“I am glad to see one real American here,” General Robert E. Lee said to one of the somber men gathered in the parlor of Wilmer McLean’s home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865.
On This Day
Remember the Ladies: Revolutionary Women Writers
In a March 31st, 1776 letter to her husband John, who was in Philadelphia engaged in the debates of the Second Continental Congress that would lead to the Declaration of Independence, Abigail Adams famously wrote, “by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.
After the Dred Scott Decision, Citizenship was Determined in the Civil War West
On March 6, 1857, in the infamous Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott, his wife Harriet, and their daughters Eliza and Lizzie had no right to sue for their freedom.
The Fateful Night of January 22, 1854: When Congressmen Pressured the President to Sign a Measure that Would Destroy the Nation
January 22 was a Sunday in 1854. The President was Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire.
Securing Paradise at the Point of a Bayonet
On January 17th, 1893, more than 120 marines and sailors from the U.S.S. Boston helped thirteen powerful American business and political leaders calling themselves the Committee of Safety to overthrow Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani and install a new provisional government led by Sanford Dole.
The Immortal Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans
“Yesterday the british experienced the most bloody butchery ever recorded in American history in an attack which they made against the Strong lines of Genl. Jackson, where they were entirely Slaughtered,” French consul Louis de Tousard wrote a correspondent on January 9, 1815.
The Largest Mass Execution in American History
December 26 is the anniversary of the largest mass execution in American history.
The Original Tea Party
On the evening of December 16th, 1773, a party of up to 130 men emerged from the Old South Meeting House on Milk St in Boston and made for the city’s harbor.
Pilgrims and Indians: Two First Encounters
In his famous account of the Pilgrims’ arrival in America, Of Plymouth Plantation, Governor William Bradford described the first extended contact between the recently arrived Mayflower Pilgrims and a group of Native Americans.
December 5, 1933: The End of Prohibition
Down the alley, to the right, at the back of the building. Knock, say the magic word, and gain admission to a place where there were no laws – no boundaries – that couldn’t be forgotten.