Valley of the Shadow
The Aftermath
Spring 1865–Fall 1870

Letters & Diaries

letters

Alexander K. McClure (1865-1866)

Alexander McClure portrait

Alexander Kelly McClure actively participated in state and national politics through his lifetime. Before the war, he served as a state senator. McClure supported Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election of 1860 and served as the head of the Republican State Committee. An opponent of slavery and a critic of Democratic corruption, McClure broadcast his views through his ownership and editorship of a Franklin County newspaper. During the war, McClure continued in his support of the Lincoln administration and Republican policies, despite his feud with Simon Cameron. After the war, McClure favored the Radical Republican pursuit of black civil rights. McClure did not envision a similar place for Indians in the reunited nation, advocating their forced relocation.

The following links provide access to the most likely matches in the Valley of the Shadow databases:

McClure Household

Alexander McClure continued to be politically active in the years after the war, and these four postwar letters are almost entirely about politics. Half of these postwar letters were addressed to Eli Slifer, who served as Secretary of the Commonwealth under Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin.

Note: The files here represent the best transcription work available at the time of the Valley of the Shadow project’s completion. More extensive transcriptions, including color page images, are available from Dickinson College’s Their Own Words project.