Welcome to Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine. This is “This Week in U.S. Military History,” where we walk through key moments that share this week on the calendar. Today we’re exploring events from December twenty third, two thousand twenty five through December twenty ninth, two thousand twenty five.
This Week in U.S. Military History is part of Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine, developed by Trackpads dot com. The days from December twenty third through December twenty ninth have often found Americans at war, preparing for war, or wrestling with the consequences of conflict. Across these seven days on the calendar we see a ragged Continental Army betting everything on a winter river crossing, a victorious commander choosing to surrender power, and diplomats quietly closing the books on a hard fought war with a former imperial rival. Later generations add frontier tragedy on the northern Plains, fireside appeals to turn factories into an arsenal for global democracy, and island garrisons holding out against a rising empire in the Pacific. World wars and cold war tensions, amphibious withdrawals and armored thrusts, all thread through this narrow slice of the year. This walk from the Delaware River to the Korean coast shows how leadership, sacrifice, and the long shadow of military service echo in late December.
On Christmas night during the bleak winter of the American Revolution in seventeen seventy six, George Washington gathered a shivering, half supplied force of Continental soldiers on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. His army had been chased out of New York, driven across New Jersey, and watched desertions rise as British commanders began to believe the rebellion was close to breaking. Washington chose to gamble everything on a night crossing through ice clogged water and sleet, pushing men, artillery, and horses onto creaking boats in darkness. Delays meant that his columns did not reach the town of Trenton until the morning of December twenty sixth, but the surprise attack smashed the Hessian garrison and delivered a badly needed victory. The success did more than capture prisoners and guns. It convinced patriots that the Continental Army could still fight and persuaded many soldiers and militiamen to stay in the ranks rather than go home. In American memory, the crossing and the short, sharp battle that followed became enduring symbols of resolve in the face of apparent defeat.
Seven years later, in December of seventeen eighty three, Washington entered the Maryland State House in Annapolis to give up his authority as commander in chief of the Continental Army. The United States had won independence, the British army had departed New York, and many observers around the world assumed that a victorious general might cling to power or seek a political throne of his own. Instead, Washington delivered a formal address to Congress, thanked the civilian representatives for their support, and returned his commission, calmly acknowledging that the Army’s work was done. By walking away from command, he signaled that the new republic would not rest on the shoulders of a military strongman but on elected leaders and law. Foreign observers, used to coups and dictators after revolutions, paid close attention to this gesture. Later American tradition would look back on that quiet December day as one of the clearest early statements of civilian control over the military.
On December twenty fourth, eighteen fourteen, American and British negotiators in the European city of Ghent signed a treaty that formally ended the War of eighteen twelve between the two nations. The agreement essentially restored the prewar borders and did not fully settle every grievance that had helped start the conflict, such as the impressment of sailors, which was already fading as the larger European wars wound down. Even so, the treaty was an important military milestone for the young United States because it showed that the republic could fight the world’s leading naval power to a standstill and then secure honorable peace terms. News of the treaty crossed the Atlantic slowly, so American units continued to fight, most famously at New Orleans in January, before word of peace arrived. For later generations, the war’s end would help cement the idea of an American nation capable of defending its sovereignty and maritime interests. That idea grew despite the very real cost in coastal raids, burned towns, and hard campaigning along the Canadian frontier.
By December twenty ninth, eighteen ninety, frozen ground near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota saw one of the darkest days in the history of the United States Army’s frontier campaigns. Soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry had surrounded a band of Lakota Sioux people who had already endured years of dispossession, broken promises, and mounting tension on the northern Plains. A tense attempt to disarm the group spiraled into confusion and fear, and gunfire erupted at close range between soldiers and Lakota men. When the smoke cleared, well over a hundred Lakota men, women, and children lay dead, along with several soldiers, in what early Army reports framed as a battle. Later reflection and investigation have widely regarded the event as a massacre rather than a conventional fight. Wounded Knee effectively marked the end of the major open campaigns of the Indian Wars while leaving a deep scar in Lakota memory and in the broader story of United States frontier policy. It stands today as a reminder that military history includes moments when the use of force deepened injustice and grief rather than resolving conflict.
