Army Almanac – Volume 30 Number 3

Continental and militia troops under Major General Horatio Gates are routed by British forces at Camden, South Carolina. 

Colonel William S. Harney, with 600 soldiers of the 2d Dragoons, 6th Infantry, 10th Infantry, and 4th Artillery, attacks the Sioux village of Little Thunder on Blue Water Creek, Nebraska Territory. His forces kill eighty-six Indians and capture seventy women and children, at the cost of four soldiers killed, seven wounded, and one missing. 

Four convicted conspirators—Mary Surratt, Lewis Paine, David Herold, and George Atzerodt—in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln are executed by hanging at Washington Arsenal in Washington, DC. 

The Post of San Antonio, Texas is designated Fort Sam Houston, in honor of Sam Houston’s prominent role in Texas history. 

Lieutenant Jacob E. Fickel fires an M1903 Springfield rifle from a plane at Sheepshead Bay, New York, the first Army test of an armed aircraft. 

The Army Chemical Corps and the Army Finance Department are established. 

Instruments of Surrender are signed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing a close to World War II. 

The Army begins withdrawing from Austria, the last nation in Europe occupied by the United States after World War II. 

All U.S. forces in Cambodia withdraw back into South Vietnam, ending the Cambodian incursion for American units; South Vietnamese forces continue operating in Cambodia until December. 

Iraqi forces invade Kuwait. U.S. forces, including elements of the 82d Airborne Division, are soon rushed to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation DESERT SHIELD and the Defense of Saudi Arabia Campaign.  

General David H. Petraeus assumes command of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.