A large band of Kiowa warriors made a concerted attack on an east bound wagon train on the Santa Fe Trail as it was fording the Cimarron River near the Cimarron Crossing Ranch in Kansas.  The drivers, ranch employees, and cavalrymen garrisoned there drove off the attack but two men were killed on the wagons and the army suffered one dead and one wounded. The Cimarron Crossing Ranch, in present-day Cimarron, Kansas, was under constant threat from hostile Kiowa and Arapaho warriors and was abandoned in July 1868. (By John Osborne)

Frustrated with continued resistance to civil rights for freedmen in the former Confederate states where black citizens were being harassed and imprisoned in state courts under the control of white conservatives, the United States Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Act of 1867.  This far-reaching act widened appellate opportunities so that federal circuit courts, and ultimately the United States Supreme Court, could hear writs against false imprisonment by state courts for the first time in constitutional law.  Ironically, the most famous immediate case heard the next year in the Supreme Court came not from a freeman wrongly imprisoned in a state court but from a white Confederate sympathizer named William McCardle, imprisoned by a federal court in Mississippi.  (By John Osborne)

Using the authority of the Military Reconstruction Act almost as soon as he had been appointed, Major-General Philip Sheridan, the military governor of the Fifth Military District, had acted swiftly to remove from office any Louisiana or Texas officials who he felt were obstructing reconstruction. By mid-1867, he had ousted scores of elected and appointed officials, including both the sitting governors of Louisiana and Texas.  Such ardor in pursuing reconstruction made Sheridan a hated target of national Democrats and soon after, on August 17, 1867, President Johnson removed Sheridan and replaced him with Major-General Winfield Scott Hancock, a Democrat. Sheridan's removal was protested strongly in the North and Republicans feted him wherever he traveled in the North. (By John Osborne)

Using the authority of the Military Reconstruction Act almost as soon as he had been appointed, Major-General Philip Sheridan, the military governor of the Fifth Military District, had acted swiftly to remove from office any Louisiana or Texas officials who he felt were obstructing reconstruction. On this day, Sheridan included sitting Texas governor James Throckmorton in that number, despite his recent handy election victory and replaced him with Elisha Pease, who had been the loser in that election.  Such ardor in pursuing reconstruction made Sheridan a hated target of national Democrats and soon after, on August 17, 1867, President Johnson removed Sheridan himself. (By John Osborne)

Using the authority of the Military Reconstruction Act almost as soon as he had been appointed, Major-General Philip Sheridan, the military governor of the Fifth Military District, had acted swiftly to remove from office Louisiana officials who he felt were obstructing reconstruction. On this day, Sheridan included sitting Louisiana governor J. Madison Wells in that number, eventually replacing him with Benjamin Flanders, a Dartmouth graduate, former Louisiana congressman, and Radical Republican. Wells  refused Sheridan's order for days, locking himself in his office, but was removed on threat of violence on June 7, 1867.  (By John Osborne)

Using the authority of the Military Reconstruction Act, Major-General Philip Sheridan, the military governor of the Fifth Military District, acted swiftly to remove from office several Louisiana officials, including New Orleans mayor John Monroe, state attorney-general Andrew Herron, and Judge Edmund Abell.  Sheridan held all three conservatives largely responsible for the death toll in the riots of the previous year and the lack of legal pursuit of the perpetrators, many of whom were New Orleans policemen.  In strenuous efforts to promote reconstruction against fierce former Confederate opposition, Sheridan would remove Louisiana governor J. Madison Wells on June 3, 1867, but was himself reassigned in August 1867 when complaints poured in to President Johnson from Democrats.  (By John Osborne)

The states of Georgia and Mississippi, led by their provisional governors, hoped to have the Military Reconstruction Acts declared unconstitutional and had filed suit against President Johnson and the executive for enforcing them.  Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase had announced the Court's dismissal of Mississippi's claims on April 15, 1867, stating that the executive branch was carrying out the law as defined by the legislative branch and the judiciary could not intervene.  Four weeks later, on this day, Georgia's case sueing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was similarly rejected.  (By John Osborne) 

The states of Georgia and Mississippi, led by their provisional governors, hoped to have the Military Reconstruction Acts declared unconstitutional and had filed suit against President Johnson and the executive for enforcing them.  Arguments were made before the United States Supreme Court on April 12, 1867 and three days later Chief Justice Salmon Chase gave the pronouncement of the Court.  Chase dismissed Mississippi's claims, stating that the executive branch was carrying out the law as defined by the legislative branch and the judiciary could not intervene.  Georgia's case was similarly rejected the following month, on May 13, 1867.  (By John Osborne)