Episodes Nearest to November 7, 1860: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. New York Abolitionism Leads To Southern Profit
    date November 6, 1860 to November 7, 1860map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags African-Americans, Economy, Government, Politics

    Abolitionism led to the failure of many lucrative Northern businesses. This was the assumption made by one advertisement of the Red Flag Store, whose proprietor had recently purchased quality Ready-Made Clothing from Pumperle, Geven & Co. following their bankruptcy. The store, like many others, had been shut down and its workers made unemployed. These stores had attracted business mainly from Southern...

  2. Judge Magrath Tears His Robes
    date November 7, 1860map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Law, Politics

    A Charleston resident flipping through the Charleston News and Courier on November 7, 1860, to find the results of the presidential election the day before had to give more than a cursory glance to find what he was looking for. On a side column on the first page, stuck right in the middle of the results of several other individual states, the News and Courier mentioned, almost...

  3. A Last Appeal in the Election of 1860
    date November 6, 1860map WAKE, North Carolinatags Government, Law, Politics, War

    It was the final opportunity to influence voters before the 1860 presidential election. The Raleigh Register printed A Last Appeal for its readers to cast their votes for John Bell and Edward Everett in its final edition before the election. Bell, whose motto the paper printed as the Constitution must be maintained, the Union must be preserved, and the Laws must be enforced in all...

  4. The Creation of the Savannah-Charleston Railroad
    date November 1, 1860map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Economy, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    One of the largest cities in the South, and conveniently located as a port city, Charleston in the 1850s was in a prime position to compete with Atlanta and New Orleans as the center for commerce in the South. And on November 1, 1860, Charleston celebrated a huge commercial step forward with the completion of the Savannah-Charleston railroad. The Charleston News and Courier commemorated the event...

  5. The Antebellum South: Up in Arms?
    date November 23, 1860map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Crime/Violence, Economy, War

    The South was up in arms. On November 23, 1860, the Richmond Daily Dispatch reported an account from the New York Journal of Commerce about the manufacturing and selling of "Arms to the South." Before directly quoting the New York Journal of Commerce, the Richmond editor mentioned that the makers and sellers of arms were perhaps the only ones "gathering any advantage from the present crisis."...

  6. Presbyterian Call for Secession Based on Slavery
    date November 29, 1860 to December 4, 1860map OUACHITA, Louisianatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Politics, Race-Relations, Slavery, War

    Writing from Ouachita, Louisiana on December 4, 1860, Sarah Lois Wadley, caught up in the sentiments of secession and northern oppression, describes a famous sermon delivered in New Orleans on November 29, 1860, which her father showed to her in writing. Delivered by Benjamin Morgan Palmer of the First Presbyterian Church, this sermon advocated southern secession in defense of its providential trust...

  7. An 1860 Presidential Debate Comes to Blows
    date October 13, 1860map WYTHE, Virginiatags Crime/Violence, Government, Politics

    Less than a year before the Civil War spread destruction throughout the state of Virginia, a heated exchange between two Democrats indicated the sharp divide that split the party. In the election of 1860, the Democratic vote was split between three candidates, John Bell, Stephen Douglas, and John Breckinridge. During a formal debate between Gen. George Blow, a Douglas Democrat, L.H. Chandler, a...

  8. Commissioner Adams' Dispatch
    date December 5, 1860map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Government, Politics, War

    Guard your harbor well-Hasten your preparations for war. James Hopkins Adams was certainly aware of the tumult he caused with that short declaration. A former governor of South Carolina from 1854 to 1856, Adams was, in December 1860, serving as a commissioner to the committee discussing the possibility of secession and civil war in South Carolina. His remarks caused Charleston resident Emma Holmes,...

  9. The Survival of Innocent Slaves on Ship Erie
    date October 4, 1860map JEFFERSON, New Yorktags Slave Trade, Slavery

    The capture of the slave ship Erie was a very jubilant moment for Mr. Seys, the United States agent for recaptured Africans. "It did my heart good," he said, "to hear the shout of exultation and the expressions of delight visible on every countenance." The ship was residence to 897 slaves. From the foul odor of feces to the rapid spread of unknown diseases, this ship was in no...

  10. Frederick County Meeting
    date December 14, 1860map FREDERICK, Virginiatags Government, Law, Politics, Slavery, War

    On December 14, 1860, just six days before South Carolina seceded from the United States of America, men in Frederick County, Virginia met to discuss the possible results of secession and how to go about preventing it. Mr. Conrad delivered a speech on the subject to the meeting in which he discussed the ills inflicted on the southern states by the North such as disregard for run away slave laws...

  11. The Love and Marriage of Isaetta Carter Randolph and James L. Hubard
    date August 8, 1860 to November 15, 1860map BUCKINGHAM, Virginiatags African-Americans, Health/Death, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Between August 8, 1860 and October 4, 1860, Isaetta Carter Randolph and James L. Hubard wrote approximately twenty letters to each other on topics ranging from the health of their respective families to the passion they shared for each other. Randolph lived in Buckingham County, Virginia and made occasional visits to White Sulphur Springs (now a city in West Virginia) while Hubard, who was originally...

  12. Crittenden Attempts to Stave off Secession
    date December 18, 1860map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Slavery, Migration/Transportation, Law

    Prior to the Secession of the Confederate States, many people in the United States wanted a compromise in order to prevent secession and the Civil War that would follow. James McPherson noted that in order for the Senate to filter through the proposed compromises they formed the...

  13. Secession
    date December 20, 1860map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Government, Politics, War

    On December 17, 1860, a convention formed in the South Carolinian capital of Columbia to debate and confront the single most important decision facing the state since voting on independence from Great Britain over 80 years earlier. As fate would have it, the city of Charleston would be the one to hear the verdict on secession first. We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled,...

