On June 17th, 1775, Joseph Warren – a teacher, doctor, President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the man who sent Paul Revere on his famous “midnight ride” – was killed defending the wall at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Having been recently appointed a major general by the Massachusetts congress but the commission not yet in effect, he had been asked by General Israel Putnam and Colonel William Prescott to take over command of the revolutionary defenses. He declined, serving as a private soldier instead.
The first two British assaults were repulsed, but the third carried the battlements even as the colonial army ran out of ammunition. Warren was killed in the final assault, shot by a British officer who recognized him. The British army won the field that day, but at a terrible price relative to their numbers – British General Henry Clinton wrote in his diary that, “A few more such victories would have surely put an end to British dominion in America.”
Warren was one of 140 Americans that died in battle that day, and one of perhaps 8,000 battle deaths in the Revolution, which lasted 8 years and resulted in at least another 17,000 non-battle deaths. The conflict engaged the efforts of 217,000 met at arms and had begun as an affirmation that American citizens should enjoy the same political freedoms as those of their peers in the metropolitan center. It ended in the birth of a new and sovereign nation founded upon the radical notion of liberty in opposition to tyranny.
For what they did we remember them.
On June 1st, 1813 Captain James Lawrence, commanding officer of the USS Chesapeake fell mortally wounded on the quarterdeck of his frigate, a victim of small arms fire. His ship had sailed from Boston Harbor determined to engage a fighting captain named Philip Broke, commander of the HMS Shannon in blockade off the coast. The war had broken out between the young United States and her old master over sailors’ rights, free trade and the question of who should set limits on the westward expansion of a restless nation. As he was carried below, Lawrence told his surviving officers – all of whom had been wounded by a galling fire directed upon their quarterdeck by guns both great and small – to “fight her ’til she sinks and don’t give up the ship!”
The ship was taken by a British boarding party, but Lawrence’s friend Oliver Hazard Perry would learn from his friend’s sacrifice and stitch those words on the battle standard he wore to victory over the British squadron at Lake Erie in September 1813. We learn them still.
Nearly 500,000 Americans served under arms in some capacity during the War of 1812, 2,260 were killed in action and another 17,000 succumbed to disease and accidents. The war lasted nearly three years and was fought to a strategic draw but nevertheless solidified the national identity of an infant nation even as the vigorous defense of Canada by British regulars and local militias terminally ended its northern aspirations. The warrior ethos of the US Navy was molded there, as single-ship victories by heavy American frigates over adversaries from the world’s oldest and most powerful navy cemented a tradition of honor, courage and commitment. These characteristics would be called upon again and again by an island nation in her time of need.
For what they did we remember them.
Our Indian Wars spat and guttered from before the Revolution all the way up until 1898, taking the life of George Armstrong Custer along the way while opening up the westward frontier all the way to the Pacific Ocean and teaching us a specific lesson on the dangers of hubris on the one hand, and on the other the general lesson that savagery in warfare was by no means a characteristic exclusively limited to our foes. Many tens of thousands died over the years, great warriors in blue and great warriors in buckskin and all too often non-combatants on every side. Nearly all of them fought for the right as they saw it, usually in exceptional circumstances of great hardship. Great bravery and low barbarism were sufficient to share all around even as it became clear over time that the outcome was never seriously in doubt.
But we remember them still. We remember them all.
Major Levi Twiggs, USMC, would fall to enemy fire on 13 September 1847. With him at Chapultepec, 39 Marines – 35 of them officers and NCOs – would lay down their lives and earn the “Blood Stripe” for future non-commissioned officers while memorializing “the halls of Montezuma” in song forever. On the 9th of March, 1847 a combined naval and infantry force conducted the first large-scale amphibious assault in US history at the Battle of Veracruz. Eighteen American soldiers would die in the 20-day campaign, during which such names as Robert E. Lee, George Meade, Ulysses S. Grant and Thomas Jackson – later to be called “Stonewall” Jackson – first entered the ledgers of martial note. They would meet again in time, but not before 1733 soldiers died to hostile fire in the Mexican-American War and another 12,000 died non-battle deaths in a campaign that integrated an independent Texas into the union and defined our southern borders. For the first time – but not the last – domestic politics would divide America even as over 78,000 of her armed forces won victories on a far-flung battlefield.
