Nineteenth Century America
1824: A Year in Review
Once I learned this was also a leap year, it took only the briefest trip down the rabbit hole to learn that all the years ending in 24 are leap years. Because, math. Empires expand and contract The First Anglo-Burmese War (known as the First British Invasion in Burmese accounts*) broke out in March, following…
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From the Archives: Rural Free Delivery
Over the last several months, I have been working my way through a stack of “get out the vote” postcards: writing as legibly as possible. (Always a challenge for me.) Now I’m at the deadline and writing a little more quickly and a little less legibly. * Since I am under a bit of…
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The Wreck of the Sultana
On April 23, 1865, only a few weeks after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrender his troops to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, the steamship Sultana docked in Vicksburg. The Sultana was a 260-foot-long wooden steamboat—about two-thirds of the length of a football field and half as wide.* Built…
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