Saturday, July 6, 1974. Live from Lake Wobegon.

Minnesota Public Radio broadcast the first episode of A Prairie Home Companion. It had an audience of only twelve.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 29, 1974. Art and politics.

Labels: 1970s, 1974, Argentina, Art, British Empire, Colonialism, Dancing, Diplomacy, French Empire, Mexico, New Hebrides, Richard Nixon

Thursday, July 6, 1944. Advances on Eastern Front, Halted on Western Front, Tragedy in Connecticut, Racism at Camp Hood.

Admiral Horthy ordered a halt to the deportation of Hungarian Jews, clearly seeing which way the war was going.  Hungary had not supported this policy initially, but upon being invaded by the Germans early in 1944 Jewish deportation commenced.

The Red Army took Kovel and Svir.

The Polish 3d Division took Osemo, Italy.

The U.S. Army took Namber airfield on Numfoor.

Allied progress was generally halted in Normandy.

De Gaulle arrived in Washington for talks on his administration and forces. Bretton Woods, of course, the boozy conference on post-war economics, was rolling on at the same time.

The tragic Hartford Circus Fire resulted in 167 deaths and 700 injuries in Hartford, Connecticut.  Up to 7,000 people when the tent caught fire, with the cause never being determined.

U. S. Army Lieutenant Jackie Robinson, stationed at Camp Hood, Texas, was instructed to move to a seat farther back in the back of an Army bus and refused, resulting in his court-martialed.  Army buses were not segregated.

Robinson had originally been an enlisted cavalryman who had been sent to OCS, and was now a cavalry officer serving in an armor unit.  His commander, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the prosecution whereupon he was transferred to another unit and then charged with multiple offenses, including public drunkenness even though Robinson did not drink.  He was tried in August 1944, and acquitted.

The delay caused by the trial prevented him from going overseas with his unit.  He was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, and served as an army athletics coach before being discharged in November 1944.

Council of war, Saipan, July 6, 1944.

Last edition:

Wednesday July 5, 1944. Third Army in Normandy.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of the Atlantic, boats and ships, Canadian Army, George S. Patton, German Kriegsmarine, Operation Overlord, Operation Windsor, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Sunday, July 6, 1924 Plutarco Elias Calles elected.

Plutarco Elias Calles of the Partido Laborista Mexicano won Mexico's presidential election with 84.1% of the vote.  Before the emergence of the PRI, which Calles founded, it was the labor party, a democratic socialist party, was the most powerful party in Mexico.

That Mexico, which had just endured a violent attempt at overthrowing the government, was able to successfully stage an election was a triumph of democracy, albeit a temporary one as the PRI would later lock the country up into being a one party state with the PRI as the official party.

Calles was a left wing figure who had come up as a general in the Mexican War.  A controversial figure, he's admired by some for his work on social and institutional changes in Mexico, and an attempt, albeit only partially successful, to reform a military then dominated by revolutionary generals who were a threat to the government itself.  His administration, however, attacked the Church which lead to the January 1, 1927 Catholic rebellion known as the Cristero War, arguably the last chapter of the Mexican Revolution, in which 200,000 Mexicans died and would ultimately bring about the reelection of Alvaro Obregón in 1928.  He was exiled to the United States in 1936 but returned in 1941 when the PRI was firmly in power.  By that time, closer to death, he had become a spiritualist.

The Johnstown Meteor fell to earth in Colorado and interrupted a nearby funeral.  It's only one of eleven such events that have been witnessed.

Johnstown is famous today for the Buc-ee's located there.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 5, 1924. Hitting a concrete wall.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Olympics, Art, baseball, Brazil, France, Germany, J. C. Leyendecker

Thursday, July 6, 1899 Ordered home.

Today In Wyoming's History: July 6: 1899  The Wyoming Battalion received its orders in the Philippines to return to the U.S. Attribution:  On This Day.

Kansas state infantry, February 1899.

They were undoubtedly mighty glad to receive them as well.

The Philippine Insurrection is all but forgotten by 99% of Americans. Those who do remember it have some particular connection with it or are students of history.

