1800 – In the undeclared naval war with France, the USS Constellation engages in a decisive battle with the French vessel La Vengeance.
1809 – In the winter of 1807, the U.S. was thrust into the middle of the Napoleonic wars, as the British and French hassled American merchant ships in hopes of gaining a strategic edge in their ongoing battles. However, in an attempt to keep the nation out of another bloody and costly conflict, President Thomas Jefferson quickly pushed the Embargo Act through the legislative chain. But, the legislation, which effectively sealed U.S. ports, backfired: intended as a nonviolent, fiscal response to the British and French attacks, the act instead served to aid foreign merchants at the expense of American interests. Mercantilists in New England and New York suffered mightily and, in some instances, resorted to smuggling and other underhanded tactics to elude the crippling grip of the Embargo Act. In January of 1809, the Federal government passed the Enforcement Act, which called for severe penalties against illegal trading. Infuriated by the latest round of legislation, anti-embargo forces mounted a strong drive to nullify the acts. On February 1, Massachusetts Senator Thomas Pickering stepped into the fray and convened an assembly in New England that demanded the demise of the Embargo Act. An ardent Federalist, as well as a strong British ally and staunch opponent of Jefferson’s policies, Pickering helped force the president’s hand. With but a few days remaining in his second term, Jefferson signed the Non-Intercourse Act on March 1, 1809; the legislation reopened U.S. ports, save for trading with the British and French.
1861 – A furious Governor Sam Houston stormed out of a legislative session upon learning that Texas had voted 167-7 to secede from the Union. Texas Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union when a state convention votes 166 to 8 in favor of the measure. The Texans who voted to leave the Union did so over the objections of their governor, Sam Houston. The hero of the Texas War for Independence was in his third term as the state’s chief executive; a staunch Unionist, his election seemed to indicate that Texas did not share the rising secessionist sentiments of the other southern states. But events in the year following Houston’s election swayed many Texans to the secessionist cause. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859 raised the specter of a massive slave insurrection, and the ascendant Republican Party made many Texans uneasy about continuing in the Union. After Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency, pressure mounted on Houston to call a convention so that Texas could consider secession. He did so reluctantly in January, and he sat in silence on February 1 as the convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Houston grumbled that Texans were “stilling the voice of reason,” and he predicted an “ignoble defeat” for the South. Texas’ move completed the first round of secession. Seven states–South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas–left the Union before Lincoln took office. Four states–Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas– waited until the formal start of the war with the firing on Ft. Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, before deciding to leave the Union. The remaining slave states–Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri–never mustered the necessary majority for secession.
1862 – “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was first published in “Atlantic Monthly” as an anonymous poem. The lyric was the work of Julia Ward Howe and was based on chapter 63 of the Old Testament’s Book of Isaiah. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” soon became the most popular Union marching song of the Civil War and is still being sung and to the tune of a song titled, “John Brown’s Body”. Julia Ward Howe (b.1819-1908) was an influential social reformer and wife of fellow reformer and educator Samuel Gridley Howe. She was prominent in the anti-slavery movement, woman‘s suffrage, prison reform and the international peace movements. Julia Ward Howe was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Fine Arts and Letters in 1908. Ralph Waldo Emerson, said: “I honor the author of ‘The Battle Hymn’ … she was born in the city of New York. I could well wish she were a native of Massachusetts. We have no such poetess in New England.”
1863 – Ironclad U.S.S. Montauk, Commander Worden, with U.S.S. Seneca, Wissahickon, Dawn, and mortar schooner C. P. Williams, again tested the defenses of Fort McAllister described by Rear Admiral Du Pont as “rather a thorn in my flesh.” On the 28th of January, Worden had learned, through “a contraband,” the position of the obstructions and torpedoes which bad effectively blocked his way in the assault of 27 January. “This information,” Worden reported,” with the aid of the contraband, whom I took on board, enabled me to take up a position nearer the fort in the next attack. . . ” Ammunition supplies replenished, Montauk moved to within 600 yards of McAllister in the early morning; the gunboats took a position one and three-quarters miles below the fort. Worden opened fire at 7:45 a.m., and reported at ”7:53 a.m. our turret was hit for the first time during this action at which time the enemy were working their guns with rapidity and precision. The Confederate fire was concentrated on the ironclad, which took some 48 hits in the 4-hour engagement. Colonel Robert H. Anderson, commanding Fort McAllister, paid tribute to the accuracy of the naval gunfire: ”The enemy fired steadily and with remarkable precision. Their fire was terrible. Their mortar fire was unusually fine, a large number of their shells bursting directly over the battery. The ironclad’s fire was principally directed at the VIII- inch columbiad, and the parapet in front of this gun was so badly breached as to leave the gun entirely exposed.” General Beauregard added: ”For hours the most formidable vessel of her class hurled missiles of the heaviest caliber ever used in modern warfare at the weak parapet of the battery, which was almost demolished; but, standing at their guns, as became men fighting for homes, for honor, and for independence’. the garrison replied with such effect as to cripple and beat back their adversary, clad though in impenetrable armor and armed with XV and XI inch guns, supported by mortar boats whose practice was of uncommon precision.1865 – Lincoln’s home state of Illinois became the first to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery throughout the United States. President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier, but it had not effectively abolished slavery in all of the states–it did not apply to slave-holding border states that had remained with the Union during the Civil War. After the war, the sentiment about blacks was mixed even among anti-slavery Americans: some considered Lincoln’s address too conservative and pushed for black suffrage, arguing that blacks would remain oppressed by their former owners if they did not have the power to vote. After the amendment was passed, the Freedmen’s Bureau was created to help blacks with the problems they would encounter while trying to acquire jobs, education and land of their own.
1893 – The US Minister to Hawaii, at the request of Pres. Dole, placed the Provisional Government under formal US protection and raised the US flag over Hawaii.
1865 – A boat expedition from U.S.S. Midnight, Acting Master John C. Wells, landed and destroyed salt works “of 13,615 boiling capacity” at St. Andrews Bay, Florida. The making of salt from sea water became a major industry in Florida during the Civil War as salt was a critical commodity in the Confederate war effort. Large quantities were needed for preserving meat, fish, butter, and other perishable foods, as well as for curing hides. Federal warships continuously destroyed salt works along the coasts of Florida. The expedition led by Wells was the finale in the Union Navy’s effective restriction of this vital Confederate industry.
1865 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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