Author Archives: Eireann

Last Known Ship Carrying Captives For Slavery Found

Posted on by
Reply

Some archaeological news from Alabama – the remains of the last slave ship was found.

Researchers were also looking for a ship that had been burned and scuttled in the waters around Mobile — reflecting the captain’s attempts to block law enforcement from finding evidence of a crime.

From February to July 1860, the Clotilda carried 110 people from present-day Benin to the shores of Mobile, despite an 1808 U.S. law banning the import of slaves.

The prisoners were among the last known Africans destined for a life in captivity.

Source: Clotilda, Last Known Ship Carrying Captives For Slavery, Found, Researchers Say : NPR

Morgan horses are an American original

Posted on by
Reply

Interesting little history of the Morgan horse breed, which was apparently a favourite during the Civil War. As I mentioned before, I know very little of horses, but I know a fair bit about Rienzi, and had always understood him to be a huge steed. Perhaps his rider was just that diminutive?

Twenty-five years later, their incredible stamina during America’s Civil War kept them going for days over rough terrain, and they fought with courage during battle. Indeed, a number of Civil War generals rode Morgans, including Union General Phillip Sheridan, whose mount Rienzi (later named Winchester) turned a Union defeat into a victory after completing an amazing 11-mile ride over rugged terrain in 1864. Winchester’s remains are preserved at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Source: Morgan horses are an American original | Horses | leadertelegram.com

Brazil’s long, strange love affair with the Confederacy

Posted on by
Reply

I knew of the Confederados existence, but I hadn’t had the time to read much into the history of those Confederates who moved (with their slaves) to Brazil after the war. I’m horrified to find out their descendants celebrate the fact. What a strange, lingering aftereffect of the Civil War! This article was quite the eye opener.

As early as the 1860s, Brazil was actively recruiting Southern American plantation owners, part of an immigration policy aimed at attracting Europeans, European-American and other “white” migrants. According to historians Cyrus and James Dawsey, who were born and raised near Confederado communities in São Paulo, Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II also promised cheap land to any American farmer who would come with a plow – a technology Brazil lacked.

Either way, thousands of white southerners made Brazil their new home after the Civil War. In São Paulo state, they established a somewhat closed and culturally homogeneous community that maintained its southern traditions for generations.

Source: Brazil’s long, strange love affair with the Confederacy ignites racial tension

In the Shadow of Stone Mountain

Posted on by
Reply

I’m not sure I agree with this lady’s take on Stone Mountain, but it’s a refreshing reminder that the Confederate statues debate is not always a black and white debate. (My issue is that the shades of gray most people promote are of a particularly Confederate hue.)

Brown, who is 78, and other longtime residents of Stone Mountain live with a reminder of that time: a huge Civil War memorial of Confederate heroes that was carved into the side of the mountain for which her town is named.

It features Generals Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee, along with Jefferson Davis, who served as the president of the Confederacy.

Many people want the carvings erased, saying they honor slavery and are offensive to blacks. Brown, whose family history is tied to the memorial, isn’t one of them. She considers the carvings an important reminder of the life she has lived and the racial discrimination that shaped it.

Source: A Confederate memorial towers over Stone Mountain, Georgia. A local African American woman wants it to stay there. – The Washington Post

Impeachment, the First Time Around

Posted on by
Reply

There’s a new book about Andrew Johnson and his impeachment, and the New York Times has given it a rave review. I’ll have to pick it up, but I might wait to see how the current Constitutional crisis shakes out first. I’m not sure it’ll make for consolatory reading.

By February 1868, President Andrew Johnson had forced the moment to a crisis. As Brenda Wineapple recounts in her new book, “The Impeachers,” Johnson had been goading legislators with his accelerating attempts to rule by decree, daring them to “go ahead” and impeach him — which the House voted to do by an overwhelming majority, 126 to 47.

The author of award-winning works about Nathaniel Hawthorne and Emily Dickinson, among other books, Wineapple started to research her history of the country’s first impeachment trial six years ago; she briefly mentions Presidents Nixon and Clinton but not the current occupant of the White House. She doesn’t have to. The relevance of this riveting and absorbing book is clear enough, even if Wineapple’s approach is too literary and incisive to offer anything so obvious as a lesson.

Source: Impeachment, the First Time Around – The New York Times

Jubilation at the fall of Richmond

Posted on by
Reply

Nice little history column in the New Hampshire Union-Leader paper. If they ever invent a time machine, going back to April, ’65, to witness the Washington illuminations is one of the first trips I’m taking.

