General Order No. 3, issued by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, June 19, 1865. (RG 393, Part II, Entry 5543, District of Texas, General Orders Issued).
ICYMI: Archives Staffers “Find” Original Juneteenth Order!*
* FYI - it was never lost...
Today's post is by Miriam Kleiman, National Archives Program Director for Public Affairs.
What’s the deal? While Archives writer Michael Davis was working on a Juneteenth story for National Archives News, he wondered if the Archives had the original General Order No. 3 that informed the 250,000 slaves in Texas that they were free.
Why was Michael Davis interested? Davis, who is African American, underscored his interest in seeking out the original document for this anniversary:
I was curious to know if we had the actual document of General Order No. 3 in our holdings. In light of what has happened recently in our nation with police brutality, I wanted to make sure that we highlighted Juneteenth, the freeing of enslaved people in 1865. This is a document stating that we are free now. It holds weight to black history.
Davis started exploring and reached out to his colleague Trevor Plante, head of reference at the DC Archives. Plante physically came to the building, searched the stacks, and located the original, document handwritten in beautiful script.
Michael Davis
Why wasn’t the handwritten Order known to exist before? The National Archives in DC holds more than one billion pages of records, and only a small percentage of the Archives’ voluminous holdings (more than 14 billion pages nationwide) have been scanned. The Order was part of the Records of U.S. Army Continental Commands (RG 393), that comprises nearly 82,000 cubic feet of records. As the great archivist Greg Bradsher has said, “the National Archives is like a giant restaurant with no menu. Unless someone else has asked for pork chops [recently], no one has looked for them.”
Where was this located? The decree was found in a leather-bound Union Army order book stored on the 10th floor of the Research Center of the National Archives Building in DC. In 1865, the book was in Galveston, TX, the Union Army's headquarters for the district of Texas. It was then sent to the War Department in DC, and then to the National Archives four score years ago, open and available to researchers upon request. Plante said that judging by the condition of the volume, it has been used by researchers over the years.
We knew about the Order. Why is this news? We knew about printed versions of the decree, but this handwritten record predates the others. Until Thursday’s discovery, this was the record (below), from the War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (127 volumes). The document will be officially digitized and added to the National Archives Catalog and highlighted on our African American History page.
What does the Archivist think about this discovery? Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero gushed: “I think it’s terrific. I think the timing is just amazing.” He added: "The National Archives safeguards many of the nation's most important records related to African American history and civil rights, and General Order Number 3 is one of those records,"
The Archivist, who regularly (pre-COVID) made the rounds of the research rooms to learn about new discoveries, has shared that such “rapturous research” is “why I have devoted my life to facilitating access to information!” (see AOTUS blog). He added: "We know from history that certain events took place, and it's always a delight when we can help make history come alive by sharing the actual documentation of those events."
What did Trevor Plante think when he “found” it? Plante, a military history buff who’s likened his work to “being a detective,” was thrilled to see the original and noted: “It’s more powerful when you see the handwritten version of it, as opposed to the printed versions that came much later.” ”This is something that we haven’t tracked down before.” he said, adding that the handwritten entry “absolutely” predates the printed versions of the order” (from here).
Fun fact! Trevor Plante is the model for Beecher White, the main character in author Brad Meltzer’s Archives-based mystery The Inner Circle. Excerpt from the book’s opening: “There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories. I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living.”
In response to Michael Davis’s timely request, that’s exactly what Plante did last Thursday.
Author Brad Meltzer (L) with Trevor Plante
Read more in Michael Davis’ National Archives News story “National Archives Safeguards Original ‘Juneteenth’ General Order.”
