AUGUST 25– 1777 General Washington begins assigning codenames to his spy ring; 1876 Southern Brigadiers wave the bloody shirt at a parade in Charlston; ; 1986 Mark McGwuire hits 1st HR; 1950 Sugar Ray Robinson wins boxing middleweight title; 2016 Mochi wins award for longest dog tongue
AUGUST 25
1864 –The Second Battle of Ream’s Station. Winfield S. Hancock v Ambrose P Hill and Henry Heth. The result: Confederate Victory.
The Yankees just had a victory at Globe Tavern a few days prior, and were able to cut off the Weldon Railroad at Petersburg to sever Rebel supply lines. Not a big deal for the Confederates; they simply had to carry their supplies 30 miles south by wagon. So Union Gen. Grant wanted to sever the lines further south, so he dispatched Hancock and his men, who by the way just fought the Second Deep Bottom Campaign a week prior. Now these men were exhausted and heat stricken. So Grant also sent off David Gregg’s cavalry division to meet Hancock’s. Hancock had the Second Corps, considered one of the best in the Army of the Potomac who were famous for defeating Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg!
On August 24, Gregg and the II Corps moved south along the Weldon Railroad, destroying the tracks as they went. But Gen. Robert E. Lee put a stop to that around Ream’s Station, where the Union had a vulnerability. On the 23rd of August, Hancock’s other division, led by Gen. John Gibbon, had occupied Ream’s Station and quickly built sloppy U shaped earthworks that were not only too short but also had a narrow, almost deathtrap like opening, making close combat difficult. . On the 25th, around 2p.m., Gens. A.P. Hill and Wade Hampton went on the attack. Once Heth showed up, Hill’s entire infantry was freed up, and broke through Gibbon’s line, and the Federals retreated, suffering about 2700 casualties to the Confederates 700 or so.
The old Second Corps was shattered. Hancock withdrew to the main Union line near the Jerusalem Plank Road, blaming Gibbons and the unreliable combat effectiveness of his troops.
1777 — American spy ring of the Revolution begins assigning code names.
General George Washington used covert warfare to fool the British in similar ways as Bugs Bunny used to fool Elmer Fudd. Wascely Wabbit. It was the only hope Washington had since there was no way his army of undisciplined ragtags could mount a successful insurrection against the world’s mightiest army at the time.
British occupied New York was a very dangerous place for spies in 1777.What was once a very patriotic city during the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was now turned Loyalist as the citizens of New York wouldn’t dare show a hint of patriotism.
The British soldiers took up room and board wherever they pleased, and the owner of the dwelling would have no choice to put up with it. This made the ladies of the house very uncomfortable, as rape by British soldiers, although officially denied, were noted in examples, such as a letter from a British cavalier solder to the 10th Earl of Huntington dated August 5, 1776, “A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being vanished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don’t hear them with the proper resignation , and of consequence we have most entertaining court-martial every day.”
Washington’s first attempt at espionage during the war turned out to be a dismal failure as Nathan Hale was instantly caught by the redcoats and executed. Realizing that he’d need a network of spies who were loyal to the patriot cause and not the profit while at the same time skillful enough to pull off being a spy was no easy task. But Major Benjamin Tallmadge organized the ring.
The rest of the ring: Robert Townsend, General Abraham Woodhull, Austin Roe, Anna Strong, and Caleb Brewster would all get their codenames in due time. It would be on this day when Abraham Woodhull met with Major Tallmadge and began their plan. Tallmadge would be codenamed John Bolton, a name that wasn’t too flashy and not too common so that an innocent bystander with the same name wouldn’t be in danger from the redcoats.
For Woodhull, his name was a little more fitting. Tallmadge had lost his brother Samuel already in the war, so the named Samuel was selected, followed by the last name chosen after a town in Suffolk County named Culpepper, which were George Washington’s boyhood stomping grounds and areas of early work as a land surveyor.
`Culpepper was shortened to Culper, and the Spy Chief, codenamed Samuel Culper, began organizing his ring.
