The three-day battle--considered the bloodiest of the war--was a Union victory which ended Colonel Robert E. Lee’s second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Several months after the battle, President Abraham Lincoln made his immortal “Gettysburg Address” at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

On 01 July, Confederates conducted a “recon in force” toward the town of Gettysburg PA, having incorrectly assumed (despite adequate intelligence) that the nearby Union forces were just scattered “emergency militia” routed from a previous engagement. Despite Robert E. Lee’s orders to avoid attacks until all his forces could be concentrated, one of his commanders A.P. Hill sent two brigades marching toward the town. They encountered stiff resistance, but pushed Union cavalry back to McPherson Ridge, until Union General John F. Reynolds rode to the rescue.

Reynolds was killed early in the fighting--his loss was a blow to the Union, as he was widely considered one of their best officers. Confederates pushed onward, taking murderous losses but gaining some terrain. The initial two brigades--led by Davis and Archer, as we mentioned in our first post of the day--took the brunt of the losses. Both brigades had to cross a muddy railroad cut. During Confederate Heritage Month we talk about the Iron Brigade, led by John Gibbon. Gibbon had three brothers and two brothers-in-law who sided with the Confederacy. Present at Gettysburg was his cousin, J. Johnston Pettigrew, who we mentioned in yesterday’s post and the earlier post today. His Iron Brigade engaged Pettigrew’s unit, and inflicted staggering casualties but ultimately were pushed back.

Notably, James Archer--the turncoat rebel officer who led a brigade early that morning--was captured along with many of his men. Davis’ and Archer’s brigades got bogged down and trapped in the aforementioned railroad cut. Confederates from Davis’s Brigade had sought shelter in the middle railroad cut that was too deep for them to shoot from when they were charged by the 6th Wisconsin (part of the Iron Brigade—we cover their commander during Confederate Heritage Month), the 14th Brooklyn, and 95th New York. Dale Gallon’s great print, “The Railroad Cut” shown below as the first image, depicts the culmination of the charge as the 6th Wisconsin and 95th New York approach the cut. Below that is a photo of the cut in 2024 from the same perspective. The monuments in the shot are the 6th Wisconsin and 95th New York.

Around 2pm that day, more Confederate units arrived to join the battle. Although they, too, took heavy losses, they were able to push back Union defenders. The Union forces were ordered to fall back to the high ground south of town, Cemetery Hill. Union leaders chose to make their stand there.

Earlier we mentioned two Confederate blunders made before the battle had even started. Here is where Lee’s leadership made yet another.

As Union generals Winfield Hancock and Oliver Howard decided to regroup and dig in at Cemetery Hill, Lee sent orders to his Second Corps commander Captain Richard Ewell (Ewell’s Confederate rank was General, but since the Confederacy was never a lawful, legitimate, recognized nation with a lawful army, we choose to address him by the rank he held when he betrayed the United States) ordering Ewell to capture Cemetery Hill “if deemed practical”. Ewell chose not to attempt the assault.

Had any aggressive commander decided to assault the hill, it is possible that a focused concentration may have captured the heights and driven Union forces from the area. Instead, the reprieve gave Union units time to dig in and build impregnable fortifications on the high ground, and Confederate forces would ultimately suffer the effects in the coming days.

The first day at Gettysburg, more significant than simply a prelude to the bloody second and third days, ranks as the 23rd biggest battle of the war by number of troops engaged. About one quarter of Meade’s army (22,000 men) and one third of Lee’s army (27,000) were engaged.

Stay tuned to the SoL Substack for more Gettysburg posts. And fuck the Confederacy.

Admin V here. Let’s respond to some of the comments from yesterday. There were some real doozies. And I’m prepared to make you mad again.

1. Some of y’all got really mad at me yesterday for comparing gun violence and the European heat waves. As a chronically online person, let me tell you why I did that. First, whenever an American person ribs the British or other people from European countries, the tendency is to go straight for school shootings as the come back. Like it is funny. And I think the two are analogous. The government has had plenty of time to deal with gun violence. The people want us to do something about gun violence, but the legislators don’t have the political will to do anything about it. People have been dying from heat related deaths at alarming rates in European countries for years now and the governments haven’t put in the policies and programs that would save lives. I’m told they are doing something now and that is good, but it is like putting a bandaid on an abscess at this point. They have a lot of catching up to do.

2. I wasn’t being condescending or victim blaming. I get how miserable that being hot is. I live in the American South. I have lived in the American South without electricity during the summer thanks to long term power outages due to hurricanes. It is fucking miserable and I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. Hot is hot no matter where you are. Humid is humid no matter where you go. I swear I understand the heat. I’ve experienced hot humid air without AC in a house with good insulation. That is one of the reasons, I suggested just going outside and sitting in the shade because it will be cooler there than in your house.

3. You don’t know what is happening over here was a comment I got a lot. And you’re right, I may not have all the information, butI have good google skills. I can read articles from the BBC and French and German newspapers as well as anyone. I’m on social media where there are people from all those places telling us what is happening in real time. I’m getting my information from eyewitnesses and from what I consider reasonable and trustworthy news sources. But that doesn’t mean I’m getting all the information so you’re correct on that one.

4. If you don’t want to get AC or take any of my non-AC advice, you don’t have to. I’m not your mother. But I am speaking from a point of knowledge on this as someone who has experienced extreme heat for 48 years of my life on earth. If you want advice about extreme cold, I’m not your girl. I have no idea how to deal with that shit.

5. A lot of you hate the advice that I’m giving because I am American. Your classism is showing. One of you told me to keep my judgemental self in the American south where it belongs. That is also classism by the way. I don’t think I’m better than anyone. I don’t want people to die from things that are preventable. That is why I advocate for reasonable gun control measures, get vaccinated, and fucking hate republicans who block universal health care And yes, I’m paying attention to those things, but I’m going to be honest, I don’t like to watch people suffer when there are reasonable measures that can be taken to prevent death. You feel helpless. That said, if you don’t want advice from me, would you consider taking it from other countries closer to the equator?

6. Which brings me to my last point. I am a control freak. This is a personality flaw that I’m well aware of. When I hear people complain and offer excuses to why things can’t be done, I try to “help” by offering solutions. I do this in my real life too and I have had to learn to ask “Do you want solutions or do you just want to vent?” I admit that when it comes to how to stay cool, I have ideas and I want to offer them. If they weren’t helpful to you, I’m sorry. That said, if my ideas won’t work, I do have a question. Barring time travel being invented, what are your ideas to prevent heat related deaths and discomfort? The solution may not be AC, but what is it? And if it is a long term solution, how are you going to prevent deaths in the short term? Or are you just venting until the heat is over?

Bonus one: People always get irritated when Americans refer to Europe as a big block. Gang, I don’t even live in the biggest state in the US and my state is bigger than some of your countries. When I have been and I’m only going to a single country, I say I’m going to that country, but if I’m going to be visiting multiple countries which is easy to do, I just say I’m going to Europe. It is just shorthand. Same when I’m talking about multiple nationalities at once. If you were going to visit four or five of the North American countries including the United States, would you list all five countries? (And before you ask, there are many island nations who are considered part of the North American continent)

The three-day battle--considered the bloodiest of the war--was a Union victory which ended Colonel Robert E. Lee’s second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Several months after the battle, President Abraham Lincoln made his immortal “Gettysburg Address” at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

Accurate counts are difficult to tally, on account of how each force numbered and reported its fighting strength. Union commanders, backed by excellent supply lines, tended to report every single human mouth to feed, so that enough rations could be obtained. Confederate forces tended to only count their fighting men, in small part because their “labor force” consisted of enslaved Black people or forcibly-conscripted free Blacks. It is estimated that the Union combat strength is somewhere between 95,000 and 105,000, and possibly as many as 90,000 Confederates combatants. The combined casualties over the three-day battle numbered over 50,000, with roughly 23,000 Union losses and between 23,000 and 28,000 Confederate losses.

Confederate traitor Colonel Robert E. Lee (we do not recognize Lee’s rank of “general” since the Confederacy was never a lawful, legitimate, recognized nation) decided to invade Pennsylvania, hoping to strike Harrisburg and hopefully make it all the way to Philadelphia. He chose the state due to its close proximity to his location in northern Virginia, having just scored a major victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, ending at the beginning of May.

Confederate forces began crossing the Potomac (aka, the border between Virginia and Maryland) on 15 June 1863, with Jubal Early’s forces being the first to cross as an advanced party. Confederate leaders AP Hill and Longstreet began their movements roughly ten days later. During the invasion, Confederates were under orders to minimize negative effects on the civilian population, which only applied to white people who didn’t resist or hide any supplies. An unknown number of Black citizens, many of them free Blacks, were seized by Confederates and sent under guard into the South to be sold as slaves. We covered this as a separate post a few days ago.

On 26 June, advanced elements of Jubal Early’s division occupied Gettysburg after chasing off a newly-raised Pennsylvania militia in a series of skirmishes. Soldiers burned several railroad cars and a covered bridge, and destroyed nearby rails and telegraph lines.

During the lead-up to the battle, Confederate forces unknowingly set the stage for losing the battle. The first was when Lee allowed J.E.B. Stuart, one of his best cavalry commanders, to take a good portion of the army’s cavalry and ride around the east flank of where the Union army had been spotted. This would later have the effect of robbing the Confederate forces of Stuart’s men. Start and his three best brigades would be absent during the movement to contact (aka approach) and during the first two days of the battle.

