Saturday, October 8, 2011
The Mortar Boats
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Ordnance
Sunday, August 21, 2011
WASHINGTON, March 12 [1862].
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
XXXVIIth Congress – First Session
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Explosion
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
A Mere Trifle
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The "Union" Gun For The Monitor
Monday, July 12, 2010
Washington News
The Ordnance Officer has issued proposals for manufacturing, within one year, Springfield rifled muskets and Harper’s Ferry rifles, together with carbines, revolvers, sabres, swords, scabbards, &c., sufficient for the use of the army.
The Department reserves to itself the right to reject any bid and to consider none made thro’ any agent, broker or party, other than the regular manufactures.
Several days ago the House passed a resolution directing the Secretary of War to communicate all the facts and circumstances within his knowledge, relative to the late evacuation by our troops, of Jacksonville, Florida.
The Secretary replies that he conceives it to be the province of the President to furnish information concerning military operations, but that the President has directed him to say that the evacuation was for reasons not deemed compatible with the public interest to disclose.
Prof. Bache of the Coast Survey, reports that next to Port Royal, St. Helena Sound is the [best] harbor on the Southern Coast. Two channels of 15 feet each at mean low water enter, and from the Sound the Country may be penetrated by gunboats nearly to the railroad. The width of the sound renders all its shores healthy, as all are freely reached by the sea breezes, and the other sea island especially is will situated for settlement and commercial town. If ever other interests than planting ones rule in this region, he looks to see its commercial advantage made use of, and the lumber from the heads of the Ashpoo and Cambahee finds a market nearer these great rivers than either Savannah or Charleston.
Wm. Ryan Hall has been appointed acting volunteer lieutenant in Com. Foote’s flotilla.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 3, 1862, p. 4
Saturday, April 10, 2010
From Washington
Monday, August 10, 2009
OFFICIAL
LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES
Passed at the Second Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress
{Public Resolution – No. 25}
Joint Resolution declaring that the United States ought to co-operate with, affording pecuniary aid to any State which may adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery.
Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States ought to co-operate with any state which may adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in is discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.
Approved, April 10, 1862
{Public Resolution – No. 26}
Joint Resolution authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to test plans and materials for rendering ships and floating batteries invulnerable.
Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Navy be and hereby is authorize to expend, out of any money in the Treasure not otherwise appropriated, a sum not to exceed twenty five thousand dollars, for the purpose of testing plans and materials for rendering ships or floating batteries invulnerable.
Approved, April 10, 1862
– Published in the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Thursday, April 17, 1862
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Washington Correspondence
WASHINGTON, April 15, 1862.
Was the battle at Pittsburgh a victory, or was it not a victory? Did the secretary of War “put his foot in it,” in making it the subject of devout thanksgiving, or did he not? These are about the commonest questions agitated here just now. I think the general judgment is very clearly – certainly it is mine – that it was a victory, but not one to brag about, very much; and that Secretary Stanton was a little more hasty and inconsiderate than the occasion justified, in the extent and character of his thanks.
Mrs. Harlan and Mrs. Fales from Iowa, left here a few days ago for Pittsburg, to assist in the nursing of our wounded soldiers. Mrs. Harlan is the wife of our estimable Senator, and has all the season manifested a practical interest in the welfare of our soldiers. Of Mrs. Fales I desire to speak especially, for she is deserving of public notice. She is the wife of Mr. Joseph T. Fales, and was formerly a resident of Burlington. Her husband is an Assistant Examiner in the Patent Office. From the first arrival of troops here, she has devoted her attention exclusively to alleviating the sufferings of the sick and wounded. Day and night she has been wherever her services were most needed, and I have been greatly surprised that she or any other woman was physically able to endure such incessant and exhausting labor. Nevertheless she goes about her business with a daily renewed vigor, not with any desire for notoriety, but under a sense of plain Christian duty. And she brings to the discharge of her duties and unusual fund of practical good sense and efficiency.
Our friend Samuel F. Miller, of Iowa, has just left here. If a new circuit is created west of the Mississippi, he will be a candidate for nomination to the Supreme Bench of the United States. I think you will agree with me that there are few men who, in all respects, are better fitted for the position, and certainly to men of our ways of thinking few would be more satisfactory. I would be very glad to swap off for him any member now sitting on that Bench.
The speech of Senator Grimes on the connection of negroes with the army, yesterday, meets with much applause from all those who have a realizing sense of the condition and tendency of things. It goes to the root of the matter, and many of those to whom his ideas are distasteful think – “fear,” they say – that “to this complexion must we come at last.” The delay in traveling towards the goal to which we are traveling and must travel, is costing us an amount of debt and blood that, in the retrospect, will cause us to shudder, and to ask why we should have been so blind, so reluctant, and so cowardly.
