December 23

1620   One week after the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth harbor in present-day Massachusetts, construction of the first permanent European settlement in New England begins.

Comment:   I remain really curious about the timing of this. Why December? Was the thought that they could get a crop in that Spring,if they hit ground mid winter?

1776  Thomas Paine wrote The Crisis:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he.

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.

As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched with them to the edge of Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many circumstances, which those who live at a distance know but little or nothing of. Our situation there was exceedingly cramped, the place being a narrow neck of land between the North River and the Hackensack. Our force was inconsiderable, being not one-fourth so great as Howe could bring against us. We had no army at hand to have relieved the garrison, had we shut ourselves up and stood on our defence. Our ammunition, light artillery, and the best part of our stores, had been removed, on the apprehension that Howe would endeavor to penetrate the Jerseys, in which case Fort Lee could be of no use to us; for it must occur to every thinking man, whether in the army or not, that these kind of field forts are only for temporary purposes, and last in use no longer than the enemy directs his force against the particular object which such forts are raised to defend. Such was our situation and condition at Fort Lee on the morning of the 20th of November, when an officer arrived with information that the enemy with 200 boats had landed about seven miles above; Major General [Nathaniel] Green, who commanded the garrison, immediately ordered them under arms, and sent express to General Washington at the town of Hackensack, distant by the way of the ferry = six miles. Our first object was to secure the bridge over the Hackensack, which laid up the river between the enemy and us, about six miles from us, and three from them. General Washington arrived in about three-quarters of an hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards the bridge, which place I expected we should have a brush for; however, they did not choose to dispute it with us, and the greatest part of our troops went over the bridge, the rest over the ferry, except some which passed at a mill on a small creek, between the bridge and the ferry, and made their way through some marshy grounds up to the town of Hackensack, and there passed the river. We brought off as much baggage as the wagons could contain, the rest was lost. The simple object was to bring off the garrison, and march them on till they could be strengthened by the Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as to be enabled to make a stand. We staid four days at Newark, collected our out-posts with some of the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being informed that they were advancing, though our numbers were greatly inferior to theirs. Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error in generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island through Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our stores at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania; but if we believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some providential control.

I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes centred in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same remark may be made on General Washington, for the character fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kind of public blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind that can even flourish upon care.
I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the state of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question, Why is it that the enemy have left the New England provinces, and made these middle ones the seat of war? The answer is easy: New England is not infested with Tories, and we are. I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And what is a Tory? Good God! What is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.

But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between us, let us reason the matter together: Your conduct is an invitation to the enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to join him. Howe is as much deceived by you as the American cause is injured by you. He expects you will all take up arms, and flock to his standard, with muskets on your shoulders. Your opinions are of no use to him, unless you support him personally, for 'tis soldiers, and not Tories, that he wants.

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.

America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. From an excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defence of a well-meaning militia. A summer's experience has now taught us better; yet with those troops, while they were collected, we were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy, and, thank God! they are again assembling. I always considered militia as the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but they will not do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an attempt on this city [Philadelphia]; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he is ruined. If he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all on his side against a part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the consequence will be, that armies from both ends of the continent will march to assist their suffering friends in the middle states; for he cannot go everywhere, it is impossible. I consider Howe as the greatest enemy the Tories have; he is bringing a war into their country, which, had it not been for him and partly for themselves, they had been clear of. Should he now be expelled, I wish with all the devotion of a Christian, that the names of Whig and Tory may never more be mentioned; but should the Tories give him encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I as sincerely wish that our next year's arms may expel them from the continent, and the Congress appropriate their possessions to the relief of those who have suffered in well-doing. A single successful battle next year will settle the whole. America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.

Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but "show your faith by your works," that God may bless you. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both. Howe's first object is, partly by threats and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the same plan to Gage, and this is what the tories call making their peace, "a peace which passeth all understanding" indeed! A peace which would be the immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon these things! Were the back counties to give up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are all armed: this perhaps is what some Tories would not be sorry for. Were the home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to the resentment of the back counties who would then have it in their power to chastise their defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up its arms, that state must be garrisoned by all Howe's army of Britons and Hessians to preserve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is the principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.

I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army was collected, Howe dared not risk a battle; and it is no credit to him that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to ravage the defenceless Jerseys; but it is great credit to us, that, with a handful of men, we sustained an orderly retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our ammunition, all our field pieces, the greatest part of our stores, and had four rivers to pass. None can say that our retreat was precipitate, for we were near three weeks in performing it, that the country might have time to come in. Twice we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained out till dark. The sign of fear was not seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils — a ravaged country — a depopulated city — habitations without safety, and slavery without hope — our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

1820  Moses Austin arrived in the Mexican territory of Texas seeking to secure permission for 300 families to immigrate there.

1823 The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore was first published, in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel.

A Visit from St. Nicholas

By Clement Clarke Moore

’T WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

1869     Louis Riel replaces John Bruce as President of the National Committee of Metis.

1889  A monument was erected in Natrona County Wyoming to S. Morris Waln and C.H. Strong, who had been murdered by their guide while hunting and prospecting in the Spring of 1888.  Waln was from Philadelphia, and Strong from New York City, and they hired a guide/cook from Denver. The guide was later tried and convicted in Colorado of horse theft, but was never tried for the Wyoming murders.

1916   The Cheyenne State Leader for December 23, 1916: Stock Raising Homestead Act passed
 

While it only merited a single paragraph, it did make the front page.  The Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916 had passed.

This was a major change in the homesteading laws in that it was the first of two homestead acts that recognized the stock raising and arid nature of the West. Rather than grant 40 acres, as the original Homestead Act had, it allowed for 640, an entire section.  It would be signed into law by President Wilson on December 29.

