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1860s

DC
The Flight and Flop of Washington's Rival Civil War Balloonists

The Flight and Flop of Washington's Rival Civil War Balloonists

10/28/2022 in DC by Emma Tanner

Military leadership, including President Lincoln, saw the potential of military balloons, and the public believed they would change the landscape of the Civil War, aiding the Union’s eventual success. Only two years later though, what would be known as the “Balloon Corps” would be dissolved. So, what ended the use of this promising and successful aerial endeavor?

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DC
Man Missing: Scarlet Crow's Fateful Visit to Washington, D.C.

Man Missing: Scarlet Crow's Fateful Visit to Washington, D.C.

10/14/2021 in DC by Holly McDonald

On the night of February 24, 1867 in the nation’s capital, Scarlet Crow, a visiting Sioux chief, mysteriously disappeared. No one knows for sure what happened. Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate oral history proposed that he was kidnapped, while the Evening Star newspaper put forth that he had simply wandered and gotten lost. What is indisputable, however, is that after that night, Scarlet Crow was never seen alive again. 

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DC
The U.S. Capitol's Civil War Residents

The U.S. Capitol's Civil War Residents

04/12/2021 in DC by Arielle Gordon

During the Civil War, the U.S. Capitol served stints as a military barracks, a bakery, and a hospital for wounded soldiers, all while the building was under construction. After the war, the bakery was dismantled and the soldiers left — well, all but one …

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DC
The Witnesses

The Witnesses

11/23/2020 in DC by Charlotte Muth

What do a five-year-old boy, a woman working at a train station and an African American newspaperman have in common? Samuel J. Seymour, Sarah V. E. White and Samuel H. Hatton were little-known Washingtonian witnesses to some of the most influential murders in history: those of U.S. Presidents.

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DC
When the Secret Service Was Only Interested in Money

When the Secret Service Was Only Interested in Money

10/09/2020 in DC by Charlotte Muth

In the mid nineteenth-century, one-third (or more!) of all U.S. currency was counterfeit.  The banking system was broken and every private bank issued unique paper bills.  By the 1860s, the government had to take action: currency became nationally standardized and the Secret Service was born. 

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DC
A General, a Queen, and the President

A General, a Queen, and the President

05/29/2020 in DC by Emily Robinson

February of 1863 saw one of the most anticipated celebrity weddings of its time—after all, what better to provide a momentary distraction from the realities of the Civil War than a little star gossip? The bride and groom were General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton) and the Queen of Beauty Lavinia Warren, of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum (which would later become Barnum’s Circus) in New York City. At 12:30 p.m. on February 10, 1863 in Manhattan’s Grace Episcopal Church, Tom and Lavinia wed in the presence of an enormous crowd, which spilled out onto Broadway and for many more miles into the City, thanks to Barnum’s extensive publicizing of the event. People across America were fascinated by Barnum’s Tom Thumb and the President of the United States was no exception. The Lincolns were so enthralled by Barnum’s acts that they invited the newlywed Strattons to the White House for a wedding reception just a few days later.

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DC
Fowl Play in Washington: the City’s History of Chicken Thievery

Fowl Play in Washington: the City’s History of Chicken Thievery

05/15/2020 in DC by Karis Lee

Washington has seen its fair share of crimes: mafia operations, drug networks, triple murder… But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one of the city’s most pervasive crimes was one we today might find difficult to imagine: chicken thievery. In today’s urban landscape, the phenomenon may seem difficult to imagine; but 150 years ago chicken robbery was widespread -- and serious business. The practice was dangerous and, at times, even fatal.

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DC
A Tale of Two Photographers: Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner

A Tale of Two Photographers: Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner

04/17/2020 in DC by Katherine Brodt

If you lived in nineteenth-century D.C. and wanted your picture taken, you couldn’t just whip out your own camera — you’d visit Pennsylvania Avenue NW, known locally as “photographer’s row.” This stretch of the avenue, between the White House and the nearly-finished Capitol building, was home to a cluster of photography studios and galleries. Between 1858 and 1881, the most fashionable and famous was Brady’s National Photographic Art Gallery. It was run by Mathew Brady and his manager, Alexander Gardner, whose partnership endured its own civil war. 

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DC
The Deal Done in the Dark

The Deal Done in the Dark

06/18/2019 in DC by Reagan Graney

In 1866, State Department employees were forced out of their old offices in the Northeast Executive Building because an extension to the Treasury Department was being constructed on that site. As a result, they moved into the Washington City Orphan Asylum, a small and unassuming brick building on the corner of 14th and S streets NW. Though the move was less than ideal, the walls of the new State Department would soon see major historical and diplomatic events unfold. One sleepless night in particular occurred on March 30, 1867: when Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the Alaska purchase.

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Virginia
How Les Misérables Became Lee's Miserables

How Les Misérables Became Lee's Miserables

05/13/2019 in Virginia by Mark Jones

When Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables was published in the spring of 1862, it took the world by storm. Within weeks, American audiences began devouring a five-volume translation by renowned classicist Charles E. Wilbour. As the Civil War raged, soldiers on both sides of the lines gobbled up copies and carried them into battle. But here's the thing: Confederate soldiers weren't actually reading the same book as their Northern adversaries, and that was by design.

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Boundary Stones explores local history in Washington, D.C., suburban Maryland and northern Virginia. This project is a service of WETA and is supported by contributions from readers like you.

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