Second Battle of Bull Run

(Wikipedia) The Second Battle of Bull Run or Second Manassas was fought August 28–30, 1862,[1] as part of the American Civil War. It was the culmination of an offensive campaign waged by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, and a battle of much larger scale and numbers than the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) fought in 1861 on the same ground.
Following a wide-ranging flanking march, Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson captured the Union supply depot at Manassas Junction, threatening Pope's line of communications with Washington, D.C. Withdrawing a few miles to the northwest, Jackson took up defensive positions on Stony Ridge. On August 28, 1862, Jackson attacked a Union column just east of Gainesville, at Brawner's Farm, resulting in a stalemate. On that same day, the wing of Lee's army commanded by Maj. Gen. James Longstreet broke through light Union resistance in the Battle of Thoroughfare Gap and approached the battlefield.
Pope became convinced that he had trapped Jackson and concentrated the bulk of his army against him. Continued

A damaged landmark brought down in Springfield Township

(YDR) It took several tries, but a portion of Foust distillery's 125-foot-tall smokestack - built in the 1940s but never used - was brought down Tuesday in Springfield Township.
Sometimes, it seems, history doesn't want to be forgotten.
Phil Robinson, one of the partners who owns the land where remnants of the distillery remain, deployed a crew manning a crane and another piece of heavy equipment.
The red-brick smokestack had been struck by lightning twice earlier this month, rendering a fissure that runs from its top to bottom
Continued

Stonewall’s Bounty

(NYTimes) It was the most grueling of the forced marches for which Gen. Stonewall Jackson was justly famous — 56 miles in 36 hours across the rolling Virginia Piedmont. To move faster, at the beginning his men were ordered to “unsling knapsacks.” They were going to live off the land. But the land didn’t offer much to sustain 23,000 Confederates. On the second day, remembered a South Carolina soldier, Berry Benson, “My only food…was a handful of parched corn and three or four small sour green apples.” But it was worth it. On the evening of Aug. 26, 1862, Jackson captured Bristoe Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad about 40 miles west of Fredericksburg, cutting the Union supply line. Not only that, he now stood between John Pope’s Union Army and the Federals’ main supply depot at Manassas Junction. His soldiers could not only re-sling their knapsacks — they could fill them, too.
Manassas Junction was lightly guarded by a token force of Federal soldiers under the command of Capt. Samuel Craig of Pennsylvania. One of Jackson’s lieutenants, Brig. Gen. Isaac Trimble, gleefully proposed taking it with two picked regiments, the 21st North Carolina and the 21st Georgia: “Give me my two Twenty-ones and I’ll charge and capture hell itself! ”The combative, ambitious Trimble — he had confided to another officer that after the next battle he would be “either a major general or a corpse”— got the go-ahead from Jackson, who later sent Jeb Stuart’s cavalry along as well.
Continued

A Case of Yellow Fever

(LoC) On August 27, 1900, U.S. Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever. Carroll developed a severe case of yellow fever, helping his colleague, Army pathologist Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes transmit this often-deadly disease. Prior to these findings, epidemics of yellow fever were common in the American South. Uncertain of how the disease was transmitted, many people would leave the South for the summer, the season in which the epidemics were most common, returning after the first frost. Continued

Built to Last

(NYTBR) Fifty years ago this fall, undergraduates were assigned their first Norton Anthology, often the only required text for a college freshman’s survey of English literature. Here, M. H. Abrams, the founding general editor, and Stephen Greenblatt, the current general editor, discuss the history of the anthology, the challenges facing English literature survey courses and the enduring question, Why study literature? Continued

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835

(HistoryBuff.com) Every History of American journalistic hoaxing properly begins with the celebrated moon hoax which "made" the New York Sun of Benjamin Day. It consisted of a series of articles, allegedly reprinted from the nonexistent Edinburgh Journal of Science, relating to the discovery of life on the moon by Sir John Herschel, eminent British astronomer, who some time before had gone to the Cape of Good Hope to try out a new type of powerful telescope. Continued

William Penn Acquires the Lower Counties

(LoC) On August 24, 1682, the Duke of York awarded Englishman William Penn a deed to the "Three Lower Counties" that make up the present state of Delaware, recently transferred from Dutch to British jurisdiction. Penn acquired this tract of land just west of the Delaware Bay in order to ensure ocean access for his new colony of Pennsylvania. While Delaware established its own assembly in 1704, it was not until shortly after July 1776 that Delaware became a separate state. On December 7, 1787, Delaware was the "first state" to ratify the new U.S. Constitution, thereby earning its current proud nickname. Continued

What's in York's attic?