While we do not associate this period with homesteading it was actually the height, and close to the finish, of it.  A large number of entries were being taken out, and soon a large number would fail in the post World War One agricultural crash and drought.

The Wyoming Tribune for December 23, 1916: Carranza loses cities.

The Wyoming Tribune reported that Carranza was losing cities, suggesting he was losing the civil war in Mexico.  At the same time, the paper reported that people were being generous to Pershing's command in Mexico.

1913 The Federal Reserve Act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson.

1918  December 23, 1918. Wyoming Guardsmen of the 148th Field Artillery at the Château-Thierry and beyond.

The DI of the 148th Field Artillery.  Many of the Wyoming Guardsmen who served as infantry on the border were reassigned to this Field Artillery unit made up of Rocky Mountain Region and Northwestern Guardsmen during World War One.

If you'd been wondering what became of the men of the Wyoming National Guard, whom we started following with their first muster into service with the Punitive Expedition, the Wyoming State Tribune gave us a clue.

As readers will recall, quite a few of those men were put in to the 148th Field Artillery.  None of them deployed as infantry, which is what they had been when first mustered for border service with Mexico and then again when first recalled for the Great War.  Not all of them ended up in the 148th, but quite a few did, which was a heavy artillery unit of the field artillery.  Indeed, a quite modern one as it used truck, rather than equine, transport.  

Here we learned that the 148th was at Château-Thierry.

Another version of the distinctive insignia for the unit with additional elements for the western nature of the composite elements.

To flesh it out just a bit, the 148th at that time was made up of elements of the 3d Rgt of the Wyoming National Guard, the 1st Separate Battalion Colorado Field Artillery, and the 1st Separate Troop (Cavalry) Oregon National Guard. They were part of the 66th FA Bde.  They'd arrived in France on February 10, 1918, just prior to the German's massive Spring 1918 Offensive.  They were equipped in France with 155 GPF Guns and Renault Artillery tractors.

155 GPF in use by American artillerymen.

They went to the front on July 4, 1918 and were emplaced directly sought of Château-Thierry and began firing missions on July 9.  After that engagement, they'd continue on to participate in the St. Mihiel Offensive and the Meuse Argonne Offensive.  By the wars end, they'd fired 67,590 shells.

American Army Renault EG Artillery tractor with a GPF in tow.  Note the wood blocks for chalks.

The unit went on to be part of the Army of Occupation in Germany following the war, a mission with which it was occupied until June 3, 1919, when it boarded the USS Peerless for New York.  It was mustered out of service at Camp Mills, New York, on June 19, 1919, with Wyoming's members sent on to Ft. D. A. Russell for discharge from their World War One service.

We'll pick this story up again as we reach those dates, but as we made a dedicated effort to follow these men early on, we didn't want to omit their story later.  Wyomingites reading the papers in 1918 learned of their service, accepting censored soldier mail, for the first time on this day in 1918.  While news reporting done by the U.S. and foreign press during World War One was often remarkably accurate, one set of details that was kept generally well hidden was the service, and even the fate, of individual American servicemen and units.  Wyomingites now learned what role many of their Guardsmen had played in the war for the first time.

And it was a significant one.

1925 Sultan Ibn Saud of Nejed captures Jiddah.  Connection with Wyoming?  Ibn Saud founded Saudi Arabia through such conquests, a rare example of a state based so strongly on a ruling family, and a state that has worked, in part, because it possesses a valuable natural resource, petroleum oil.  Wyoming had been an oil province since the 1890s, and the Arabian Peninsula was just becoming one.  The economic fortunes of Wyoming have been tied to activities in the Middle East ever since that region became a significant oil producer.

1926  1,000 rabbits show near Medicine Bow and sent to Rawlins, Wyoming, to feed the hungry.

1935  5,600 jackrabbits killed in Natrona County in one of the periodic Depression Era rabbit drives that were designed to help feed hungry families.  Amongst the numerous natural disasters inflicted on the nation during the Dust Bowl years were plagues of rabbits.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1941 American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese. British troops capture Benghazi, Libya. Gen. Douglas MacArthur decides to withdraw to Bataan. Japanese begin offensive against Rangoon, Burma. The 440-foot tanker Montebello was sunk off the California coast near Cambria by a Japanese submarine. The crew of 38 survived and in 1996 it was found that the 4.1 million gallon cargo of crude oil appeared intact. A conference of industry and labor officials agrees that there would be no strikes or lockouts in war industries while World War II continued.

1944  All horse racing in the US is banned in an effort to save labor.

1973  Larry Larom, founding president of the Dude Ranchers Association, died in Cody.

1991  A magnitude 3.6 earthquake occurred about 70 miles from Sheridan, WY.

Elsewhere:  1888 Vincent Van Gogh cuts off his ear.

December 22

1836  Texas'  First Congress established the General Land Office.

1916   The Casper Weekly Press for December 22, 1916: Wars everywhere
 

The Casper Weekly Press issued on December 22, 1916 warned that "Uncle Fears War". The papers were full of war warnings which, looking back, not only proved accurate but also can't help to call to mind that Woodrow Wilson had just been elected for keeping us out of war and yet the news was headed rapidly, and accurately, in the other direction.

In terms of other wars, the Casper paper reported that Villistas had killed 50 Constitutionalist soliders, hardly a large number by European standards but a scary one for a nation that had been worried about the direction the war in Mexico was taking for months.

In other grim news, two died in a refinery fire in Casper.  There is at least one famous refinery fire in Casper's history but it's not this one.  I can't find any details about it.