The second mistake was on 30 June when North Carolinians under command of J. Johnston Pettigrew were sent to search Gettysburg for supplies, particularly much-needed shoes. When Pettigrew approached, scouts noticed Union cavalry south of the town and decided to fall back. Pettigrew reported to A.P. Hill what his troops had seen, but his reports were dismissed as faulty. The Union forces were believed to instead be remnants of the scattered Pennsylvania militia, trying to regroup.

On Wednesday 1 July, 1863, Pettigrew’s superiors violated Robert E. Lee’s orders to avoid engagement until the entire army was concentrated. One of Lee’s commanders, A.P. Hill, decided to mount a significant reconnaissance in force, embarking two brigades towards Gettysburg at around 5am that morning. The brigades were led by Joseph Davis and James Archer. Archer is notable in that he resigned his US commission and became an officer in the Southern Insurrection.

The Union cavalry that Pettigrew’s North Carolinians had spotted was, in fact, Major General John Buford, a Southern Unionist who we cover every year during #ConfederateHeritageMonth. Buford rightly believed that the Confederate forces would march on Gettysburg from the west. Buford had occupied three prominent ridges west of town: Herr Ridge, McPherson Ridge, and Seminary Ridge. Buford knew that if Confederates occupied those ridges, it would be hell to dislodge them later. By occupying these areas with his small cavalry division, most of whom were armed with Sharps carbines, Buford was able to hinder the Confederate advance. His men fired the first shots of the battle, with popular lore holding that Lieutenant Marcellus Jones, commanding a sentry post along the Chambersburg Pike, firing the first shot.

Davis’ units moved north of the Pike, and Archer’s units moved south of the Pike, deploying into battle lines. Eventually they encountered stiff resistance from Union cavalry troopers, but by around 10:20am they had pushed the Union cavalry back to McPherson Ridge. Around that time Union general John F. Reynolds arrived with the vanguard of the I Corps and Confederates began taking heavy losses in a railroad cut, which we’ll talk about later today.

Stay tuned to the page for more Gettysburg posts. And fuck the Confederacy.

Reminder that the Confederacy were traitors who betrayed the United States and tried to destroy the union out of spite. Reminder that “heritage not hate” is Lost Cause horse shit. Reminder that the Lost Cause narrative is revisionist history bullshit. Reminder that the South seceded over slavery and economic factors tied to slavery. Also another reminder that the Confederacy is a bunch of traitors who LOST, got their asses KICKED, and were forced to BEG to be readmitted into the Union.

PS: your flag is a participation trophy. Get fucked and die mad about it. #NotSorryNotSorry

And just to piss all over racists’ hashtags... #SCV #HeritageNotHate #SonsOfConfederateVeterans #Dixie #Dixieland

Dr. Frank Kameny (1925-2011) was born in New York City. He served as a combat infantryman in World War II before earning a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University. His life shifted permanently in 1957 when federal investigators discovered his homosexuality. Under Executive Order 10450, a cornerstone of the discriminatory McCarthy-era “Lavender Scare,” he was fired from the U.S. Army Map Service and blacklisted from all future federal employment.

Instead of retreating into obscurity, Kameny used his termination to launch an unprecedented legal battle against the federal government. Acting as his own attorney, he petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in 1961, marking the first time in history that a civil rights claim based on sexual orientation reached the nation’s highest court. He forcefully argued that the government’s systemic purging of gay employees was as unjust as racial or religious discrimination. Although the Supreme Court ultimately refused to hear his case, the bold act of fighting the federal government under his real name established Kameny as a fearless pioneer of a new, confrontational style of LGBTQ+ activism.

In 1961, Frank Kameny co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., launching the nation’s earliest public LGBTQ+ rights protests at the White House, the Pentagon, and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. He enforced a strict, professional dress code at these pickets to aggressively challenge negative societal stereotypes, later coining the monumental slogan “Gay Is Good” in 1968 to foster radical self-pride. Recognizing that the federal government used psychiatric labels to justify its workplace discrimination, Kameny and fellow activist Barbara Gittings strategically targeted the American Psychiatric Association (APA). By staging intense disruptions at annual meetings and organizing a historic 1972 panel featuring a masked, closeted gay psychiatrist, their unrelenting pressure forced a structural review that culminated in the APA’s monumental December 1973 vote removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)

Kameny spent the rest of his life expanding his political and legal activism, including a historic 1971 run as the first openly gay candidate for the U.S. Congress. He meticulously saved over 70,000 documents, letters, and original picket signs in his home attic, creating a massive archive that he later donated to the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution. Fifty-two years after his wrongful termination, the federal government formally apologized to Kameny in 2009, presenting him with its highest civil service award. Following his death on National Coming Out Day in 2011, he was buried in Washington’s Congressional Cemetery beneath a headstone bearing his defining phrase: “Gay Is Good”.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=889814953714919

https://legacyprojectchicago.org/person/frank-kameny

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/frank-kameny-wwii-veteran-patriot-and-lgbtq-activist

https://www.ctao.org/news/building-from-diversity-article-frank-kameny/

https://makinggayhistory.org/podcast/revisiting-the-archive-episode-1-frank-kameny/

Buford was the advance guard, the most forward unit, of the Army of the Potomac. All day during the 30th, his superior General George Meade would be moving units toward Gettysburg, a small town that sat on the junction of ten different roads, many of which provided easy access to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC. Meade’s original plan had been to let his units do some light marching--the days were hot and dry, and his men needed water, shade, and rest. Many men fell out with heat exhaustion, and more than a few died.

As darkness consumed the landscape on June 30, 1863, the Confederate army, though well concentrated, still had large geographic spaces in which to cover to finish the concentration before risking combat with the Federal army. That evening, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had four of his nine infantry divisions east of South Mountain. Although more of the army was near at hand, there was a distinct disadvantage because of the terrain. A majority of Lee’s army was on the western side of South Mountain. If Lee needed to call upon more of his army the following day they would have to crowd onto a single road through the Cashtown Pass over steep inclines at a distance of ten miles.

Buford remained in place, securing the area for the inevitable approach of Meade’s First and Eleventh Corps, due to arrive imminently. Just a few miles up the pike was A.P.Hill and Henry Heth, and presumably large elements of the Army of Northern Virginia. Buford had to know that contact was imminent, and while fellow Union commanders and their forces were nearby, it was Buford who would bear the brunt of any attack that they made.

General Buford’s stubborn delaying action on the following day, and Gen Greene’s defensive works on Culp’s Hill, would set the stage for a Union victory at Gettysburg.

You’ll remember General Buford from our long-running #ConfederateHeritageMonth series where instead of focusing on traitorous insurrectionists, we focus on loyal patriotic Americans who remained steadfast in their belief of something bigger than their native state (or, in many cases, propping up slave-owning oligarchs). We typically feature him every April 3rd. John Buford was a Southerner from Woodford County, Kentucky.

Why are we telling you this? Because tomorrow 01 July is the anniversary of Gettysburg.

Union Gen. John Buford, a Southern Unionist

“Coming Rain” by Dale Gallon, and a Google Earth street-view image

Admin V here. I want to talk about the European heat wave and their willingness to let people die rather than figure out a solution that works for everyone. They like to talk about our deaths from gun violence, but more people die over here from heat than die from gun violence in America. For the record, my fyp is full of Europeans getting small window units and I’m delighted for them, but there are still people making excuses and I want to talk about them.

Things that they always say.

1. “Our houses are built to keep heat in.” And I think that yes, houses here have insulation too. I grew up in a brick house in the swamps of eastern South Carolina. The brick isn’t the problem. Insulation keeps heat in in the winter and cool in in the summer. It helps you maintain the inside temperature whatever that is.

2. “We can’t install central air in our old buildings.” No one is saying you should. They have these small free standing A/C that you can retrofit to vent out of any kind of window that are relatively inexpensive. If you want to go the next level up, you can install a mini-split. A lot of the older homes in the US, people have gone with mini-split systems rather than install a whole central air

3. When people in the comments suggest the cost-effective solution of a DIY swamp cooler, “They don’t work here because of the humidity”. Look, a styrofoam cooler of ice and a fan will blow cold air on you. At Disney, they have fans blowing misty water on you and you do feel better and I can’t think of a more humid place than Florida.

4. “AC is making climate change worse.” Maybe, but people are dying right now due to the climate crisis. Are the deaths of old people and children an acceptable sacrifice for your principles? I think the concern is fossil fuels used to run the AC. If that is the case, we can continue the switch to more renewable sources. Solar panels and wind energy everywhere. People don’t like to hear this one, but nuclear energy is also clean.

5. “It is a waste of money because this is such a short time.” But the thing is that it is happening every year. I think y’all just need to start calling what you’re having summer and invest accordingly. You’re not going to buy a unit and then throw it away. You’ll put it in storage until you need it again. And yes, your power bill will go up for the short time that you’re running it, but you can be smart about it and only run it a couple of hours a day just to keep the temperature bearable. Also, pick a single room that you want to run it in and make that home base for everyone. Read books, watch movies, nap, and work. The smaller the room the better, then the AC won’t have to work so hard.

I also get really annoyed when they say UK heat is different and that I can’t possibly understand. I live in South Carolina. I grew up in the swamp. We’re in the 90s now with 60% humidity and that is a fairly normal day for summer here. It can get hotter and more humid in July and August. And we have developed coping mechanisms beyond air conditioning. I see people on design shows replacing ceiling fans with like these beautiful light fixtures and I am horrified because I love ceiling fans. If I replace my ceiling fan, it will be with another ceiling fan. When my AC goes out, I lay under my ceiling fan with ice in my bra and pray that the AC repair man gets here quickly.

