Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine

Welcome to Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine. This is ‘This Week in U.S. Military History,’ where we walk through key moments that share this week on the calendar. Today we’re exploring events from January thirteenth, two thousand twenty six through January nineteenth, two thousand twenty six.

We begin in the southern campaign of the Revolutionary War, where the Battle of Cowpens became a textbook example of well planned maneuver. On January seventeenth, seventeen eighty one, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan led a mixed American force against Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s aggressive British Legion near the Cowpens in South Carolina. Morgan chose ground that favored his outnumbered Continentals and militia, arranging successive lines so that each could fire, fall back in an orderly way, and avoid the usual collapse. British troops pressed forward, convinced that American units were routing yet again. Instead they walked into a controlled double envelopment as fresh Continental regulars pivoted and militia units returned to the fight. The resulting defeat shattered a key part of Lord Cornwallis’s striking power in the south and helped set in motion the chain of events that led to Yorktown.

A few years later, the young nation took a formal step from rebellion toward recognized statehood. On January fourteenth, seventeen eighty four, delegates of the Confederation Congress gathered in Annapolis to ratify the Treaty of Paris that had been signed the previous year. By approving that agreement, the United States formally ended the Revolutionary War in the eyes of European powers and secured recognition of its independence and borders. For officers and enlisted veterans of the Continental Army, this act confirmed that their sacrifices had produced an internationally acknowledged nation. Ratification opened the door to demobilization, to settlement in the west, and to difficult debates over the size and role of a peacetime military establishment. It marked a pivot from wartime improvisation and rebellion to the long and uneven work of building stable institutions.

During the American Civil War, control of Kentucky and other border states was a central concern on both sides, and that struggle came into focus at the Battle of Mill Springs. On January nineteenth, eighteen sixty two, Union forces under Brigadier General George H. Thomas clashed with Confederate troops near Mill Springs, also known as Logan’s Cross Roads, in south central Kentucky. The fighting unfolded in cold, muddy conditions after Southern commanders launched confused attacks before daylight, hoping to catch the Union off balance. Instead the Union line held, then Thomas ordered a counterattack that rolled up the Confederate position. Southern units broke and retreated across the Cumberland River, leaving guns and equipment behind on the far bank. Mill Springs became one of the first clear Union battlefield victories in the western theater, steadying loyal sentiment in Kentucky and giving Union leaders confidence to push deeper into Tennessee and beyond.

Farther south and later in the war, the guns of Fort Fisher guarded the last major Confederate gateway on the Atlantic coast. The sand and earthworks near the mouth of the Cape Fear River protected Wilmington, North Carolina, a vital port for blockade runners carrying supplies to Confederate armies. After an earlier Union attempt had failed, a massive second expedition formed, with warships beginning a heavy bombardment on January thirteenth, eighteen sixty five, while soldiers under Major General Alfred Terry prepared to attack. On January fifteenth, coordinated assaults by Army troops and a naval landing party drove up the long sand and sandbag fort in brutal close combat, fighting from traverse to traverse. By nightfall the garrison surrendered, and Wilmington’s supply line was effectively doomed. The fall of Fort Fisher closed a critical route for Confederate imports, tightened the noose around Southern armies, and hastened the war’s end in the Carolinas and Virginia.

Only a few decades later, military minds were thinking about the air above the sea. Naval officers wondered whether airplanes could operate from ships and change how fleets scouted and fought. On January eighteenth, nineteen eleven, civilian pilot Eugene Ely answered part of that question when he approached the armored cruiser Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay. A temporary wooden deck had been built over the ship’s stern with simple arresting wires and hooks in place of the complex gear of later carriers. Ely guided his fragile biplane down onto the moving ship and rolled to a stop before rows of excited sailors and officials. The demonstration proved that aircraft could take off and land from warships, effectively turning them into mobile airfields. Although years of experimentation and refinement still lay ahead, this single landing nudged the United States Navy toward the carrier age that would dominate naval combat in the Second World War and beyond.

In the middle years of the Second World War, Allied leaders needed to decide where and how to strike next against the Axis. On January fourteenth, nineteen forty three, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill opened the Casablanca Conference in Morocco, joined by senior American and British military planners. Over days of meetings they agreed on the concept of unconditional surrender for Axis powers and refined plans for campaigns in the Mediterranean, the strategic bombing of Germany, and the eventual cross Channel invasion of France. The discussions revealed how political leaders and generals had to reconcile national priorities, limited resources, and public expectations while fighting a global war. Decisions taken at Casablanca shaped the order and emphasis of operations that followed. The conference also reinforced the idea that Allied victory would come through coordinated strategy rather than a collection of isolated efforts.

Back in Washington that same year, the War Department was struggling to manage a truly global conflict with staff scattered across many buildings. On January fifteenth, nineteen forty three, officials dedicated the Pentagon, a vast five sided complex designed to bring Army leadership and support offices under one roof. The new headquarters created a centralized nerve center for planning, logistics, and personnel management, replacing a patchwork of leased spaces spread around the capital. Its corridors and rings quickly filled with officers, clerks, and civilian experts working long hours to move troops and supplies to every theater. The opening of the Pentagon symbolized the rise of large scale, bureaucratic staff systems as an essential part of modern warfare. Long after the war ended, the building remained a visible symbol of the nation’s defense establishment and of the permanent responsibilities that come with global commitments.

In the Cold War era, another milestone came not on a battlefield but in a speech from the Oval Office. On January seventeenth, nineteen sixty one, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former five star general and Supreme Allied Commander, delivered his farewell address to the nation. He reflected on the burdens of leadership in a tense nuclear age, praising the dedication of armed forces and defense workers who had maintained deterrence and alliances. At the same time, he warned of risks that could grow from a permanent arms industry closely linked with government decisions. His phrase “military industrial complex” captured concerns that the balance between security, liberty, and public spending might tilt too far if citizens were not attentive. For service members and policymakers, that speech has remained a touchstone in debates over strategy, budgets, and the proper relationship between civilian authority, industry, and the uniformed military.

Finally, we come to the opening combat hours of the Gulf War, when technology and coalition power were on full display. After months of buildup in the Persian Gulf and the failure of Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait by the deadline of January fifteenth, nineteen ninety one, coalition forces led by the United States shifted from deterrence to attack. In the early hours of January seventeenth, nineteen ninety one, waves of aircraft and cruise missiles struck Iraqi air defenses, command centers, and key military units in the opening of Operation Desert Storm. Stealth aircraft, precision guided munitions, and coordinated electronic warfare played a prominent role, showing how systems developed since the Vietnam era had matured. For pilots, aircrews, and ground support personnel, the air campaign demanded a high tempo of operations in a heavily defended environment. The offensive quickly degraded Iraqi capabilities, set conditions for the ground campaign, and signaled a new era in how the United States approached large scale conventional war.