April 2, 1870: Dying on this date just two months short of his 99^th birthday is Patrick Gass, the last living member of the famous exploration party led up the Missouri River by Lewis and Clark. When the expedition set out from Camp Dubois near St. Louis in 1804, Patrick Gass was a private, but on August 20 Sergeant Charles Floyd died, and on the 26^th the captains promoted Gass to be his replacement. From Lewis’ journal entry reporting this event comes the now well-known name of the expedition. He made Gass "sergeant in the corps of volunteers for North Western Discovery" – thus the name; The Corps of Discovery. After returning home, Sergeant Gass was the first to publish a journal of the expedition. He lost an eye in combat during the War of 1812, and then farmed, ran a ferry, hunted horses, and worked in a brewery. At age 60 he married 20-year-old Maria Hamilton, with whom he had seven children before she died of measles in 1849. He spent his later years living with his daughter Annie along the Ohio River, and “up until the very end, he was accustomed to walking the four miles to town…for the mail.” Being one of the first white men to see the grandeur of the American West, one cannot help but wonder of his memories as he walked along the river.

April 9, 1865 and April 9, 1942: Both of these dates mark the anniversary of a surrender of a major American army. The first is remembered as a sorrowful loss as well as a major victory and as an entrance into a new era, while the other is remembered as one of our nation's greatest military tragedies. On this day in 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his tattered, yet gallant, Army of Northern Virginia to the overpowering superiority of General Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac at the McLean home in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia. On this day in 1942, General Edward King surrendered his tattered, yet gallant, U.S. Army Forces of the Far East, a combined Philippine and American command, to the overpowering superiority of General Masaharu Homma's Fourteenth Imperial Japanese Army in the smoking malaria-infested jungle of Bataan, the Philippines. As General Lee readied himself for his meeting with Grant, he was quoted to say, "I would rather die a thousand deaths." General King, a scholar of Civil War history, recalled and shared that sad thought. Both Lee and King surrendered an army that for all intents was beyond the ability of offensive action. They surrendered to prevent a further useless slaughter of their soldiers. In Lee's case that proved true, as his surrender led to the surrender of other Confederate armies and resulted in the conclusion of the Civil War. In the case of General King, most of the approximately 98,000 souls, both military and civilian, whom he surrendered, did not survive to see the end of World War II.

April 23, 1734: We are familiar with the Revolutionary patriots who protested British taxation by dressing as Indians and throwing tea into Boston’s harbor. The Boston Tea Party, however, was not the only time patriots dressed as Indians to protest British rule. In the forests of northern New England grew giant white pine trees. The trees were straight and tall, often reaching 200 feet in height and seven feet in diameter. The British Royal Navy recognized the value of these monstrous trees as a perfect source for the masts of their ships. In 1691 England passed a law reserving these trees for their exclusive use, and an agent of the Royal Navy, the surveyor general, went through the woods marking the trees with an arrowhead-like mark. American loggers saw this as a threat to their livelihood, and cut the great trees anyway. In April 1734, David Dunbar, the surveyor general, was determined to raid a New Hampshire lumber mill in order to catch loggers cutting mast wood. Dunbar and his party of ten royal agents arrived in Exeter by boat, and took lodgings at Captain Samuel Gilman’s Inn on Water Street. They planned to move on the lumber mill the following day, but at around 10:00 pm, some 30 patriots dressed as “Natick Indians” stormed into the inn. The surprised agents were pummeled, kicked, thrown down stairs, and tossed out upper story windows. The Indians then disappeared into the night. Bruised and frightened, the agents fled to their boat only to discover the sails ripped and the bottom drilled with holes. Forty years later at the Battle of Bunker Hill, one of the flags that emboldened the patriot’s flew the symbol of a white pine tree.

MAY

May 2, 1813 (Approximate): During the War of 1812, future president, William Henry Harrison ordered the construction of Fort Meigs along the Maumee River to help protect the Ohio country from British invasion. Almost as soon as it was completed, 2000 British regulars supported by 1000 Indians led by Tecumseh, the Shawnee orator and war leader, assaulted Fort Meigs. The British dug artillery emplacements and started shelling the fort. The Americans recovered the fired British cannon balls and happily returned them via their own cannons. While this artillery duel ensued, finishing touches were put on the fort. As inside-the-wall wells were not yet complete, men had to bring water from the river, and as they did so Indian warriors shot at them with their muskets. Initially the Indian marksmanship was subject to joke for the range was some 600 yards. The distance seemed too far for any serious threat and responding was not worth the use of powder. Then things changed and the joking stopped. An Indian sharpshooter high in an elm tree got the range and began hitting fort defenders. A member of the Kentucky Detached Militia, a Private Elijah Kirk, requested permission to return fire. Officers insisted it was a waste of powder, but when another bullet struck a soldier, they changed their minds. Kirk found a solid rest for his long rifle and waited for the Indian to fire again. When he did, Kirk observed the smoke from the shot and fired. All eyes watched the elm tree. A moment later a rifle fell from the tree; then fell the Indian.

