28 DECEMBER 2020 THE PURGE In the first decades of the 21st century, a series of untoward events involving minority citizens led to the assertion that racism is systemic in American society. With the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Read More
21 DECEMBER 1863 BLOCKADE RUNNING The effect of Lincoln’s naval blockade of the Confederacy was starting to tell by the end of 1861, as cotton and tobacco began piling up on southern wharves. Unable to move their major exports, the agrarian Read More
16-18 OCTOBER 1859 JOHN BROWN’S RAID From the 1830s, the American public became increasingly polarized over the issue of slavery. Violence erupted for the first time in Alton, Illinois, in November 1837, when an angry mob raided the home of Elijah Read More
26 AUGUST 1863 INTERCEPTING THE MEGA-GUNS When South Carolinians fired on Fort Sumter to start the Civil War, all but one of the foundries in the United States were in the North. Only the Tredeger Iron Works in Richmond could bore Read More
21 AUGUST 1858 USS DOLPHIN vs. ECHO Despite human slavery being a way of life in the antebellum American south, official US policy forbade trafficking in slaves as early as 1807. On 3 March 1819 Congress granted President James Monroe the Read More
14 AUGUST 1870 THE PASSING OF FARRAGUT It is hard to overstate the reverence our Navy holds for David Glasgow Farragut. He entered our Navy at age 9 through the influence of his adoptive father, CAPT David Porter, in 1810. He Read More
5 MAY 1863 QUEEN’S CREEK RAID Evasion by a Confederate blockade runner was no small embarrassment to the Union ships whose job it was to isolate the South. And when a small cutter was observed running goods up the Piankatank River Read More
11 APRIL 1862 THE PLOT TO CAPTURE MONITOR The historic battle of Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862 between CSS VIRGINIA (the ex-USS MERRIMACK) and USS MONITOR ended in a draw. Plate iron had proven its value. In fact, MONITOR had Read More
28 FEBRUARY 1849 THE FIRST FORTY-NINERS In the frosty chill of the morning of 24 January 1848, a millwright named James T. Marshall walked the length of a newly dug millrace off the American River in the foothills of California’s Sierra Read More