Today In Western History: January 31

January 31 —

 

On this day in 1865, the U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in America. The amendment read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

When the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln’s professed goal was the restoration of the Union. But early in the war, the Union began keeping escaped slaves rather than returning them to their owners, so slavery essentially ended wherever the Union army was victorious. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas that were still in rebellion against the Union. This measure opened the issue of what to do about slavery in border states that had not seceded or in areas that had been captured by the Union before the proclamation.

In 1864, an amendment abolishing slavery passed the U.S. Senate but died in the House as Democrats rallied in the name of states’ rights. The election of 1864 brought Lincoln back to the White House along with significant Republican majorities in both houses, so it appeared the amendment was headed for passage when the new Congress convened in March 1865. Lincoln preferred that the amendment receive bipartisan support–some Democrats indicated support for the measure, but many still resisted. The amendment passed 119 to 56, seven votes above the necessary two-thirds majority. Several Democrats abstained, but the 13th Amendment was sent to the states for ratifica-tion, which came in December 1865. With the passage of the amendment, the institution that had indelibly shaped American history was eradicated.

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 30

January 30 —

Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks
Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks

On this day in 1816, Union General Nathaniel Banks is born in Waltham, Massachusetts. Banks was a political general.  This meant he had no military skills, but plenty of political connections, as an anti-slave Republican from Massachusetts, he had helped President Abraham Lincoln’s administra-tion maintain support in that region.

Banks was born in low surroundings to a cotton mill worker and he never attended college, but despite his humble beginnings, he studied law, languages, and oratory, and by the late 1830’s he had become a lawyer. He served in the state legislature, and was speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In 1853, Banks was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1858 to 1861, he served as governor of his home state, where he was considered both a popular and very effective leader.

When the Civil War began, Banks was commissioned as a general despite his complete lack of military experience.  This was a fairly typical appointment during the Civil War because there just were not enough qualified men to fill the positions, and the Lincoln administration had to make appointments with what they had to work with, and with an eye to keeping what political support they had, as well as obtaining further political support for their goals.  Banks was given command of an army in the Shenandoah Valley during Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s campaign

Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, CSA
Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, CSA

there in 1862. He suffered two serious defeats to Jackson at Front Royal and Winchester, and his army lost so many supplies that the Confederates began calling him “Commissary Banks” in contempt. In August of that same year, Banks commanded a corps at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia. He once again found himself pitted against Jackson, and yet again lost to him. Banks was forced to retreat to Washington, D.C. where he was relieved of his command.

Banks was then sent down to New Orleans to command the Department of the Gulf. In 1863, he managed to capture Port Hudson, a key Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. His victory was difficult and came with a high price in casualties, but it was the general’s first victory of the war, and it was actually his only real victory. In 1864, Banks commanded the Red River Campaign in northern Louisiana, which turned also into a complete Union disaster and once more he was relieved of command and he would never command troops in the field again.  His next assignment was to oversee the reconstruction of Louisiana during the war, and documents prove he was just as inept at this.  He had used the state’s antebellum constitution to govern and all he did was remove any references to slavery, which did little to promote the rights of freed slaves. In fact, Banks actually forced many black “vagrants” back to work on the very plantations they had left behind.

After the war, Banks served two more stints in Congress and also spent time as a U.S. marshal. He was serving in Congress when he died in 1894 at age 78.

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 29

January 29 —

President William McKinley
President William McKinley

On this day in 1843, William McKinley, who will become the 25th American president and the first to ride in an auto-mobile, is born in Niles, Ohio.   McKinley was only 17 when the Civil War started in 1860, and he immediately enlisted as a private in the Union Army.  When the war ended in 1865,  he left the military having risen to the rank of brevet major of volunteers.  He went to law school and then opened his own office.  He won a seat in Congress at 34, and his attractive personality, exem-plary character, and quick intelligence enabled him to rise rapidly.  McKinley served in the White House from 1897 to 1901, a time when the American automotive industry was in its infancy.

During his presidency, McKinley was the man in the White house during the sinking of the U. S. battleship Maine  in Havana and the war with Spain that followed it.  McKinley, (who died from an assassin’s bullet in September 1901) took a drive in a Stanley Steamer, a steam-engine-powered auto built in the late 1890s by brothers Francis and Freelan Stanley. The Stanley Motor Carriage Company produced a number of steam-powered vehicles before going out of business in the early 1920s, after being unable to compete with the rise of less expensive gas-powered cars.

