woops
Civil War Interactive used to have a great paragraph about 150 years ago today – the gadget loving President Lincoln visited the Washington Navy Yard with Secretaries Seward and Chase to watch Captain John A.B. Dahlgren test a device called the Hyde rocket. The rocket exploded prematurely and the resulting fragmentation nearly hit the dignitaries. Dahlgren cancelled further development.
The April 20, 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly describes the beginning of the war at Fort Sumter, but it also has articles about Dahlgren and the Washington Navy Yard. The following picture is described by the editors:
… the shad-fishers in the fore-ground pursuing their peaceful calling, and the engines of dread war in the whole back-ground of the picture.
a more serene Navy Yard
thankfully this Japanese delegation visited in 1860
