Lossing unforgettably captured pre-Civil War America, when NYC numbered 300,000 people, and steamboats and railroads plied the Hudson River and its banks. The Hudson Valley was pastureland and farmland surrounding a few sleepy villages and a handful of bustling river ports, and Revolutionary War exploits were still a hot topic of conversation.
Benson John Lossing was a prolific and popular American historian, known best for his illustrated books on the American Revolution and American Civil War and features in Harper's Magazine. He was a charter trustee of Vassar College.