1864: President Abraham Lincoln calls for the induction of 500,000 men to serve for three years or until the end of the Civil War. This is the first use of conscription in providing fresh manpower for the United States Army. The system is much different from what will be in place in the twentieth century. Individuals conscripted do not necessarily have to serve; they can, instead, pay others to take their place. There is no Selective Service Administration, indeed, no administration at all for the management of the induction and training of conscript soldiers. Despite criticisms and predictions of failure, however, the conscription system works adequately. After three years of civil war, the people of the United States recognize and accept that the war must be fought to its full conclusion. Also, with General Grant's capture of Vicksburg, his defeat of Bragg's forces at Chattanooga, and the Union victory at Gettysburg the previous summer, the American people can see that the tide of the war has turned in the nation's favor. Finally, Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation has had profound effects on how foreign nations view the Civil War. They no longer see it as merely a disagreement among Americans about a form of government; it has become a crusade of liberation, a war against slavery, and with virtually all of Europe having abolished that foul institution, Lincoln's act leaves the rebels with little hope of foreign recognition.
2
1917: Nelson Burnett is born. Happy Birthday, Dad.
1942: American forces in the Bataan Peninsula counterattack and in a vicious two-day battle restore their defensive line running across the peninsula. The fighting on Bataan will drag on for months.
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1779: British forces attempting to take Fort Royal, South Carolina, fail in their attempt, defeated by General William Moultrie. Subsequently trapped, the British effort to crush the American independence movement in the south fails. The British troops retire to their positions in Vincennes, where George Rogers Clark surrounds them with American forces. Please see entry for 25 February 1779.
1917: The United States severs diplomatic relations with Imperial Germany. America will remain technically neutral in World War, but not for very much longer.
1945: Over one thousand U.S. Army Air Force bombers arrive over Berlin and drop tons of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the Nazi capital. Berliners receive advance warning of their arrival from huge alarm horns, which they derisively dub "Meyer's hunting horns." The insult is a subtle one; early in World War II, the head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, promised Adolf Hitler and the German people, "If a single enemy bomb falls on Germany, you can call me Meyer!" The anti-semitic sarcasm has come back to haunt "Fat Hermann." This is the winter of discontent for the Nazi monsters; when they made him Chancellor, Hitler told the people that by the end of his rule, they would not recognize German cities. He has now fulfilled his promise. With thousands of tons of bombs falling on them daily, with their industries, transportation centers, and residences in ruins, with almost three-quarters of their populations living underground, Germany's cities are unrecognizable.
1962: President Kennedy imposes an embargo on nearly all trade with Cuba. The embargo will tighten even more after the crisis triggered by discovery of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Cuba the following October. Cuba's products remain embargoed today.
1994: President Clinton ends the United States' trade embargo with Vietnam, citing that Communist nation's more capitalistic trend. The numbing bureaucracy and overwhelming corruption of the Communist regime remains, however, as do certain unanswered questions and unfulfilled promises. Not the least of these lapses by the Vietnamese is a full and honest accounting of the more than two thousand American MIAs, and its continued utter refusal to admit, let alone atone for, the barbarous treatment, including torture and murder, it inflicted on American servicemen held as prisoner during the Vietnam War. But then, America's service in Vietnam was not something that Mister Clinton was especially interested in, then or now.
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1861: Six states--Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina--that have declared their secession from the United States of America send delegates to Montgomery, Alabama to form the provisional government of the Confederate States of America. What began as a long-standing difficulty in culture and economy between the northern and southern states of our nation has evolved into a fevered dispute on the issue of state versus national sovereignty, with slavery as the catalyst. Ironically and tragically, many Southerners who deplore slavery will support the rebel cause. South Carolina, the hotbed of the rebellion, takes the most provocative stand, demanding that President Abraham Lincoln surrender the federal fortifications and armaments in Charleston. Lincoln, though fervently hoping to avoid bloodshed and taking no offensive actions, has no choice but to refuse such impudent and illegal ultimata. The seeds for America's bloodiest conflict, the Civil War, in which nearly eight hundred thousand of her sons will perish, have been sown and are flourishing. Please see entry for 8 February 1861.
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1976: President Gerald Ford signs the Railroad Revitalization Act, committing almost six and one-half billion dollars of tax funds to the project. Twenty years later, it is difficult to see what improvement in the nation's railways such a program has accomplished.
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1944: Men of the 7th Infantry Division and the 4th Marine Division, having landed five days earlier on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, secure the former Japanese stronghold. The Americans have learned the sanguine lessons of Tarawa, and learned them well; out of 41,000 American troops landed on the atoll, only 372 will die. 7,870 of the 8,000-man Japanese garrison will die.