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 28

January 28 —

 

On this day in 1828, future Confederate General Thomas Carmichael Hindman is born in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Gen. Thomas C. Hindman, CSA
Gen. Thomas C. Hindman, CSA

Hindman was raised in Alabama but he was educated in New York and New Jersey. His family moved to a Mississippi plantation, and he returned from the North to study law. His studies were interrupted by the two years he spent in the military, serving in the Mexican War (1946-48), but he was admitted to the Mississippi Bar Association in 1851. He earned a reputation as an avid secessionist long before many Southerners held that view. He moved to Arkansas and was elected to Congress in 1858. Hindman’s law partner was Patrick Cleburne, who also became a Confederate general.

Gen. Patrick Cleburne, CSA
Gen. Patrick Cleburne, CSA

When the Civil War began, Hindman raised his own regiment and proceeded to ride at the front of it as a colonel. He was soon promoted to general and quickly raised an army of 18,000 from Arkansas. His tenure as commander in Arkansas was stormy and marked by extreme measures, as he declared martial law, imposed price controls, and enforced conscription. After his force was stopped at the Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, in December 1862, Hindman was reassigned to the Army of Tennessee where he fought at Chickamauga and Atlanta, and was wounded twice.  After the war, Hindman fled to Mexico and joined a number of unreconstructed Confederates there. He returned to Arkansas in the late 1860s and became involved in politics again. He led a faction that challenged the Republican Party, and, in a pragmatic political maneuver, he began working on a biracial coalition. Hindman was shot as he sat in home, most likely by one of his political opponents. He died in September 1868 at age 40.

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 27

January 27 —

 

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1, ordering all land and sea forces to

President Abraham Lincoln
President Abraham Lincoln

advance on February 22, 1862.  This daring decision sent an unmistakable  message to his commanders that the president was tired of the excuses and delays in seizing the offensive against Confederate forces. Lincoln had a new and aggressive secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who replaced the corrupt Simon Cameron, and who considered McClellan a

Edwin McMasters Stanton, Sec. of War
Edwin M. Stanton, Sec. of War

traitor for his lack of energy in taking the fight to the Confederates.  The unusual order was the product of a number of factors. The primary reason for the order, how-ever, was General George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac in the East. McClellan had a deep and evident contempt for the president that had become increasingly apparent since Lincoln appointed him in July 1861. McClellan had shown great reluctance to reveal his plans to the president, and exhibited no signs of moving his army in the near future.  McClellan, however, did not respond.  Lincoln’s order called for strict accountability for each commander who did not follow the order, but the president had to handle McClellan carefully. Because the general had the backing of many Democrats and had whipped the Army of the Potomac into fine fighting shape over the winter, Lincoln had to give McClellan a chance to command in the field.

The president had also been brushing up on his readings about military strategy. Lincoln felt that if enough force were brought to bear on the Confederates simultaneously, they would break. This was a simple plan that ignored a host of other factors, but Lincoln felt that if the Confederates “…weakened one wall to strengthen another,” the Union could step in and “seize and hold the one weakened.”  It was a good strategy, but it was about two years too soon.

Lincoln would later describe General McClellan as “having a severe case of the slows”.  Lincoln had tolerated this flagrant disrespect from McClellan only because he had no one else to put in his  place…yet.  But he was coming, and he was coming East from the Western Army.

Lincoln had wanted to convey a sense of urgency to all of his military leaders, and it worked very effectively in the West. Union armies in Tennessee began to move, and General Ulysses S. Grant captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, respectively.

Lt. General Ulysses Grant
Lt. General Ulysses Grant

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 26

On this day in 1863, Union General Joseph Hooker assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following Ambrose Burnside’s disastrous tenure of just two short months.

General Joseph Hooker
General Joseph Hooker

Hooker, was a West Point graduate and a veteran of both the Seminole and Mexican Wars, and he had even served in the American West in the 1850s. When the Civil War erupted, Hooker was named brigadier general in the Army of the Potomac. He quickly rose to division commander, and had distinguished himself during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. He also continued to build his reputation as a hard drinker and womanizer.  His policy of allowing the ever present ‘camp followers’ access to his soldiers quickly earned them the name of “Hooker’s Girls”, which was later shortened down to hookers, which is where THAT name comes from.  Bet you didn’t know that piece of trivia.

