1820 – Congress becomes first U.S. warship to visit China.
1824 – Edmund Kirby-Smith, educator and soldier, was born. He was a Confederate general in the western theater.
1843 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.
1846 – Eleven cutters were assigned to cooperate with Army and Navy in the Mexican War. USRCs McLane, Legare, Woodbury, Ewing, Forward, and Van Buren were assigned to the Army. USRCs Wolcott, Bibb, Morris, and Polk were assigned to the Navy.
1861 – Confederate government offered war volunteers a $10 premium.
1861 – Commander John Rodgers ordered to report to the War Department to establish naval forces on the western rivers under the command of General John C. Fremont. The importance of controlling the Mississippi and its tributaries which pierced the interior in every direction was recognized immediately by the U.S. Government. This control was not only militarily strategic but was a vital factor in keep¬ing the northwestern states in the Union. Under Rodgers, three river steamers were purchased at Cin¬cinnati. Rodgers, overcoming no little difficulty in obtaining and training crews, getting guns and other equipment, converted the steamers to gunboats Tyler, Lexington, and Conestoga. These three gun¬boats, as stated by Alfred Thayer Mahan, were of inestimable service in keeping alive the attachment to the Union where it existed.”
1861 – Kentucky proclaimed its neutrality.
1861 – Tennessee officially admitted to the Confederacy.
1863 – The Union army seals the fate of Vicksburg by defeating the Confederates at the Battle of Champion’s Hill. General Ulysses S. Grant had successfully run the Confederate gauntlet at Vicksburg and placed the Army of the Tennessee south of the stronghold, the Rebels’ last significant holding on the Mississippi River. But he did not move directly on Vicksburg because he knew Joseph Johnston was assembling a Confederate force in Jackson, 40 miles east of Vicksburg. Instead, Grant advanced toward Jackson and prevented Johnston from uniting with the Vicksburg garrison, headed by John C. Pemberton. After boldly attacking and defeating the Confederates at Jackson, Grant left William T. Sherman’s corps to hold Johnston at bay. The Confederates were divided not only by Grant’s army, but also by conflicting strategy. Johnston wanted Pemberton to head into northern Mississippi to join forces with his own army. But Pemberton insisted on sticking close to Vicksburg and defending the city. Grant sent his other two corps, commanded by James McPherson and John McClernand, to take on Pemberton. They found the Confederates on Champion’s Hill, about halfway between Jackson and Vicksburg. There, some 30,000 Union troops attacked 20,000 Confederates. The battle swayed back and forth, but the Federals eventually gained the upper hand. Pemberton’s men were forced to retreat, and one division was completely cut off from the rest of the army. Although McClernand’s timidity kept the rout from being complete, the engagement was still the decisive action of the Vicksburg campaign. Pemberton fell back into Vicksburg, where Grant followed and soon bottled the Confederates. A six-week siege ensued, and Vicksburg fell on July 4.
1864 – In the Atlanta Campaign, the battle of Resaca, begun May 13, ended.
1864 – Having crossed the rapids of the Red River at Alexandria, Rear Admiral Porter next had to traverse the many bars in the River near its mouth. The Admiral found that the water was higher there than had been anticipated and reported to Secretary Welles: “Providentially we had a rise from the backwater of the Mississippi, that river being very high at that time, the back-water extending to Alexandria, 150 miles distant, enabling us to pass all the bars and obstruc-tions with safety.” After battling low water, rapids, and the harassing forces of General Taylor for two months along the Red River, Porter and his gunboats again entered the Mississippi.
1868 – The U.S. Senate failed by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross, to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment against him. Johnson, who came to office on Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, was an honest but tactless man who made many enemies in the Radical Republican Congress. In response to Johnson’s recurrent interference with Radical Reconstruction, the U.S. House of Representatives drew up 11 articles of impeachment against the chief executive in March 1868. Although the charges against him were weak, Johnson was tried by the Senate as the Constitution provides.
1899 – One month after the Spanish-American War began in April 1898, an expeditionary force sailed from San Francisco to capture the Spanish colonial capital of Manila, on Luzon Island, Philippines. Because most of the Regular Army was fighting in Cuba and Puerto Rico, three-quarters of this force was composed of state volunteer units, mostly from mid-western and western states. The Spanish surrendered by August and an uneasy peace settled in. The Filipinos wanted independence and when the American government announced it was annexing the islands as a colony, the local people rose up in revolt in February 1899. By spring the American Army, still composed mostly of state units, was on the offensive cleaning out insurgent strongholds north of Manila. During this period a long-time American resident named Henry Young offered his services as a guide to the Army. He organized 25 men into a highly-mobile reconnaissance force called “Young’s Scouts” to patrol ahead of the advance. Most of the men in this unit were volunteers from the 1st North Dakota and 2nd Oregon Volunteer infantry regiments. On May 13th, a patrol of 11 Scouts plus Young charged and routed about 300 insurgents. Young was killed in this attack. Three days later (this date) 22 Scouts rushed across a bridge being set ablaze by enemy soldiers. The Guardsmen, while under a heavy fire from about 600 Filipinos across the river, succeeded in routing the insurgents and saving the bridge from burning. They continued to hold off several assaults to recapture the bridge until relieved by the 2nd Oregon. A total of 15 Medals of Honor were awarded to Guardsmen during the Philippine Insurrection. For their heroic actions in these two events ten Guardsmen of “Young’s Scouts” received the Medal, seven from North Dakota and three from Oregon.
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