One Gallant Rush

"all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State,... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." 


On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in the Confederate States of America. Not only did he free African Americans from slavery in the ten states still in rebellion, he also made it the goal of the Union to end slavery. This goal then allowed African Americans to serve in the Union Army, and Massachusetts Governor John Andrew took advantage of this. 

Photo: civilwar.org

On March 13, Andrew authorized the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. It was one of the first official African American regiments in the Union and he had Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a fellow Bostonian, command the regiment. Prior to assuming command of the 54th Mass, Shaw had enlisted in the 7th New York Militia and then the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, with whom he fought in the Battle of Antietam, on September 17, 1862. 

Photo: pbs.org

The 54th was sent south to South Carolina where there was little action. They fell under the command of James Montgomery, whose leadership style did not sit well with Shaw. Montgomery was in command of a regiment made up of runaway slaves and he encouraged them to loot and burn Confederate towns in the style of guerrilla warfare. Shaw disagreed with this and felt that his regiment could take on better assignments. In a letter to Brigadier General George C. Strong, Shaw informed the Brigadier General that he thought it "important that the colored soldiers should be associated as much as possible with white troops, in order that they may have witnesses besides their own officers to what they are capable of doing."

Photo: newenglandhistoricalsociety.com

On July 8, Shaw received orders to have his men ready to leave in an hour. Shaw and his men were carried north on the Chasseur to aid in the attack of Fort Wagner, a fort that guarded the entrance to the port of Charleston, South Carolina. On July 18, a second attack of Fort Wagner began and this time, unlike the first attack, the 54th Massachusetts regiment would be in the fight. The plan to attack the fort was a frontal assault, due to the location of the fort between the ocean and the port. Strong offered Shaw the opportunity to lead the column to attack Wagner. 

Photo: civilwar.org

Before he sent the 54th, Strong asked the regiment who would carry the National flag if the standard bearer fell. Shaw calmly responded that he would and his men cheered. Shaw gave the order to march and the regiment advanced on the fort until they were 200 yards away. At that point, the fort opened fire but Shaw and his men continued their forward charge with Shaw in the lead. Shaw made it up the side of the Fort where his men saw him hit by cannon fire; he then crumpled into the fort.

Despite their efforts, Fort Wagner was not taken by the Union Army in that assault. Shaw was buried by Confederate soldiers in a mass grave with the dead of the 54th Massachusetts. When there were efforts to recover his body, Shaw's parents refused and said the burial was fitting: that Shaw would want to be laid to rest with his men. 

Photo: loc.gov

This past Saturday was the 152nd anniversary of the Second Battle of Fort Wagner where Shaw and the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts proved that African Americans could serve their country valiantly in the military. 

Photo: Monica Grabowska

Cosmic Date

On Tuesday, NASA's New Horizon arrived at Pluto after a nine year journey. The small space probe was launched on January 19, 2006 when Pluto was still classified as a planet. The mysterious body at the edge of our universe was discovered in 1930 by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. In 1929, Tombaugh was hired by Lowell Observatory where he was tasked with searching for "Planet X," a planet that was thought to be beyond Neptune because of its gravitational effect on Uranus and Neptune. On February 18, 1930, the planet was ruled as having been discovered and was named Pluto, for the Roman underworld god who could turn himself invisible. 

Photo: NASA, New Horizons

The Pluto flyby occurred on the 50th anniversary of the Mars flyby. A flyby is classified as a spacecraft passing by an object in space without landing or going into orbit. Mariner 4 was launched on November 28, 1964 and performed its Mars flyby on July 14, 1965. On that date, Earth saw the first images of the surface of Mars and confirmed that Mars was not inhabited by lifeforms like humans.

Photo: NASA, Mariner 4, Martian surface

As New Horizons leaves Pluto, it will continue into the Kuiper Belt and will observe Kuiper Belt objects, if they are within the vicinity of the satellite. As the spacecraft travels farther and farther from Earth, its flight trajectory will no longer be able to be altered, limiting what it can observe. When it was discovered that Pluto is actually a Kuiper Belt Object, it was declassified from a planet down to Dwarf Planet status. Within the Kuiper Belt, Pluto is the largest object. 

