The FReeper Foxhole Remembers the Dahlgren Raid on Richmond(2/28 - 3/2/1864)

Purloined poison letters
Fake or real, they raised hell
Joseph L. Galloway

But for the consequences, Union Army Brig. Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick's poorly planned and badly executed raid on Richmond, Va., in the winter of 1864 would barely rate a footnote in anyone's history of the Civil War. A Moe, Larry, and Curly kind of caper, it failed utterly. Among those who paid the price was a dashing boy colonel, Ulric Dahlgren, and on the contents of his pockets would center a scandal and a mystery that endure to this day.

The raid on the capital of the Confederacy had been conceived by Kilpatrick–a commander so wanting in skill and luck his men nicknamed him "Kill-Cavalry." At the heart of the scheme was a plan to free more than 1,500 Union officers held prisoner in an old warehouse in Richmond, plus an additional 10,000 Union enlisted men jammed into a swampy prison camp on the ill-named Belle Isle in the James River. The plan was a long shot, but better than no shot at all. Pressured by daily tales of starving prisoners, President Abraham Lincoln personally authorized it.

Gen. Judson Kilpatrick

In late February 1864, Dahlgren, who had lost his right leg in a skirmish after the Battle of Gettysburg, asked for a job with Kilpatrick. He was 21 and the youngest Union colonel. The son of Rear Adm. John Dahlgren, a friend of President Lincoln, Ulric was made deputy to Kilpatrick and given command of one of two flying columns of cavalry. Dahlgren was charged with penetrating Richmond, freeing Union prisoners, and visiting chaos upon the city.

Richmond-bound.

On February 28, Kilpatrick led 3,600 Cavalry troopers across the Rapidan River riding south toward Richmond. The next day Dahlgren split off, taking 460 men wide to the west, aiming to cross the James River 25 miles above Richmond and push on to the city's lightly defended southern portals. Kilpatrick was to strike at the northern approaches while Dahlgren freed the prisoners.

Nothing went as planned. The James was too high from winter rains to cross at the chosen point. Continuing toward Richmond, now on the wrong side of the river, Dahlgren ran into Southern militiamen, who forced him to turn to the north. He tried to link up with Kilpatrick, who had reached Richmond's outer defenses. Kilpatrick fought a halfhearted skirmish until Confederate militia resistance stiffened. With that, "Kill-Cavalry" fled, abandoning Dahlgren to his fate.

Most of Dahlgren's men would ultimately reach Union lines, but in a freezing rain, the colonel and about 100 men were separated from the rest. On the night of March 2, the Confederates ambushed them. The first volley killed the young colonel.

Dahlgren with a group of staff officers at Army of the Potomac Headquarters near Falmouth VA, April 1863. Dahlgren is in the back row, third from left, wearing wide-brimmed hat.

The story should have ended there, but it didn't. A 13-year-old member of the Confederate home guard searched the body for valuables and found what would go down in history as the Dahlgren Papers–two folded documents and a pocket notebook. The lad turned his find over to his commander, Capt. Edward Halbach. At daylight on March 3, Halbach looked over the papers and was appalled. "We hope to release the prisoners from Belle Island first & having seen them fairly started we will cross the James River into Richmond, destroying the bridges after us & exhorting the released prisoners to destroy and burn the hateful City & do not allow the Rebel Leader Davis and his traitorous crew to escape."

An address to his troops on Cavalry Corps stationery was even more explicit: "The City it must be destroyed and Jeff. Davis and Cabinet killed."

Until this point, though terribly bloody, the Civil War had been a gentleman's affair, fought by gentlemen's rules, with flags of truce and gallant messages between opposing commanders. The Dahlgren papers seemed a wholesale violation. Richmond newspapers screamed the news of the North's barbarity: "The Last Raid of the Infernals!"

Some demanded the summary trial and execution of the captured raiders, but Gen. Robert E. Lee counseled against it. Instead, he ordered a set of photographs of the papers made and sent to Maj. Gen. George Meade, the Union commander. The papers, Meade told his wife, seemed a "pretty ugly piece of business." He ordered Kilpatrick to find out whether Dahlgren had issued the orders to his men. Kilpatrick said he had read Dahlgren's proposed address to his men and marked it in red ink as "approved." It read just as the newspapers had printed it–except it was missing his endorsement and the sentence exhorting the prisoners to burn Richmond and kill the Confederate leaders. "All this is false," declared Kilpatrick, who said the rebels must have doctored the papers.

