📅 On This Day in Military History
2 events across history
Custer's 7th Cavalry launched a dawn attack on Chief Black Kettle's Southern Cheyenne village on the Washita River in present-day Oklahoma. Black Kettle, a tireless advocate for peace who had survived Sand Creek four years earlier, was killed along with his wife and more than 100 Cheyenne — mostly women and children. Custer also destroyed the village, killed approximately 875 horses, and captured 53 women and children.
The attack demonstrated the U.S. Army's winter campaign strategy: strike villages in cold months when horses were weak and people were confined. Custer was praised by Sheridan, but critics noted the village had many non-combatants. The death of Black Kettle eliminated one of the last influential Cheyenne peace advocates.
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In temperatures plunging to minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit, 30,000 US Marines and soldiers of X Corps found themselves completely surrounded by 120,000 Chinese troops at the Chosin Reservoir in the mountains of northeast Korea. General Oliver P. Smith's Marines executed one of history's most celebrated fighting retreats — 78 miles through enemy lines to the port of Hungnam. 'Retreat, hell — we're just attacking in a different direction,' became the battle's motto. Frostbite casualties rivaled those from combat.
Chosin became a defining legend of the US Marine Corps — an epic of courage and endurance against overwhelming odds in brutal conditions. The Marines not only survived but inflicted catastrophic losses on the encircling Chinese forces. The successful evacuation at Hungnam saved an entire corps and 100,000 Korean refugees.
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