May 18, 1907: In 1905, Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt purchased 15 acres of rural land in Albemarle County, Virginia, as a presidential retreat. Amid the pine trees was a rustic, farm worker’s cottage, which she named “Pine Knot.” On this date, Edith and Theodore were in residence at Pine Knot, and he had brought along his binoculars for bird watching. To his surprise and very great pleasure, he identified about a dozen birds flying quickly to and fro in a tight formation. Unmistakable with pointed tails and brown-red breasts, it was the first time he had seen such birds in twenty-five years. They were passenger pigeons, a bird that was on the very edge of extinction. As an amateur naturalist, Theodore had collected and cataloged specimens as a boy, and had noted even at that time that the bird was becoming rare on Long Island. Once, the passenger pigeon had been one of the most abundant birds in the world. A single flock in 1832 had been estimated to contain more than two and a quarter billion birds. Migratory flights of the birds were spectacular, as observers reported that the huge flocks passing overhead darkened the sky. These flights often continued from morning until night and lasted for several days. Yet, such abundance was no match for man. At Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878, for example, 50,000 birds per day were killed and this rate continued for nearly five months. Twice more that day Theodore watched the passenger pigeons swoop over Pine Knot, but for the next few days he saw them no more. The last known passenger pigeon was “Martha,” (named for Martha Washington) at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden. She died in 1914, and was mounted in a case at the Smithsonian Institution. The following was the mounting’s notation:

MARTHA

Last of her species, died at 1 p.m.,
1 September 1914, age 29, in the
Cincinnati Zoological Garden.
EXTINCT

May 27, 2013: This day is Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor the nation’s war dead. At national cemeteries across the country, flags decorate soldier’s stones and veteran associations provide graveside services. But nowhere is the setting more profound than at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery across the river from Washington DC. The tomb’s inscription reads, “Here Rests In Honored Glory an American Soldier Known But to God.” Interred at the Tomb are the bodies of three unknown soldiers from World War I, World War II and the Korean War. There is a tomb for the Unknown of the Vietnam War, but in 1998 the remains of that veteran were removed, identified, and transferred to a location of family choice. (The remains were that of 1^st Lieutenant Michael John Blassie, a pilot shot down in 1972 near An Loc, South Vietnam.) The Tomb of the Unknown is the only American memorial that is guarded 24 hours of every day by a military honor guard. They are on duty even when the cemetery is closed, and recently when the Washington DC area was hit by the terrible hurricane, Sandy, they were on duty. Guarding the Tomb is not a chore, it is a sacred honor. The guard takes 21 steps as he passes the Tomb, and each pass takes 21 seconds reflecting an honorary 21-gun salute. Often on Memorial Day, the President of the United States representing a thankful America places a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown. President Ronald Reagan stated it was one of his greatest honors.

(Author’s Note: In 1997, this NAF member had the very great pleasure of watching his teenaged son, who with three others was representing Bakersfield, CA students, lay a wreath upon the Tomb of the Unknown. The Vietnam Unknown was interred there at that time.)

JUNE

June 3, 1941: How does your luck run? Well, just try the following incident on for size. On Tuesday, May 27, 1941, heavy units of the British Royal Navy sunk the German battleship Bismarck. As the British chased her across the Atlantic, she was slowed by a lucky hit made during an attack by Swordfish torpedo planes. The Swordfish was an antiquated cloth-covered biplane capable of only some 85 mph when loaded with a torpedo. On May 25, one of these Swordfish, which had been launched from a British aircraft carrier at maximum range, ran out of fuel and splashed into the Atlantic. Unbelievably, considering the vastness of the open sea, the Swordfish landed next to an empty but completely provisioned life-boat. For the next nine days the three-man crew bobbed about until on this date the boat was spotted by the Icelandic steamer Lagarfoss. In good health, the men were then transported to Reykjavik, Iceland.

June 14, 1846: California pioneer, John Bidwell, wrote: “Another man left at Sonoma was William L. Todd who painted, on a piece of brown cotton, a yard or so in length, with old red or brown paint that he happened to find, what he intended to be a representation of a grizzly bear. This was raised to the top of the staff, some seventy feet from the ground.” Thus, was described the raising on this date of the Bear Flag announcing the beginning of California’s “Bear Flag Revolt.” That flag, which had a red/brown star in the upper left corner, the representation of a grizzly bear in the upper middle, the words “California Republic” under the star and bear, and a red/brown bar at the bottom, was the forefather of today’s California State Flag, which was adopted by the state legislature in 1911. In 1846, the Bear Flag represented the American pioneer revolt against the rule of Mexico. The grizzly bear, many of which roamed the California countryside, embodied a tenacious and independent fighting spirit. The star recalled the same independent spirit shown a decade earlier in Texas. Sadly, the original Bear Flag painted by William Todd, was possessed by the Society of California Pioneers at the turn of the century in San Francisco, and was lost forever during the great earthquake and fire of 1906.

June 25, 1876: Three U.S. Army columns converge on the Montana Territory valley of the Little Big Horn River. Their intention is to trap and force back to the reservation certain tribes designated as “hostile” by the government. Unbeknownst to two of the columns, the column led by General George Crook has been attacked by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, defeated, and forced to retreat. Ordered by General Terry to scout in advance of their column, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s 7^th Cavalry approaches the Little Big Horn. On the morning of this day, Custer’s scouts warn him that within the valley of the Greasy Grass (the Native American name for the Big Horn River) there is a huge Indian encampment with “too many warriors.” Custer believes these reports to be exaggerated, but more than that, he fears the Indians will scatter before the military units can combine. He also believes his own column has been discovered. He, therefore, orders his tired troopers to attack directly, and in his battle plan he splits his command, an explanation of which he does not share with his officers. The results are fatal, and as the tragic news of the 7^th’s defeat filters out of Montana, it shocks the nation. Almost immediately controversy surrounds Custer virtually as thick as were the Indians – controversy that continues to this present day. In fact in today’s world of political correctness and historical revisionism some might say, “What’s all the fuss? Custer got what he deserved.” But, to truly understand history, one must put their feet in the moccasins (or cavalry boots) of those who walked before. It should be remembered that Custer was one of the most popular officers to serve in the Civil War. Through battlefield courage and audacity Custer became the youngest general in army history. Present at Lee’s surrender, Custer received as a gift for his role in the Union victory the table upon which Lee and Grant signed the surrender. Last, but certainly not least, the shock of his defeat was magnified because it disrupted “our grand republic’s” Centennial Celebration.