Finally the American Automobile Association, which I didn't even know existed that long ago, came out in support of a concrete highway across Wyoming. Such an improved highway remained quite a few years in the state's future at that time, but it's interesting to note how people were already pondering it.

1917  Mrs. Cody reacquires title to the Irma Hotel, in Cody.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

 Louisa and William F. Cody in later years.

1917   December 22, 1917: The United States Guards Authorized

Red Cross repsentatives marching with members of the New York State Guard in 1918. This is, of course, the State Guard, not the United States Guards. 

Showing a distinctly different approach to things than would be taken during the Second World War, something that will continue to be the case as we read more about Woodrow Wilson's approach to Federalism during World War One, the United States Guards were authorized on this day in 1917. They were part of the National Army, i.e. that part of the Army raised from civilians for the war, as opposed to those parts made up of the combined National Guard and Regular Army.  While they were part of the National Army, they were under the authority of the Militia Bureau (today's National Guard Bureau).  Of interest, at the same time the Federal Government was encouraging states to raise units of State Guards.

Some explanation of what these various units are or were is necessary to make much sense out of this story, of course.

The National Guard is well known to Americans, of course, and the nature of the National Guard would be evident to anyone who has been reading this blog over the past two years, as various National Guard units were called up and deployed to the Mexican border to be followed by the mass call up, and then mass conscription for odd legal reasons, of the National Guard in 1917.  As has also been seen, and a much different practice from what would occur in later years, states actively recruited for National Guardsmen right up until they were formally inducted into the U.S. Army and even proposed new National Guard units, much like they had done with the formation of state units during the Civil War.

Much different from the Civil War or even the Spanish American War, however, changes to the structure of the American military establishment following the Spanish American War had formalized its status as a reserve of the Army and caused the Militia Bureau to come about to deal with that.  The regularization of the National Guard as the state militia country wide created, in all states and in some territories the creation of those units to fill both a local militia role and to be the reserve of the Army in time of war.  In a few states this was controversial and they ended up accordingly splitting their state establishments between the National Guard and a State Guard, with the liability of the State Guard in times of war being fairly unclear.  The latter would seem to have been so liable as long as the fighting was to occur within the boundaries of the United States.  Rhode Island provides us one such example, Maryland another.  Most states did no such thing, however.

When the US entered the Great War in 1917 the National Guard, lately back from the Mexican border, was first called up and then conscripted in mass.  Indeed, it was expanded and therefore the result was that the states now lacked, for the most part, men for local militia service, should it be needed. That was one perceived problem.

A second was that, in spite of how we recall it today, the U.S. entry into World War One, while largely popular, was not entirely popular everywhere.  We've already had the example of a revolt against conscription and perhaps the war in general in Oklahoma.  To compound that, the teens were at the height of the radicalization of the American labor movement and labor was much less willing to go along with the Federal government as part of the war effort than it would be in later years.  Those who have read the newspaper entries here have seen the ones about trouble in the vital coal and rail industries, two industries that literally had the ability to completely cripple the nation.  Beyond that, the Administration of this era was highly intolerant to radical dissent and tended to see the events in Russia as if reflected in a distant mirror in the United States.

Given all of that, the Federal Government perceived there being a need for internal security forces at a national level.  To take up that role, it formed 48 regiments of United States Guards.  By the end of 1918, 1,364 officers and 26,796 men were serving in the United States Guards, stationed in the continental United States and the Territory of Alaska. 

These men were taken from the many men found unfit for service in the National Army, something which the readers of the newspapers here would also have noted, although the regulations provided that such departures from physical standards had to be "minor".  While physical standards for service were far less strict than they are now, frankly American health wasn't what the covers of The Saturday Evening Post and Leslie's might suggest.  Plenty of men were too old, infirm or in ill health so as to go to France with the National Army.  18,000 of the men who served in the United States Guards fit the category of men with a "minor" physical defect who had been conscripted but, because of their condition, could not go oversees. They were volunteers from the National Army into the United States Guards.  The balance were men whose condition precluded them from being drafted in the first instance, or who were above conscription age as the United States Guards would take able men who were above the service age.  After August 1918, when the Selective Service operated to process all incoming servicemen, a crack in the door that had existed for overage men to attempt to volunteer for the National Army was closed but they could still volunteer for the United States Guards. Some of them ended up in the 48 regiments of United States Guards maintained to keep the wolf at bay in the US itself.

 Enormous panoramic photograph of Michigan state troops, June 1917.  I've never been certain if these cavalrymen are National Guardsmen or State Guardsmen. If they're National Guardsmen, they're irregularly equipped in that they're carrying riot batons and lever action rifles, both of which would be extremely odd for National Guardsmen of this period even taking into account that prior to the Punitive Expedition some units were still privately equipped to some degree. This suggests state equipage, which was common for State Guards.

They didn't do it alone.  The various states had to form State Guard units as, even though its rare, State Governors lacked an armed force for internal security in the event of riots or disasters.  Substitute militia units were authorized and formed in every state, drawing from the same pool, to some extent, as the United States Guards, but with less connection to the formal National Army.  They were also less regularly equipped as well, relying on old or irregular weapons.   

For the most part, these units saw no action of any substantial type at all, but there is one notable exception, the Texas State Guard, which remained constantly deployed on real active service on the Mexican border, augmenting the United States Army which carried on in that role all throughout the war.  The United States Guards did provide security in Alaska, wild and far duty at that time (the initial unit was made up of men from a waterways unit), and in controlling IWW strikes in Arizona in 1918 and 1919. They also were used to suppress a race riot in North Carolina in 1918.

