William Marvel: Surviving New York

Time in the Big Apple is a coveted commodity among historians, because repositories there contain immense troves of manuscripts from every era and region. With a little patient perusal, any visit to the New York Public Library, Columbia University, the New-York Historical Society, or the Gilder-Lehrman Collection is likely to yield a prize. I brought home such a prize from the historical society two weeks ago, in a Union general’s description of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House. His letter has gone unnoticed by other historians since it was filed away in 1865, and it corroborates my longstanding contention that Joshua Chamberlain’s legendary salute to his defeated adversaries probably never happened.

Well-paid university professors can often secure grants to offset research expenses, as well as paid sabbaticals. Such combined emoluments might completely cover the enormous cost of a visit to New York City. For independent historians of more modest means, that cost is usually prohibitive. My only previous research in that city has been conducted during hours-long layovers between trains at Penn Station, but an old friend snared a week’s free lodging in a Manhattan time-share for mid-January, and he invited me to come along.