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Highlights for September 27
1854 The first great disaster involving an Atlantic Ocean liner
US steamship Arctic, while charging through the fog at top speed (as was customary in the days when transatlantic speed records were a matter of national pride), collided with a much smaller but hardier French steamship Vesta, that ripped a fatal wound in Arctic's hull. Captain Luce made a mad dash for land, but there wasn't enough time to save his ship, and Arctic was seriously lacking in lifeboats. A desperate situation which brought out the worst in some of the crew, whose cowardly actions of stealing the few lifeboats the ship carried insured the death of every woman and child on the ship (so much for the idea of noble seafarers). The crew wasn't the only problem; the passengers blew up inflatable life jackets only to see the defective items deflate seconds later. (not a single woman or child survived the sinking and only 24 male passengers would survive to tell the tale)
Defective life jackets? Inadequate number of lifeboats on a ship for which a ticket cost a equivalent of $2,300 in 2002 money for a first class one-way fair
Making this disaster more horrible was the fact nothing was done to punish the crew and the maritime courts never even sought out the crew or company for punishment.
Eerily similar in many ways to the later sinking of the Titanic. The immediate and secondary causes of the disaster: were bad weather, no established shipping lanes, the ship's owners' preference for speed rather than prudence, and an appalling lack of safety precautions.
1864 Unarmed Yankees are massacred in Centralia
A guerilla band led by William "Bloody Bill" Anderson sacks the town of Centralia, Missouri, killing 22 unarmed Union soldiers before massacring 120 pursuing Yankees.
The Civil War in Missouri and Kansas was rarely fought between regular armies in the field. It was carried out primarily by partisan bands of guerilla fighters, and the atrocities were nearly unmatched. In 1863, Confederate marauders sacked Lawrence, Kansas, and killed 250 residents.
In 1864, partisan activity increased in anticipation of Confederate General Sterling Price's invasion of the state. On the evening of September 26, a band of 200 Confederate marauders gathered near the town of Centralia, Missouri. The next morning, Anderson led 30 guerillas into Centralia and began looting the tiny community and terrorizing the residents. Unionist congressmen William Rollins escaped execution only by giving a false name and hiding in a nearby hotel.
Meanwhile, a train from St. Louis was just pulling into the station. The engineer, who spotted Anderson's men destroying the town, tried to apply steam to keep the train moving. However, the brakeman, unaware of the raid, applied the brakes and brought the train to a halt. The guerillas took 150 prisoners from the train, which included 23 Union soldiers, and then set it on fire and opened its throttle; the flaming train sped away from the town. The soldiers were stripped and Anderson's men began firing on them, killing all but one within a few minutes. The surviving Yankee soldier was spared in exchange for a member of Anderson's company who had recently been captured.
That afternoon, a Union detachment commanded by Major A. V. E. Johnston arrived in Centralia to find the bushwhackers had already vacated the town. Johnston left some troops to hold the tiny burgh, and then headed in the direction of Anderson's band. Little did he know he was riding right into a perfect trap: Johnston's men followed Rebel pickets into an open field, and the Southern partisans attacked from three sides. Johnston and his entire command were quickly annihilated. Anderson's men scalped and mutilated many of the bodies before moving back into Centralia and killing the remaining Federal soldiers. In all, the bushwhackers killed some 140 Yankee troops.
A month later, Anderson was killed attempting a similar attack near Albany, Missouri.
More Highlights on the American Civil War
1869 Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok proves too wild for Kansas
Just after midnight on this day in 1869, Ellis County Sheriff Wild Bill Hickok and his deputy respond to a report that a local ruffian named Samuel Strawhun and several drunken buddies were tearing up John Bitter's Beer Saloon in Hays City, Kansas. When Hickok arrived and ordered the men to stop, Strawhun turned to attack him, and Hickok shot him in the head. Strawhun died instantly, as did the riot.
Such were Wild Bill's less-than-restrained law enforcement methods. Famous for his skill with a pistol and steely-calm under fire, James Butler Hickok initially seemed to be the ideal man for the sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas. The good citizens of Hays City, the county seat, were tired of the wild brawls and destructiveness of the hard-drinking buffalo hunters and soldiers who took over their town every night. They hoped the famous "Wild Bill" could restore peace and order, and in the late summer of 1869, elected him as interim county sheriff.
Tall, athletic, and sporting shoulder-length hair and a sweeping mustache, Hickok cut an impressive figure, and his reputation as a deadly shot with either hand was often all it took to keep many potential lawbreakers on the straight and narrow. As one visiting cowboy later recalled, Hickok would stand "with his back to the wall, looking at everything and everybody under his eyebrows-just like a mad old bull." But when Hickok applied more aggressive methods of enforcing the peace, some Hays City citizens wondered if their new cure wasn't worse than the disease. Shortly after becoming sheriff, Hickok shot a belligerent soldier who resisted arrest, and the man died the next day. A few weeks later Hickok killed Strawhun. While his brutal ways were indisputably effective, many Hays City citizens were less than impressed that after only five weeks in office he had already found it necessary to kill two men in the name of preserving peace.
During the regular November election later that year, the people expressed their displeasure, and Hickok lost to his deputy, 144-89. Though Wild Bill Hickok would later go on to hold other law enforcement positions in the West, his first attempt at being a sheriff had lasted only three months.
More Highlights on the American Old West
1964 Warren Commission report released
The Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is released after a 10-month investigation, concluding that there was no conspiracy in the assassination, either domestic or international, and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone.
The presidential commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, also found that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who murdered Oswald on live national television, had no prior contact with Oswald. According to the report, the bullets that killed President Kennedy and injured Texas Governor John Connally were fired by Oswald in three shots from a rifle pointed out of a sixth floor window in the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald's life, including his visit to the Soviet Union, was described in detail, but the report made no attempt to analyze his motives.
Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy" that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee's findings, as with the findings of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.
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