chapter 4, section 1.

AKARNANIANS (Acarnanians).

The Akarnanians formed "a link of transition" between the ancient Greeks and their barbarous or non-Hellenic neighbours in the Epirus and beyond. "They occupied the territory between the river Acheloûs, the Ionian sea and the Ambrakian gulf: they were Greeks and admitted as such to contend at the Pan-Hellenic games, yet they were also closely connected with the Amphilochi and Agræi, who were not Greeks. In manners, sentiments and intelligence, they were half-Hellenic and half-Epirotic,--like the Ætolians and the Ozolian Lokrians. Even down to the time of Thucydides, these nations were subdivided into numerous petty communities, lived in unfortified villages, were frequently in the habit of plundering each other, and never permitted themselves to be unarmed. ... Notwithstanding this state of disunion and insecurity, however, the Akarnanians maintained a loose political league among themselves. ... The Akarnanians appear to have produced many prophets. They traced up their mythical ancestry, as well as that of their neighbours the Amphilochians, to the most renowned prophetic family among the Grecian heroes,--Amphiaraus, with his sons Alkmæôn and Ampilochus: Akarnan, the eponymous hero of the nation, and other eponymous heroes of the separate towns, were supposed to be the sons of Alkmæôn. They are spoken of, together with the Ætolians, as mere rude shepherds, by the lyric poet Alkman, and so they seem to have continued with little alteration until the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when we hear of them, for the first time, as allies of Athens and as bitter enemies of the Corinthian colonies on their coast. The contact of those colonies, however, and the large spread of Akarnanian accessible coast, could not fail to produce some effect in socializing and improving the people. And it is probable that this effect would have been more sensibly felt, had not the Akarnanians been kept back by the fatal neighbourhood of the Ætolians, with whom they were in perpetual feud,--a people the most unprincipled and unimprovable of all who bore the Hellenic name, and whose habitual faithlessness stood in marked contrast with the rectitude and steadfastness of the Akarnanian character."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 24._

AKBAR (called The Great), Moghul Emperor or Padischah of India, A. D. 1556-1605.

AKHALZIKH, Siege and capture of (1828).

See TURKS: A. D. 1826-1829.

AKKAD.--AKKADIANS.

See BABYLONIA, PRIMITIVE.

AKKARON.

See PHILISTINES.

AKROKERAUNIAN PROMONTORY.

See KORKYRA.

ALABAMA: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APALACHES: MUSKHOGEE FAMILY; CHEROKEES.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1539-1542. Traversed by Hernando de Soto.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1629. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1663. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Monk, Shaftesbury, and others.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.

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ALABAMA: A. D. 1702-1711. French occupation and first settlement. The founding of Mobile.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1732. Mostly embraced in the new province of Georgia.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1763. Cession and delivery to Great Britain. Partly embraced in West Florida.

See SEVEN YEARS' WAR; and FLORIDA: A. D. 1763: and NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1763.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1779-1781. Reconquest of West Florida by the Spaniards.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1783. Mostly covered by the English cession to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1783-1787. Partly in dispute with Spain.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1798-1804. All but the West Florida District embraced in Mississippi Territory.

See MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1798-1804.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1803. Portion acquired by the Louisiana purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A.D. 1798-1803.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1813. Possession of Mobile and West Florida taken from the Spaniards.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.

ALABAMA: A. D. 1813-1814. The Creek War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1817-1819. Organized as a Territory. Constituted a State, and admitted to the Union.

"By an act of Congress dated March 1, 1817, Mississippi Territory was divided. Another act, bearing the date March 3, thereafter, organized the western [? eastern] portion into a Territory, to be known as Alabama, and with the boundaries as they now exist. ... By an act approved March 2, 1819, congress authorized the inhabitants of the Territory of Alabama to form a state constitution, 'and that said Territory, when formed into a State, shall be admitted into the Union upon the same footing as the original States.' ... The joint resolution of congress admitting Alabama into the Union was approved by President Monroe, December 14, 1819."

_W. Brewer, Alabama, chapter 5._

ALABAMA: A. D. 1861 (January). Secession from the Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1862. General Mitchell's Expedition.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL--MAY: ALABAMA).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1864 (August). The Battle of Mobile Bay. Capture of Confederate forts and fleet.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864(AUGUST: ALABAMA).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1865 (March-April). The Fall of Mobile. Wilson's Raid. End of the Rebellion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).

ALABAMA: A. D. 1865-1868. Reconstruction.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), to 1868-1870.

ALABAMA: End----------

ALABAMA CLAIMS, The: A. D. 1861-1862. In their Origin. The Earlier Confederate cruisers. Precursors of the Alabama.

The commissioning of privateers, and of more officially commanded cruisers, in the American civil war, by the government of the Southern Confederacy, was begun early in the progress of the movement of rebellion, pursuant to a proclamation issued by Jefferson Davis on the 17th of April, 1861. "Before the close of July, 1861, more than 20 of those depredators were afloat, and had captured millions of property belonging to American citizens. The most formidable and notorious of the sea-going ships of this character, were the Nashville, Captain R. B. Pegram, a Virginian, who had abandoned his flag, and the Sumter [a regularly commissioned war vessel], Captain Raphael Semmes. The former was a side-wheel steamer, carried a crew of eighty men, and was armed with two long 12-pounder rifled cannon. Her career was short, but quite successful. She was finally destroyed by the Montauk, Captain Worden, in the Ogeechee River. The career of the Sumter, which had been a New Orleans and Havana packet steamer named Marquis de Habana, was also short, but much more active and destructive. She had a crew of sixty-five men and twenty-five marines, and was heavily armed. She ran the blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi River on the 30th of June, and was pursued some distance by the Brooklyn. She ran among the West India islands and on the Spanish Main, and soon made prizes of many vessels bearing the American flag. She was everywhere received in British Colonial ports with great favor, and was afforded every facility for her piratical operations. She became the terror of the American merchant service, and everywhere eluded National vessels of war sent out in pursuit of her. At length she crossed the ocean, and at the close of 1861 was compelled to seek shelter under British guns at Gibraltar, where she was watched by the Tuscarora. Early in the year 1862 she was sold, and thus ended her piratical career. Encouraged by the practical friendship of the British evinced for these corsairs, and the substantial aid they were receiving from British subjects in various ways, especially through blockade-runners, the conspirators determined to procure from those friends some powerful piratical craft, and made arrangements for the purchase and construction of vessels for that purpose. Mr. Laird, a ship-builder at Liverpool and member of the British Parliament, was the largest contractor in the business, and, in defiance of every obstacle, succeeded in getting pirate ships to sea. The first of these ships that went to sea was the Oreto, ostensibly built for a house in Palermo, Sicily. Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, was so well satisfied from information received that she was designed for the Confederates, that he called the attention of the British government to the matter so early as the 18th of February, 1862. But nothing effective was done, and she was completed and allowed to depart from British waters. She went first to Nassau, and on the 4th of September suddenly appeared off Mobile harbor, flying the British flag and pennants. The blockading squadron there was in charge of Commander George H. Preble, who had been specially instructed not to give offense to foreign nations while enforcing the blockade. He believed the Oreto to be a British vessel, and while deliberating a few minutes as to what he should do, she passed out of range of his guns, and entered the harbor with a rich freight. For his seeming remissness Commander Preble was summarily dismissed from the service without a hearing--an act which subsequent events seemed to show was cruel injustice. Late in December the Oreto escaped from Mobile, fully armed for a piratical cruise, under the command of John Newland Maffit. ... The name of the Oreto was changed to that of Florida."

_B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War,