Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Selma

SELMA, a city of the United States, in Dallas county, Alabama, at the head of steamboat navigation of the Alabama river, occupies a plateau on the bluff of the right bank, 95 miles below Montgomery. It has cotton warehouses, railroad machine-shops, and various factories. The population was 6484 (3660 coloured) in 1870 and 7529 (4184 coloured) in 1880. Selma, which was strongly fortified during the Civil War and the seat of a Confederate arsenal (where 1800 men were employed), was captured by the Federal major-general J. H. Wilson on 2d April 1865.