One hundred fifty years ago today the New York Times argued that anyone who described the Civil War as a war “against the South” and “Southern institutions” had made “a great mistake.” The only reason that President Abraham Lincoln had called for 75,000 troops after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was to restore the […]
10
May
11
“Not a War against the South”
Posted by sailerd Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Historic Periodicalsno comment
9
Nov
10
Kate Stone was twenty-years-old when Fort Sumter fell to Confederate forces. She was thrilled. Stone was an ardent southern nationalist from Louisiana who lived on a large plantation (Brokenburn) with many slaves and an extended family, including at least two brother who would die in the Confederate army. Within a month after Sumter, Stone began […]
20
Jul
10
The most popular American play of the antebellum period was the historical melodrama The Gladiator (1831), by the Philadelphia physician-turned-playwright Robert Montgomery Bird (1806-1854). Bird wrote the play, but actor Edwin Forrest owned it—literally. Bird sold Forrest (1806-1872) the rights to the play for $100, and Forrest performed the title role of Spartacus to sold-out […]
28
Jun
10
Oliver et al. v. Kaufman and Fugitive Slaves
Posted by rothenbb Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Historic PeriodicalsBoiling Springs, Pennsylvania embraced the transportation and protection of fugitive slaves moving northward across the Mason-Dixon Line. Daniel Kaufman (alternately spelled Kauffman), born in Cumberland County in 1818, laid out designs for the town and helped make his presence known. His support for the Underground Railroad strengthened in Boiling Springs, as indicated by the events of October 24, […]
28
Jun
10
Christiana Riot – September 11, 1851
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Historic Periodicals, ImagesThe Christiana Riot took place on September 11, 1851 when Maryland slaveowner Edward Gorsuch and several of his relatives attempted to capture fugitive slaves at William Parker’s house in Christiana, Pennsylvania. Gorsuch was killed and several members of his party were wounded in the fight, but Parker and the fugitive slaves escaped to Canada. House […]
28
Jun
10
The Stevens & Smith Historic Site
Posted by rainwatj Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Images, Places to Visit, Recent NewsThaddeus Stevens, one of the most powerful and controversial congressmen of the nineteenth century is the central figure of a large restoration project conducted by the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Stevens was an adamant opponent of slavery and helped runaway slaves escape, even going so far as to employ spies to watch […]
28
Jun
10
The Underground Railroad in Columbia, Pennsylvania
Posted by solnitr Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Images, Places to Visit, Rare BooksNineteenth-century historian Robert Clemens Smedley labeled the town of Columbia, Pennsylvania as the birthplace of the organized structure that we now know as the Underground Railroad. Smedley’s posthumously published account of the Underground Railroad’s presence in Pennsylvania, History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania (1883), is available on Dickinson […]
18
May
10
“The Escaped Slave and the Union Soldier”
Posted by sailerd Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Historic Periodicals, ImagesThis short editorial published in Harper’s Weekly describes two pictures of the same man – one shows him as a fugitive slave from Alabama and the other as a Union soldier. While at first he was a “poor fugitive oppressed with the weariness of two hundred long miles of dusty travel,” Harper’s Weekly explains that […]
5
Mar
10
Upper South and the Secession Crisis
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Letters & DiariesI already described DocSouth’s online exhibit on antebellum students at UNC-Chapel Hill, but this letter from March 1861 provides an interesting example of the Upper South’s role in the secession crisis. Even though “Lincoln’s inaugural…amounts to coersion [sic],” John Halliburton believed that “[he could] hate him and still love the Union.” Pro-secession editorials were “absurdities,” […]
15
Feb
10
Conference Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Harpers Ferry Raid
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Video“John Brown, Slavery, and the Legacies of Revolutionary Violence in Our Own Time,” a conference held in October 2009 at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (Yale University), is now available online. Over twenty scholars participated in this event, which included four different sessions – “John Brown: A Problem […]
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