Today In Western History: President Jackson Signs The Indian Removal Act

May 28, 1830

President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the biggest land grab in the history of the US, as he forcibly removes all the Eastern Indians to land west of the Mississippi River.

Andrew Jackson, Indian fighter and President; responsible for the Trail of Tears
Andrew Jackson, Indian fighter and hero of New Orleans; President responsible for the Trail of Tears

Jackson had been no friend to the Indians long before he became president, and had supported removing them westward for a long time.  As far back as 1814, he had commanded the U.S. military forces that defeated a branch of the Creek nation during the Creek War of 1813-1814.  As a punishment for daring to challenge the powerful new nation, 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama were taken away from their control.  But he wasn’t finished.  In 1814 and again in 1815, he waged war on the Seminole nation, even though they were living in Florida, which was a Spanish territory at the time.  His rational was that this was punishment for harboring runaway slaves.  The primary result of this action was that Spain realized they couldn’t defend Florida against the intrusions or acquisitions of the new country, the United States, so the next year Spain cut its losses and sold Florida to the United States.

Jackson didn’t stop at waging physical war on the Indians, he also took part in negotiating 9 out of 11 treaties with them between 1814 and 1824, treaties in which they were ‘encouraged’ to trade their home lands in Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina in exchange for lands in the west.  Keep in mind, the ‘west’ of this period was the land next to the Mississippi river, not west of the Missouri River.  The few tribes who did agree to these ‘treaties’ did so hoping this concession would help them retain control over the remaining portion of their territory and to protect themselves from future harassment by white settlers.  Of course, it didn’t work.  It was only a matter of time until white settler began crowding the Indians once more, and as their farms expanded, there was only one place to get the land they wanted.,  Once gold was discovered in Georgia, it was inevitable that the Indians would be pushed out once more.

When Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828, the Indian Removal policy would become more obvious and enforced.  In his first year in office, early in 1829, he called for an Indian Removal Act and worked quickly towards reaching that goal, despite significant opposition by Christian missionaries, and others including the soon to be legendary Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett, and a rookie Congressman

Davy Crockett, Indian fighter, politician, and hero of the Alamo
Davy Crockett, Indian fighter, politician, and hero of the Alamo

from Illinois  (and future president), Abraham Lincoln.  In the end though, their objections were overruled, as most white Americans were in  

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President

favor of the passage of the Indian Removal Act to protect their own interests.  In the south, the state of Georgia, which was involved in a contentious jurisdictional dispute with the Cherokee  nation, was particularly eager to rid themselves of the “Five Civilized Tribes” (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole) in order to have free access to the gold to be found in their land.  

After a bitter but doomed to fail debate in Congress, the Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.  In his Second Annual Message to Congress, given on December 6, 1830, Jackson’s comments on Indian removal begin with these words: “It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.”  A great piece of self-serving nonsense.

 

 

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Today In Western History: New Mexico Prohibits Slavery

May 25, 1850

New Mexico adopts a new constitution, one that prohibits slavery.

In 1846, during the Mexican-American War, the United States created a provisional government that lasted until 1850.  Although Mexico had officially ceded the territory when the war ended in 1848, the territorial boundaries were somewhat ambiguous.  

It wasn’t a smooth path to statehood for the territory as it had made this request earlier in the year using a constitution that permitted slavery, and while it was initially approved, it fell apart and died when Texas laid claim to the same territory.  The proposed state boundaries were to extend as far east as the 100th meridian West and as far north as the Arkansas River, thus encompassing the present-day Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and parts of present-day Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, as well as most of present-day New Mexico.  In addition, slaveholders were worried about not being able to expand slavery to the west of their current slave states if this boundary was accepted.

On September 9, 1850, the Congressional Compromise of 1850 was accepted and this stopped the early 1850 bid for statehood from going any further. On the other hand, other provisions of the Compromise organized both New Mexico and neighboring Utah Territory, and also firmly established the previously disputed western boundaries of the State of Texas that are still in place.

