LOOKING BACK 1945: Lincoln's chair reappears
Last week, I wrote about how the chair that Abraham Lincoln may have used using the Gettysburg Address ceremony disappeared from Gettysburg College. This week, the rest of the story…. For years, Gettysburg College had displayed a rocking chair believed to have been the one Abraham Lincoln used as he sat on the platform during the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery where he delivered his Gettysburg Address. At some point in the 1920’s, it disappeared from the collection. No one knew who had taken it or how and no big deal was made of its loss. Then on April 7, 1945, the Gettysburg Times reported, “The little old rocking chair that Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have used on the platform in the National cemetery November 19, 1863, when he delivered his deathless Gettysburg Address, has come back to the Read more…
LOOKING BACK 1920's: Lincoln's chair vanishes
On November 19, 1863, thousands of people gathered in Gettysburg for the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery. The keynote speaker of the event was Edward Everett. As his speech continued on and on, people standing in the crowd had to sit or risk their legs buckling. On the stage, the speakers had chairs to rest on until their time to speak came. President Abraham Lincoln sat in a rocking chair between Everett and Secretary of State William Seward. “Mr. Lincoln sat on the platform all the time in a rude, little stiff-backed chair, hard, and uncomfortable, but he hardly ever moved,” Dr. Henry Jacobs recalled in the Gettysburg Times in 1923. He had been a young boy in the audience at the dedication. When Everett had finished his two-hour speech, the president stood up from his rocker, walked to the Read more…
What? You mean there's more to Gettysburg than just the Civil War battle?
I have a new e-book available on Kindle called Beyond the Battlefield: Stories from Gettysburg’s Rich History and it happens to be coming out around the same time I’m beginning a new history column for the Gettysburg Times with the same theme. Gettysburg is best-known for the epic Civil War battle that was fought there in 1863. It tends to overshadow many of the other interesting and important stories that have taken place in Gettysburg and the vicinity. Gettysburg was home to one of the first tank training camps in the country during World War I that was located on a portion of the Civil War battlefield. This also brought a young army officer to Gettysburg who would play a very important role in town but also the world. His name was Dwight David Eisenhower. Gettysburg was also home to Read more…
New artifact changes the story of the Hunley
I’m not a big fan of revisionist history, but sometimes things change not because the social standards of today change but because new facts come to light. Over the decades, the story of the Confederate submarine Hunley sinking a Union blockade ship with a spar-mounted torpedo. Scientists discovered a piece of the Hunley’s torpedo that was still attached to the spar. It was a piece of the copper torpedo shell peeled backwards. Conservators discovered when restoring the 20-foot-long spar. This piece of historical evidence contradicts eyewitness accounts that the Hunley had been about 100 feet away from the explosion that sunk the Union ship in 1864. The finding of the torpedo piece suggests that the Hunley was more likely less than 20 feet away from the explosion. “The torpedo was bolted to the spar, contradicting the conventional wisdom that the Read more…
Get the "Between Rail and River" e-book FREE Jan. 22-24
To celebrate Canawlers coming back into print in paperback, I’m offering the second book in the Canawlers series, Between Rail and River, for free on you Kindle from Jan. 22-24. Between Rail and River picks up where Canawlers ends. As the Fitzgerald family struggles to make it through the winter of 1862-1863 and what has been a poor boating year on the C&O Canal, the Civil War is drawing ever closer to being fought aboard the Freeman. George Fitzgerald’s unexpected return from the war pits him against David Windover, an ex-Confederate spy, who now works and lives with the Fitzgeralds. Alice Fitzgerald struggles to hold her family together as a vindictive sheriff and a haughty doctor’s wife work to tear them apart. Tony, the street urchin from Cumberland, has found a life aboard the Freeman, but Sheriff Lee Whittaker has Read more…
"Canawlers" back in print!
It’s been a couple years since I allowed Canawlers to go out of print. I still kept getting requests from bookstores and some individual buyers to get copies, though. I went back and forth about it, but since I’m hoping to bring the third book in the trilogy out around Christmas time, I figured I would need to have the first book available, too. So I gave in and brought the book back in print. It is available today and it is still only $17.95. You can order a copy from Amazon and if it’s not in your favorite bookstore yet, they should probably be able to order it. Canawlers is a family saga set on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the Civil War. Hugh Fitzgerald proudly calls himself a “canawler.” He works on the C&O Canal transporting coal Read more…
FREE on Kindle for Nov. 10-12 – Kidnapping the Generals
In honor of Veteran’s Day, Amazon is offering my e-book Kidnapping the Generals: The South’s Most-Daring Raid Against the Union Army on Nov. 10-12. This is a true story of a Confederate Ranger raid that inspired many Southerners and embarrassed the Union Army. In the waning days of the Civil War, McNeill’s Rangers launched a daring raid against the Union Army in the hopes of reinvigorating the Confederacy. The Rangers snuck into the heavily guarded city of Cumberland, Maryland, and kidnapped two generals. So why not download a copy to your Kindle today? If you read it and enjoy the story, I would appreciate you reviewing the book. Thanks! Here’s a link for the book: http://www.amazon.com/Kidnapping-Generals-Most-Daring-Against-ebook/dp/B0098CXOJA/ref=la_B001K8UU88_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1352205696&sr=1-11
How the South Kidnapped Two Union Generals From the Middle of Their Army
With the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam fast approaching, I thought that anyone interested in Civil War history might be interested in another event that took place not too far from Sharpsburg. In February 1865, McNeill’s Rangers pulled off what has been called the most-daring raid against the Union that the South ever undertook. About 60 rangers were able to ride into the heart of Cumberland, Maryland, which at the time had 8,000 soldiers protecting it (the citizen-to-soldier ratio was said to be 1:1). Once in the city, they kidnapped Gen. Benjamin Kelley and Gen. George Crook and escaped with them back to Richmond. I recently published a short e-book about the event called, Kidnapping the Generals. Any of you with Kindles will be able to find the book on Amazon.com. It costs only 99 cents Read more…
Coming on PBS: Death and the Civil War
I recently had the chance to preview Death and the Civil War, which will air on PBS on September 18 at 8 a.m. The two-hour documentary is nicely produced and explores how the Civil War and its mass killing changed how our culture views death and how the military deals with the death of its servicemen. Estimates now place the number of people killed in the Civil War at around 750,000 or about 2.5 percent of the U.S. population. The number of deaths at large battles like Antietam overwhelmed the communities near where the battles were fought. I’m not quite sure how I came to be asked to review the show, but I’m guessing that it has to do with my writing about the war. The bulk of my writing has been related to my book, Battlefield Angels: The Daughters Read more…
Remembering Battle of Antietam in 1937
As Western Maryland prepares to remember the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg, no actual Civil War veterans will be attending. The last major anniversary event for a Civil War battle that saw actual veterans in attendance was the 75th. Antietam’s 75th anniversary was in 1937. For Washington County residents, the event also represented the bicentennial of the settling of the county and the 175th anniversary of the founding of Hagerstown. The latter events had been originally planned for 1935, but they had been postponed because of the country’s poor economic condition. The money just wasn’t there to plan for a big event. However, remembering Antietam was not only a big event, but it was a federal one. President Franklin Roosevelt created the National Antietam Commemoration Commission and appointed Maryland U.S. Sen. Millard Tydings to chair it, Read more…
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