Posted on 06/14/2018 9:39:47 AM PDT by fugazi
1775: Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress establishes the Continental Army. Ten rifle companies are formed: six from Pennsylvania, two from Maryland, and two from Virginia. The force is disbanded after the American Revolution, but in 1792, President George Washington forms the Legion of the United States the nations first professional fighting force renamed the United States Army in 1796.
1777: Congress formally declares the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the thirteen United States. The declaration resolves that it consists of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.
1863: Days after bragging that he could hold the town of Winchester (Va.) against a Confederate force of any size, Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroys garrison is surrounded and defeated by a corps led by Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell. The Rebels capture 4,000 Union troops, hundreds of wagons and horses, and 23 artillery pieces at the cost of only some 250 casualties in the Second Battle of Winchester.
1918: During a German artillery barrage of explosive and gas shells, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Fred W. Stockton gives his gas mask to a wounded comrade, exposing himself to the deadly agent. Stockton will die eight days later from gas exposure. 20 years later, his former lieutenant during the Battle of Belleau Wood (Clifton B. Cates, who will become the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps) and Barak Mattingly (the man Stockham saved), succeed in their efforts to award Stockham the Medal of Honor, and a destroyer is later named...
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“Why do the French have trees lining their streets?”
“So the Germans can march in the shade.”
The Continental Army was not completely disbanded. Alexander Hamilton’s Battery of Artillery remained on the establishment and for a short period was the entire U.S. Army. That’s why the U.S. Army birthday is 14 June 1775.
Hamilton’s Battery today is the 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment at Ft. Riley, Kansas. Their D Battery is called Alexander Hamilton’s Battery. The Legion of the United States still exists as the 3d Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard, and the 1st Infantry Regiment (Legionnaires). Happy birthday Army.
General Ewell’s Corp was marching North through the Shenandoah valley with the objective of crossing into Pennsylvania. His Corp was the first of the Army of Northern Virginia to reach Pennsylvania as part of Lee’s invasion of that Northern State
30,000 against 4,000. Not really a fight.
Think Ewell’s 2nd Corp was about 27,000 strong. Still, not really a fight.
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