Talking to the Northern Europeans now (who aren’t in my comments section.). We know what hot feels like here in the US and Australia and all the other countries that are closer to the equator. We are sorry about climate change. We understand that change isn’t easy. We also understand that there are people who can’t afford it. But structurally y’all need to do some things to make it better.

In the American South, we have something called hurricane shelters. These shelters (usually in schools, but sometimes in churches) open up right before the storm so that people can leave the more coastal areas to ride out the storm. Maybe this is something that Europeans could implement for heat waves for the people who can’t afford AC. Pick a public building and put in central air and create a shelter for the heat.

I also recommend learning to love the iced drink. Especially water, but really liquid is liquid. To my English friends, I know you guys love tea. You should try it iced and sweetened. There is a reason that Americans walk around with emotional support water cups that could double as a weapon. Staying hydrated with cold liquids makes it feel more bearable. During the hotter parts of the day, find shade. Outside may be more bearable than being inside. Find you a shade tree and a lawn chair and take a little siesta with your emotional support water cup next to you. A small USB recharging fan may be useful there. You’re going to sweat. I’m very sorry. Go inside and take a cold shower. Rinse and repeat until the heat wave breaks.

May the force be with you.

But I’ve never--until now--talked about the lead-up to the battle.

After Robert E. Lee scored a victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, which took place from April 30th until May 6th of 1863, Lee decided he would conduct another invasion of the North. He desperately needed supplies, he wanted to give war-torn Virginia a break, and he believed--incorrectly--that he could undermine civilian morale and exacerbate what he thought was a growing anti-war movement.

Held up by neo-Confederates and Lost Causers as one of the greatest and most brilliant generals in American history, Robert E. Lee actually had numerous misunderstandings that shaped his strategy for his second Northern invasion. Lee misread Northern opinion by his reliance on anti-war Copperhead newspapers for Yankee public opinion. Reading them, he assumed the civilians and politicians in his former country must be just as war-weary as southerners. Lee also did not appreciate the determination of the Lincoln Administration. These patterns of misunderstanding and faulty information would plague Lee throughout the campaign.

Lee was also overconfident in his estimation of the morale and equipment of his “invincible” veterans, as a result of their performance at Chancellorsville. Lee’s overconfidence can be somewhat excused--Union General Joe Hooker was a timid opponent during the battle, despite having more than twice the manpower, being much better supplied, and being well-rested. By contrast, Lee’s men were poorly-provisioned and scattered all over the state, so they had to rush to reassemble. Lee’s audacious and risky maneuvering against a hesitant, timid opponent netted him a stunning victory.

Lee’s army slipped away from Union contact on June 3rd. They would ultimately cross the Blue Ridge Mountains, move north through the Shenandoah Valley--which screened their movements from spying Union scouts--and then Lee’s army crossed the Potomac River. They would advance through Maryland and Pennsylvania before threatening that state’s capital of Harrisburg. During their invasion of Pennsylvania, Confederate troops abducted up to 1,000 African Americans (most of them free people of color with a few being fugitive slaves), all of whom were forcibly sent southwards and sold into slavery.

Compounding problems for Lee was the fact that his legendary, highly-valuable cavalry commander, Jeb Stuart, took the best parts of Lee’s entire cavalry and went raiding for a week, depriving Lee of knowledge regarding the Union Army. Stuart’s job was to screen Lee’s forces, provide scouts, and gather intelligence. Stuart left Lee’s army with two third-rate, ill-equipped, poorly led brigades that could not handle the reconnaissance challenge in hostile country.

Unbeknownst to Lee, Union commanders had been in pursuit and had been shadowing Lee on a roughly parallel course. Stuart’s actions had the added effect of causing Stuart to lose track of his superior. Instead of finding and reporting on Union positions, Stuart decided to raid some supply trains.

The only way Stuart managed to solve his intelligence problem was by reading a Philadelphia newspaper which, although a day old, had accurately reported Lee’s location. Slowed down by a wagon train full of booty, Stuart set off to link up with Lee. His slow speed would cause him to miss a significant portion of the upcoming battle at Gettysburg.

In the interim, Union General Joe Hooker--who wanted to attack the Confederate capital of Richmond and was rebuffed by President Lincoln--capitulated to his boss’s demand to pursue the Confederacy’s most important field army. Hooker then demanded the Army garrison at Harper’s Ferry, and threatened to resign if he did not get it. Lincoln, unimpressed with Hooker’s failure at Chancellorsville, accepted the resignation and replaced Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac with General George Meade.

Inheriting a battered and demoralised Army of the Potomac, Meade was told, plainly, by Lincoln’s wartime cabinet and members of Congress that his job was to protect Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia. Congress would not interfere or try to armchair-general his forces, provided he used his army to protect the region in any way that he saw fit. The AoP had seven corps of infantry, and more besides in cavalry, artillery, and logistics/supply trains.

On June 28, Union General Joseph T. Copeland and two regiments of his Michigan cavalry brigade had entered Gettysburg to gather information. The citizens of Gettysburg must have been both elated and shocked as this force constituted the advance of the Union Army of the Potomac. Local attorney David McConaughy, the leader of a band of independent civilian scouts, met with Copeland and gave a detailed report of the Confederate’s activities over the preceding days. Copeland passed this information on to General Meade.

Meade immediately put the army in motion and raced northward to attack Lee. His army moved at a remarkable speed, considering the intense late-June heat. Many of his men fell out, and a few died of exhaustion. They averaged about fifteen miles per day, and more. Meade’s plan was to set up a fortified position at Big Pipe Creek below the PA-MD state line where Lee would have to come to him in order to get to Baltimore or the nation’s capital. Meade believed that Lee knew where he was, and that Lee would turn away from his objectives in order to attack a force that appeared to be guarding Baltimore and Washington. It was suspected that Lee’s invasion was to try and ravage the countryside whilst taking supplies from citizens, before striking at Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington in order to force the North to sue for peace.

Lee did not, in fact, know where the Union army was. On the evening of June 28th, he finally got accurate reports of the Union Army’s whereabouts through spies. At approximately ten o’clock in the evening on June 28, 1863, Henry Thomas Harrison, a Confederate spy, raced into General Longstreet’s headquarters near Chambersburg, PA. Harrison came with incredible details about locations of Union troops who were advancing north around Frederick, MD. He also reported that General Meade had recently been made commander of The Army of the Potomac.

Longstreet was stunned at this intel, so stunned in fact that he sent Harrison to relay the information to General Robert E. Lee, who then made the decision to focus his army on Gettysburg. He believed that the newly-promoted Meade would end up being just like Joe Hooker: slow to respond and easy to anticipate. Lee even believed he could make Meade move where Lee wanted him to go. He ordered the Army of Northern Virginia to move toward Gettysburg, a small town at the junction of numerous important crossroads, in heavily wooded areas. But first, Lee had to quickly reassemble his army after having spread it out to maximize plundering the countryside. Lee knew that if he did not, Meade would easily defeat his army piecemeal. Lee’s corps commander Ewell was ordered to abandon his approach to Pennsylvania’s capital at Harrisburg, and corps commanders Longstreet and A.P. Hill were recalled toward Cashtown and Gettysburg.

Lee also issued strict instructions to all of his officers and units that no one was to engage in hostilities with Union forces until all of the army’s units were in place. Lee wanted his forces to rest, resupply, and not take any more casualties. Under no circumstances were they to engage.

Lee’s army began moving south and southeast toward the town. Meade, coming north from Frederick Maryland, had effectively cut off Lee’s ability to retreat and would force him to fight, if Lee had the notion to decline battle. Meade was reasonably sure that Lee would engage--after all, from the Confederate point of view, they had beaten the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.

#OnThisDay in 1863, Confederate commander Henry Heth--who we cover during the Shelton Laurel Massacre--gave orders to a brigade of North Carolinians under command of Johnston Pettigrew to march out the next day and enter the town. In his post-war memoirs Heth claimed he ordered Pettigrew to search for supplies, particularly shoes. The shoe-search story came about, in years after the war, as Ewell and other Confederate leaders began trying to explain blame for the loss at Gettysburg. Heth had been accused of lighting off the fight before Lee’s army was ready. Not only was there not a shoe factory in Gettysburg, but also neither Confederate commander “allegedly” knew that four days earlier, Confederate corps commander Ewell had already plundered the town. I say “allegedly” because it’s suspected the Heth concocted his report--filed two months later--to cover the fact that he went looking for a fight, knowing Union elements had been in the town. There is no way he did not have access to intelligence that his comrade Ewell had already been there.

Also on this day in 1863, Gen. Meade sent a note to David McConaughy thanking him for the information and for his diligence in keeping the authorities informed as to the Southern army’s movements. Gen. Copeland’s forces would withdraw from Gettysburg that morning. The contact between McConaughy and Union officers provided a much-needed morale boost to Gettysburg’s ~2400 citizens.

By that night both Union and Confederate forces were encamped in Adams County. General Henry Heth’s Confederate division was encamped at Cashtown with a small detachment in Fairfield. General John Buford’s Union cavalry division had reached Fountaindale, and General Kilpatrick’s cavalry was at Littlestown. Meade had issued orders to his units that the 30th would be light duty--he knew his men needed rest, shade, and water.

