[legendsport]

From the newspapers, August 24, 1863:

CHICAGO TIMES:
... rioters have burned a large portion of southern Manhattan and reports from New York indicate that militia from the Battery were called in to quell the disturbances. Scores have perished...

BOSTON POST:
...in addition to the riots and looting in New York, there have been demonstrations here in Boston, and in Philadelphia as well, where the populace lives in expectation of J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry setting up camp in front of Independence Hall at any time...

NEW YORK HERALD:
...word has reached us that Mr. Lincoln and most of his cabinet were captured in Washington City and are now in captivity in Richmond. The number of voices across the nation supporting an end to the war are rising. Can there be any doubt? The war is almost certainly lost and it is time to end the fighting...


Rockford, Illinois, September 8, 1863:

Albert whipped his right arm down and forward and let loose. The ball was true - and fast - and the striker swung his club and missed, despite the pitch being exactly where he requested it. There was a meaty popping sound as the ball hit the catcher's hands.

"Confound it, Al! Don't throw it so fast! Are you trying to break my hand?" Charley Unger, the 17-year-old catcher, shook his hand and threw the ball back.

And so it proceeded from there: Albert Spalding, just 13 years of age (and that number only having been attained a week earlier), a lonely boy whose father had passed when he was just eight, playing base ball with older boys (and the occasional adult) - and succeeding. He was the best pitcher in Rockford and all the other boys knew it.

For himself, Albert tried to temper the praise he received from others. Many of the town's younger men were off in the Union Army. Even after the defeats of the summer, many in Rockford still believed in Mr. Lincoln's cause, still believed that the Union must be preserved. Albert didn't dwell on the war. He was too young to fight and besides, why worry about the war when there was a ball game to be found?


outside Petersburg, Virginia, September 21, 1863:

Private Dennis Coughlin was demonstrating how to swing at a base ball. His audience was a group of Confederate soldiers. The cavalry detachment which had shepherded Coughlin and his mates from Pennsylvania had left them near Richmond and a new group of Rebs had taken over. The group was bound for Danville Prison Camp in southern Virginia, but they were taking their time of it because, apparently, everyone in the Confederate Army believed the war was won and they were just waiting to get the official word.

A strange sort of comraderie had developed between Coughlin and one of the Reb sergeants, Justice Wingo. Wingo was from Georgia, had a thick and unruly beard and even though he had a thick accent and they could barely understand each other, Coughlin and Wingo were becoming friends.

"This isn't much of a bat," Coughlin was explaining as he held the squarish-board that had been "appropriated" by Wingo's men from a farmhouse near Richmond. Noting Wingo's look of disappointment, he hastily added, "but it'll do in a pinch."

Coughlin had made a ball by cobbling together some cork and wrapping it in the remains of his kit bag, and then sewn together with needle and thread supplied by one of Wingo's men. Thus equipped, Coughlin and Wingo led their respective clubs in a game of base ball - Union against Confederate.

When it was over, the Union side victorious, Wingo smiled at Coughlin and chuckled, "I reckon that's the first time in months any Yankee has tasted victory."

Coughlin shook his head and laughed ruefully. "I suspect you're right, Sergeant," he said quietly.