Map of Belle Island Prison in the James River

But Meade was unsure of the truth. "I regret to say Kilpatrick's reputation, and collateral evidence in my possession, rather go against this theory," he wrote. In his diary for March 12, Union Provost Marshal Brig. Gen. Marsena Patrick recorded a conversation with a military intelligence officer who rode on the raid: "He thinks the papers are correct that were found upon Dahlgren, as they correspond with what D. told him."

Northern newspapers and Dahlgren's father declared the papers to be "a bare-faced atrocious forgery." The grieving Admiral Dahlgren seized upon a typographical error made by lithographers copying the documents as proof: They had misspelled Dahlgren's name as Dalhgren.

Rebellious papers.

Whatever the truth, the Dahlgren papers served as reason enough for the Confederate leaders to finally approve plans to whip up armed rebellion among Southern sympathizers in the North. They also encouraged a plot to bomb the White House and kill President Lincoln. The actor John Wilkes Booth was believed to have been part of that plot. When it failed, it is conjectured, Booth decided to take more direct action.

Belle Isle Prison

In November 1865, seven months after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, ordered Francis Lieber, the keeper of captured Confederate records, to turn over everything relating to the raid. Lieber gave Stanton the original papers and notebook found on Dahlgren's body, plus all relevant correspondence from the Confederate archives. Historian James O. Hall searched widely for the missing papers and finally tracked them to Stanton. "[S]uspicion lingers," Hall wrote, "that Stanton consigned them to the fireplace in his office."

No further trace of the original papers was found, and the argument over their authenticity still rages. Duane Schultz, in his 1998 book, The Dahlgren Affair: Terror and Conspiracy in the Civil War, says circumstantial evidence suggests that Confederates tampered with the Dahlgren papers and that no plan to kill rebel leaders was afoot. Historian Stephen Sears makes a strong case for the authenticity of the papers in recent articles in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History and in Columbiad. If the Dahlgren papers are authentic, it could be fairly argued that President Lincoln, by targeting his opposite number in Richmond, set in motion the events that would end with his own appointment with destiny at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865.

Kilpatrick's Raid On Richmond

Kilpatrick was obnoxious to those who did not find him simply silly, but like many people with an big head of steam he did have the virtues of being energetic, aggressive, and bold. In mid-February 1864, these qualities led him to go over the heads of the generals above him and make a proposal to high civilian officials of the Lincoln Administration.

Kilpatrick believed that the defenses of Richmond were poorly manned, with most of the troops in the front lines with Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. This meant that a strong force of cavalry moving fast might well be able to penetrate deep into the city, free Union prisoners, and incidentally distribute pamphlets describing Mr. Lincoln's December "Proclamation of Amnesty & Reconstruction" to encourage Confederates to return to the Union. The raiders would be able to return to Union lines before the Confederates were able to mobilize the strength to deal with them.

Lt. General Wade Hampton

Kilpatrick was telling the leadership what they wanted to hear. Both the President and Secretary of War Stanton liked the plan. Kilpatrick's immediate superior, Major General Alfred Pleasonton, was not so enthusiastic. Pleasonton was almost certainly annoyed at Kilpatrick's lobbying over his head, but there were other reasons to be unhappy with the scheme. Kilpatrick was full of fire and smoke and had no great instinct for careful planning and preparation. Military organizations can take spit and polish to foolish extremes, but Kilpatrick leaned more towards the other end of the spectrum. His troopers always seemed a little grimy and worse for wear, and things simply didn't happen crisply when he was involved. The whole scheme was a long shot, and the record of success of the Army of the Potomac in winning long shots was not very good, particularly when someone who was careless of details was in charge. Besides, anyone soldier with sense knew the idea that pamphlets might be able to sway Southerners after so many years of bitter war was a complete fantasy.

Still, it was hard to argue with trying to keep the faith with thousands of Union prisoners in Confederate hands. Pleasonton's objections were ignored and Kilpatrick put the wheels of his scheme into motion. He was given command of 4,000 cavalry, and printing offices began to churn out bundles of pamphlets.

As knowledge of the plan began to spread through the high command of the Army of the Potomac, annoyance spread along with it. General John Sedgwick, temporarily in command of the Army of the Potomac as Meade was elsewhere, protested in telegrams to the War Department. The only effect was that Sedgwick ended up on Secretary Stanton's blacklist. The generals finally had to resign themselves to the scheme. The entire force involved was not so great that even losing it all would do great harm, though any conscientious officer had to detest the wastage of men and horses due to overblown ego of a glory-hound cavalry brigadier. Meade went along, there being not much else he could do under the circumstances, arranging to perform a major demonstration to distract the rebels and improve the raid's chances for success.

