Know Southern History

The Dark and Bloody Ground – Today In Southern History

Other Years:

1618 – Thomas West, the third Baron de La Mar, and English Governor of Virginia colony died.
1776 – Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress a resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence.
1862 – In New Orleans, Louisiana, William B. Mumford was hanged by order of U.S. General Benjamin “Beast” Butler for tearing down a U.S. flag flying over the New Orleans Mint.
1932 – More than 7,000 World War I veterans marched in Washington, DC demanding promised bonuses.
1998 – James Byrd, Jr. was dragged to death behind a pickup by three white men outside Jasper, Texas in a racially-motivated murder.

Other Years:

1799 – Patrick Henry died of stomach cancer, while at Red Hill plantation in Brookneal, Virginia.
1916 – Thomas Dixon, Jr.’s film The Fall of a Nation is released as a follow-up to D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a nation and becomes the first movie sequel. The film was mysteriously lost in the 1940’s and no known copies still exist.
1862 – The naval battle off Memphis, Tennessee.
1868 – After following their trail for 100 miles, troopers from the 3rd U.S. Cavalry out of Fort Sumner, New Mexico surprise a band of Navaho accused of killing settlers near the fort. Though the Indians are entrenched in a ravine, the troops kill 3, wound and capture 11, before the rest escape.
1966 – Civil rights activist James Lee Meredith was wounded by a sniper in Mississippi.

Other Years:

1794 – The U.S. Congress prohibited citizens from serving in any foreign armed forces.
1837 – The Republic of Texas incorporated the city of Houston.
1863 – The Confederate cruiser C.S.S. Alabama captured the northern ship Tailsman in mid-Atlantic.
1917 – The World War I draft registration began.
2001 – Tropical Storm Allison brought heavy rains as it made landfall on the upper-Texas coastline and flooded Houston, causing $5.5 billion in damage, making Allison the most expensive tropical storm in U.S. history.

Other Years:

1812 – Most of Louisiana Territory was officially renamed Missouri Territory.
1816 – The first double-decker steamboat, the Washington, was launched at Wheeling in western Virginia.
1862 – Confederate troops evacuated Fort Pillow, Tennessee to avoid encirclement by invading federal naval and land forces.
1939 – The first shopping cart was introduced by Sylvan Goldman in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
1985 – The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s “moment of silence” law saying that it was too similar to prayer in public schools.

Other Years:

1864 – Confederate defenders mowed down a doomed frontal assault by 12,000 of General Ulysses S. Grant’s invading federal troops at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia.
1861 – The C.S.S. Sumter was officially designated.
1539 – After being in Florida for only a few days, Spanish Conquistador Hernando de Soto became one of many to claim Florida for the King of Spain.
1833 – U.S. Secretary of War Lewis Cass directly ordered the United States Marshal’s office to remove white settlers from Creek land in Alabama.
1965 – Astronaut Ed White of Texas became the first Southerner and the first American to walk in space.