This Date in History: August 13

 

During the Great Sioux War, on August 13, 1876, Muggins Taylor, who had been a member of the 1874 Yellowstone Wagon Road and Prospecting Expedition, hit the saddle again, this time with a message from General Alfred Terry to General Nelson Miles at the mouth of the Tongue River to send another riverboat from Fort Buford to patrol the lower Yellowstone River.  Taylor returned to General Terry the next day, having accomplished his mission, but with an erroneous report that 250 Crow volunteers were on their way to join the operation.  Nine days later, Muggins found General George Crook and gave him the news that the Far West had run aground at Buffalo Rapids (near present-day Terry, Montana) and that there subsequently would be a problem supplying Crook from the river.  (Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gold and Guns: The 1874 Yellowstone Wagon Road and Prospecting Expedition,  and the Battle of Lodge Grass Creek)

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Private Morris Cain, Company M, 7th Cavalry died on August 13, 1906 at Colville, Washington.  (Custer’s Best: The Story of Company M, 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn)

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Helmut Wendorff, SS-Obersturmführer, born October 20, 1920 in Grauwinkel, Tiger tank commander with over 80 confirmed enemy tank kills with the 1st SS Panzer Division “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” and the 101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion, winner of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, killed in action on August 13, 1944 in Normandy in a battle with enemy tanks; his last words, made to his gunner, were: “Beside it, the second Sherman!”  (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)