The Details:
Coffee beans removed from General U.S. Grant’s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, April 1865. Chase Family Papers. [catalog record]
Gift of Lucy Chase, 1879.
The Story:
In 1863 the Boston Educational Commission, a freedmen’s aid organization, sent Lucy and Sarah Chase south to Craney Island, Virginia, where they taught former slaves for more than two years. These coffee beans were collected by the sisters as souvenirs at the nearby Union headquarters at City Point. From this location, General Grant had overseen the Siege of Petersburg.
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