July 13: Confederate General Robert Selden Garnett was mortally wounded on this date in 1861; he thereby achieved the dubious distinction of being the first general killed in battle during the Civil War.

July 12: On this date in 1862, the Medal of Honor was created; William Donaldson Dickey was one of those who are now interred at Green-Wood who would be awarded one. His commendation read: ” . . . at the Battle of Petersburg, Virginia, June 17, 1864, when, refusing to leave the field and remaining in command after being wounded by a piece of shell, [he] led his command in the assault on the enemy’s works on the following day.”

July 11: On this date in 1804, William Peter Van Ness served as the second to Aaron Burr during his famous duel with Alexander Hamilton. After Hamilton’s death, Van Ness was indicted as an accessory to murder, but used his political connections to avoid prosecution.

July 10: Abraham Jacobi, pioneering pediatrician for whom Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx is named, died on this date in 1919.

July 9: Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, was born on this date in 1819.

July 8: On this date in 1835, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt was born; she died on Valentine’s Day in 1884, unaware that her son Theodore would become President of the United States.

July 7: On this date in 1859, Townsend Harris opened the first United States Legation in Japan.

July 6: On this date in 1845, Samuel Akerly, who developed instruction for deaf-mutes and the blind, died.

July 5: Henry Cruse Murphy was born on this date in 1810; he would be known as “The Moses of the Brooklyn Bridge” because of his involvement in the building of that wonder was cut short on December 1, 1882, when he died, just months before the grand opening of the bridge, just before the bridge reached the Promised Land.