After the war, the United States Guards were disbanded, with that formally coming in 1920 but with actual demobilization starting on November 11, 1918 and continuing on into 1919.  The states largely disbanded the State Guard units, but a few retained them, with states that had such units before the war being in the forefront of that.  During World War Two State Guard units were again reestablished everywhere, after the National Guard was federalized in 1940, although this did not have happy results everywhere.  No effort was made to re-create the United States Guards and no need to do that was seen.  Today, some states still retain State Guard units that augment their National Guard establishments, but most do not.

Photographs, we'd note, of the United States Guards are exceedingly difficult to find, and therefore we've posted none.  They were issued obsolete U.S. arms, like the Krag rifle, or non standard arms, like rejected Russian Mosin Nagants.  While not equipped with the latest weapons going to France, these arms were more than adequate for the role the units performed.  Uniforms were initially going to be made up of blue dress uniforms of a late pattern, which did not vary greatly from field uniforms of the late 19th Century, but this was soon rejected on the basis that it deterred enlistment on the part of the men who did not want to be identified with rejected uniforms for rejected service.

Their service is obscure, but like that provided by State Guardsmen on the Mexican boarder during the war, it was real service.  It started on this day in 1917.

1917   The Saturday Evening Post, December 22, 1917

1918  December 22, 1918. Some days the headlines are just weird.

1921  President Warren Harding signed an Executive Order that designated expanded the National Elk Refuge into, additionally, a bird refuge.

1942  It is announced that a major butane plant will be built by Continental Oil Company at Lance Creek.  Lance Creeks saw a huge boom in oil activity during World War Two.

1958  Herbert J. Brees died in San Antonio Texas.  Brees was born in Laramie in 1877, and graduated from the University of Wyoming with a BS in 1897.  He earned a LLD, a version of a JD, in 1939, very late in his Army career.

He served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Volunteer Cavalry during 1898 as a volunteer for the Spanish American War and transferred from it in to the Regular Army in 1898.  He served initially in the artillery after joining the regular Army, but thereafter served principally in the cavalry branch until his retirement in 1941.  One of this last roles in the Army was as the Chief Controller for the Louisiana Maneuvers.  Brees Field, Laramie's airport, is named for him.

1978  The Downtown Cheyenne Historic District added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

December 21

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

1620     The Mayflower voyagers went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass.  

1866  A force principally comprised of Sioux lures a force principally made up of post Civil War recruits, commanded by William Fetterman, into an ambush outside of Ft. Phil Kearny.  Fetterman was arrogant in regards to his opinions of his abilities and that of his green troops and insubordinate to some degree in regards to his weak commander, Col. Carrington.  In the resulting battle Fetterman's entire command, 82 (including two civilians) are killed in the largest post Civil War military disaster of the Indian Wars up until Little Big Horn a decade later.  The battle also results in a type of siege around Ft. Phil Kearny, just a few miles from the battlefield, where the command buttons up as a result of the disaster.

Coming just a year after the carnage of the Civil War, the defeat, which was recognized as a military disaster at the time, nonetheless did not have the huge public impact that Custer's defeat a decade later in Montana would.  Indeed, while recognized as a disaster at the time, the Sioux victory would be a significant battle in Red Cloud's War, the only Plains Indian War won by the Indians.  

Like Little Big Horn, the battle has been subjected to continual reinterpretation, and has been nearly from the onset.  As a recent article in the Annals of Wyoming (Spring 2012) reveals there were "eyewitness" accounts that were fiction from day one, and Col. Carrington started receiving criticism from the onset.  As it turns out, conventional accounts of the battle remain the most accurate, with Carrington urging Fetterman not to go beyond the nearby ridge-line, and Fetterman ignoring that order.  Fetterman's contempt for his Indian foe that day would prove disasterous.

1916   The Cheyenne State Leader for December 21, 1916: Mexican raid into Arizona threatened.
 

The terrible fire at the Inter-Ocean was still very much in the news, but we also learned that there was concern over a potential raid into Arizona by some Mexican bands.  Of course, the Wyoming Tribune had reported on this yesterday.

President Wilson's peacemaking efforts also hit the news.

1927  Ed Cantrell, Wyoming lawman, born in Bloomington Indiana.

1933 A bill to introduce a state income tax failed. Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1938  Construction on Seminoe  Dam was completed, bu the resulting reservoir would not start being filled until the Spring.

1941  $5,077 collected in Sheridan Wyoming war relief drive. Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

December 20

1803 The Louisiana Purchase was completed as the territory was formally transferred from France to the United States during ceremonies in New Orleans. The transfer actually technically also involved Spain, but only in some odd jurisdictional sense.  Much, but not all, of what would become Wyoming was thereby transferred to the United States, leaving approximately 1/3d of the state in the hands of Spain and a section of country near what is now Jackson's Hole in the Oregon Country belonging to the United Kingdom.

While the very early territorial jurisdictions pertaining to Wyoming are now largely forgotten, and while they were always a bit theoretical given the tenuous nature of actual pre Mexican War control over the territory, there have been six national flags that claimed Wyoming or parts of it, including Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the United States.  With the Louisiana Purchase, France's claim would be forever extinguished and the majority of what would become the state would belong to the United States.

1812     One of the dates claimed for the death of Sacajawea.  If correct, she would have died of an unknown illness at age 24 at Fort Manuel Lisa, where it is claimed that she and her husband Toussaint Charbonneau were living.  If correct, she left an infant girl, Lizette, there, and her son Jean-Baptiste was living in a boarding school while in the care of William Clark.  Subsequent records support that Charbonneau consented to Clark's adoption of Lizette the following year, although almost nothing is known about her subsequent fate.  Jean-Baptiste lived until age 61, having traveled widely and having figured in many interesting localities of the American West.

