One of America’s great institutions is the National Archives. The National Archives was centralized in 1934 and today it holds a wealth of information from our nation’s history. For historians, researchers and citizens, the National Archives is a great resource to find important papers from our presidents, documents that are valuable to understanding our history, letters from average citizens that help us understand events and much more. While the National Archives does have many security procedures in place to reduce theft and vandalism, certain incidents continue to occur. Recently, the National Archives was involved in a crime mystery regarding obscure Civil War Letters.
A Crime Takes Place
For those that enjoy reading or reenacting the Civil War, civil war letters from soldiers that actually fought the many battles are indispensable in understanding the events of that time. There are thousands of Civil War buffs in the country and many vie for Civil War memorabilia which can definitely cause many pieces including written documents to be extremely expensive. While there are quite a few Civil War letters available on the open market, every so often, items are sold illegally- usually stolen from collections or archives. Recently Civil War letters turned up on the black market that were actually removed from the National Archives.
A Crime Unfolds
When Civil War documents are stolen, many times they are sold in very secret channels, however with the innovation of the internet, it is easier than ever to find buyers based around the country or around the world and in this situation, Civil War letters were put up for sale on Ebay.com (an online auction site). However, thanks to two brothers who are knowledge in Civil War memorabilia it was realized that these letters for sale on EBay.com were possibly stolen from the National Archives.
Through lots of research, some good leads and the help of the FBI and EBay, a crime that could have removed priceless artifacts from the National Archives was averted. To read more about this fascinating crime caper, the Smithsonian Magazine has an article on the subject. To read it, please visit our main website at: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/
Cheetah Facts, Daredevil, National Archives, Diane Arbus, Quincy Jones
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