He died of tuberculosis at age 35 on August 10, 1910. His tombstone reads:
I was born in the city of Baltimore in the year 1874, and it might be well to state at this time that my right name is Joseph Gant, not Gans. However, when I became an object of newspaper publicity, some reporter made a mistake and my name appeared as Joe Gans, and as Joe Gans it remained ever since.
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Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, which would revolutionize livestock production and methods in North America.
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The Election Massacre of 1874 (Coup of 1874) near Eufaula, Alabama when the White League killed between estimated 15-40 black voters and wounded 70 and drove away more than 1,000 unarmed black people at the polls, hijacking the election in a majority black community.
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October 27, 1874
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
We are reminded by the changing seasons that it is time to pause in our daily avocations and offer thanks to Almighty God for the mercies and abundance of the year which is drawing to a close.
The blessings of free government continue to be vouchsafed to us; the earth has responded to the labor of the husbandman; the land has been free from pestilence; internal order is being maintained, and peace with other powers has prevailed.
It is fitting that at stated periods we should cease from our accustomed pursuits and from the turmoil of our daily lives and unite in thankfulness for the blessings of the past and in the cultivation of kindly feelings toward each other.
Now, therefore, recognizing these considerations, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do recommend to all citizens to assemble in their respective places of worship on Thursday, the 26th day of November next, and express their thanks for the mercy and favor of Almighty God, and, laying aside all political contentions and all secular occupations, to observe such day as a day of rest, thanksgiving, and praise.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 27th day of October, A.D. 1874, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-ninth.
U.S. GRANT.
By the President:
HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State.
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October 24, 1874 political cartoon by Thomas Nast decrying the alliance between the White League and the Ku Klux Klan in the South.
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Outnumbered roops under Ranald Mackenzie attacked Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche at Palo Duro Canyon bringing about a legendary and significant Army victory in the Red River War and essentially bringing it to a close.
Casualties on both sides were overall light, but the loss of horses and supplies was devastating to the Native side.
Mackenzie is forgotten in the popular memory, although he certainly is not amongst students of the post Civil War Indian Wars. He was an extremely effective but died a bad death at age 48, which may be part of the reason that he's forgotten.
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Tilmahtli from the 1531 apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico.
Mexico enacted The Act of September 25, 1874 making the provisions of the Reform Law constitutional.
The act provided "liberal" reforms basically on the French model, following the results of the bitter Reform War of the late 1850s, and were hostile accordingly to the Church in certain ways. They provided:
The third worst typhoon to hit Hong Kong hit on the night of September 22, 1874.
Up to 2,000 people died in Hong Kong, and in nearby China, between 10,000 and 100,000 people lost their lives.
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Alonzo Stepp born in Kentucky.
His story:
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Whereas it has been satisfactorily represented to me that turbulent and disorderly persons have combined together with force and arms to overthrow the State government of Louisiana and to resist the laws and constituted authorities of said State: and
Whereas it is provided in the Constitution of the United States that the United States shall protect every State in this Union, on application of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature can not be convened, against domestic violence; and
Whereas it is provided in the laws of the United States that in all cases of insurrection in any State or of obstruction to the laws thereof it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such State, or of the executive when the legislature can not be convened, to call forth the militia of any other State or States, or to employ such part of the land and naval forces as shall be judged necessary, for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection or causing the laws to be duly executed; and
Whereas the legislature of said State is not now in session and can not be convened in time to meet the present emergency, and the executive of said State, under section 4 of Article IV of the Constitution of the United States and the laws passed in pursuance thereof, has therefore made application to me for such part of the military force of the United States as may be necessary and adequate to protect said State and the citizens thereof against domestic violence and to enforce the due execution of the laws; and
Whereas it is required that whenever it may be necessary, in the judgment of the President, to use the military force for the purpose aforesaid, he shall forthwith, by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective homes within a limited time.
Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do hereby make proclamation and command said turbulent and disorderly persons to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within five days from this date, and hereafter to submit themselves to the laws and constituted authorities of said State; and I invoke the aid and cooperation of all good citizens thereof to uphold law and preserve the public peace.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of September, A.D. 1874, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-ninth.
U.S. GRANT.
By the President:
HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State.
Treaty No. 4 was signed between the Cree and Saulteaux and the Crown in Canada.
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An attempted racist coup took place in New Orleans by the Crescent City White League . 5,000 members of the white Confederate veterans militia fought the racially integrated New Orleans Metropolitan Police and state militia in what became known as the Battle of Liberty Place.
After three days of fighting pending intervention by Federal troops caused the white rats to withdraw.
Being in the U.S. Army during these days must have been really something else. Reconstruction duty in the South, Indian Wars in the West.
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Scouts William Dixon, Amos Chapman and soldiers Sergeant Z. T. Woodall, Co. I; Peter Rath, Co. A; John Harrington, Co. H.; George W. Smith, Co. M, 6th Cavalry fought some of the Kiowa and Comanche from the Lyman fight that encountered them on their way to rejoin their families on the Washita.
The troops Dixon brought for relief were engaged in a battle that day as well, at the Sweetwater Creek and Dry Force of the Washita River. The encounter between the 8th Cavalry and the Native Americans was brief and two Native Americans were killed and six wounded.
Dixon would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions in retrieving a wounded soldier during the fight, and going for help. It'd later be revoked given as he was a civilian, but subsequently restored. He'd go on to marry in the early 1890s and have seven children. He made his home in those years near Adobe Walls, the site of his most famous battle. He died in 1913.
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Cheyennes lead by Chief Medicine Water attacked John German and his family, which had camped on the stagecoach route on the Smoke Hill River in Kansas.
German, his wife Liddia, son Stephen, and daughters Rebecca Jane and Joanna Cleveland were killed. Daughters Catherine Elizabeth, 17 years of age, Sophia Louisa, 12 years of age, Julia Arminda, 7 years of age, and Nancy Addie, 5 years of age were taken captive.
Julia and Nancy were traded to Grey Beard's band and liberated on November 8, 1874 in an Army raid. Catherine and Sophia were released in March 1874 when Chief Stone Calf and most of the Southern Cheyenne surrendered at Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas.
All four girls married eventually and remained in Kansas.
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The Battle of the Upper Washita River commenced on this day in 1874 when a supply train lead by Cpt. Wyllys Lyman was attacked by Comanches and Kiowas. The battle would last for five days during which a scout was dispatched for relief.
Pvt. Thomas Kelly, Company H, 5th U.S. Infantry, was awarded the Medal of Honor. His citation reads:
Gallantry in action.
Kelly was, predictably, Irish, having been born in May in 1836. He must have been a career soldiers as he was almost 40 years old, and still a private, not unusual for the time. He lived until 1919 and died at age 83, at Leavenworth, Kansas, which was likely his last duty station. He married Rose Kelly at some point.
One of the Wild Geese.
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The Black Hills Expedition returned to Ft. Abraham Lincoln after covering nearly 1,200 miles over lasting sixty days.
The Sixth Cavalry and Fifth Infantry under the command of Colonel Nelson A. Miles attacked a large group of Southern Cheyenne near the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River in Texas in what became the day long Battle of Red River.. Though armed with Gatling guns and a 10-pounder Parrott rifle, the Cheyenne were able to hold them the Army long enough to escape up Tule Canyon into the Staked Plains.
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A mob of white men broke into the Gibson County, Tennessee Jail, in Treton and lynched sixteen black prisoners.
They had been accused of shooting two white men.
The following day the Mayor of Trenton ordered the firearms of all of Trenton's black residents confiscated, under pain of death, a clearly unconstitutional action.
Things like this, and the event of the day prior, help demonstrate the value of the Second Amendment.
The National Rifle Association, fwiw, was formed just three years prior, but at that time principally engaged in promoting marksmanship.
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