1866 Part Two
-"It's not a surprise that Alexandra Norwood was born in 1866. So many neo-Romantic poets were born in that general time, a time of calm before storms. What's more of a coincidence - I'm not sure, maybe it's ironic - a day before she was born, the Reform Act of 1866 - which was ultimately doomed - was introduced. Given her later politics, that's quite interesting."
-Prof. Myrtle James, English Neo-Romantic Poetry (excerpted from lecture, 2015)
-"On July 3, 1866, the Reform Act of 1866 was introduced into the British Parliament. The act was of the same strand of thought as the prior Reform Act of 1832 - begun by raving ideologues and propagated by shortsighted mediocrities hoping to be re-elected. Had it passed, the class-restricted electorate of one million or so would have at least doubled. Thankfully for Britain, a faction of Whigs led by Robert Lowe managed to block the passage of the bill. In fact, the premiership of John Russell was thus sunk, as his prioritization of paupers' votes over the late Lord Palmerston's and his own party's wishes meant that he could no longer command the confidence of Parliament. Rather quickly, a government under Disraeli was formed - first as an interim measure, and then through election in September."
-George Gibbs Richardson, The Mob And The Government (self-published, 1914)
-"There have been many times that new communications were first tested. We ascribe significance to the first messages sent - Morse's "What hath God wrought?", Dickson's "This is a new age calling.", Lee's "Good morning, Tucson." But all too often, those messages are arbitrary.
"One example is the first message over the reconnected cable between North America and Europe. It was intended to be "The world is now reunited by the toil of man." However, the unauthorized broadcast "Send my regards to Lilah" was sent twenty minutes earlier. It is unknown who sent it, who Lilah was, or why the broadcast was made - but it is now enshrined alongside all the other messages of note."
-Manfred Petrov, The Transatlantic Cables (New York Museum of Communications, retrieved 2011)
-"The official readmission of Tennessee into the United States was originally slated for mid-July, but it was delayed by political violence. In Nashville, a meeting of a club within the Republican Party whose name has been lost to history - attended by 20 whites and over a hundred Negroes - was attacked by a mob of Confederate veterans on July 18. The club members, largely veterans, fought back, and the violence soon spilled into the streets of Nashville. Reconstruction soldiers were powerless to quell the violence, and when the rioting ended two days later, 131 people - mostly Negro - lay dead.
"Head of District Four Adalbert Ames wrote to Congress, stating that the resources allotted to him were not equal to the task of maintaining peace in the South. But Congress would not approve such an increase until the next session."
-Kai Mulholland, 1866 (Public American History Source, retrieved 2016)
-"After the death of von Bismarck, Germany was in a bit of an unstable position. The Prussians had been caught flatfooted, but still had the advantage in technology and speed. However, Austria had better numbers and would be fighting a defensive war.
"In the end, the war never came to pass. King Wilhelm was fighting his own legislature tooth and nail for every inch of political ground - he simply could not push the war through. Prussian ambitions would have to wait."
-Gerhard Kaminski, One Thousand Years of Tension: A History of the Germans (Harper and Row, 2013)
-"On August 24, the Blanquistas rose. An organized Blanco force, under the command of former President Atanasio Aguirre, rose up and began taking over government buildings in Montevideo.
"Ordinarily, they would have been suppressed rather quickly. But most of the Uruguayan army was otherwise occupied, and the revolt was able to last almost a week before being suppressed. But it was one thing to fight a war in a faraway country - it was quite another to have the war in one's own cities, especially when Uruguay had just ended a civil war.
"The same was happening in Argentina, albeit with less organization and severity. In rural areas across the nation, people rose up against the federal government. While the revolts were much weaker than the ones in Uruguay, they were more widespread and lasted longer, with some lasting into October.
"The governments of Flores and Mitre would continue the war - both due to lack of regard for popular opinion, and Paraguayan threat to their power. But more and more, support for the government leaked away."
-Hube Watson, Paraguayan War (Public World History Source, retrieved 2015)
-"VICENTE IGNACIO JIMENEZ Y MENDEZ
"1 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 1866
"A 9 DE ENERO DE 1929
"EL DEFENSOR"
-Jaime Jimenez, inscribed on gravestone of Vicente Jimenez (National Cemetery of Mexico, retrieved 2014)
-"At the time of Sr. Jimenez's birth, the nation was in a state of war, albeit one that was winding down. France had attempted to install Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, but had just withdrawn support from Imperial forces. Those Imperial forces were on the defensive, and Emperor Maximilian would have to escape with French forces or die.
