Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1897-12-23
NOTABLE EVENTS RECALLED.
Many Remarkable Occurrences Credit
ed to December LIST.

OF number of events in a number of
countries. Each is of some measure Of
Importance, but none is OF the en-
crossing kind which sets aside one day
from all the days and Eliminates a
nations history. Dec. l, 1916, General
Washington began that retreat across
New Jersey. with the British close be-
| hind him, which for the first time
gained him the credit of a Fabian
policy. In all the long retreat Wash
| ington was never for moment in po-
sition to offer battle to the British.
And yet so ckillfully did he handle his
men, SO daring was he in many feints
and pretended advances, so swift and
elusive in escaping from danger, that
when the active operations of the cam
paign were ended the British were in
worse position than the Americans.
| The march had cost the enemy far
more than it had the patriot forces.
And the very fact that not all the
power of the kings army could crush
the colonial troops was sufficient cause
for Thanksgiving.
Dec. /, 1868, General Longstreet of
the confederate army attacked General
Burnside at Knoxville, Tenn. So sure
were the southerners that they could
crush Grants army at Chattanooga
whenever they got ready that General
Bragg had sent 10000 men to the sup
port of Longstreet. And with this
la TN nj ho1 N
rid east Tennessee of the last yankee.
But Burnside, though sorely pressed,
held the fort until Bragg's defeat at
Lookout Mountain and Mission Ridge,
late in November, left Grant free to re-
lieve him. Longstreet at once aban-
doned his position and moved out from
between the two crushing forces
Burnside before and the triumphant
Sherman behind him.
Going back a little farther, Dec. l,
1852 marks the day when Louis Napo-
leon was made emperor of France,
with the title of Napoleon III. Napo-
leon H., the only child of the first en-
peror and Marie Louise of Austria,
had died of consumption in Vienna
twenty years before, but was never on
the throne. This new emperor was
the nephew OF the great Napoleon, and
was the son Of Hortense, Josephine S
daughter by her first husband Hor-
t. nse was great favorite with Napo-
leon L., and 1t seems a romantic fitness
was satisfied when her son came to
imperial honors. His father was Louis
Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother. Napo-
leon Ill had the nation behind him.
He could dismiss the assembly when
he was but an elected member of that
body. When the nation, having tried
! the Bourbons who succeeded the first
emperor, and the republic which--by
gradations-s succeeded the royal rule,
was willing for a return to the empire,
the senate went out to st. Cloud in a
body and announced to Louis-what he
o course already knew-that he had
been chosen emperor. He lasted till
1870 and went down in the collapse
that followed the Prussian invasion.
Dec. /, 1S4S, ship called the Lon
conderry encountered a storm in the
North Sea, and the passengers by
means of their crowding on deck in
terfered with the work of the sailors.
Captain Alexander Johnston ordered
them below, and when they protested
forced them down. There were 1874
passengers. Johnston and his men
nailed down the matches, and then, to
deaden the cries of the crowded I'M
fortunates, spread a tarpaulin over the
part of the deck which covered them.
It was another "Black Hole of CAL
crtta." Men, women and children
fought for the little air that came in,
or struggled to break through the
walls inclosing them. One man at
last got out and told Captain John
ston the people were suffocating. He
opened the hatches and the wretches
ciept, naked end gasping, to the win
try air Of the deck. OF the total num-
Der seventy-two were dead. Johnston
and his mates We're indicted, but were
acquitted on the trial. To many peo-
pie that is black-letter day in Eng
lind yet
That same day, Dec. /, 1913, the in
dependent republic Of Hungary was de-
Clared. The struggle for freedom from
any rule but their own had been long
before begun, and it seems-in the
light Of recent turbulent sessions of
the unterhans at Vienna--not yet to
have ended. The open defiance of
! Austrian power announced that day
seemed to have warrant in Hungarian
strength. But provinces demanded
the same independence from Hungary
that Hungary had secured from Aus
tria. and force was required to sub
due them. But later supported by
Russia. the Hungarian national move
ment was defeated, Kossuth fed to
Turkey, and the kingdom OF Hungary
was once more united to the old grand
! duchy Of Austria.
Dec. l, 1914, the American privateer
schooner Kemp was surrounded lust
on Havana by nine English merchant
men. The Kemp bore down upon them
when only three were in sight but