Title: Papers of the War Department, 1784 to 1800
Description: On the night of November 8, 1800, fire devastated the War Office, consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Two weeks later, Secretary of War Samuel Dexter lamented in a letter that "All the papers in my office [have] been destroyed." For the past two centuries, the official records of the War Department effectively began with Dexter's letter. An innovative digital editorial project, Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800, has brought about a major change.  Some 55,000 documents of the early War Department, long thought irretrievable, have now been reconstructed through a painstaking, multi-year research effort and made available to scholars, students, and the general public.
Subjects: Sources, History, Military History, Foreign relations, United States. War Department, United States
Places: United States
Time periods: 18th century, 1783-1815