French was ordered to illuminate all the public buildings in Washington as part of a grand patriotic celebration to be held the next day, Tuesday, April 4. He and his staff succeeded in arranging for the Capitol Building, the White House, the State Department, the War Department, the Treasury Department, the Post Office, the Patent Office, the Library of Congress, and other federal structures to be lit up. Owners of many residences, offices and stores also lit up their own buildings. A local newspaper reported the next day that “The city after nightfall was a blaze of illumination, and the gleam of fireworks, the crash of inspiring music, and the declamations of popular speakers added to the inspiring effect.”

French wrote, “After lighting up my own house and seeing the Capitol lighted, I rode up to the upper end of the City, and saw the whole display. It was indeed glorious … I have never seen such a crowd out-of-doors in my life …” He wrote with pride that he had arranged to have a huge transparent banner hung on the Library of Congress that was lit by gaslight, with enormous letters painted on it that read, “This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes,” a verse from the 118th Psalm.

Source: Looking Back with Aurore Eaton: Jubilation at the fall of Richmond | Looking Back | unionleader.com

Mystery Submarine

Posted on by
Reply

I’m disappointed that this article doesn’t have more answers as to why and when this sub was designed, but its guesses that it was an answer to the blockade of New Orleans’ port certainly fits. Strange that there’s no accompanying history to the Hunley and the David, both of which were well-known and documented.

Imagine this. It’s Bayou Boogaloo and you’re on the raft you built with your buddies. You plunge your oar into the waters of Bayou St. John and feel it scrape something hard.

What could it be? A hunk of concrete? A stolen car? Or … a submarine?

If you found a sub in these waters, it’d definitely be a story, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Because that distinction goes to a mysterious vessel discovered here way back in the spring of 1878./blockquote>

Source: Today a picturesque waterway, Bayou St. John once harbored a Civil War submarine | Entertainment/Life | theadvocate.com

Forgetting Why We Remember

Posted on by
Reply

I mentioned David Blight’s discovery of the first Memorial Day yesterday. For those who don’t know the story, here’s a NYTimes article written by the historian himself that goes into detail.

Sidenote: I first heard about this in one of Blight’s speeches at historical conferences and symposiums, many of which are available on Apple’s wonderful iTunes U. His off-the-cuff speaking style can be a bit digressive, but the content of his talks is always worth a listen.

But for the earliest and most remarkable Memorial Day, we must return to where the war began. By the spring of 1865, after a long siege and prolonged bombardment, the beautiful port city of Charleston, S.C., lay in ruin and occupied by Union troops. Among the first soldiers to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the 21st United States Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the city’s official surrender.

Whites had largely abandoned the city, but thousands of blacks, mostly former slaves, had remained, and they conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war.

Source: Forgetting Why We Remember – The New York Times

How Memorial Day began

Posted on by
Reply

Happy Memorial Day, my American friends! Being Canadian, I’m celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday today instead, but I’ll spare some thought for the American celebration. It’s worth remembering that it was only in the past few years that the Memorial Day origins came to light, discovered in an archive by the Yale professor David Blight.

This day has many stories of its origin, and all quite probable. Basically we know for sure it was started after the Civil War. Civil War Veterans were its main focus. In May of 1868 three years after the war, former slaves in the Charleston South Carolina area began to dig up the 257 Grand Army of the Republic solders buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison yard. Their idea was the result of an appreciation for their freedom. It took them two weeks to give these soldiers proper burial. Then 10,000 people were led by 2,800 African American children in a parade to the cemetery where flowers, prayers and singing of hymns took place.

Source: How Memorial Day began – News – Nebraska City News-Press – Nebraska City, NE – Nebraska City, NE

Courting Mr. Lincoln

Posted on by
Reply

I gave up on fiction a few years ago, but I’m curious about this new book. Lincoln’s live-in friendship with Joshua Speed is a topic I find endearing, and a great novelist can often make fiction feel like real history. (See also: Gore Vidal’s Lincoln.)

Abraham Lincoln is irresistible to writers. Historians have delved into Lincoln’s depression, his team of rivals and the hunt for his killer. Now, more than 150 years after Lincoln’s assassination, novelist Louis Bayard weighs in with “Courting Mr. Lincoln,” a rich, fascinating and romantic union of fact and imagination about young Lincoln, the woman he would marry and his beloved best friend.

Source: Book review | Abraham Lincoln, his suitors give heart to warm tale – Entertainment & Life – The Columbus Dispatch – Columbus, OH