I have been going through my previous posts, and I have noticed that some of the posts of my “Today In Western History” segments are not aligned as well as they look in the draft stage. I am taking more care to correct these in the future segments, and I hope that you will notice a difference in the near future. Let me know if you see improvement.
In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying these looks backward. They are fun to write, and I am learning a lot from each one I put up. I am working on something special for here, but it might take me a little time to get it right. Stay tuned for something I think will be quite entertaining!
Today at 5pm, in 1836, a dreadful silence breaks out over a former mission and important but indefensible fort. The shelling is over, and the uneasy quiet is louder than the shelling that had preceded it. On 6 March 1836, at the Battle of the Alamo, Santa Anna’s forces killed 189 Texan defenders and later executed more than 342 Texan prisoners including James Walker Fannin at the Goliad Massacre (27 March 1836) in a manner similar to the
James Walker Fannin – leader of the failed mission to support the defenders at the Alamo
executions he witnessed of Mexican rebels in the 1810s as a young soldier. The few survivors are quickly rounded up and executed by order of the commanding general, Antonio De Lopez Santa Anna. It was his intention to
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
prevent the men from re-grouping and coming after him, as well as to prevent them from becoming martyrs. The defeat at the Alamo however served its real purpose of buying time for General Sam Houston and his Texas forces.
Sam Houston, Texas Governor and Hero of Texas’s War of Independence
Houston and his soldiers defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836, with the Texan army shouting “Remember Goliad, Remember the Alamo!” The day after the battle, on 22 April, a small band of Texan forces led by James Sylvester captured Santa Anna, dressed in a dragoon private’s uniform and hiding in a marsh.
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Today at 5:00pm, in 1836, a dreadful silence breaks out over a former mission and important but indefensible, and undermanned fort as the shelling stops. The shelling is over, and the uneasy quiet is louder than the shelling that had preceded it. The leader of the men in the makeshift fort, Col. William Barrett Travis uses the time to separate
William Barrett Travis, Commander of the Alamo
the men from the boys as he takes his sword and draws a line in the sand. Anyone who wishes to leave the fort may do so without question or shame, as those who stay behind are aware they are fighting to the death. One hundred and eighty-seven men will cross the line to stand beside him. Of these men, some are recognizable names to the world. One is a former congressman from Tennessee, David Crockett, known to all as Davy Crockett. Another man
Davy Crockett, Indian fighter, politician, and hero of the Alamo
is a citizen of the bayous, and a well-known fighter in his own right, known for the fancy piece of cutlery named in
James Bowie, Hero of the Alamo
his honor. He is James Bowie, known to all as the great knife-fighter, Jim Bowie. The men at the Alamo know what they are dying for, it is their task to buy time for General Sam Houston to turn his undisciplined Texas forces into
Sam Houston, Texas Governor and Hero of Texas’s War of Independence
a real army to defeat General Santa Anna. Across the way, General Antonio De Lopez Santa Anna prepares for the
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
coming battle. The fort itself is not the real issue, the real reason for taking the fort is sending a message to the rebels about the uselessness of resistance to his will. He will take the fort, and punish the traitors and rebels for their insolence and disrespect of his power. He will not be defeated by this rabble.
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On this day in 1861, Abraham Lincoln becomes the 16th president of the United States. In his inauguration speech Lincoln extended an olive branch to the South, but also made it clear that he intended to enforce federal laws in the
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
states that seceded. Since Lincoln’s election in November 1860, seven states had left the Union. Worried that the election of a Republican would threaten their rights, especially slavery, the lower South seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. In the process, some of those states seized federal properties such as armories and forts. By the time Lincoln arrived in Washington, D.C., for his inauguration, the threat of war hung heavy in the air. Lincoln took a cautious approach in his remarks, and made no specific threats against the Southern states. As a result, he had some flexibility in trying to keep the states of the upper South–North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware–in the Union.
In his inaugural address, Lincoln promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery where it existed, and pledged to suspend the activities of the federal government temporarily in areas of hostility. However, he also took a firm stance against secession and the seizure of federal property. The government, insisted Lincoln, would “hold, occupy, and possess” its property and collect its taxes. He closed his remarks with an eloquent reminder of the nation’s common heritage:
“In your hand, my fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it… We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Six weeks later, the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Civil War began.
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I want to take this time to thank all of the very nice people who are reading this blog and taking the time to comment on it. It is turning out to be a lot more fun than I had expected it to be and not nearly as much work as I had feared. I have a few other ideas I want to get started on here, and I hope to see them on line in the very near future. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy the Western History moments I am putting up here. They are fun and I am learning a lot as well. I intend to expand this from just the Western history to a little more as soon as I get ahead on my posting. This scheduling feature is making it very easy to get ahead, but I want to have the rest of the year put up and then I will be able to look at some other ideas. Right now I’m up to April 6th.
I am replying to anyone who posts a comment, but I’m not sure it is getting to you, as it’s rather difficult to make out the email to respond to. But I want to make this a two way conversation, so I will answer any questions you ask.
After months of bitter debate, Congress passes the Missouri Compromise, today in 1820, a bill that temporarily resolves the first serious political clash between slavery and antislavery interests in U.S. history.
