NewsInHistory Blog

Patriotic fervor was high in both the North and South when the Civil War began, as reflected in many of the letters both soldiers and civilians wrote at the beginning of the war. Two weeks after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter began the hostilities, young men on both sides were volunteering to fight, and their communities and families were doing all they could to support them. The following letter, written on April 28, 1861, is from Greensburg, the seat of St. Helena Parish in Louisiana. read more...

Despite their determined resistance, the Confederate defenders in Forts Jackson and St. Philip on the Mississippi River could only take so much. The 1,100 men in the two forts knew that they and their combined 126 heavy guns were basically all that stood between the Union war fleet below them and the city of New Orleans, since that important city—the South’s largest—was only guarded by a small militia force, its regular troops having been sent north to fight in the Battle of Shiloh. read more...

The Great Lakes were a strategically important battleground during the War of 1812. Effectively using a small fleet of warships, the British seized control of Lakes Ontario and Erie in the war’s opening year, thereby gaining the upper hand on their American adversaries. With the ability to concentrate their forces and quickly move men and supplies around the lakes, the British won several key battles during 1812. read more...

The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, a 26-year-old actor and fervent Southern sympathizer, shocked and saddened the North. This same reaction was felt by many in the South as well—no American president had ever been assassinated before (although an attempt was made on the life of Andrew Jackson in 1835). Just five days prior to Lincoln’s assassination, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, and it was apparent the nation’s bloody four-year nightmare, the Civil War, was at last coming to an end. read more...

It is dank and cramped. It is antiquated. It is, above all else, a baseball shrine, venerated by generations of Cubs fans, nestled in Chicago’s Lakeview residential neighborhood. At 98 years of age, Wrigley Field is the oldest ballpark in the National League, second only to the American League’s two-years-older Fenway Park, and the only ballpark left over from the old Federal League. read more...

During the violent aftermath of the Civil War known as Reconstruction, a horrible massacre occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, when white supremacists in Colfax, Louisiana, killed anywhere from 100 to 200 freedmen and black state militiamen who had barricaded themselves in the local courthouse. The exact number of fatalities will never be known, as many bodies were secretly buried or dumped into the Red River. This ugly incident was a microcosm of the political battles raging throughout the South. read more...

Early 1861 was a confusing time in the United States. In February seven seceding states formed the Confederate States of America and seized federal forts and other property. By April rumors were sweeping the country about what Lincoln’s policy was going to be, whether an attack upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor was imminent, and fears that civil war was about to begin. Right at this time a surprisingly negative editorial was published in a Northern newspaper, declaring “We do not see any hope.” read more...

President Thomas Woodrow Wilson won reelection in 1916 pledging to keep America out of World War I, which had been raging since 1914. However, Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917, and the publication of the “Zimmerman telegram” revealing a German plot to have Mexico and Japan declare war on the U.S., changed America’s position. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson delivered a powerful speech asking Congress to declare that a state of war existed with Germany, a request Congress—and the general public—embraced. read more...