Celebrations Today – May 19

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day:
  • Calocerus (Eastern Orthodox Church)
  • Crispin of Viterbo
  • Dunstan (Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Church; commemoration, Anglicanism)
  • Ivo of Kermartin
  • Joaquina Vedruna de Mas
  • Maria Bernarda Bütler
  • Peter Celestine
  • Pudentiana (Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Church)
  • May 19 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
• Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day (Turkey, Northern Cyprus)
• Greek Genocide Remembrance Day (Greece)
• Hồ Chí Minh’s Birthday (Vietnam)
• Malcolm X Day (United States of America)
• National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (United States)
• Hepatitis Testing Day (United States)
• Mother’s Day (Kyrgyzstan)

Celebrations Today – USA: May 19

National Devil’s Food Cake Day
National May Ray Day
National Bike to Work Day – Third Friday in May
National Defense Transportation Day – Third Friday in May
National Endangered Species Day – Third Friday in May
National Pizza Party Day – Third Friday in May
NASCAR Day – Third Friday in May
National Boy’s Club Day
National Celebrate Your Elected Officials Day
National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
National Devil’s Food Cake Day
National Frog Jumping Jubilee Day
National Hepatitis Testing Day

Today in US History: May 19

Grant At Vicksburg

On May 19, 1863, General Ulysses S. Grant attempted to take the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg, Mississippi. After making a daring run past Confederate batteries, Union naval forces joined troops several miles down river. Working together, they detained Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston in Jackson, preventing him from assisting General John C. Pemberton at Vicksburg.

Siege of Vicksburg (detail),
Kurz & Allison, copyright 1888.
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog

Levee and Steamboats, Vicksburg, Mississippi,
William R Pywell, photographer, February, 1864.
Selected Civil War Photographs

When Grant’s direct assaults failed to overwhelm the city, on this date and again on May 22, he settled down to a six-week siege. Twelve miles of Northern entrenchments paralleled Confederate earthworks. At some points, soldiers held their separate lines within shouting distance. By mid-June, nearly 80,000 Union troops were massed at the city on the Mississippi River bluffs.

With Union gunboats on the river and enemy trenches surrounding the city, the citizens and soldiers of Vicksburg were sealed off from supplies. In addition to dwindling food stores, they weathered nearly constant bombardment by land and naval forces. To escape the shells, Vicksburg residents abandoned their homes for caves carved into the city’s hills. Weeks passed and starving denizens of “Prairie Dog Village,” as Union soldiers dubbed the maze of dugouts, still hoped for salvation at the hands of General Johnston.

By day forty-four of the siege, the editor of Vicksburg’s Daily Citizen was reduced to printing on wallpaper. Still, he managed to quip:

[T]he great Ulysses—the Yankee Generalissimo, surnamed Grant—has expressed his intention of dining in Vicksburg on Saturday next, and celebrating the 4th of July by a grand dinner and so forth. When asked if he would invite Gen. Jo Johnston to join he said. ‘No! for fear there will be a row at the table.’ Ulysses must get into the city before he dines in it. The way to cook rabbit is ‘first catch the rabbit.’ &c.The Daily Citizen, Vicksburg, Mississippi, J. M. Swords, proprietor, Thursday, July 2, 1863.
An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

Unbeknownst to the writer, the ordeal was drawing to a close. Pemberton and his 30,000 men surrendered on July 4, 1863. When Northern forces entered the city that day, they found the Citizen ready for the press. The issue was printed by Grant’s men and distributed with this addendum:

Two days bring about great changes, The banner of the Union floats over Vicksburg, Gen. Grant has ‘caught the rabbit;’ he has dined in Vicksburg, and he did bring his dinner with him. The ‘Citizen’ lives to see it. For the last time it appears on ‘Wall-paper.’ No more will it eulogize the luxury of mule-meat and fricasseed kitten—urge Southern warriors to such diet never-more.The Daily Citizen, Vicksburg, Mississippi, J. M. Swords, proprietor, Thursday, July 2, 1863.
An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

