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July 23, 1885: America Mourns The Loss Of General Ulysses Grant.
You are there: after surviving years of front-line combat in the Mexican and U.S. Civil War, Ulysses Grant is finally felled by throat cancer, the result of smoking up to 20 cigars a day for most of his adult life. His 1862 victory at Ft. Donelson earns him the sobriquet “Unconditional Surrender Grant,” along with […]
July 11, 1804: Vice-President Aaron Burr Kills Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton In A Duel.
You are there: In the most notorious duel in American history, the sitting Vice-President, Aaron Burr, kills Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton. The bad blood between the two is long-standing. Both men serve nobly under Washington in the Revolutionary War, but the General always seems to favor Hamilton, a source of some early animosity. Burr fails to get […]
The Life of Lincoln Through Original Photographs
Experience the Life of Lincoln through original 19th-century photographs and words from Robert E. Drane. All of the photographs featured are from our collection, click on any of the photos for more information and to view the photo with our photo-viewer. The gallery of the Life of Lincoln Through Original Photographs can be viewed in […]
William Walker, American Filibusterer
The quest by Southerners to expand slavery outside of America’s existing borders is ongoing. It succeeds in 1836 with the founding of the Texas Republic on some 350,000 square miles of Mexican land. Then fails nine years later in Cuba when an invasion attempt backed by Mississippi Senator John Quitman, carried out by the Venezuelan […]
Ward Lamon, Lincoln’s Bodyguard
At 6’4” tall, 260 pounds and armed with brass knuckles, a blackjack and a Bowie knife, the man known as Hill Lamon (pronounced “Lemon””) is every inch a credible bodyguard for Abraham Lincoln. His devotion to the job finds him side by side with the President during the day and, at night, patrolling the grounds […]
June 27, 1844. The Founder Of The Mormon Religion, Joseph Smith, Is Murdered In Carthage, Illinois.
You are there: Joseph Smith’s quest to lead his followers in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to their “New Jerusalem” destination ends suddenly in a flurry of gunshots fired by an angry mob in Carthage, Illionis. Born in 1805, Joseph Smith, Jr., grows up in a family of Christian mystics in […]
June 18, 1815: The Napoleonic Wars End With The French Defeat At Waterloo.
You are there: Nearly twenty years after Napoleon’s France uses its military might to achieve global dominance, its days of glory come to an end in Belgium at the Battle of Waterloo. A Corsican by birth, Napoleon’s meteoric rise in his adopted country begins in 1793, four years after King Louis XVI is guillotined, when […]
June 5, 1851: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin Builds Empathy For The Plight Of The Enslaved In The North.
You are there: After the first installment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published in the weekly abolitionist newspaper The National Era, the public response is so enthusiastic that Harriet Beecher Stowe converts her original short story into a full length novel. Within the next year it becomes the top selling book in the 19th century […]
June 2, 1864: President Lincoln Meets The Reverend Dr. Wilson Of Georgia At The White House And Endorses A Good-Will Mission.
You are there: In accord with the protocol of the day a visitor wishing to see the U.S. President in person can appear at the White House and be ushered in when his name is called. On June 2, 1864, one such guest is the Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson of Augusta, Georgia. Wilson is […]
The Senate “Committee of Thirteen” Try To Save the Union
One month after the election of Abraham Lincoln, political leaders across Washington search frantically for a compromise to his promised ban on slavery in the west which threatens to drive the South out of the Union. In the Senate, where Democrats still control 38 of the 66 seats, Kentucky’s Lazarus Powell calls for a “Committee […]