1847: Although outnumbered more than three-to-one, Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor 4,500-man force defeats Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Battle of Buena Vista. During the engagement, an artillery battery led by Capt. Braxton Bragg – who goes on to become a Confederate general – plugs a gap in the American lines, and is instrumental in the victory.
Although historians call it a misquote, Taylor’s order of “Give them a little more grape, Capt. Bragg,” (meaning load the cannons with double the “grapeshot” used to cut down infantry charges) becomes a famous campaign slogan, helping carry Taylor to the White House and making a hero out of Bragg.
Commanding a regiment of Mississippi volunteers is Colonel Jefferson Davis, the former son-in-law of Gen. Taylor. Davis will be offered a commission as a brigadier general in the U.S. Army following the war, which he turns down. He does go on to a career in government, serving as a U.S. congressman, senator, and the Secretary of War.
Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor
1862: 15 years to the day after being wounded at Buena Vista, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the Confederacy’s first official president. Davis had been serving as the provisional president until being elected.
1909: Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” – a four-squadron armada of white-painted warships manned by some 14,000 sailors and Marines – returns to Hampton Roads, Virginia after sailing around the world in a grand show of American Naval power.
1942: (Featured Image) Pres. Franklin Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur, America’s only general with experience fighting the Japanese, to leave the Philippines. MacArthur had previously informed his superiors that he would “share the fate of the garrison” at Corregidor. He delays the trip as long as possible, departing by PT boat on March 11.
1967: The U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade conducts the first and only mass parachute jump of the Vietnam War. The jump is but one element of the much broader airborne (primarily heliborne assault) and infantry “search and destroy” operation, Junction City. The operation will continue through May.
173d Airborne Brigade, Vietnam War, Hill 823
1974: Lt. J.G. Barbara Ann Allen Rainey pins on her wings, becoming the first female Naval aviator. Rainey is assigned to a transport squadron, flying C-1 “Trader” planes .In 1982, she will be killed in a crash while training a student pilot.
Barbara Ann Allen Rainey
C-1 “Trader”