* One of Kilpatrick's chief lieutenants in the coming raid was 21-year-old Ulric Dahlgren, son of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren. Ulric Dahlgren had joined the Union Army in 1862 at age 19, being given a captaincy and an appointment by Secretary Stanton to General Hooker's staff. This might have been favoritism, but the young Dahlgren proved to be a good soldier and an excellent cavalry officer, with an appealing combination of boldness and refined manners. He promised to go far and was quickly promoted, but his career seemed to have been ended when he was badly wounded during the cavalry skirmishing that surrounded the Battle of Gettysburg. His right leg was amputated.

After convalescing, he joined his father in the fleet besieging Charleston, and then returned to Washington DC to get his pegleg and a promotion to colonel. He heard about Kilpatrick's raid and was determined to sign up. Since it was clear Dahlgren could still ride and fight, Kilpatrick was glad to have him on board; in fact, Dahlgren was to play the key part in the raid. While Kilpatrick and the bulk of his cavalry distracted the Confederates, Dahlgren was to cross over the James, loop around south of Richmond with 500 troopers, and dash into the city to free the 15,000 Union prisoners in the main prison camp at Belle Isle.

* The plan went into motion on 28 February. Sedgwick moved his VI Corps upriver, and Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer took a cavalry brigade on a fast ride towards Charlottesville, in the shadow of the mountains to the West. Robert E. Lee went for the bait and moved to respond, and that evening Kilpatrick and his troopers went across the Rapidan downstream at Ely's Ford.

The next day, 29 February, Leap Year's Day, the raiders moved quickly. They were in good spirits, believing they had every prospect of success, and enjoyed fine weather. They supplemented their rations with poultry and other provisions stolen from Virginia farms, whose owners swore helplessly at the swarm of Yankees galloping over their property, and inflicted such destruction on Confederate resources as they could while in a hurry. Dahlgren's group moved ahead and out of contact with the bulk of the force.

That afternoon clouds rolled in and the weather turned nasty. By evening, the troopers were being pelted with freezing rain and the whole adventure didn't seem quite so jolly. They spent the night in the saddle, trying to keep on the move, but the Confederates were now aroused and the raiders had to deal with bushwhackers who shot at them out of the dark and then disappeared. A signals officer riding with the main body sent up rockets, but got no response from Dahlgren's party. This was no surprise given the foul weather, but it still did nothing to improve confidence. The main body slogged on into the gray and dreary dawn of 1 March. By midmorning they were outside the defenses of Richmond.

Kilpatrick found the defenses more formidable than expected and turned timid. He brought up six guns and sent skirmishers forward, but the more the Yankees pushed, the more they learned that they weren't going to simply march into Richmond unopposed. The defenses were strong and though they were being manned by Confederate War Department clerks and whoever else might be scraped up, these rebels were as full of fight as any of Lee's men. They were fighting from fixed positions and could do just fine as long as they followed orders and shot straight.

Dahlgren's people were supposed to be listening for the sound of guns and respond in kind, but Kilpatrick and his men heard nothing. When the sun finally went down after a day of idle skirmishing, Kilpatrick decided to withdraw, leading his men north of the Chickahominy to set up camp for the night. The men had no tents, and one of the participants said: "A more dreary, dismal night would be difficult to imagine, with rain, snow, sleet, mud, cold, and wet to the skin, rain and snow falling rapidly, the roads a puddle of mud, and the night as dark as pitch."

Sitting there freezing was obviously no good, and so Kilpatrick decided to organize his men for another try at Richmond. This was time-consuming, and while he was at it his group was attacked by regular Confederate cavalry under Wade Hampton, backed up by two artillery pieces. There was a bitter, confused fight in the darkness, with much swearing and the rebels calling out: "GIT, YOU DAMNED YANKEES!" The rebels were finally driven off, but with their location known the raiders obviously had to move on. They managed to find a more secure campsite after dawn on 2 March, and settled down to get some rest and, hopefully, get news of what had happened to Dahlgren and his men.

