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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Adams, John Quincy, 1767- (search)
suffered by his associates in arms, the warriors of the Revolution; over the prostration of the public credit and the faith of the nation in the neglect to provide for the payment even of the interest upon the public debt; over the disappointed hopes of the friends of freedom; in the language of the address from Congress to the States of the 18th of April, 1783, The pride and boast of America, that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature. At his residence in Mount Vernon, in March, 1785, the first idea was started of a revisal of the Articles of Confederation by an organization of means differing from that of a compact between the State legislatures and their own delegates in Congress. A convention of delegates from the State legislatures, independent of the Congress itself, was the expedient which presented itself for effecting the purpose, and an augmentation of the powers of Congress for the regulation of commerce as the object for which this assembly
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Alabama. (search)
1 guns were fired in honor of Alabama, and fifteen for Florida. At night the city blazed with fireworks, the favorite pieces being the Southern cross and the Lone Star. The convention had voted against the reopening of the slave-trade, and adjourned on Jan. 30, 1861. A week before the Secession Ordinance was adopted, volunteer troops, in accordance with an arrangement made with the governors of Louisiana and Georgia, and by order of the governor of Alabama, had seized the arsenal at Mount Vernon, about 30 miles above Mobile, and Fort Morgan, at the entrance to Mobile Harbor, about 30 miles below the city. The Mount Vernon arsenal was captured by four Confederate companies commanded by Captain Leadbetter, of the United States Engineer Corps, and a native of Maine. At dawn (Jan. 4, 1861) they surprised Captain Reno, who was in command of the arsenal, and the Alabama Confederates thus obtained 15,000 stands of arms. 150, 000 pounds of gunpowder, some cannon, and a large quantity
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Canals. (search)
en he was in England settling the accounts of Gen. John Bradstreet with the government, he visited the famous canal which the Duke of Bridgewater had just completed, and became profoundly impressed with the importance of such highways in the work of developing the internal resources of his own country. On his return, he urged the matter upon the attention of his countrymen. Meanwhile the active mind of Elkanah Watson (q. v.) had been deeply interested in the subject. In 1785 he visited Mount Vernon, where he found Washington engaged in a project for connecting the waters of the Potomac with those west of the Alleghany Mountains. He and General Schuyler projected canals between the Hudson River and lakes Champlain and Ontario, and in 1792 the legislature of New York chartered two companies, known, respectively, as the Western inland lock navigation Company and Northern inland lock navigation Company, of both of which Schuyler was made president, and, at his death, in 1804, he was ac
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Civil War in the United States. (search)
oops.—Aug. 16. Several newspapers in New York presented by the grand jury for hostility to the government.—19. Secretary of State ordered that all persons leaving or entering the United States shall possess a passport. Major Berrett, of Washington, D. C., arrested on a charge of treason, and conveyed to Fort Lafayette, in the Narrows, at the entrance of New York Harbor.—24. Transmission of Confederate journals through the mails prohibited.—Sept. 12. Col. John A. Washington, formerly of Mount Vernon, aide of Gen. Robert E. Lee, killed while reconnoitring in western Virginia.—18. Bank of New Orleans suspended specie payments.—21. John C. Breckinridge fled from Frankfort, Ky., and openly joined the Confederates.—24. Count de Paris and Due de Chartres entered the United States service as aides to General McClellan.— Oct. 11. Marshal Kane, of Baltimore, sent to Fort Lafayette.—15. Three steamers despatched from New York after the Confederate steamer Nashville, which escaped f
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Constitution of the United States (search)
s laws into effect. The plan deeply impressed the mind of Washington. Events in North Carolina and Massachusetts made many leading men anxious about the future. They saw the weakness of the existing form of government. In the autumn of 1785 Washington, in a letter to James Warren, deplored that weakness, and the illiberality, jealousy, and local policy of the States, that was likely to sink the new nation in the eyes of Europe into contempt. Finally, after many grave discussions at Mount Vernon, Washington, acting upon the suggestions of Hamilton made five years before, proposed a convention of the several States to agree upon a plan of unity in a commercial arrangement, over which, by the existing Constitution, Congress had no control. Coming from such an exalted source, the suggestion was acted upon. A convention of delegates from the several States was called at Annapolis, Md. Only five States (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia) sent deputies. Th
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Craik, James 1731-1814 (search)
Craik, James 1731-1814 Physician; born in Scotland in 1731; came to America in early life, and practised his profession in Fairfax county, Va. He was the intimate friend and family physician of Washington; was with him in his expedition against the French in 1754, and in Braddock's campaign in 1755. In 1775 he was placed in the medical department of the Continental army, and rose to the first rank. He unearthed many of the secrets of the Conway cabal and did much to defeat the conspiracy. He was director of the army hospital at Yorktown in the siege of that place, in 1781, and after the Revolution settled near Mount Vernon, where he was the principal attendant of Washington in his last illness. He died in Fairfax county, Va., Feb. 6, 1814.
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Custis, George Washington Parke 1781- (search)
l 30, 1781; was a grandson of Mrs. Washington. His father was John Parke Custis, and his mother was Eleanor Calvert, of Maryland. At the siege of Yorktown his father was aide-de-camp to Washington; was seized with camp-fever; retired to Eltham, and there died before Washington (who hastened thither immediately after the surrender) could reach his bedside. Washington afterwards adopted his two children—Eleanor Parke and George Washington Parke Custis—as his own. Their early home was at Mount Vernon. George was educated partly at Princeton, and was eighteen years of age at the time of Washington's death, who made him an executor of his will and left him a handsome estate, on which he lived, until his death, Oct. 10, 1857, in literary, artistic, and agricultural pursuits. In his early days Mr. Custis was an eloquent speaker; and in his later years he produced a series of historical pictures, valuable, not as works of art, but for the truthfulness of the costume and equipment of the
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Depew, Chauncey Mitchell, 1834- (search)
ith the greatest reluctance. In the supreme moment of victory, when the world expected him to follow the precedents of the past and perpetuate the power a grateful country would willingly have left in his hands, he had resigned and retired to Mount Vernon to enjoy in private station his well-earned rest. The convention created by his exertions to prevent, as he said, the decline of our federal dignity into insignificant and wretched fragments of empire, had called him to preside over its deliblife had been spent in repeated sacrifices for his country's welfare, and he did not hesitate now, though there is an undertone of inexpressible sadness in this entry in his diary on the night of his departure: About 10 o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity, and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York with the best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its cal
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Everett, Edward, 1794-1865 (search)
from Europe in 1819. Mr. Everett was in Congress from 1825 to 1835; governor of Massachusetts from 1836 to 1840; minister to England from 1841 to 1845; president of Harvard from 1846 to 1849; and succeeded Daniel Webster as Secretary of State in November, 1852. He was in the United States Senate from March, 1853, until May, 1854, when he retired to private life on account of feeble health. He took great interest in the efforts of the women of the United States to raise money to purchase Mount Vernon. He wrote and spoke much, and by his efforts procured a large amount of money, and the estate was purchased. He was nominated for the Vice-Presidency of the United States in 1860 by the Constitutional Union party. Mr. Everett was a rare scholar and finished orator, and was one of the early editors of the North American review. He died in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865. Oration at Gettysburg.—The following is his oration at the dedication of the National Cemetery, on the Gettysburg battle-f
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Floyd, John Buchanan 1807- (search)
ing the Northern arsenals of arms and ammunition and filling those of the South with those munitions of war. As early as Dec. 29, 1859, a year before, according to the report of the committee, he had ordered the transfer of 65,000 percussion muskets, 40,000 muskets altered to percussion, and 10,000 percussion rifles from the armory at Springfield, Mass., and the arsenals at Watervliet, N. Y., and Watertown, Mass., to the arsenals at Fayetteville, N. C., Charleston, S. C., Augusta, Ga., Mount Vernon, Ala., and Baton Rouge, La.; and these were distributed in the spring of 1860, before the meeting of the Democratic Convention at Charleston. Eleven days after the issuing of the above order by Floyd, Jefferson Davis introduced, Jan. 9, 1860, into the national Senate a bill to authorize the sale of public arms to the several States and Territories, and to regulate the appointment of superintendents of the national armories. Davis reported the bill from the military committee of the Senat
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