Second Battle of Winchester

(Wikipedia) The Second Battle of Winchester was fought between June 13 and June 15, 1863 in Frederick County and Winchester, Virginia as part of the Gettysburg Campaign during the American Civil War. As Confederate Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell moved north through the Shenandoah Valley in the direction of Pennsylvania, his corps defeated the Union Army garrison commanded by Major General Robert H. Milroy, capturing Winchester and numerous Union prisoners. Continued

Battle of Blair Mountain

(Wikipedia) The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in United States history and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. The conflict occurred in Logan County, West Virginia, as part of the Coal Wars, a series of early-20th-century labor disputes in Appalachia. Up to 100 people were killed, and many more arrested. Continued

Roanoke’s ‘Lost Colony’ Was Never Lost, New Book Says

Virginia Dare, the first Anglo child born in North America,
sustained herself on nuts, berries, and product endorsements.
(Virginia Dare Winery)

(NYTimes) In 1590, the would-be governor of a colony meant to be one of England’s first outposts in North America discovered that more than 100 settlers weren’t on the small island where he left them.
More than 400 years later, the question of what happened to those settlers, who landed on Roanoke Island, off the coast of modern North Carolina, has grown into a piece of American mythology, inspiring plays, novels, documentaries and a tourism industry in the Outer Banks. Continued

Babe Ruth Caught the 1918 Flu—Twice

(Slate) ... The stories of Ruth’s home runs overshadowed a curious development on the team. During their time in Hot Springs, two of his teammates, George Whiteman and Sam Agnew, fell ill with “the grippe,” and several other players soon became sick. “The reign of the grippe and sore throats continues,” noted Boston Globe reporter Edward Martin. That same day, Henry Daily of the Boston American reported, “A perfect epidemic has run through the entire city, and almost everyone complains.” Continued

'Ma & Pa' historical group to purchase land

Photo: MDRails

(Trains Magazine) MUDDY CREEK FORKS, Pa. – The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Preservation Society, which operates the Ma & Pa Railroad Heritage Village in southern York County, Pa., announced that it plans to buy 6.67 acres along it railroad right of way and has begun fund-raising. The closing on the purchase is planned for late April.
The property, at High Rock, is about half a mile north of society headquarters at Muddy Creek Forks. Craig Sansonetti, president of the society, told Trains there are three reasons the group wants this site. Continued

Rumors of Lost Civil War Gold Stir Hope in Pennsylvania

 

(NYTimes) For decades, treasure hunters in Pennsylvania have suspected that there is a trove of Civil War gold lost in a rural forest in the northwestern part of the state.

But the mystery about where it is hidden, or if it even exists, has recently deepened.

Last week, F.B.I. representatives showed up at a site in Dents Run, Elk County, an area known for its seasonal elk viewing activities that feed the economy of nearby Benezette Township. Continued

How Kentucky [and Maryland and Delaware] Became a Confederate State

 

(NYTimes) ... On Feb. 20, the president wrote to Missouri’s new governor, Thomas C. Fletcher, troubled by persistent violence and distrust among civilians there. “Waiving all else, pledge each to cease harassing others, and to make common cause against whomever persists in making, aiding or encouraging further disturbance.” The president implored. “At such meetings old friendships will cross the memory, and honor and Christian charity will contrive to help.” Less than two months later, Lincoln was dead, at the hands of a Marylander, John Wilkes Booth. Had he lived, he would have learned, painfully, in slaveholding border states that amity would be difficult to find, especially over the end of the peculiar institution there. Continued

The Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935

After World War One, veterans were offered a service bonus payable in 1945. And that was a fine and good thing, but along came the Great Depression and many of the veterans, displaced by the economic hard times, lobbied Congress to pay the bonus sooner. In 1932 thousands of them demonstrated in Washington D.C. They set up a camp and there they stayed. President Hoover eventually ordered the marchers out of the city by force. It wasn't a pretty sight.
The next year the marchers returned and President Roosevelt persuaded many of them to take jobs building the Overseas Highway in the Florida Keys.
While working on this project, they were hit by a hurricane on Labor Day, 1935. It was the most intense hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States. 164 Keys residents were killed that day, along with 259 veterans. The stories from this storm are gripping and I won't go into them here; there are several books that do a better job of it than I could in a little blog entry.
How does this relate to our area? It doesn't really, except that some of those bonus marchers stayed at my mothers house in Washington D.C. all those years ago, and every Labor Day I wonder if any of them made it out of the Keys alive.

Top Photo: The 1935 Hurricane memorial on Upper Matecumbe Key, Florida. Bottom Photo: Florida Keys at sunset, both Canon EOS 20D.