* Later that day, in the afternoon, about 260 of Dahlgren's men came riding into Kilpatrick's camp, with a story to tell. As they told it, Dahlgren's group had moved quickly and confidently at first, leaving destruction behind them, and then on 1 March reached the plantation of Confederate Secretary of War James A. Seddon. He wasn't there, but Mrs. Seddon was, and Dahlgren enjoyed playing the dashing cavalryman, enjoying a glass of blackberry wine with Mrs. Seddon and exchanging chitchat. She told him that she had once been courted by John A. Dahlgren, and then the young colonel told her that he had to be on his way.

This was the sort of chivalry that had been fashionable earlier in the war, before the bloodshed, looting, and burning had got so out of control, but Ulric Dahlgren was still very young and full of romantic illusions. Just how thin these illusions were was proven a short time later. Dahlgren's command had picked up a young slave boy named Martin Robinson, who said that he knew a place where the James might be forded. However, when the riders got there, the river was swollen from the rains and entirely impassable. Martin Robinson was just as surprised as the rest, but Dahlgren decided that the slave boy had deliberately deceived him. Dahlgren had him lynched on the spot from the branch of a tree. Some of Dahlgren's troopers went back to Secretary Seddon's plantation and burned his barns. So much for chivalry.

Such acts of spite might have done something to vent the frustrations of the cold and wet raiders, but it did nothing to improve their situation. They rode along the north bank of the river, unable to cross so they could enter Richmond from the south, and didn't make it to the outskirts of the city until evening. By this time, Kilpatrick had abandoned his attack, such as it was, and the Confederate defenses were fully alert. There was nothing for Dahlgren to do but admit failure and try to get his men away as best he could.

They rode north through the night, harassed by Confederates who would pop up, shoot at them, and then vanish again. During the night the party split in two, with about 200 men remaining with Dahlgren and the other 300 going off on their own. The 260 men who had stumbled into Kilpatrick's camp were the survivors of that 300.

* They had no idea of what had happened to Dahlgren. The whole raid was clearly a bust in any case, and so Kilpatrick led his men down the James Peninsula towards Union lines over the next few days. They arrived at Union lines to be cheered by black soldiers in Union blue. The muddy and miserable troopers arrived to find few accommodations for them and so they simply evicted the black troops from their comfortable tents and took their supplies.

A few stragglers came in later and managed to complete the story. Dahlgren and his band of 200 had made good time on 2 March, performing a daring crossing of the Mattapony River on scows while under fire, but that night they ran into an ambush by rebel cavalry, backed up by militia and armed locals. Dahlgren had tried to bluff his way out, brandishing a pistol and crying out: "Surrender, you damned rebels, or I'll shoot you!" Dahlgren was hit with four bullets simultaneously, dead before he hit the ground. The rest of his command was shot or captured, in some cases tracked down by bloodhounds, except for the few troopers who managed to escape the net to tell the story.

Additional Sources:

www.ehistory.com
www.usnews.com
www.vectorsite.net
www.sonofthesouth.net
www.bufordsboys.com
www.nps.gov
www.virginialighthorse.freeservers.com
scvcalifornia.net
historic.shcsc.k12.in.us
www.hernandoheritagemuseum.com
www.sonofthesouth.net
www.dixieprints.com
www.decisiongames.com
groups.msn.com
www.censusdiggins.com

That wasn't the end of the matter. Dahlgren's body was stripped of its clothes, his artificial leg was taken as a souvenir, and one of his fingers was cut off to allow removal of a ring. His body was displayed in Richmond in an open coffin as a public attraction. Worse, papers were produced that were said to have been removed from Dahlgren's pocket that detailed how the raiders intended not merely to set loose Union prisoners, but then lead them to murder Jefferson Davis and the Confederate cabinet and spread destruction through the helpless city.

The documents were published in Southern newspapers and there was widespread outrage. Braxton Bragg denounced the "fiendish and atrocious conduct" of the Yankees. Mr. Davis, in his usual cool was, was calmer about the matter, only chuckling when he read from one of the papers that "Davis and his cabinet must be killed on the spot." In a remark more characteristic of his adversary Mr. Lincoln than himself, Davis then turned to Judah Benjamin and said, calmly: "That means you, Mr. Benjamin."

Some of Mr. Davis's cabinet members didn't find it so funny. Secretary of War Seddon passed the papers on to Robert E. Lee, along with a suggestion that the Federals captured from the raid ought to be hanged. Lee, in his usual level-headed fashion, replied that there was reason to wonder if the papers had actually been written by the Federals or were a fabrication of some hotheaded Confederates; that no such atrocities had actually been committed; and that hanging the men would invite similar reprisals against Confederate in Union hands. The prisoners were spared the noose.

