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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Jan 24

#OTD in 1848 gold was found at Sutter’s Mill, California. This spurred the California Gold Rush, as northern Free-Soilers and pro-slavery Southerners both flocked to the new territory acquired through the Mexican-American War. #OnThisDay #OnThisDate #TodayInHistory #GoldRush

The battle over California’s fate as a free or slave state ignited intense debate in Congress, deepening the divide between the free North and the slave South. #California #Slavery #CaliforniaHistory

The prospect of a free California threatened to upset the even balance between free and slave states, something that southern slaveholders were unwilling to accept without certain concessions. The issue was temporarily resolved through the Compromise of 1850.

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Nov 11, 2021

Meet Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, who #OTD was awarded the Medal of Honor for her service during the Civil War. She remains the only woman to be be awarded this honor. She was a suffragist, suspected spy, POW, and surgeon.

nps.gov/people/mary-wa…

#Twitterstorians #OTD #WomensHist

In 1855, she earned her MD from Syracuse Medical College. She and her husband opened their own practice, but it failed. She also refused to "obey" her husband, kept her last name, and wore a short skirt with trousers. They divorced.

#women #rights #feminism #histmed

When the war started, she joined the Union Army. She was refused a commission, so she worked as an"unpaid volunteer surgeon at the U.S. Patent Office Hospital in Washington." She wore men's clothing throughout the war and said it made doing her job easier. (NPS)

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Nov 11, 2021

OTD in 1889, President Harrison declared Washington the 42nd state in the Union. (Image, LOC)

#Twitterstorians #WA #OTD #HistoryFacts #OregonTerritory #LOC #Archives

According to the LOC, "In 1844, presidential candidate James K. Polk urged an aggressive stance with regard to ownership of the land below the 54th parallel. The slogan “Fifty-four Forty or Fight” became a rallying cry of the Polk campaign..."

"... Two years later, the U.S. and Great Britain signed the Oregon Treaty setting the Canadian-American border at the 49th parallel and granting the United States territory that included present-day ID, OR, and WA. In 1848, Congress designated this...the “OR Territory.” (LOC)

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Nov 10, 2021

@librarycongress

The @librarycongress has a fantastic Civil War collection. In it includes three manuscript volumes that document daily life in Washington, D.C., by U.S. Patent Office examiner Horatio Nelson Taft (1806-1888).

@librarycongress

There are 1240 digitized pages of this collection, and they're amazing to scroll through! Be patient- the images force you to brush up on your paleography skills! (Thank you to @librarycongress staff for transcribing them!)

The documents include a"report of President Lincoln's assassination based on accounts Taft received from friends and particularly his son, Charles Sabin Taft, a US Army surgeon who was in Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot." (LOC)

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

May 31, 2021

#MemorialDay2021 Let's talk about the origins of Decoration Day. In Race and Reunion, historian David Blight highlights the first Memorial Day. Founded by Black Americans, Decoration Day was held May 1, 1865 at a racetrack/ war prison where freedmen reburied Union soldiers.

They then held a ceremony to honor the 257 fallen soldiers (on this site in South Carolina) called "Martyrs of the Race Course." In the days prior, Black men built an enclosure around the burial ground & created a cemetery of neat rows to honor the US.

On the Morning of May 1, thousands of Black school children from the freedman schools marched along with roses for the fallen while singing "John Brown's Body."

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