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1795: The ratification of the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution makes it illegal for the federal government, or any foreigner, to sue any state of the United States.
1804: Following the loss of the frigate U.S.S. Philadelphia at Tripoli, Stephen Decatur and a hand-picked group of men from his ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise, make ready to enter Tripoli harbor and board the captured frigate. Suddenly, a major storm brews up. Decatur and his men cannot risk entering the enemy bastion under such abysmal weather and must withdraw until the storm abates. It does not do so for almost two weeks. Please see entry for 16 February 1804.
1965: Following Communist attacks on U.S. ground forces, American warplanes slash at targets in North Vietnam. Although the aircrews can see the immediate and effective results of heavier bombing attacks, the infamous Rules of Engagement will remain in place in Vietnam, as apparently Washington politicians continue to believe that Hanoi can be frightened into obedience by the threat of what our military might do . . . someday . . . maybe . . . .
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1861: The rebel states' delegates elect Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States of America. He will hold this office throughout the American Civil War, until ultimately force of Union arms will end his "government" and leave his beloved South in ruins. A staunch believer in the morally bankrupt institution of slavery, Davis in the closing days of the Civil War will champion the offering of freedom to slaves who will enlist in the rebel army. The offer does not attract many volunteers.
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1943: With the evacuation of its last 11,000 troops, the Japanese Seventeenth Army completes its painful departure from the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomons. As the Battle of Midway has shattered the myth of invincibility of the Japanese navy, so the valiant capture and defense of this island by the U.S. Marines, assisted after December, 1942 by elements of the U.S. Army, has put the lie to Japanese beliefs in the invincibility of their army. Although American naval forces are essentially unable to prevent the evacuation of most of the defenders, still it is a dispirited bunch that return to Japanese bases, having endured months of disease, death, and terror in "the island of green hell." The American success here ends any realistic threat of Japanese expansion to Australia and New Zealand, and has taught invaluable lessons in fighting and mastering the Japanese in island and jungle environments.
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1967: The United States ratify the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment clarifies certain questions about presidential succession.
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1965: President Lyndon Johnson announces the United States' intention to stand, economically, diplomatically, and militarily, with the South Vietnamese on the same day he orders a general policy of bombing of North Vietnam. "The people of South Vietnam have chosen to resist," he says, speaking of North Vietnam's attacks. "At their request the United States has taken its place beside them in this struggle." They are brave and noble words, but political intrigues and maneuvering will hamstring the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, turning what would in all likelihood have been a quick and overwhelming victory into America's longest and least-popular war. It will in large part cost President Johnson his reelection, and it will breed a generation of bitterness among American veterans who served their nation nobly and honorably, only to be treated like villains by a villainous fringe of American liberals who could not see the difference between opposing the war and honoring the warrior. Thirty-six years later, President George Bush, in announcing Operation DESERT STORM, will say, "There will be no more Vietnams." Well put, Mister President.
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1945: 10:05 p.m. on Shrove Tuesday. DeHaviland Mosquito aircraft of the Royal Air Force's 5 Group fly over Dresden, Germany and release marking flares. No searchlights or antiaircraft fire greet them, and the sky is similarly clear of Nazi response four minutes later when the first of 805 British Lancaster bombers arrive over the city. Although air raid alarms have sounded, many civilians ignore them. After all, Dresden has endured 171 false air raid alerts, and the prevailing belief is that this is the 172nd such hoax. Dresden, the citizens believe, is specifically named in a secret Allied document of cities to be left untouched for the rebuilding of Germany after Hitler's downfall. Its citizens are tragically wrong. The British bomber force, code-named Plate Rack, drops its lethal load in this, Operation THUNDERCLAP. In minutes, the center of the city is aflame, and the fires grow into an all-consuming fire storm, devastating the central part of the ancient city and beginning a two-day process that will leave thousands dead and thousands more homeless. The British bombers leave a burning wreck behind them; other bomber crews can see the flames nearly two hundred miles away from the doomed city. Please see entry for 14 February 1945.
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1903: Congress votes to create the Department of Commerce and Labor. Eventually, the one department will become two, with each Secretary holding a post on the President's cabinet. Ninety years and more later, the Department of Commerce, because of its role in regulating interstate business activities and the U. S. Supreme Court's consistent rulings on the "preemption doctrine," may be, arguably, the most powerful of all agencies in the federal government.
