19 January
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
McKEEVER, MICHAEL Rank and organization: Private, Company K, 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Place and date: At Burnt Ordinary, Va., 19 January 1863. Entered service at: Philadelphia, Pa. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 2 August 1897. Citation: Was one of a small scouting party that charged and routed a mounted force of the enemy six times their number. He led the charge in a most gallant and distinguished manner, going far beyond the call of duty.
ROBINSON, JOHN Rank and organization: Captain of the Hold, U.S. Navy. Born: 1840, Cuba. Accredited to: Maine. G.O. No.: 82, 23 February 1867. Citation: With Acting Ensign James H. Bunting, during the heavy gale which occurred in Pensacola Bay on the night of 19 January 1867, Robinson swam ashore with a line for the purpose of sending off a blowcock, which would facilitate getting up steam and prevent the vessel from stranding, thus voluntarily periling his life to save the vessel and the lives of others.
BEARSS, HIRAM IDDINGS Rank and organization: Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 13 April 1875, Peru, Ind. Appointed from: Indiana. Other Navy award: Distinguished Service Medal. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and eminent and conspicuous conduct in battle at the junction of the Cadacan and Sohoton Rivers, Samar, Philippine Islands, 17 November 1901. Col. Bearss (then Capt.), second in command of the columns upon their uniting ashore in the Sohoton River region, made a surprise attack on the fortified cliffs and completely routed the enemy, killing 30 and capturing and destroying the powder magazine, 40 lantacas (guns), rice, food and cuartels. Due to his courage, intelligence, discrimination and zeal, he successfully led his men up the cliffs by means of bamboo ladders to a height of 200 feet. The cliffs were of soft stone of volcanic origin, in the nature of pumice, and were honeycombed with caves. Tons of rocks were suspended in platforms held in position by vine cables (known as bejuco) in readiness to be precipitated upon people below. After driving the insurgents from their position which was almost impregnable, being covered with numerous trails lined with poison spears, pits, etc., he led his men across the river, scaled the cliffs on the opposite side, and destroyed the camps there. Col. Bearss and the men under his command overcame incredible difficulties and dangers in destroying positions which, according to reports from old prisoners, had taken 3 years to perfect, were held as a final rallying point, and were never before penetrated by white troops. Col. Bearss also rendered distinguished public service in the presence of the enemy at Quinapundan River, Samar, Philippine Islands, on 19 January 1902.
19 January 1918
First strategic air attacks on a civilian population occurred on this day over London. Large, slow, clumsy German Zeppelins flew a total of 51 sorties between 19 January and 5 August 1918, dropping some 5,806 bombs (197 tons of explosives). 517 civilians were killed and 1,358 wounded.
19 January 1807
Robert E. Lee was born. The strong, healthy boy born to "Light Horse Harry" and Ann Carter Lee was the last Lee born at Stratford to survive to maturity. Though he spent fewer than four years there, his later boyhood visits left an impression that he carried throughout his life. As sometimes happens in distinguished families, one member seems to fall heir to the best qualities ofthe previous generations and none of the flaws. So it was with Robert Edward Lee. From both the Carters and the Lees he inherited a handsome countenance.
From his father came rare physical strength and endurance. The sense of duty that Harry had learned from George Washington was vividly imparted to his son Robert. Even "Light Horse Harry's" difficulties with money seemed to have produced positive responses in Robert, who throughout his life was meticulous and prudent in all finacial matters. Ann Carter Lee's gentleness was inherited by Robert, and his loving care of his ailing mother was the mainstay of her life.
With his father and elder brothers away, and his mother and sisters in failing health, Robert had become, by age 12, head of the household. On cold afternoons, when his mother was well enough, young Robert would stuff paper in the cracks of the carriage to block the wind and take her driving. Years later, when he left for West Point, Ann Lee wrote to a cousin, "How I will get on without Robert? He is both a son and daughter to me."
Robert Lee's choice of a military career was dictated by financial necessity. There was no money left to send him to Harvard, where his older brother Charles Carter studied. Such circumstances led him to an appointment to West Point Military Academy. Robert, who led the Cadet Corps in 1829, graduated second in his class. In four years he received not a single demerit, and he became one of the most popular cadets in his class.
When he returned as the Academy's superintendent years later, he won the same affectionate respect from the cadets for his compassion, sense of fairness and strong moral leadership. On June 30, 1831, while serving as Second Lieutenant of Engineers at Fort Monroe, Virginia, he married Mary Ann Randolph Custis of Arlington. Mary was the only daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington and the adopted grandson of George Washington.
