General David Hunter graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1822. After attaining the rank of captain, he resigned from the army in 1836 to settle in Chicago. He returned to military service six years later, however, and served as a major in the Mexican War. In the Civil War he fought for the North and rose to the rank of major general. After the war, Hunter was a member of the honor guard that accompanied the body of President Lincoln to Springfield, Illinois.

The Manumission Society presented this pair of pitchers to Joseph Curtis in 1817 in recognition of his successful efforts to have the New York State Legislature pass the Manumission Act, freeing slaves in New York beginning July 4, 1827. The pitchers depict Liberty removing the chains of bondage from slaves, with a freed slave reading a book behind. Curtis himself is depicted behind Liberty, using a hand mirror to reflect the rays of the sun onto the freed men.

The subject was born in New Paltz, New York, the son of the Rev. William and Tamson (Graves) Stone. From 1821 to 1844 he was one of the owners of the New York "Commercial Advertiser," and used that position to advance several causes in which he took a special interest, among them the Federalist party, the Erie Canal, and congressional emancipation of slaves. He also wrote historical novels and stories and several biographies. He was a member of the N-YHS executive committee in 1823-24 and 1843.

This small basket, transfer-printed with an antislavery image of a kneeling slave in chains, was probably made as part of a dresser set. It may have been sold at one of the many antislavery bazaars run by women. Fair managers often displayed antislavery slogans, such as the one printed on the underside of this basket, on walls and signs. The Biblical phrase, "Remember them that are in bonds," comes from Hebrews 13:3, and was also the title of an antislavery poem published in Boston in 1843.

According to a letter that accompanied these shackles upon their donation to the Historical Society in 1921, they were cut off teenage slave Mary Horn of Americus, Georgia, by Colonel William W. Badger of the 176th Regiment New York Volunteers, more than a year after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Mary is said to have belonged to a Judge Horn, who riveted the irons to her legs with his own hands to prevent her from walking to the next plantation to see her beloved, George. George begged Colonel Badger to free Mary from her shackles and supposedly held her over an anvil while Badger cut them off.

This is one of the pikes commissioned by militant abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859) from the Collins Co. of Canton, Connecticut in 1857 in preparation for his raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry in 1859. Brown intended to incite a slave insurrection and planned to use the pikes to arm slaves on Virginia plantations. None of the weapons were ever used by slaves, but they became potent symbols of Brown's raid. Each of the 1,000 pikes made for Brown by Collins Co. were individually numbered: this example is stamped "101".

This bronze served as the master model for the plasters that Rogers sold to a broad audience of middle-class Americans. One of Rogers' best-known and most highly praised works, Wounded Scout: A Friend in the Swamp depicts a Civil War Union scout who has been shot in the arm while on a mission in Southern territory and is weak from loss of blood. An escaped slave has come to his assistance and is guiding him through the swamp. Rogers had developed a nationwide reputation in just a few years for his small narrative groups depicting Civil War themes, but up to this point they had for the most part been amusing scenes of soldiers among themselves, such as The Camp Fire: Making Friends with the Cook (1936.714), or comforting vignettes of civilian life, such as the scene of flirtation titled The Town Pump (1932.101). Wounded Scout shows a soldier in genuine peril and addresses sensitive questions of race at the forefront of American minds both during and after the war. The sculptor had recently increased the size of his groups, and here he presented a simplified composition of two standing figures who, though small, project a gravity and pathos that belie their size. The soldier is dressed in uniform with a "U.S." insignia clearly visible on his belt and the strap of his cartridge box. He has torn open his sleeve and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from his arm, and the veins of his forearm bulge from the constriction as it hangs uselessly at his side. He appears faint as he leans on the shoulder of the black man whom Rogers described as an escaped slave. In a perhaps unprecedented move, Rogers heroized the black man. Though ragged and barefoot, he is tall and muscular. He supports the soldier protectively and looks up with an alert, commanding gaze. A copperhead snake is coiled next to his left foot, which, in Rogers' words, is "raising its head to strike the negro while he is doing this friendly act." The snake was a clear reference to Northern copperheads, politicians who opposed the Union war effort. Rogers released Wounded Scout at a particularly portentous moment in the war; General Ulysses S. Grant had suspended prisoner exchanges just a few months before, and a group of Union soldiers escaped from Libby Prison only weeks earlier. Rogers' depiction of a soldier injured, vulnerable, and, until his rescue, alone, would have struck an emotional chord for those with heightened concerns about their loved ones being captured. The artist sent copies to President Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, and in appreciation Lincoln sent his often quoted reply: "I can not pretend to be a judge in such matters; but the Statuette group 'Wounded Scout'-'Friend in the Swamp' is . . . excellent as a piece of art." Rogers' daring depiction of a strong, brave, and capable African American man sparked considerable discussion and revealed American concerns about freed slaves and their role in American society. The abolitionist poet Lydia Marie Child called it "a significant lesson of human brotherhood for all the coming ages." A Brooklyn writer betrayed stubbornly entrenched paternalistic stereotypes, praising how Rogers recognized "in a noble and touching manner, the service of the hitherto despised black race," which he characterized as "faithful, helpful, and uncomplaining." The sculpture was popular for many years after war, and it remained in Rogers' sales catalogue until almost the end of his career. It continued to function not only as an imposing work of art but also an agent of political dialogue during the difficult and contentious years of Reconstruction. In 1868 the New York Evening Mail called it a "powerful argument of the rights of the negro, and has had a wider influence than the most labored speeches of [Senator Charles] Sumner, or [the abolitionist Wendell] Phillips, or [Senator Benjamin] Wade." In 1872 the art critic Benson J. Lossing felt it necessary to elevate the white man by explaining the challenges of scout duty, which was given only to the finest soldiers, and he sub