October 16, 1859

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite an insurrection and destroy the institution of slavery.

Born in Connecticut in 1800 and raised in Ohio, Brown came from a staunchly Calvinist and antislavery family. He spent much of his life failing at a variety of businesses--he declared bankruptcy at age 42 and had more than 20 lawsuits filed against him. In 1837, his life changed irrevocably when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland, during which he was so moved that he publicly announced his dedication to destroying the institution of slavery. As early as 1848 he was formulating a plan to incite an insurrection, and he shared the idea with Frederick Douglass.

In the 1850s, Brown traveled to Kansas with five of his sons to fight against the proslavery forces in the contest over that territory. On May 21, 1856, proslavery men raided the abolitionist town of Lawrence, and Brown personally sought revenge. On May 25, Brown and his sons attacked three cabins along Pottawatomie Creek. They killed five men with broad swords and triggered a summer of guerilla warfare in the troubled territory. One of Brown's sons was killed in the fighting.

By 1857, Brown returned to the East and began raising money to carry out his vision of a mass uprising of slaves. He secured the backing of six prominent abolitionists, known as the "Secret Six," and he assembled an invasion force. His "army" grew to include 22 men, including five black men and three of Brown's sons. The group rented a Maryland farm near Harpers Ferry and prepared for the assault.

Although Brown spent years dreaming of the raid, he apparently put little thought into the specifics of its execution. He made no attempt to notify the slaves that he hoped would join him, and he had little idea what to do with the armory he planned to capture. On the night of October 16, Brown and his band overran the arsenal. Some of his men rounded up a handful of hostages, including a few slaves. Word of the raid spread, and by morning Brown and his men were surrounded. A company of U.S. marines arrived on October 17, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart. On the morning of October 19, the soldiers overran Brown and his survivors. Ten of his men were killed, including two of his sons.

The wounded Brown was tried by the state of Virginia for treason and murder, and he was found guilty on November 2. He went to the gallows on December 2, 1859. Before his execution, he handed his guard a slip of paper that read, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." It was a prophetic statement. Although the raid failed, it inflamed sectional tensions and raised the stakes for the 1860 presidential election. Brown's raid helped make any further accommodation between North and South nearly impossible and thus became an important impetus of the Civil War.


Wednesday Oct. 16 1861
CONFEDERATE CORPS CONSTRUCTION CAUSES CONFUSION

Jefferson Davis was learning, on the job, the perils of creating a new government, new institutions, and particularly a new army from scratch. The Confederate States of America essentially had no army as a nation, just whatever troops were volunteered by the governors of the several states. Furthermore the men themselves were quite insistent that they remain under the command of men from their own state, and if possible stay in their state’s borders. This made it very hard to create a coherent corps structure to defend the nation as a whole. Volunteers from Kentucky who had come to fight for the South requested to return home now that fighting was occurring there, and were very irate when Davis refused them.



Thursday Oct. 16 1862
RECONNAISSANCE RUNS RESULT IN RUMBLES

Gen. George McClellan, often criticized for inaction, did launch activities of a sort today. One of the reasons for his reluctance to take on major campaigns was uncertainty as to the size, strength and location of his opponents. In hopes of rectifying this lack, he ordered two reconnaissance parties to leave today. One, departing from Sharpsburg, Maryland, had orders to travel to Smithfield in western Virginia and investigate what was to be found. Another group left from Harper’s Ferry, at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, to venture to Charles Town, also in western Virginia, an area which was heavily Union in sympathy but still officially a part of the Confederacy.



Friday Oct. 16 1863
TAHOMA TRIES TRICKY TAMPA TACTIC

The name of Semmes is prominent in the Naval records of the Civil War, but today’s actions feature a different Semmes, and in a different Navy. The rumor was afoot that two Confederate blockade-runners, the Scottish Chief and the Kate Dale, were getting ready to sail from the Hillsborough River. Admiral Bailey, hearing this, sent two ships to intercept. The gunboats USS Tahoma, Lt. Commander Alexander A. Semmes, and USS Adela, commanded by Acting Lt. Louis N. Stodder, went forth to intercept. They used the unusual tactic of sailing to an obscure little village called Tampa, and shelled the town and fort there. After this distraction was accomplished they sent landing parties ashore to go overland to lurk at the river and wait for the dawn to attack.



