1834 – In Madrid, the Van Ness Convention settles disputes between the US and Spain.
1835 – Union General Alexander Stewart Webb is born in New York City. Webb’s grandfather had fought at Bunker Hill during the American Revolution, and his father, James Watson Webb, was a prominent newspaper editor and diplomat who served as minister to Brazil during the Civil War. The younger Webb, known as Andy to his family, attended West Point and graduated in 1855, 13th in a class of 34. He taught mathematics at West Point and in Florida before the Civil War. When the war broke out, Webb was assigned to defend Ft. Pickens, Florida, but was soon called to Washington and placed in the artillery in the army guarding the capital. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 as assistant to the chief of artillery, Major William Barry. A year later, Webb was in charge of the artillery at the Battle of Malvern Hill at the end of the Seven Days battles. In that engagement, Union cannon devastated attacking Confederate infantry, and Webb was commended for leading the artillery line. General Daniel Butterfield later said that Webb’s leadership saved the Union army from destruction. Despite his numerous achievements, Webb was constantly passed over for promotion due to politics within the Army of the Potomac. He was closely associated with General George McClellan, and McClellan’s removal in late 1862 left Webb stalled at colonel. Even some of his West Point students became generals before Webb, but the promotion finally came in June 1863. The new brigadier general played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg just a few weeks later. On July 3, Webb commanded troops defending the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. He rallied his troops as they received the brunt of Pickett’s Charge, and his actions earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Webb fought with the Army of the Potomac during the great campaign in the spring of 1864, and he was wounded in the head at the Bloody Angle, the most vicious fighting in the Battle of Spotsylvania. He was out of action for nearly eight months. When he returned, he became chief of staff for army commander General George Meade. After the war, Webb taught at West Point, served as president of the College of the City of New York, and wrote extensively about the war. He died in Riverdale, New York, in 1911. A statue of Webb adorns the Gettysburg battlefield near the spot where he earned the Medal of Honor.
1838 – In defiance of the new “gag rule” adopted 19 December 1837, Representative John Quincy Adams introduces 350 petitions against slavery into the House. The petitions are tabled.
1847 – The House of Representatives approves a bill for negotiations to purchase occupied territory from Mexico. The bill includes the Wilmot Proviso. David Wilmot introduced an amendment to the bill stipulating that none of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery. The amended bill was passed in the House, but the Senate adjourned without voting on it. In the next session of Congress (1847), a new bill providing for a $3-million appropriation was introduced, and Wilmot again proposed an antislavery amendment to it. The amended bill passed the House, but the Senate drew up its own bill, which excluded the proviso.
1856 – USS Supply, commanded by LT David Dixon Porter, sails from Smyrna, Syria, bound for Indianola, Texas, with a load of 21 camels intended for experimental use in the American desert west of the Rockies.
1861 – Ft. Point was completed & garrisoned. It never fired cannon in anger.
1862 – Grant [on his 3rd day there] launched a major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn. With the fort surrounded, the Confederates, commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, launched a surprise attack against Grant’s army in an attempt to open an escape route to Nashville, Tennessee. Grant, who was away from the battlefield at the start of the attack, arrived to rally his men and counterattack. Despite achieving partial success and opening the way for a retreat, Floyd lost his nerve and ordered his men back to the fort. The following morning, Floyd and his second-in-command, Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, relinquished command to Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner (later Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky), who agreed to accept Grant’s terms of unconditional surrender.
1862 – Four Confederate gunboats under Commodore Tattnall attacked Union batteries at Venus Point, on Savannah River, Georgia, but were forced back to Savannah. Tattnall was attempting to effect the passage of steamer Ida from Fort Pulaski to Savannah.
1864 – U.S.S. Forest Rose, Acting Lieutenant John V. Johnson, came to the relief of Union soldiers who were hard pressed by attacking Confederate troops at Waterproof, Louisiana. The 260- ton gunboat compelled the Southerners to retire under a heavy bombardment. The commander of the Northerners ashore wrote Johnston: “I hope you will not consider it [mere] flattering when I say I never before saw more accurate artillery firing than you did in these engagements, invariably putting your shells in the right place ordered. My officers and men now feel perfectly secure against a large force, so long as we have the assistance of Captain Johnston and his most excellent drilled crew. . . . ”
1869 – Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis were dropped.
1888 – A fishing dispute between the US and Canada comes to an end with the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty signed in Washington. The Senate refuses to ratify the treaty, partly because it provides for reciprocal tariffs, which are anathema to high-tariff industrialists, but the two countries proceed on an amicable basis, generally following the provisions of the treaty anyway.
