1819 – In Congress, the Missouri Bill is introduced. It would allow the Missouri Territory to draft a constitution and prepare for statehood. James Talmadge of New York proposes two anti-slavery amendments. One would ban the further introduction of slavery. The other would emancipate the children of slaves in Missouri, born after the admission of the territory as a state, at the age of 25. The amendments pass the House on 17 February, but fail in the Senate on 27 February.
1831 – Union General John Rawlins is born in Galena, Illinois. Rawlins was a close personal aide to General Ulysses S. Grant and was reported to have kept Grant from drinking heavily during the war. Rawlins’ family was originally from Virginia but had settled in Illinois shortly before Rawlins’ birth. When Rawlins was a teenager, his father abandoned the family and headed for the gold fields of California. The younger Rawlins received little formal education, but he studied law and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1854. He became the city attorney in 1857 and became involved in state politics. He was an avid supporter of Senator Stephen Douglas and served as an elector for Douglas in 1860. When the war began, Rawlins became the aide de camp to Grant. He was Grant’s principle staff officer throughout the war, and Grant said that Rawlins was nearly indispensable. Grant was known to be a heavy drinker when he served on the frontier in the 1850s, and there were rumors that he continued to drink during the early stages of the war. Rawlins appears to have been instrumental in keeping Grant from imbibing during the Civil War. After the war, Rawlins served in the west. He helped General Greenville Dodge survey the route for the Union Pacific Railroad, which later became part of the first transcontinental line. For his efforts, the town of Rawlins, Wyoming, was named after him. When Grant became president in 1869, Rawlins became secretary of war. His health declined after taking office, and he died just six months later. Rawlins is buried in Arlington Cemetery.
1833 – William Whedbee Kirkland (d.1915), Brig Gen (Confederate Army), was born.
1847 – General Kearney acts on orders to establish a new government in Monterey while Freemont still acts a governor in Los Angeles.
1854 – Admiral Perry anchors off Yokosuka, Japan to receive Emperor’s reply to treaty proposal. This agreement, forced on the Tokugawa shogunate by Commodore Perry’s menacing “black ships,” ended over two centuries of virtual exclusion (the exception being the Dutch) of foreign traders from the coast of Japan. The intrusion of the U.S. in the first place derived from the ill-treatment accorded American whaling crews when shipwrecked off the coast or landing for provisions or repairs. The treaty fully satisfied the U.S. government’s concerns in this regard but left to the future the equally important matter of opening the country to foreign trade; concluded in 1858 with the signing of the Harris treaty. Perry’s great achievement was widely recognized at the time. Perhaps there is no better praise for this naval veteran of 45 years’ service than the collective memorial sent by the American merchants at Canton to the Commodore in Sept. 1854 on his return trip to the U.S.: “You have conquered the obstinate will of man and, by overturning the cherished policy of an empire, have brought an estranged but culturated people into the family of nations. You have done this without violence, and the world has looked on with admiration to see the barriers of prejudice fall before the flag of our country without the firing of a shot.”
1862 – The four day Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, begins. After capturing Fort Henry on February 6, 1862, Grant advanced cross-country to invest Fort Donelson. The original garrison of the two forts was about 2,500 men, and Albert Johnston had dispatched about 12,000 reinforcements from Bowling Green, KY, under John Floyd to bolster the defense. A few men also arrived from Columbus, the western end of the Confederate defensive line. Grant had wanted to move fast, to prevent reinforcements arriving at all, but wretched weather (rain before and during his operations ruined the roads) delayed him and the Confederate troops arrived safely. Fort Donelson was a much stronger work than Fort Henry, larger, with a stronger garrison, about 100 feet above the river (so it had plunging fire on ships), and on a ridge which narrowed routes for infantry attack. The Confederates had a strong line on the next ridge outwards from the fort, with each of the Generals commanding a sector while Floyd (the senior) also had overall command. Grant deployed two divisions in line, with a third arriving. On the 12th, despite orders not to, McClernand had one of his brigades probe the Confederate defenses. They charged two or three times and found the defenses strong and well manned: Union losses were heavy. Grant had intended simply to surround the fort and have the Navy batter it into submission.
1865 – The Confederacy approved the recruitment of slaves as soldiers, as long as the approval of their owners was gained.
1887 – Alvin York, famed US soldier with 25 kills in WW I, was born.
1891 – David Dixon Porter (77), US rear admiral (Union), died.
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