The 1812 death claim, however, is rejected by the Shoshone's, to which tribe she belonged, who maintain that she lived to be nearly 100 years old and died in 1884 at Ft. Washakie, Wyoming.  A grave site exists for her, based on the competing claim, in Ft. Washakie, the seat of government for the Wind River Reservation.  This claim holds that she left Charbonneau and ultimately married into the Comanche tribe, which is very closely related to the Shoshone tribe, ultimately returning to her native tribe This view was championed by  Grace Hebard who was discussed here several days ago, and it even presents an alternative history for her son, Jean Baptiste, and a second son Bazil.  It was later supported by the conclusions reached by Dr. Charles Eastman, a Sioux physician who was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to research her fate.

While the Wyoming claim is not without supporting evidence, the better evidence would support her death outside of Wyoming at an early age.  The alternative thesis is highly romantic, which has provided the basis for criticism of Hebard's work.  The 1812 date, on the other hand, is undeniably sad, as much of Sacajawea's actual life was.  Based upon what is now known of her story, as well as the verifiable story of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, who had traveled in the US and Europe, and who had held public office in the United States, the Wyoming claim is seriously questionable.  That in turn leaves the question of the identify of the person buried at Ft. Washakie, who appears to have genuinely been married into the Comanche tribe, to have lived to an extremely old age, and to have lived a very interesting life, but that identity is unlikely to ever be known, or even looked into.

1886  Territorial Governor George Baxter resigned. He had only been in office for a month.  The West Point graduate and former U.S. Cavalryman's history was noted a few days ago, on the anniversary of his death.

1916   The Wyoming Trubine for December 20, 1916: Troops Rush to Forestall Border Raid (and a truly bizarre comparison made in the case of a Mexican American militia)
 

A story of a near raid in the Yuma era with a rather bizarre comparison between a claimed Mexican American militia and the KKK.   Apparently the authors there had taken their history from D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation rather than reality.

It's rather difficult, to say the least, to grasp a comparison between a Mexican militia of any kind and the KKK which wouldn't exactly be in the category of people sympathetic to Mexican Americans.  And it's even more difficult to see the KKK used as a favorable comparison.  Cheyenne had a not insignificant African American, Hispanic, and otherwise ethic population associated with the Union Pacific railroad and I imagine they weren't thrilled when they saw that article.

Apparently the "war babies" referred to in the headline were stocks that were associated with Great War production, which logically fell following the recent exchange of notes on peace. As we saw yesterday, the Allies weren't receptive to them, so I'd imagine they those stocks rose again.
1942  Sheridan's high school added a vocational preparatory class for essential work work.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1945   Tire rationing in the U.S. ended.

2005   Wyoming commenced a somewhat controversial cloud-seeding research project with the intent to increase mountain snowpack.  Attribution:  On This Day .Com.

2010  The University of Wyoming puts Bruce Catton's papers on line. Catton was a well known historian of the Civil War.

December 19

1866   Indians attempted to lure a detachment commanded by Captain James Powell into a trap near Ft. Phil Kearny but did not succeed.

1882  The telegraph line between Ft. McKinney and Ft. Laramie became a telephone line.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1892  A subpoena was issued in the case of Subpoena, State of Wyoming vs. Frank M. Canton, et al., a criminal action following the Johnson County War.  The original is now held by Texas A&M.

1906 This photograph was taken of Pilot Knob.  The date is interesting in that Pilot Knob is quite near Ft. Phil Kearny, and December dates are significant for that reason.

1944  A ridge on Saipan was named after a Casper man.  This information is via the State Archives (from the WSHS) site.  Unfortunately, they don't give the name.

1960  Ft. Phil Kearny designated a National Historic Landmark.

1960  The Sun Ranch was designated a National Historic Landmark.

1977  Nellie Tayloe Ross died at age 101 in Washington D. C.  She was buried alongside her late husband in Cheyenne. She had not, of course, lived in Cheyenne for many years, or even for the most of her long life.  Her years in Washington were considerably longer in extent than those in Wyoming.

 Nellie Tayloe Ross on her Massachusetts' farm.

2016  A recorded gust of wind reached 88 mph on the base of Casper Mountain, a new record 14 mph higher than any previously recorded gust in that location.  Clark Wyoming reported a blast of 108 mph.  It was a very blustery day.

December 18

1777  Congress declared a Thanksgiving Day following the  British surrender at Saratoga.

1871   A bill providing for the establishment of Yellowstone National Park was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1915 The Capital Avenue Theater in Cheyenne was destroyed by fire. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1929   Former Territorial Governor George Baxter White died in New York City.  He held office for only one month.

1933  Joseph C. O'Mahoney appointed U.S. Senator following the death of John B. Kendrick.  He would actually take office on January 1, 1934. 

1944  The Governor of Oklahoma predicted that Mississippi and Wyoming had the brightest oil related futures in the nation.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944  U.S. Supreme Court upholds the wartime internment of U.S. Citizens of Japanese extraction, which would of course include those interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

1966  Fritiof Fryxell, first Teton Park naturalist, died.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

1998  A fire Newcastle, WY, destroys four century old buildings. Attribution.  On This Day .com.

2008   Gatua wa Mbugwa, a Kenyan, delivers the first dissertation every delivered in Gikuyu, at the University of Wyoming.  The topic was in plant sciences.

2014.  Nebraska and Oklahoma filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court seeking to have leave to sue Colorado on a Constitutional basis.regarding Colorado's state legalization of marijuana.  The basis of their argument is that Colorado's action violates the United States Constitution by ignoring the supremacy nature of Federal provisions banning marijuana.

While an interesting argument, my guess is that this will fail, as the Colorado action, while flying in the face of Federal law, does exist in an atmosphere in which the Federal government has ceased enforcing the law itself.