The status of slavery during the territorial period provoked considerable debate, much of it hotly con-tested and acrimonious. The granting of statehood was up to a Congress sharply divided on the slavery issue. Some (including Stephen A. Douglas for the Democrats) maintained

Senator Stephen A. Douglas. He won the Lincoln- Douiglas Debates but lost the election.
Senator Stephen A. Douglas. He won the Lincoln- Douglas Debates but lost the election.

that the territory could not restrict slavery, as under the earlier Missouri Compromise, while others (including Abraham Lincoln for the 

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President.  He lost the Lincoln- Douglas Debates but won the election.

Republicans) insisted that older Mexican Republic legal traditions of the territory, which abolished black, but not Indian, slavery in 1834, took precedence and should therefore be continued. Regard- less of its official status, actual slavery was rare in antebellum New Mexico and Black slaves never numbered more than about a dozen.

As one of the final attempts at compromise to avoid the Civil War, in December 1860, U.S. House of Representatives Republicans offered to admit New Mexico as a slave state immediately. Although the measure was approved by committee on December 29, 1860, Southern representatives did not take up this offer, as many of them had already left Congress due to imminent declarations of secession by their states.  

In the middle of the Civil War, Congress made an effort to sort things out.  They passed the “Arizona Organic Act“, which split off the western portion of the then 12-year-old New Mexico Territory as the new Arizona Territory, and abolished slavery in the new Territory on February 24, 1863, As in New Mexico, slavery was already extremely limited, due to earlier Mexican traditions, laws, and patterns of settlement. The northwestern corner of New Mexico Territory was included in the newly established Arizona Territory until it was added to the southernmost part of the newly admitted State of Nevada in 1864. Eventually Arizona Territory was organized as the State of Arizona.

 

 

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Today In Western History: Manifest Destiny

May 11 — — 1846

On this day in 1846, President James K. Polk sends a war message to Congress, charging that “Mexico has invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil”.  He is asking that the United States go to war against Mexico.  At stake was President Polk’s vision of what became known as “Manifest Destiny”.  Essentially this meant that the US was destined to take Mexico’s land in order to expand from “sea to shining sea”.  This war would put a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico up against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk.  It started with a border skirmish along the Rio Grande and eventually ended with Mexico losing about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico.   

Texas had gained its independence from Mexico in 1836. Initially, the United States declined to incorporate it into the union, largely because northern political interests were against the addition of a new slave state. The Mexican government was also encouraging border raids and warning that any attempt at annexation would lead to war.  In 1844 James K. Polk, the newly-elected president, campaigned that Texas

President James K. Polk, Defender of "Manifest Destiny" and instigator of the Mexican-American War
President James K. Polk, Defender of “Manifest Destiny” and instigator of the Mexican-American War

should be “re-annexed” and  the Oregon Territory should be “re-occupied,” and he quickly initiated annexation procedures.  He also had his eyes on California, New Mexico and the rest of what is today the U.S. Southwest.  He tried to buy the land in question, but Mexico refused to sell.  Polk decided to just take the land he wanted, and he instigated a fight by moving troops into a disputed zone between the Rio Grande and Nueces River that both countries had previously recognized as part of the Mexican state of Coahuila.  This would become the model for US expansion into land held by Native Americans for the next hundred years. 

Not everyone was in favor of this military expansion at the expense of another country.  A brand new Whig  congressman from Illinois,  Abraham Lincoln, had contested the causes for the war and demanded to know exactly where Americans had been attacked and American blood had been shed. “Show me the spot”, he demanded. 

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President

Ex-slave Frederick Douglass opposed the war and was dismayed by the weakness of the anti-war movement. “The determination of our slave holding president, and the probability of his success in wringing from the people, men and money to carry it on, is made evident by the puny opposition arrayed against him.  None seem willing to take their stand for peace at all risks.”

Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He was born a slave, but became an Abolitionist, Suffragist, Author, Editor, and Diplomat
Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He was born a slave, but became an Abolitionist, Suffragist, Author, Editor, and Diplomat

Most of the opposition came from the Northern politicians and abolitionists, who saw this war as a very thinly veiled attempt to expand slavery.  They lost, we went to war, and our country’s borders moved farther west.

 

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Today In Western History: John Wilkes Booth Is Killed

April 26 –

John Wilkes Booth is killed today, in 1865, when Union soldiers track him down to a Virginia farm 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

John WIlkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln

Twenty-six-year-old Booth was one of the most famous actors in the country when he shot Lincoln during a performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., on the night of April 14. Booth was a Maryland native and a strong supporter of the Confederacy. As the war entered its final stages, Booth hatched a conspiracy to kidnap the president. He enlisted the aid of several associates, but the opportunity never presented itself.

After the surrender of Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9,

Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy
Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy

Booth changed the plan to a simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson,

Andrew Johnson, 17th President, alcoholic Reconstructionist and fanatical anti-southerner
Andrew Johnson, 17th President, alcoholic Reconstructionist and fanatical anti-southerner

and Secretary of State William Seward. Only Lincoln was actually killed, however.

William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln
William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln

Seward was stabbed by Lewis Paine but miraculously, he survived with multiple injuries and damage, while the man assigned to kill Johnson did not carry out his assignment.  

Lewis Paine (Payne), Lincoln assassination plotter
Lewis Paine (Payne), co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he targeted Seward

After shooting Lincoln, Booth jumped to the stage below Lincoln’s box seat. He landed hard, breaking his leg, before escaping to a waiting horse behind the theater. Many in the audience recognized Booth, so the army was soon hot on his trail.

Booth and his accomplice, David Herold, made their way across the Anacostia River and headed toward southern 

David Herold (after arrest): co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he took Payne to Seward's houseassassination, he took Payne to Seward's house
David Herold (after arrest): co-conspirator in Lincoln assassination, he took Payne to Seward’s house

Maryland. The pair stopped at Dr. Samuel Mudd‘s home, and Mudd treated Booth’s leg. This earned Mudd a life sentence in prison when he was implicated as part of the conspiracy, but the sentence was later commuted.

Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John WIlkes Booth
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John Wilkes Booth

 It also led to Dr. Mudd’s name going down in history as the originator of the phrase, “your name is mud” to denote someone as a scapegoat.nd refuge for several days at the home of Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent, before securing a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia.

Booth found refuge for several days at the home of Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent, before securing a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia.  After receiving aid from several Confederate sympathizers, Booth’s luck finally ran out. The countryside was swarming with military units looking for Booth, although few shared information since there was a $20,000 reward. While staying at the farm of Richard Garrett, Federal troops arrived on their search but soon rode on. The unsuspecting Garrett allowed his suspicious guests to sleep in his barn, but he instructed his son to lock the barn from the outside to prevent the strangers from stealing his horses. A tip led the Union soldiers back to the Garrett farm, where they discovered Booth and Herold in the barn. Herold came out, but Booth refused. The building was set on fire to flush Booth, but he was reportedly shot by trooper Thomas P. “Boston” Corbett while still inside. 

Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John WIlkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn.
Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John Wilkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn.

He lived for three hours before gazing at his hands, muttering “Useless, useless,” as he died.

 

 

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Today In Western History: First Blood

On April 19, 1861, the first blood of the American Civil War is shed when a secessionist mob in Baltimore attacks Massachusetts troops bound for Washington, D.C. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed.

Residents of Baltimore, Maryland, attack a Union regiment while the group makes its way to Washington, D.C., today in 1861.  Baltimore’s hostilities to the North were already well known, as just two percent of the city’s voters cast their ballots for Abraham Lincoln for president while nearly half supported John Breckinridge,the Southern Democratic Party candidate.

