Last week, we looked at the aftermath of a raid on a young enslaved African-American. Despite having almost bought himself free, he was taken away from Mrs. Sprigg’s boarding house and sold. Joshua Giddings, Abraham Lincoln’s messmate at Mrs. Sprigg’s, attempted to rescue the young man from a slave pen, but was thwarted because Henry Wilson had […]
Last week, I was running out of time, so I simply put up a rerun with a tiny bit of research to add a little more detail. While doing so, I stumbled onto information that I dearly wish I had known when I wrote my book on the D.C. Emancipation Act. When Abraham Lincoln moved to […]
Michael Shiner is one of the more fascinating characters from the history of Capitol Hill. Born a slave in Maryland, he was brought to Washington and put to work at the Navy Yard. He managed to emancipate himself, and was a long-time resident of Capitol Hill. Most importantly, however, he wrote a diary that gives […]