However, Lee's doubts about the validity of the papers cut both ways: they might be false, they might be true. He sent copies of the papers along with a message across the lines to General Meade asking the papers reflected Union policy. Meade replied emphatically that such actions had not been considered or authorized by himself, President Lincoln, or General Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick denied everything. Meade privately expressed concerns that the papers were perfectly valid. Although it would have been foolish of Dahlgren to carry such dangerously incriminating documents on a raid into enemy territory when there was no particular good reason to do so, people sometimes do foolish things; and more to the point, it was hard to say what a buffoon like Kilpatrick was capable of.

Custer's brigade had returned from its dash on Charlottesville on 1 March. They had kept handily out of reach of the Confederates and suffered few casualties, spreading destruction in their path and returning to Union lines with hundreds of captured horses and a horde of ex-slaves in their wake. There was much in Custer that was like Kilpatrick, and in fact Custer was at least as big a show-off and glory hound. The difference was that when push came to shove, Custer seemed to know what he was doing. No doubt some Federal officers wondered if things might have worked out better if Custer had gone to Richmond while Kilpatrick went off on a diversion, instead of the other way around.

* The final result of the entire exercise was a loud barking contest in the newspapers. The Confederate press railed against the destruction caused by the raiders and the mad schemes proposed in the papers supposedly taken from Dahlgren. A Richmond paper caustically observed that the most prominent casualty of the raid was Martin Robinson. Northern papers gloated over the damage caused and the dilapidation of the Southern countryside reported by the cavalrymen. As far as Martin Robinson was concerned, a rabid New York editor replied that the treacherous slave had received "a fate he so richly deserved."

A few details had to be tied up. Admiral Dahlgren wrote General Butler to ask him to pass a request across Confederate lines that Ulric Dahlgren's body be returned for a decent burial. The raiders also needed a little attention. They had suffered a little over 340 casualties and lost about a thousand horses, losses of no great significance in the larger scheme of things but painful in themselves.

The survivors were sent back up the Potomac by ship from Fortress Monroe, to rest and refit in Alexandria. They were refitted, but not granted the rest in Alexandria they had expected. The provost guard in Alexandria was staffed by black soldiers and when a Michigan trooper was told by one such soldier that riding in the town was forbidden, the cavalryman replied by drawing his sabre and killing the man. As punishment, the entire command was told to return to the front lines along the Rapidan immediately.

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

Actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

We here at Blue Stars For A Safe Return are working hard to honor all of our military, past and present, and their families. Inlcuding the veterans, and POW/MIA's. I feel that not enough is done to recognize the past efforts of the veterans, and remember those who have never been found.

I realized that our Veterans have no "official" seal, so we created one as part of that recognition. To see what it looks like and the Star that we have dedicated to you, the Veteran, please check out our site.

Veterans Wall of Honor

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UPDATED THROUGH APRIL 2004

The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

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Good Wednesday Morning Everyone.

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Here ya go, as promised! A ping to another great thread.

Sam, snippy, everyone....please welcome my new FRiend! :)

Thanks. Again. ;)

I have many favorites...........she says, with a sheepish grin.

Good morning, SAM, snippy.

A good many Union veterans settled in central Oklahoma during the Land Run, and some of the major boulevards of OKC tell the tale: there's "Sheridan" Avenue and the "Kilpatrick" Turnpike, as well as the suburb of "El Reno"--named for Union General Jesse Reno who fell during the battle Antietam.

Richland, Oklahoma is the most intriguing: it was homesteaded exclusively by Union Army veterans and their families, and is still going to this day.

Excellent article, as usual.

Good morning Snippy.

"It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow to fond of it."

"Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees."

Tiresome to see such a mess as Kilpatrick.

Good morning ALL

February 9, 2005

Fast Freeze

Read:
Deuteronomy 9:9-16

Go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have . . . quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. -Deuteronomy 9:12

Bible In One Year: Leviticus 1-4

cover Thanks to Internet technology, I can watch ice building up on Lake Michigan from my warm office 30 miles away. The changing angle of the sun's rays in winter chills the earth. Frigid temperatures turn surging water into rock-hard ice in a surprisingly short time. Witnessing this rapid transition reminds me of how quickly our hearts can turn cool toward God.

That happened to the ancient Israelites. After God miraculously rescued them from slavery, they became impatient when Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to meet God and didn't return according to their timetable. So they got together and created their own god (Exodus 32:1). The Lord told Moses to hurry back down the mountain because the people had so quickly turned away (Deuteronomy 9:12).