1877 – Happy birthday Joshua Lionel Cowell. He invented the toy train. Choo Choo! He also invented the flash lamp, which was an early form of a camera’s flash bulb.
1876 — Southern brigadiers wave the bloody shirt at a Democratic parade in Charleston, SC.
Wearing a red shirt would symbolize the southern Democrats resistance to the Republican party. Waving the bloody shirt was a popular phrase during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period that mocked northern Republicans who wanted revenge for the blood spilled by the South.
It was on this night in 1876 when red shirts The Red Shirts were a muscle group of white supremacists that that was an extension of southern Democrats who terrorized former African American slaves and their white allies. They weren’t the only military faction of the Democratic party; the White League. was another precursor Ku Klux Klan group who killed anywhere between 60-150 African American soldiers at the Colfax Massacre on Easter Sunday, April 13 1873 in Colfax Louisiana.
Both the Red Shirts and the White League would use intimidation at the voting polls, which would be used as successful tactics in the 1872 Louisiana election for governor, which led to the Colfax Massacre, as well as the 1876 presidential election with Rutherford Hayes versus Samuel J. Tilden.
They would use violence to keep African Americans from voting, and sometimes would actually print a picture of Abraham Lincoln and put it on their candidate’s name to trick illiterate voters. Both the Red Shirts and the White League would merge into the Ku Klux Klan.
1939 – The Wizard of Oz debuts. There’s no place like home. It’s the story of a farm girl from Kansas who befriends a scarecrow, tin man and lion. She was actually having a really bad acid trip and grabbed some hay, a tin can and a cat and went on a journey. Seriously, Dorothy in reality had real OCD, obsessive compulsive disease, how do I know? Because because because because! At first I couldn’t remember her dog’s name, but then I put the two and to together. So in the movie the tin man got a heart an d the scarecrow got a brain. Guess what organ the lion got to get his courage. Ok, now I’m done with the lame Oz jokes.
1950 – Truman orders army to seize control of railroads. President Harry Truman had already gotten involved in a previous railroad union dispute two years previous when the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railway Company threatened to go on strike. Back in those days, we obviously didn’t have Amazon or FedEx to deliver goods. We had 194 railroad systems and needed them all.
Especially now America was at war with Korea. Give Em Hell Harry wasn’t playing around. In July he set up a board negotiate a settlement between the railroad unions and owners, but it fell through and on the 25th of August, a strike appeared inevitable. Truman said publicly that the railroads are essential as America’s primary means of transportation and it must continue. According to deadpresidentsblog.com, Secretary of the army Karl Bendetsen telegraphed the union president and rail companies and asked if labor and management would work under army control. They agreed and the labor unions called off their strike.
1950 – Sugar Ray Robinson Kos Jose Basora to win middleweight boxing title.
2016 — Mochi wins the longest tongue on a dog award.
Now, we’ve all seen Scooby Doo, macking on a two foot sandwich, licking up every last bite, and even the camera lens.
Though no species on Earth can compare to the 20 incher of the giraffe, just long enough to excite even some of my ex-girlfriends, the Mochi tongue remains the longest among dogs.
This might lead to the question why do dogs lick their testicles. The answer of course, is because they’re going to lick your face right after that, and they don’t discriminate. Mochi, the fluffy St. Bernard from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has a tongue 7.3 inches. For the record, Mochi, the love of Carla and Craig Rickert, would not be able to beat the original 1 foot 5 inch licker from Brandy back in 2002. Brandy the boxer, the tongue champion of John Scheid in St. Claire ShoresMich.
1835 – The New York Sun begins the great moon hoax. The articles were intended to be satirical and became incredibly popular. Sir John Herschel, possibly the best known astronomers of his time, was credited fort seeing all sorts of fu things on the moon, such as unicorns, two legged beavers and large man-bats. The Sun ran publications from 1833 all the way up to 1950.
1986 – A’s Mark McGwire hits his first major league home run.