Getting on with my life and thinking about things.
List of online newspaper archives. I found this list by accident when trying to find out about the NY Times archive project.
Saturday, 22nd November 1862. "The New South" newspaper from Port Royal, South Carolina. Kindly hosted by the University of South Carolina. link
I thought it strange that a South Carolina paper seemed to be focused on the Northern news. A quick search finds that although the state was the first to secede from the Union in 1861, Port Royal was captured by the USA in November 1861 (link). Completing my circular search, Captain Cannon of the steamer Delaware also received a mention earlier in 1862 in the NY Times (pdflink).
The closing lines of the soldier's poem on page 1 hold true today as back then. They strike me hard when I think of our squaddies getting abuse for REMF politics. No doubt it has been true since dawn's early light. At the Roman Wall, a squaddy asked for socks to be sent. Empathy across the ages. History is important. Social networking isn't limited to the living, but to the lessons from the dead too.
I'm off to catch up with over 150-years of newspapers from around the world.
7 comments:
I note from Osprey Military men at arms series (at good bookshops) that the Roman army, at the other extreme from socks, wore hoodies in Scotland. I know Hadrian is big courtesy of the British Museum at al but the Antonine Wall is getting press and now I am promoting the Roman Gask Line which is even closer to Aberdeen
There was a 3-for-2 offer on Ospreys in Waterstones last week. Good series. "Metric" Kate who posts at OM wrote one, and Angus Konstam and Stuart Reid, whom I met in my old re-enactment days have writ some too.
Useful sources when painting figures.
There's a couple of tv progs on about Hadrian and his wall. I'll only have a few minutes in London, so won't have time. I wonder if it will tour this far north?
The Gask Line?
Well, there's only one newspaper from my state in the archives and it isn't all that old. Still would be fun to browse some of the newspapers like the Boston Globe though.
The "all quiet on the western front" nature of this will come to an end in about two weeks, when the incompetent Burnside will order frontal assaults on Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg, along with Cold Harbor one of the great wasteful Northern disasters of the Civil War.
Burnside - so bad they named a bridge after him at Sharpsburg. Though I think "Young Napoleon" wins it for having a copy of, and not believing in, Lee's battle plans.
Marye's Heights - I have clouded memories of another stone wall with lots of CSA troops behind, but I'm probably wrong.
Bloody times. I'm starting to see the tendrils of military technology reaching out from there to the Great War.
If we don't learn from history...
LOL, Kristine, I fear that "browsing" will involve much missing time, new research projects and much new knowledge gained.
Paul means the Gask Ridge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gask_Ridge
They had a fort at Stracathro - my favourite service station - the last original 'greasy spoon' in scotland. (Aye, the truckers, nae the Romans, I dinna think!)
I love the 'send more socks' story - I think it was mentioned on time team
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