V-E Day

 

(Wikipedia) Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day or VE Day) was on May 8, 1945, the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. On 30 April Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin, and so the surrender of Germany was authorized by his replacement, President of Germany Karl Dönitz. The administration headed up by Dönitz was known as the Flensburg government. The act of military surrender was signed on 7 May in Reims, France, and ratified on 8 May in Berlin, Germany. Continued 

 

The Irish Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum

 

The Irish Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum at Lemmon Street is a historic site that celebrates the history of the immense Irish presence in Southwest Baltimore City in the late 1840's. The museum officially opened on June 17th, 2002. This site consists of a group of 5 alley houses where the Irish immigrants who worked for the adjoining B&O Railroad lived. Two of the houses, 918 and 920 Lemmon St., are the Irish Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum. The Irish Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum are the centerpiece of a larger historical district that includes the B&O Railroad Museum, St. Peter the Apostle Church, the Hollins Street Market, and St. Peter the Apostle Cemetery. The museum is a project of the Railroad Historical District Corporation, a non-profit organization. Continued 

Saint David's Day

Saint David's Day (Welsh: Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant) is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on 1 March each year. The date of 1 March was chosen in remembrance of the death of Saint David. Tradition holds that he died on that day in 589. The date was declared a national day of celebration within Wales in the 18th century. Continued 

First Barbary War

(Wikipedia) The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Barbary Coast War or the Tripolitan War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States of America and the North African Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the independent Sultanate of Morocco and Tripoli, which was a quasi-independent entity nominally belonging to the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Continued

William Fox Talbot

(Wikipedia) William Henry Fox Talbot was a British inventor and a pioneer of photography, born on February 11, 1800 and died on September 17, 1877. He was the inventor of calotype process, the precursor to most photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an artistic medium. His work in the 1840s on photo-mechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. Talbot is also remembered as the holder of a patent which, some say, affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. Additionally, he made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, and York. Continued

Treaty of Paris (1763)

 

(Wikipedia) The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War. The treaty marked the beginning of an extensive period of British dominance outside Europe. Continued

Engineers of Victory

(NYTBR) The historian Daniel Boorstin once complained to me about the Smithsonian Institution’s decision in 1980 to delete the final two words from the name of its Museum of History and Technology. Boorstin had a point. Scholars of other fields do often tend to underestimate the influence of technology. Although most of us know that World War II brought us radar, the literature of that titanic conflict is by no means exempt from this phenomenon. For instance, the biographer Joseph P. Lash subtitled his 1976 wartime account of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill “The Partnership That Saved the West,” in response to which I once heard a British scholar carp, “If Lash is right, then why did all those scientists and intelligence officers and factory workers bother working so hard?” Continued

Dollar Princesses: The American heiresses who inspired Downton Abbey

 

(thedailybeast) ... Yet these American girls paid a price for their strawberry leaves and coronets. Most had grown up in modern homes with every modern convenience: electric light, indoor plumbing, and central heating. After marriage, they found themselves chatelaines of houses where taking a bath involved a housemaid making five trips from the kitchen in the basement, carrying jugs of hot water to fill a hip bath. The stately homes of England were all too often dark, dingy, and terribly cold. Cornelia Martin, who married the Earl of 
Craven, complained to her mother, “The house is so cold that the only time I take my furs off is when I go to bed.” 
Mildred Sherman from Ohio, who became Lady Camoys, gave up going to dinner at country houses in the winter because she couldn’t face the cold in evening dress. Continued

Explorer's rare Scotch returned to Antarctic stash

(AP) SCOTTBASE, Antarctica - Talk about whisky on ice: Three bottles of rare, 19th century Scotch found beneath the floor boards of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackelton's [sic] abandoned expedition base were returned to the polar continent Saturday after a distiller flew them to Scotland to recreate the long-lost recipe.
But not even New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who personally returned the stash, got a taste of the contents of the bottles of Mackinlay's whisky, which were rediscovered 102 years after the explorer was forced to leave them behind. Continued

The French Revolution for Dummies (and ‘Les Misérables’ Watchers)

 

Les Misérables has finally arrived in theaters!

Boy, the music is beautiful, but what the heck is going on?

The Daily Beast explains the history behind the story.

Continued

The Paper Trail Through History

 

(NYTBR) ... it’s representative of an emerging body of work that might be called “paperwork studies.” True, there are not yet any dedicated journals or conferences. But in history, anthropology, literature and media studies departments and beyond, a group of loosely connected scholars are taking a fresh look at office memos, government documents and corporate records, not just for what they say but also for how they circulate and the sometimes unpredictable things they do. Continued

Armistice Day

We never observed Veterans Day in my house, growing up. We observed Armistice Day. "It was intended for those who fought in World War One," my mom said, and that was that.