American Battles

[TonyGribben]

Name the last battle fought on American Soil

[gary baldy]

Is this a trick question?
If it is it could be:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Patch_Tobacco_Wars

[dotjhawkes]

The Battle of the Little Big Horn was 1876

[Clanad]

This article says Battle of Aleutian Islands in WWII...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Aleutian_Islands

By the way dotjhawkes, Custer's defeat percipitated an almost decade long pursuit and near annihilation of the Native American participants in that fight. Most historians believe the Battle of Wounded Knee in present day South Dakota on Decmber 29, 1890 concluded the "Indian Wars".

[dotjhawkes]

i am currently reading North American Indian Wars By Richard H Dillon (Brampton 1983) and I havn't finished it yet but is is very thorough

[gary baldy]

I had a feeling Alaska would come into it!

[dotjhawkes]

Oh yes, it reminds me of the Alistair McLean Book Ice Station Zebra a bit. Different place but it did.

[dotjhawkes]

Here is a coincidence:

I watched the US TV series Custer, which was screened in UK in the early 1970s. (Wayne Maunder played a young Custer). One of the episodes involved the transporting of the gold bullion used to pay Russia for Alaska. There was also a Gatling Gun in the same episode I recall, and it was a new invention. just my usual trivia.

[Grunty]

I was going to say Pearl Harbor, but having read Clanad's link, I'll shut up now.

[dotjhawkes]

Oh I thought Pearl harbour at one point too but Hawaii only came into the Union in the late 50s.

[Clanad]

For that matter dotjhawkes, Alaska and Hawaii both became states the same year, 1959. But Alaska has "belonged" to the U.S. since it was purchased from Russis in 1867 and that's the reason the last battle was considered to have occurred in U.S. Territory, even though prior to actual statehood...

[dotjhawkes]

that explains the episode of Custer then doesn't it, because it was set after he had come thru the civil war and was a Lieutenant but before he was a General

[Clanad]

Um... well, dotjhawkes, George Armstrong Custer was the youngest Breveted Brigadier General in the Civil War (he was last in the Class of 1861 at West Point) at age 23. As the name implies, his appointment was only temporary (lots of generals were being killed and many were needed) and he returned to a permanent rank of Lt. Colonel after the war. The movie you reference was obviously, fiction. Custer was on the plains of Kansas immediately after the end of the Civil War in 1865. In fact , in Spetember of 1867 he was court martialed for be "absent without leave (AWOL) from his command" as well as a charge of executing 3 deserters summarily. He spent the next year at Monroe, Michigan, his wife's home and returned to service in September of 1868.
His service on the western plains following that is well documented as well, up to his death on The Greasy Grass (Sioux name for Little Big Horn) June 25, 1876...

[henneth]

To add further to this discussion there's the possibility that the answer is Guam.

It became a U.S. posession after the Spanish -American war in 1898. Invaded by Japan in 1942 then retaken by U.S forces in the summer of 1944, the so called "battle of Guam". It became an overseas territory in 1950, giving the local inhabitants the chance to become U.S. citizens. Talks are also going ahead about incorporating it as a State but these are at a very embrionic stage.

The last battle to be fought within the United States would be easier question to answer as Alaska, Hawaii and Guam were not U.S. states during WWII (and in the case of Guam not at all, yet).

Yet we are talking about American 'soi'l. Anyone can pop down to Runnymeade near Windsor and stand on American soil. It's where the JFK memorial is. There is a whole acre of American soil there!! There's even a bit more at Trafalgar Square. George Washington's statue was given to London in 1923 by the Commonwealth of Virginia. As Washington is alleged to have never wanted to stand on English soil again the stuff underneath him is pure old dirt from Uncle Sam.

So, should we extend our search? Probably not, I agree with Aleutian Islands anyway, just felt like opening it up to other ways of interpreting the question!!

[dotjhawkes]

Clanad can you call me Dot cos it seems so serious to give me my Sunday name like that!?

[jno]

so did the poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square spill over on to the bit housing George Washington? A lot more recent than Pearl Harbor.

[Ray The Grey]

This assumes it is US soil, America includes many more countries - central America, South America (even the Falklands)