Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign ended with another victory today at Port Republic, in Rockingham County Virginia. With a smaller force than the Federals he had marched from field to field, thwarting the Northern generals, McDowell, Banks and now Fremont. Lincoln and the Administration were in uproar and feared for the Capital.
Today, the 9th June 1862, Major General Thomas J Jackson, West Point professional and original leader of the now famous “Stonewall Brigade”(2,4,5, 27 and 33 Va Inf) commanded 7 Brigades of Infantry. All were Virginiians, many recruited from the very region on which they had been fighting, except a large Brigade of very fine Louisianans under Richard Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor.
As was usual with Jackson, he attacked the enemy and with his Stonewall Brigade, now commanded by Marylander Charles Winder, opened the battle. Finding things hard going Jackson had to throw in more troops. By day’s end he had pushed the smaller Notlrthern force back enough for their commander, John Fremont , to feel he had been beaten and withdraw.
As a consequence of this, yesterday’s Cross Keys battle and the campaign as a whole, Jackson was able to rejoin Lee’s large North Virginia army to help push the cautious Northern commander all the way from the gates of Richmond, which looked like falling to his enormous Northern army.
USMC born today, 1775.
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Today, 10th November 1775, the US Marine Corps was born. The Continental Congress authorised the creation of the Continental Marines, now the USMC.
The first to sign did so in Trenton, NJ and the first amphibious landing was an assault against the British in an island of the Bahamas. They were deactivated in 1783 at the end of the war, only to be reactivated in 1798.
They were to fight Barbary pirates, at Tripoli and in Mexico at Chapultepec. A contingent under Robert E. Lee captured John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. In 1898 260 Marines died when the USS Maine blew up in Havana starting the Spanish-American war. They also fought in WW1.
We know them best for their Island hopping in WW2. They were to suffer tens of thousands of casualties taking Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Okinawa and most famously, Iwo Jima.
The term snafu is meant to have originated in the USMC in WW2.
Their nickname :leatherneck, comes from the original standing collar worn in the 18th century.
Semper Fidelis is their motto. -
thank you for sharing ,I allways wonderd.
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