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Nov 17

Prominent Black physician and abolitionist James McCune Smith passed away #OTD in 1865. Smith, who penned the introduction of Frederick Douglass' second autobiography My Bondage My Freedom (1855), was the first Black person to receive a medical degree in the United States.

Smith was born enslaved in 1813 in Manhattan and received a formal education as a child under New York's gradual emancipation laws. He was free at the age of 14 on July 4, 1827. He graduated from African Free School in NYC and enrolled at the University of Glasgow.

@SmithsonianMag

He received his medical degree in Glasgow in 1837 and moved back to New York to establish a medical practice. According to Bryan Greene of @SmithsonianMag, Smith also opened the first Black-owned pharmacy in the United States.

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Sep 20

This photograph of Silas Chandler (right) and Andrew Chandler (left) has been used by Neo-Confederate groups to perpetuate the Black Confederate myth for decades. The following is a 🧵 about who Silas Chandler was and the truth behind this image.

Silas Chandler was born on January 1, 1837, in Virginia and was enslaved by Roy Chandler. When Roy Chandler received a land grant in Mississippi in 1839 he moved Silas and 38 other enslaved people to a new plantation in Palo Alto, near the town of West Point.

Silas was trained as a carpenter and married an enslaved woman named Lucy Gardner in 1860. He was then forced leave Lucy to join Roy Chandler's son, Andrew, after he enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861. The photograph is believed to have been taken around that time.

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Sep 19

#OTD in 1868, approx. 300 (mostly) Black Republicans embarked on a 25 mile march from Albany, Georgia, to the town of Camilla. They were protesting the expulsion of 33 Black state congressmen (known as the Original 33). Armed white Democrats were waiting for them in Camilla.

The white mob was incensed by Georgia's new state constitution that was ratified in April of 1868. The new constitution granted Black men the right to vote and hold political office.

Many of the marchers were armed as well. When they reached Camilla the local sheriff, Mumford S. Poore, ordered them to put down their guns or face the wrath of the white mob. The marchers refused to back down and continued to the courthouse lawn to hold a political rally.

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Aug 26

#OTD in 1861, Hawaiian King Kamehameha IV declared neutrality after the outbreak of the Civil War. Allying with the United States would have provoked Confederate raids while recognizing the Confederacy would have seriously damaged international relations with the U.S.

King Kamehameha IV died on November 30, 1863, and was succeeded by Kamehameha V Lot Kapuāiwa. He wanted to keep favorable trade deals with the United States and worked diplomatically with the Lincoln administration to negotiate a new treaty of neutrality.

The Hawaiian public skewed toward the United States. Hawaii already abolished slavery in the Constitution of 1852. Many Hawaiian-born Americans (most of whom were the sons of American missionaries) supported the United States over the Confederacy.

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Aug 25

Allan Pinkerton was born #OTD in 1819 in Glasgow, Scotland. He headed the Union Intelligence Service during the Civil War and helped lay the foundation for the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and CIA. He also founded the famed Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which still exists.

Pinkerton emigrated to United States 1842 and founded a cooperage in Dundee, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. He became an abolitionist and operated a safe house for fugitive enslaved people on the Underground Railroad.

Pinkerton was appointed as the first Chicago police detective in 1849 after uncovering a counterfeit scheme. He founded what would become the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850. The Pinkerton Agency specialized in investigating train robberies.

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TheCivilWarDoc

@TheCivilWarDoc1

Aug 24

#OTD in 1862 a #UnitedStates #soldier named John P. Jones wrote his wife while he was deployed in Medon, #Tennessee. Jone's identity has yet to be verified, but he possibly served in the 45th #Illinois. Jones' letter reveals his changing attitudes towards #slavery.

"I am getting to be more and more of an abolitionist. I believe that this accursed institution must go down," he wrote. Jones also realized that he was fighting to destroy slavery. He continued, "We can never have a permanent peace as long..."

"...as this curse stains our otherwise fair insignia. The ruler of nations can never prosper these United States until it blots slavery from existence. He can no longer wink at such atrocities. This must be the grand the final issue."

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