For the greatness of the country that they deeded us by their sacrifice, we remember them.
On September 17, 1862 generals Robert E. Lee and George McLellan tested strength of arm against American arm on the way to the single bloodiest day in US history at a battlefield called, variously, Sharpsburg or Antietam. The result was twenty-three thousand casualties on both sides and 3,600 killed in return for a battle of very little of tactical consequence that nevertheless marked a significant strategic victory for a Union army that, up until that point, had reeled from disaster to defeat. One of those who fell that day was Private A. Hicks Baker, formerly a newspaper writer from Columbus, Texas.
At age 23, Pvt Baker was fighting for the right of his state to self-determination by serving with Company B of the 5th Texas Infantry – the famous Texas Brigade of General John Bell Hood’s division in the Army of Northern Virginia. Opposite him on the field of battle, in rank and in cause was Union General Joseph Mansfield, a professional soldier from the Old Army. Born in Connecticut, he had risen slowly in the peacetime service, but served honorably in the Mexican campaign. Wounded at Monterrey and breveted to lieutenant colonel for bravery there, he was promoted again to colonel at Buena Vista in 1847.
Fighting against Hood’s Texans at Antietam – and perhaps against Pvt Baker himself – he received a mortal wound to the stomach, dying the next day in the cause of preserving the union. The repulse of the Confederate army from Maryland gave Abraham Lincoln the victory he needed to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, explicitly tying the northern cause for the first time to the liberation of southern slaves – a cause that would in four years’ time claim the lives of over 623,000 American soldiers on both sides, at least 200,000 of them in battle. The work that they began but that we have not yet concluded was the task of wiping away entirely the birth stain and legacy of our country’s original sin. Well over 3 million Americans on both sides contested this, the signal issue of their day.
For the martial legacy bequeathed by southern valor and the moral clarity delivered through northern determination, we remember them. We remember both sides.
On the June 1st, 1898, Corporal William F. Johnson of Troop B, 10th Cavalry fell coming to the desperate need of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Raiders as they charged up San Juan Hill under the withering fire of a determined Spanish defense. Of the 385 battle deaths in the Spanish-American War (and over 2,000 non-battle deaths), he was one of 124 American soldiers to die in battle on that hill alone. He was also a member of the “Buffalo Soldiers,” African American veterans of the Indian Wars and the acknowledged saviors of the day.
Five of his race would win the Medal of Honor for services rendered during the Spanish-American War, which would see America begin to recognize the dignity and courage of its black soldiers even as it bound up the national wounds of the Civil War, freed the Cuban citizenry from an increasingly oppressive imperial yoke, and announced the arrival of a young but energetic nation on the international stage of affairs.
Today we remember Corporal Johnson, Troop B, 10th Cavalry, who fought and died courageously given only second hand gear and under a regime of systemic prejudice. We remember them all.
(Posthumous) Medal of Honor recipient Frank Luke of the Army Air Corps was killed in action on September 29th, 1918. Luke shot down 14 enemy aircraft – including 10 balloons, thought to be a particularly “hard target” at the time – over a space of 8 days. Shot down himself over enemy lines he refused to surrender, continuing to fight with a pistol in hand until killed by German soldiers. He was the second ranking ace behind Eddie Rickenbacker, and his service coincided with the first tactical use of aviation in combat. Strategy was still to come.
Over 4 million US servicemen answered the call to arms when America finally joined the European intramural slaughter in 1917, coming in on the side of western democracy and against eastern militarism and autocracy. By the summer of 1918, 10,000 fresh American troops joined the battle every day, demoralizing a Central Powers alliance that had already bled itself nearly white in years of vicious trench warfare. Over 53,000 Americans died on European battlefields, and another 63,000 died non-battle deaths in the two years we spent engaged in combat. It was to be the war that ended all wars.
It wasn’t.
We remember them.
Henry Hinman Fanning was a Third Mate aboard the Merchant Ship SS Rawleigh Warner who died when his ship was sunk in the cold waters of the North Atlantic on June 23rd, 1942 by a German unterseeboot, the U-67, then under the command of Korvetten Kapitan G?
There is no greater honor we can give them who have given all than to remember them.
Memorial Day 2007 – The Blogosphere Remembers…
Cox & Forkum
I’ll update this a post a few times today. Other blogging will be light or saved for Tuesday. Feel free to send links to your posts or interesting Memorial Day finds.