  14. Finding Fashion
    date September 24, 1860map HARDY, Virginiatags Arts/Leisure, Economy, Women

    Fashion in the years following the Civil War was very different from years prior. More cotton and more efficient technology meant larger production and more variety for shoppers. Clothes were expressive and a status show to the public. The expansion of the railroads also made more in style clothing more readily accessible to people from all areas of the nation. While style began to spread across...

  15. Federal Troops Take Refuge In Fort Sumter
    date December 26, 1860map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Government, Politics, War

    At noon on December 26, 1860, two cannon shots sounded throughout Charleston Harbor. Six days earlier, the state of South Carolina seceded from the Union. The gun shots were a pre-arranged signal for the federal troops stationed in Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island, located a few miles from Charleston. Under the command of Major Robert Anderson, the troops heard the signal and began to...

  16. David Watson Prepares for Battle
    date December, 1860 to January, 1861map LOUISA, Virginiatags Economy, Government, War

    From December, 1860 to January, 1861 David Watson of Louisa County, Virginia wrote a series of letters back home to his mother. Watson enlisted in the Virginia militia and was writing from several locations, including Charleston, South Carolina at Fort Sumter. Built after the War of 1812 as one of a series of fortifications linking the southeastern coast, Fort Sumter fell on April 13, 1861 to Confederate...

  17. Reverend Wadsworth Challenges His Southern Congregation
    date January 4, 1861map PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvaniatags Church/Religious-Activity

    Early in 1861 citizens of the Arch Street Church examined their lifestyles and made sure that they were in line with God. Reverend Wadsworth gave a sermon to his southern congregation based around the idea of how the 'American' people had come to a point where they needed help from Him to get their lives back to the way that God had intended them to live.

    He talked of how the whole...

  18. The Revolution of the Immigrant Vote
    date January 8, 1861 to January 9, 1861map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags Government, Politics, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations

    Political propaganda was not unique to the nineteenth-century South. The Staunton Spectator published an article, in its paper for January 8, 1861, which depicted a French man who, ave loss ma vote The article was published in a broken English-French hybrid language, intended to show that he was indeed a foreigner. The immigrant explained how he had work ver hard tree four months for Messer...

  19. Alabama secedes from the Union and joins the Confederacy
    date January 11, 1861map MONTGOMERY, Alabamatags Slavery, War

    The Alabama Convention convened in Montgomery as delegates arrived to vote on secession. After long debates and delays, the convention voted 61 to 39 in favor of secession. White Alabamans felt threatened by the North and the Republican Party. Alabama was a strong slave state who would suffer great economic loss if the institution of slavery were revoked. “The monetary loss of slave property...

  20. The Beginning of the End
    date February 15, 1861map BALTIMORE CITY, Marylandtags Politics

    The inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the beginning of a new presidential term and a new era, would be the end of the old Union. According to historian William Freehling, "none of Lincoln's 26,375 southern votes came from the Lower South and only 1887 from the Middle South (all in extreme northwestern Virginia)." Lincoln kept quiet between the time of his election and the delivery of his inaugural...

  21. Military troops in San Antonio surrender Federal property
    date February 16, 1861map BEXAR, Texastags War

    Early in the year rumors and tensions about secession began to spread throughout the nation, but were mainly focused in the South. As one New York Times reporter stated, “There are rumors that a body of men are moving on San Antonio to take the arsenal there. Gen. Twiggs has called in the troops to protect it.' (The New York Times, January 31, 1861, p. 1) General Twiggs promptly moved...

  22. Thaddeus Hyatt Appeals to President Buchanan to Address the Kansas Territory’s Drought
    date February 4, 1860 to January 14, 1861map DONIPHAN, Kansas, ALLEN, Kansas, BRECKENRIDGE, Kansas, GREENWOOD, Kansas, CHASE, Kansastags Thaddeus Hyatt, Kansas Territory, James Buchanan, Drought, Famine, Agriculture, Civil War

    Discussion of the Kansas Territory before the Civil War often turns directly to the time period known as “Bleeding Kansas,” which generally refers to the year of 1856 or to its part in the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. These events, however, were not what the citizens of the Kansas Territory were concerned with immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1860, with the rest of the country...

  23. How Shall They Be Remembered?
    date February 20, 1861 to February 25, 1861map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Veterans, American Revolution, Civil War, Abraham Lincoln

    During the years of his term in office, President Lincoln read two letters that were to remind him of how our nation was forged.  Abraham Lincoln, like most other presidents, received letters giving him praise and thanks for all the work he had done.  Abraham Lincoln also received mail detailing news from the battle front and giving support from the home front.  Two of those letters focused more...

  24. Encouraging the Troops
    date March 1, 1861map WAKE, North Carolinatags Arts/Leisure, War

    Support and encouragement of the Confederate troops in the Civil War took many different forms, including letters in newspapers, poetry, and songs. At the beginning of the war, it was important to build up the troops for their initial engagements with the Union Army, expressed by supporters as the need to wake from a dream-like state. In the song North Carolina: A Call to Arms, the author...

  25. The Virginia (Secession) Convention of 1861
    date January 12, 1861 to April, 1861map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags Government, Politics, Slavery

    The large body of men from Albemarle County quickly came to a unanimous decision about who they would nominate to hold their county's seat at the Virginia Convention of 1861. They truly believed that the questions so long pending between the North and the South must be settled. They chose to nominate William C. Rives and V.W Southall to represent Albemarle County at the state convention. Rives...