Louisiana native Major Pierre G.T. Beauregard appointed as the next Superintendent of West Point

Major P.G.T. Beauregard, a Louisiana-born career engineering officer and West Point class of 1838, was appointed Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, ostensibly with the influence of his brother-in-law Senator John Slidell.  He was slated to begin his duties in January 1861, after the close of the semi-annual examination of cadets, but the War Department removed him soon after Louisiana seceded from the Union.  (By John Osborne) 
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The Clarendon Hotel in Buffalo, New York burns and four die

The Clarendon Hotel, one of the largest in Buffalo, New York, took fire in the kitchen area just after midnight and was very quickly completely afire.  Four people were killed in the blaze including a boarder who leaped to his death from the fifth floor, another male guest, and two female hotel employees.  The main wing of the hotel, on the corner of Main and South Division Streets was completely destroyed.  The fire department were able to save the lesser wing but damages were estimated to total around $120,000.  (By John Osborne)  
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Eighty omnibus line horses die in massive New York City stable fire

Breaking out around seven in the evening in a hay loft, a fire completely destroyed the Red Bird Omnibus Line stables at the corner of 32nd Street and 10th Avenue in New York City.  The stables housed 121 horses of the horse-drawn line and only 41 animals were led to safety as the fire spread rapidly despite fire department efforts. Fire fighters were successful in prevented the fire spreading to a neighboring tenement building and no serious human injuries were reported. (By John Osborne)  
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In Hoosick Falls, New York, a massive fire destroys a mowing machine factory

A massive nighttime fire burned to the ground Walter Wood's mowing machine factory in Hoosick Falls, New York.  One of the largest employers in the area, with 323 men working there, the damages  to the business were estimated at around $200,000.  With no available fire department, the flames had been uncontrollable and were seen as far away as Troy, and in Whitehall, New York, fifty miles away.  No injuries were reported, however.  (By John Osborne)  
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Fire destroys shoe factory and the post office in Natick, Massachusetts

A morning fire in Natick, Massachusetts completely destroyed a shoe factory and surrounding buildings.  The town's post office was burned out in one the buildings lost.  Early estimates of damage ranged up to $50,000 but no deaths or injuries were reported.  (By John Osborne)  
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Cornelia Peake McDonald, Early Life (Gwin, 2003)

Scholarship
Cornelia Peake McDonald, A Woman's Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862, ed. Minrose C. Gwin (New York: Gramercy Books, 2003), 5.
Because her father, a medical doctor, had cosigned loans for friends who later defaulted on payments, the family moved several times in Cornelia’s early years, first to a plantation in Prince William County, Virginia, and later to Front Royal in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1835, on a long, arduous journey, her father moved the family and their slaves to Palmyra, Missouri, where many of the slaves and some family members died of consumption…. Early in life Cornelia was called upon to nurse her sick mother, who, unaccustomed to a pioneer life, was frequently ill.
A Woman's Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862
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