George Washington’s farewell to his officers at Fraunces
Tavern in New York City on Dec. 4, 1783, marked his
resignation as commander of the Continental Army
after the Revolutionary War victory.
George Washington leaves Fraunces Tavern in New York
City after bidding farewell to the officers of his army.
Washington is shown leaving New York City.
In a letter dated December 3, 1776, General George Washington
wrote to Congress from his headquarters in Trenton, New Jersey,
to report that he had transported much of the Continental Army’s
stores and baggage across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania.
His famous crossing of the Delaware would come less than one
month later.
On August 7, 1782, in Newburgh, New York, General George Washington,
the commander in chief of the Continental Army, created the “Badge for
Military Merit,” a decoration consisting of a purple, heart-shaped piece
of silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver, with the word Merit stitched
across the face in silver.
The badge was to be presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious
action” and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels without
challenge. The honoree’s name and regiment were also to be inscribed
in a “Book of Merit.”
Washington’s “Purple Heart” was awarded to only three known soldiers
during the Revolutionary War: Elijah Churchill, William Brown and Daniel
Bissell, Jr. The “Book of Merit” was lost, and the decoration was largely
forgotten until 1927, when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army
chief of staff, sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to “revive the
Badge of Military Merit.”
SANDY KOZEL
An artists depiction of the incident.
In the Persian Gulf on this day in 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes
shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian
fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship–the
aircraft was hit, and all 290 people aboard were killed. The attack came
near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when U.S. vessels were in the gulf
defending Kuwaiti oil tankers. Minutes before Iran Air Flight 655 was
shot down, the Vincennes had engaged Iranian gunboats that shot at
its helicopter.
Iran called the downing of the aircraft a “barbaric massacre,” but U.S.
officials defended the action, claiming that the aircraft was outside the
commercial jet flight corridor, flying at only 7,800 feet, and was on a
descent toward the Vincennes. However, one month later, the United
States acknowledged that the airbus was in the commercial flight
corridor, flying at 12,000 feet, and not descending. The U.S. Navy
report blamed crew error caused by psychological stress on men
who were in combat for the first time. In 1996, the U.S. agreed to pay
$62 million in damages to the families of the Iranians killed in the attack.
