This Week in The Civil War: Sunday, Feb. 5, 1862

Battle of Roanoke Island, N.C.

This week 150 years ago in the war, Union Brigadier Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside leads an amphibious assault in the North Carolina coastal sounds with thousands of soldiers and sailors and more than 60 ships. Now seen as a minor engagement, the federal attack on Roanoke Island gave the Union a much-needed victory early in the conflict. Federal forces would seize that island and hold it for the rest of the war. It began in earnest on Feb. 7, 1862. Burnside landed about 7,500 men on the southwestern side of Roanoke Island as his fleet approached after sailing from federally held Fort Monroe off southeast Virginia. The next day, federal fighters backed by their gunboats thrust themselves on fortifications held by more than 2,500 Confederate fighters. The invaders rapidly outgunned and overran an overwhelmed foe during the two-day assault. Union losses were reported as 37 killed and 214 wounded. Confederate forces reported 22 dead and 58 wounded amid fierce cannon and rifle fire before their remaining troops surrendered or fled. The move secured President Lincoln's military a strategic outpost on North Carolina's coast, further shutting off supply lines to the Confederacy as he tightened a federal maritime blockade on the South. For the North, still beaten down by the disastrous defeat months earlier at the Battle of Bull Run, the victory was a morale booster that gave fresh impetus to fight. The Philadelphia Inquirer, in reporting on the war this week 150 years ago, called it "a great victory" for the Union side.

That's what Friends are for

Are you on Facebook? I am.

Social networking site Facebook was founded Feb. 4, 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg.

According to Facebook:

Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Facebook filed for an initial public offering (AKA the stock exchange) on Feb. 1, 2012.

I hope you Like my Facebook page. 

Or previous condition of servitude

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on Feb. 3, 1870, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race. 

The 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

(Women, of course, didn't get the right to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920.)

Although ratified on Feb. 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th Amendment would not be fully realized for almost a century. Southern states were able to prevent African Americans from voting through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests and other means.

It would take the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed discriminatory voting practices before the majority of African Americans in the South were registered to vote.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Act into law on Aug. 6, 1965 with Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and other civil rights leaders in attendance.