Rich Condon
@RichardPCondon
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• Public Historian • Obsessive Researcher • Yinzer • Opinions shared here are my own •
Gettysburg, PA
Joined June 2020
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Rest in Peace, Mighty Ms. Josephine - a warrior in the ongoing fight for land justice in the South Carolina Sea Islands.
BREAKING: Hilton Head's Josephine Wright, whose fight for land caught national attention, dies at 94 via
@JLeonardNews
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For more than half my life there were two things I wanted - graduate college and secure a permanent position in the National Park Service.
In 2022 I did both.
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Many thanks to Alexander Hays for setting a shining example on July 3, 1863 - what to do with a traitor’s flag.
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@themaysman
I once was approached by a bachelorette party who wanted to get a picture with “a local hipster musician” to cross something off their Nashville Treasure Hunt list.
I moved away a month later.
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To soldiers of the US Army on June 2, 1865:
“By your patriotic devotion to your country in the hour of danger…you have maintained the supremacy of the Union and the Constitution... and of the proclamation forever abolishing slavery; the cause and pretext of the rebellion..
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So I asked this beautiful woman to marry me and she said yes.
Here’s to many more tintypes and battlefield walks in the future.
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When someone offers you a complete collection of the War of the Rebellion Official Records, and you can’t say no.
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On June 27, 2015, 10 days after a white supremacist murdered 9 Black members of Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME Church, Bree Newsome scaled a flagpole in front of the South Carolina State House and removed a Confederate flag that had hung on the grounds since 1961. 🧵
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When did it become socially acceptable to knowingly get other people sick?
Whether it’s Covid, the flu, or cholera - if you have a crippling cough and raging fever STAY HOME.
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French Visitors: Is it still legal to fly the Confederate flag?
Me: Yep. It flew right above the South Carolina State House until 8 years ago.
French Visitors: But why? Didn’t they commit treason against the United States?
Me:
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Robert Smalls self-emancipated himself and his family under seemingly impossible odds on May 12, 1862, escaping slavery under cover of darkness in Charleston Harbor. On May 13 he lived his first day as a freed person.
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At this time 161 years ago the 977 Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers of Charles Coster’s brigade briefly held off an onslaught of 3,000 Louisianans and North Carolinians as they broke the US Army’s 11th Corps line. Nearly 600 men of the brigade became casualties in 10 minutes. 🧵
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Visitor: Have you seen Ken Burns’ Civil War?
Me: Yes
Visitor: Well I think there’s no historian quite like Shelby Foote 😃
Me:
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On August 7, 1865 Jourdon Anderson, a freedman living in Dayton, OH, sent a letter to his former enslaver, Patrick Anderson, in Wilson County, TN. Jourdon’s letter responded to a request for him to return to the Tennessee farm where he had been enslaved just a year prior. 🧵
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Since I moved to South Carolina in 2020 I’ve dreamt of going inside this house - “The Castle,” or Hospital No. 6, where wounded men of the 54th Massachusetts were taken after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
Today that dream came true.
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On this morning 160 years ago, thousands of African Americans walked of these old fort ruins along the Beaufort River toward a celebration of their freedom. At 11:00am they heard a reading of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
#EmancipationDay160
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On February 23, 1915, Congressman Robert Smalls passed away at his home on Prince Street in Beaufort - a house in which he was born enslaved, and died free after buying the property during Reconstruction. He now rests just a few blocks away in Tabernacle Baptist Church cemetery.
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When I was 16 years old I bought a book on Reconstruction - a subject I wasn’t quite familiar with - written by Dr. Eric Foner.
Never did I think in a million years that the author would someday review my work.
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As of next week, I’ll officially be stepping out of my role as a GS-5 park guide… and into the position of a GS-7/9 permanent park ranger at
@ReconstructNPS
. Many thanks to my friends, family, and colleagues who have helped me get here and championed for my success in the field!
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To achieve these glorious triumphs... tens of thousands of your gallant comrades have fallen and sealed the priceless legacy with their lives...
U.S. Grant,
Lieutenant General.”
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#OnThisDay
in 1864 General Lew Wallace’s 6,000 US troops delayed Jubal Early’s 15,000 Confederates on the outskirts of Frederick, Maryland as they made their way toward the gates of Washington.
158 years later I delayed our dinner plans to visit that battlefield.