Robert E. Lee shared his father's reverence for the memory of the General and that bond with the Father of our Country served as an inspiration throughout Lee's life. The couple moved into Arlington, the Custis house across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., which would later become Arlington National Cemetery. At the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846, Robert was ordered to Mexico as a supervisor of road construction. His skills as a cavalryman in reconnaissance, however, soon captured the attention of General Winfield Scott, who came to rely on Robert for his sharp military expertise. It was in Mexico that Lee learned the battlefield tactics that would serve him so well in coming years.
In spite of his flawless performance as an engineer and his brilliance as an officer, promotion came slowly for Robert Lee. His assignments were lonely and difficult, and he found the separation from his family hard to bear. His love of Mary and his ever-increasing brood of children were the center of his life. The opportunity that won him enduring fame was one he would have preferred not to have taken.
The Army of the United States had been his life's work for 32 years, and he had given it his very best. On April 18, 1861, he was finally offered the reward for his service. On the eve of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, through Secretary Francis Blair, offered him command of the Union Army. There was little doubt as to Lee's sentiments. He was utterly opposed to secession and considered slavery evil. His views on the United States were equally clear - "no north, no south, no east, no west," he wrote, "but the broad Union in all its might and strength past and present."
Blair's offer forced Lee to choose between his strong conviction to see the country united in perpetuity and his responsibility to family, friends and his native Virginia. A heart-wrenching decision had to be made. After a long night at Arlington, searching for an answer to Blair's offer, he finally came downstairs to Mary. "Well Mary," he said calmly, "the question is settled. Here is my letter of resignation." He could not, he told her, lift his hand against his own people.
He had "endeavored to do what he thought was right," and replied to Blair that "...though opposed to secession and a deprecating war, I could take no part in the invasion of the Southern States." He resigned his commission and left his much beloved Arlington to "go back in sorrow to my people and share the misery of my native state."
On June 1, 1862 Robert Edward Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in the Confederate capital of Richmond. Not until February 1865 was he named Commander in Chief of all Confederate forces, but the leadership throughout the war was undeniably his. His brilliance as a commander is legendary, and military colleges the world over study his compaigns as models of the science of war.
That he held out against an army three times the size and a hundred times better equipped was no miracle. It was the result of leadership by a man of exceptional intelligence, daring, courage and integrity. His men all but worshiped him. He shared their rations, slept in tents as they did, and, most importantly, never asked more of them than he did of himself. Lee's legendary command of the Confederate forces came to an end at Appomattox, Virginia in April 1865.
"There is nothing left for me to do," he said, "but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths." With the war now over, Lee set an example to all in his refusal to express bitterness. "Abandon your animosities," he said, "and make your sons Americans." He then set out to work for a permanent union of the states. Though his application to regain his citizenship was misplaced and not acted upon until 1975 - more than a century late - Lee worked tirelessly for a strong peace.
With some hesitation he accepted the presidency of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, and there he strove to equip his students with the character and knowledge he knew would be necessary to restore the war-ravaged South. Lexington became his home, and there he died of heart problems on October 12, 1870. After his death, his name was joined with that of his lifelong hero, and Washington College became Washington and Lee University.19 January 1991
Operation Desert Storm:
During the Gulf War, Israel's anti-missile force was boosted by additional Patriot missile batteries and U-S crews. A second Iraqi missile attack caused 29 injuries in Tel Aviv. Allied forces began bombarding Iraq's elite Republican Guard. The Scud missile pictured here has been downed by a Patriot missile is examined.
19 January 1847
Rebellion in Taos, NM.
Angered by the abusive behavior of American soldiers occupying the city, Mexicans in Taos strike back by murdering the American-born New Mexican governor Charles Bent. The eldest of four brothers who all became prominent frontiersmen, Charles Bent began his involvement with the Wild West in 1822, when he left Virginia at the age of 23 to become a trader for the Missouri Fur Company.
When that company was destroyed by cutthroat competition from John Jacob Astor's powerful American Fur Company, Bent became a trader on the Santa Fe Trail. Building outlets in the Mexican cities of Santa Fe and New Mexico, and an Indian trading post on the Arkansas River called Bent's Fort (in modern-day Colorado), Bent and his business partners eventually created the largest mercantile firm in the Southwest.
Bent's financial, political, and personal interests increasingly began to center on Taos, New Mexico. In the 1830s, he moved there and married Maria Ignacia Jaramillo, a wealthy widow from a prominent Mexican family. Bent's new wife and his considerable wealth helped him win acceptance among the Mexican political elites, and he became a close associate of the New Mexican governor, Manuel Armijo.