1943: Early in the morning, the German 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions move through passes in the mountainous Eastern Dorsal region of Tunisia, striking for Sidi Bou Zid. Their target is the U.S. II Corps, commanded by General Fredendall. American troops are expecting the attack, an attempt by German military genius Erwin Rommel to unhinge the American-British drive into Tunisia by bloodying the less experienced of the Allied forces. The Americans' major striking force, 1st Armored Division, is badly dispersed throughout the region; indeed, one-third of its strength is with XIX Corps far north of the battlefield. By evening, American units, having barely avoided encirclement, retreat toward the only major pass through the parallell Western Dorsal range. Its name: Kasserine Pass.
1945: In the morning, bombers of the U.S. Army Air Force arrive over Dresden to play their part in Operation THUNDERCLAP. They find a target still so shrouded in smoke and flames that the usually precise American bombing patterns cannot be duplicated here, and they end up adding their bomb loads to the continuing destruction below. Prior to the bombing, the city, which miraculously had been spared the attention of the Allies in their systematic reduction of the German industrial base, held over 600,000 refugees (including Allied prisoners of war) in addition to its population of nearly a million. THUNDERCLAP will leave a lasting legacy of controversy over the principally British policy of "terror bombing" generally and over the necessity of bombing Dresden in particular. Even the dead will be enlisted in keeping the controversy aflame. Nazi propagandists will lie publicly that at least 250,000 perished in the fires; modern revisionist (i.e., anti-Allied) historians will reduce the number, grudgingly, to 135,000. There is certainly no escaping the tragedy of what happened, but amidst all the name-calling and finger-pointing, one essential fact seems lost then and now: There would never have been a Dresden or a Hiroshima had there not been a Pearl Harbor and a Coventry. The Nazis sowed the wind; this day, they reap the whirlwind.
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1898: The U.S.S. Maine, moored to a buoy in Havana harbor, suffers an unexpected explosion. The battleship, shattered, sinks; 266 of her crew of 354 die in the explosion. The American press, already decidedly antagonistic to Spain (Spain controls Cuba and the Cubans' revolt of 1895 gained the islanders immense sympathy in the United States), accuses Spain of engineering sabotage although the cause of the blast is never determined. Relations between the United States and the kingdom deteriorate. Military moves begin. Please see entry for 19 April 1898.
1943: General Fredendall launches a counterattack with his reformed units, seeking to drive Rommel's panzer spearheads out of Sidi Bou Zid. The counterattack is a disaster. The American commander, General Ward, underestimates German strength badly and attacks with only part of 1st Armored Division. Rommel's tankers are battle-hardened veterans, arguably the best armor troops in the Nazi empire. That, plus their deadly accurate long-range antitank guns, all but annihilates one American tank battalion and sends the American troops streaming back to Sbeitla in disorder. The Germans trap the 168th Regiment; it surrenders two days later after several largely unsuccessful breakout attempts.
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1804: Stephen Decatur and a group of American volunteers slip into Tripoli harbor aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid, a recently captured ketch that Decatur has jammed with combustibles. His men have rigged the vessel to appear to be a local merchant ship, and they manage to reach their objective, the U.S.S. Philadelphia. Too late, Tripolitanian outlaws aboard the captured frigate sound the alarm, but Decatur's men are already aboard and he has drilled them thoroughly in the speedy capture of their prize. They seize the vessel quickly, using only cutlasses and knives to avoid alerting the heavily armed harbor defenses. Setting their charges, they make their escape aboard the Intrepid, and in a fiery explosion, the Pasha of Tripoli's source of gloating is gone forever. Tripolitanian casualties are forty-nine dead and a score of pirates captured. Decatur's sole fatality is perhaps the most tragic possible, his younger brother James, shot in the head by a Tripolitanian pirate leader who pretended to surrender. Eight of Decatur's eighty-one volunteers are United States Marines, earning that arm of our nation's forces their sobriquet about "to the shores of Tripoli."
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1943: After an all-night fire fight, the American forces defending Sbeitla finally evacuate the now-wrecked town, leaving its burning ruins to Rommel's Afrika Korps. Rommel determines to press on, hoping to take the town of Tebessa, beat the Americans to Kasserine Pass, and thus cut their lines of communication. Up until now, Rommel and the commander of the German Fifth Panzer Army, General Arnim, have worked uneasily in tandem, but Arnim disagrees with Rommel's plan and the Desert Fox must take the matter up with Arnim's superior, Field Marshal Kesselring.
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1868: President Johnson dismisses Secretary of War Stanton, an immensely powerful and influential figure in post-Civil War Washington, D.C. In so doing, Johnson's political enemies argue, he violates a law passed earlier, over his veto, that prohibits the President from removing certain cabinet officials without Senate approval. Please see entry for 21 February 1868.