Rep. James Tallmadge, Jr. (1778-1853)
In February 1819, Representative James Tallmadge of New York introduced a bill that would admit Missouri into the Union as a state where slavery was prohibited. At the time, there were 11 free states and 10 slave states. Southern congressmen feared that the entrance of Missouri as a free state would upset the balance of power between North and South, as the North far outdistanced the South in population, and thus, U.S. representatives. Opponents to the bill also questioned the congressional precedent of prohibiting the expansion of slavery into a territory where slave status was favored.
Even after Alabama was granted statehood in December 1819 with no prohibition on its practice of slavery, Congress remained deadlocked on the issue of Missouri. Finally, a compromise was reached. On March 3, 1820, Congress passed a bill granting Missouri statehood as a slave state under the condition that slavery was to be forever prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36th parallel, which runs approximately along the southern border of Missouri. In addition, Maine, formerly part of Massachusetts, was admitted as a free state, thus preserving the balance between Northern and Southern senators.
The Missouri Compromise, although criticized by many on both sides of the slavery debate, succeeded in keeping the Union together for more than 30 years. In 1854, it was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which dictated that slave or free status was to be decided by popular vote in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska; though both were north of the 36th parallel.
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On this day in 1865, at the Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia, Union General George Custer’s troops rout Confederate General Jubal Early’s force, bringing an end to fighting in the Shenandoah Valley.
Gen. Jubal Early, CSA
The Shenandoah Valley was the scene of many battles and skirmishes during the Civil War. It was located directly in the path of armies invading from the south–as Confederate General Robert E. Lee did during the 1863 Gettys-burg campaign-and the north. The fertile valley could sustain armies, and the gentle terrain allowed for rapid troop movement. In 1862, Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson staged a successful campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, defeating three Yankee armies with quick marching and bold attacks. In 1864, Early drove through the valley to threaten Washington, D.C., as he tried to relieve pressure on Lee, who was pinned down near Richmond, Virginia.On this day in 1865, at the Battle of Waynesboro, Virginia, Union General George Custer’s troops rout Confederate General Jubal Early’s force, bringing an end to fighting in the Shenandoah Valley.
That fall, General Ulysses S. Grant, the Union commander, dispatched General Philip Sheridan to stop Early. At
US Gen. Philip Sheridan
Cedar Creek on October 19, Sheridan achieved his goal. The Confederates were soundly defeated, but the remnants of Early’s force lingered at the southern end of the valley through the winter of 1864 and 1865. Grant ordered Sheridan to move further west and destroy a railroad in southwestern Virginia. As Sheridan marched from the valley, Early sent a few hundred cavalry under General Thomas Rosser to block his path. On March 1, Rosser set fire to a bridge along the middle fork of the Shenandoah River, but Custer, leading the advance units of Sheridan’s army, charged across the burning span and extinguished the fire before the bridge was destroyed.
The next day, Custer followed Sheridan’s orders and chased down the bulk of Early’s force, which numbered about 2,000. Custer and about 5,000 troops found the Confederates entrenched along a ridge near Waynesboro. Part of the Yankee army shelled the Rebel position, while the rest slipped undetected through some woods that stood between Early’s line and the South River. Custer gave the order in the late afternoon, and the Union troops stormed out of the woods and swarmed over the Confederate trenches from the rear. In a short time, a majority of the Confederates were captured and only nine Federal troops were killed. Early and his staff narrowly escaped over the Blue Ridge Mountains, marking the end of the Confederate presence in the Shenandoah Valley.
To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “THE SPIRIT OF REDD MOUNTAIN”, Click Here
President Grant signs the bill creating the nation’s first national park at Yellowstone, Montana. Native Americans had lived and hunted in the region that would become Yellowstone for hundreds of years before the first Anglo explorers arrived. Abundant game and mountain streams teaming with fish attracted the Indians to the region, though the awe-inspiring geysers, canyons, and gurgling mud pots also fascinated them.
John Colter, the famous mountain man, was the first Anglo to travel through the area. After journeying with Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, Colter joined a party of fur trappers to explore the wilderness. In 1807, he explored part of the Yellowstone plateau and returned with fantastic stories of steaming geysers and bubbling cauldrons. Some doubters accused the mountain man of telling tall tales and jokingly dubbed the area “Colter’s Hell.”
Before the Civil War, only a handful of trappers and hunters ventured into the area, and it remained largely a mystery. In 1869, the Folsom-Cook expedition made the first formal exploration, followed a year later by a much more thorough reconnaissance by the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition. The key to Yellowstone’s future as a national park, though, was the 1871 exploration under the direction of the government geologist Ferdinand Hayden. Hayden brought along William Jackson, a pioneering photographer, and Thomas Moran, a brilliant landscape artist, to make a visual record of the expedition. Their images provided the first visual proof of Yellowstone’s wonders and caught the attention of the U.S. Congress.
Early in 1872, Congress moved to set aside 1,221,773 acres of public land straddling the future states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho as America’s first national park. President Grant signed the bill into law on this day in 1872. The Yellowstone Act of 1872 designated the region as a public “pleasuring-ground,” which would be preserved “from injury or spoilation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within.”
For a nation bent on settling and exploiting the West, the creation of Yellowstone was surprising. Many congress-men gave it their support simply because they believed the rugged and isolated region was of little economic value. Yet the Yellowstone Act of 1872 set a precedent and popularized the idea of preserving sections of the public domain for use as public parks. Congress went on to designate dozens of other national parks, and the idea spread to other nations around the world.
To purchase a signed copy of Larry Auerbach’s novel “THE SPIRIT OF REDD MOUNTAIN”, Click Here
Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com
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