Obscure American history trivia

Penn is definitely private.

Penn State is a sort of hybrid, in that it accepts some funding from the state but operates independently. Temple is the same.

Those are separate from the actual state-school system, in which universities (like the one I went to!) are owned, operated and fully funded by the state. Shippensburg, Millersville, Clarion, Lock Haven, and a bunch of others are “state schools.”

 

This isn't really totally germane here, but it's American history.

On this day (5/2) in 1863, my great great uncle Martin Van Buren Champlin was killed at Chancellorsville. I imagine he and the other 550-odd members of the 154th New York in O.O. Howard's 11th Corps were just sitting down for a dinner of hardtack and coffee when Stonewall Jackson's men burst out of the trees and totally destroyed his regiment. Less than half remained fit for duty on May 3; the others were dead, wounded or captured.

He was 19 years old and had four brothers. One died at Andersonville, the other at New Bern, N.C.

 

More on the Civil War: The grandson of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings ran a successful Madison, Wis., hotel when war broke out. He enlisted in the 8th Wisconsin infantry and quickly rose to the rank of major. He was wounded twice, once at the siege of Vicksburg, before mustering out of the army as a colonel. He was also a newspaper correspondent throughout the war.

Throughout his life Jefferson kept his lineage from Thomas Jefferson a secret, fearing revelation of his African ancestry would wreck his position in the army and society as a whole. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/john-wayles-jefferson

 

The Union Army had an officer named Jefferson Davis who killed his superior officer during the war after being insulted.....and stayed in the army due to an officer shortage.

 

Wikipedia has a pretty good account of the fatal interlude between Davis and "Bull" Nelson, a Navy officer who played a key role in maintaining Kentucky's allegiance to the Union and who led the troops that reinforced Grant at Shiloh, turning the tide of battle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_"Bull"_Nelson

Nelson, an imposing man at 6-2 and 300 lbs., routinely was harsh to his immediate subordinates. When he slapped Davis, who had recently returned from leave for "exhaustion" after a series of battles (the decisive encounter at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, for one), the aggrieved subordinate entered Nelson's office and shot him. One could surmise that the friend who supplied Davis with the pistol and who served with him in the Mexican War must have known what was about to go down.

 

What state is home to the geo center of the United States? (By this I mean the 50 states and DC but not other territories and possessions.)

 

Utah?

 

Kansas

 

+1. IIRC, the population center is in Missouri.

 

Hint: It used to be Kansas.

 

I remember it being one of the Dakotas. Can’t remember which, though. North?

 

Belle Fourche, South Dakota.