“Died of the Spotted Fever”: The Spot Resolutions and the Making of Abraham Lincoln

On December 22, 1847, the Speaker of the House of Representatives recognized a young, freshman congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln who wished to speak about the ongoing war with Mexico. The lanky, awkward, high-voiced westerner raised doubts regarding President James Knox Polk’s conduct in starting the war, proposing eight resolutions that challenged Polk to provide evidence for his stated reason for doing so. Polk had said that Mexican troops had shed “American blood on American soil” and forced his hand, but Lincoln challenged this assertion. Lincoln insinuated that the fatal encounter between Mexican and American troops had in fact occurred in a contested region between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, a region to which Mexico had stronger claims than the United States. With his demand that Polk prove that the exact location of the engagement had been on American soil, Lincoln’s proposals became known as the “Spot Resolutions.” This speech brought Lincoln into the national spotlight for the first time, and it proved key in the development of his future career. [excerpt

“We the undersigned…bind ourselves mutually”: Civil War Draft Resistance in Eastern Pennsylvania

On August 6th, 1863, a group of sixteen men gathered at the East Penn Railroad depot in Millerstown, Pennsylvania, now known as Macungie, a small farming community located about seven miles southwest of Allentown. The young men met that day to create a contract with one another in anticipation of the army conscription draft, scheduled to take place in a week’s time with men between ages twenty and thirty-five eligible for selection. They created the “Millerstown Club,” agreeing “that each member of the club has to pay the sum of fifty dollars on or before the day previous to the draft.” Should the misfortune of being drafted fall upon any members of the club, the money collected would be used either to hire a substitute to serve in the army in the club member’s place or to pay the “commutation” fee of $300 to free them from service entirely. Any signer of the contract who did not pay his share by the day before the draft would not be considered a member should he be drafted. This apparently happened in the case of three of the men, who have their names crossed out on the contract. The creation of the “Millerstown Club” reflected a strong desire to avoid the war among the draft-eligible men of the town. [excerpt

Improving the Present by Studying the Past: Killed at Gettysburg Remembers O’Rorke and Phelps

This semester, I have had the honor of working on the Civil War Institute’s Killed at Gettysburg project, hosted at killedatgettysburg.org. The project seeks to document the lives and legacies of soldiers who died during the three days of fighting in July 1863. I am happy to be contributing to Killed at Gettysburg again, as I strongly connected with the project when I worked on it for Dr. Carmichael’s Gettysburg class last semester. [excerpt

MS-235: LTC Richard F. Pendleton ‘63 Papers

The collection includes maps, photographs, documents, and correspondence related to the service of LTC Richard F. Pendleton ’63 and the Vietnam War. These include detailed maps and items highlighting aspects of Pendleton’s time in Vietnam and broader pieces regarding different aspects of the Vietnam War era. Much of this correspondence is in the form of e-mails written many years after the war, and thus includes the personal opinions and biases of their authors. The printed articles included in the collection were also selected by Pendleton and reflect his interests and opinions on the war and its aftermath; they are not necessarily sources original to the Vietnam War era. The collection includes deep information on and discussions of Pendleton’s advisory team and its operations in Vietnam as a major strength, though it may not be as useful for those seeking first-hand information of those who served in different types of units and organizations. Potential research interests include the work of MACV Advisory Teams, intelligence operations in Vietnam, and veterans’ perspectives on the war. This collection includes some graphic content in Binder 1-2, most notably images of dead Viet Cong soldiers. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website https://www.gettysburg.edu/special-collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1200/thumbnail.jp

Right to Serve, Right to Lead: Lives and Legacies of the USCT

This is a catalog for an exhibit that follows the evolution of African-American participation in the Civil War, from slaves, to contrabands, to soldiers of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), as well as the lives of black veterans beyond the war, and their ultimate military and social legacy. Using a variety of period items, it creates a narrative that stretches from the Antebellum Period to the current day. In doing so, the exhibit shows how black sacrifice on the battlefield redefined the war\u27s purpose throughout the divided nation, how Jim Crowe suppressed the memory of black participation after Reconstruction, and how the illustrious African-American military tradition left by the USCT endures to this day in their modern heirs