Civil War Time Capsule Found in Fredericksburg
FREDERICKSBURG, VA., hit the equivalent of a double Powerball jackpot recently. Not only did the excavation of a largely undisturbed cellar at the site of a new courthouse unearth in excess of 10,000 objects directly related to Union soldiers at the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg—including bullets, Minié balls, hat insignia and buttons—the discovery came on the eve of the commemoration of the conflict’s sesquicentennial. “What we had was a time capsule,” says Ellen Brady, president of Cultural Resources, the company that dug the dig. And “the timing was impeccable.”
The Union occupation of the cellar appears to have lasted only a couple of days. But the presence of percussion caps that had been fired by the troops suggests that these men had been fighting and perhaps had retreated from the ruinous attempt to take hills southwest of town on December 13, the third day of the battle. Among the rare finds: insignia with the number 2 that may enable historians to identify which troops took shelter. But it will take a long time to sift through the sheer volume of stuff found in this 16- by-35-foot space. “They must have just been shedding metal,” says lead archaeologist Taft Kiser. Like Powerball payoffs, the scholarly dividends from the cellar will continue for years.
Study Adds 64 Million Years to Age of Grand Canyon
A NEWLY CHARGED DEBATE over the age of the Grand Canyon comes down to a simple choice: crystals or gravel. A recent study of phosphate crystals from the floor of the western section of the big ravine concludes that this stretch is 70 million years old, contradicting the figure of 6 million years based upon gravel deposits at the western end of the western section. The new number comes from looking at the quantity and distribution of helium, uranium and thorium in those crystals, a marker of when they cooled as erosion brought the floor of the canyon down to them. The study agrees with the older theory that the eastern canyon was carved about 6 million years ago, then reconciles the greatly differing ages by raising the controversial notion that the two sections evolved separately and later came together with what would eventually become the Colorado River. “Science is all about discovering new things and pushing the edge of what we know,” says study co-author Rebecca Flowers, an assistant geology professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. And sometimes that means going against the flow.
Sounds of History Bring Spielberg’s Lincoln to Life
THE CLIMACTIC MOMENT in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln gets some of its power from a trifecta of historical sounds. The president waits quietly in his office while the Senate votes on the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery—and the tension sharpens with the solitary sound of a ticking clock (recorded from a Lincoln-era timepiece in the White House), then breaks with the pealing of church bells (recorded from the St. John’s Episcopal Church belfry across the street from the White House) that signals passage, followed by celebratory cannon fire (recorded from weapons on the battlefield at Manassas). Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, who invented the sound of the light saber for Star Wars, felt it was essential to use sounds from as many period objects as possible in Lincoln, even if viewers might not be aware of their authenticity. “Steven Spielberg considered this a sacred topic,” says Burtt. “So did I.”
Marvel Unleashes Zombie Presidents
YOU COULD CALL the humor in the Marvel Comics “Deadpool” series black, but the zombie-like presidents on the rampage are more of a deep booger green. Brought back to half-life by a necromancer who wants them to “save” the U.S., the ghouls-in-chief have decided to do this by first destroying the U.S. “You have nothing to fear—except me!” screams Franklin Roosevelt as he takes Manhattan apart. Enter Deadpool, a mercenary with the ability to heal from anything, even the nasty head wound delivered by Abraham Lincoln, who crows, “I’ve always wanted to do that!”
Letters Reveal Mary Todd Lincoln’s Frantic Mindset
TWO LETTERS recently donated to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum offer a glimpse of Mary Todd Lincoln’s sense of desperation after she was widowed. In one she wheedles banker Benjamin Sherman, who raised thousands of dollars on her behalf, to lobby some of her creditors to accept less than what she owed. “I am humiliated, when I think, that we are destined, to be forever homeless,” writes Mrs. Lincoln, who still owned the Lincolns’ home in Springfield, Ill. Says James Cornelius, curator of the Lincoln Collection at the library and museum, which received the letters from Sherman’s descendants: “You’ve got to stop thinking like a rational person when you analyze her.”
Island of Blue Dolphins Revisited
IN HIS 1960 NOVEL, Island of Blue Dolphins, a Newbery Medal winner with more than 6 million copies in print, Scott O’Dell told the story of an American Indian girl who lived for decades by herself on a remote California channel island that is used as a weapons-testing facility by the U.S. Navy. Now, after 20 years of research and excavations, Navy archaeologist Steven Schwartz has found the cave on the island of San Nicolas that was the primary home between 1835 and 1853 of the real woman who inspired O’Dell’s book and a 1964 movie. Field notes from an 1879 coastal survey brought Schwartz back to a spot where he’d already dug. But this time he dug deeper and found the entrance about five feet down. “You plod along year after year,” says Schwartz. “To get there is an amazing feeling.”
Digitized Documents Detail Life in Colonial New Orleans
THANKS to a massive digitization project by the Louisiana State Museum, historians and genealogists will get much better access to a wealth of 18th-century documents from the French and Spanish colonial periods in New Orleans. Among the more than 200,000 deteriorating, hard-to-read and incompletely indexed documents is the June 14, 1738, French Superior Council case of the unconsecrated burial of “a negress twelve or thirteen years out of the cemetery contrary to the ordinance of the King.” The slave girl was exhumed, baptized and reburied in a city cemetery, and her owner, New Orleans Treasurer General Guillaume Loquet de Lapommeray, was fined and ordered not “to relapse into a like infraction.”
Originally published in the April 2013 issue of American History. To subscribe, click here.