In Training
There is nothing in this world like a s…
We remember…
Freedom, no greater cause… it’s pursuit, no higher calling.
Amen. Wonderful testimony Lex. – SJS
“As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.”
Memorial Day Remembrance -…
As we pause to give thanks this Memorial Day for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice – for keeping the Union intact, for our freedoms, to extend that umbrella of freedom to others – freeing them from tyranny and oppression, let us give thanks …..
Web Reconnaissance for 05/28/2007…
A short recon of what?ǂ
Web Reconnaissance for 05/28/2007…
A short recon of whats out there that might draw your attention….
Great post.
Thank you Lex
and may God bless our troops and allies, their families, friends and loved ones and all of those who have given everything to advance the cause of freedom.
[...] Lex in his Memorial Day post remembers those who have fallen from Bunker Hil to March 25, [...]
In reading your post, I found myself remembering my ancestor who lost an arm in the War of 1812, the two who died in the Civil War, the one who died with Custer, the great-uncle who lost an arm during World War II, and my Dad who was in Vietnam.
I remember and am humbled.
Cap’n,
Thank you for those words. That was well done. Among Private Baker’s comrades, I would humbly mention these. Them what knows, knows.
E.T. Kindred, Capt. Co.F, 4th Texas Infantry. Wounded 6 May 1964,& 7 Oct. 1864. Paroled 12 April 1865,Apomattox Court House.
J.H. Kindred, Private, Co.F, 4th Texas Infantry. Mortally Wounded 17 September, 1862, Antietam.
Jas B. Kindred, Private, Co.F, 4th Texas Infantry. Wounded shoulder & side 17 September, 1862, Antietam. Discharged for Disability 12 October 1862.
John S. Kindred, Private, Co.F, 4th Texas Infantry. Killed in Action, 27 June, 1862, Gaines Mill.
Joshua P. Kindred, Private, Co.F, 4th Texas Infantry. Wounded 27 June, 1862, Gaines Mill. Captured 17 September, 1862, Antietam, when he volunteered to stay behind to tend to wounded. Exchanged 16 December, 1862. Paroled 12 April, 1865, Appomattox Court House.
Jos C. Kindred, 1sgt. Co.B, 5th Texas Infantry. Paroled 12 April, 1865. Appomattox Court House.
It was then, as it was before then, and is today, very much a family affair. There are times when words fail me, especially on this day.
Respects,
Allow me to add 1stLt Jeffrey Scharver, Grenada ’83. A minor battle, but actions none less gallant.
Casca,
La Petite Guerre to the historian, perhaps, and certainly to those in the Media, but not to those present, I can assure you.
Respects,
For those that served and those that sacrificed my prayers are offered. Thank you.
Thank you, Captain. A moving and eloquent summary of the price of freedom, paid in blood by patriots, across the generations.
All of their tomorrows, for us today…
Rest easy, brothers and sisters. Fair winds and following seas.
Thank you, Lex. Wonderful historical perspective, and worth every tick of the clock to ponder and remember.
Memorial Day 2007…
Before you take off today for picnics or cookouts, or boating or golfing, whatever enjoyment awaits you with family and friends, remember those who have died ……
Wonderful post. We just got back from our little town’s service. 15 names from our county were read, fallen during OIF and OEF.
[...] -Neptunus Lex “Have a good time. That’s the point. [...]
Memorial Day…
…So, I don’t have words of great poignancy or power to share with you today. I only ask that you join me in acknowledging the staggering gift of lives laid down for us, and in vowing to live that our own lives may be worthy of such a gift….
Wonderful post, Sir! Thanks for the names. We’ll remember them all, named and unnamed, with much love and gratitude.
Wonderful Lex. Thanks. And thank you for remebering the Merchant Marine: “In Peace and war”.
Piper Lawrence Kelly
Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
The Somme
PVT James Leo Kelly
Co. E 34th Engineers
AEF
The Marne
PVT Jack Kelly
4th INF Div
The Bulge
Thank you for that beautiful post, and the reminder of a grand tradition to which we owe so much.
Didn’t mean to delay in posting a trackback…
Memorial Day 2007
Thanks Lex.
Nice compendium.
b2
A solemn day, indeed.
Our many patriots parade in the heavens … it’s like “Rolling Thunder!”
