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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 11/29/13 at 1:59 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 11/29/13 at 1:59 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Sunday, 29 November 1863
General James Longstreet was one of the greatest corps commanders the South ever produced, but as today’s action demonstrates, he frequently did not do so well when in independent command. It was his final chance to capture the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, and to complicate matters, he had to do it during a sleet storm. The objective was called Fort Sanders in some accounts, Fort Loudon in others, but it was the key to the Union defenses of the city. Attacks started at dawn, in horrid conditions so slick that it was difficult to merely walk, much less charge, fire and reload a gun. Despite these handicaps Longstreet’s men got as far as planting their flag on the parapet of the fort---but they could get no farther, and were finally driven back. Longstreet, knowing that General Braxton Bragg had been defeated at Chattanooga and could provide no assistance, decided he had done all he could, and began making arrangements to move his men back to Virginia. A few hours previous to the assault, the Confederate General issued the following instructions to the commanders of the brigades who were to attempt the attack:
Headquarters, November 29, 1863.
General: Please impress your officers and men with the importance of making a rush when they once start to take such a position as that occupied by the enemy yesterday. If the troops, once started, rush forward till the point is carried, the loss will be trifling; whereas, if they hesitate, the enemy gets courage, or, being behind a comparatively sheltered position, will fight the harder.
Beside, if the assaulting party once loses courage and falters, he will not find courage, probably, to make a renewed effort. The men should be cautioned before they start at such work, and told what they are to do, and the importance and great safety of doing it with a rush.
Very respectfully,
J. Longstreet, Lieutenant-General. Major-General McLaws.
The gunboat USS Kanawha, Lieutenant Commander Mayo, captured the schooner Albert (or Wenona Winona) attempting to run the blockade out of Mobile, Alabama, with a full cargo of cotton, rosin, turpentine, and tobacco.
At the request of Major General Nathaniel Banks, a gun crew from the USS Monongahela, Commander James Hooker Strong, went ashore to man howitzers in support of an Army attack on Pass Cavallo, Texas.
General James Longstreet was one of the greatest corps commanders the South ever produced, but as today’s action demonstrates, he frequently did not do so well when in independent command. It was his final chance to capture the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, and to complicate matters, he had to do it during a sleet storm. The objective was called Fort Sanders in some accounts, Fort Loudon in others, but it was the key to the Union defenses of the city. Attacks started at dawn, in horrid conditions so slick that it was difficult to merely walk, much less charge, fire and reload a gun. Despite these handicaps Longstreet’s men got as far as planting their flag on the parapet of the fort---but they could get no farther, and were finally driven back. Longstreet, knowing that General Braxton Bragg had been defeated at Chattanooga and could provide no assistance, decided he had done all he could, and began making arrangements to move his men back to Virginia. A few hours previous to the assault, the Confederate General issued the following instructions to the commanders of the brigades who were to attempt the attack:
Headquarters, November 29, 1863.
General: Please impress your officers and men with the importance of making a rush when they once start to take such a position as that occupied by the enemy yesterday. If the troops, once started, rush forward till the point is carried, the loss will be trifling; whereas, if they hesitate, the enemy gets courage, or, being behind a comparatively sheltered position, will fight the harder.
Beside, if the assaulting party once loses courage and falters, he will not find courage, probably, to make a renewed effort. The men should be cautioned before they start at such work, and told what they are to do, and the importance and great safety of doing it with a rush.
Very respectfully,
J. Longstreet, Lieutenant-General. Major-General McLaws.
The gunboat USS Kanawha, Lieutenant Commander Mayo, captured the schooner Albert (or Wenona Winona) attempting to run the blockade out of Mobile, Alabama, with a full cargo of cotton, rosin, turpentine, and tobacco.
At the request of Major General Nathaniel Banks, a gun crew from the USS Monongahela, Commander James Hooker Strong, went ashore to man howitzers in support of an Army attack on Pass Cavallo, Texas.
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Posted on 11/30/13 at 5:27 am to BadLeroyDawg
Monday, 30 November 1863
General Braxton Bragg had been commander of the Army of Tennessee almost since its inception, and the Army of Mississippi prior to that. His major triumph had been at the bloody battle of Chickamauga, which had bottled up General William Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga for a good long time. The breakthrough had finally come, though, and a few days ago the disaster at Missionary Ridge had been the final straw. He had submitted a letter to Confederate President Jefferson Davis asking to be relived of command. His friendship with Davis was of many years standing, though, and perhaps he thought the request would be denied, as similar requests from General Robert E. Lee had been. It was, however, accepted today, and Bragg was directed to turn over command to General William Joseph Hardee.
Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory emphasized the necessity for the proper training of naval officers in his annual report on the Confederate States Navy. It was, he wrote, "...a subject of the greatest importance." He observed: "The naval powers of the earth are bestowing peculiar care upon the education of their officers, now more than ever demanded by the changes in all the elements of naval warfare. Appointed from civil life and possessing generally but little knowledge of the duties of an officer and rarely even the vocabulary of their profession they have heretofore been sent to vessels or batteries where it is impossible for them to obtain a knowledge of its most important branches, which can be best, if not only, acquired by methodical study." Mallory noted that there were 693 officers and 2,250 enlisted men in the Confederate Navy. He reported that while Union victories at Little Rock and on the Yazoo River had terminated the Department's attempts to construct ships in that area, construction was "...making good progress at Richmond , Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, on the Roanoke, Peedee, Chattahoochee, and Alabama Rivers..." Two immense problems Mallory enumerated troubled the Confederacy throughout the conflict; the lack of skilled labor to build ships and the inability to obtain adequate iron to protect them. In the industrial North, neither was a difficulty. This was a major factor which helped decide the course of the war.
Confederate naval officers and men played vital roles in Southern shore defenses throughout the war. This morning, Secretary Mallory praised the naval command at Drewry's Bluff which guarded the James River approach to Richmond. The battery, he reported, "...composed of seamen and marines, is in a high state of efficiency and the river obstructions are believed to be sufficient, in connection with the shore and submarine batteries, to prevent the passage of the enemy's ships. An active force is employed on submarine batteries and torpedoes."
This afternoon, a Union foraging party along the Mississippi River captured detailed plans of a Triton Company submarine. Confederate General Jeremy Francis Gilmer's evaluation of the boat six weeks earlier suggests the company had built other submarines as well.
General Braxton Bragg had been commander of the Army of Tennessee almost since its inception, and the Army of Mississippi prior to that. His major triumph had been at the bloody battle of Chickamauga, which had bottled up General William Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga for a good long time. The breakthrough had finally come, though, and a few days ago the disaster at Missionary Ridge had been the final straw. He had submitted a letter to Confederate President Jefferson Davis asking to be relived of command. His friendship with Davis was of many years standing, though, and perhaps he thought the request would be denied, as similar requests from General Robert E. Lee had been. It was, however, accepted today, and Bragg was directed to turn over command to General William Joseph Hardee.
Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory emphasized the necessity for the proper training of naval officers in his annual report on the Confederate States Navy. It was, he wrote, "...a subject of the greatest importance." He observed: "The naval powers of the earth are bestowing peculiar care upon the education of their officers, now more than ever demanded by the changes in all the elements of naval warfare. Appointed from civil life and possessing generally but little knowledge of the duties of an officer and rarely even the vocabulary of their profession they have heretofore been sent to vessels or batteries where it is impossible for them to obtain a knowledge of its most important branches, which can be best, if not only, acquired by methodical study." Mallory noted that there were 693 officers and 2,250 enlisted men in the Confederate Navy. He reported that while Union victories at Little Rock and on the Yazoo River had terminated the Department's attempts to construct ships in that area, construction was "...making good progress at Richmond , Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, on the Roanoke, Peedee, Chattahoochee, and Alabama Rivers..." Two immense problems Mallory enumerated troubled the Confederacy throughout the conflict; the lack of skilled labor to build ships and the inability to obtain adequate iron to protect them. In the industrial North, neither was a difficulty. This was a major factor which helped decide the course of the war.
Confederate naval officers and men played vital roles in Southern shore defenses throughout the war. This morning, Secretary Mallory praised the naval command at Drewry's Bluff which guarded the James River approach to Richmond. The battery, he reported, "...composed of seamen and marines, is in a high state of efficiency and the river obstructions are believed to be sufficient, in connection with the shore and submarine batteries, to prevent the passage of the enemy's ships. An active force is employed on submarine batteries and torpedoes."
This afternoon, a Union foraging party along the Mississippi River captured detailed plans of a Triton Company submarine. Confederate General Jeremy Francis Gilmer's evaluation of the boat six weeks earlier suggests the company had built other submarines as well.
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