John C. Breckinridge, Southern Democratic Party candidate
John C. Breckinridge, Southern Democratic Party candidate

Lincoln was to pass through Baltimore on his way to Washington for his inauguration, but after Allan Pinkerton warned the President-Elect

Allen Pinkerton. founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, creator of the "Private Eye" concept
Allen Pinkerton. founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, creator of the “Private Eye”

 about what he described as serious death threats forced the president-elect to slip through the city in the middle of the night in disguise.  This subterfuge came back to hurt Lincoln very quickly.

Baltimore was a cauldron of secessionist feeling, and these tensions boiled over on April 18. Pro-Confederate volunteers gathered at Bolton Station to hurl insults and rocks at Pennsylvania troops as they changed trains en route to Washington. Now, on April 19, the 6th Massachusetts regiment disembarked from a train and was met with an even more hostile crowd. Tensions rose as the 11 companies of the 6th arrived. Cobblestones rained down on the soldiers as they prepared to transfer from the President Street Station to Camden Station. Shots were fired, and when the smoke cleared four Massachusetts soldiers lay dead along with 12 Baltimoreans, while 36 troops and an undeter-mined number of civilians were wounded.

Washington was effectively cut off from the North. In the following months, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and hundreds of secessionist leaders were rounded up. Within six months, the Union was again in control of Baltimore.

One week earlier, on April 12, the Civil War began when Confederate shore batteries opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Bay. During a 34-hour period, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. The fort’s garrison returned fire, but lacking men, ammunition, and food, it was forced to surrender on April 13. There were no casualties in the fighting, but one federal soldier was killed the next day when a store of gunpowder was accidentally ignited during the firing of the final surrender salute. Two other federal soldiers were wounded, one mortally.

On April 15, President Abraham Lincoln issued a public proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to help put down the Southern

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President

 “insurrection.” Northern states responded enthusiastically to the call, and within days the 6th Massachusetts Regiment was enroute to Washington. On April 19, the troops arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, by train, disembarked, and boarded horse-drawn cars that were to take them across the city to where the rail line picked up again. Secessionist sympathy was strong in Maryland, a border state where slavery was legal, and an angry mob of secessionists gathered to confront the Yankee troops.  Intent on preventing the regiment from reaching the rail-road station, and thus Washington, the mob blocked the carriages, and the troops were forced to continue on foot.  The mob followed close behind and then, joined by other rioters, surrounded the regiment.  Jeering turned to brick and stone throwing, and several federal troops responded by firing into the crowd. In the ensuing mayhem, the troops fought their way to the train station, taking and inflicting more casualties. At the terminal, the infantrymen were aided by Baltimore police, who held the crowd back and allowed them to board their train and escape. Much of their equipment was left behind. Four soldiers and 12 rioters were killed in what is generally regarded as the first bloodshed of the Civil War.

Maryland officials demanded that no more federal troops be sent through the state, and secessionists destroyed rail bridges and telegraph lines to Washington to hinder the federal war effort. In May, Union troops occupied Baltimore, and martial law was declared. The federal occupation of Baltimore, and of other strategic points in Maryland, continued throughout the war. Because western Marylanders and workingmen supported the Union, and because federal authorities often jailed secessionist politicians, Maryland never voted for secession. Slavery was abolished in Maryland in 1864, the year before the Civil War’s end. Eventually, more than 50,000 Marylanders fought for the Union while about 22,000 volunteered for the Confederacy.

 

 

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Today In Western History: Lincoln Passes Away

April 15—

 

Today, in 1865, at 7:22 a.m., President Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the  United States, dies

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
Abraham Lincoln, Martyred 16th US President

from an assassin’s bullet.  Lincoln had lived for a long nine hours before finally succumbing to the severe head wound he sustained at Ford’s Theater in Washington the night before.   An angry Con-federate actor and radical Confederate sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth, had 

John WIlkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln
John WIlkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln

shot Lincoln in the back of the head while the presidential party had been attending Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at a performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. the night before.  

