GREAT DINNERS in the 1860s

1860
Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, 19, dines at an elaborate dinner held in his honor at The Academy of Music, 14th Street in New York during his first visit to America.
Main course: Beefsteak-and-kidney pie. -- Related article: Tour of His Royal Highness, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Through the United States, Our First Century, by R. M. Devens.
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1862
Napoleon III dines at James de Rothschild's French estate. They join a hunting party in the afternoon, killing over 1200 heads of game. Returning, the Paris Opera entertains them with hunting songs.
Main course: Boar and pheasants en plumage.
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1863
Thanksgiving Day becomes a U.S. national holiday to commemorate the Pilgrims' 1621 feast honoring their Native American benefactors.
Main course: Turkey
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1864
The steamer proved to be the Nutfield, perfectly new, and, as her papers showed, laden with arms and stores for the Confederate Government. She had been chased the day before, and escaped only to find herself at night in the very midst of the inside blockaders off Wilmington...In the cabin of the prize, which was most luxuriantly furnished, stood the breakfast-table hastily abandoned.
"A Cruise on the "Sassacus," by Edgar Holden; Harper's New Monthly Magazine, November, 1864.
from Cruise on the Sassacus 14-page.

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1865
The Six Chinese Companies in California host a dinner in honor of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives; Hon. Wm. Bross, Lt-Governor of Illinois; Albert D. Richardson, New York Tribune; and Samuel Bowles, Springfield (Mass.) Republican at the Hang Heong Restaurant, 308 Dupont Street, San Francisco, California.
Main course: Bamboo soup, bird's nest soup, stewed sea-weed, stewed mushrooms, fried fungus, banana fritters, shark fins, shark sinews, reindeer sinews, dried Chinese oysters, pigeons, ducks, chickens, scorpions' eggs, watermelon seeds, fish in scores of varieties, many kinds of cake, and fruits ad infinitum.
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1866
Citizens of Augusta, Georgia hold a barbecue honoring General Steadman and General Fullerton, sent by President Johnson to investigate the Freedmen's Bureau. Black families have their barbeques, generally at the close of their labors in getting in the cotton crop. -- Harper's Weekly.
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1866
Banquet in honor of Cyrus W. Field, at The Metropolitan Hotel in New York, with telegraph-pole centerpieces, celebrating the first successful attempt to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.
-- Successful Laying of the Telegraph Cable Across the Atlantic Ocean, Our First Century, by R. M. Devens.
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1869
Farewell Dinner at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia for Honorable Andrew Curtin (former Pennsylvania Governor) after his acceptance as minister to Russia.

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