2019  The United States House of Representatives approved Articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump.

December 17

1619     Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Royalist cavalry commander in the English Civil War, born.  He returned England with the restoration of Charles II, and headed the investors group that in 1670 got a charter for the Hudson's Bay Company and title to all lands draining into Hudson Bay.  He was the first Governor of the HBC.

1890  Union Pacific swithmen went on strike.   Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1904  John J. McIntyre born in Dewey County, Oklahoma.  He was the Congressman from Wyoming from 1941 to 1943, serving a single term.  He served as State Auditor in 1946, and was later a Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court from 1960 until his death in 1974.

McIntyre graduated from high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma and had a law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1929.  He relocated to Wyoming in 1931 where he became the Converse County Attorney in 1933 and entered Federal service as an attorney in 1936.  He was a member of the Wyoming National Guard and was promoted to the rank of Captain in1936. This was not unusual for lawyers of that period, as many held commissions on the Guard.  He must have been in the Guard at the time it was Federalized in 1940, but his status as a Congressman likely took him out of service at the time of Pearl Harbor.  He was not reelected to Congress and served as a Deputy Attorney General in 1943 and 1944, and then entered the U.S. Army as an enlisted man where he was a Staff Sergeant with the 660th Field Artillery.

1916  Inter Ocean destroyed by fire.

The Inter-Ocean

1916   Inter-Ocean Hotel in Cheyenne destroyed by fire.  Attribution; Wyoming State Historical Society.

The Inter-Ocean was one of several Cheyenne hotels that were big deals and major watering holes, something very common in that era and for decades thereafter (and still somewhat true in larger cities today).  It's remembered to Western History for being the location referenced by Tom Horn in his famous conversation with  Joe LeFors.

If you go to the Inter-Ocean to sit down and talk a few minutes some one comes in and says, 'Let us have a drink,' and before you know it you are standing up talking, and my feet get so *&^*&^^  tired it almost kills me. I am 44 years, 3 months, and 27 days old, and if I get killed now I have the satisfaction of knowing I have lived about fifteen ordinary lives.

Horn was in fact arrested outside of the Inter-Ocean.

The hotel had been built by Barney Ford, a businessman who had been born a slave, a status that he escaped from.  His father was the white plantation owners where his black mother was enslaved.  After escaping he lived an adventuresome life and rose to great wealth in Colorado.

He apparently liked the name "Inter-Ocean" as he built another hotel in Denver's 16th Street by that name.  Like the Cheyenne hotel, it is no longer there, which is a real shame as funky buildings like this are all the rage in Denver now..

Denver's Inter-Ocean

1916  Sunday State Leader for December 17, 1916: Measles killing Guardsmen at Deming.

Not the only news of the day, but two Arkansas Guardsmen died from the measles at Deming, New Mexico, news that surely worried Wyomingites with family members serving in the Guard at Deming.

William F. Cody  was reported very ill at his sister's house in Denver.

And death claimed the life of a former Rough Rider living in the state as well.

The State Health Officer reported, in cheerier news, on the state's healthful climate.

1916  Carranza rejects the protocol

 

We've run a lot of newspaper articles on the negotiations between the United States and Mexico, or perhaps more accurately between the United States and the Constitutionalist government of Mexico lead by Venustiano Carranza

 Carranza

On this day he ended the doubt, he refused to sign it.

Carranza was a tough minded individual.  He never liked Woodrow Wilson and he had a grudge against the United States.  Irrespective of what may seem to be the advantages of the proposals that were made, he wouldn't agree.

And he never did.  Carranza never executed a protocol with the United States.

By this point the United States clearly wanted out of Mexico.  The intervention had bogged down to an uneasy occupation since the summer and was going nowhere.  Carranza guessed correctly that the United States would be leaving no matter what, although that did not mean that the US would be passive in protecting its interests.

1918  The USS Cheyenne, formerly the USS Wyoming, but renamed due the later battleship being assigned that name, assigned to Division I, American Patrol Division.

1918  December 17, 1918. No Booze for Soldiers. No Booze for Coloradans, No Booze for Montanans. Villa ponders attack

Up until at least the Korean War, if not the Vietnam War, a deficit of clothing meant that discharged soldiers often wore their uniforms after a time following their discharge.  That was very much the case after World War One and World War Two.  Here, the Federal Government was concerned about discharged soldiers drinking in uniform.

In the popular imagination, Prohibition was forced on an unwilling nation by a bunch of silly temperance women who didn't realize that America was a drinking nation.  That version of the story is very far from true.

The Cheyenne State Leader was reporting that Montana would go dry on December 30.  1918 was to be Montana's last "wet" year.  Villa, the paper also reported, was up to no good.

In reality, Prohibition was a hugely popular movement and was gaining ground in the states prior to it become Federal law.  By this date in 1918, Colorado had gone "bone dry" and Montana was about to.

Not all was bleak. One of the Casper papers was reporting that American soldiers still preferred American girls.  Those American soldiers would be bringing home quite a few French brides and even a few Russian ones.  Of course, the report here did contain some bad news for American women.  Some of the soldiers were reporting pretty favorably on les femmes Francais.

So Prohibition was really arriving in the individual states prior to the Volstead Act making it the law of the land and prior to any Constitutional amendment requiring it.  When Prohibition was repealed, it meant that each state that had laws on the books had to revisit those laws if it wanted to likewise repeal Prohibition in their state, which serves as a lesson in rushing to amend laws to comport with what seems to be a national development.  That allowed those states a breather to adapt to the new situation, which in the case of Wyoming it very much took, phasing drinking back in over a period of years.