(YDR) York, PA - A thick layer of dust and dirt coats nearly every surface in the attic of York's former city hall.
A canopy of exposed beams spans the expanse, sheltering thousands of yellowing folders and stacks of hardbound books. The lights are dim, and the air is heavy with the scent of aging paper.
For the last 70 years, the third floor of York's city hall has been a catch all for records of the city's history -- tax assessments, license applications and even criminal histories.
This week, those records have been unearthed for the first time in decades, as city officials prepare to renovate the building for the use of the city's police department. Continued

1933 Chesapeake Potomac hurricane

(Wikipedia) - The 1933 Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane was the 8th storm and third hurricane of the very active 1933 Atlantic hurricane season. The August storm formed in the central Atlantic, where it moved west-northwest. Aided by the warm ocean waters, the hurricane briefly reached Category 3 status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale before making landfall along the Virginia/North Carolina coast as a Category 1 storm.The hurricane caused severe damage along the East Coast of the United States. The state hardest hit by the storm was Virginia, where the center of circulation passed directly over Norfolk.... In Washington, D.C., the storm produced a storm surge of 11.3 feet (3.4 m), rainfall of 6.18 inches (152 mm) and winds of 50 mph (80 km/h). In Maryland, the hurricane caused $17 million dollars (1933 USD, $230 million 2005 USD) in damage to crops and buildings. The storm also destroyed a railroad bridge heading into Ocean City and created the Ocean City Inlet between the town and Assateague Island. The storm killed 13 people and 1,000+ animals. On the coast, the storm damaged or destroyed several wharves and fishing piers. In Delaware, the storm caused $150,000 dollars (1933 USD, $2.03 million 2005 USD) in damage but no deaths. Continued

8 Hour Day

(LoC) On August 20, 1866, the newly organized National Labor Union called on Congress to mandate an eight-hour workday. A coalition of skilled and unskilled workers, farmers, and reformers, the National Labor Union was created to pressure Congress to enact labor reforms. It dissolved in 1873 following a disappointing venture into third-party politics in the 1872 presidential election.
Although the National Labor Union failed to persuade Congress to shorten the workday, its efforts heightened public awareness of labor issues and increased public support for labor reform in the 1870s and 1880s. Continued

Burning of Washington

(LoC) On August 19, 1814, during the War of 1812, British troops under the command of Major General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral George Cockburn landed at Benedict, Maryland, on the shores of the Patuxent River.
The British fleet, under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, had chased U.S. Commodore Joshua Barney's flotilla into the Patuxent River, but the true goal was the capture of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. — only a few days march away.
At the same time, Vice Admiral Cochrane ordered Captain James Gordon to sail other British warships up the Potomac River towards Washington which was defended only by Fort Warburton (later renamed Fort Washington) on the east bank of the river, twelve miles south of the nation's capital. News of this British onslaught caused panic in Washington and many of its residents fled. Continued

Former Crown Cork complex still bustling

(Jacques Kelly) The landmark Eastern Avenue industrial building fooled me. I assumed it was abandoned, and I was wrong. The former Crown Cork and Seal complex in Greektown is a busy workplace for cabinetmakers, musicians, artists and a craft brewer. It's just that nobody puts up a sign on this curiously anonymous post-industrial survivor. The place where food- and beverage-packaging machines once were made remains a bustling village. Continued

Virginia Dare

(Wikipedia) Virginia Dare (born August 18, 1587, date of death unknown) was the first child born in the Americas to English parents, Eleanor (or Ellinor/Elyonor) and Ananias Dare. She was born into the short-lived Roanoke Colony in what is now North Carolina, USA. What became of Virginia and the other colonists has become an enduring mystery. The fact of her birth is known because the leader of the colony, Eleanor Dare's father, John White, returned to England to seek assistance for the colony. When White returned three years later, the colonists were gone. Continued

