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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 12/13/13 at 9:12 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 12/13/13 at 9:12 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Monday, 14 December 1863
A year after Commanding General Robert E. Lee had breathed his famous wish at Fredericksburg--”I wish these people would go away and leave us alone”--General James Longstreet had to be thinking precisely the same thing. He had withdrawn from the gates of Knoxville after the failure of his last assault in East Tennessee, and now he wanted nothing more than to get his battered, ill-supplied corps to a winter camp where they could rest and rebuild their strength. The problem was getting there. He was set upon today by the forces of Union General James M. Shackelford in a battle at Bean’s Station, Tennessee, and it turned into quite a sharp fight. As the weak winter sun sank into evening, the Confederates had driven Shackelford’s men back some distance but had not broken them. Everyone settled down for an uneasy night.
General P.G.T. Beauregard ordered Lieutenant Dixon, CSA, to proceed with the submarine H. L. Hunley to the mouth of Charleston Harbor and "...sink and destroy any vessel of the enemy with which he can come in conflict." The General directed that "...such assistance- as may he practicable..." he rendered to Lieutenant Dixon.
Between two and three o'clock this afternoon, the forces of Longstreet turned upon and attacked the pursuing column of cavalry under General Shackleford. The line of battle was formed at Bean Station, Tennessee, on the Cumberland Gap and Morristown road; and a fight ensued which continued until nightfall, when the Confederates succeeded in driving the Federals about half a mile. Colonels Wolford, Graham, Foster, and others were engaged. The musketry fire was very heavy. The whole movement was made with a well-contrived plan to cut off and capture General Shackleford and his command; and a heavy force of Rebel cavalry moved down the left bank of the Holston River, with the intention of crossing at Kelly's Ford and coming in his rear. This portion of the program was checked by General Ferrero, who sent the brigade of General Humphrey to hold the ford. The Rebels fired across the river with artillery upon the brigade, but with little effect.
The United States bark Roebuck captured a small sloop-boat called the Gopher, containing two men, sixteen bags of salt, and one box of notions, off Indian River, Florida.
Governor Thomas E. Bramlette, of Kentucky, addressed a letter to Captain Edward Cahill, recruiting colored troops, questioning his right to recruit in that State.
Colonel Watkins, commanding the Kentucky brigade, returned to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from a cavalry reconnaissance as far as La Fayette. He captured a Confederate signal station, and six officers and forty privates. The rest of the force of Rebels retreated.
An expedition sent out by General Wistar from Yorktown to Charles City CourtnHouse, Virginia, under the command of Colonel R. M. West, returned to Williamsburg, Virginia, having been successful in the accomplishment of its object.
A year after Commanding General Robert E. Lee had breathed his famous wish at Fredericksburg--”I wish these people would go away and leave us alone”--General James Longstreet had to be thinking precisely the same thing. He had withdrawn from the gates of Knoxville after the failure of his last assault in East Tennessee, and now he wanted nothing more than to get his battered, ill-supplied corps to a winter camp where they could rest and rebuild their strength. The problem was getting there. He was set upon today by the forces of Union General James M. Shackelford in a battle at Bean’s Station, Tennessee, and it turned into quite a sharp fight. As the weak winter sun sank into evening, the Confederates had driven Shackelford’s men back some distance but had not broken them. Everyone settled down for an uneasy night.
General P.G.T. Beauregard ordered Lieutenant Dixon, CSA, to proceed with the submarine H. L. Hunley to the mouth of Charleston Harbor and "...sink and destroy any vessel of the enemy with which he can come in conflict." The General directed that "...such assistance- as may he practicable..." he rendered to Lieutenant Dixon.
Between two and three o'clock this afternoon, the forces of Longstreet turned upon and attacked the pursuing column of cavalry under General Shackleford. The line of battle was formed at Bean Station, Tennessee, on the Cumberland Gap and Morristown road; and a fight ensued which continued until nightfall, when the Confederates succeeded in driving the Federals about half a mile. Colonels Wolford, Graham, Foster, and others were engaged. The musketry fire was very heavy. The whole movement was made with a well-contrived plan to cut off and capture General Shackleford and his command; and a heavy force of Rebel cavalry moved down the left bank of the Holston River, with the intention of crossing at Kelly's Ford and coming in his rear. This portion of the program was checked by General Ferrero, who sent the brigade of General Humphrey to hold the ford. The Rebels fired across the river with artillery upon the brigade, but with little effect.