They Wyoming Battalion was a battalion of infantry augmented by a battery of artillery.  The infantry was drawn from volunteers from Buffalo, Douglas, Sheridan and Evanston, commanded by Maj. Frank M. Foote of Evanston.  The artillery came from Cheyenne.  They had volunteered for action in Cuba, not the Philippines, but the U.S. Army was so small, there was no way to exploit the Navy's defeat of the Spanish Navy in the Far East other than through using volunteer troops who had not been committed to Cuba.  During their service the unit suffered high causalities, losing 3 men in combat, 12 died of disease, and 75 men became unfit for service due to wounds, illnesses and injuries. As with the remainder of the U.S. Army during the Spanish American War, many more soldiers from Wyoming died of disease and illness caused by poor sanitation and diet and inadequate medical care, and from numerous tropical diseases, than were ever felled by a foe’s bullet.

Coming before the Dick Act, these units fit into an odd category between the Regular Army, which they were not part of, and existing state militia units, which they were also not part of.  State raised, they are regarded as National Guard units today, which makes sense in that their history more closely aligns with the National Guard, and the Guard found itself doing recruiting to fill out its ranks for the Punitive Expedition, World War One, and even in the lead up to World War Two.

The Philippine Insurrection, indeed the US presence in the Philippines in general, was controversial from the onset. A strong anti-colonial impulse in the US, natural for a nation which had once been a foreign colony, had operated against going to war with Spain in the first place, as members of Congress feared that Cuba would be annexed to the US as a colony.  Preventing that from occurring had been a condition of the declaration of war, but other Spanish possessions had been omitted as they were completely out of mind.  To naval strategists, including the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, striking at Spanish possession is the Pacific and Far East made perfect sense, but to most Americans it simply wasn't something that was likely to occur. As a result of this, nothing had addressed Spain's Far Eastern territories.

Given this, the war was not universally popular from the start. The use of state troops contributed to that, as the troops had not enlisted for service in a colonial enterprise.  To address some of this, the Army, now freed of combat in Cuba, began to replace state units with regular troops.  This did not address all the problems, however, particularly as the Army began to increasingly resort to harsh measures, giving rise to atrocities.  The war was officially declared over on July 4, 1902, although in reality it continued on at least until 1915.

A good argument can be made that the Spanish American War as the US's first modern war.  It came about rapidly and haphazardly, like many wars following it did.  The long range implications of the war were not foreseen, including that the war would give rise to a long, unexpected war following it.  The initial war was popular, but as the implications of it lingered on, the war succeeding it was not.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 1, 1899. "Birth" of Indiana Jones.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, Movies, Movies In History

Blog Mirror: WPR Politics Quiz: July 5, 2024

I scored 100%

WPR Politics Quiz: July 5, 2024

Wednesday July 5, 1944. Third Army in Normandy.

The Third Army's headquarters, George S. Patton in commanded, landed in Normandy.

It lacked troops for active operations, but those were coming. The decoy role Patton had played was over.

The US 7th Corps was experiencing mass casualties for very little ground while fighting towards Périers and La-Haye-du-Puits.  The 90th Infantry Division took Saint-Jores.

Canadian troops took the rest of the airport at Carpiquet, concluding Operation Windsor.

U-233 after being rammed by the USS Thomas.

The Allies sank the U-233, U-390 and the U-586.  The USS Skate sank the Japanese destroyer Usugumo.

Tuesday, July 4, 1944. Independence Day.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of Numfoor, Battle of Vuosalmi, Canadian Army, Continuation War, Finnish Army, Operation Bagration, Operation Overlord, Operation Windsor, Paratroopers, Red Army, Saipan, World War Two

Saturday, July 5, 1924. Hitting a concrete wall.

Babe Ruth hit a wall during a game in Washington D.C. and was knocked out.

The opening ceremonies of the 1924 Olympics were held in France.

Germany was absent from the games as it had not been invited.

A revolution, which would ultimately fail, broke out in Brazil.

Last edition:

Friday, July 4, 1924. Hail Caesar

Labels: 1920s, 1924, actors and actresses, Calvin Coolidge, Election of 1924, Food, Mexico, Politics, Progressive Party

Sunday, July 5, 1874. The Battle of Liberty Place.

The Democratic-Conservative White League, a terrorist organization made up of Confederate veterans, attacked the racially integrated Republican Metropolitan Police and the state militia in New Orleans.  The police were defeated and the White League held the city for three days before Federal troops intervened.

Former Confederate general James Longstreet was taken captive by the White League when he tried to intervene to restore order.  Following Federal intervention the Democrats walked out of the legislature and Louisiana effectively had two legislatures claiming control of the state until 1877.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 4, 1874. The Bates Battle.

