Author Archives: SUMPTER

post office resignations

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch August 21, 1863: Postal communication Stopped. –Resignation of the Clerks in the City Post-Office. –Yesterday evening the clerks in the City Post-Office resigned in a body, and the business of that office has come to … Continue reading

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Gorilla Gone from Gotham

150 years ago yesterday the draft resumed peaceably in New York City. Army, militia, and police forces were present in large if unostentatious numbers. A reorter found “no less than seven huge columbiads on trucks in the depot of the New-Jersey … Continue reading

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“All honor to the Flag”

Six weeks after Gettysburg, the assistant surgeon for the 126th New York Volunteer Infantry wrote home to explain that newspaper accounts had missed the extraordinary courage of the 126th’s color bearers during the battle. From a Seneca County newspaper in … Continue reading

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not much of a theater-goer

From The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln To J. H. HACKETT. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON August 17, 1863. JAMES H. HACKETT, Esq. MY DEAR SIR:—Months ago I should have acknowledged the receipt of your book and accompanying kind note; and … Continue reading

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private no more

From The New-York Times August 16, 1863: Jeff. Davis’ Private Letters. The country will be interested and amused, if not instructed, by the letters received by JEFF. DAVIS from all sections and all sorts of men during the secession Winter, … Continue reading

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Granted …

A Yankee general who could exploit the odds in his favor From the Richmond Daily Dispatch August 14, 1863: Gen Grant. Military merit is so rare among the Yankee Generals that we are not at all surprised by the excessive … Continue reading

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No Scrooge

I know from the schedule that 150 years ago today draftees from the Town of Tyre in Seneca County, New York appeared in Auburn for their examinations. Here’s a comment from a Democrat newspaper from Seneca County in 1863: Mr. … Continue reading

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high fuel prices

It might have been a blisteringly hot August in Virginia, but citizens  still needed fuel to cook (and it might be prudent to stock up on wood for the coming winter). On August 12th the editors of the Richmond Daily … Continue reading

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Waterloo exemptions

According to James M. McPherson’s discussion of conscription in the North, “If a man’s name was drawn in this [draft] lottery, one of several things would happen to him next – the least likely of which was induction into the … Continue reading

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The rides’s on US

In compliance with the 1863 Conscription Act men in Seneca County have been enrolled and drafted. The next step is for the drafted men to appear before the Board of Enrollment to be examined for their fitness to serve. Here … Continue reading

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