The United States bark Roebuck captured a small sloop-boat called the Gopher, containing two men, sixteen bags of salt, and one box of notions, off Indian River, Florida.
Governor Thomas E. Bramlette, of Kentucky, addressed a letter to Captain Edward Cahill, recruiting colored troops, questioning his right to recruit in that State.
Colonel Watkins, commanding the Kentucky brigade, returned to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from a cavalry reconnaissance as far as La Fayette. He captured a Confederate signal station, and six officers and forty privates. The rest of the force of Rebels retreated.
An expedition sent out by General Wistar from Yorktown to Charles City CourtnHouse, Virginia, under the command of Colonel R. M. West, returned to Williamsburg, Virginia, having been successful in the accomplishment of its object.
1
Posted on 12/14/13 at 10:27 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Tuesday, 15 December 1863
There were those who fought their parts of the American War Between the States, and had as much, or more, effect as a great many who marched and fired guns, but who never came near battlefields. One such person was United States Ambassador to England Charles Francis Adams. Confederate Captain Barron wrote today from London to Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory. Barron was in a cold rage. Spies, he wrote bitterly, “...are to be found following the footsteps of any Confederate agent in spite of all the precautions we can adopt.” Anywhere Southern agents went to arrange for ship repairs, fuel supplies, or armaments purchases, one of these “spies” would get word to Adams and shortly thereafter the promised work or purchase would be cancelled. And it wasn’t just in London that this happened; it was hard to get work done in any port in Europe. The shrewd U.S. diplomat moved time and again to frustrate Southern efforts in Europe.
Captain Raphael Semmes, after cruising for some time in Far Eastern waters, determined to change his area of operations. Leaving the island of Condore in CSS Alabama, he wrote: "The homeward trade of the enemy is now quite small, reduced, probably, to twenty or thirty ships per year, and these may easily evade us by taking the different passages to the Indian Ocean...there is no cruising or chasing to be done here, successfully, or with safety to oneself without plenty of coal, and we can only rely upon coaling once in three months...So I will try my luck around the Cape of Good Hope once more, thence to the coast of Brazil, and thence perhaps to Barbados for coal, and thence? If the war be not ended, my ship will need to go into dock to have much of her copper replaced, now nearly destroyed by such constant cruising, and to have her boilers overhauled and repaired, and this can only be properly done in Europe." The cruise of the most famous Confederate commerce raider went into its final six months.
Admiral Buchanan wrote Commander C. ap R. Jones regarding the CSS Tennessee: "The Tennessee will carry a battery of two 7-inch Brooke guns and four broadsides, 6.4 or 9 inch...There is a great scarcity of officers and I know not where I will get them. I have sent the names of 400 men who wish to be transferred from the Army to the Navy, and have received only about twenty. Jones replied, "Strange that the Army disregard the law requiring the transfer of men."
President Lincoln's Amnesty Proclamation was under consideration in the Confederate Congress. Mr. Foote presented the following preamble and resolution:
Whereas a copy of the truly characteristic proclamation of amnesty recently issued by the imbecile and unprincipled usurper who now sits enthroned upon the ruins of constitutional liberty in Washington City, has been received and read by the members of this House; now, in token of what is solemnly believed to be the most undivided sentiment of the people of the Confederate States:
Be it resolved, That there never has been a day or an hour when the people of the Confederate States were more inflexibly resolved than they are at the present time, never to relinquish the struggle of arms in which they are engaged, until that liberty and independence for which they have been so earnestly contending shall have been at least achieved, and made sure and steadfast beyond even the probability of a future danger; and that, in spite of the reverses which have lately befallen our armies in several quarters, and cold and selfish indifference to our sufferings thus far, for the most part evinced in the action of foreign powers, the eleven millions of enlightened freemen now battling heroically for all that can make existence desirable, are fully prepared, alike in spirit and in resources, to encounter dangers far greater than those which they have heretofore bravely met, and to submit to far greater sacrifices than those which they have heretofore so cheerfully encountered, in preference to holding any further political connection with a government and people who have notoriously proven themselves contemptuously regardless of all the rights and privileges which belong to a state of civil freedom, as well as of all the most sacred usages of civilized war.