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Today I had the opportunity to handle a significant, tangible, and heavy piece of history at
@NCWM
. This pike was used during John Brown’s 1859 raid on the US Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in an attempt to strike a blow against slavery. If this thing could talk…
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You can’t believe in “Liberty and Justice for All” and also “salute the Confederate flag with affection, reverence, and undying devotion to the cause for which it stands.”
There was a whole war about this.
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Yes. That is the 54th Massachusetts Infantry charging the ramparts of Battery Wagner.
But cats.
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So here’s the news… by the end of this month I’ll be joining the talented team at Catoctin Mountain Park and will, yet again, be a Pennsylvania resident- Gettysburg, to be exact!
I’ll miss my Lowcountry family as I take this next step in my career.
I don’t always get reception in the basement of Robert Smalls’s office, but when I do it’s usually for big news.
Stay tuned, yinz.
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The wounded Black veterans of Fort Wagner were taken to Hospital No. 6 in Beaufort, just a mile from where their comrades would eventually be laid to rest. Among those recovering here was Sergeant William Carney, who was shot three times while saving the colors of the 54th.
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Among the unknown dead buried at Beaufort National Cemetery are the Black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, and their commanding officer, Robert G. Shaw, who were killed at Morris Island’s Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863.
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Around this time in 2018 I found a trash panda passed out at work, potentially hung over from eating fermented berries.
That’s it. That is the tweet.
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If only they were here to witness the state of the union they saved…
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Happy Appomattox Day to all who celebrate… and even those who don’t.
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Never forget the sacrifice of Rex Manning, July 2, 1863.
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Tell me you don’t know American history without telling me you don’t know American history.
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Emmett Till should have been turning 83 years old today. Till’s youthful life was cut short by an act of hate when he was murdered by white supremacists in 1955.
70 years later US Congress passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, defining lynching as a federal hate crime.
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Just dropping by to share a casual reminder that Pittsburgh is an Appalachian city.
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For those who believe US Army veterans of the Civil War were about complete reconciliation with their former foes, I give you this newspaper clipping saved and scrapbooked by Abraham Brown of the 139th Pennsylvania Infantry, ca. 1899.
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Among the unknown dead buried at Beaufort National Cemetery are the Black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, and their commanding officer, Robert G. Shaw, who were killed at Morris Island’s Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863.
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Visitor: So do you talk about the northern carpetbaggers and skalawags that moved in on southern territory?
Me: In the sense that this was a warped interpretation of Reconstruction perpetuated by white supremacists in the 19th century, sure.
Visitor: *leaves*
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“Was John Brown simply an episode, or was he an eternal truth? And if a truth, how speaks that truth today?”
-W.E.B. Du Bois
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As someone who’s moved from Tennessee to South Carolina… I’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
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When a PA legislator proposed to allocate state funds to erect a monument to R.E. Lee at Gettysburg in 1903, US veterans across the state were vocal about their opposition.
L.B. Richard, 9th PA Reserves, declared his “solemn protest in perpetuating the name of a traitor.”
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Find yourself someone who looks at you like John looks at John.
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I’m just gonna leave Section 3 of the 14th Amendment right here…
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The 3rd United States Colored Troops at Remembrance Day 2023 - 160 years since the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery.
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P.S. - Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.”
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One week until the Gettysburg 1/2 marathon.
Tonight I ran uphill… me boys.
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On January 9, 1861 the State of Mississippi declared their secession from the United States, just 3 months prior to the start of the Civil War. If you’re curious as to why, you don’t have to dig very deep to find out it was fighting to maintain the enslavement of Black Americans.
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A testament to the Minnesotans who helped stem the tide of disunion. This is one of the more popular monuments on the Gettysburg battlefield, and rightfully so. They persisted against their foe against great odds.
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Grandpa Condon took this thermos with him to job sites every day for three decades as a sheet metal worker in Western Pennsylvania. After him, my dad did the same. Now it follows me to my new park where we discuss Appalachian labor history and the work of their predecessors.
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Eric Foner reviewing a Reconstruction era work project I’d recently completed with one of our interns. I was excitedly screaming on the inside.
What’s your all-time favorite interaction with a famous writer?
Mine: I once played Wii Bowling with Denis Johnson at a party.
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If I’m being referred to as a “faux historian” by an insurrectionist cosplayer, I must be doing something right.