Photo: nature.com

Battle of Monocacy

In 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant was putting pressure on the Confederacy by laying siege to Richmond. In order to draw the Union troops away, Confederate General Jubal Early and his men quietly made their way up the Shenandoah Valley until he reached Harpers Ferry, where his plan was discovered.

Photo: nps.gov (Jubal Early)

B&O Railroad President John Garrett heard reports from his men that there were attacks on the railroad in the west by Confederates. Attacks on the railroad were typical but this attack was larger and an indicator to Garrett that the Confederates were moving toward Washington, DC. The city was not prepared for a large scale attack because most of the troops protecting the capital city had been sent south to help with the siege of Richmond. Thus, it was the perfect time for Early to strike. But he was not counting on being halted.

Photo: nps.gov (John Garrett)

Major General Lew Wallace heeded the warning that Garrett brought him but was unsure as to whether the Confederates would attack Washington or Baltimore. Monocacy Junction was selected as the best location to defend: it would protect crucial railroad bridges, and Wallace figured it was the best place to defend both cities. Wallace had fewer than 7000 men to halt more than 14,000 Confederate troops.

Photo: nps.gov (Lew Wallace)

On July 9, the Battle of Monocacy began. Early sent cavalry around to attack the left flank of the Union troops while an artillery battle took place at the center of the line. The Union continued to fight throughout the day despite being vastly outnumbered. Fierce hand-to-hand combat ensued and the Union forces sustained heavy losses. By the afternoon, the Union troops could no longer hold their ground and they retreated. The road to Washington was clear for the Confederates but, weary from the trek and the rigors of the battle, they camped at Monocacy Junction for the night.

Photo: civilwar.org

The next day, July 10, 1864, they would move on to Washington, DC, which they thought to be sparsely defended. Little did they know that the delay at Monocacy had allowed time for Union troops to return to the capital where they were waiting for an attack. 

Another reason to celebrate the 4th of July

On July 4, 1867,  Stephen T. Mather was born to Joseph Mather and Bertha Walker in San Francisco, CA. For his childhood and education the family remained in California but eventually moved to New York, where both Mather and his father worked for the Pacific Coast Borax Company. Along with his friend Robert Yard, Mather developed an aggressive but effective marketing campaign but in 1903, Mather suffered an episode of bipolar disorder and left his job with the Pacific Coast Company. Instead, he went into business with a friend and they developed their own borax company from which they both became millionaires. 

Photo: nps.gov (Stephen Mather)

In 1904, he and his wife traveled to Europe where he discovered his love of nature and his wife discovered a treatment for his bipolar disorder. His experience in Europe drove him to become a conservationist and to befriend John Muir. He quickly became involved in the Sierra Club and the Boone and Crocket Club and spent time exploring National Parks. It was while he was in the parks that he noticed the deterioration of the protected lands. The Army was in charge of protecting the parks but they did not have legal authority and were vastly outnumbered by the tourists. Mather wrote a letter to Secretary of Interior Franklin Lane complaining about the state of the parks. 

Photo: nps.gov

Lane received Mather's letter and it gave him pause. The myth is that he and Mather had been classmates at the University of California together and that's why he responded to the letter but in reality, Lane was enrolled at the school after Mather had graduated. Instead, Lane recognized the name because Mather had been a reporter for the New York Sun and had then gone on to become a millionaire as a businessman thanks to his advertising campaign for borax. Lane needed someone to be in charge of the National Parks and with Mather's track record he seemed the perfect fit, so Lane wrote a response: 

"Dear Steve, if you don't like how the national parks are being run, come on down to Washington and run them yourself."

Photo: loc.gov (Franklin Lane)

Mather agreed to do so, but intended to work for just one year because he believed it would take only that much time to fix the system. In that year, Mather and Horace Albright campaigned to have an official service in charge of the National Parks. Their efforts resulted in the National Park Service Organic Act that President Woodrow Wilson signed into law on August 25, 1916. While Mather had agreed to work for the National Parks for a year, he continued to work for the newly created Park Service as its first Director until 1929. 

Photo: nps.gov