Hello readers, and welcome back to the Library blog. Many of the posts on this blog over the past few months have concerned the SS United States. While this blog will by no means abandon the proud ship as a subject matter, it will nonetheless begin to focus on a new topic: Maritime Piracy. Piracy [...]

When the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the southern coastline along the Atlantic and in Gulf of Mexico to interrupt vital flows of supplies to the Confederacy.  More than five hundred ships manned by one hundred thousand sailors served on the blockade by the end of the war.  Through its [...]

We recently unearthed another Civil War letter in our archives.  The letter was written by Charles Pye to Colonel Thomas Millar on October 4, 1862.  In the letter, Pye requests that his slave, oxen, and cart be returned to him after they were confiscated by Union cavalry.  Pye lived near Port Tobacco, Maryland and his slave [...]

Join us at the Library next Wednesday May 4, 2011 at noon for our next Secrets in the Stacks.  This month’s presentation will feature two journals kept by sailors who served on the ironclad monitor Nantucket during the Civil War. First we will look at the journal of Walter Jacobs, a Union sailor during the Civil [...]

A couple of months ago, the Museum decided it was time to begin exploring a program that would allow supporters to “adopt” items in the collections for restoration.  While the details of this program are still in the works (museums often move slowly and deliberately on such things, and rightfully so), a call went out [...]