1802 – Revenue Marine (Revenue Cutter Service) has 38 commissioned officers in service, 9 captains, 10 first mates, 9 second mates and 10 third mates.
1806 – The Senate, acting on President Madison’s reports on British naval hostilities, issues a resolution condemning British actions as “unprovoked aggression” and “a violation of neutral rights.” The resolution has no effect on British policies.
1809 – Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the US, was born in Hardin County (present-day Larue County), Kentucky. Lincoln was president of the United States during one of the most turbulent times in American history. Although roundly criticized during his own time, he is recognized as one of history’s greatest figures who preserved the Union during the Civil War and proved that democracy could be a lasting form of government. Lincoln entered national politics as a Whig congressman from Illinois, but he lost his seat after one term due to his unpopular position on the Mexican War and the extension of slavery into the territories. The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Senate gave him a national reputation. In 1860, Lincoln became the first president elected from the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. In 1996 a new biography of Abraham Lincoln by David Donald was published.
1825 – William McIntosh, Chief of the Creek nation, signs the Treaty of Indian Springs ceding all Creek lands in Georgia to the United States and agreeing to vacate by 1 September 1826. A Creek mob, denouncing McIntosh as a traitor, kills him.
1828 – Confederate General Robert Ransom, Jr., is born in Warren County, North Carolina. Ransom attended West Point, graduating 18th out of 44 in 1850. For the next decade, he served on the frontier and as an instructor at his alma mater. Ransom was in Kansas during the violent clashes between pro- and anti-slave forces after the creation of the territory in 1854. He was a captain when North Carolina seceded in April 1861, receiving the same rank in the Confederate cavalry. Within a year, Ransom was a brigadier general serving in North Carolina, where he saw action against Union coastal raiders near Goldsboro. He was transferred to Virginia to defend Richmond, and his unit fought during the Seven Days battles in June and July 1862. Ransom commanded a brigade at Antietam in September, and a division at Fredericksburg in December. He returned to command troops in North Carolina in early 1863 and earned a promotion to major general. He next commanded the District of Southeast Virginia, where his troops guarded the railroads serving the capital at Richmond. Ransom went to Tennessee in the fall of 1863 with General James Longstreet during the attempt to save Tennessee from the Yankees. He fought at Chickamauga and the Knoxville campaign with Longstreet before returning to command the Richmond defenses in 1864. He commanded a force that faced Union General Benjamin Butler southeast of the city, and his leadership helped bottle Butler’s force inside of a bend in the James River called the Bermuda Hundred. That summer, Ransom served with General Jubal Early during the Shenandoah Valley campaign. He ended the war commanding troops at Charleston, South Carolina. Ransom worked as a civil engineer and a farmer in his home state after the war, and he died at New Bern, North Carolina, in 1892.
1836 – Mexican General Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande en route to the Alamo.
1839 – Aroostook War took place over a boundary dispute between Maine and New Brunswick.
1846 – Mexican President, General Mariano Paredes, refuses to receive John Slidell of Louisiana who has been sent as an envoy by the United States.1861 – State troops seized US munitions in Napoleon, Ak.
1863 – U.S.S. Queen of the West, Colonel C. R. Ellet, steamed up Red River and ascended Atchafalaya River where a landing party destroyed twelve Confederate Army wagons. That night, Queen of the West was fired on near Simmesport, Louisiana, Next day, Ellet returned to the scene of the attack and destroyed all the buildings on three adjoining plantations in reprisal. The vessel had previously run below Vicksburg to disrupt Confederate trade in the Red River area.
1877 – The 1st news dispatch by telephone was made between Boston and Salem, Mass.
1880 – President Hayes issues a warning against illegal settlers in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The territory will be opened to settlement in 1889.
1893 – Omar Nelson Bradley, U.S. army general during World War II and the nation’s last 5-star general, is born. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1915, where he later taught mathematics. After years of administrative posts, Bradley was a brigadier general when the United States entered World War II. He commanded forces in North Africa and Sicily, then moved to command the American involvement in the D-Day invasion of 1944, ultimately liberating Paris, France from the German occupied forces. Quiet, polite and popular with enlisted men, Bradley has often been contrasted with his more blustery colleague, General George S. Patton, Jr. After the war, Bradley served in the Veterans’ Administration and as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retiring in 1953.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/february-12/