When situations don't unfold according to our timetable, we might assume that God has lost interest in us. When we no longer feel close to Him, our hearts may grow cold. But God is always with us. As the psalmist wrote, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?" (Psalm 139:7).

Even when God seems distant, He's not. His presence fills heaven and earth (vv.8-10). There's never a reason to let our hearts freeze over. -Julie Ackerman Link

Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all Thy quickening powers;
Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours. -Watts

The question is not where is God, but where isn't He?

FOR FURTHER STUDY
Questions Skeptics Ask About The God Of The Old Testament

G'morning everyone!

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-Gram.

by Staff Sgt. Bradley Rhen

January 26, 2005

Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, commander of Army Reserve Command, reenlists Staff Sgt. Darryn Dunn, from 556th Personnel Support Battalion, 25th Infantry Division and Sgt. Joshua Nelson, from 367th Engineer Battalion, 420th Engineer Brigade, III Corps, atop Radar Hill at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Afghanistan. This photo appeared on www.army.mil

Been there, done that, got the Time in Service size

Un-Civil War Bump for the Hump Day Edition of the Freeper Foxhole.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

Howdy to CampDoHa from the denizens of the Freeper Foxhole

Hi your self BG, how's the Termite doin these days, eh?

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

Good Morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on February 09:
1404 Constantine XI Dragases last Byzantine Emperor
1441 Ali Sjir Neva'i [Fani] Turkish poet/author (Mahbub al-kulub)
1602 Franciscus van de Enden Flemish Jesuit/free thinker/tutor of Spinoza
1744 Amos Bull composer
1772 Frans Mikael Franzén Finnish-Swedish poet (Abo)
1773 William Henry Harrison Virginia, (Whigs) 9th President (March 4-April 4, 1841)
1775 Farkas/Wolfgang Bolyai Hungary, mathematician (parallel axiom)
1814 Samuel Jones Tilden philanthropist for New York Public Library
1826 John Alexander Logan Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1886
1830 Abdül Aziz Istanbul Ottoman, 32nd sultan of Turkey (1861-76)
1846 Wilhelm Maybach German engineer, designer of 1st Mercedes
1865 Erich von Drygalski German Federal Republic, geographer/glaciologist/Antarctic explorer
1891 Ronald Colman England, 1947 Academy Award actor (Tale of 2 Cities)
1901 Brian Donlevy Portadown Ireland, actor (Barbary Coast, Glass Key, Wake Island, Dangerous Assignment)
1909 Dean Rusk US Secretary of State (1961-69)
1909 Carmen Miranda [Maria do Carmo Miranda Da Cunha] Marco de Canavezes Portugal, vocalist/actress (Copacabana, Date With Judy)
1914 Bill (Rhymes with Wreck) Veeck baseball club owner
1914 Ernest Tubb Texas, guitarist/singer (I'm Walking the Floor over You)
1928 Roger Mudd Washington DC, news anchor (CBS Weekend News, NBC Evening News)
1940 Smokey Robinson rocker (& Miracles-Tears of Clown)
1942 Carole King [Klein], Brooklyn NY, pianist/singer (Tapestry)
1943 Joe Pesci Newark NJ, actor (Goodfellas)
1944 Alice Walker US, novelist (Color Purple, Meridian)
1945 Mia (Maria) Farrow Los Angeles CA, actress (Rosemary's Baby, Purple Rose of Cairo)
1947 Joe Ely Amarillo TX, country vocalist (Honky Tonk Masquerade)
1954 Ulrich Walter German Federal Republic, cosmonaut
1960 Peggy A Whitson Mt Ayr IA, PhD/astronaut
1963 Travis Tritt Marietta GA, country vocalist (Country Club)
1965 Lennox Lewis London England, Super heavyweight boxer (Olympics-gold-1988)

