Read the entire Jan. 24, 1863, issue of the Los Angeles Star, scanned by USC from an original copy at the Huntington.

Jan. 24, 1863: Most of the Los Angeles Star is devoted to details about the progress (or lack of it) in the Civil War, but there are a few items of local interest. There’s a report of rain, the birth of a daughter to Mrs. Harris Newmark and the birth of a son to Mrs. Laubenheimer. Robert Barker married Melinda Ervin in a ceremony performed by Bishop Thaddeus Amat.

On the jump, in its continuing derision of the North, the Star says: “The redoubtable Thad. Stevens proposes a bill to enrol 150,000 Negroes to do the fighting down South for their white brethren. The climate down that way is becoming too hot for the Northern army, and hence an army, 150,000 strong, of African descent, inured to the climate, is to be formed.