1822 – Free American Blacks settled Liberia, West Africa. The first group of colonists landed in Liberia and founded Monrovia, the colony’s capital city, named in honor of President James Monroe.
1859 – U.S. signs “Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation” with Paraguay at Asuncion after the revenue cutter Harriet Lane, as part of a US Navy expedition, forces the opening of the Paraguay and Parana Rivers. During the 1850s, Carlos Antonio Lopez, dictator of the small, landlocked, South American country of Paraguay, was a thorn in the side of the United States government. In 1853, Lopez refused to ratify a commercial and navigational treaty with the United States, and began confiscating the property of American citizens resident in Paraguay. Because of a dispute with Britain, Lopez closed Paraguayan waters to foreign warships. In February 1855, Paraguayan soldiers fired upon an American ship engaged in a scientific survey of the Parana River, killing one American crew member. Nearly three years after the incident, and with a second scientific expedition in preparation, President James Buchanan decided that a show of force was necessary to bring about a redress of the situation. In his first annual message to Congress of December 1857, Buchanan requested funding for a military expedition to Paraguay. With a Congressional allocation of $10,000, a naval squadron of 19 vessels, 200 guns, and 2500 sailors and marines under the command of Commodore William B. Shubrick embarked for Paraguay in the early winter of 1858. It was the largest military expedition in the peacetime history of the United States to that date. Harper’s Weekly emphasized the importance of the mission’s demand that American citizens in Paraguay be granted the same rights and protections that Paraguayan citizens in the United States were accorded. After landing at Montevideo, Uruguay, the American force began the 1000-mile journey up the Parana River to the Paraguayan capital of Asuncion. This was one of the major news stories in Harper’s Weekly during the spring of 1859. The newspaper provided illustrations, portraits, maps, letters from participants, and reports from a special correspondent. The situation was dramatized by the news that the 2500 Americans were preparing to face 15,000 of the best troops in South America. Lopez, the Paraguayan dictator, formally apologized for the shooting incident of 1855, compensated the family and employer of the slain sailor, and signed a treaty of commerce and navigation with the United States.
1861 – The Confederate State of America is open for business when the Provisional Congress convenes in Montgomery, Alabama. The official record read: “Be it remembered that on the fourth day of February, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the Capitol of the State of Alabama, in the city of Montgomery, at the hour of noon, there assembled certain deputies and delegates from the several independent South State of North America…” The first order of business was drafting a constitution. They used the U.S. Constitution as a model, and most of it was taken verbatim. It took just four days to hammer out a tentative document to govern the new nation. The president was limited to one six-year term. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the word “slave” was used and the institution protected in all states and any territories to be added later. Importation of slaves was prohibited, as this would alienate European nations and would detract from the profitable “internal slave trade” in the South. Other components of the constitution were designed to enhance the power of the states–governmental money for internal improvements was banned and the president was given a line-item veto on appropriations bills. The Congress then turned its attention to selecting a president. The delegates settled on Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate who was the U.S. Secretary of War in the 1850s and a senator from Mississippi.
1861 – The Apache Wars begin. A group of unidentified Indians stole cattle and kidnapped the stepson of the rancher John Ward near Sonoita, Arizona, Arizona. Ward sought redress from the nearby American army. Lieutenant George N. Bascom was dispatched and Ward accompanied the detail. Bascom set out to meet with Cochise near Apache Pass and the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach station to secure the cattle and Ward’s son. Cochise was unaware of the incident, but he offered to seek those responsible. Dissatisfied, Bascom accused Cochise of having been involved. He took Cochise and his group of family members under arrest in the negotiating tent. Angered, Cochise slashed his way from the tent and escaped. After further failed negotiations, Cochise took a member of the stage coach station hostage after an exchange of gunfire. With Bascom unwilling to exchange prisoners, Cochise and his party killed the members of a passing Mexican wagon train. The Apache killed and ritually mutilated nine Mexicans, and took three whites captive, but killed them later. They were unsuccessful in attempting an ambush of a Butterfield Overland stagecoach. With negotiations between Cochise and Bascom at an impasse, Bascom sent for reinforcements. Cochise killed the remaining four captives from the Butterfield Station and abandoned negotiations. Upon the advice of military surgeon, Dr. Bernard Irwin, Bascom hanged the Apache hostages in his custody. The retaliatory executions became known as the Bascom Affair; they initiated another eleven years of open warfare between the varying groups of Apache and the United States settlers, the U.S. Army and the Confederate Army.
1862 – Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, gallant defender of Fort Henry, informed General John B. Floyd: “Gunboats and transports in Tennessee River. Enemy landing in force 5 miles below Fort Henry.” After initiating the debarkation of troops below Fort Henry, Flag Officer Foote, in U.S.S. Cincinnati with General Grant on board, took the four ironclad gunboats that he had been able to man up the Tennessee for reconnoitering, and exchanged shots with the Confederate gunners. Torpedoes, planted in the river but torn loose by the flooding waters, floated by. Foote had some fished out for inspection. He and Grant went aft to watch the disassembling of one. According to a reminiscence, suddenly there was a strange hiss. The deck was rapidly cleared. Grant beat Foote to the top of the ladder. When Foote asked the General about his hurry, Grant replied that ”the Army did not believe in letting the Navy get ahead of it.”
1865 - Belatedly, Robert E. Lee is named Commander in Chief of the Confederate Army. Lee knows as well as anyone that the cause is now hopeless.
1865 – A boat expedition under Lieutenant Commander Cushing, U.S.S. Monticello, proceeded up Little River, South Carolina, placing the small town of All Saints Parish under guard and capturing a number of Confederate soldiers. On the 5th Cushing destroyed some $15,000 worth of cotton.
1868 – Marines landed at Osaka, Japan, to protect foreign nationals.
1899 – After an exchange of gunfire, fighting broke out between American troops and Filipinos near Manila, sparking the Philippine-American War (also referred to as the Philippine Insurrection of 1899). American soldiers patrolling in Santa Mesa opened fire on Filipino soldiers near a bridge over the San Juan River.
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