1919 

Vernon Baker born in Cheyenne.  Baker is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in combat in World War Two, with his citation reading as follows:

For extraordinary heroism in action on 5 and 6 April 1945, near Viareggio, Italy. Then Second Lieutenant Baker demonstrated outstanding courage and leadership in destroying enemy installations, personnel, and equipment during his company's attack against a strongly entrenched enemy in mountainous terrain. When his company was stopped by the concentration of fire from several machine gun emplacements, he crawled to one position and destroyed it, killing three Germans. Continuing forward, he attacked an enemy observation post and killed two occupants. With the aid of one of his men, Lieutenant Baker attacked two more machine gun nests, killing or wounding the four enemy soldiers occupying these positions. He then covered the evacuation of the wounded personnel of his company by occupying an exposed position and drawing the enemy's fire. On the following night Lieutenant Baker voluntarily led a battalion advance through enemy mine fields and heavy fire toward the division objective. Second Lieutenant Baker's fighting spirit and daring leadership were an inspiration to his men and exemplify the highest traditions of the Armed Forces.

Baker had a rough start in life when his parents died while he was still young.  Partially raised by his grandparents, he learned how to hunt from his grandfather in order to put meat on the table.  Entering the Army during World War Two, he made the Army a career and retired in 1968 as a First Lieutenant, his rank at that time reflecting force reductions following World War Two.  He retired to Idaho where he chose to live as he was an avid hunter, and he died there in 2010.  Baker is a significant figure from Wyoming not only because he won the Congressional Medal of Honor, but because he was part of Wyoming's small African American community.

1985  Alan B. Johnson received his commission as a Federal Judge for the District of Wyoming.

2003  Wyoming filed a petition to delist the Prebbles Jumping Mouse from the Endangered Species List.

December 16

1826   Benjamin Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and proclaims himself the ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.

1868  Albany and Carbon Counties established by the Dakota Territorial Legislature.  At this point in time, Wyoming was part of the Dakota Territory.

1868  The first train, a Union Pacific train, arrived at Evanston.

1871  Wyoming State Library established.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1875  William S. Sweezy takes over as U.S. Marshall, replacing Frank Wolcott.  Wolcott would later famously be associated with invaders side of the Johnson County War.

1916  The Cheyenne State Leader for December 16, 1916: Villa proposes deal with US?
 

Rumors were circulating that Villa had proposed a deal with the US, and Pershing stood to be promoted.

The Wyoming Tribune for December 16, 1916: Home folks send boxes to border

Care packages were being sent to Wyoming National Guardsmen in New Mexico.
1942  Bob Hope entertained troops at Casper Army Air Base.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944     German forces launched a surprise attack against Allied forces in Belgium.  The massive surprise attack commenced a three week long battle known to history as The Battle of the Bulge.

1950 President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight "Communist imperialism."   The announcement reflected recent history, including the June invasion of South Korean by North Korea, an event which had resulted in the Federalization and commitment of the the 300th AFA of the Wyoming Army National Guard.  It also reflected a host of other events, such as the Berlin blockade and the ever increasing Soviet grip on Eastern Europe.

2016  After a long period of consideration, the United States Forest Service removes 40,000 acres in the Wyoming Range from mineral entrants.

Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War

The Korean War is something that most Wyomingites don't particularly associate with our state, but the war did have a noticeable impact on the state, and Korea has been in the news a lot recently, so now might be a good time to take a look at it.

 Official painting of the Wyoming Army National Guard depicting Wyoming's 300th AFA in action.

Part of the reason that we don't think much of the Korean War and Wyoming, is that we don't think much about the Korean War at all.  The Korean War is one of several wars that have been tagged "forgotten wars" and, in the case of Korea, it's really true.  Perhaps that was inevitable, coming between World War Two and the Vietnam War, as it did.

Wyoming's role in the Korean War is tied closely to the the decline in the Army's conventional war fighting abilities that followed World War Two.  The largest war ever fought, World War Two was the largest conventional conflict of all time but it ended with the use of two nuclear weapons.  Given that, the immediate assumption by the American military was that the age of conventional warfare had ended and that any future war, of any kind, would be a nuclear war.  The Army was allowed to atrophy as a result.  Between 1945, when World War Two ended, and 1950, when the Korean War started, the Army's training in conventional warfare dramatically declined.

An end to conventional warfare turned out to be a massively erroneous assumption, and the place we learned that was in Korea.

That the US would fight a war in Korea was something that, moreover, seemed an impossibility in 1945, when events took us there for the first time in the 20th Century.  The US had actually fought in Korea once before, but in the 19th Century, oddly enough, when the Marine Corps landed briefly in Korean in an obscure punitive expedition.  It was World War Two, however that brought the US back onto the Korean Peninsula, but only due to the end of the war.

Korea itself had been a Japanese possession since 1910, when the Japanese simply made a fact out of what had been the case following the Russo Japanese War.  Korea had been more or less independent prior to that, but heavily influenced by its much more powerful neighbors.  The Russo Japanese War effectively ended Korean independence in favor of the Japanese.  The Japanese dominance was not a happy thing for the Koreans.  Korea remained a Japanese possession up until after World War Two, when it was jointly occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union, splitting the country in half.  The US had no intention to remain there but the original concept of uniting the country in a democratic process fell apart, and the Soviets and the US left with the country divided.  The US had weakly armed the South and failed to provide it with heavy weapons. The North, on the other hand, was heavily armed and trained by the Soviets, who left the North with the means, and likely the plan, on how to unite the peninsula by force.  In 1950, North Korea invaded the South with a well equipped and well trained Army.  They faced a poorly trained South Korean Army.

