Item description: This transcript, which details a conversation about schools for recently freed slaves in occupied North Carolina between Edward Stanly, Military Governor of North Carolina, and Vincent Colyer, Superintendent of the Poor under Union General Burnside, is extracted from the “Congressional Globe.” It was included in a letter (published in pamphlet form) written by Stanly “to defend [his] character against your slanders.” The “your” in this quote was Charles Sumner, a United States Senator from Massachusetts, who Stanly believed had unfairly criticized his tenure as military governor.

To read the entire pamphlet, click here.

Item citation: A military governor among abolitionists : a letter from Edward Stanly to Charles Sumner. New York : [s.n.], 1865. Cp970.72 S78. North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.