1943: Kesselring approves Rommel's plan to trap the Americans who are retreating through Kasserine, but the approval orders, passed through Italian military channels, end up confused and Rommel is sent north to Sbiba rather than being allowed to strike directly west through Kasserine Pass for Tebessa. Rommel takes matters into his own hands and orders his panzers to attack in both directions, intending to exploit whichever attack gains the most success.
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1777: Seeking to balance the number of generals from each state in the Continental Army, the Continental Conress votes to promote William Alexander, Benjamin Lincoln, Thomas Mifflin, and Arthur St. Clair to the rank of major general. One candidate not promoted is Benedict Arnold. George Washington writes to Arnold, expressing surprise at the omission and recommending caution as he believes the lack of promotion is an oversight. When Arnold learns the omission is intentional, he rankles, and in 1780 his disaffection will come to a head as he chooses to betray his nation, earning him in the end only a fraction of the monetary reward promised by the British, a hasty flight to England, a remaining life spent in disrepute there as well as here, and the lasting disgrace of being America's first traitor.
1807: Former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested in the area of the Alabama and Missouri Territories as he is en route to the Spanish possession Florida. Burr, who leased 40,000 acres in Texas from the Spanish, is accused of being the leader of a cabal of landowners, politicians, and Army officers who have conspired to create an independent nation in North America (possibly incorporating parts of Mexico). The government charges Burr with treason, which even today is the only crime specifically defined in the United States Constitution. Please see entry for 1 September 1807.
1943: Both of Rommel's attacks east of Kasserine Pass are unsuccessful, as mounting American strength, the Americans' resourcefulness and ability to learn quickly from past mistakes, and growing confidence of American combat leaders begins to sway the battle. The Americans are now holding defensible terrain, and Rommel's striking force, split as he has done, is beginning to show strain at its seams. The fighting will continue, but with little significant gains for the vaunted Afrika Korps.
1945: The United States V Amphibious Corps begins landing units of the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. The Japanese have been fortifying this volcanic stronghold feverishly for the past two years, and it boasts on D-Day a 22,000-man garrison, well fortified and camouflaged and using a new tactic, that of permitting the Americans to achieve their landings and then fighting a defense in depth across the island. Perhaps the most famous image of American valor from this savage, thirty-five-day fight will be the raising of the Stars and Stripes above Mount Surbachi, the dominating feature of the island (that photograph is visible on my Web page, The Marches of Time). Please see entry for 16 March 1945.
1981: The United States government releases a report detailing Communist activities in El Salvador, declaring that the Communist insurgency there "has been progressively transformed into a textbook case of indirect armed aggression." President Ronald Reagan has already highlighted Communist activity in Central America in respect of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and the government's statements about these two Central American situations indicate clearly that the new administration intends to oppose Communist opportunism not only in the Western Hemisphere but worldwide.
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1852: Half the nation is linked by steel as the first through-train from the East reaches Chicago. Rail development in the northern half of the United States will be much more comprehensive than in the southern half, because the North's predominantly industrial economy will require a more advanced transportation networs while the South's essentially agricultural base will need a less sophisticated system to transport produce to the market cities. This disproportionate development will have two compelling effects in the next decade. First, it will permit the North to industrialize even more rapidly than before, and second, with the advent of the Civil War, it will permit Union forces almost unlimited movement about the periphery of the rebel states. Frankly, the Confederacy will never have a chance. Tragically, it will take four years of bloodshed for its leaders to realize that.
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1868: Led by Radical Republicans who view his efforts to treat the former rebel, Southern states with, as his predecessor put it, "malice toward none and charity toward all," the House of Representatives votes to impeach President Andrew Johnson, the first of only two such events in our nation's history. Johnson will stand trial in the Senate in March. Please see entry for 30 March 1868.
1878: The New Haven Telephone Company issues the first telephone directory in the United States. It contains the names of fifty people.
1946: President Truman reopens the Office of Economic Stabilization, charging it with controlling inflation. Why is it, then and now, that politicians love to use every device they can to "control" the economy except the one that works--plain, unadulterated capitalism?
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1836: Generalissimo Santa Ana, commanding more than 4,000 battle-hardened Mexican regulars, enters the city of San Antonio, heading into the heart of Texas to quell the rebellion that his dictatorial policies have sparked. In his way, the only military force able to oppose him at this time, is a 180-man detachment under the command of William Barrett Travis, James Bowie, and David Crockett. The Texans have fortified an abandoned mission known as the Alamo. Santa Ana demands the garrison's surrender. Travis, knowing the fate that similar garrisons have suffered (Santa Ana has a demonstrated disregard for the "honors of war") and under orders from General Sam Houston to hold as long as possible in order to allow Houston time to form a new army to oppose the Mexicans, answers the arrogant demand with a cannon shot and writes his fellow Texans outside the Alamo, "I shall never surrender or retreat." Please see entry for 6 March 1836.
