The “Apache” (cont.)

                                     TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY                                              TWO WEEKS LATER                                             THE “APACHE” (cont.) Two weeks had gone by since a captured Marine had suffered a grizzly death at the hands of the notorious female Viet Cong sniper and interrogator “the Apache” (see story Read More

Medill’s Wild-West Chase

                                               25 OCTOBER 1862                                     MEDILL’S WILD-WEST CHASE Acting RADM David Dixon Porter decried enemy guerrilla actions along the Mississippi during the Civil War.  From Mississippi Squadron headquarters in Cairo, Illinois, he wrote Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that commercial river traffic Read More

The JEANNETTE Expedition

                                      8 JULY 1879-23 MARCH 1882                                      THE JEANNETTE EXPEDITION One of the less well known but certainly invaluable activities of the US Navy has been meteorologic, oceanographic, and geographic research.  Naval expeditions have surveyed the world’s oceans, reached both Poles and explored Read More

The Seminole Wars

                                                11 AUGUST 1835                                            THE SEMINOLE WARS Florida’s aboriginal natives fell victim to European diseases and enslavement during two centuries of Spanish rule from the 1500s.  Their demise left a vacuum into which displaced northern tribes, runaway slaves, and American squatters filed.  Read More

Dark Day at Bull Run (cont.)

                                                   21 JULY 1861                                   DARK DAY AT BULL RUN (cont.) Exploding Union shrapnel ripped through the Henry house striking  udith Henry in the neck and flank and nearly amputating her foot.  Her daughter, Ellen, had taken refuge within the fireplace and was Read More

Dark Day at Bull Run

                                                   21 JULY 1861                                         DARK DAY AT BULL RUN North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Virginia had all seceded from the United States and established their capital in Richmond.  US Army installations in the disputed Read More

Washington Starts a War (cont.)

                                                   28 MAY 1754                               WASHINGTON STARTS A WAR (cont.) (Now) LTC George Washington had no authority to do what he was about to do.  There had been no declaration of war between France and England, nor did Washington’s orders require him to Read More

Washington Starts a War

                                                   28 MAY 1754                                     WASHINGTON STARTS A WAR We know it as the French and Indian War, in Europe it was the Seven Years War between England and France.  The war ignited in western Pennsylvania with control of North America as the Read More

1st Operational Sortie

                                                  25 APRIL 1914                                        1ST OPERATIONAL SORTIE Though the Navy and Marine Corps had been experimenting with the new-fangled flying machines of the early 20th century, their operational role was still being defined.  Aerial reconnaissance seemed a logical task, as such technology Read More

Capture of Roanoke Island

                                             7-8 FEBRUARY 1862                                   CAPTURE OF ROANOKE ISLAND Fortress Monroe, situated at the entrance to Hampton Roads, was one of three forts south of the Mason-Dixon Line that remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War.  Confederate lines of communication were thus Read More