Deaths which occurred on February 09:
1567 Henry Stuart earl of Darnley/Consort of Mary Queen of Scots, murdered
1583 Jeseph Sanalbo Jewish convert in Rome, burned at stake
1640 Murad IV sultan of Turkey (1623-40), dies in Baghdad at 27
1881 Feodor M Dostoevski Russian novelist (Crime & Punishment), dies at 59
1945 George J L Maduro resistance fighter (Madurodam), dies in Dachau
1961 Grigory Levenfish International chess grandmaster from Russia, dies at 70
1966 Sophie Tucker Russian/US singer/actress (My Yiddish Mama), dies at 79
1969 [George] Gabby Hayes actor (Albuquerque, Colorado), dies at 83
1973 Max Yasgur owner Woodstock-festival farmland, dies at 53
1977 Gaus an orangutan who lived to be 59
1977 Sergei Ilyushin Russian airplane builder (Ilyushin), dies at 82
1978 Kimberly Leach killed by Ted Bundy in Lake City FL at 12
1981 Bill Haley vocalist (Rock Around Clock), dies of heart attack at 55
1984 Yuri Andropov General Secretary of Soviet Communist Party (1982-84), dies at 69
1995 David Wayne [Wayne Mcmeekan], US actor (Dallas), dies at 81
1995 J William Fulbright (Senator-D-AR)/anti-Vietnam War, dies at 89
1996 Adolf Galland General (Luftwaffe), dies at 83
2002 Princess Margaret sister of Queen Elizabeth II of England, dies from a stroke at 71

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1965 MC LEAN JAMES H.---LOS ANGELES CA.
[CAPTURE CONFIRMED]
1969 MEYERS ROGER A.--- CHICAGO IL.
1973 BOYLES HOWARD
[04/73 REMAINS RECOVERED ID INDISPUT]
1973 CAVIL JACK W.
[04/01/73 REMAINS RECOVERED]

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
1267 Synod of Breslau orders Jews of Silesia to wear special caps
1540 The 1st recorded race met in England at Roodee Fields, Chester
1554 Battle at London Sir Thomas Wyatt defeated
1621 Alexander Ludovisi is elected Pope Gregory XV
1742 British ex-premier Walpole becomes earl of Orford
1744 Battle at Toulon (French/Spanish vs English fleet of Admiral Matthews)
1775 English Parliament declares Massachusetts colony is in rebellion
1799 USS Constellation captures French frigate Insurgente off Nevis, West Indies
1801 France & Austrian sign Peace of Lunéville
1825 House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams 6th US President
1861 Jefferson Davis & Alexander Stephens elected president & Vice President of CSA
1861 Tennessee votes against secession
1861 Confederate Provisional Congress declares all laws under the US Constitution were consistent with constitution of Confederate states
1863 Fire extinguisher patented by Alanson Crane
1864 109 Union prisoners escaped through a tunnel from the Confederate Libby Prison in Richmond, Va.
1867 Nebraska becomes 37th US state
1870 Grant signs the bill establishing Federal Meteorological Service
1885 1st Japanese arrive in Hawaii
1886 President Cleveland declares a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence
1891 1st shipment of asparagus arrives in San Francisco from Sacramento
1893 Canal builder De Lesseps & others sentenced to prison for fraud
1893 Verdi's opera "Falstaff" premieres in Milan
1895 1st intercollegiate basketball game (Minnesota Agricultural beats Hamline, 9-3)
1895 Volleyball invented by W G Morgan in Massachusetts
1900 Dwight Davis established a new tennis trophy, the Davis Cup
1904 Japan declares war on Russia
1906 Natal proclaims state of siege in Zulu uprising
1909 1st federal legislation prohibiting narcotics (opium)
1916 Britain's military service act enforced (conscription)
1918 Army chaplain school organized at Fort Monroe VA
1920 Joint Rules Commission bans foreign substances & alterations to baseballs
1923 Soviet Aeroflot airlines established
1925 Haifa Technion (Israel), opens
1925 German Minister Stresemann proposes security treaty with France
1926 Teaching theory of evolution forbidden in Atlanta GA schools
1932 America enter Olympics 2-man bobsled competition for 1st time
1932 US airship Columbia crashes during storm (Flushing NY)
1933 The Oxford Union, Oxford University's debating society, endorsed, 275-153, a motion stating "that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country,"
1933 -63ºF Moran WY (state record)
1934 -14.3ºF coldest day in New York City NY
1934 -51ºF Vanderbilt MI (state record)
1940 Joe Louis beats Arturo Godoy in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
1941 British troops conquer El Agheila
1941 Nazi collaborators destroy pro-Jewish café Alcazar Amsterdam (Alcazar refused to hang "No Entry for Jews" signs in front of cafe)
1942 Daylight Savings War Time goes into effect in US
1942 The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II
1942 Philadelphia "Phillies" change nickname (temporarily) to "Phils"
1943 Japanese evacuate Guadalcanal, epic battle ends
1943 FDR orders minimal 48 hour work week in war industry
1943 Nazis arrest Dutch sons of rich parents
1947 Bank robber Willie Sutton escapes jail in Philadelphia PA
1948 WLWT TV channel 5 in Cincinnati OH (NBC) begins broadcasting
1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy charges State Dept infested with 205 communists
1951 St Louis Browns sign pitcher Satchel Paige, 45(?)
1953 "The Adventures of Superman" TV series premieres in syndication
1955 US federations of trade unions merge into AFL/CIO
1956 -5ºF in Sicily
1963 1st flight of Boeing 727 jet
1963 7th largest snowfall in NYC history (16.7")
1964 1st appearance of Beatles on "Ed Sullivan Show" (73.7 million viewers)
1964 GI Joe character created
1966 Dow-Jones Index hits record 995 points
1969 World's largest airplane, Boeing 747, makes 1st commercial flight
1971 Apollo 14 returns to Earth
1971 Quake in San Fernando Valley kills 65 & causes over $½ billion damage
1971 Satchel Paige becomes 1st negro-league player elected to baseball HOF
1971 Probably 1st gay theme TV episode - All in the Family
1974 "The Americans (A Canadian's Opinion)" by Gordon Sinclair peaks at #24
1978 Ted Bundy kills Kimberly Leach, 12, Lake City FL; later executed
1979 ABC airs "Heroes of Rock N Roll" special
1986 Halley's Comet reaches 30th perihelion (closest approach to Sun)
1987 New York Stock Exchange installs ladies restroom in the Exchange Luncheon Club
1989 Michael Manley's Socialist Party wins Jamaica parliamentary election
1990 Galileo flies by Venus
1990 John Gotti (1940-2002) was acquitted of charges that he commissioned the Westies gang to shoot a union official in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. This earned him the nickname “The Teflon Don.”
1991 Voters in Lithuania vote for independence
1994 Israeli minister Shimon Perez signs accord with PLO's Arafat
1997 Fox cartoon series "Simpsons" airs 167th episode the longest-running animated series in cartoon history
1998 Failed assassination attempt on Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze
1999 In Iran the head of the intelligence ministry, Qorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, resigned along with 3 deputies due to last year's killings of dissident writers and politicians
2000 In Turkey Kurdish rebels of the PKK announced that they had given up their war and would press their cause "within the framework of peace and democracy."
2001 The US nuclear submarine Greeneville struck the Japanese fishing boat, Ehime Maru, near Oahu with 35 people on board including 13 students.
2002 In Algeria security forces killed Antar Zouabri, head of the Armed Islamic Group, and 2 other insurgents in Boufarik.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