The next encounter with the Merrimac is awaited with the liveliest interest here, and I am persuaded is also a matter of much fear at the Navy Department, notwithstanding the bold face that is assumed. Several new kinds of shot have been provided for the Monitor, among them shells with a liquid that takes fire on explosion, similar to, or the same as, those that have been experimentally exploded there during the winter. Of their frightful nature, I have been witness. Water has no effect in quenching their flames.
The Com. Levy, of the Navy, who was buried with such honors in New York, two or three weeks ago, was a Jew, and the possessor of the homestead of Thomas Jefferson, “Monticello.” He was very rich. He has not, however, been allowed to enjoy the estate of Mr. Jefferson, as having married his own niece, the gentlemen of the region notified him, on its purchase, that he could not be allowed to live among them, on account of this marital alliance, at which they expressed an exceeding disgust. They gave him the privilege of residing on it one month in the year, merely that he might be able to look after its condition. A short time since it was “confiscated” by Virginia, though the Union army are likely soon to bring it back for the benefit of his heirs.
It would seem strange, that people, and a daily paper, right here in this city, should, as they do, vehemently maintain, even yet, that there were no wooden guns at Centerville, and try to bring those into contempt and ridicule who maintain the fact. And strange, too, that such a journal as Harper’s Weekly, that must know the facts should persistently lampoon and caricature, in the must imprudent and malignant manner people of character for asserting and insisting on the veracity of the statement. There are hundreds here who saw those guns. Mr. Julian, of the War Committee, told me he saw them himself, and should have counted them if he ever supposed their existence would have been questioned. Mr. Elbert, from Iowa, just appointed Secretary of Colorado, was there early with his brother, who is an officer in the army, and tells me the same thing; and that it was apparent that they had long been there, - in fact no other guns could stand upon their foundations without breaking through. Surely the partisanship of McClellan must be very blind and bitter to need the denial of such indisputable facts. Still, perhaps I am myself quite as unreasonable in the other extreme, for it is my deliberate and unimpassioned opinion that the war has not disclosed and cannot disclose such another stupendous humbug as Gen. McClellan. I greatly fear an unfortunate result in the limited (though immensely important) field to which his department has finally been reduced, though the extent and character of his force together with the completeness of its equipment give me a moderate degree of assurance that the campaign cannot fail.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862, p. 1
Friday, July 31, 2009
Another Monster Cannon Cast
– Published in The Appleton Crescent, Appleton, Wisconsin, Saturday, April 26, 1862
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
News Summary
The rumor comes through rebel sources that the gunboat Queen of the West, which ran the rebel blockade at Vicksburg, on the 3d inst., has been captured while attacking Fort Hudson, a few miles below that city up the Red River.
It is rumored that the government intend suppressing the circulation of all political papers among the soldiers and that it has already been done on the Potomac, a sensible movement.
A Washington dispatch announces the arrival there of a large number of civilian prisoners from Camp Chase, Ohio, to be exchanged and sent south.
The discovery of precious metal in Nevada warrant the belief that it will in a few years surpass California.
It is said that $23,000,000 have been stolen in the quartermaster’s department in the last few months.
Thurlow Weed, the great whig leader of Albany, N.Y., and now a conservative Republican, has been to Washington at the instance of the President, he has been in consulting with him the offshot of which is being watched for with no little anxiety.
Maj. Gen. Cassius M. Clay it is said is about to return to Russia.
Montana is the name of a new Territory which is about being organized by Act of Congress in the unorganized part of old Oregon.
The new Stafford projectile is making extraordinary havoc with iron-clad targets. Previous experiments with these projectiles prove conclusively that targets of 9 inch iron plates, back by 21 inches of hard wood can be readily penetrated. Its peculiarities of construction are kept a secret.
The spirits have predicted in Andrew Jackson Davis’ paper that France will be soon fighting for the Confederacy and England for the United States. Mr. Davis has weekly war despatches [sic] by spiritual telegraph.
The London correspondent of the Chicago Journal (probably its polite editor Charles Wilson who is sec’y of legation) says, that the ladies must be prepared to hear before many months of the abolishment of one of their daring institution – Crinoline –.
MARRYING BY TELEGRAPH. – The Syracuse Journal as the announcement of the marriage of C. S. Gardiner a soldier stationed at Washington to a Miss Palmenter of N. Volna N. Y. by telegraph, Rev. W. H. Carr officiated as the clergyman. The parents of the bride objected and this mode was planed to cheat the old folks.
The cultivation of sugar beets as well as sorghum, is attracting attention at the West and the prospect is that large amounts of beet sugar will soon be made.
– Published in the Stark County News, Toulon, Illinois, Thursday, February 26, 1863
A Rifled Shot
– Published in the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Friday, April 18, 1862 & the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Saturday April 19, 1862