re: Obscure/Interesting/Quirky "American" Facts 1865-1880

From the book Titan.

"Rumors soon drifted about town that John (Rockefeller) had taken away the girl's virginity. Whatever the truth, the Millers a raised an unholy ruckus about the romance. In one of the less prophetic judgements in parental history, they argued that they didn't want their daughter to throw herself away on a young man with such poor prospects."

TV appearance of the last witness to Lincoln's assassination

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Samuel James Seymour (March 28, 1860 – April 12, 1956) was the last surviving person who had been present in Ford's Theatre the night of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.

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When Seymour was five, his godmother, Mrs. George S. Goldsboro, took him to see Our American Cousin. He claimed the two sat in the balcony on the side opposite Lincoln's box.

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Once in the theater, Seymour settled down. He saw the President across the balcony as he was waving and smiling at people. Seymour said "I began to get over the scared feeling I'd had ever since we arrived in Washington, but that was something I never should have done. All of a sudden a shot rang out—a shot that always will be remembered—and someone in the President's box screamed. I saw Lincoln slumped forward in his seat." Seymour did not actually see the assassination but did witness Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth jump off the balcony. In fact, he revealed that because he did not know Lincoln was shot or that Booth had shot him, his real concern was for Booth.

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Just two months before his death, at age 95, he appeared on the February 9, 1956 episode of the CBS TV quiz show I've Got a Secret as a mystery subject

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Moore generously awarded Seymour the $80.00 he would have won had he stumped the panel, and a can of Prince Albert pipe tobacco rather than the usual prize of a carton of Winston cigarettes (Winston was the show's sponsor, but Seymour did not smoke cigarettes).

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That's a good one. I'm amazed that I grew up knowing my relatives who fought in ww1.

Most popular baby names in 1880

Boy - John
Girl - Mary

Not a real shocker at all. I thought they would have been different.

I was mistaken. Went back and researched it again. Around 20,000 were freed in subdued areas in states under rebellion.

Still didn't free any in slave states in the union or states in rebellion.

It was a propaganda piece in for all intents and purposes.

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The Civil War was not fought over slavery

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I used to buy into this, and it wasn't 100% because of slavery.
But with more studying and learning, I have concluded that the war was MOSTLY about slavery.

And don't come in with "state rights", because the major states rights issue was slavery

Based on what?

The purpose of secession was to protect slavery. When the CSA drafted a constitution, it was pretty much word for word the same as the US constitution, except for a part which guaranteed the right to own slaves.
But, it probably didn't have anything to do with slavery, as some in here would claim.

There was a time frame of a few hours where nobody knew where Lincoln was because he had traveled through time to be the last speaker for two stoner idiots' history report in 1989.