Category Archives: 150 Years Ago This Week

News from 150 years ago

“Is this Democratic?”

Posted on September 25, 2015 by SUMPTER

150 years ago today Daniel Sickles wrote a letter to Hugh Judson Kilpatrick criticizing the New Jersey Democrat 1865 platform (see last section of the linked post). Moreover, New Jersey Democrats were even lagging behind South Carolina: The party in … Continue reading →

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“their sudden emancipation”

Posted on September 23, 2015 by SUMPTER

It’s going on six months since federal troops won the Battle of Fort Blakely on April 9, 1865 and a few days later occupied Mobile, Alabama. It is written that “The siege and capture of Fort Blakely was basically the … Continue reading →

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nullified?

Posted on September 15, 2015 by SUMPTER

150 years ago today the South Carolina state constitutional convention repealed the December 20, 1860 Ordinance of Secession. From The New-York Times September 19, 1865: THE SOUTH CAROLINA CONVENTION.; Repeal of the Ordinance of Secession. BOSTON, Monday, Sept. 18. The … Continue reading →

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Whose Maryland?

Posted on September 12, 2015 by SUMPTER

150 years ago this week Gotham’s Times thought it was pretty funny that a presumed states-rights Democrat would appeal to the federal Constitution to negate Maryland’s election law. From The New-York Times September 8, 1865: The Democracy and State Rights. … Continue reading →

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free to “help yourselves”

Posted on September 2, 2015 by SUMPTER

And to help your helpers Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew served as president of the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society from its founding in 1862. Check out the Library of Congress for information about the letter, the statue, two boys, … Continue reading →

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President Lee

Posted on September 1, 2015 by SUMPTER

From The New-York Times September 7, 1865: Gen. Lee Accepts the Presidency of Washington College. From the Lexington Gazette Extra. The gratifying duty of announcing to the country the acceptance by Gen. ROBERT E. LEE of the Presidency of Washington … Continue reading →

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“city of the dead.”

Posted on August 24, 2015 by SUMPTER

From The New-York Times August 25, 1865: WASHINGTON NEWS.; Return of the Andersonville Burial Party. Their Report Upon the Condition of that Earthly Hell. The Graves of Thirteen Thousand Martyrs Identified. Monuments Erected and the Cemetery Put in Order. The … Continue reading →

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disruptive

Posted on August 12, 2015 by SUMPTER

150 years ago this week a Northern newspaper reprinted a report it found in a Petersburg, Virginia newspaper. A city that began the year under siege was trying to adjust to the huge change in the economic-social system caused by … Continue reading →

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elective*

Posted on August 5, 2015 by SUMPTER

This Thomas Nast cartoon was published in the August 5, 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly. You can read more about it at the Library of Congress: “Centerfold prints show Columbia considering why she should pardon Confederate troops who are begging … Continue reading →

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new American revolution?

Posted on July 25, 2015 by SUMPTER

In a long 1777 letter to the Committee of Secret Correspondence Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, American Commissioners in Paris, wrote the following optimistic assessment of Europe’s regard for America and its rebel cause: Tyranny is so generally established in … Continue reading →

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