Eyewitness: American Originals from the National Archives

This book documents "eyewitness" accounts of major events and everyday living throughout American history. Items include a letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Jay describing the streets in Paris during the storming of the Bastille in1789; Lady Bird Johnson's audio diary on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Robert King Stone, President Abraham Lincoln's family physician, who testified on the condition and death of the President after he was shot in April 1865; and Harold Porter, a U.S. soldier who was with the first medical unit to enter the Dachau concentration camp after its liberation at the end of World War II. These and many other accounts take the form of letters, diaries, court testimony, and official reports that reflect the breadth and richness of the American experience. Full-color images of the documents, and reproductions of the graphic images selected to complement them, combine to reveal the eloquence of the witnesses and the drama of the events they describe.