‘Copper’ Resurrects the Five Points

(NYTimes) ... Ostensibly the new series is about a former boxer and Civil War veteran turned police detective, Kevin Corcoran (played by Tom Weston-Jones), an Irish immigrant who returns to the Five Points after serving in the Union Army’s 71st Regiment to find his daughter dead and his wife missing. New York is really the main character.
Where “Gangs” signed up as technical adviser Luc Sante, whose 1991 book “Low Life” evoked “The Gangs of New York,” Herbert Asbury’s 1928 nonfiction confection, “Copper” is rooted in fiction — Jack Finney’s “Time and Again,” which Ms. Wayne read in high school at Manhattan’s Hewitt School, and “The Alienist” by Caleb Carr, which she read more recently (as well as “Low Life”). But the creative team also decided to hire a full-fledged historian, Daniel Czitrom, who teaches American cultural and political history at Mount Holyoke, to keep “Copper” believable. (Mr. Fontana is himself a self-styled would-be historian who started college as a history major.) Continued

Charles Bukowski

(Wikipedia) - Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles, and is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, and six novels, eventually having over 60 books in print. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife"
.... After the collapse of the German economy following the First World War, the family moved to the United States in 1923, originally settling in Baltimore, Maryland. To sound more American, Bukowski's parents began calling him "Henry" and altered the pronunciation of the family name from Buk-ov-ski to Buk-cow-ski (the name is of Polish origin). Continued

John Carroll Becomes First Bishop of Baltimore

(LoC) - On August 15, 1790, John Carroll became the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The son of a wealthy Catholic merchant, Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1736 and had significant Revolutionary connections. His cousin, Charles Carroll, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; his brother, Daniel Carroll, signed the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.
After receiving a Jesuit education at the Bohemia academy in Cecil County, Maryland, Carroll studied abroad at the English-language Jesuit College of St. Omer in Flanders. Continued

Photo: Sacred Heart Church at Whitemarsh, Bowie, Maryland, Jack Boucher, photographer (Library of Congress).

Opha Mae Johnson

(Wikipedia) Opha Mae Johnson (February 13, 1900 – January 1976) was the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. She joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1918.
Johnson was a United States Marine in the late 1910s. She became the first woman to enlist in the Marine Corps on August 13, 1917, when she joined the Marine Corps Reserve during World War I. Johnson was the first of 305 women to enlist in the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve that day. Continued

George Washington, Master Mason

(LoC) On August 4, 1753, George Washington became a Master Mason, the highest rank in the Fraternity of Freemasonry, in his hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The twenty-one-year-old young man would soon hold his first military commission.
Derived from the practices and rituals of the medieval guild system, freemasonry gained popularity in the eighteenth century, particularly in Great Britain. British Masons organized the first North American Chapter in 1731. Masons aroused considerable suspicion in the early American republic with their mysterious rites and closely held secrets. These fears mushroomed in response to the suspicious death in 1826 of William Morgan, who was said to have been murdered on account of his threat to reveal the secrets of freemasonry.
For George Washington, joining the Masons was a rite of passage and an expression of civic responsibility. Members were required to express their belief in a Supreme Being and in the immortality of the soul. Masons were also were expected to obey civil laws, hold a high moral standard, and practice acts of charity. Continued

1790: The first U.S. Census

(Wikipedia) ... Censuses had been taken prior to the Constitution's ratification; in the early 17th century, a census was taken in Virginia, and people were counted in nearly all of the British colonies that became the United States.
Throughout the years, the country's needs and interests became more complex. This meant that statistics were needed to help people understand what was happening and have a basis for planning. The content of the decennial census changed accordingly. In 1810, the first inquiry on manufactures, quantity and value of products occurred; in 1840, inquiries on fisheries were added; and in 1850, the census included inquiries on social issues, such as taxation, churches, pauperism, and crime.
The censuses also spread geographically, to new states and territories added to the Union, as well as to other areas under U.S. sovereignty or jurisdiction. There were so many more inquiries of all kinds in the census of 1880 that almost a full decade was needed to publish all the results. Continued