1863: The Central Pacific Railway Company breaks ground in San Francisco, California, and begins construction of the western end of the Transcontinental Railroad. This mammoth project will consume millions of dollars and employ thousands of laborers, will be brought in on time and on budget, and will proceed on schedule even while the United States fights the Civil War against the rebel South.
1943: Field Marshall Rommel calls off his attacks at Kasserine Pass. The confused Allied command structure, with American units nominally under British command, permits him to withdraw his Afrika Korps virtually unmolested. Two significant changes in command will stem from this, the U.S. Army's first encounter with Nazi troops, and both changes will come directly in response to the confusion exhibited in the command structures. One change: Erwin Rommel will be appointed overall commander of German forces in Tunisia--two weeks too late. The other change: General Fredendall will leave command of the U.S. II Corps. His replacement: George S. Patton, Jr.
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1847: Having previously lost all but five thousand of his troops by transfer to General Scott so that Scott could advance from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, General Taylor is expected to hold a defensive position. Instead, he moves forward to Agua Nueva. Meanwhile, Mexican dictator Santa Anna learns of Taylor's move and sees a weakness he believes he can exploit. The two armies--Santa Anna's outnumbering Scott's by almost three to one--meet at the Battle of Buena Vista. Taylor's men repulse all of Santa Anna's attacks, shattering at least three of his combat formations with precise and devastating gunnery, and force the Mexicans to retreat in shabby disorder to San Luis Potosi. This decisive victory ends any serious Mexican resistance in the northern reaches of the theater.
1917: British Admiral Sir William Hall receives a decoded copy of a German cipher from his code-breakers and passes it on to the United States. The telegram, sent by German foreign minister Zimmermann to the German ambassador in Mexico City, states in part: "We make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: Make peace together, make war together, generous financial support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona." The message also invites Mexico to urge Japan (who was officially an ally of the United States) to change sides and fight against America on Germany's side. Wilson, who twenty days earlier severed diplomatic relations with Germany, now considers more extreme measures. Please see entry for 16 March 1917.
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1964: The Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution takes effect, outlawing poll taxes.
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1779: British forces trapped in Vincennes surrender to George Rogers Clark.
1885: Congress prohibits the use of barbed wire in fencing public lands. Please see entry for 7 August 1885.
1898: Admiral George Dewey, commanding American naval forces in the Asiatic theater, receives orders to concentrate his fleet in preparation for hostilities with Spain. Following the sinking of the battleship Maine, possibly at Spanish hands or at Spain's instigation, American forces in the western Pacific Ocean have been on a heightened state of alert. Spain's principal colonial territories on the globe are the various islands in the Caribbean Sea, especially Cuba and Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands in the western Pacific. Dewey concentrates his fleet--the cruisers Baltimore, Boston, Olympia, and Raleigh, the gunboats Concord and Petrel, and the cutter McCulloch--in Chinese waters to avoid compromising Briitish neutrality and awaits further orders.
1913: Congress passes the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, providing for a federal income tax. Sigh.
1990: Congress bans virtually all smoking on domestic American airline flights. At the risk of inflaming the opponents of tobacco, the question must still be asked: Is it truly necessary, let alone good, for the government to regulate every aspect of the citizens' private lives?
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1951: The states ratify the Twenty-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus limiting the tenure of the President to two terms. This amendment is in response to the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, first elected in 1932 and reelected three successive times. Roosevelt died in April, 1945; his successor, President Harry Truman, is the first President affected by the new law.
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1854: Whigs and disaffected Democrats unite and form a new political entity in America, the Republican party. Initially, their main issue is opposition to slavery. Their greatest champion in that century and thereafter will be Abraham Lincoln, although in the twentieth century they will present another great man as President of the United States: Ronald Reagan. The Republicans take their party's name from a party founded by Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic-Republican party. Half the name is available, as the Democrats had ceased using it in 1828.
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1849: The California Gold Rush begins when the S.S. California arrives on the West Coast loaded with prospectors. When she left New York the previous October, the California was nearly empty and almost bankrupt from lack of business. By the time she rounds Cape Horn and struggles up the Pacific coast to reach her namesake state, she has turned an incredible profit, having loaded over 350 passengers who want to find gold in them thar hills. More than 1,500 are waiting for her to return to Panama and carry them north to California.
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