The cable ship Narva had begun the process of laying the submarine portion of the International Ocean Telegraph Company's telegraph line between the United States and Cuba on August 3, 1867 when it landed the American end on South Beach, near Key West, Florida.  Two days later, the Narva landed the Cuban end near Chororra on the island. Complications with a cable break during the actual laying then ensued but the line was completed on August 17, 1867. Its first messages, between the mayor of Key West, E.O. Gwynn, and Joaquin del Monzana, the Spanish captain-general of Cuba in Havana were exchanged on this day. During September 1867, the underwater cable from Key West to Punta Rassa, Florida was laid and Havana could communicate directly with Washington, D.C. (By John Osborne) 

The cable ship Narva began the process of laying the submarine portion of the International Ocean Telegraph Company's telegraph line between the United States and Cuba on this day when it landed the American end on South Beach, near Key West, Florida.  Two days later, the Narva landed the Cuban end near Chororra on the island. Complications with a cable break during the actual laying then ensued but after repairs the cable was completed on August 17, 1867. Its first messages, between the mayor of Key West, E.O. Gwynn, and Joaquin del Monzana, the Spanish captain-general of Cuba in Havana were exchanged on August 21, 1867.  (By John Osborne) 

In New York, the Saratoga Racing Association held its fourth annual racing meeting at Jerome Park in Saratoga Springs. A reported eight thousand spectators watched the various races.  (By John Osborne)

Lieutenant-Colonel George Custer and six companies of his Seventh Cavalry undertook a six week campaign to clear hostile Sioux and Cheyenne warriors from the Platte Road in eastern Nebraska. The venture was Custer's first action against Plains Indians and did not go well.  Frustrating encounters, casualties, the suicide of his second in command, and questions over his allegedly harsh application of discipline that prompted a reported total of sixty desertions, dogged Custer to the point that he was court-martialed on his return and suspended from duty.  On this day fifteen men rode away from the column in broad daylight. An enraged Custer ordered a pursuit and five men, three of them wounded, were recaptured.  The other ten escaped.  (By John Osborne) 

On this day, citizens of Richmond, Virginia and the surrounding counties visited the Hollywood Cemetery on the banks of the James River outside the city to decorate the graves of the Confederate Army dead buried there.  The Hollywood Memorial Association sponsored the event at the twenty year-old, fifty-four acre cemetery, which then held a reported thirteen thousand graves, more than half of them containing fallen Confederate veterans, including General J.E.B. Stuart. Harpers Magazine published an engraving of the scene in its August 17, 1867 issue, drawn by William L. Sheppard, a veteran of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. (By John Osborne)  

Lieutenant-Colonel George Custer and six companies of his Seventh Cavalry undertook a six week campaign to clear hostile Sioux and Cheyenne warriors from the Platte Road in eastern Nebraska. The venture was Custer's first action against Plains Indians and did not go well.  Frustrating encounters, casualties, desertions, and questions over his allegedly harsh application of discipline dogged Custer to the point that he was court-martialed on his return and suspended from duty.  In the evening of this day, Custer's second in command, experienced combat officer Major Wycliffe Cooper, severely troubled with alcoholism, shot himself in the head in his tent. (By John Osborne) 

Sioux and Cheyenne warriors made on this day one of their many attacks on railroad building works in western Kansas that were happening with regularity for months during the summer of 1867.  This attack was on the Kansas Pacific works near Fort Harker at Kanapolis in present-day Ellsworth County and took the life of one worker.  J.D. Perry, the president of the Kansas Pacific, complained to military authorities claiming that attacks were occurring almost daily and that a thousand workers had fled into Fort Harker and were refusing to return to the exposed engineering camps. (By John Osborne)

Lieutenant-Colonel George Custer and six companies of his Seventh Cavalry undertook a six week campaign to clear hostile Sioux and Cheyenne warriors from the Platte Road in eastern Nebraska.  On this busy day, his camp suffered an early morning attempt to run off his horses, he then met with the Sioux leader Pawnee Killer, and failed in a request for him to return to a reservation.  He then ordered Lieutenant Louis Hamilton and twenty men to follow Pawnee Killer. Hamilton swiftly came under heavy attack but his command, fighting with discipline and dismounted, drove off the attempt without loss.  This day in the frustrating Hancock Campaign marked Custer's first ever combat action against Plains Indians.  (By John Osborne)