On the following day, June 30th, Gen. Buford’s Union cavalry began approaching the town right around the time that Johnston Pettigrew’s brigade made their approach. Pettigrew, remembering Lee’s orders for no contact, withdrew and reported back to Heth and Heth’s superior A.P. Hill. Neither officer believed Pettigrew’s observations that there was a substantial Union force either in, or near, the town. Each man believed it was most probably some local militia, since Lincoln had urgently requested every able-bodied civilian report for militia duty to help battle the invading Confederates. Pettigrew must be wrong, and had failed, because A.P. Hill had been at Lee’s headquarters the day before and had seen where Lee believed the Union army to be--further south at Frederick Maryland. Heth’s disdain for local militia, whilst well-founded, led him to believe the crossroads town would be easily occupied.

A.P. Hill decided, in defiance of Lee’s orders, that the following morning his men would mount a significant reconnaissance in force to determine the size and strength of the militia that was gathering along his front. Hill ordered two brigades to depart from his camp starting at 5am on July 1st. Their orders were to approach and scout Gettysburg. This would have serious repercussions over the next few days.

Reminder: the Confederacy were traitors who betrayed the United States and tried to destroy the union out of spite.

Reminder: “heritage not hate” is Lost Cause horse shit.

Reminder: the Lost Cause narrative is revisionist history bullshit.

Reminder: the South seceded over slavery and economic factors tied to slavery.

Also another reminder that the Confederacy is a bunch of traitors who LOST, got their asses KICKED, and were forced to BEG to be readmitted into the Union.

PS: your flag is a participation trophy. Get fucked and die mad about it. #NotSorryNotSorry

General George G. Meade

Prior to this battle, Confederate commander Joe Johnston spent two months constantly withdrawing and falling back, delaying Union forces as they marched toward Atlanta. Atlanta was the last major Confederate city that could route supplies and Johnston knew he had to hold it for as long as possible. Sherman also maneuvered his forces in such a way that it would thin out Johnston’s lines and risk being flanked. Heavy attrition in the Confederate Army of Tennessee made it practically impossible for any commander, no matter how seasoned or how much of a fighter he was, to defeat the Union juggernaut fighting its way toward Atlanta.

Kennesaw Mountain consists of Big and Little Kennesaw, Pigeon Hill, and Cheatham Hill. The highest point--Big Kennesaw--is 1,808 feet and rises about eight hundred feet above the surrounding land. The Confederates had dug entrenchments which they fortified with stones and logs, and erected impregnable abatis. Their guns were sighted and had excellent range, considering the elevation. The ground was covered with dense undergrowth. Johnston’s forces occupied a roughly seven-mile line.

Less than a week earlier, Sherman’s forces had engaged Confederates at Kolb’s Farm, located at the south end of Johnston’s lines. Confederate commander John Bell Hood thought that he was outflanking a Union flanking force, did no reconnaissance in advance, and impetuously attacked Union forces. In just a few hours’ fighting, Hood had lost over 1,000 troops. Accordingly, Sherman believed that Johnston was overextended and stretched thin. Arriving in the vicinity of Kennesaw Mountain and seeing the line of fortifications along the high ground, Sherman decided to risk a frontal assault against Johnston’s dug-in forces rather than go around. Also factoring into Sherman’s decision was a barrage of criticism from his detractors, accusing him of avoiding hard fighting.

Sherman knew that it could potentially be a costly battle. Therefore he limited the amount of troops that would participate, which put him at a numerical disadvantage against Johnston’s forces. He also chose to forego the element of surprise by leading with an hour-long artillery barrage.

Major General James B. McPherson had been ordered to feign an attack against the northern end of Kennesaw Mountain, while his corps under Major General John A. Logan assaulted Pigeon Hill on its southwest corner. At the same time, Major General George H. Thomas--who we cover during #ConfederateHeritageMonth--launched strong attacks against Cheatham Hill at the center of the Confederate line. Both attacks would be repulsed with heavy losses. Sherman also directed Schofield to conduct a limited attack against Hood’s corps on the Confederate left to confuse Johnston as to where the primary attack would fall.

At 8am, the artillery--some 200 guns--began firing. An hour later, Union infantry left their positions--the stepping off. Walking upright was hardly possible in the tangled vines, and the battle lines quickly unraveled in the dense vegetation. Most Federals became mired in the undergrowth and devastated by punishing musketry as they attempted to ascend the slope. For the next three hours one tightly packed Federal column after another charged into the teeth of the Confederate rifle fire. Well-directed fire Confederate artillery fire on Little Kennesaw and a Confederate counterattack eventually drove off the Union forces.

The fighting was fiercest and deadliest between Pigeon Hill down to what is now Cheatham Hill (named for the Confederate commander of that section). At Cheatham Hill, Union soldiers marched uphill, exposed. They encountered hidden cannons that were used as enormous shotguns, firing directly into their ranks. Men laid down on the slope, the only thing that kept them alive because the Confederate guns couldn’t reach them if they stayed down. Toiling in the dark earlier that week, Cheatham’s engineers had mistakenly established the main trench line fifty yards too far up the hill, which meant that many of the defenders on the hilltop could not see all of the ground to their front.

There is an instance where Union troops from Missouri--the 6th and 8th Missouri Regiments--engaged in hand-to-hand combat against Confederate troops also from Missouri. A Confederate officer would later write that he found it sickening to have fought against fellow Missourians.

When the ground to the Confederate front in this sector caught fire from muzzle flashes and bursting shells, putting many of the wounded Federals at risk of burning to death, Confederate commander William Martin of the 1st/15th Arkansas Regiment (Consolidated) stood atop the parapet and raised a white handkerchief to signal a halt to the fighting. “Boys, this is butchery!” he shouted. After Martin’s offer of a brief ceasefire to allow the attackers to remove their wounded was accepted, Yankees and Rebels alike went to work to move the fallen out of harm’s way. A Union officer then handed Martin a pair of pearl-handled pistols as a token of appreciation.

By noon, the Union attack had failed. Although the survivors of the assaulting columns spent the next five days in advanced works just yards from the Confederate position, there was no more heavy fighting at Kennesaw. On July 2, Sherman maneuvered Major General John M. Schofield’s forces around Johnston’s left flank, forcing the Confederates to fall back once again closer to Atlanta.

At a cost of about 700 Confederate casualties to 3,000 Union casualties, Johnston had won a tactical victory, but he had not altered the strategic situation in any way. For his part, Sherman failed to achieve his primary tactical objective, which was to punch through the Confederate center. Confederate president Jefferson Davis was irate at Johnston’s refusal to engage in a head-on battle with Union forces, and the loss of ground at Kennesaw was the final straw. Davis gave orders for the removal of General Johnston from command of the army.

I used to live near Kennesaw Mountain and have hiked all of the major hills. I have stood on both mountains looking down where Union forces would have fought uphill. I’ve stood at the “Dead Angle” on Cheatham Hill where Confederate forces were dug in and I’ve walked uphill from where Union forces “stepped off” to where they laid down just yards below Confederate earthworks. It is an impressive display of bravery and iron fortitude to march uphill against rifles and cannons.

Federal entrenchments at the foot of Kenesaw Mountain

Union and Confederate lines

Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) was one of the most talented pop vocalists of his generation and is another of Admin E-Lo’s heroes. Born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar (now Tanzania), the life that he was destined for was definitely not foreseen. His family were Parsi and practiced the religion Zoroastrianism. He spent most of his childhood in Tanzania and India before his family, escaping the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964 by emigrating to England. Mercury continued his education and studied graphic art and design at Ealing Art College.

In April 1970, Mercury teamed up with Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May to become lead singer of their band Smile. They renamed the band Queen shortly after adding John Deacon to the group. Mercury’s artistic vision propelled the group to monumental success, blending traditional rock with operatic pop, heavy metal, and disco. Though he claimed not to read music, he learned to play the piano as a child and wrote 10 of the 17 songs on Queen’s greatest hits album.

Fun fact: Mercury had four extra incisors, which he claimed assisted in his vocal ability.

Not surprisingly in the 60s and 70s, he struggled with his sexuality. He had a long-term relationship with a woman, Mary Austin, who he asked to marry, but she knew it wasn’t going to work. She instead became his life-long best friend and Mercury called her his common-law wife, she was so essential to his life. He sowed his wild oats in the gay nightlife scene in London and Munich, where he lived part-time in the 70s and early 80s.

Beyond studio recordings, Mercury became celebrated as an unparalleled live performer who could masterfully command stadium crowds across the globe. His magnetic charisma and showmanship peaked during Queen’s legendary 20-minute set at the 1985 Live Aid concert, an appearance widely considered one of the greatest live music performances in history. David Bowie praised Mercury’s performance style, saying: “Of all the more theatrical rock performers, Freddie took it further than the rest ... he took it over the edge. And of course, I always admired a man who wears tights. I only saw him in concert once and as they say, he was definitely a man who could hold an audience in the palm of his hand.”

[Page through this Instagram to see more pics of Freddie with his cats, Tiffany and Oscar.]

Many were concerned because of Mercury’s continuing to engage in unprotected sex after the AIDS crisis began. He settled down in a long-term boyfriend, and was diagnosed with HIV in the late 80s. He kept the reality of his diagnosis intensely private to protect his loved ones and avoid media scrutiny. He continued to record and create music until his health failed. On November 23, 1991, he released a public statement confirming his AIDS diagnosis; he tragically passed away the next day at the age of 45, devastating Admin E-Lo while she was at a singing clinic in Chadron, Nebraska.