Booth, who had remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, had orig-inally intended only to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait.  Even worse news lay ahead, as two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces.  In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth had hatched a desperate plan to save the Confederacy.

Learning that Lincoln was to attend Ford’s Theater on April 14, Booth plotted the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into a paralyzing disarray.

William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln
William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln

On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward’s home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered Lincoln’s private theater box unnoticed and shot the president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing an army officer who rushed at him, Booth leapt to the stage and shouted “Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]–the South is avenged!” Although Booth broke his leg jumping from Lincoln’s box, he managed to escape Washington on horseback. A 23-year-old doctor named Charles Leale was in the audience and rushed up to the presidential box immediately upon hearing the shot and Mrs. Lincoln’s scream. He found the president slumped in his chair, paralyzed and struggling to breathe. Several soldiers carried Lincoln to a house across the street and placed him on a bed. When the surgeon general arrived at the house, he concluded that Lincoln could not be saved and would die during the night.

Vice President Andrew Johnson, members of Lincoln’s cabinet and several of the president’s closest friends stood vigil by Lincoln’s bedside until he was officially pronounced dead at 7:22 am. The first lady lay on a bed in an adjoining room with her eldest son Robert at her side, overwhelmed with shock and grief.

The president’s body was placed in a temporary coffin, draped with a flag and escorted by armed cavalry to the White House, where surgeons conducted a thorough autopsy. Edward Curtis, an Army surgeon in attendance, later wrote that, during the autopsy, while he removed Lincoln’s brain, a bullet dropped out through my fingers into a basin with a clatter. The doctors stopped to stare at the offending bullet, the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize. During the autopsy, Mary Lincoln sent the surgeons a note requesting they cut a lock of Lincoln’s hair for her.

Booth, pursued by the army and secret service forces, was finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground.  Another story, and the one that is more commonly believed, is that he was killed by one of the soldiers, Boston Corbett, who shot Booth through the openings between the slats in the burning tobacco barn.  Of the eight other persons eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were jailed (including the doctor, Samuel Mudd, who added his name to popular lexicon as a synonym for losing popular support) and four were hanged, including a woman and the mother of one of the co-conspirators, Mary Surrat.

Mary Surratt, a victim of circumstantial evidence and mob mentality
Mary Surratt, a victim of circumstantial evidence and mob mentality

The president’s death came only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.  Lincoln had just served the most difficult presidency in history, successfully leading the country through civil war. His job was exhausting and overwhelming at times. He had to manage a tre-mendous military effort, deal with diverse opinions in his own Republican party, counter his Demo-cratic critics, maintain morale on the northern home front, and keep foreign countries such as France and Great Britain from recognizing the Confederacy. He did all of this, and changed American history when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, converting the war goal from reunion of the nation to a crusade to end slavery.

Now, the great man was dead. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said, “Now, he belongs to the ages.” Word spread quickly across the nation, stunning a people who were still celebrating the Union vic-tory. Troops in the field wept, as did General Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Union commander. Per-haps no group was more grief stricken than the freed slaves. Although the abolitionists considered Lincoln slow in moving against slavery, many freedmen saw “Father Abraham” as their savior. They faced an uncertain world, and now had lost their most powerful proponent.

News of the president’s death had traveled quickly and, by the end of the day, flags across the country flew at half-staff, businesses were closed and people who had recently rejoiced at the end of the Civil War mourned Lincoln’s shocking assassination.  Lincoln’s funeral was held on April 19, before a funeral train carried his body back to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. During the two-week journey, hundreds of thousands gathered along the railroad tracks to pay their respects, and the casket was unloaded for public viewing at several stops. He and his son, Willie, who died in the White House of typhoid fever in 1862, were interred on May 4.

