Category Archives: 150 Years Ago This Week

News from 150 years ago

maintaining supremacy

150 years ago this week Henry Browne Blackwell wrote an open letter to Southern state legislatures in which he put forward “the only ground of settlement between North and South which in [his] judgment can be successfully adopted.” More and … Continue reading

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murder of a Tennessee Unionist

150 years ago this week Dr. Almon Case, a Unionist State Senator in Tennessee, was shot dead by Frank Farris, a former Confederate guerrilla. From The New-York Times January 21, 1867: Cold-Blooded Assassination of a Tennessee State Senator. From the … Continue reading

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Kingstree jail fire

On January 7, 1867 the jail in Kingstree, South Carolina caught on fire. Twenty-two black prisoners were burned or smothered to death. From The New-York Times January 16, 1867: The Burning of the Kingstree, S.C., Jail – Heartrending Scenes Attending … Continue reading

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unfazed

As 1867 began, newspaper headlines indicated that the United States Congress was definitely planning on impeaching President Andrew Johnson. The president wasn’t cowed. On January 7th Congress received his veto of An act to regulate the elective franchise in the … Continue reading

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hilltop experience

In its New Year’s piece 150 year ago today The New-York Times changed up the Janus imagery a little bit: … New Year’s Day is like a hill upon which a traveler pauses to rest, to look back over the … Continue reading

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devilish plot

Or consider Christmas – could Satan in his most malignant mood have devised a worse combination of graft plus buncombe than the system whereby several hundred million people get a billion or so of gifts for which they have no … Continue reading

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bait and scalp

On December 21 1866 a small band of Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne lured a force of about 80 United States soldiers away from the confines of Fort Phil Kearny, which was there to protect the Bozeman Trail, and into a … Continue reading

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standing pat

150 years ago this week President Andrew Johnson delivered his second annual message to Congress. Despite the overwhelming Republican victory in Northern states in the 1866 midterm elections, President Johnson did not alter his position: Southern states should be readmitted … Continue reading

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thanks for the schooling

The seventh Thanksgiving since Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. President Andrew Johnson unobstreperously followed Mr. Lincoln’s example by proclaiming a national commemoration. According to an editorial in The New-York Times all the states went along, except … Continue reading

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“pernicious isms of the day”

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper probably in 1866: FANATICS IN COUNCIL. – A so-called Equal Rights Convention was held at Rochester, on Tuesday and Wednesday last, at which a strolling company of mountebank performers, half male and half … Continue reading

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