On April 9, 1863, a shooting was carried out in a basement just off of Court Street, behind Boston’s Old City Hall. The gunman was a Union cavalry officer, who belonged to one of Brahmin Boston’s most wealthy families. The victim was a new Irish American recruit in his brigade. The shooting would result in accusations of cowardice and an execution, but was either justified?
Tag: Civil War
The Gettysburg Cyclorama: Mystery of the South End (episode 270)
Starting in 1884, audiences of veterans, schoolchildren, and everyday Bostonians streamed into a cavernous, castle-like building on Tremont Street in the South End to witness the closest thing to virtual reality that existed at the time. The building still exists, though a series of renovations have rendered it much more ordinary and less palatial than it was back then. The painting still exists too, and it still offers an immersive experience for visitors that blends reality and art, but not in Boston anymore. The building was known as the Cyclorama, and it was purpose built to hold the painting, which was also known as the cyclorama, one of the most audacious artistic endeavors of the 19th century. Together, they commemorated the turning point of the bloody Civil War that had ended two decades earlier.
Continue reading The Gettysburg Cyclorama: Mystery of the South End (episode 270)
The North End Draft Riot (episode 252)
By the summer of 1863, the Civil War had dragged on longer than anyone thought at the outset, and leaders on both sides were desperate for more money, arms, manufactured goods, and most of all men. That growing desperation had inspired secretary of war Edwin Stanton to authorize Massachusetts governor John Andrew to start enlisting the nation’s first Black troops a few months before, including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, whose well deserved fame was refreshed with the movie Glory. The influx of fresh and motivated troops contributed to Union gains throughout the rest of the war, but the so-called colored regiments were not enough. In July of that year, Congress passed a law compelling able bodied men into military service for the first time. Here in Boston, the burden of that draft law fell disproportionately on the working class Irish Americans of South Boston and the North End. And as we’ll see, the Irish had strong resentments based in class, race, religion, and economics that made them suspicious of compulsory service. These tensions boiled over on the evening of July 14th, 1863 as marshals attempted to serve the first draft notices in the crowded and narrow streets of the North End, with the US Army eventually firing artillery and small arms into a crowd of civilian protesters at point blank range.
POWs in the Boston Harbor Islands (episode 231)
Since the earliest days of the Bay Colony, prisoners of war have been held on the islands of Boston Harbor. This week, we’re sharing two classic stories of the Harbor Islands POWs from past episodes. One of them is about the Confederate prisoners who arrived at Fort Warren on Georges Island in the fall of 1861, fresh from the field of battle in North Carolina. They’d be joined by Maryland politicians who supported secession, the supposed diplomats Mason and Slidell, and eventually even Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens, who didn’t seem to much appreciate Boston hospitality. 81 years later and a mile away on Peddocks Island, a group of unruly Italian prisoners were confined at Fort Andrews after starting what may have been the only soccer riot in Boston history at a South Boston prison camp.
Continue reading POWs in the Boston Harbor Islands (episode 231)
Peace in Boston After the Civil War (episode 204)
Since last week’s show was about Boston’s 1851 Railroad Jubilee, which was an enormous celebration at a time when the nation was in the midst of a rush toward civil war, it seemed appropriate to discuss the Grand Peace Jubilee this week. Held in Boston in 1869, when the war was still a raw wound on the American psyche, the Peace Jubilee was a musical spectacular unlike anything the world had ever seen. Composer Patrick Gilmore hoped to bind the country together and help it heal… and if he happened to get rich in the process, that would just be icing on the cake. This week’s show also revisits another peacetime memory of the Civil War in Boston. In 1903, after the pain of the Civil War had dulled, Boston gathered at what is now the “General Hooker Entrance” to the State House to dedicate a statue to the highest ranking general from Massachusetts during the war.
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Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, Forgotten No Longer (episode 200)
Dr. Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler was the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the US in 1864, and she spent most of her adult life in Charlestown, Beacon Hill, and the Readville section of Hyde Park. She devoted her career to pediatrics and obstetrics, published the first medical text by an African American author, and made a point of caring for the marginalized, even moving to Virginia to tend to formerly enslaved people at the end of the Civil War. The nation’s first Black female physician lay in an unmarked grave for 125 years, but there have been important developments in the story of Dr. Crumpler while we’ve been in quarantine this year.
Continue reading Dr. Rebecca Crumpler, Forgotten No Longer (episode 200)
John Brown’s Body (episode 166)
The most popular song of the Union Army during the Civil War was inspired by the most hated man in America, it borrowed the tune from an old church hymn, and it was first sung right here in the Boston Harbor Islands. In this week’s episode, learn about the double meaning behind the title of the song, its holy and profane lyrics, and the tragic history of the “Hallelujah Regiment” who made it famous. The 12th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment marched out of Boston in 1861 with 1040 men and a song in their hearts, but when they returned three years later, they numbered just 85, and they had vowed never to sing their famous song again.
Hooker Day in Boston (episode 138)
Hooker Day was a one-time holiday celebrated in Boston in 1903. While it might sound like this is going to be an X-rated podcast, we’re not talking about that kind of hooker. Civil War General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker was briefly the commander of the main Union force called the Army of the Potomac. Forty years after his command, he was immortalized with a massive statue in front of our State House. When the statue was dedicated, the entire city celebrated a holiday that was called Hooker Day in his honor.
Lincoln and Booth and Boston (episode 128)
This episode is being released on April 14, 2019, which means that Abraham Lincoln was shot 154 years ago today. That’s why we’re talking about the links between the Lincoln assassination and the city of Boston. President Lincoln, his assassin John Wilkes Booth, and Boston Corbett, the man who killed Booth, all had transformative experiences in Boston.
Jubilee Days (episode 102)
In 1869, an eccentric entrepreneur and musical visionary built one of the largest buildings in 19th Century Boston. It was a concert hall with twice the capacity of the modern TD garden, and it was built to house the largest musical spectacular the world had ever seen up to that point. It was the Boston Coliseum, built to house the Grand National Peace Jubilee celebrating the end of America’s Civil War.