Labels: 1870s, 1874, Army, Blog Mirror, cavalry, Frontier Wyoming, Indian Wars, Native Americans, Shoshone people, The Bates Battle, The Frontier West, Wyoming

Tuesday, July 4, 1944. Independence Day.

"Marine Private First Class Raymond Hubert, shakes a three-day accumulation of sand from his boondocker."  Saipan, July 4, 1944.

The U.S. Army in Normandy celebrated Independence Day with a massive, timed artillery barrage.  Progress in the hedgerow country, however, is slow, and US casualties were becoming severe.

The Canadian Army commenced Operation Windsor, designed to take Carpiquet, which by the end of the day, they did, save for the airfield.

The Red Army took Polotsk.

The Soviets commenced the Battle of Vuosalmi against Finnish positions, which they were having difficulty with.

A second parachute drop was made at Numfoor and took Kornasoren airfield with heavy casualties.

US Task Force 58 attacked Guam, Chichi Jima and Iwo Jima from the air.

The I-10 was sunk east of Saipan by the USS David W. Taylor and USS Riddle.

Last edition:

Monday, July 3, 1944. Airborne at Numfoor, Red Army in Minsk.

Labels: 1940s, 1941, 1944, Battle of Imphal, Battle of Numfoor, Clean Wehrmacht Myth, French Army, Operation Bagration, Operation Barbarossa, Paratroopers, Personalities, The roles of men and women, World War Two

Friday, July 4, 1924. Hail Caesar

Caesar Cardini, Italian restaurateur living in Tijuana, Mexico, created the first Caesar Salad in response to being unprepared for the huge number of booze seeking American tourists/border crossers in his restaurant for the July 4, weekend.

A new Progressive Party, unrelated to the one that collapsed a decade prior, nominated Robert M. LaFollette as its Presidential candidate.

It was President Coolidge's birthday.

Actress Eva Marie Saint was born.

She is living still.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 3, 1924. Linking electricity.

Labels: 1920s, 1921, 1924, 1940, 1940s, Army, Citizens Military Training Camps, Electrical Power, Herbert Hoover, Military, panoramic, technology

Saturday, July 4, 1874. The Bates Battle.

Today In Wyoming's History: July 4:1874  The Bates Battle, July 4, 1874

We were fortunately recently to be able to tour one of Wyoming's little known battlefields recently, thanks due to the local landowner who controls the road access letting us on.  We very much appreciate their generosity in letting us do so.

Our Jeep, which should have some clever nickname, but which does not.  Wrecked twice, and reassembled both times, it gets us where we want to go.  But we only go so far. We stopped after awhile and walked in.

The battlefield is the Bates Battlefield, which is on the National Registry of Historic landmarks, but which is little viewed. There's nothing there to tell you that you are at a battlefield. There are no markers or the like, like there is at Little Big Horn.  You have to have researched the area before you arrive, to know what happened on July 4, 1874, when the battle was fought.  And even at that, accounts are confusing.

Fortunately for the researcher, a really good write up of what is known was done when Historic Site status was applied for. Rather than try to rewrite what was put in that work, we're going to post it here.  So we start with the background.

And on to the confusion in the accounts, which we'd note is common even for the best known of Indian battles.  Indeed, maybe all of them.

The text goes on to note that the Arapaho raided into country that what was withing the recently established Shoshone Reservation, which we know as the Wind River Indian Reservation.  It also notes that this was because territories which the various tribes regarded as their own were fluid, and it suggest that a culture of raiding also played a potential part in that. In any event, the Shoshone found their reservation domains raided by other tribes.  Complaints from the Shoshone lead, respectively, to Camp Augur and Camp Brown being established, where are respectively near the modern towns of Lander and Ft. Washakie (which Camp Brown was renamed).

The immediate cause of the raid was the presence of Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, and Sioux parties in the area in June and July 1874 that had an apparent intent to raid onto the Reservation.  Ironically, the Arapaho, who were involved in this battle, had separated themselves from the Cheyenne and the Sioux and had no apparent intent to participate in any such raids. They thereafter placed themselves in the Nowood River area.  Indian bands were known to be in the area that summer, and they were outside of those areas designated to them by the treaties of 1868.