"After some deliberation, he chose the former. He left via Mazatlan on September 18. So it was that the Second War of Mexican Independence ended, not with the boom of a rifle, but with the splash of a ship."
-Laura Ordonez, Mexican History from Maximilian to Jimenez (Arizona State Press, 2009)
-"I entered the office. The room was not bare like Senator Davidson's - it was the kind of opulent that one gets when the only way one could leave was feet-first. My eyes were drawn to a large painting on the wall. It was a blue-grey sky over a large, languid river - something by Abram Watson, I guessed. A product of the Senator's home state.
""Do you like it?" he said. His voice was vaguely hoarse and sounded tired, but I still felt a jolt of surprise. Senator Timothy Andrews slumped into the chair at his desk.
"I turned to look. He was turning a pen in his hand, swooping it over some documents like a pendulum. "That's a genuine Watson," he said. "From the Arkansas Series. Number Eight, I believe."
"He suddenly stood up and stalked toward the painting, like a museum docent. "Watson was born a year after the War Between The States, y'know. October 13, 1866. Back when the corpses still covered the fields, and the buildings were riddled with bullet holes. Maybe that's why there's nary a sign of man, woman, or child."
"He jabbed at the left bank. "Except here," he continued. "If you look closely enough, there's a wooden cross. I don't know if it was a war death or a peace death, a Northerner or a Southerner or a Westerner. But I can't help but think that it's something Abram saw looking over the deck of his daddy's riverboat. That he saw the dead of the War, and he knew that he'd never forget that."
"I looked closely at the Senator. He looked tired, as if he hadn't slept well in years. At all, perhaps."
"In a much quieter voice, he asked, "Are we ever going to stop fighting the War?"
"I couldn't answer."
-Al Murphy, The Brothers Of Dragons (Bodley Books, 1983)
-"The first postwar election, as expected, saw gains for both parties. After all, the Constitutional Union Party had folded. Nevertheless, much more of those gains went to the Republicans than the Democrats - the Republicans gained 42 seats, and the Democrats only 5. The other two went to a new party called the Conservatives, a Virginia-based party considered a forerunner to the Moderate Democrats."
-Atlas of American Elections 1800-1900 (Tarrant Street, 2015)
-"The most famous act of political violence against Southern blacks is the Battle of Society Street on November 6, 1866. While South Carolina was not yet eligible to send representatives to Congress, the head of District 2 was Q.A. Gilmore. A staunch egalitarianist who had led an integrated group of soldiers against Fort Wagner in the war, Gilmore attempted an elected, albeit only consultative, city council for Charleston.
"The riot started when a mob of KLMs attacked a group of blacks en route to a polling place. Several were alleged members of the Society of the Red Bridge, a secret society formed by freed slave Congo Willis and dedicated to improving the lot of freedmen and previously-free blacks, both through education and through political actions such as strikes and voter organization. The attack was, at least temporarily, stopped by several Army troops.
"A few hours later, Pursuivant of Charleston Amos Whitfield led an army of Knights of Lady Magnolia into central Charleston. The area from Calhoun to Society Street quickly devolved into pitched battle between the KLM and SRB. Both sides were armed, and both sides experienced heavy casualties - over two hundred dead overall.
"Further monuments to the battle can be found as shown on the map below."
-Battle of Society Street (South Carolina State Historical Society, retrieved 2015)
-"COLUMBIA: It wakes me up, you know? I feel a jolt. Every time someone is born who's going to change the world. I don't know the rules or understand the criteria, but the day Abe Lincoln was born I knew.
"ITALIA TURRITA: The last time I felt it was when Carlotta Franco was born. Except then, I thought that she was either going to save me or kill me. Turns out, it was both. If you're feeling the same sense about some newborn, then you're going to want to watch that person like a hawk."
-Daniel Lopez, The National Conversations (transcribed from R12993, March 3, 2014)
-"It's now, in the European calendar, 1890. December 30. I've lived twenty-four years, and I feel that I'll live at least twenty-four more. In that time, I want to see us all free from the spell of the Capitol's empty promises. We all know how much those are worth, and how much more freedom is."
-Lawrence Three Rivers, quoted in Western Herald (January 18, 1890 issue)