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Civil War

Army Base Being Renamed for Albany’s Henry Johnson

March 24, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Henry Johnson - "Our Colored Heroes," 1918 lithograph by EG Renesch of Chicago (courtesy Tennessee State Archives)Sergeant Henry Johnson, an African-American hero of the First World War from Albany, NY, will officially have Fort Polk in Louisiana renamed in his honor this June. The move comes after Congress authorized the Naming Commission to provide new names for U.S. military bases and other Department of Defense installations originally named after Confederate leaders and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) advocated for the change. [Read more…] about Army Base Being Renamed for Albany’s Henry Johnson

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Black History, Chuck Schumer, Civil War, French History, Henry Johnson, Military History, World War One

Sojourner Truth: How An Enslaved Dutch Speaker Became A Black Liberation Icon

March 20, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Map of the Mid-Hudson ValleyOn March 31st, 1817 the New York State Legislature decided that enslavement within its borders had to come to an end. Final emancipation would occur on July 4th, 1827. Coincidentally, the date of choice was almost exactly two centuries after the Dutch West India Company’s yacht Bruynvisch arrived at Manhattan on August 29th, 1627. [Read more…] about Sojourner Truth: How An Enslaved Dutch Speaker Became A Black Liberation Icon

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Abolition, Black History, Civil Rights, Civil War, Dutch History, Hurley, Legal History, New Netherland, Political History, Slavery, Sojouner Truth, Suffrage Movement, Ulster County, womens history

A Catskills Copperhead Strikes Against Lincoln & Abolition

March 5, 2023 by John Conway 1 Comment

Sullivan County Copperhead James Eldridge QuinlanOne of Sullivan County, NY’s first historians and most noted newspaper publishers, James Eldridge Quinlan, was a Copperhead, a pro-slavery Southern sympathizer, during the Civil War.

Anyone with any doubts about Quinlan’s leanings on the subjects of slavery, the abolitionists, and Abraham Lincoln need only peruse the pages of the Republican Watchman newspaper during the years leading up to the Civil War and during the war itself, to be convinced. [Read more…] about A Catskills Copperhead Strikes Against Lincoln & Abolition

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Abe Lincoln, Catskills, Civil War, Monticello, Newspapers, Political History, Publishing, Sullivan County

James Bailey: A Confederate Guerrilla in Saratoga County

February 15, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas in March 1862 by Kurz and AllisonThe Civil War claimed more Americans than any other conflict involving the United States. This is the story of how James Bailey, a staunch Confederate once in armed revolt against the United States, found himself in Saratoga County.

At about 5 am on August 10, 1861, an attack ordered by United States General Nathaniel Lyon was launched against the Confederates at Wilson’s Creek, near Springfield, Missouri. The Battle of Wilson’s Creek, in which about 5,400 United States troops faced about 12,00 Confederates, was the first major conflict west of the Mississippi River. [Read more…] about James Bailey: A Confederate Guerrilla in Saratoga County

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Ballston Spa, Burnt Hills, Civil War, free, Military History, Saratoga County, Saratoga County History Center, Saratoga County History Roundtable

US, NYS Continues To Honor Slavers, Racists, Traitors and Scoundrels

January 10, 2023 by Alan J. Singer Leave a Comment

Robert E Lee Portrait at West PointIn 2023, the United States Military Academy will remove 13 Confederate symbols on its West Point campus. They include a portrait of Robert E. Lee dressed in a Confederate uniform, a stone bust of Lee, who was superintendent of West Point before the Civil War, and a bronze plaque with an image of a hooded figure and the words “Ku Klux Klan.”