Today, his legacy as a musical icon and champion of artistic freedom continues to inspire generations of musicians and fans. There is no way to give all of the details of his life here, so here are sources and some great links so you can fully immerse yourself in his wondrousness.

https://www.eonline.com/news/982514/the-truth-about-freddie-mercury-s-incredibly-complicated-life-is-guaranteed-to-blow-your-mind

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Freddie-Mercury

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/how-freddie-mercury-became-an-icon/

https://www.freddiemercury.com/en/biography

Isolated vocals:

Photos:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/freddie-mercury-richard-young-a-kind-of-magic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mercury

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/freddie-mercury-pictures/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/freddie-mercury-his-life-in-pictures-11291/into-the-eighties-207787/

Admin V here. I’m going to continue queerness in the South series with a post where I talk about my friend, Bradley. Now, y’all know that I’ve never been a queer man in the south but I know a fair few of them and Bradley was one of them who was willing to talk to me and give me all the scoop about how he felt growing up in the south and his life experience.

Bradley and I are the same age and we’ve known each other since we were super little. His first cousin is my second cousin and we’re probably related to each other in a dozen more ways because our roots are buried in the black soil of the PeeDee. When I didn’t have a date to my senior prom because I was a big old nerd, I cornered Bradley in the media center by the olive green manual typewriter that was probably older than us and asked him to go to the prom with me as my friend.

You see, I knew Bradley was gay, but Bradley didn’t know Bradley was gay. This is a common theme in my life. Bradley is not the first person to tell me that I knew before him. We weren’t exposed to a lot of things in that part of the world, but I had a cousin who lived in Greenville and dated men and I am good at pattern recognition.

Bradley was smart (but he would tell you otherwise. It would be a lie.) We were in a lot of classes together. He and I both had brothers who were the same age who were friends so the four of us would get together at the high school tennis courts and play together. They were all on the boys team and I was on the girls team. People think tennis is a rich person sport, but public courts are everywhere and if you can find a racket and a three pack of balls, that is a cheap night of fun for teenagers. And we played a lot. Year round. Bradley and I also were library assistants who spent our free periods in the library shelving books and not stuck in study hall. Basically I spent plenty of time around him for that pattern recognition.

Things I noticed. Bradley was always well-groomed and neatly dressed. Bradley had an eye for color and decor and figured out a way to create 3-D posterboard stars that we spray painted gold when we were decorating for junior prom. He did this before youtube and the internet and I was very impressed. Bradley was not interested in typical boy hobbies like hunting and fishing. Also, Bradley was an attractive enough kid and I never saw him interested in girls. I put the clues together and added two and two to make four.

Our relationship was always an easy one and when I get a chance to talk to him, it is like we fit back into those old patterns and can gab for hours.

Recently Bradley made the move back home after living for several years in New York and I reached out to talk to him about growing up in the south as a gay man. For him, it was a mixed bag. There were good things and there were bad things. We talked about the culture of silence around queerness in the south and that was a real problem for him. You see, he was 18 and in nursing school before he realized that he was gay.

It took me until I was 37 years old to realize I was asexual so he was doing better than me. He told me that he always figured that maybe one day the straightness would happen, but it never did and at 18, he realized he could be something else.

He and I are the same in a lot of ways. We fear being too much for our families and that they will reject us. We worry about the generations that are coming up after us in our small town because things somehow seem harder than even in the 90s. We’re still fighting for progress for kids like us. Kids who are different and maybe don’t know why. He wrote an amazing piece on his own page about his own experience that I will link in the comments. He has walked on the edge of life and come out the other side in one piece and I’m proud of my friend.

Bradley’s experience with church was different from mine. He wasn’t Baptist and for all his unrecognized queerness, he was a man. He still manages to have at least a form of faith. It isn’t the clean evangelical one of our youth, but it is here. I can’t find it, but I’m glad he has it.

New York taught Bradley many things. That the world is full of variety and spice. He told me to tell you that he found many flavors of ice cream in New York and he likes ice cream. He’s back home now and he’s trying to figure out how to be Bradley in our state and in our community. I hope he doesn’t shrink himself. That he’s loud and proud. That he shows a different way to be from our community and still be exactly who he was raised to be.

A Southern man with principles and empathy and a love for those who were different from him.

Admin V here, Some of my stress was alleviated last week and I’ve just been celebrating and relaxing rather than writing. I have been following the surrender at Versailles and the reflecting pool nonsense. And I’m very interested in why Donny Diapers went to Camp David when there is no golf course that he owns there and he is known to hate.nature. I’m not currently riled up about it so I can’t find the rage to compose. But I am following, but today we’re going to talk about tradwivery and why “A man is not a plan.”

Now every few months, some dumb, dumb, very young thing comes online and says “I’m 19. I’m married. I haven’t been to college. I’ve never had a job. And I am right where I want to be.” And all the rest of the women online tell her some variation of “That is the dumbest thing we’ve ever heard.”

The current victim got married six weeks after she turned 18 to a man who was 10 years older than her and a lot of people online are unsure of the timeline of that relationship.

Things people are telling her including other people who are stay at home moms and wives.

1. Have you thought about what you’re going to do if he changes his mind?

2. Do you have access to your own money?

3. What happens if he gets ill and can’t work?

4. Do you have your own retirement funds?

5. Why do 19 year olds think they know everything?

That last question is my favorite because who else was 19 and certain they knew everything? Raise your hand if you did. Because I absolutely thought I was grown. At 19, I told my parents that I was going to do a co-op job for Delta Airlines and live in Atlanta with three strange men that I didn’t know. They were other co-op students, but still. I had my own bedroom and by the end of the summer two of my roommates were women. I was fine. It was a great experience, but still not my smartest move looking back. Did I mention that this was before cell phones? Basically, I can, at the age of 48, see why mom was concerned.

My grandmas both told me that I was going to go to college and have a career. My dad’s dad died at 39 and his mom didn’t even have a driver’s license. My dad at the age of 12 had to teach his mother to drive. She wound up getting a second shift job at the textile mill leaving my dad to come home from school to watch his three younger siblings including a 2 year old little sister. My mom’s dad died at 47. My oldest aunt was married, but my mom was still in college and my youngest aunt was in high school. Mom’s mom had worked through most of her marriage at Belk to supplement the farm income, but she ended up getting a radio ad sales job and continuing to work at Belk to make sure they could keep the farm and my mom and aunt could stay in school. Mom’s mom had gotten married rather than go to college and none of her girls or grandchildren were going to do that.

They were very clear in their directives. A man is not a plan. Both of my parents who grew up in those circumstances were also very clear on this. There was never any point in my life where I wasn’t going to get some sort of post-secondary training. My brother and I could have had a trade or a college degree, but we were going to have at least one of those.

So when I see these young, very dumb girlies coming online with their fresh faces and their cheerleader voices, all I can think is “What is your fallback plan if that man dies or divorces you?” I am far from alone because we have all these other people coming into comments sections saying “I used to think that too, but the man you divorce is not the man you marry.”

One lady did a follow up video where she asked “Where are all the 45 year old trad wives?” The comment section on that one was very eye opening because we had women my age sharing the tales of when they tried the stay at home thing and lived to regret it because of divorce, illness, and death.

The conclusion we’ve all come to in the social media space is that life is probably going to teach her the lesson that we’re warning her of. One day her frontal lobe is going to develop and she’s going to start seeing what we all see and she will be warning the next generation.

For the record, none of us are saying that you shouldn’t be a stay at home wife or mother. We’re just saying that there needs to be some risk management in that decision. Create a Roth IRA in your name and make sure that you and your husband contribute to it. Make sure you know where the money is going and how much you have as a couple and make those financial decisions together. If possible, have access to your own money and your own bank account separate from his with your own money that isn’t part of the household expenses. If he has his own business and you are laboring for that business, then you need to take a salary and have an official job title so that you can have a work history and know how the business runs. If you own a home together, both of you need your name on the deed of the home. Basically, value yourself as an equal in the relationship. If you don’t, your partner certainly won’t.

But ladies, remember, a man is not a plan.

Laverne Cox (b. 1972) was raised by a single mother and grandmother in Mobile, Alabama with her twin brother. Cox endured a childhood scarred by bullying, isolation, and anti-trans bigotry. In her memoir, she shares harrowing memories of childhood trauma, including a brief period of being left at an orphanage and a suicide attempt at age 11 due to the intense shame and harassment she faced for not conforming to gender norms. Despite this brutal environment, she developed an inner defiance, channeling her energy into creative writing and classical ballet to chart her own path forward.

Cox’s passion for the arts eventually led her to higher education, where she refined her skills and began her medical transition. She initially studied dance at Indiana University Bloomington before transferring to Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, where she shifted her focus from classical ballet to acting. During this formative period, she immersed herself in the New York City underground nightclub scene, frequently performing in drag shows to survive while auditioning for mainstream acting roles. These early years in the city allowed her to fully embrace her identity as a woman, building the grit and glamour that would define her future career.

Her decades of perseverance culminated in a historic, meteoric breakthrough when she was cast as Sophia Burset on the hit Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. Her nuanced portrayal of an incarcerated transgender woman catapulted her into global stardom and broke structural barriers within Hollywood. In 2014, Cox became the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in an acting category. She followed this milestone by becoming the first transgender person to win a Daytime Emmy as a producer in 2015, establishing herself as an industry pioneer and a vital ambassador for trans visibility on screen.

