WARS & HISTORICAL ERAS

On this day a fledgling United States Army marched into disaster along the Wabash River in the Northwest Territory.

In the tense weeks after South Carolina seceded, a small Union relief ship named Star of the West steamed toward Charleston Harbor. Its mission was to bring supplies and reinforcements to Major Robert Anderson’s garrison at Fort Sumter. On January 9th, 1861, as the ship approached the harbor’s defenses, shore batteries manned in part by South Carolina forces and cadets from the state’s military academy opened fire.

During the Tet Offensive, a coordinated series of attacks launched by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, the ancient imperial city of Hue became one of the most hotly contested urban battlefields of the war. By February 8th, 1968, American Marines and soldiers, together with South Vietnamese units, were fully engaged in a block-by-block struggle to retake neighborhoods and key government sites inside the city.

Early American submarines were experimental craft, operating at the edge of the technology of their day. On March 25th, 1915, the USS F-4, a small submarine of the F-class, sank during a routine dive near Honolulu, taking her crew with her to the bottom in relatively deep water. Investigators concluded that corrosion and battery problems contributed to hull failure, allowing seawater to flood the boat.

In a small Virginia village, General Robert E. Lee met General Ulysses S. Grant to discuss terms, bringing the main Confederate field army in Virginia to surrender. Lee’s forces had been worn down by siege, shortages, and constant pressure, and the attempt to slip westward had been cut off by Union pursuit.

As the Civil War drew to a close, one of the largest remaining Confederate armies faced hard realities in the Carolinas. Near a small farm called Bennett Place, outside Durham Station in North Carolina, General Joseph E. Johnston met repeatedly with Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. After the shock of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination complicated negotiations, the two commanders eventually agreed on new terms.

On February 16th, 1862, Confederate forces at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River surrendered to Union troops under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, marking one of the first major Union victories in the Western Theater of the Civil War. The campaign had begun with the capture of nearby Fort Henry earlier that month, opening the Tennessee River and rattling Confederate defenses in the region.

On this day General John Burgoyne’s British army laid down its arms to American forces near Saratoga, New York, ending a failed campaign to cut New England off from the other colonies.

After a long siege, one of the young republic’s worst defeats unfolds as Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrenders Charleston, South Carolina, to British forces under Sir Henry Clinton. Thousands of Continental soldiers and militia lay down their arms, along with warships and supplies inside the vital port. With Charleston in hand, British leaders hope to rally Loyalists, crush resistance in the South, and then roll the rebellion up toward the north.

In the early months of the Second World War, American and Filipino defenders fought a desperate holding action in the Philippines as Japanese forces pressed south across the Pacific. While Bataan fell in April, the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay continued to resist under constant bombardment, its tunnels crowded with wounded, staff, and the last reserves of ammunition.

On August 16th, 1812, early in the War of 1812, Brigadier General William Hull surrendered the American post at Detroit to a smaller British force under Major General Isaac Brock. Hull had crossed into Canada weeks earlier with an army of regulars and militia but retreated after supply problems, poor coordination, and concerns about Native American allies fighting alongside the British.

During the American Civil War, these two masonry forts guarded the lower Mississippi River approach to New Orleans, anchoring Confederate defenses along the Gulf Coast. After a fierce bombardment and a daring nighttime run past their guns by Flag Officer David Farragut’s fleet, the forts were isolated and demoralized. Mutiny broke out among the Confederate enlisted men, and their officers were forced to concede that further resistance was impossible.

During the Spanish–American War, the Cuban city of Santiago became the focal point of United States operations on land and sea. After the destruction of the Spanish fleet outside the harbor and hard fighting on heights like San Juan and Kettle Hill, Spanish forces inside Santiago found themselves isolated and outgunned. On July 17th, 1898, they formally surrendered the city to United States forces, ending organized resistance in that sector of the campaign.

In the closing weeks of the Civil War, most Confederate field armies had already stacked their arms when Brigadier General Stand Watie, a Cherokee leader, finally agreed to terms in Indian Territory. Watie had commanded Confederate Indian units in the Trans-Mississippi theater, where fighting mixed conventional campaigns with raids, guerrilla strikes, and bitter internal divisions among Native nations.

While history often remembers the April surrender at Appomattox Court House as the Civil War’s end, organized Confederate resistance lingered west of the Mississippi River. On May 26th, 1865, officials representing General Edmund Kirby Smith’s Trans-Mississippi Department agreed to terms that effectively surrendered the last large Confederate field command.

While the guns still cooled at Gettysburg, another decisive event unfolded on the Mississippi River. On July 4th, 1863, after weeks of siege, Confederate Lieutenant General John Pemberton surrendered the fortress city of Vicksburg and its garrison to Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant. The fall of Vicksburg gave the Union complete control of the Mississippi River, severing the Confederacy’s trans-Mississippi region from the rest of its territory.

The first significant ground clash between United States and North Korean forces occurred at Osan on July 5th, 1950, when a small blocking force known as Task Force Smith took up positions south of Seoul. Comprised mainly of infantry from the 21st Infantry Regiment, supported by limited artillery and outdated anti-tank weapons, the force was ordered to delay the North Korean advance.

On this date, coordinated terrorist attacks struck the United States homeland in a way not seen before.

When Texas formally entered the Union on December 29th, 1845, a long-simmering question about the republic on the southwestern frontier finally came to a head.

On November 16th, 1776, British and Hessian forces assaulted Fort Washington, the last major Continental stronghold on Manhattan Island.

In the central Pacific, a small Marine garrison and civilian contractors turned Wake Island into a symbol of resistance in the opening days of the Pacific War.

The aftermath of the Dakota War of 1862 reached a grim climax on December 26th, 1862, when thirty-eight Dakota men were hanged at Mankato under United States Army supervision.

It is the early hours of 10 March 1945 on Luzon in the Philippine Islands. The jungle around the Villa Verde Trail is black and close, broken only by a thin ridge that juts out from a larger hill. On that ridge, just ahead of the main American perimeter, three foxholes scrape a shallow line in the earth. In one of them lies Private First Class Thomas Eugene “Gene” Atkins of Company A, 127th Infantry. His job is simple and deadly: watch the trail and buy time if the enemy comes.

On November 11th, 1921, three years to the day after the armistice, an unknown American soldier from the First World War was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.