150 Years Ago Right Now

[YankeeTiger]

The bombardment of Fort Sumter has been underway for approximately an hour and a half..

Here are some links to follow the Civil War in real time. Some have been posted before.

Here's to the next 4 years :)

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/civilwar/

http://twitter.com/CivilWarwp#

http://twitter.com/#!/WarLettersWP

[Horace]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

As far as any anniversaries being mentioned in the mainstream front page news today, what I'm seeing is alot of coverage of the 50th anniversary of the first manned Soviet space flight, and basically nothing on the sesquitennial of the American Civil War. An event that lasted a day involving one Russian is more newsworthy than an event lasting four years that involved everyone in North America.

[Rough and Ready Boy]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

I noticed the same thing Mr. Bemis. Pitiful.

[kevin]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

Hello,
i am pleased to say that Rochester, NY's Democrat and Chronicle had an article about local reaction and patriotic fervor to the eruption at Fort Sumter. THere was also an article in Sundays paper but I have not read that yet. I dont know if its coincidence or if they meant to do it but todays paper also had the headlines in a different font than normal. I dont know what its called but its old timey looking.

[J. Donaldson]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

As to Google, not everyone's interested in the Civil War. I would think an internet search engine might be more attuned to tech junkies.

A couple of links I found on the Youtube, if permissible.

Confederate battery firing on Sumter this morning.

Sunrise over Fort Sumter this morning.

[SCTiger]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

I always wondered how they could see Fort Sumter at 4:30 am, I found the answer in Solar time. On April 12th, 1861 noon was at 11:24 am. Dawn broke around 04:55 am. The modern clock is about 2 hour and 5 minutes ahead (from what I figured). So when people were out observing the first shot at 6:30 am EDST, they were real close to the actual time of the day relevant to the period.

[Pvt_Sullivan]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

Greg, granted you and I have looked into such things...

First off, we have this thing called daylight's saving time now where we move the clock to make it feel like we aren't getting up as early as we are. That accounts for one hour.

Second, time was reckoned from the actual solar apex in its trip across the sky so that gives another 36 minutes difference given the 11:24 time stated.

Third, what in my other military's parlance of BMNT (Begin Morning Nautical Twilight) is when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon and is generally accepted as 30 minutes before the sunrise which is when the center of the sun is at the horizon. The key factor in that little discussion of the relation of the sun to horizon is that 30 minute period is when the naked eye can see the horizon and make measurements from it prior to full daylight. Hence when isolated gunners around Charleston Harbor could see the silhoute of Fort Sumter against the water of the harbor. Major Anderson had to wait until after sunrise to return fire for two reasons... He had no more oil for his lamps so his gunners were in the dark inside their casemates and also it is more difficult to pick out a target on a shore in twilight than a target on the water.

So... that's a total of 2 hours and 6 minutes of difference between 4:30 am on April 12, 1861 and 6:30 am on April 12, 2011

[Steve Acker]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

The Milwaukee Journal has a small article on the Fort Sumter happenings. Not much, but better than nothing.

Steve Acker

http://civilwartangents.blogspot.com/

[Becky Morgan]

Re: 150 Years Ago Right Now

From The Scotsman:
http://heritage.scotsman.com/heritag...vil.6750042.jp