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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC08914.012 |
| From Archive Folder | Collection of Peter E. Rifenburgh and Louis Brooks |
| Title | Louis Brooks to Nelson Rifenburgh likening African Americans to baboons and insisting that he would not have enlisted if he thought the war was being fought for them |
| Date | 2 January 1863 |
| Author | Brooks, Louis (fl. 1862-1876) |
| Recipient | Rifenburgh, Nelson |
| Document Type | Correspondence |
| Content Description | Stationery includes a stamp of the likeness of General George McClellan. Finally has gotten a little bit of time to write. Is working as a hospital steward. "Could not spend those [leisure] moments in a better way" than writing to him. Supposes he will be there for a "good while." Saw some "niggers" at Newport News about six or eight weeks ago: "I do not believe they were more than half human. They were a cross between a man and a monkey. A kind of orangutan baboon." If these people are what the war is about, "I would never have enlisted." Yesterday, their colonel treated them to a barrel of oysters. The company ate every single oyster. Send a sample of rice in the letter, from a plantation "a couple of miles from this place and only two thousand miles from Germantown." Letter is actually dated January 2, 1862 but based on content and location, year is 1863. |
| Subjects | Civil War Military History Soldier's Letter Union Soldier's Letter Union Forces Patriotic Stationery and Postal Covers Union General Hospital African American History Diet and Nutrition Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Health and Medical |
| People | Rifenburgh, Nelson (fl. 1851-1864) Brooks, Louis (fl. 1862-1876) |
| Place written | Quarantine Station near New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Theme | The American Civil War; African Americans; Health & Medicine |
| Sub-collection | Papers and Images of the American Civil War |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945 |
| Civil War: Theater of War | Main Western Theater |
| Civil War: Unit | 128th New York Infantry, G Company |