US : Boy Scouts of America Anniversary Week (Day 2)
US : New Idea Week (Day 2)
Great American Pies Month

Religious Observances
Lebanon : St Maron Day
Methodist : Race Relations Sunday (2nd Sunday in February)
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Apollonia, deaconess/martyr
Old Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Cyril of Alexandria, bishop/confessor/doctor
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Miguel Febres Cordero, Ecuadoran monk
Saint Apollonia Feast Day

Religious History
1812 Pioneer missionary Samuel Newell married fellow Congregationalist Harriet Atwood. They afterward sailed for India with Adoniram and Ann Hasseltine Judson. (Harriet Newell and Ann Judson thereby became the first American women commissioned for missionary work abroad.)
1819 Birth of William True Sleeper, New England Congregational clergyman and author of the hymns "Jesus, I Come" and "Ye Must Be Born Again."
1839 Scottish clergyman Robert Murray McCheyne wrote in a letter: 'In spiritual things, this world is all wintertime so long as the Savior is away.'
1930 American pioneer linguist and missionary Frank Laubach wrote in a letter: 'The sense of being led by an unseen hand which takes mine, while another hand reaches ahead and prepares the way, grows upon me daily.'
1948 U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall prayed: 'We are tempted to despair of our world. Remind us, O Lord, that Thou hast been facing the same thing in all the world since time began.'

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate."

There's an old saying here thay your not a REAL Freeper until you've been flamed.. Sooooo...

I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel.

There. That's taken care of. Now you're a REAL Freeper.

(note: anytime you feel the need for more abuse remember I'm here for ya.)

Fast Freeze

Read:Deuteronomy 9:9-16

Go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have . . . quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. -Deuteronomy 9:12

Bible In One Year: Leviticus 1-4

Read:
Deuteronomy 9:9-16