Wilkinsburg in the Civil War

12/17/2024

03/04/2024

On this day on March 4th, 1865, Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address.

Fellow-Countrymen

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of this great conflict which is of primary concern to the nation as a whole, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

02/28/2024

02/12/2024

Happy birthday Abraham Lincoln! 🎂 🎉

Happy Birthday, Abe!

Pictured is a contemporary monument dedicated to President Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, titled “Forever Free.” Sculpted by local artist Susan Wagner, who is known for such works as the Roberto Clemente monument at PNC Park, Lincoln’s likeness was erected in Wilkinsburg at the intersection of Penn Avenue and Ardmore Boulevard in July 2021.

01/01/2024

Happy New Year, everybody! 🎉🥳🥂🎊
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Today marks the 161st anniversary of Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation.
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When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, he said, “I never in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper. . . . If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” The document that Lincoln proclaimed that slaves held in areas still in rebellion “are and henceforward shall be free.”
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Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not abolish slavery in the United States, it captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of Americans and fundamentally changed the nature of the war. It also announced the acceptance of Black men into the Union Army and Navy. Nearly 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom by the war's end.
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The Emancipation Proclamation also laid the groundwork whereby that promise of freedom would be extended to the entire country. In 1865, the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution legally and permanently ended the institution of slavery within this country after more than 3 centuries. Over 4 million individuals finally knew freedom.

12/15/2023

After two decades, the adaptation of James L. Swanson’s thriller about the pursuit of John Wilkes Booth is coming to Apple TV+.

11/23/2023

Happy Thanksgiving from The Blue & Gray Historian!
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On October 3, 1789, George Washington issued a proclamation creating the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America, to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26, 1789. John Adams and James Madison similarly declared Thanksgiving a holiday.
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However, it wasn’t until October 3, 1863, at the height of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation encouraging Americans “in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” Thanksgiving has been celebrated in the United States ever since.
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Here's a transcript of Lincoln's Proclamation of Thanksgiving:
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By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to pe*****te and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
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(Photo: Thanksgiving in camp sketched Thursday 28th 1861 by Alfred Waid)

11/19/2023

On this day on November 19th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.
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President Abraham Lincoln stood before scores of Union soldiers and citizens of Gettysburg, a speech of some 271 words in his hands. He could never have known that, after delivering the famed address at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery dedication, it would go down as one of the best pieces of American literature. Both his address and the Battle of Gettysburg that preceded four and a half months prior were pivotal moments that defined the future of the nation.
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“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

11/02/2023

This Saturday, November 4, at 1:00pm, we will host historian and Civil War Pittsburgh founder Rich Condon as part of 24 Hours On the Ridge.

At the Seminary Refectory, across the street from the Museum, Rich will present "'The Rebels Are Coming!' - The Department of the Monongahela During the Gettysburg Campaign"

When President-Elect Abraham Lincoln visited the City of Pittsburgh in February 1861 he lauded this section of Pennsylvania as the “banner county of the Union” - a region where he imagined, if the country were threatened, its citizens would willingly pick up the shovel as well as the rifle. His vision came to fruition in June 1863 as an estimated 11,000 residents contributed to the construction of 37 earthen defenses around the city in anticipation of a Confederate invasion. The US War Department likewise sanctioned the creation of the Department of the Monongahela which was rooted in uncertainty, but formed out of necessity, as war approached the home front.

Rich Condon is a public historian from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a BA in public history from Shepherd University. For over a decade Rich has worked with a multitude of sites and organizations including The Battle of Franklin Trust, Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, National Museum of Civil War Medicine, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Flight 93 National Memorial, Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, and Catoctin Mountain Park. He has written for Civil War Times Magazine, The American Battlefield Trust, as well as Emerging Civil War, and operates the Civil War Pittsburgh blog, which focuses on sharing stories related to Western Pennsylvania’s role in the Civil War.

For a full 24 Hours schedule, visit https://www.seminaryridgemuseum.org/events/24-hours