Cox uses her platform to emphasize that her financial and professional challenges are indicative of a much larger, coordinated political assault on the transgender community. She notes that if someone with her immense privilege and visibility is forced to dip into retirement savings to stay afloat, less-privileged trans individuals face catastrophic consequences. She views the current targeting of gender-affirming care and DEI frameworks as a dangerous “permission structure” to eliminate trans people from public life. By shedding her personal shame and sharing her story, Cox continues to champion collective resistance, fighting to ensure that future generations do not have their rights and humanity systematically stripped away.

Cox has recently shed light on the severe economic and systemic backlashes facing transgender individuals in America. In a series of recent interviews—most notably featured in The Guardian while promoting her new memoir, Transcendent—Cox revealed she has lost 90% of her income over the past two years. She explicitly attributes this staggering financial drop to the Trump administration’s aggressive rollbacks of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. This crackdown has effectively dried up her corporate speaking engagements, brand sponsorships, and academic teaching gigs.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/15/free-from-shame-laverne-cox-trans-woman-in-trump-america

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/laverne-cox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverne_Cox

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/books/review/laverne-cox-transcendent-memoir.html

Built in an English shipyard and sold to the Confederates in 1861, the Alabama was a state-of-the-art ship—220 feet long, with a speed of up to 13 knots. The cruiser was equipped with a machine shop and could carry enough coal to steam for 18 days, but its sails could greatly extend that time. Under its captain, Raphael Semmes, the Alabama prowled the world for three years, capturing U.S. commercial ships. It sailed around the globe, usually working out of the West Indies, but taking prizes and bungling Union shipping in the Caribbean, off Newfoundland, and around the coast of South America. In January 1863, Semmes sunk a Union warship, the Hatteras, after luring it out of Galveston, Texas. The first painting is of the battle between the USS Hatteras and the CSS Alabama. The Union navy spent an enormous amount of time and effort trying to track down the Alabama.

The Alabama then sailed around South America, across the Pacific, and docked in India in 1864. By the summer, Captain Semmes realized that after three years and 75,000 miles his vessel desperately needed overhauling in a modern shipyard. He sailed around Africa to France, where the French denied him access to a dry dock. Enter the USS Kearsarge--Captain Winslow had caught up to the Confederate raider, and stood off-coast waiting for the ship. Realizing that he was in a bind, Alabama’s Captain Semmes decided to try and set the stage himself. Semmes challenged Kearsarge’s Captain John Winslow to a ship-to-ship duel. That suited Winslow very well, and he took station offshore and waited.

After four days of coaling, drill and other preparations, Alabama steamed out of Cherbourg harbor in the morning of 19 June 1864, escorted by the French ironclad Couronne, which remained in the area to ensure that the combat remained in international waters. On paper, Kearsarge and Alabama were well-matched, with the Union warship having a slight advantage in gun power and speed. As the Confederate approached, Kearsarge steamed further to sea, to ensure that Alabama could not easily return to port.

At 10:50 AM, Captain Winslow put his ship around and headed for the enemy. Alabama opened fire a few minutes later, at a distance of about a mile, and continued to fire as the range decreased. As the ships closed to about a half-mile, Kearsarge turned and began to shoot back. Both ships had their guns trained to starboard, and the engagement followed a circular course, with the ships steaming in opposite directions and turning to counter the other’s attempts to gain an advantageous position. Superior Federal gunnery, and the deteriorated condition of Alabama’s powder (damp and in damaged containers), fuses, and shells, soon began to tell. Though Alabama hit her opponent several times, the projectiles caused little damage and few casualties. Kearsarge was clad in iron plates and a form of chain mail, and its timbers were stout and in excellent condition. One shell hit Kearsarge’s sternpost, failed to explode, and still embedded in the sternpost it survives today as a relic of the battle.

After a spectacular battle which was visible from shore and had attracted other vessels, the Kearsarge finally gained the upper hand. After about an hour’s shooting, Alabama was beginning to sink, with several men killed and many others wounded. Among the injured was Semmes, who turned and tried to run back toward Cherbourg. However, when Kearsarge headed him off and the rising water stopped his engines, Semmes struck his flag and threw his sword into the sea rather than present it for capture as was the gentlemanly custom of the time. As Alabama sank, some twenty minutes after firing ceased, most of her crew were rescued (more on that in a second).

During the battle, 40 Confederate sailors were casualties (19 killed in action or drowned, and 21 wounded). Another seventy or so were picked up by Kearsarge. Thirty or so were rescued by Deerhound, a British yacht, which Captain Winslow asked to help evacuate Alabama’s crew, and three French pilot boats. Captain Semmes and fourteen of his officers were among the sailors rescued by Deerhound. Instead of delivering the captured Confederates to Kearsarge, Deerhound set a course for Southampton, thus enabling Captain Semmes’ escape. This act angered the Kearsarge crew, who begged their captain to allow them to open fire on the British yacht. Captain Winslow would not allow this, so the Confederates got away and avoided imprisonment. Three men were wounded aboard Kearsarge, one of whom died the following day.

After the Civil War, Britain had to pay the US restitution for the damage the Alabama had caused since they had allowed a warship to be secretly built in Britain while being officially neutral.

On 20 January 1894, the Kearsarge departed Haiti and set sail for Nicaragua. She wrecked on a reef off Roncador Cay on 2 February, approximately 150 kilometers (93 miles) east-northeast of Providencia Island. Her officers and crew made it safely ashore. Presumably, the remnants of the wreck remain there. In November 1984 the French Navy mine hunter Circé discovered a wreck under nearly 200 ft (60 m) of water off Cherbourg.

1st image: USS Hatteras, foreground, fighting CSS Alabama (rear)

2nd image: USS Kearsarge fighting CSS Alabama

3rd image: USS Kearsarge in 1861

4th image: the unexploded shell from Alabama, in Kearsarge’s mast--recovered when Kearsarge wrecked.

On this day, June 19, 1865 -- two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after Robert E Lee surrendered -- word finally reached the last of the enslaved Black Americans in Confederate territory that “all slaves are free.” Union General Gordon Granger read these words, directed toward recalcitrant slaveholders, from the balcony of the former Confederate Army headquarters in Galveston, Texas, 80 miles west of the Louisiana line.

There are several theories as to the delay that left slaves in Texas toiling for so much longer than they should have. One theory is that a messenger had been killed on the way to read the Proclamation that would make their freedom official. Another is that slave owners purposely withheld the news or refused to comply (which would have been all too easy in the days before the technology we now take for granted). In the end, it took 2,000 union troops to capture the state to enforce the law. Only then could General Gordon read the Proclamation stating that the enslaved people were now to be employees rather than property. The reactions among the newly freed people ranged from shock to jubilation. Some stayed to see what employment would mean. Others left the plantations immediately and set out to find family members spread out over the region.

Slavery was quickly replaced with sharecropping and a Jim Crow caste system that would hold formerly enslaved people and their descendants in the grip of a brutal new social order which millions would ultimately flee.

Here in this photo, survivors of slavery soberly observe Juneteenth in their hats, canes and bonnets in Austin, TX, 1900. In the early years, the newly freed people and their descendants took pains to dress up for Juneteenth, as laws had forbidden slaves to do so in certain jurisdictions, even in the rare instances when owners would have been so inclined to provide them with decent clothing.

Juneteenth has been a state holiday in Texas since 1980, and has long been celebrated in California, where many Texans journeyed during the Great Migration. The day was first recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. Celebrations now often include parades, storytelling, barbecue and red soda pop, prayer and recognition of the elders. The building from which General Granger read the Proclamation all those years late is now a historic landmark.

In honor of the last enslaved Americans in the Confederacy to be set free...

-- The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, www.thewarmthofothersuns.com

Post-script: it’s worth noting that slavery persisted in small enclaves in “Territories” in the west, in a few US states, and in certain Civilized Tribes in what was called Indian Territory.

Dec. 6, 1865 is when the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, was ratified by the States. Notably, Delaware--a border state--did not free its enslaved people until December--months after Juneteenth, and the state did not ratify the 13th Amendment until 1901. If we simply go by the dates on which the Tribes ratified these treaties, slavery in the continental United States came to an end as a legal institution on June 14, 1866, when the Creek Tribe agreed to abandon African-American slavery. The was, somewhat ironically, the day after Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment.

In March 1863, the Confederate government in Richmond issued orders to Lee’s Army to round up any “fugitive slaves”, or contraband, encountered during the invasion and ship them to special depots in Confederate territory. An estimated 5,000-plus African-Americans were residents of Adams, Cumberland, Franklin, and York counties. Many of them were caught by surprise at the Confederate invasion.

On June 16 1863 Confederate traitor Albert Jenkins’ Confederate cavalry, the vanguard of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, entered Franklin County Pennsylvania. By the next day, the cavalry had occupied the towns of Chambersburg, Mercersburg, and Greencastle. The town’s citizens watched in horror as local African-Americans were rounded up by the Rebels. In Greencastle, town councilman Charles Hartman observed Jenkins’s men “scouring the fields about town” for Black residents who had concealed themselves in outlying wheat fields. “Many of them were caught after a desperate chase and being fired at,” Hartman recorded.

