Scope and Content Note
The papers of Zachariah Chandler (1813-1879) span the years 1854-1899, with the bulk of the items dating from 1854 to 1879. The greater part of the collection consists of letters received by Chandler. The papers include bound volumes of correspondence, an autograph book, and a letterbook.
The Chandler Papers are concerned mainly with the early political history of Michigan and the politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction. They reflect the views of the antislavery element of the Republican Party when Chandler was serving in the United States Senate on the Republican Congressional Committee and the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War and while he was chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce.
Prominent correspondents include Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, James Gillespie Blaine, Simon Cameron, John A. J. Creswell, George Armstrong Custer, John Murray Forbes, Marsh Giddings, Horace Greeley, Abraham Lincoln, Levi P. Morton, Edwin McMasters Stanton, Lyman Trumbull, and B. F. Wade.