Art displayed in the United States Capitol building in Washington, DC, still includes images of 141 enslavers and 13 Confederates who went to war against the country. A study by the Washington Post found that more than one-third of the statues and portraits in the Capitol building honor enslavers or Confederates and at least six more honor possible enslavers where evidence is disputed. [Read more…] about US, NYS Continues To Honor Slavers, Racists, Traitors and Scoundrels

Filed Under: Arts, Capital-Saratoga, History, New York City Tagged With: Abolition, Albany, Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Macomb, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Black History, Civil War, Daniel Webster, Edward Livingston, Fernando Wood, George Clinton, George Washington, Henry Clay, James Duane, James Madison, James Monroe, John Dickinson, John Tyler, Ku Klux Klan, Manhattan, Martin Van Buren, Morgan Lewis, New York City, Peter Stuyvesant, Political History, Richard Varick, Robert Livingston, Rufus King, Samuel Morse, Slavery, Thomas Jefferson, West Point, William Havemeyer

Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era

January 8, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War EraIn her book No Right to an Honest Living (Basic Books, 2023), Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small: a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive.

Before, during, and after the Civil War, white abolitionists and Republicans refused to secure equal employment opportunity for Black Bostonians, condemning many of them to poverty. [Read more…] about Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era

Filed Under: Books, Events, History Tagged With: Black History, Boston, Civil War, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Historical Society, Political History, Voting Rights

Expanded New Edition Adirondack History Published

January 2, 2023 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Expanded Second Edition of Echoes in These MountainsEchoes in These Mountains was author-historian Glenn Pearsall’s first award-winning book. Published in 2008, it tells the stories behind 55 historic sites in the Adirondack township of Johnsburg, in Warren County, NY.

The book was well received and the original run of 1,500 copies sold out years ago, so Pearsall decided it was time for a second edition. The second edition features additional historic photographs, an index and added new research and analysis, totaling 512 pages. [Read more…] about Expanded New Edition Adirondack History Published

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Books, History Tagged With: Adirondacks, American Revolution, Civil War, French And Indian War, Hudson River, Johnsburg, North Creek, Thirteenth Lake, Warren County

Saratoga County’s Traveling Tombstone

December 8, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Rachel Clothier is historian for the Town of Corinth, operates the Corinth Museum, and is retired from Crandall Public Library in Glens FallsMarble tombstones are usually considered permanent objects in a cemetery. Yet, the stone erected to remember Phillip Rice has been found in several locations before finally being installed at Veteran’s Circle in Corinth Rural Cemetery in Saratoga County, NY.

Phillip Rice, born in Albany in 1822, was the son of Thomas Rice. By 1855 he was married to Martha Stead, a native of England, and living in Corinth. Phillip was a leather worker and was also listed as a shoemaker. At the age of 38 he enlisted in the army in the 30th Infantry Company G that was organized in Saratoga Springs. [Read more…] about Saratoga County’s Traveling Tombstone

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Cemeteries, Civil War, Corinth, Saratoga County

Drapetomania: Medicalizing Escaping Slaves Before The Civil War

November 3, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Dr Samuel Adolphus CartwrightIn 1851, Dr. Samuel Adolphus Cartwright invented “Drapetomania” to describe the “psychological disorder” that caused enslaved people to run away from bondage before the Civil War. He spent enormous energy to research, diagnose, and suggest corrective treatments to mitigate this “deviant” tendency to escape slavery. [Read more…] about Drapetomania: Medicalizing Escaping Slaves Before The Civil War

Filed Under: Events, History Tagged With: Civil War, Massachusetts Historical Society, Medical History, Science History, Slavery

NY’s Frank Myers Of The 54th Massachusetts: Correcting The Historical Record

October 23, 2022 by Ellen Cassidy 1 Comment

FO Myers Milltown Cemetery 10.2022 by E Cassidy In the Milltown Rural Cemetery located in the Town of Southeast, Putnam County, NY, there is a small, well-weathered military headstone that offers a faint hint to a story of courage and glory.

There lies a hero from the Civil War, a Black veteran, who didn’t live long enough for post-war decoration or celebration, and one who has regularly been misreported in history books, until now. [Read more…] about NY’s Frank Myers Of The 54th Massachusetts: Correcting The Historical Record

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Black History, Cemeteries, Civil War, Massachusetts, Military History, Putnam County, Southeast, US Colored Troops

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