Another eyewitness was Jemima Kirby Cree, who wrote, “This morning among the first news I heard was that they had been scouting around, gathering up [Black citizens], and that they had Mag down on the court house pavement. I started down, and there were about 25 women and children, with Mag and Fannie. I interceded for Mag, told them she was free born, etc. The man said he could do nothing, he was acting according to orders. As they were just ready to start, I had to leave; if I could have had time to have seen the General, I might have got her off. Fannie being [a fugitive slave] we could do nothing about her. I went over to the Gilmores’ and we all stood and saw them march up the street, like so many cattle, poor Mag and Fannie in the first line. Mary and Jennie can’t speak about them yet without crying.”

Yet another eyewitness reported similar atrocities. In Chambersburg, Rachel Cormany watched in muted horror as Jenkins’s cavalrymen seized many of her African American neighbors. “O! How it grated on our hearts to have to sit quietly & look at such brutal deeds,” Cormany confided in her diary. Revealingly, she noted a number of freeborn Black Pennsylvanians amongst the “droves” of captives—numbering between 25-50, and mostly women and children—being marched through town.

As Lee’s army advanced behind the cavalry, they pushed through Pennsylvania and Confederate raiding parties targeted Black communities in towns across the region. Reports indicated that hundreds of Black men, women, and children were rounded up and transported back to Confederate-held territory for enslavement. Black residents lived in fear of kidnappings like these, and knew full well that the Confederates would not distinguish between those who were freeborn and those who were escaped slaves from Maryland or Virginia. To Rebel soldiers, all Black people were subject to enslavement.

15 year old Tillie Pierce, a white girl living in Gettysburg, wrote about the Black population in that town: “They regarded the Rebels as having an especial hatred toward them, and believed that if they fell into their hands, annihilation was sure,” she wrote. “I can see them yet; men and women with bundles as large as old-fashioned feather ticks slung across their backs…Children also, carrying their bundles, and striving in vain to keep up with their seniors.”

While Lee issued orders against the indiscriminate destruction of white civilian property, he did not forbid the seizure of Black Americans. High-ranking Rebel commanders, including Lieutenant General James Longstreet, acknowledged and accommodated the practice. Some Black citizens escaped the initial raids, only to be swept up just a week later. On June 26th, a group of mounted Southerners under command of John H. McNeill rode into Mercersburg and threatened to torch every house that harbored anyone of color. More than a few doors were kicked open by Confederate raiders. When confronted by a minister, one cavalryman replied that he was comfortable taking all of the Blacks because they (the Confederates) were only reclaiming property that had been stolen. It hardly mattered to the soldier that the people in his grasp were legally free. He assumed they were slaves simply because they were Black.

A number of free Black citizens abandoned their properties and moved further north, simply because of the raids. They did not vacate their homes or endanger their families with hasty travel to safer regions because they were “contrabands”, a period term for escaped/liberated slaves. They left because Confederate soldiers could say that they were and treat them accordingly. Slave-hunters had already crossed the border before the war to kidnap free people of color.

By most conservative estimates, Lee’s army likely seized at least several hundred Black Pennsylvanians, possibly north of five hundred, during the campaign. The fate of these civilian captives remains largely unknown. Some were reportedly parceled out to enslavers, such as the family of Lucy Buck in Winchester, Virginia. Still others were sent on to Richmond, held at prisons such as Castle Thunder, and put to manual labor working for Confederate military units. While at least one of the captives was eventually released (a free Black man from Mercersburg named Amos Barnes), Confederate Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell noted that the Confederate War Department had settled upon “an exceptional policy with regard to him.” Barnes had allegedly helped Confederates track down and locate fugitive slaves near Mercersburg. However, for the vast majority of Pennsylvania Black citizens swept up by Lee’s army, there was no such reprieve.

Stories exist of free families torn apart, with Black fathers being sent one direction, Black mothers in another, and the children in yet a different direction. In only a few cases, families were later reunited. In most, the children were never located.

IMAGE: Harper’s Magazine illustration showing Confederate Army troops escorting captured African American civilians south into slavery

Admin V here. Let’s talk about the Southern Baptist Convention and their decision about women pastors. I’m so pissed off y’all.

If you want to know why I’m not Southern Baptist anymore, this is exhibit #122000. Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention voted to firm up their mandate that churches that allow women pastors can’t be part of the convention and elected the absolute worst dude possible to chair the convention.

Sigh.

I grew up knowing that God didn’t love me as much as he loved my brother. That my brother was more valuable than I was. I got that message every time I walked through the church doors. I got that message existing in my small-town conservative Christian society.

It is an absolute mindfuck. The church that I grew up in and every church that I’ve attended since could not function without women. Women taught Sunday School, directed the choir, played the organ and piano, ran the social committee, taught VBS, raised money for missions, and were in charge of the food trains for the sick and bereaved. Probably more too. And yet, we were second class citizens.

The Baptist church has a women’s organization that is called the WMU, Women’s Mission Union. Most of the money that is raised for Southern Baptist Evangelical efforts are raised by this group. (For the record, I don’t fuck with missions anymore but the SBC does so we’re going to talk about it.) They have two main sets of offerings named after two single women who were missionaries. The Lottie Moon offering raises money for foreign missions. The Annie Armstrong offering raises money for home missions.

Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong were women who preached and taught the gospel at home and abroad.

But according to the 2026 Southern Baptist Convention, they weren’t allowed to do that if men were in the audience. And if they planted churches that they spoke at and had the title of pastor, those churches would be booted from the convention.

The subtext that I was taught as a child is now actual church policy and if they’re smart, women will continue leaving the church. There will always be women who stay. Including my mother. Including my sister-in-law. They will compartmentalize like the champions they are. They will read the bible and insist that the contradictions absolutely make sense when they don’t.

I’m not a Christian anymore, but I stand with the women who are hurt by this decision. It is a painful realization to realize that the church that tells you that God knew you in the womb and created you a woman only to love you less than a man. To find less value in you than it finds in a man. I hold space for those women because I once was them.

I know what kind of comments will happen on this post. You’re going to tell me that they believe in fairy tales and that religion is bad for the world. And I don’t necessarily disagree, but those kinds of comments aren’t helpful.

A lot of my friends and I were raised and indoctrinated into the Southern Baptist church. We got out, but the path out wasn’t a straight line. It took twists and turns. I’m going to assume there are still a lot of people twisting and turning and doubling back on their way to the realization that none of it is true and that they are using your faith and spirituality as a tool to control you.

Here’s what I recommend doing if you have friends and family who should know better. Ask them who the gospels say were the first people that Jesus told to go and tell everyone that he was risen? Ask them if there were women deacons and church leaders in Acts and the epistles? Ask them what Jesus told Martha when Mary sat at his feet? Ask them where the word pastor appears in regards to the Christian church. Ask them to research the pastoral epistle and find out when it was written and who wrote it beyond what tradition says? Ask them to identify why it would have been said then in the context of the history of the Christian movement? Then hand them the book “Making of Biblical Womanhood” by Beth Allison Barr so that they can learn the history of women’s gradual disenfranchisement from the early church to the present day. Then ask them if they want to consider being Baptist knowing what they know now.

GUEST POST FROM J

Growing up the way I did was an unlikely way to “turn out gay”. You hear all kinds of arguments (hypotheses? myths?) about why people are gay: they got influenced by “homosexual culture” while young; they were molested (some think that definitely causes gay); maybe they were rebellious, bored with the sexuality god gave them, and decided to try something else; they were demon-possessed; or they’re born the way god made them. I’ve heard it all. Here is how I “turned out gay” – against the odds.

I started life with hot sand, scorching sun, and summer weeks that passed with no breeze and no rain. My parents birthed me on a deep-south peanut and tobacco farm outside of Tifton, Georgia, where even our farmer neighbors weren’t very close by. I was only 6 during the Summer of Love, with all the siblings 8-14 years older, and my parents were just tired of parenting by the time I popped out. They didn’t give me much input growing up, other than driving us all to our little white country church several times a week, and making sure we spent summers working, out in those sweltering fields. The nearest kids I knew were almost a mile away, and then in 3rd grade they moved me to a school an hour’s bus ride away, where no neighbor kids went.

Our house was scrubbed clean of pop culture. TV did not flicker in the living room. My folks owned an antique 1950s television set that didn’t work, and I’d have given my eye teeth to watch Carol Burnette – but no TV for me! Our town boasted two AM radio stations, one country and one rock, yet our house mostly tuned in for newscasts. I didn’t even learn to enjoy pop music. One conservative christian FM station broadcast hymns and preaching from Valdosta, and we saw a movie less than once a year. Magazines lying around were Reader’s Digest, Better Homes & Gardens, National Geographic. Those subversive homosexuals had no portal to infect us with their propaganda.

What about that idea of being “rebellious and trying out other sexualities”? My own sexual orientation has always been far along the Kinsey scale, but people at other more fluid places on the continuum might feel natural reaching outside of what society expects them to do. Seventh-grade me, though, started feeling things I hadn’t felt before, and they got triggered by other boys and men. By about thirteen I’d realized, “oh, no, I think I’m one of those terrible homosexuals” that I’d heard adults talking about. I anguished for years over it – my sexual feelings were so strong, there was no possibility of “just trying anything different” and being a hetero.

No one told me about sex. Early every morning I rode that bus an hour to a school whose only purpose was keeping Black people out. Lack of any sex education was only one of the ways the school was substandard (we could talk about the chemistry lab where neither the sinks, bunsen burners, nor fume hoods were ever hooked up). At home, my parents never tried to teach me where babies came from. At one point out in the garden my (embarrassed) older sister finally gave in and explained the barest essentials to her annoying kid brother. Now I’m embarrassed telling that.