Mr. Miles regretted that the gentleman from Tennessee had introduced such a resolution. The true and only treatment which that miserable and contemptible despot, Lincoln, should receive at the hands of this house was silent and unmitigated contempt. This resolution would appear to dignify a paper emanating from that wretched and detestable abortion, whose contemptible emptiness and folly would only receive the ridicule of the civilized world. He moved to lay the subject on the table.
Mr. Foote was willing that the preamble and resolution should be tabled, with the understanding that it would indicate the unqualified contempt of the House for Abraham Lincoln and his message and proclamation alluded to.
Mr. Miles said there would be no misunderstanding about that.
The motion was unanimously adopted.
Similar resolutions, offered by Mr. Miller of Virginia, went the same way.
There was yesterday in the Libby Prison and its dependencies at Richmond, Virginia, over ten thousand abolition captives. In this number are included nine hundred and eighty-three commissioned officers, domiciled at the Libby under the immediate supervision of Major Thomas P. Turner. By the record it appears that nine were received on the fourteenth instant. Twelve died the same day. The arrivals for several day's past have not been very numerous. On last Friday night, Captain Anderson, of the Fifty-first Indiana cavalry (Streight's command), Lieutenant Skelton, of the Nineteenth Iowa regiment, (a redheaded, bullet-eyed, pestilential abolitionist), escaped from the hospital of the Libby Prison by bribing the sentinel, one Mack, a member of the Tenth Virginia battalion of heavy artillery. This person was purchased for four hundred dollars.
This night, about eight o'clock, Rosser's brigade, of Stuart's Confederate cavalry, came upon the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, from the south, near Sangster's Station, Virginia, and destroyed two bridges over Pope's Run.
Authentic information having been received that Acting Masters John Y. Beall and Edward McGuire, together with fifteen men, all belonging to the Confederate States navy, are now in close confinement in irons at Fort McHenry, to be tried as pirates, our efficient and energetic Agent of Exchange, Judge Ould, notified General Meredith that Lieutenant Commander Edward P. Williams and Ensign Benjamin H. Porter and fifteen seamen, now Yankee prisoners in our hands, have been placed in close confinement and irons, and will be held as hostages for the proper treatment of our men.
A list of steamers destroyed on the Mississippi River since the beginning of the war, was made public. Over one hundred and seventy-five were burned or sunk.
There were those who fought their parts of the American War Between the States, and had as much, or more, effect as a great many who marched and fired guns, but who never came near battlefields. One such person was United States Ambassador to England Charles Francis Adams. Confederate Captain Barron wrote today from London to Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory. Barron was in a cold rage. Spies, he wrote bitterly, “...are to be found following the footsteps of any Confederate agent in spite of all the precautions we can adopt.” Anywhere Southern agents went to arrange for ship repairs, fuel supplies, or armaments purchases, one of these “spies” would get word to Adams and shortly thereafter the promised work or purchase would be cancelled. And it wasn’t just in London that this happened; it was hard to get work done in any port in Europe. The shrewd U.S. diplomat moved time and again to frustrate Southern efforts in Europe.
Captain Raphael Semmes, after cruising for some time in Far Eastern waters, determined to change his area of operations. Leaving the island of Condore in CSS Alabama, he wrote: "The homeward trade of the enemy is now quite small, reduced, probably, to twenty or thirty ships per year, and these may easily evade us by taking the different passages to the Indian Ocean...there is no cruising or chasing to be done here, successfully, or with safety to oneself without plenty of coal, and we can only rely upon coaling once in three months...So I will try my luck around the Cape of Good Hope once more, thence to the coast of Brazil, and thence perhaps to Barbados for coal, and thence? If the war be not ended, my ship will need to go into dock to have much of her copper replaced, now nearly destroyed by such constant cruising, and to have her boilers overhauled and repaired, and this can only be properly done in Europe." The cruise of the most famous Confederate commerce raider went into its final six months.