Given this, Cpt. Alfred E. Bates, at Camp Brown, had sent scouts, including Shoshone scouts, into the field that summer to attempt to locate the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho bands.  On June 29, Shoshone scouts reported at Camp Brown that they'd sited an Arapaho village.  We here pick back up from the text:

The expedition took to the field on July 1, 1874, and remarkably, it traveled at night.

A few days later, they found what they were looking for.

Let's take a look at some of what Bates was seeing:

This is the valley which was below the ridge that Bates was traveling up, the night he found the Arapaho village when he passed it by.  It's not clear to me if he backtracked all the way back past this point and came back up this valley, or if he came from another direction.  Based upon the description, I suspect he rode all the way back and came up from this direction, but from the high ground, not down here in the valley.

Here's the spot that Bates referenced as being the area where two ravines joined.  Not surprisingly, in this wet year, the spot is fairly wet.  But to add to that, this area features a spring, known today, and probably dating back to the events of this battle, as Dead Indian Springs.  The "gentle slope" from which Cpt. Bates made his survey, is in the background.

And here we look up that second ravine, with its current denizens in view.

And here we see the prominent bluff opposite of where Cpt. Bates reconnoitered.  It was prominent indeed.

Bates chose to attack down the slope of the hill he was on, described above, with thirty troopers and twenty Shoshones.  At the same time, Lt. Young, meanwhile, attached down the valley from above it on the watercourse, in an apparent effort to cut the village off and achieve a flanking movement.

The slope down which Bates and his detail attacked, and the draw down which Young attacked.

The draw down which Young attacked.

The slope down which Bates attacked is depicted above.

The fighting was fierce and the Arapaho were surprised.  They put up a good account, however, and were even able to at least partially get mounted.  Chief Black Coal was wounded in the fighting and lost several fingers when shot while mounted.  The Arapaho defended the draw and the attack, quite frankly, rapidly lost the element of surprise and became a close quarters melee.

The slope down which Bates attacked.

The valley down which Young attacked.

High ground opposite from the slope down which Bates attacked.

Fairly quickly, the Arapaho began to execute the very move that Bates feared, and they retrated across the draw and started to move up the high ground opposite the direction that Bates had attacked from.  Young's flanking movement had failed.

The high ground.

The opposing bluff.

The opposing bluff.

Bates then withdrew.

Bates' command suffered four dead and five or six wounded, including Lt. Young.  His estimates for Arapaho losses were 25 Arapaho dead, but as he abandoned the field of battle, that can't be really verified.  Estimates for total Arapaho casualties were 10 to 125.  They definitely sustained some losses and, as noted, Chief Black Coal was wounded in the battle.

Bates was upset with the results of the engagement and placed the blame largely on the Shoshone, whom he felt were too noisy in the assault in the Indian fashion.  He also felt that they had not carried out his flanking instructions properly, although it was noted that the Shoshone interpreter had a hard time translating Bates English as he spoke so rapidly.  Adding to his problems, moreover, the soldiers fired nearly all 80 of their carried .45-70 rifle cartridges during the engagement and were not able to resupply during the battle as the mules were unable to bring ammunition up.  This meant that even if they had not disengaged for other reasons, they were at the point where a lock of ammunition would have hampered any further efforts on their part in any event (and of course they would have been attacking uphill).

After the battle the Arapaho returned to the Red Cloud Agency. Seeing how things were going after Little Big Horn, they came onto the Wind River Reservation in 1877 for the winter on what was supposed to be a temporary basis, and they remain there today.  They were hoping for their own reservation in Wyoming, but they never received it.  Black Coal went on the reservation with him, and portraits of him show him missing two fingers on his right hand.  His people soon served on the Reservation as its policemen.  He himself lived until 1893.

Alfred E. Bates, who had entered the Army as a private at the start of the Civil War at age 20.  Enlisting in the Michigan state forces, he soon attracted the attention of a politician who secured for him an enrollment at West Point, where he graduated in the Class of 1865. He missed service in the Civil War but soon went on to service on the plains. His name appears on two Wyoming geographic localities.  He rose to the rank of Major General and became Paymaster of the Army, dying in 1909 of a stroke.

[b]1874  The 2nd Cavalry engaged Sioux/Cheyenne at Bad Water.[/b]

Last edition:

Friday, July 3, 1874. Writing to Ft. Abraham Lincoln.

Labels: 1870s, 1874, Dakota Territory, Ft. Abraham Lincoln, George A. Custer, North Dakota, The Black Hills Expedition