January 14, 1864---Civil War, Civil Rights

JANUARY 14, 1864:             

First Sergeant Stephen Swails 54^th Massachusetts U.S.C.T. writes a letter to the Army’s Paymaster demanding that he receive---as per the law effective January 1st---equal pay as due a white First Sergeant ($20 per month as opposed to the $7 he received). Failing that, Swails asks to be mustered out of the Army. 

January 13, 1864---Stephen Foster (1826-1864)

JANUARY 13, 1864:            

Stephen Foster, the Pennsylvania-born composer of such songs as “Suwanee,” “Camptown Races,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Oh! Susannah” dies at age 38 in Bellevue Hospital, New York, from complications due to alcoholism. 

Crystal Gayle sings "My Old Kentucky Home" 

January 12, 1864: A Civil War In Mexico

JANUARY 12, 1864:            

A rebellion has been brewing for some time South of the (Southern) Border, as Mexican patriots have been conducting their own insurgency against Emperor Maximilian’s French-supported puppet empire. Union troops intercede in Matamoros when the home of the U.S. Consul in that city is attacked by the Mexican rebels. The Union troops ensure that the consular staff evacuates Matamoros safely and reaches the Union-controlled enclave on the border.

January 11, 1864: The 13th Amendment goes to the Senate: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States . . ."

JANUARY 11, 1864:             

Fully aware that the Emancipation Proclamation is only a wartime measure that legally impacts only slaves in the rebellious South, and that the Proclamation may not survive the end of the war, Missouri Senator John Henderson, a War Democrat, submits a joint resolution to Congress in favor of a 13^th  Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. This joint resolution follows hard on the heels of two House resolutions submitted in December by Congressmen James Ashley (R) Ohio, and James Wilson (R) Iowa, that were seeking only House approval of such an Amendment. Although all three resolutions stall in the House, the Senate begins working on the appropriate legislation. The long legislative battle to abolish slavery throughout the United States has begun. 

January 10, 1864---The loss of the U.S.S. IRON AGE

JANUARY 10, 1864:           

The U.S.S. IRON AGE runs aground in Lockwood’s Folly Inlet near Wilmington, N.C., one of several Civil War vessels to be lost in the inlet.  One of the Holden family of nearby Holden Beach salvages the Captain’s razor from the wreck. It becomes a family heirloom, still passed down through the generations.