Sunday Oct. 16 1864
GUNFIRE GREETS GEORGIA GAPS

The progress of the campaign by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman from Atlanta to the Sea was running in reverse today. His opponent, Gen. John Bell Hood CSA, had had no luck for weeks in attacking the front of the advancing army, being flanked and outmaneuvered and in danger of being cut off at every place where he tried to make a stand. Finally he was trying a different tactic, cutting Sherman off from his bases and sources of supply. There was very nearly a secondary war in the mountains of Georgia and Tennessee as Hood applied as much pressure as he could to Sherman’s rear. Skirmishing occurred at Ship’s Gap in North Georgia and Bull’s Gap in southeastern Tennessee.

Nice Job as always Dave. Oct. 16 Big day...Raid on Harpper's Ferrey. One of the many sparks that set the stage for the States rebellion in years to come.

Eric G.

Here's another good one, not CW though:

October 16, 1934

The Long March
The embattled Chinese Communists break through Nationalist enemy lines and begin an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China. Known as Ch'ang Cheng--the "Long March"--the retreat lasted 368 days and covered 6,000 miles, nearly twice the distance from New York to San Francisco.

Civil war in China between the Nationalists and the Communists broke out in 1927. In 1931, Communist leader Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the newly established Soviet Republic of China, based in Kiangsi province in the southwest. Between 1930 and 1934, the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek launched a series of five encirclement campaigns against the Soviet Republic. Under the leadership of Mao, the Communists employed guerrilla tactics to resist successfully the first four campaigns, but in the fifth, Chiang raised 700,000 troops and built fortifications around the Communist positions. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were killed or died of starvation in the siege, and Mao was removed as chairman by the Communist Central Committee. The new Communist leadership employed more conventional warfare tactics, and its Red Army was decimated.

With defeat imminent, the Communists decided to break out of the encirclement at its weakest points. The Long March began at 5:00 p.m. on October 16, 1934. Secrecy and rear-guard actions confused the Nationalists, and it was several weeks before they realized that the main body of the Red Army had fled. The retreating force initially consisted of 86,000 troops, 15,000 personnel, and 35 women. Weapons and supplies were borne on men's backs or in horse-drawn carts, and the line of marchers stretched for 50 miles. The Communists generally marched at night, and when the enemy was not near, a long column of torches could be seen snaking over valleys and hills into the distance.

The first disaster came in November, when Nationalist forces blocked the Communists' route across the Hsiang River. It took a week for the Communists to break through the fortifications and cost them 50,000 men--more than half their number. After that debacle, Mao steadily regained his influence, and in January he was again made chairman during a meeting of the party leaders in the captured city of Tsuni. Mao changed strategy, breaking his force into several columns that would take varying paths to confuse the enemy. There would be no more direct assaults on enemy positions. And the destination would now be Shensi Province, in the far northwest, where the Communists hoped to fight the Japanese invaders and earn the respect of China's masses.

After enduring starvation, aerial bombardment, and almost daily skirmishes with Nationalist forces, Mao halted his columns at the foot of the Great Wall of China on October 20, 1935. Waiting for them were five machine-gun- and red-flag-bearing horsemen. "Welcome, Chairman Mao," one said. "We represent the Provincial Soviet of Northern Shensi. We have been waiting for you anxiously. All that we have is at your disposal!" The Long March was over.

The Communist marchers crossed 24 rivers and 18 mountain ranges, mostly snow-capped. Only 4,000 troops completed the journey. The majority of those who did not perished. It was the longest continuous march in the history of warfare and marked the emergence of Mao Zedong as the undisputed leader of the Chinese Communists. Learning of the Communists' heroism and determination in the Long March, thousands of young Chinese traveled to Shensi to enlist in Mao's Red Army. After fighting the Japanese for a decade, the Chinese Civil War resumed in 1945. Four years later, the Nationalists were defeated, and Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China. He served as chairman until his death in 1976.

Man that's is great stuff. I never read that in the history books growing up. That distance blows my mind. Just the records of how they did that as well as kept supplies would be great for any military to study. That would make a good movie.

Eric G.