bridge between the Civil War and the Indian Wars that followed.
One of the Library's most unusual holdings is hair -- lots of it. The Library has locks and tresses and strands from people in the arts such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Walt Whitman and Edna St. Vincent Millay; presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, James Madison and Ulysses S. Grant; and any number of famous women, including Lucy Webb Hayes (first lady and spouse of President Rutherford B. Hayes); Confederate spy Antonia Ford Willard; Clare Boothe Luce and unidentified hair from Clara Barton’s diary. Nearly all of the hair stems from the 18th and 19th centuries, in the era before photographs were common and lockets of hair were seen as tokens that could be anything from romantic to momentous.
Cinco de Mayo celebrations marks the Mexican victory over French invaders in 1862 at the Battle of Puebla. The victory did not stop the French from establishing a short-lived client state in Mexico, but it did become of rallying cry of Mexico's determination to be free of European powers.
Ulysses S. Grant was born 200 years ago today, April 27, 2022. The Library has a huge collection of the former president's personal, military and political papers, including letters to his wife, Julia, and the manuscript of his bestselling memoir.
The Library kicks off Black History Month with a new By the People crowdsourcing project -- transcribing the papers in the William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection.