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Whoever previously owned this copy of Ed Pollard’s “Southern History of the Great Civil War” didn’t think so highly of the originator of the Lost Cause movement.
Notice below the author’s name:
“both fool & knave & liar”
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Today there are no markers, no memorials, no mentions of the unspeakable violence that took place near this intersection where a newly deputized police force of ex-Confederates attacked Black US Army veterans and their allies in the name of white supremacy.
On July 30, 1866 white police officers and ex-Confederates murdered at least 34 Black freedmen in New Orleans as they peacefully assembled in support of the Louisiana Constitutional Convention.
For more information on the New Orleans Massacre:
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Great news, and long overdue.
Robert Smalls will become 1st African American individual to have a monument on Columbia, SC, Statehouse grounds
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In all seriousness, I paid my respects to fellow Pennsylvanian Strong Vincent on this 161st anniversary of his mortal wounding on Little Round Top.
Never forget the sacrifice of Rex Manning, July 2, 1863.
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In his hospital bed, Charles Reason noted “I know what I am fighting for, only a few years ago I ran away from a man in MD who said he owned me, but as soon as the govt would take me I came to fight, not for my country, I never had any, but to gain one.” He died a week later.
The wounded Black veterans of Fort Wagner were taken to Hospital No. 6 in Beaufort, just a mile from where their comrades would eventually be laid to rest. Among those recovering here was Sergeant William Carney, who was shot three times while saving the colors of the 54th.
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There aren’t many times I outwardly curse in the National Archives research room, but when Robert Smalls pops up in a pension file I make exceptions.
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On May 24, 1865 General William Tecumseh Sherman led an army of 65,000 soldiers and freed people down Pennsylvania Avenue, just weeks after they “had swept through the South like a tornado,” bringing the Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, D.C. to an end.
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I just heard the sad news about the passing of an Appalachian treasure -
@LorettaLynn
at 90 years young.
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On October 16, 1859 abolitionist John Brown led a band of freedom fighters to the US Arsenal in Harpers Ferry in an attempt to arm local Black men and wage a war against the institution of slavery. Memory of the raid has been among the most hotly contested in our nation’s history
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On September 29, 1864 US forces attacked the defenses of Richmond, VA during the Battle of New Market Heights. Two Divisions, comprised mostly of Black soldiers, played a crucial role in the fight - 14 of whom received the Medal of Honor for their actions.
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Rest In Peace, David McCullough - a hometown hero and an inspiration to an aspiring young historian. It only felt proper to stop by the bridge named in his honor before leaving Pittsburgh.
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“I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”
-Abolitionist John Brown, December 2, 1859, the day of his execution
164 years later a tangible reminder of Brown’s prophecy is spread across the bloodied Antietam Battlefield
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“Never run up hill, me boys. Never run up hill.”
-Robert E. Lee, probably
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On July 7, 1865 four conspirators, Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold, were executed for their roles in the assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln and other U.S. Government officials. Their meeting place is now a great Chinese karaoke bar.
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My capstone presentation is finally done. Tomorrow is go-time.
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Happy Stonewall Hays Day to all who celebrate, and even those who don’t.
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Happy Birthday to Thaddeus Stevens, whose general disposition is the inspiration for my reaction to the Lost Cause community.
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I was today years old when I met students and parents who had to travel two states away specifically to learn about Reconstruction because they aren’t permitted to do so in their Florida classroom.
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We could all use a moment of Appalachian zen right now.
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Can we talk about this guy who’s casually chilling on the fence while Dan Sickles murders Philip Barton Key in broad daylight
#onthisday
in 1859?
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This is my favorite Fall candy, and I will die on this hill.
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On April 18, 1861 Robert E. Lee was offered command of an army of US volunteers, which he declined. Shortly after he resigned his commission and within a month had taken control of Confederate troops in Virginia.
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Happy anniversary to my 128-volume collection of the War of the Rebellion Official Records.
We were united one year ago today.
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This morning I had a bus-load of visitors from Montgomery, Alabama, including some who wanted to get a photo with a ranger.
For as many strange and frustrating interactions I may have with the general public, there are even more like this that make me love my job.
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On the anniversary of D-Day, 2018, I met 95-year-old Frank of Strasburg, PA - a veteran of the 1944 Normandy invasion. Frank served aboard an LST-491 transport during the Allied attack and was charged with escorting US troops across the English Channel.
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