Tonight and tomorrow: Twitter reenacts one of the early battles of American Civil War

Maggie Koerth 8:30 pm Tue Aug 20, 2013

On the night of August 20, 1863, proslavery guerrillas from Missouri set off to attack the antislavery stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas, burning it to the ground and killing at least 150 people. There's an organized reenactment happening on Twitter tonight and tomorrow, under the hashtag #qr1863. It features Twitter accounts for Lawrence townspeople of the time, as well as Union soldiers, and proslavery leader William Quantrill — all tweeting their perspective of the raid using real historical sources.

The hashtag is just getting started up now. The real action will kick in tomorrow, on the anniversary of the attack. Fascinating use of tech to draw attention to an oft-overlooked part of history!

EDIT: Reader slowglowing posted a link in the comments that allows you to see just the historical reenactment tweets, with none of the modern people getting in the way.

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