With no sex ed teacher who might have mentioned that other sexualities are possible, I only heard the “queer” or “gay” insult sometimes thrown around at school. Riding the bus home, I once heard some other students gossiping about whether the two unmarried coaches might be gay. Yet somehow, without any real information, by my eighth-grade year I knew, clearly, that I got turned on by boys, not by girls, and had no idea how I was going to deal with that. As for those other “hypotheses”, I wasn’t molested, though some later tried hard to get me to say I was; and we won’t even talk about the demon possession thing.

I often climbed the steps on Love Avenue to a red brick neo-Romanesque portal to the world – our public library. Picture a little bookworm who checked out his limit in books, then brought them back next week for more. Now picture a teenager hiding back among the shelves, finding answers to the questions he could never ask at home, or at school. I finally got my basic sex education, and it came from a book titled something like “Everything Your Child Wants To Know About Sex (But is Afraid to Ask)”. The author didn’t say anything good or bad about homosexuality, so at least I didn’t come away feeling more sick or damaged or evil than I already did. The library had other books that talked frankly and without judgment about how other people thought about sex. These books showed me I wasn’t the only one like me. They’re probably challenged or banned now by reactionary parents.

My forming years were shaped by isolation from community, by hard-right christian indoctrination, by reading everything I could get my hands on instead of pop culture, and by a family that did not talk about sex. Despite this, somehow, I turned out very, very queer. I suspect I’m far from the only one.

Admin V here, time to continue my queerness in the south series. I’ve been distracted by some job drama and dental incompetence, but I want to talk about places where we find community and how important that is. For me, that has been in art spaces.

It is no secret that I’m a writer. I don’t just write here. I’m also a writer of fiction. Mostly first drafts. I write mostly romance sometimes with superpowers. Sometimes without super powers. I LOVE writing. I love creating. I paint. I crochet. I hula hoop (sometimes with fire). I make junk journals.

Artsy fartsy shit is important to me. And in that space, I have built and found community. And a lot of that community was queer as fuck and sometimes a little awkward. It is super easy for me to appear normal. I’m not. Just for the record. But for short periods of time, I can appear like a cisgendered corporate soccer mom.

Thank you to the years of autistic masking where I tried to please my mother and be what she wanted me to be. Other people can’t or won’t do that. And thus we need spaces where people can exist without pretending to be what they aren’t. And in the south (and probably other spaces), that is the arts.

I have queer friends in theater, in dance, in writing, in painting, and in all the other artistic things. I know a disproportionate number of trans folks, nonbinary people, and chaos bisexuals because of my involvement in the writing and dance spaces. And it has been a gift to help them find themselves through art.

In around 2009, I found hoop dancing. I was terrible at it, but it was fun and excellent exercise and I’m nothing if not persistent so I eventually got better and did a few performances. I met my friend J there. He was a gay man who had grown up in a conservative church in much the same way I did and I like to think we helped each other find ourselves. He helped guide me through my really rough deconstruction and I taught him how to apply makeup. And we watched each other bloom. He’s doing a guest post tomorrow so y’all should look forward to it.

I became the leader for the Columbia National Novel Writing group (One day we can talk about how that fell apart nationally) and we welcomed all the people into our group and many of those were queer young people who wanted to be able to be themselves and feel safe. I hope I was able to give them that. I’m not involved in the theater arena, but I know so many people who have found safety and acceptance in those spaces.

On this Sunday, I’m ruminating on how much better and safer art spaces have been for me than churches. I was promised love and acceptance in the church and I didn’t get either, but in my artsy fartsy community spaces, I have found both and been able to give both in return.

I don’t think this is a universally southern thing, but in the south when you are surrounded with Christians who are telling you that Jesus loves you and if you loved him, you would just conform, it is really nice that there are spaces where you don’t have to.

And I think that is why I love art spaces and communities. Conformity is unnecessary. You don’t have to pretend to be what you’re not. You can let your freak flag and your imagination out to find the joy of your own existence. I’ve found it. A good friend of mine who I recently reconnected with told me that I seemed so much happier than when she knew me before. And she is absolutely right and it is because at the age of 48, I know who I am. And a lot of that is because of the people that I met in my art spaces (including her.)

So if you’re in the south and you’re queer, find the local art community and see if there is a niche for you.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born in West Hills, Long Island, New York, one of nine children born to Quaker parents. He left school at age 11 to go to work as an office boy for two attorneys and later as an apprentice for a local newspaper. He learned the process of producing a newspaper and managed to eventually slip some of his early poems in. For a time, he was the librarian at the Brooklyn Apprentice’s Library. He also worked as a journalist and editor before becoming a teacher. He returned to journalism and began to submit his work to larger publications.

In 1855, he self-published Leaves of Grass, a groundbreaking poetry collection that he revised throughout his life and that is considered a landmark in American literature. His work broke from traditional poetic forms by using free verse and celebrating democracy, individuality, the body, and everyday life, though at the time it was published, it was considered by many to be obscene.

He wrote a series of novellas, which were serialized in various publications, and a self-help guide called Manly Health and Training, under the pen name Mose Velsor. In this guide, he recommends beards, nude sunbathing, comfortable shoes, bathing daily in cold water, eating meat almost exclusively, plenty of fresh air, and getting up early each morning–all of which are reflected in Leaves of Grass, as well.

During the Civil War, He worked in several low-paying government posts to give him income while he volunteered in military hospitals in the Washington, DC area; these experiences shaped later works such as Drum-Taps and elegies for Abraham Lincoln. His family was struggling during this time, when one of his brothers was captured by Confederate forces and another died of tuberculosis. He stayed at his posts during the war, though, serving not so much as a nurse as a caregiver and morale-booster, sitting with soldiers and providing comfort.

Whitman continued to live in Washington after the war, until he had a stroke in 1872 and moved to Camden, New Jersey. He revised Leaves of Grass several more time and it was published abroad. He struggled with health problems in his later years and died in 1892, culminating with a large funeral in Camden. He is considered the father of free verse. He’s one of Admin E-Lo’s favorites. She once re-read Leaves of Grass on a trip to her cousin’s Hindu wedding and it ended up being more apropos than you might expect. Whitman might be characterized as Unitarian Transcendentalist today, though he never identified himself as subscribing to any particular faith.

Whitman’s sexuality is still debated. He is often described as homosexual or bisexual, based largely on interpretations of his poetry, though this is disputed. His work expressed love and sexuality in a candid, individualistic way for its time. He had many close relationships with men, leading some scholars to see evidence of romantic or sexual connections, though others disagree. There is some evidence he had relationships with women. He himself avoided confirming such interpretations and at times denied them, even claiming to have fathered children—claims that remain unverified.

Whitman’s poetic exploration of same-sex love, intimacy, and “comradeship” is integral to his work. His Leaves of Grass includes poems—especially the “Calamus” cluster—that celebrate emotional and physical bonds between men. His writing openly linked the body, sexuality, and the soul, presenting same-sex affection as natural and meaningful at a time when such themes were rarely expressed publicly.Whitman’s legacy lies in both his literary innovation and his role as an early voice for queer expression.

https://rylandscollections.com/2025/04/01/a-surprise-visit-with-peter-doyle-walt-whitmans-most-significant-other/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walt-Whitman

https://poets.org/poet/walt-whitman

https://rictornorton.co.uk/whitman.htm

“Boston marriages” were long-term domestic partnerships between two women who lived together independently of men, especially among educated, financially self-supporting women in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These relationships ranged from close friendships and professional partnerships to deeply romantic or intimate bonds, though the exact nature often remains unclear due to limited historical records and the absence of modern LGBTQ terminology.

These arrangements were socially tolerated at the time because of Victorian beliefs that women were naturally asexual and capable of intense emotional—but not sexual—attachments to one another. As a result, two women living together did not necessarily raise suspicion, allowing some couples to form committed partnerships that would today be recognized as what they really were.

Boston marriages were significant because they allowed women to avoid traditional marriage, pursue careers, and achieve economic independence, often supporting each other financially and emotionally in a society where women had limited options. Many participants were part of reform movements, including education, social work, and women’s suffrage, linking these relationships to broader advances in women’s rights. Boston marriages are important because they represent an early form of independent, woman-centered partnership that both challenged traditional gender roles and created space for relationships that are now recognized as part of LGBTQ history.

Prominent Examples

• Carrie Chapman Catt and Mary “Mollie” Garrett Hay chose to
  live together after the death of Catt’s husband. The two women chose to live together and worked closely as leading figures in the women’s suffrage movement, becoming a powerful political partnership. Catt was ultimately buried beside Hay, reflecting the lifelong significance of their relationship.

• Anna Howard Shaw, a physician, Methodist minister, and leading suffragist, maintained long-term close domestic and emotional relationships with women, a pattern common among suffrage leaders and reflective of Boston marriage arrangements.

• Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Adams Fields, prominent 19th-century American writers and social reformers, lived together in a long-term partnership in the late 19th century.

• Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were significant for their visible, long-term same-sex partnership within influential artistic circles, contributing to the normalization of queer relationships in early 20th-century cultural life.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/vote-carrie-mollie-anna-lucy/

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/boston-marriages.htm

https://thewestendmuseum.org/history/era/immigrant-neighborhood/boston-marriages/