Lex – as usual your articulate writing humbles us all. And a deeper thank you for recognizing the sacrifice the victims of 9/11 made as well – and for once again honoring my friend Heather.
We will remember all of them.
Capt Lex,
This was the best post of the day for me, sir. Thank you. Thank you All. My honored sons and daughters of the United States.
Subsunk
Wherever you spent your Memorial Day, I hope you didn’t have the experience that I had. The nitwit MC’ing was buffoonish, and bush league. A half hour was spent kissing the political ass of every minor dignitary in the Veteran/Politico foodchain, and there are many. The Admiral stumbled through his reading of an OK speech, but worst of all… the wreathlaying for the faggot/dyke vets was just too much for me. Yes, an Army 0-6 was their spokesman, flanked by two civied up bull dykes. Lovely.
[...] Neptunus Lex gives us an honor roll for Memorial Day. (Via Photon [...]
What the folks writing above said. And may I add my Great-Grandfather of the 27th Georgia, (Zachry’s Rangers) wounded in action at Chancellorsville while going around the left with Jackson. Lost an eyeball, he did.
And, of course, my other three Great-Grandfathers who also served, and whose names I don’t have before me, who fought not for slavery, but for Constitutional Government, but even more, in defense against invasion.
BRAVO ZULU Lex
Had my Scout Troop at our county Memorial service. We start each Federal Holiday by lining our main street with 26 American flags. They served as a backdrop for the ceremony. After the usual county windbag spoke, a sincere young Army captain gave a short speech followed by the Scout slaying wreaths at the monuments for the dead of S-A War, WW I, WW II, Korea & Viet Nam. And since this is rural southside Virgina, a monument to the Confederate dead….and that the names of the dead of WW I & WW II were listed by White and Colored.
Proud to see my Scouts knew to render a salute when Taps was played…a little dismayed to notice many military present not do so. I guess they needed a good NCO around to give the commands.
My home town paper.
I walk the dog most every evening in the park where this memorial has been added to the monuments already in place.
Semper Fidelis
One more late addition – we were at the college graduation of my surrogate daughter (long story) on Sunday. The commencement speaker was Jim Lehrer – probably one of the last truly unbiased journalists out there. He had much to say that was memorable, but chiefly this:
He talked about how the upcoming presidential election would likely be the most important in this country’s recent history – no matter what side of the issues you come down on. And he urged the graduates to get involved, make a commitment to whatever their views are and try to make a difference.
And then – to my utter shock & amazement – he also exhorted ALL present to remember that our men & women in the military – many the same age as the graduates – VOLUNTEERED to put their lives in harm’s way to protect the rest of us. And he exhorted ALL present to ensure that all troops going away to dangerous places or returning home from those places be treated with dignity and respect. To honor them and their commitments.
It was powerful stuff and gave Mr. Lehrer a standing ovation in the middle of his address.
There was so much more to what he said, but that’s the part that sticks out the most to me.
Fitting that it was the day before Memorial Day.
I am constructing a family tree and I believe that Joseph Warren, a surgeon at the Battle of Bunker Hill, is one of my wife’s ancestors. Can you provide any references to the information you provided about him? Thanks.
Was offline for a few days getting the computer fixed. But wanted to offer my respects to all those who have gone before. Beautiful post Lex.
Gerald, here’s more on General Warren:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Warren
Let us not forget the Khobar towers, the Marine Barracks, the USS Cole, and so many other skirmishes we have been in with enemies of the state.
On Friday, May 25th, 2007, Private First Class Casey Zylman, age 22, of Coleman, Michigan died of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Tal Afar, Iraq. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schoefield Barracks, Hawaii.
When we gathered for the Memorial Day service in town, I think it’s safe to say that we were all thinking about Casey, as well as our other fallen soldiers.
Casey’s funeral was on Monday. Most of our graduating class came out to say goodbye.
We weren’t close…
…but I think I speak for many of my friends when I say that I miss him…I miss knowing he’s around, doing something, making a difference somewhere.
He was an honorable young man.
Thanks for that. They are all more than names, they were people. People who touched others. We must remember them.
They were indeed people…brothers, sisters, sons, daughters…
And we shouldn’t ever forget.
This past Memorial Day really opened up my eyes.
[...] Lex Calls the Roll [...]