Disaster on the Potomac


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For passengers of the steamboat Wawaset, August 8, 1873, began with a pleasant cruise from Washington, D.C., down the Potomac River. As the Wawaset came into sight of a small Virginia landing, fire broke out below decks, and frantic passengers leapt from the flames only to be pulled down by the swift waters. Author Alvin F. Oickle puts a human face to the tragedy as he profiles some of the seventy-five who perished, among them young mother Alethea Gray and six members of the Reed family. With a fast-paced style and firsthand accounts, Oickle masterfully narrates the last run of the Wawaset against the backdrop of a tense post-Civil War society.




Alexandria on the Potomac


Book Description

This book is both the unique story of Alexandria before the Civil War and a comprehensive portrait of a seaboard antebellum community in transition. It depicts the economic, political, social, cultural and religious life of the city on the Potomac, emphasizing developments from the mid-1840s to the outbreak of war in 1861. The pages therein not only describe local happenings; they endeavor to relate events in the town with developments in other seaboard communities, especially in the South. Special attention is given to the class structure of the community and the prominent role which merchants and civic leaders played, as well as the part of ordinary people in the city's portrait.




Country Life


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Country Life


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Haunted Potomac River Valley


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Before European colonists first dipped their toes in our "Nation's River," it succored generations of American Indians, who added their own stories and often stained its banks with their blood. Revolutionary War ghosts haunt its length, from Shepherdstown to Saint George's Island. Harpers Ferry is home to more than one nineteenth-century haunt, and ghosts of Civil War soldiers linger in the river's upper reaches. Former residents still reside in historic buildings in Sterling, Arlington and Alexandria. Point Lookout, at the mouth of the river, is the most haunted site in Maryland. While the Potomac has weathered horrors and tragedies, many residents did not. Author David W. Thompson tells their stories.







Virginia


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This was Potomac River


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A Maryland Pilgrimage


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