On the night of December twenty ninth, nineteen forty, President Franklin Roosevelt used a radio address to speak directly to millions of listeners about a world already at war. Although the United States remained officially neutral, German submarines and bombers were battering Britain, and the president argued that helping those who resisted aggression was essential to American security. In that speech he described the nation as an “arsenal of democracy,” a powerful phrase that framed the coming surge in industrial production as both strategic necessity and moral duty. Behind the rhetoric sat real military planning, because more tanks, aircraft, warships, and munitions would soon roll from American assembly lines. Many of those weapons were destined first for allies and, in time, for United States forces themselves. The address helped prepare the public for programs such as Lend Lease and for the idea that American economic and military strength might have to be committed overseas. By the time the nation entered the war after Pearl Harbor, the arsenal Roosevelt had called for was already beginning to take shape.
Just one year later, on December twenty third, nineteen forty one, attention turned to a tiny speck of land in the Pacific called Wake Island. In the restless weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a small Marine detachment, Navy personnel, and civilian contractors there struggled to hold their isolated atoll against repeated Japanese attacks. Their coastal guns and a handful of fighter aircraft had already surprised the enemy by sinking warships and driving off early landing attempts. Hopes for reinforcement from Hawaii never came to fruition, and by December twenty third Japanese forces mounted a larger assault that finally overran the battered garrison after bitter close quarters fighting. The defenders’ resistance, far out of proportion to their numbers and equipment, quickly became a rallying story back home. It showed that American forces would fight hard even when cut off, while many of the survivors endured captivity for the rest of the war. Wake Island’s fall underscored how far flung and vulnerable many Pacific outposts were in the opening phase of the conflict, and how urgently the United States needed to rebuild its naval and air strength.
On December twenty sixth, nineteen forty four, deep winter gripped the Ardennes as tanks of the United States Third Army’s Fourth Armored Division broke through German lines and reached the encircled town of Bastogne. For days, airborne infantry, artillerymen, engineers, and support troops had held the crossroads there against repeated attacks, short of supplies yet determined to deny Hitler’s last major offensive its vital road network. The linkup on that December day did not immediately end the Battle of the Bulge, but it turned the campaign’s momentum. German units found their timetable shattered and their fuel running low as American forces pressed from several directions in the forested hills. Accounts from the town speak of weary paratroopers greeting the arriving tankers with a mix of relief and pride in what they had endured. Ever since, the relief of Bastogne has symbolized both stubborn defensive strength and rapid maneuver, qualities that helped the United States Army blunt and then reverse the surprise German attack in western Europe.
By December twenty fourth, nineteen fifty, attention had shifted to the Korean Peninsula and the port of Hungnam on the country’s northeast coast. There, ships crowded the harbor as United States forces and their allies completed one of the largest amphibious evacuations in military history. In the weeks after fighting their way out of the Chosin Reservoir region against bitter cold and numerically superior Chinese forces, elements of the corps known as X Corps had fallen back toward the sea. They were joined by large numbers of Korean civilians desperate to escape advancing communist troops. By December twenty fourth, the last combat units and thousands of refugees had embarked, and demolition charges destroyed port facilities and supplies left behind. The withdrawal was not a victory in the traditional sense, but it preserved a major American formation and many noncombatants for future operations farther south. For logisticians, sailors, soldiers, and Marines, Hungnam demonstrated how careful planning and discipline could turn a retreat into an orderly maritime movement under enemy pressure, while the human stories of families crowded aboard departing ships added another layer of meaning to the military achievement.
Looking across this week on the calendar, several themes stand out from the ice clogged Delaware River to the smoking ruins of the Hungnam piers. Leaders faced moments when they had to gamble, whether Washington forcing a river crossing in a storm or commanders deciding to evacuate an entire corps rather than see it destroyed. Ordinary soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and civilians bore the immediate risks in each case. They faced musket fire at Trenton, blizzards and artillery at Bastogne, shell bursts on Pacific atolls, and gunfire at Wounded Knee with noncombatants caught in the line of fire. Some events, like the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, quietly reshaped diplomatic realities, while others, like a radio speech calling for an arsenal of democracy, prepared a nation for conflicts still ahead. Together, these episodes show how American military history in late December mixes hard fighting, painful tragedy, and careful choices about when to stand, when to strike, and when to step back.
As we mark these anniversaries, we also remember the people, known and unknown, whose lives were changed forever in those days. Their experiences remind us that behind every famous date on the calendar stand families, communities, and futures altered by decisions made in council chambers, on riverbanks, in frozen forests, and on distant shores. Looking back from today, the stories of this week in history invite reflection on what service, sacrifice, and leadership have meant across generations. They also invite us to consider how present and future decisions about war and peace will be remembered in years to come.