His body was taken to the White House, where it lay until April 18, at which point it was carried to the Capitol rotunda to lay in state on a catafalque. On April 21, Lincoln’s body was taken to the railroad station and boarded on a train that conveyed it to Springfield, Illinois, his home be-fore becoming president. Tens of thousands of Americans lined the train’s railroad route and paid their respects to their fallen leader during the train’s solemn progression through the North. Lincoln was buried on May 4, 1865, at Oak Ridge Cemetery, near Springfield.

 

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Today In Western History: Disaster Times Two

April 14:  This is going to be a special presentation today, because there were two disasters that I have always been fascinated by that took place on this day in history.  I have been trying to make up my mind which one to highlight since the first of the year, and now it is today and I still can’t decide.  So, I decided to present both of them.

 

On this day in 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and fantatical Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play

John WIlkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln
John WIlkes Booth, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln

at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.

John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head while the president, first lady Mary Todd Lincoln and another couple were attending

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln

  Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at a performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. the night before. 

Laura Keene, actress and unwilling witness to the assassination of President Lincoln
Laura Keene, actress and unwilling witness to the assassination of President Lincoln

General Ulysses Grant and his wife, Julia Dent Grant had been invited first, but Julia Grant did not like Mrs. Lincoln and told her husband they were going instead to visit their children in Vermont.  This decision very likely saved Grant’s life.  Lincoln didn’t press the issue, because he knew Mary was very jealous of the attention Mrs. Grant would show him.   Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris,the daughter of

Major Henry Rathbone, another unwilling witness to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
Major Henry Rathbone, another unwilling witness to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln

New York Senator Ira Harris were subsequently asked and they accepted the fateful invitation.  The tragedy didn’t stop there for Major Harris.  He could never shake off the guilt he felt for failing to protect the President, and eighteen years later, he ended up  killing his wife and trying to stab himself several times, and he died in a hospital for the criminally insane.

Booth, a Maryland native born in 1838, who remained in the North during the war despite his Con-federate sympathies, had initially plotted only to capture President Lincoln and smuggle him into Richmond, the Confederate capital, to trade for peace and the victory.  However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait.  Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces. In April, with Con-federate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the Confed-eracy.  Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater on April 14, Booth masterminded the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and 

Andrew Johnson, 17th President, successor by assassination.
Andrew Johnson, 17th President, successor by assassination.

Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to 

William Henry Seward, Secretary of State under President Lincoln
William Henry Seward,  Secretary of State under President Lincoln

throw the U.S. government into disarray and avenge the South’s loss of the war.  On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell

Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 – July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Payne and Lewis Paine,
Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 – July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Payne and Lewis Paine,

broke into Secretary of State Seward’s home, seriously wounding him, his son and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 pm., Booth entered Lincoln’s private theater box unnoticed and shot the

George Atzerodt, lost his nerve and failed to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson
George Atzerodt, lost his nerve and failed to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson

president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing at Major Rathbone’s arm, Booth leapt to the stage and shouted “Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]–the South is avenged!” Although Booth broke his leg jumping from Lincoln’s box, he managed to escape Washington on horseback.

Booth, was pursued by the army and secret service forces, until he was finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground.  Another story, and the one more commonly believed, is that he was killed by a soldier, Boston Corbett, who shot Booth through the openings between the slats in the burning tobacco barn. 

Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John WIlkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn.
Boston Corbett, the soldier who is said to have shot John Wilkes Booth through the slats of a burning barn.

Of the eight other persons eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were jailed (including the doctor who set Booth’s leg, broken in his jump to the stage, Samuel Mudd, who later added his name to

Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John WIlkes Booth
Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, physician and accused accomplice to John Wilkes Booth

popular lexicon as a synonym for losing popular support) and four were hanged, including a woman and the mother of one of the co-conspirators, Mary Surrat.  There was nothing but circumstantial evidence against her, because her son had been involved with Booth.