1892 – First head of the Defense Department, James V. Forrestal born in Matteawan (now Beacon), New York. His father, who emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1857, headed a construction company. After graduation from high school in 1908, Forrestal worked for three years on local newspapers in New York State and then entered Dartmouth College as a freshman in 1911. The following year he transferred to Princeton University, which he left in 1915 a few credits short of his degree, apparently because of academic and financial difficulties. In 1916 Forrestal joined an investment banking house, William A. Read and Company of New York (later Dillon, Read and Company), as a bond salesman. Except for a period in the Navy during World War I, during which he took flight training, Forrestal remained with Dillon, Read until 1940. He rose rapidly in the company, becoming a partner in 1923, vice president in 1926, and president in 1938. His government service began in June 1940 as a special assistant to President Roosevelt. In August 1940 the president nominated Forrestal to fill the new position of under secretary of the Navy. Assigned by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to handle contracts, tax and legal affairs, and liaison with several other government agencies, Forrestal built his office into an efficient organization. Most importantly, he ran very effectively the Navy’s machinery for industrial mobilization and procurement. By 19 May 1944 when he became secretary of the Navy, succeeding Knox who had died of a heart attack, he had become well-known in Washington as a highly capable administrator and manager. He guided the Navy through the last year of the war and the two difficult years of demobilization after the Japanese surrender. Forrestal participated prominently in development of the National Security Act of 1947, even though he had opposed unification of the Navy and War Departments. Forrestal brought to his new office a deep distrust of the Soviet Union and a determination to make the new national security structure workable. He recognized the magnitude of the job; he wrote to a friend shortly after announcement of his appointment confiding his serious apprehensions about the future of the new organization; the inherent weakness in the secretary of defense’s powers as defined in the National Security Act, and existence of virtually autonomous heads for the military departments. These organizational difficulties, combined with a steady escalation of Cold War tensions, ensured 18 months of frustration for Forrestal. In February 1948 the Soviet Union completed its network of satellite nations in Eastern Europe, as Communists supported by Moscow seized control in Czechoslovakia. In June 1948 the Soviets blockaded land routes from the western zones of Germany to Berlin, forcing the United States and its allies to initiate an airlift which supplied Berlin until Moscow relaxed the blockade more than 10 months later. In the meantime, war broke out in Palestine between Arab and Israeli armies immediately after the proclamation of the state of Israel on 14 May 1948. As these events occurred, Congress approved the Marshall Plan, providing economic aid for 16 European nations, and in June 1948 the Senate adopted the Vandenberg Resolution, encouraging the administration to enter into collective defense arrangements. The United States and the United Kingdom led in developing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formally established when 12 nations signed the constituting treaty in April 1949. On the other side of the world in China, the Communists made significant headway against the Nationalists, leading in 1949 to final victory and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Forrestal believed strongly in the need for close coordination of defense and foreign policy and saw the National Security Council (NSC) as a major instrument for accomplishing this coordination. Although President Truman deemed the NSC a subordinate advisory body he met infrequently with it before the Korean conflict began in June 1950Forrestal thought it should originate policy proposals and provide firm guidance for strategic planning. He labored hard, for the most part unsuccessfully, to increase its influence. Hoping to facilitate agreement among the services over the budget and other matters, Forrestal met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) at Key West, Florida, 11-14 March 1948. Out of this meeting and subsequent discussions came a paper entitled “Functions of the Armed Forces and the Joint Chiefs of Staff” that Forrestal issued on 21 April 1948. Among JCS duties, the paper delineated preparation of strategic plans and provision for strategic direction of the armed forces, establishment of unified commands, and designation of executive agents for certain activities. The Navy received authorization “to conduct air operations as necessary for the accomplishment of objectives in a naval campaign,” and the Air Force retained responsibility for strategic air warfare. The Key West document remained in force until the Eisenhower administration issued a revised version in 1954 but nevertheless provided the basic framework for the US military until the 1989 Nichols-Goldwater Defense Reorganization. Other Forrestal reforms included major strengthening of the secretary of defense’s authority by giving him specific rather than “general” responsibility for exercising “direction, authority, and control” over the services; removal of the chief of staff to the commander in chief as a member of the JCS; designation of a JCS chairman; increasing the size of the JCS Joint Staff; clarification of the secretary’s role in personnel matters; and dropping the service secretaries from NSC membership, leaving the secretary of defense as the only military establishment member. He left office on 28 March 1949 and died tragically less than two months later. Not only the first but one of the most notable secretaries of defense, his contributions have been commemorated by a bronze bust at the Pentagon’s Mall Entrance and by the designation of a major federal office building in downtown Washington as the Forrestal Building. Some months after he left office, the House Armed Services Committee, with which he had worked closely over the years, described his administration as secretary of defense as “able, sensitive, restrained, and far-sighted.”
1898 – A massive explosion of unknown origin sinks the battleship USS Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard. One of the first American battleships, the Maine weighed more than 6,000 tons and was built at a cost of more than $2 million. Ostensibly on a friendly visit, the Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect the interests of Americans there after a rebellion against Spanish rule broke out in Havana in January. An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March that the ship was blown up by a mine, without directly placing the blame on Spain. Much of Congress and a majority of the American public expressed little doubt that Spain was responsible and called for a declaration of war. Subsequent diplomatic failures to resolve the Maine matter, coupled with United States indignation over Spain’s brutal suppression of the Cuban rebellion and continued losses to American investment, led to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898. Within three months, the United States had decisively defeated Spanish forces on land and sea, and in August an armistice halted the fighting. On December 12, 1898, the Treaty of Paris was signed between the United States and Spain, officially ending the Spanish-American War and granting the United States its first overseas empire with the ceding of such former Spanish possessions as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. In 1976, a team of American naval investigators concluded that the Maine explosion was likely caused by a fire that ignited its ammunition stocks, not by a Spanish mine or act of sabotage.
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