However, when war between Mexico and the U.S. broke out in 1846, Bent revealed his true colors by welcoming General Stephen Kearney's largely bloodless conquest of New Mexico with open arms. Kearney awarded Bent by appointing him to the governorship. Kearney and most of his soldiers then moved on to take California, leaving the new governor to fend for himself, and Bent soon discovered that his behavior had earned him many enemies in Taos.
Many of the Mexican families naturally resented the American conquest of their home, and the Taos Indians had long disliked Bent because of his trade relations with their northern enemies. The small force of American soldiers left behind to maintain order exacerbated the bad feelings by treating the Mexicans with undisguised contempt. On January 19, 1847, the people of Taos struck back. A violent mob attacked a Taos home that Bent was visiting, murdered his guards, and then killed and scalped Bent.
Dragging Bent's mangled body through the streets of Taos, the mob called for a full-scale rebellion against the American occupation, and by the end of the evening, 15 other Americans had been killed. Those who survived fled to Santa Fe to sound the alarm. Within two weeks, the American Colonel Sterling Price had quelled the rebellion and executed the supposed ringleaders. With the end of the Mexican War in 1848, New Mexico and all the rest of Mexico's old northern frontier became the American Southwest.
TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
19 January
◆916 Battle of Brecenanmere: Aethelflaed, "the Lady of the Mercians", defeats the Welsh.
◆1415 Rouen surrenders to King Henry V of England.
◆1643 Battle of Braddock Downs: Cornish Royalists defeat the Parliamentarians.
◆1760 Cherokees unsuccessfully attack Fort Prince George in South Carolina to rescue tribe members held hostage by Governor Lyttleton. Lyttleton took the hostages as assurance of compliance with a peace treaty concluded in December 1759. Frustrated, the Cherokees turn to raids on southwest frontier settlements.
◆1770 In an attempt to prevent the posting of broadsides by British soldiers stationed in New York, the Sons of Liberty, led by Alexander McDougall, engage in a skirmish with soldiers on Golden Hill. Armed with swords and clubs, the colonials confront 30 to 40 British soldiers armed with bayonets. Many are wounded, but there are no fatalities.
◆1806 British take Cape of Good Hope from French-occupied Holland.
◆1807 Robert E. Lee was born.★
◆1840 During an exploring expedition, Captain Charles Wilkes sights the coast of eastern Antarctica and claims it for the United States.
◆1847 Rebellion in Taos, NM.★
◆1861 Georgia became the 5th state to secede from the Union.
◆1862 Union General George Thomas defeats Confederates commanded by George Crittenden in southern Kentucky.
◆1918 1918 First strategic air attacks on a civilian population occurred on this day over London. Large, slow, clumsy German Zeppelins flew a total of 51 sorties between 19 January and 5 August 1918, dropping some 5,806 bombs (197 tons of explosives). 517 civilians were killed and 1,358 wounded.
◆1943 Two US cruisers and four destroyers bombard the Aleutian island of Attu.
◆1946 Staged jointly by the USCG and USN, the first public demonstration of LORAN was held at Floyd Bennett Field in New York. Loran was originally developed to provide radionavigation service for U.S. coastal waters and was later expanded to include complete coverage of the continental U.S. as well as most of Alaska. Today twenty-four U.S. Loran-C stations work in partnership with Canadian and Russian stations to provide coverage in Canadian waters and in the Bering Sea. Loran-C provides better than 0.25 nautical mile absolute accuracy for suitably equipped users within the published areas.
◆1951 Far East Air Forces launched a thirteen-day intensive air campaign, by fighters, light bombers, and medium bombers, to restrict to a trickle the supplies and reinforcements reaching enemy forces in the field.
◆1960 The US signs a mutual defense treaty with Japan.
◆1968 Cambodia charges that the United States and South Vietnam have crossed the border and killed three Cambodians.
◆1968 "Sky Soldiers" from the 173rd Airborne Brigade begin Operation McLain with a reconnaissance-in-force operation in the Central Highlands. The purpose of this operation was to find and destroy the communist base camps in the area in order to promote better security for the province. The operation ended on January 31, 1970, with 1,042 enemy casualties.
◆1980 President Jimmy Carter announces the United States boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
◆1991 During the Gulf War, Israel's anti-missile force was boosted by additional Patriot missile batteries and U-S crews. A second Iraqi missile attack caused 29 injuries in Tel Aviv. Allied forces began bombarding Iraq's elite Republican Guard.