JUNE 13 — 1786 Happy Birthday Ol’ Fuss and Feathers Winfield Scott; 1937 MLB, DiMaggio hits three consecutive homers; 2008 Happy Divorsary Bill Murrey/Jennifer Buter; 1777 Lafayette arrives in South Carolina; 1849 Haslett patents gasmask
JUNE 13
1786 – Happy birthday Winfield Scott!
A.K.A. Ol’ Fuss n feathers and the Grand Old Man of the Army, Scott served in the War of 1812, the Mexican American War, headed the Cherokee Removal or the Trail of Tears as it was called, and aided President Lincoln during the Civil War.
His father fought in the American Revolution for the Dinwiddle County militia in near Petersburg, VA, and he was named after his maternal grandmother Elizabeth Winfield. A lifelong military man, Scott was commissioned captain in 1808, and beginning with the War of 1812, he successfully turned around armies of undisciplined ragtag and turned them into fighting soldiers. His efforts paid off in the Battles of Chippewa, and Lundy’s Lane, making him a national hero. He was promoted to major general after the war.
In 1821, Scott wrote General Regulations for the Army, which became a go-to manual of standards for every infantry soldier. He studied tactics of armies in Europe and modeled his own after them.
However much of Scott’s legacy would be tarnished by his treatment of Native American Indians, as he engaged the Cherokee in Georgia in 1832, and commanded Federal troops in the Second Seminole and Creek War in 1836? His legacy would also show that he captured or killed thousands of Cherokee in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia during the Trail of Tears.
During the Mexican-American War in 1846, Scott would reinforce General Zach Taylor’s army, and along with Captain Robert E. Lee they would capture city after city after city until he got all the way to Mexico City, thus decisively ending it in an American victory. He was promoted Lt. General, and earned the nickname Ol’ Fuss and Feathers because when it came to discipline and military formalities he was not playing around.
By the early 1850s the issue of slavery was beginning to come to a head and dominated politics. Winfield Scott, a member of the Whig party, ran for president but lost to Franklin Pierce in 1852, which I get into on my June 5th Ep. Since the outbreak of the Civil War, Scott suggested using his Anaconda Plan which utilized rivers to trap and squeeze the life out of the Confederate Army. Though his plan was initially mocked, it would be later successfully used, which I get into on my June 13th ep.
The Grand Old Man of the Army became too old to serve, and he retired. He died at the age of 79 in New York at, where else, West Point. H
appy Birthday Winfield
1971 – Pentagon papers damage credibility of Cold War policy.
…It showed America that the US government had been lying for years about the Vietnam War. The papers were discovered and released by Daniel Ellsberg, and first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of the New York Times in 1971.
The papers demonstrated that the LBJ administration wasn’t only lying to the people; it was lying to Congress as well. More specifically, the papers revealed that the US had secretly enlarged the scale of the Vietnam War with the bombings of nearby Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which were reported in the mainstream press.
For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was charged with conspiracy, espionage and theft of government property, but the charges were later dropped after prosecutors investigating the Watergate Scandal soon discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg.
The Pentagon Papers showed people the true extent to which the government had manipulated and lied to them. Some examples included documents of the Kennedy administration openly encouraging and participating in the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963; that the CIA believed that the domino theory did not actually appl6y to Asia, and that the heavy American bombing of North Vietnam, contrary to US government pronouncements about its success, was having absolutely no impact on the communists will to continue the fight.
1849 – Lewis Haslett patents the gasmask.
…Ancient Greeks used a sponge. In the 9th century a rudimentary form of the gas mask was made in present day Iraq. Prussian miners made another on in 1799, but Haslett from Louisville KY came up with a device that contained elements that allowed breathing through a nose and mouthpiece, inhalation of air through a bulb-shaped filter, and a vent to exhale air back into the atmosphere.
1923 – Harry H Houdini frees himself
…from a straight jacket while suspended upside down, 40 above ground in NYC. That’s a good way to stop traffic. It took him two minutes and thirty seven seconds. There’s a film in the library of congress showing Houdini perform the escape.
1937 – Joe DiMaggio hits three consecutive HRs
…against St. Louis Browns
2008 – Happy divorsary Bill NMu8rray and costume designer Jennifer Buter. The divorce was due to abuse and infidelity after 10 years of marriage.
1777- Lafayette arrives in South Carolina.
…On June 13, 1777, this 19-year old French aristocrat, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Tyves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette arrives in South Carolina with the intent to serve as General George Washington’s second-in-command.
In addition to fighting in the American Revolution Lafayette helped shape France’s political structure before and after the French Revolution. The Marquis de Lafayette was born on September 6, 1757, in Chavaniac, France.
During the American Revolution, Lafayette served the Continental Army with distinction, providing tactical leadership while securing vital resources from France. Lafayette fled his home country during the French Revolution, but the Hero of Two Worlds regained prominence as a statesman before his death on May 20, 1834.