The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a lodging house opposite Ford’s Theater. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, Lincoln, age 56, died–the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, was buried on May 4, 1865, in Springfield, Illinois.

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Just before midnight in the North Atlantic, the RMS Titanic fails to divert its course from an iceberg, ruptures its hull, and begins to sink.  The lookout hadn’t see the iceberg, despite the warnings, because he had no binoculars – the officer on duty before him had taken them with him.  The wind was very still, so the water didn’t show up against the iceberg.  He didn’t see it until they were almost on top of it, and a ship as big as the Titanic took a lot of time to make a turn. 

Four days earlier, the Titanic, one of the largest and most luxurious ocean liners ever built, departed Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. While leaving port, the massive ship came within a couple of feet of the steamer New York but passed safely by, causing a general sigh of relief from the passengers massed on the ship’s decks.

The Titanic was designed by the Thomas Andrews, and built in the great Harland and Wolf docks. It spanned 883 feet from stern to bow. Its hull was divided into 16 compartments that were presumed to be watertight. Because four of these compartments could be flooded without causing a critical loss of buoyancy, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. The bulkhead doors did not go all the way to the top, because to do that, it would have cut into the deck space of the first class passengers.  On its first journey across the highly competitive Atlantic ferry route, the ship carried some 2,200 passengers and crew.

After stopping at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, to pick up some final passengers, the massive vessel set out at full speed for New York City. However, just before midnight on April 14, the ship hit an iceberg, and five of the Titanic‘s compartments were ruptured along its starboard side. At about 2:20 a.m. on the morning of April 15, the massive vessel sank into the North Atlantic.

Because of a shortage of lifeboats and the lack of satisfactory emergency procedures, more than 1,500 people went down in the sinking ship or froze to death in the icy North Atlantic waters. Most of the approximately 700 survivors were women and children. A number of notable American and British citizens died in the tragedy, including the noted British journalist William Thomas Stead and heirs to the Straus, Astor, and Guggenheim fortunes. The announcement of details of the disaster led to outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. The sinking of the Titanic did have some positive effects, however, as more stringent safety regulations were adopted on public ships, and regular patrols were initiated to trace the locations of deadly Atlantic icebergs.

For a full list of the passengers, click here.

 

 

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 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

Today In Western History: Ft. Sumter Falls

April 13, 1860

 

After a 33-hour bombardment by Confederate cannons, Union forces surrender Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor. The first engagement of the war ended in Rebel victory, today in 1861.

The surrender concluded a standoff that began with South Carolina’s secession from the Union on December 20, 1860. When President Abraham Lincoln sent word to Charleston in early April that he planned to send food to the beleaguered garrison, the Confederates took action. They opened fire on Sumter in the predawn of April 12. Over the next day, nearly 4,000 rounds were hurled toward the black silhouette of Fort Sumter.

Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President
Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President

Inside Sumter was its commander, Major Robert Anderson, 9 officers, 68 enlisted men, 8 musicians, and 43 construction workers who were still putting the finishing touches on the fort.  

Major Robert Anderson, Commander of Ft. Sumter, he lowered the flag as he left, and raised it again when the war was over.
Major Robert Anderson, Commander of Ft. Sumter, he lowered the flag as he left, and raised it again when the war was over.

Union Captain Abner Doubleday, the man often inaccurately credited with inventing the game of baseball, returned fire nearly two hours after the barrage began. By the morning of April 13, the garrison in Sumter was in dire straits. The soldiers had sustained only minor injuries, but they could not hold out much longer. The fort was badly damaged, and the Confederate’s shots were becoming more precise.

Major General Abner Doubleday, Union officer and falsely credited with inventing baseball.
Major General Abner Doubleday, Union officer and falsely credited with inventing baseball.

Around noon, the flagstaff was shot away. Louis Wigfall, a former U.S. senator from Texas, rowed out without permission to see if the garrison was trying to surrender. Anderson decided that further resistance was futile, and he ran a white flag up a makeshift flagpole.