Admiral Buchanan wrote Commander C. ap R. Jones regarding the CSS Tennessee: "The Tennessee will carry a battery of two 7-inch Brooke guns and four broadsides, 6.4 or 9 inch...There is a great scarcity of officers and I know not where I will get them. I have sent the names of 400 men who wish to be transferred from the Army to the Navy, and have received only about twenty. Jones replied, "Strange that the Army disregard the law requiring the transfer of men."
President Lincoln's Amnesty Proclamation was under consideration in the Confederate Congress. Mr. Foote presented the following preamble and resolution:
Whereas a copy of the truly characteristic proclamation of amnesty recently issued by the imbecile and unprincipled usurper who now sits enthroned upon the ruins of constitutional liberty in Washington City, has been received and read by the members of this House; now, in token of what is solemnly believed to be the most undivided sentiment of the people of the Confederate States:
Be it resolved, That there never has been a day or an hour when the people of the Confederate States were more inflexibly resolved than they are at the present time, never to relinquish the struggle of arms in which they are engaged, until that liberty and independence for which they have been so earnestly contending shall have been at least achieved, and made sure and steadfast beyond even the probability of a future danger; and that, in spite of the reverses which have lately befallen our armies in several quarters, and cold and selfish indifference to our sufferings thus far, for the most part evinced in the action of foreign powers, the eleven millions of enlightened freemen now battling heroically for all that can make existence desirable, are fully prepared, alike in spirit and in resources, to encounter dangers far greater than those which they have heretofore bravely met, and to submit to far greater sacrifices than those which they have heretofore so cheerfully encountered, in preference to holding any further political connection with a government and people who have notoriously proven themselves contemptuously regardless of all the rights and privileges which belong to a state of civil freedom, as well as of all the most sacred usages of civilized war.
Mr. Miles regretted that the gentleman from Tennessee had introduced such a resolution. The true and only treatment which that miserable and contemptible despot, Lincoln, should receive at the hands of this house was silent and unmitigated contempt. This resolution would appear to dignify a paper emanating from that wretched and detestable abortion, whose contemptible emptiness and folly would only receive the ridicule of the civilized world. He moved to lay the subject on the table.
Mr. Foote was willing that the preamble and resolution should be tabled, with the understanding that it would indicate the unqualified contempt of the House for Abraham Lincoln and his message and proclamation alluded to.
Mr. Miles said there would be no misunderstanding about that.
The motion was unanimously adopted.
Similar resolutions, offered by Mr. Miller of Virginia, went the same way.
There was yesterday in the Libby Prison and its dependencies at Richmond, Virginia, over ten thousand abolition captives. In this number are included nine hundred and eighty-three commissioned officers, domiciled at the Libby under the immediate supervision of Major Thomas P. Turner. By the record it appears that nine were received on the fourteenth instant. Twelve died the same day. The arrivals for several day's past have not been very numerous. On last Friday night, Captain Anderson, of the Fifty-first Indiana cavalry (Streight's command), Lieutenant Skelton, of the Nineteenth Iowa regiment, (a redheaded, bullet-eyed, pestilential abolitionist), escaped from the hospital of the Libby Prison by bribing the sentinel, one Mack, a member of the Tenth Virginia battalion of heavy artillery. This person was purchased for four hundred dollars.
This night, about eight o'clock, Rosser's brigade, of Stuart's Confederate cavalry, came upon the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, from the south, near Sangster's Station, Virginia, and destroyed two bridges over Pope's Run.
Authentic information having been received that Acting Masters John Y. Beall and Edward McGuire, together with fifteen men, all belonging to the Confederate States navy, are now in close confinement in irons at Fort McHenry, to be tried as pirates, our efficient and energetic Agent of Exchange, Judge Ould, notified General Meredith that Lieutenant Commander Edward P. Williams and Ensign Benjamin H. Porter and fifteen seamen, now Yankee prisoners in our hands, have been placed in close confinement and irons, and will be held as hostages for the proper treatment of our men.
A list of steamers destroyed on the Mississippi River since the beginning of the war, was made public. Over one hundred and seventy-five were burned or sunk.
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