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A sleepy Sixth Regiment departed Philadelphia by train at 1 am on Friday, April 19, 1861. The original plan was to leave first thing in the morning, but railroad officials warned Colonel Jones of talk that people in Baltimore planned to prevent any troops from passing through the city. Jones…
Read More »In today’s NYTimes, opinion columnist David Brooks dissects the Donald Trump political phenomenon of the moment. He’s just a kooky success says Uncle Dave, who pledges never to vote for The Donald. Unlike Brooks, I don’t think the whole sideshow is harmless. My view is that characters like Trump reveal…
Read More »This just in. The 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry goes to Kay Ryan, recent US Poet Laureate, who will be reading her work at UMass Lowell on Tuesday, April 26, at 7 pm, in the O’Leary Library Auditorium, Room 222, 61 Wilder St, UMass Lowell South Campus. Parking is available…
Read More »[youtube]8XhOq5zp6j4[/youtube] With all the attention being given to the Civil War, seeing “The Conspirator” proved irresistible. This new film by Robert Redford depicts the trial of Mary Surratt, one of those charged with conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The central characters are Surratt and Frederick Aiken, the…
Read More »April 18, 1861 was a Thursday. The train bearing the Sixth Regiment rolled into New York City early in the morning after the all-night journey from Boston. The troops marched through the city past great crowds that cheered their passage. At noon, the regiment boarded a ferry that transported the…
Read More »On this day – April 18, 2001 – John R. McNamara, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston; retired Bishop of the Merrimack Region; retired Rear-Admiral US Navy, former Chief of Chaplains and winner of the Bronze Star for service with the US Marine Corps – was laid to rest. In…
Read More »From History.com – On this day in history – April 18, 1775 – … British troops march out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the American arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriots…
Read More »On the morning of April 17 (a Wednesday), the companies of the Sixth Regiment marched to the Massachusetts State House where the old muskets carried by the troops were replaced with new rifled muskets and each man was issued “an overcoat, flannel shirt, drawers, and a pair of stockings.” Governor…
Read More »Gone, baby, gone — and the dirt middle of the playing field has been smoothed and raked and cleaned of debris from the snow-dump hills of winter.
Read More »Here’s a spring poem that was written by my Andover friend Steve Perrin, one of the founding members of the Poets’ Lab that met at Andover’s Memorial Library between 1976 and 1978. Other writers who attended included Ken Skulski, Cynthia Ward, Alice Davis, E.F.Weisslitz, Eric Linder, Wayne Nalbandian, and Tom…
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