7 Events We Can’t Forget
Our history is every human history; a black and gory business, with more scoundrels than wise men at the lead, and more louts than both put together to cheer and follow.
~Philip Wylie
1863 – The South lost one of its boldest and most colorful generals when 39-year-old Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson died of pneumonia a week after his own troops accidentally fired on him during the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia.
Jackson was recognized as one of the most effective commanders in the Confederate army. Leading his force on one of the most brilliant campaigns in military history during the summer of 1862, Jackson marched around the Shenandoah Valley and held off three Union armies while providing relief for Confederates pinned down on the James Peninsula by George McClellan’s army. He later rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia for the Seven Days battles, and his leadership was stellar at Second Bull Run in August 1862. He soon became Gen. Robert E. Lee’s most trusted corps commander.
The Battle of Chancellorsville was Lee’s and Jackson’s shining moment. Despite the fact that they faced an army twice the size of theirs, Lee daringly split his force and sent Jackson around the Union flank – a move that resulted in perhaps the Army of the Potomac’s most stunning defeat of the war. When nightfall halted the attack, Jackson rode forward to reconnoiter the territory for another assault. But as he and his aides rode back to the lines, a group of Rebels opened fire. Jackson was hit three times, and a Southern bullet shattered his left arm, which had to be amputated the next day. Soon, pneumonia set in, and Jackson began to fade. He died, as he had wished, on the Sabbath, with these last words: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”
1865 – Jefferson Davis, president of the fallen Confederate government, was captured with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia, by a detachment of Union General James H. Wilson’s 4th Michigan cavalry.
Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia a month earlier effectively ended the Civil War but Davis hoped to flee to a sympathetic foreign nation such as Britain or France, and was weighing the merits of forming a government in exile when he was arrested.
Imprisoned for two years at Fort Monroe, Virginia, Davis was indicted for treason, but was never tried because the federal government feared that Davis would be able prove to a jury that the Southern secession of 1860 to 1861 had been legal. In May 1867, Davis was released, with several wealthy Northerners helping him pay for his freedom.
1869 – The presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met in Promontory, Utah, and drove a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connected their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history.
Railroad workers had finished the work, laying nearly 2,000 miles of track ahead of schedule and under budget. Journeys that had taken months by wagon train or weeks by boat now took only days. Their work had an immediate impact: The years following the construction of the railway were years of rapid growth and expansion for the United States, due in large part to the speed and ease of travel that the railroad provided.
1924 – J. Edgar Hoover was appointed first Director of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation, and remained so until his death in 1972.
According to President Harry S. Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force. Truman stated that “we want no Gestapo or secret police. The FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.”
1941 – Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler, flew to Great Britain in a Messerschmitt Bf 110, from which he landed by parachute in Scotland. He stated to the Home Guard and the Police that he was on a mission to see the Duke of Hamilton. That “special mission,” he claimed, was to open peace negotiations with the British. Hess had prepared extensive notes to use during this meeting, at which he spoke about Hitler’s expansionary plans and the need for Britain to let the Nazis have free rein in Europe, in exchange for being allowed to keep its overseas possessions.
Before his departure from Germany, Hess had given his adjutant, Karlheinz Pintsch, a letter addressed to Hitler that detailed his intentions to open peace negotiations with the British. Pintsch delivered the letter to Hitler on May 11. Hitler described Hess’s departure as one of the worst personal blows of his life, as he considered it a personal betrayal. He stripped Hess of all of his party and state offices, and secretly ordered him shot on sight if he ever returned to Germany.
1980 – United States Secretary of the Treasury G. William Miller announced the approval of nearly $1.5 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees for the nearly bankrupt Chrysler Corporation. At the time, it was the largest rescue package ever granted by the U.S. government to an American corporation.
The terms of the $1.5 billion in loans required Chrysler to raise another $2 billion on its own, which company president Lee Iacocca did by streamlining operations and persuading union leaders to accept some layoffs and wage cuts, among other measures. His high-profile personal leadership, combined with a focus on more fuel-efficient vehicles, steered Chrysler to one of the most famous corporate comebacks in recent history.
In 1984, a year after paying off its government loans ahead of schedule, the company posted record profits of some $2.4 billion. Twenty-five years later, however, plummeting sales and a deepening global financial crisis landed Chrysler in trouble again, and in early 2009 the company received another $4 billion in federal funds. Soon after, under pressure from President Barack Obama’s administration, Chrysler filed for federal bankruptcy protection and entered into a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat.
1994 – John Wayne Gacy, Jr., a serial killer and rapist who sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in Cook County, Illinois, died by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, IL.