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Confederate General John Pemberton surrendered the city of Vicksburg MS and its 29 thousand defenders to Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant. This was the second Confederate General to surrender his army to Grant. Defeated, in battle at Gettysburg, by General George Meades Army of the Potomac; General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia begins its withdrawal from Pennsylvania. About one third of Lee's Army were casualties. Quite a 4th of July for the Union.

Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant accepts the surrender of Confederate General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Lee is the third Confederate General to surrender his army to Grant.

MY LAI

Confederate President Davis signs legislation authorizing the enlistment of slaves and free blacks into the Confederate Army

The last survivors of the German 6th Army surrender to Soviet forces in Stalingrad. Of the 91,000 German POWs, captured at Stalingrad, only 6,000 would live to see Germany again.

General William T. Sherman's sixty thousand soldiers, organized into six corps, began marching out of their camps around Savannah, GA, headed North. Like Georgia, they would make South Carolina howl.

in 1814 we took a little trip Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip' We took a little bacon and we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." Sherman had made good his promise to "make Georgia howl". The march to the sea is over.

State Rep. Mike Grieco, D-Miami Beach, wants lawmakers to eliminate legal holidays honoring the birthdays of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, along with a Confederate Memorial Day.

1941 In one of the defining moments in U.S. history, the Japanese attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet and nearby military airfields and installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and remove the U.S. Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empires southward expansion. The U.S. is brought into the World War II as a full combatant At the link are several stories of the actions of brave men in dire circumstances trying to save their ships and their shipmates during the attack.

Thousands of blue clad soldiers, around Atlanta GA, donned their knapsacks, shouldered their rifles and started marching East. Their objective, 250 miles away, was Savannah GA. General Sherman's March to the Sea was on.

1944 U.S. and Australian warships maul the advancing enemy with torpedoes and heavy guns during the Battle of Surigao Strait in the midst of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese lose battleships Fuso and Yamashiro, plus three destroyers. The Battle of Surigao Strait marks the end of an era in naval warfare -- it was the last engagement of a battle line. During the Battle off Samar in the midst of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, four Japanese battleships, eight cruisers and 11 destroyers surprise U.S. Navy Task Unit 77.4.3 consisting of six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four...

The Congress of the United States outlaws the flogging of sailors in the U.S. Navy.

The frigate, Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, engages HMS Serapis. During the battle, with his ship nearly destroyed, he refuses to surrender, shouting “ I have not yet begun to fight.” With assistance from the Continental frigate Alliance, John Paul Jones captures Serapis. Two days later, Bonhomme Richard sinks under the sea.

President Abraham Lincoln publically proclaims "That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free"

Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee attacks Union General William Rosecrans Army of the Cumberland near Chickamauga Creek in North West Georgia. By the end of the battle, over 30,000 men on both sides would be casualties. Chickamauga is the second most costly battle of the war, second only to Gettysburg.

more American blood is spilled than on any other single day in the history of our Nation. Antietam

Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn, The clustered spires of Frederick Stand, Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. Round about them orchards sweep, Apple and peach-tree deep, Fair as a garden of the Lord, To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, On that pleasant morn of the early fall When Lee marched over the Mountain wall, Over the mountains winding down, Horse and foot, into Fredrick town. Forty flags with their silver stars, Forty flags with their crimson bars, Flapped in the morning wind; the sun Of noon looked down, and saw...

1945: Shortly after take off, Captain William “Deak” Parsons USN climbs into the cramped and dimly lit bomb bay of the Enola Gay. There, he carefully inserts the fuze into the “Thin Man” atomic bomb. Several hours later, as mission commander, Captain Parsons will order pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets to commence his bomb run and drop the bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

1967 - On the flight deck of USS Forrestal (CVA 59), a Zuni 5 rocket accidentally fires from a (F 4B) Phantom II aircraft into a parked and armed (A 4E) Skyhawk, setting off a series of explosions that kill 134 of her crew and injure 161 crewmembers.