May 11 in military history: JEB Stuart mortally wounded, and the Pacific War's Audie Murphy

Unto the Breach ^ | May 11, 2018 | Chris Carter

[fugazi]

[...] 1863: During the Battle of Yellow Tavern, Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart is shot by a dismounted Union cavalry trooper north of Richmond, Va. "The greatest cavalry officer ever foaled in America" is mortally wounded and will die the next day.

[...] 1927: A young air mail pilot named Capt. Charles A. Lindbergh touches down at St. Louis' Lambert Field after a 14-hour flight from San Diego to pick up the custom-built Ryan NYP that will hopefully carry the U.S. Air Service Reserve Corps aviator across the Atlantic Ocean. The race to perform the first nonstop Transatlantic flight has already claimed the lives of three air crews: French colonel René Fonck (the all-time Allied "ace of aces"), the U.S. Navy's Lt. Stanton Wooster and Lt. Cmdr. Noel Davis, and French war heroes Capt. Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli.

After celebrating with his St. Louis financiers, the Spirit of St. Louis departs for New York, just nine days away from the historical flight that will make Lindbergh a national hero...

[katana]

You may very well be right about the “myth”. I’d not be surprised at all if Stuart was made a scapegoat for Saint Robert’s errors. But in practical terms and as it turned out, anything Stuart might have reported about Union troop movements around Gettysburg would have been worth far more to Lee than the booty he collected in the rich southeast Pennsylvania countryside. One cannot blame him or Lee for enacting some revenge for the depredations of Union forces on Southern resources, but it did blind the Confederate commander to what he actually faced and is an example of how any battle hinges on so many individual decisions.

[mrsmith]

That McKinney feat is awesome. Like an Old Testament story.

J.E.B.’s a great...great granduncle of mine. Family tradition is he was just as most think of him.