Soon after that they, quite frankly, faced a poorly trained American Army.  The US hadn't really given much thought to South Korea after leaving it, but the fall of China, followed by the Berlin Blockade, followed by shocking early revelations about Soviet espionage inside the US, followed by the development of the Soviet bomb, suddenly refocused attention on a country that now seemed to be a dagger aimed at Japan.  President Truman made the immediate decision to send the U.S. Army into South Korea to turn the North Koreans back.

That Army, however, wasn't the same Army the US had in 1945 after the defeat of Germany and Japan.  After VJ Day the U.S. had rapidly demobilized.  Moreover, convinced that all future wars would be nuclear in nature, the U.S. had let the Army deteriorate markedly.  It was poorly trained and not all that well equipped in some ways.

The intervention in South Korea required the call up of numerous Army National Guard units, and Wyoming's 300th Armored Field Artillery was one of them. Deployed in February 1951, the unit made up of young recruits from northern Wyoming and World War Two veterans proved to be a very effective one.  It achieved a fairly unique status in May 1951 at Soyang with the unit directly engaged advancing enemy infantry, a very rare event in modern combat and a risky one at any time.  The unit came out of the Korean War with Presidential and Congressional Unit Citations in honor of its fine performance in the war.  The individual Guardsmen of the 300th AFA largely came home after completing a combat tour, at a little over a year, but the called up unit remained in service throughout the war.  Other Wyoming Army National Guard units were also called up in this time, but only the 300th AFA was sent to the Korean War.

The Air National Guard's 187th Fighter Bomber Squadron from Wyoming was called up. The new Air Guard saw combat service for the first time in the Korean War.  Nine Wyoming F51 pilots were lost serving in the unit during the war.

Of course, many Wyomingites served in the war by volunteering for military service, or by being conscripted during the war.  Like earlier wars, Wyomingites volunteered in high numbers.

Sidebar: The Vietnam War In Wyoming

Just below I posted an item on the Vietnam War, and reconsidering it in context.  Indeed, enough time has passed now that the war can probably properly be put in context, which would, in my view, require pretty much tossing out all the existing histories and starting afresh.  Not that this is that unusual.  I've long thought that no accurate history of an event can be written until at least 40 or 50 years have passed since it occurred.  the Vietnam War ended 40 years ago for the United States, and a little under that for North and South Vietnam.

What did this controversial war mean for Wyoming? 

It's easy to think that it wasn't an event that impacted us in any special way, but every world event impacts a region in its own unique way. the Vietnam War is not an exception.

In many people's recollections, the Vietnam War at home is remembered in terms of civil protest.  This isn't really the case for Wyoming.  Volunteer rates for the service in Wyoming were remarkably high, keeping a tradition in Wyoming that goes back to statehood and which continues on today.  Even for wars where public enthusiasm was high country wide, such as World War Two, volunteering for service occurred at a higher rate in Wyoming than elsewhere.

This doesn't mean, however, that everyone in Wyoming was uniformly for the war.  Indeed, I can recall the house of a friend of mine where the parents had put up an antiwar poster on their front door, in a very suburban neighborhood, but that was very much an exception to the rule.  For the most part, Wyomingites support the war, if not always enthusiastically.  This too was the case with Wyoming's representation in Washington, which supported the war throughout its course.

Wyoming actually contributed to the war effort in a bit of a unique, if somewhat hidden and now mostly forgotten manner.  The Wyoming Air National Guard's 187th Aeromedical Transport Squadron flew missions in and out of Vietnam in support of the war.  The widely held belief that Guardsmen and Reservists didn't serve in the war is in error, and it is particularly in error in regards to the Air National Guard, which saw short deployments and missions of this type.  The Wyoming Army National Guard, however, like most (but not all) Army National Guard units was not called up during the war.  It was over capacity during the war, like all Guard units, which did in part reflect a desire by some of its members to fulfill an anticipated military service requirement which was unlikely to send them overseas.  In sharp contrast to this, however, following the war every Wyoming Army National Guard unit would have a very high percentage of Vietnam War combat veterans.

Wyoming's Vietnam veterans did well in Wyoming following the war, figuring as significant figures in every walk of life.  The war did change Wyoming in subtle ways, but they were subtle indeed.  Never a state that opposed the war, the influence the general atmosphere had on the state's youth never deterred them from volunteering for military service at any point, but it did make such things as mandatory high school Junior ROTC sufficiently unpopular that Natrona County High School, which had that requirement throughout its history, abolished it just after the war.  By and large, however, the view of Wyoming to the war was cautious, but cautious support.

Upcoming changes to the Today In Wyoming's History Blog

Starting on January 1, 2014, this blog will no longer be updated daily.

The blog will not disappear, however.  And all the entries, one for every day of the year, will remain.

The reason that we're going to change it is simple. We've been running it for over a year and all the data that is readily mined for entries has been.  There is undoubtedly many, many, more items that could be added, but only by going through texts to do it. We've done that, in fact, in part.  Perhaps to a surprising degree. But to go further would require us to really be employed in this area of study, and we're not. So we cannot devote the time to do that.

The blog will remain as a source for those interested in Wyoming's history, however. For those looking for a certain day, they'll all be there. And the blog will continue to be updated on items of historical Wyoming interest that we have not written on. So it'll keep on keeping on.  And when we find an interesting item that has not been inserted on its day, we'll do so.  Finally, we hope that people who stop in, and now something of interest, will include on the relevant day.

Lex Anteinternet: Looking at the Vietnam War differently. Not a war...

Lex Anteinternet: Looking at the Vietnam War differently. Not a war...: In a thread just below I noted the Vietnam War as a lost American war .  Now, in a somewhat contrarian fashion, I"m going to urge us t...