U.S. President Abraham Lincoln‘s Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day has galvanized much of the Northern population, especially in New York City — with one exception: working class immigrants. In particular, since Lincoln’s 1860 election Irish and German immigrants had been warned by the Democratic party that the Republicans were intent on emancipating African slaves,…
Gettysburg’s outcome ripples outward North and South, impacting the lives of countless soldiers, officers, civilians and politicians. One impacted Union officer is Charles H. Banes (1831-1897), a Baptist businessman from Philadelphia and member of the city’s Second Baptist Church. Banes this month is promoted to the rank of major in the Union Army’s Philadelphia Brigade.…
Today Union troops, having landed the previous day on Morris Island in Charleston harbor, begin a campaign to capture the island’s Fort Wagner (also known as Battery Wagner), a well-guarded Confederate fortress built upon beach sands south of Charleston. Controlling the fort would put a little more pressure on the nearby South Carolina coastal city.…