1837 – Under a flag of truce during peace talks, U.S. troops sieged the Indian Seminole Chief Osceola in Florida. Osceola, who was sick with malaria, knew the Indians could fight no more. He went to the General’s fort at St. Augustine with a white flag. When Osceola went to General Jesup the General had his men surround Osceola. They threw the white flag to the ground and put chains on his hands and feet. The Seminoles were so angry with Osceola’s capture that they continued to fight for the next five years. 1861 – A Union assault across the Potomac River north of Washington, DC, at a site named Harrison’s Landing or better known to history as “Ball’s Bluff” was repulsed with heavy losses. While Confederate loses were rather light the Union forces suffered 223 men killed and more than 700 captured, several hundred of them wounded. Among the dead was Colonel and U.S. Senator from Oregon Edward D. Baker. Born in England he came to America as a child and spent his early life in Illinois, where he met and became life-long friends with Abraham Lincoln. While there he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1844. He resigned his seat in 1846 to command the 4th Illinois Volunteer Infantry in the Mexican War. He commanded the unit at the Siege of Vera Cruz and Battle of Cerro Gordo in Mexico. After the war he moved to California. He later moved to Oregon and was elected as a one of its two new senators in 1860. When the war started in April 1861, he raised a regiment in New York, but soon after took a commission (while still seated in the Senate) as the commander of the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. During the Battle of Ball’s Bluff his regiment found itself backed up against the river by Colonel William Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade (13th, 17th and 18th Mississippi regiments). Baker is killed instantly by a shot in the head. He was the only seated member of Congress to die in combat during the Civil War. Several other interesting notes stem from this battle. Due to Baker’s death and the high losses suffered in this operation, questions were raised in Congress about the Army’s leadership. A “Congressional Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War” was established to oversee how the war effort was being handled. On the military side, Barksdale’s Brigade would meet some of the very same units it fought at Ball’s Bluff again at Antietam and Fredericksburg in 1862. Among these were the 7th Michigan and the 19th and 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry regiments. 1867 – Many leaders of the Kiowa, Comanche and Kiowa-Apache signed a peace treaty at Medicine Lodge, Kan. Comanche Chief Quanah Parker refused to accept the treaty terms.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 12:15:53 +0000
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