Hooker received command of the First Corps in time for the Second Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, in August 1862. His corps played a major role in the Battle of Antietam in Maryland in September, and when Burnside failed as commander, Hooker had his chance.  The general first had to deal with the sagging morale of the army. He decided to reorganize his command and he instituted a badge system, where each division had its own unique insignia. This helped to build unit pride and identity, and it is still followed to this day.  Hooker led his re-energized army into Virginia in April 1863. Hooker’s appointment was part of President Abraham Lincoln‘s frustrating process of finding a winning general in the East. After going through a series of unproductive generals (Irwin McDowell, George McClellan, John Pope, McClellan once more, and then Burnside), Lincoln hoped Hooker could defeat Confederate General Robert E. Lee.  It was a tall order, though, and Hooker was not up to the challenge.

In May 1863, Hooker clashed with Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, and the Union army suffered a decisive and stunning defeat.  The only good result for the Union of this fight was the Confederacy’s loss of an irreplaceable General of their own, the incredibly gifted and ferociously unpredictable Thomas Jefferson “Stonewall” Jackson, shot down by accident by his own men.  Lincoln’s search for an effective commander would continue, and in the summer of 1863 Joseph Hooker was replaced with George Gordon Meade.

General George Gordon Meade
General George Gordon Meade

It would not be until November of 1863 that the Union would finally start making real progress in defeating Robert E. Lee, and it would only come with the appointment by Abraham Lincoln of Ulysses S. Grant as lieutenant general, the

Lt. General Ulysses Grant
Lt. General Ulysses Grant

first since George Washington, and the only Union general that Lee considered a real danger to the success of the Confederacy, and Lincoln’s placing Grant as commander of all of the Union Armies that Lee would finally meet his match and the war would be won.

                

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 25

January 25 —

Burnside, Ambrose 220px

General Ambrose Burnside

On this day in 1863, Union General Ambrose Burnside is removed as commander of the Army of the Potomac after serving in the role for only two short disastrous months.  Burnside assumed command of the army after President Abraham Lincoln removed General George B. McClellan from command in November 1862. Lincoln had a difficult relationship with McClellan, who built the army admirably but was a sluggish and overly cautious field commander.  Lincoln wanted an attack on the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which was commanded by Robert E. Lee. Burnside drafted a plan to move south towards Richmond, Virginia. The plan was sound, but delays in its execution alerted Lee to the danger. Lee headed Burnside off at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13. Burnside attacked repeatedly against entrenched Confederates along Marye’s Heights above Fredericksburg with tragic results for the Union. More than 13,000 Yankees fell; Lee lost just 5,000 troops. Northern morale sunk in the winter of 1862-1863.

Lincoln allowed Burnside one more chance. In January 1863, Burnside attempted another campaign against Lee. Four days of rain turned the Union offensive into the ignominious “Mud March,” during which the Yankees floundered on mud roads while Lee’s men jeered at them from across the Rappahannock River. Lincoln had seen enough–General Joseph Hooker took over command of the army from Burnside.

General Joseph Hooker

General Joseph Hooker

                                                    

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Today In Western History: January 23

January 23 —

Elizabeth Blackwell is granted a medical degree from Geneva College in New York, today in 1849, thus becoming the first female to be officially recognized as a physician in U.S. history.

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Blackwell, born in Bristol, England, came to the United States in her youth and attended the medical faculty of Geneva College, now known as Hobart College. In 1849, she graduated with the highest grades in her class and was granted an M.D. In 1857, after several years of private practice, she founded the New York tuition was expanded to include a women’s college for the training of nurses and doctors, the first of its kind in America.

When the civil war broke out three years later, the Blackwell sisters immediately aided in nursing efforts.   Elizabeth sympathized heavily with the North due to her deeply embeded abolitionist roots, and she even went so far as to say she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery. However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominated United States Sanitary Commission. The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells simply because they were women. In spite of this resist-ance to change, the New York Infirmary managed to work with Dorthea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort.

The next year, Blackwell returned to England, where in 1875 she became professor of gynecology Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister, Emily Blackwell, also a doctor. 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established that incorporated Blackwell’s innovative ideas about medical education, including a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required.

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 22

January 22 —

dull knife, cheyenne chief

 

On this day in 1879, American soldiers chasing down Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife and his people as they make a desperate bid for freedom, badly beating them.  As a result of that victory, the soldiers effectively crushed the so-called Dull Knife Outbreak.

