Department of Alabama

Friday, October 27, 2006 at 07:36 AM

by alabama

1775 : King George III Speaks To Parliament Of American Rebellion

On this day in 1775, King George III speaks before both houses of the British Parliament to discuss growing concern about the rebellion in America, which he viewed as a traitorous action against himself and Great Britain. He began his speech by reading a "Proclamation of Rebellion" and urged Parliament to move quickly to end the revolt and bring order to the colonies.

The king spoke of his belief that "many of these unhappy people may still retain their loyalty, and may be too wise not to see the fatal consequence of this usurpation, and wish to resist it, yet the torrent of violence has been strong enough to compel their acquiescence, till a sufficient force shall appear to support them." With these words, the king gave Parliament his consent to dispatch troops to use against his own subjects, a notion that his colonists believed impossible.

Just as the Continental Congress expressed its desire to remain loyal to the British crown in the Olive Branch Petition, delivered to the monarch on September 1, so George III insisted he had "acted with the same temper; anxious to prevent, if it had been possible, the effusion of the blood of my subjects; and the calamities which are inseparable from a state of war; still hoping that my people in America would have discerned the traitorous views of their leaders, and have been convinced, that to be a subject of Great Britain, with all its consequences, is to be the freest member of any civil society in the known world." King George went on to scoff at what he called the colonists? "strongest protestations of loyalty to me," believing them disingenuous, "whilst they were preparing for a general revolt."

Unfortunately for George III, Thomas Paine?s anti-monarchical argument in the pamphlet, Common Sense, published in January 1776, proved persuasive to many American colonists. The two sides had reached a final political impasse and the bloody War for Independence soon followed.

From www.history.com

1864 : Battle of Hatcher's Run (Burgess Mill)

 Union troops are turned back when they try to cut the last railroad supplying the Confederate force in Petersburg, Virginia.

Since June, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had laid siege to Petersburg, just 25 miles south of the Confederate capital at Richmond. Confederate General Robert E. Lee's dwindling forces were stretched thin along miles of trenches, but the fortifications magnified the actual strength of his troops. Hatcher's Run was one of several attempts made by Grant in the summer and fall of 1864 to pry the Rebels from their positions.

With winter approaching, Grant decided to make one last attempt to capture the Southside Railroad that supplied Petersburg from the west. He instructed the Army of the Potomac's commander, General George Meade, to direct the operation. He ordered parts of three army corps, commanded by Generals Winfield Hancock, Gouverneur K. Warren, and John Parke, to advance in the early morning rain of October 23. The target was the Confederate trenches along Hatcher's Run, seven miles southwest of Petersburg. The plan called for Parke's and Warren's forces to make an assault, if possible, while Hancock's troops moved west around the end of the Confederate lines. They were to turn north and cut the railroad. The effort would involve 40,000 Yankee troops and 3,000 cavalry troopers.

Parke's and Warren's men found the trenches much more heavily defended than expected. They continued to maneuver to draw attention away from Hancock's advance, but an uneven advance created a gap in the Union lines. Meade slowed the advance to close the gap. By late afternoon, Confederate counterattacks threw Hancock's Second Corps into disarray. The fighting continued after dark, but when it ended no territory had changed hands, and the siege continued.

About 1,700 Yankee men were killed, wounded, and captured. Confederate losses were not reported but were thought to be less than 1,000, most of them captured. The battle was a disaster for the Union and caused the Lincoln administration embarrassment just a week before the presidential election. However, recent Yankee military successes in the Shenandoah Valley around Atlanta and in Mobile, Alabama, were enough to secure Lincoln's reelection.

Also on this day: CSS Albemarle sinks

The Albemarle sinks at Plymouth, North Carolina. It was the only Confederate ironclad to be destroyed by the Union during the war.

From www.history.com

1940 : De Gaulle Sets Up The Empire Defense Council

On this day in 1940, French Gen. Charles de Gaulle, speaking for the Free French Forces from his temporary headquarter in equatorial Africa, calls all French men and women everywhere to join the struggle to preserve and defend free French territory and "to attack the enemy wherever it is possible, to mobilize all our military, economic, and moral resources...to make justice reign."

De Gaulle had a long history fighting Germans. He sustained multiple injuries fighting at Verdun in World War I. He escaped German POW camps five times, only to be recaptured each time. (At 6 feet, 4 inches tall, it was hard for de Gaulle to remain inconspicuous.)

At the beginning of World War II, de Gaulle was commander of a tank brigade. He was admired as a courageous leader and made a brigadier general in May 1940. After the German invasion of France, he became undersecretary of state for defense and war in the Reynaud government, but when Reynaud resigned, and Field Marshal Philippe Petain stepped in, a virtual puppet of the German occupiers, de Gaulle left for England. On June 18, de Gaulle took to the radio airwaves to make an appeal to his fellow French not to accept the armistice being sought by Petain, but to continue fighting under his command. "I am France!" he declared. Ten days later, Britain formally acknowledged de Gaulle as the leader of the "Free French Forces," which was at first little more than those French troops stationed in England, volunteers from Frenchmen already living in England, and units of the French navy.

Another Free French movement had begun in Africa, under the direction of Gen. Henri Giraud. De Gaulle eventually relocated to Africa after tension began to build between himself and the British. Initially, de Gaulle agreed to share power with Giraud in the organization and control of the exiled French forces--until Giraud resigned in 1943, unwilling to stand in de Gaulle's shadow or struggle against his deft political maneuvering.

Whatever disagreements the British had had with de Gaulle, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was pleased with the French general's appeal to his countrymen's patriotism and the creation of the Empire Defense Council, which would organize necessary resources for military operations. Churchill believed it would "have a great effect on the minds of Frenchmen on account of its scope and logic. It shows de Gaulle in a light very different from that of an ordinary man."

From www.history.com

1971 : Cambodian Troops Battle Communists North Of Phnom Penh

Fighting intensifies as Cambodian government forces battle with Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong, and North Vietnamese forces northeast of Phnom Penh. In March 1970, a coup led by Cambodian General Lon Nol had overthrown the government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in Phnom Penh. Lon Nol and his army, the Forces Armees  Nationale Khmer (FANK), with U.S. support and military aid, fought the Communist Khmer Rouge for control of Cambodia. In addition, the government forces had to contend with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, who continued to use Cambodia as a sanctuary for their forces attacking into South Vietnam. In this round of the fighting, the major engagements occurred around the provincial capitals of Kompong Thom and Rumlong. The Communists began a siege of these garrisons after their demolition frogmen destroyed a crucial bridge along Route 6, the main supply line for the 20,000 Cambodians on the northeast front. Some 400 government soldiers were reported dead as a result of the combat.

From www.history.com

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