Scope and Content Note
The papers of Elihu Benjamin Washburne (1816-1887) span the years 1829-1915, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1852-1882. Bound volumes of letters received constitute the largest part of the collection and feature Washburne’s career as a member of Congress in the Civil War era, 1853-1869, and as minister to France, 1869-1877. Letterbooks with copies of outgoing correspondence relate to his official responsibilities in the Paris legation, the American secretary of state, the French minister of foreign affairs, Germany, and personal matters. An index of correspondents among the letters received is available in the Manuscript Division Reading Room.
Subjects in papers dated before Washburne’s diplomatic appointment include Whig politics nationally and in Illinois, his duties in the House of Representatives, focusing on commerce and appropriations, his support for Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, and Reconstruction. Washburne’s role as minister to France is documented by official letters and communications to secretaries of state Hamilton Fish (1808-1893) and William M. Evarts as well as by correspondence with European statesmen and diplomats. Topics include the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Commune, and politics at the beginning of France’s Third Republic. Since Washburne was the only official representative of a foreign government to stay in Paris during the seige of the city in 1870-1871 and the Commune, his papers constitute a valuable record of that period. Washburne’s diplomatic activities in behalf of German residents of France during the war are also represented in the letters.
Among the correspondents in the Washburne Papers are Cyrus Aldrich, Isaac Newton Arnold, Adam Badeau, George Bancroft, Otto Fürst von Bismarck, James Gillespie Blaine, William Harrison Bradley, Salmon P. Chase, J. C. Bancroft Davis, John A. Dix, William Maxwell Evarts, Jules Favre, Hamilton Fish, Antoine Alfred Agénor duc de Gramont, Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, Murat Halstead, John Jay (1817-1894), Joseph Medill, Benjamin Moran, Edwards Pierrepont, Charles H. Ray, Daniel Richard, Robert C. Schenck, John Sherman, William T. Sherman, Daniel Edgar Sickles, Charles L. Stephenson, and Washburne’s brother, C. C. Washburn.