A leading chief of the Northern Cheyenne, Dull Knife (sometimes called Morning Star) had counseled for peace with the powerful Whites invading his homeland in the Powder River country of modern-day Wyoming and Montana. However, Dull Knife began having second thoughts about the trustworthiness of such advice after the horrific massacre of more than 200 peaceful Cheyenne Indians by Colorado militiamen led by the fanatical Col. John M. Chivington at Sand Creek,

Chivington, John 224pxJohn M. Chivington

Colorado, in 1864.  As a result of this massacre, Dull Knife reluctantly led his people into a war he strongly believed they could never win. In 1876, many of Dull Knife’s people fought beside Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull at their victorious battle at Little Bighorn, though the chief himself apparently did not participate.

During the winter after Little Bighorn, Dull Knife and his people camped along the headwaters of the Powder River in Wyoming, where they fell victim to the army’s winter campaign for revenge. In November, General Ranald Mackenzie’s expeditionary force discovered the village and attacked. Dull Knife lost many of his people, and along with several other Indian leaders, reluctantly surrendered the following spring.  In 1877, the military relocated Dull Knife and his followers far away from their Wyoming homeland to the large Indian Territory on the southern plains (in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma). No longer able to practice their traditional hunts, the band was largely dependent on meager government provisions. Beset by hunger, homesickness, and disease, Dull Knife and his people rebelled after one year. In September 1878, they joined another band to make an epic march back to their Wyoming homeland. Although Dull Knife publicly announced his peaceful intentions, the government regarded the fleeing Indians as renegades, and soldiers from bases scattered through-out the Plains attacked the Indians in an unsuccessful effort to turn them back.

Arriving at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, near their Wyoming homeland, Dull Knife and his people surrendered to the government in the hopes they would be allowed to stay in the territory. To their dismay, administrators instead threatened to hold the band captive at Fort Robinson until they would agree to return south to the Indian Territory. Unwilling to give up when his goal was so close, in early January, Dull Knife led about 100 of his people in one final desperate break for freedom. Soldiers from Fort Robinson chased after the already weak and starving band of men, women, and children, and on January 22, they attacked and killed at least 30 people, including several in the immediate family of Dull Knife.

Badly bloodied, most of the survivors returned to Fort Robinson and accepted their fate. Dull Knife managed to escape, and he eventually found shelter with Chief Red Cloud on the Sioux reservation in Nebraska. Permitted to remain on the reservation, Dull Knife died four years later, deeply bitter towards the Anglo-Americans he had once hoped to live with peacefully. The same year, the government finally allowed the Northern Cheyenne to move to a permanent reservation on the Tongue River in Montana near their traditional homeland. At last, Dull Knife’s people had come home, but their great chief had not lived to join them.

                                                                                      

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Today In Western History: January 21

January 21 —

 

The man many called “The Great Pathfinder”, John C. Fremont, is born today in 1813m in Savannah, Georgia.

Fremont, John Charles 220pxJohn Charles Fremont

His career will be a political roller coaster, propelled by his ego, greed and ability to make the wrong decision as the worst possible time.   In 1838 Fremont helped survey and map the region between the upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers.  Fremont surveyed the Des Moines River in 1841 and in 1842 Fremont mapped most of the Oregon Trail and climbed the second highest peak in the Wind River Mountains, afterwards known as Fremont Peak.  He was still exploring the West in 1843-1844 and by 1845, he had been named Governor of California.  However, in 1847 Fremont clashed with General Stephen Kearny over Fremont not following his written orders, and as a result of his in-subordination was arrested for mutiny and insubordination and was subsequently court-martialed. President James Polk intervened and Fremont was eventually released.

Frustrated and disappointed by his loss for the position of President to an upstart relatively unknown lawyer from Illinois, he joined the Army.  On the outbreak of the American Civil War Fremont was appointed as a Major General in the Union Army and put in command of the newly created Western Department based in St. Louis.  Here he demonstrated his ability to alienate the people he needed the most, when on 30th August, 1861, Fremont proclaimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Abraham Lincoln was furious when he heard the news as he feared that this act-ion would force slave-owners in border states to join the Confederate forces. Lincoln asked Fremont to modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South. Fremont refused claiming that “it would imply that I myself thought it wrong and that I had acted without reflection which the gravity of the point demanded.”

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