October 13, 1864---The Battle of Darbytown Road

OCTOBER 13, 1864:

The Battle of Darbytown Road. Union troops of the Tenth Corps leave their entrenchments in the outer circle of Richmond’s defenses and attack the inner defensive ring, hoping to break into Richmond. The Confederate defenders, also of Corps strength, put up a determined defense, and hold the line. Union casualties are about 450 and Confederate casualties are about 500. The Union troops return to their positions in the outer defensive ring. The South chalks up a victory in this troubling Fall season.   

October 12, 1864---The death of Chief Justice Taney

OCTOBER 12, 1864:                    

Roger B. Taney   (1777-1864) the sepulchral Chief Justice of the United States, a Unionist, a Maryland slaveholder, a States’ Rights advocate, and an opponent of the President, whose overreaching holding in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) can arguably be said to have caused the Civil War, died at age 87 in Washington, D.C. Although a more than competent jurist, and Chief Justice for 28 years, Taney’s legacy was ruined by Dred Scott and by Ex parte Merryman (1861), delivered as Circuit Justice, which challenged President Lincoln’s suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus. In the chaos that was the Civil War, Lincoln simply ignored Taney’s Circuit ruling and later released Merryman via an amnesty. Merryman’s case never reached the full Supreme Court.