The age-herald., 1897-12-26

 Mexieans at the battle of Bracto.
 Christmastide, 1860, was full of forebod- ings. On Dec. 20, saucy South Carolina had passed the ordinance of secession. On the day after Christmas Maj. Anderson moved his little garrison from Fort Moul- trie to Fort Sumter. Down In New Orleans a meeting was held on Christmas to ratify Southern rights" Pittsburg, too. was in extra state of excitement. An order had been received at the Alleghany arsenal from the traitorous secretary of war, John B. Floyd, to ship at once 150 cannon to New Orleans. The Pennsylyanians were alive to the meaning of the order, and de- termined to resist it's execution. The op- position was so strong that on Dec. 26 the order was countermanded.
 The first Christmas battles Of the civil war were those of 1862, fought at Greens Chapel, Ky, by detachments of the Fourth and Fifth Indiana Cavalry, and Bear Wal low, Ky, by two squadrons of the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry.
 On Christmas next year the 117th Illinois Volunteers fought the rattle ot Lafayette, Tenn, and the Seventh Illinois Cavalry had a two-aay brush With the confederates at Bolivar and Summerville, Tenn.
 On Christmas Day, lS64, Fort Fisher was attacked unsuccessfully by land and wa ter force. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Porter, and the Tenth corps of
 the Army of the James by Gen. Butler. On this day, too, the cavalry of Gen. Thomas army fought the battles of Pu- laslS, Lambs Ferry, Anthony's Hill and
 Sugar Creek, Tenn, and the Seventh In
 diana cavalry had a skirmish at Verona, Miss.
 Most notable of all Christmas events of the war, however. was Shermans present to President Lincoln. Savannah was occu- pied by the union army on Dec H, 1854, having been evacuated by Hardee The next day Sherman wrote to the president: CT hog n present c Christmas gift
 the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns
 and plenty of ammunition; also about 5000 bales of cotton."
 Going into Europe for Christmas events of war times, the Old Pretender James Stuart, landed on Dec. 25, 1715, at Peter head, Aberdeenshire, from Frence, to en- ! courage the rebellion his followers had
 raised. And just thirty years from that day his son, Prince Charles Edward, re- treated from Glasgow in his efforts to seize the throne of England. Kosciusko having been defeated and captured by the Rus sans in October, 1794, was set at liberty l by Emperor Paul on Christmas, 1796 One of the Napoleonic battles-that of Mincio- | was fought on Dec. 25-27, 1S00
 No great man of any country has died on | Christmas day. Three, however, have | passed away on the day before Christmas, | so that their taking off was a Christmas | topie Thackery, who will ever be re-
 membered in connection with Christmas
 
 died on Dec. 24 1863. Stanton, the great
 war secretary of the United States, died l almost in poverty, on Dec 24, 1S69 Daniel I Manning died while secretary of the treas | ury on Dec. 24, 1SS7
 | In the list of Christmas disasters earth
 quakes lead in the loss of life involved | On Dec. %, 1884. Andalusia. Malga, Spain | was shaken by an earthquake which killed 1 266 persons. This was followed on the
 26th and 27th by shocks at Periana, which | killed 900 persons.
 On Christmas day, 1853. the steamer San
 Francisco. bound for California. with 700 | United States troops. laboring in the l midst of storm in which she finally foun- l dered. Two hundred and forty men were l swept from the decks of the ship into the | angry sea.
 The steamer Constitution was wrecked | on Cape Lookout shoals on Dec. 25, 1865 | and forty lives lost.
 On Christmas Eve, 1888, the steamer ate l Adams was burned near Commerce Land | ing Mississippi river, and thrty-three per | sons perished, and the same night the | steamer John H. Hanna was burned oppo- | site Plaquemine, La, and twenty-two lives | were lost.
 | It was Christmas Eve, way back in 1745 | that two large privateers sailed from New
 port, R. l., into a northeast storm, bound | for Louisburg, to aid in the siege of that
 stronghold. Before Christmas had passed
 200 Newport women were widowed. | Christmas, 1S91, will long be remembered
 in and about New York for it was on the
 eve of that day that the wreck on the New l York Central, at Hastings, occurred, in
 which thirteen persons were killed many
 of them being burned to death. On Christi
 mas Eve, 1872, a trestle gave way under a | passenger train near Prospect N. Y, the | cars were burned and nineteen persons l killed.
 | In Great Britain there have been two | Christmas Eve railway wrecks to sadden | the day. In 1874 a broken wheel threw a 1 train over an embankment at Shipton, near | Oxford, killing twenty-four persons and in- ! turing seventy. In 1881 an express train
 on the Great Western railway ran into a | freight train at Slough, killing a dozen | people.
 As to fires, only one has been a Christ
 mas topic. that in the congressional libra-
 ry. Dec. 24 1851. in which 35 900 of the 5, ,0O0 volumes were burned.
 Meteorology records at least one Christ mas phenomena, for on Dec. 25. 1899, Sir John Ross saw rain fall from a clear sky | for an hour near Trinidad. Oakley Hall, of New York has good occa- sion to remember Christmas, for on Dec.
 24. 1873, he was acquitted on the third trial
 of charges of complicity in the Tweed steals.