Louis Trevezant WIgfall, Texas senator
Louis Trevezant WIgfall, Texas senator

The first engagement of the war was over, and the only casualty had been a Confederate horse. The Union force was allowed to leave for the north; before leaving, the soldiers fired a 100-gun salute. During the salute, one soldier was killed and another mortally wounded by a prematurely exploding cartridge. The Civil War had officially begun.

 

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 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

 

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Today In Western History: Fleetwood Lindley Is Born

Today, April 4, 1887, is the birthday of one Fleetwood Lindley.  Most people in the US have never ever heard of Fleetwood, and he certainly did nothing spectacular with his life, working as a florist for most of it.  He was never a hero in any sense of the word, not so far as any one knows, and there is no record of his inventing anything.  He may have served in the armed forces, we don’t really know for sure.  We do know he was married and had two children, but they were of no consequence to why you should know about Fleetwood, or why he deserves mention here.  Fleetwood is being mentioned here for one day in his life, and again for the last day of his life. 

Fleetwood Lindley,  age 13, (circa 1901)
                               Fleetwood Lindley,
                              age 13, (circa 1901)

Fleetwood’s father, Joseph, had served as a Guard of Honor for a funeral 36 year ago.  Now he was here again, at the same man’s crypt.  The plan was to open it and make sure the deceased was still there.  There had been several attempts to steal the body of the deceased and hold it for ransom, and now the son of the deceased wanted to make sure that desecration could never happen for real.  The plan was to encase the coffin on a steel cage, and then lower it into a waiting vault, which would then be filled with wet cement.  The coffin, and the body of the deceased, would never see the light of day again.  But even before this was done, the selected group of twenty-two individuals, of whom Fleetwood was one, would open the coffin – against the wishes of the son of the deceased, by the way – in order to verify that the body WAS still there.  Once the coffin was opened and everyone had an opportunity to verify the body was there, and it was who it was supposed to be, it was sealed up once more and lovingly placed back in the vault, the cage built and the cement poured.  The coffin was permanently hidden from the eyes of the world for all time.

And Fleetwood Lindley?  When Fleetwood passed away, February 1, 1963, he went to his rest knowing that he was the last person in the world to have looked at the face of The Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln.  And he did that on September 26, 1901, when he was 13 years old.

 

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 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com

Today In Western History: Richmond Falls

April 3

Today in 1865, the Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia, falls to the Union, the most significant sign that the Confederacy is nearing its final days.  In fact, there are only six days left.

For ten months, General Ulysses S. Grant had tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate

Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, USA
Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, USA

the city. After Lee made a desperate attack against Fort Stedman along  the Union line on March 25, Grant prepared for a major offensive. He struck at Five Forks on April 1, crushing the end of Lee’s line southwest of Petersburg. On April 2, the Yankees struck all along the Petersburg line, and finally the exhausted Confederates  collapsed under the weight of Grant’s extended front.

On the evening of April 2, the Confederate government fled the city with the army right behind. Now, on the morning of April 3, blue-coated troops entered the capital. Richmond was the holy grail of the Union war effort, the object of four years of campaigning. Tens of thousands of Yankee lives were lost trying to get it, and nearly as many Confederate lives lost trying to defend it.  Now, the Yankees came to take possession of their prize. One resident, Mary Fontaine, wrote, “I saw them unfurl a tiny flag, and I sank on my knees, and the bitter, bitter tears came in a torrent.” Another observer wrote that as the Federals rode in, the city’s black residents were “completely crazed, they danced and shouted, men hugged each other, and women kissed.” Among the first forces into the capital were black troopers from the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, and the next day President Abraham Lincoln visited the city. For the residents of Richmond, these were symbols of a world turned upside down. It was, one reporter noted, “…too awful to remember, if it were possible to be erased, but that cannot be.”

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 Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com