The Daily Citizen, Vicksburg, Mississippi, J. M. Swords, proprietor,
Thursday, July 2, 1863.
An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

The Daily Citizen, (Reverse side) Vicksburg, Mississippi, J. M. Swords, proprietor,
Thursday, July 2, 1863.
An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

A major turning point in the Civil War, Grant’s victory returned control of the Mississippi River to the Union and geographically divided the Confederacy. Coming just a day after Northern triumph at Gettysburg, the capture of Vicksburg restored faith in Union victory and dispirited the South.

Use American Memory to learn more about the Civil War:

“Never Surrender Quick Step” (detail),
“Composed and Dedicated to the Defenders of Glorious Vicksburg,”
Edward W. Eaton, music, 1863.
Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920

• Selected Civil War Photographs contains seven photographs pertaining to the Vicksburg campaign.
• From the libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Documenting the American South is a collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the twentieth century. Search this collection on Vicksburg to retrieve over fifty documents referencing the struggle over the Confederate seat on the Mississippi.
• Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division’s First 100 Years contains 12 Watercolors of Civil War ironclads by Ensign D. M. N. Stouffer. The vessels in these ca. 1864-65 paintings were part of the Mississippi Squadron under the command of Admiral David Dixon Porter and many played important parts in the conflict at Vicksburg.
• Search the Today in History Archive on Civil War to locate features highlighting:
  • General Lee’s evacuation of Richmond;
  • Military engagements at Bull Run, Nashville, and Antietam;
  • Key figures from the Civil War era such as Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson as well as Civil War era events including Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the execution of Andersonville Prison’s Henry Wirz.
• Search on the term Vicksburg in Map Collections (1500-Present) to see a variety of interesting items, including an 1863 panoramic View of Vicksburg and Plan of the Canal, Fortifications & Vicinity.

Mr. Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, between 1890 and 1910.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920

Johns Hopkins was born on May 19, 1795, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, to a Quaker family. Convinced that slavery was morally wrong, his parents freed their slaves. As a result, Johns had to leave school at age twelve to work in the family tobacco fields. Hopkins regretted that his formal education ended so early. Ambitious and hardworking, he abandoned farming, and, at his mother’s urging, became an apprentice in his uncle’s wholesale grocery business when he was seventeen. Within a decade, he had created his ownBaltimore-based mercantile operation. Hopkins single-mindedly pursued his business ventures. He never married, lived frugally, and retired a rich man at age fifty. A series of wise investments over the next two decades—he was the largest individual stockholder in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, for example—further increased his wealth. He used his fortune to found The Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, incorporating them in 1867.

Hopkins died in 1873. His will divided $7 million equally between the hospital and the university. At the time, the gift was the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history. Hopkins also endowed an orphanage for African-American children.

Hopkins,
Bristow Adams, artist, copyright 1905.
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog

Johns Hopkins University opened February 22, 1876. Hopkins’ President Daniel Coit Gilman set a new standard for higher education by focusing on ground-breaking research and advanced study. The research university system he introduced continues to characterize American higher education today. Johns Hopkins Hospital opened in 1889, and the medical school opened four years later. Here too, rigorous academic standards and an emphasis on scientific research profoundly influenced medical practice in the United States.

• Search on Johns Hopkins in Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920 to view early-twentieth-century photographs of the Baltimore hospital and university.
• A search on Johns Hopkins in FSA-OWI Photographs, 1935-1945 provides images of an operating room and student nurses.
• Hopkins’ first president, Daniel Coit Gilman, describes meeting young Helen Keller at Alexander Graham Bell‘s house in a document available through the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers.
• William Penn, Lucretia Coffin Mott, and Alice Paul are Quaker social reformers featured in Today in History.

Today in History – May 19-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia