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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 12/19/13 at 8:15 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 12/19/13 at 8:15 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Sunday, 20 December 1863
The recent command changes at the top of the Confederate Army of Tennessee seemed to have settled down. After Braxton Bragg had come General William J. Hardee; replacing Hardee now was General Joseph Eggleston Johnston. As he settled into the intricacies of his new office there was the expected bureaucratic tangle of orders, requisitions and paperwork of all sorts to be gone through. At the top of the pile was the obligatory letter from his President, Jefferson Finis Davis. To call it a letter of congratulations, under the circumstances, would not be quite correct, but not yet was it a missive of condolence. “The difficulties of your new position,” Davis wrote, “are realized, and the Government will make every possible effort to aid you...” What Davis did not need to write, because Johnston, like every other Confederate commander, already knew it, was that there was precious little that Richmond could do to aid the effort in the West. The effort of sending Longstreet’s corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to Tennessee had, in the end, been a failure.
The steamer Antonica ran aground on Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina, attempting to run the blockade. Boat crews from the USS Governor Buckingham, under Acting Lieutenant William G. Saltonstall, captured her crew but were unable to get the steamer off. Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee noted: "She will be a total loss..." Antonica had formerly run the blockade a number of times under British registry and the name of Herald, "...carrying from 1,000 to 1,200 bales of cotton at a time."
The USS Connecticut, under Commander John Jay Almy, seized the British blockade running schooner Sallie with a cargo of salt off Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina. Almy would eventually become a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and hold the record for the longest period of seagoing service-27 years, 10 months.
The Third Wisconsin cavalry returned to Fort Smith, Arkansas, from a successful reconnaissance southward. They were within five miles of the Red River, but finding that the Rebels had changed position since last advices, they were unable to proceed further. Their return was a constant skirmish for over one hundred miles, strong bodies of the enemy being posted at all the crossroads to intercept them. They, however, cut their way through. In some places they evaded the enemy by taking blind mountain passes. Their loss was small.
Mrs. Anne Johnston, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was tried at Nashville, Tennessee, before the Military Committee, for acting as a Confederate spy and smuggling saddles and harness from Cincinnati into the Rebel lines. The articles were packed in barrels, purporting to contain bacon, for the shipment of which permits had been regularly obtained.
The schooner USS Fox, Acting Master George Ashbury in charge, tender to the United States flagship San Jacinto and assigned to the East-Gulf squadron, destroyed in the Suwanee River, Florida, a Rebel steamer, supposed to be the Little Leila, formerly the Paw-Paw, and before that the Flushing. She was set fire to by a boat's crew belonging to the Fox. The Fox then captured the steamer Powerful at the mouth of the Suwannee River. The steamer had been abandoned by her crew on the approach of the Union ship, and, unable to stop a serious leak, Ashbury ordered the blockade runner destroyed.
The recent command changes at the top of the Confederate Army of Tennessee seemed to have settled down. After Braxton Bragg had come General William J. Hardee; replacing Hardee now was General Joseph Eggleston Johnston. As he settled into the intricacies of his new office there was the expected bureaucratic tangle of orders, requisitions and paperwork of all sorts to be gone through. At the top of the pile was the obligatory letter from his President, Jefferson Finis Davis. To call it a letter of congratulations, under the circumstances, would not be quite correct, but not yet was it a missive of condolence. “The difficulties of your new position,” Davis wrote, “are realized, and the Government will make every possible effort to aid you...” What Davis did not need to write, because Johnston, like every other Confederate commander, already knew it, was that there was precious little that Richmond could do to aid the effort in the West. The effort of sending Longstreet’s corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to Tennessee had, in the end, been a failure.
The steamer Antonica ran aground on Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina, attempting to run the blockade. Boat crews from the USS Governor Buckingham, under Acting Lieutenant William G. Saltonstall, captured her crew but were unable to get the steamer off. Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee noted: "She will be a total loss..." Antonica had formerly run the blockade a number of times under British registry and the name of Herald, "...carrying from 1,000 to 1,200 bales of cotton at a time."
The USS Connecticut, under Commander John Jay Almy, seized the British blockade running schooner Sallie with a cargo of salt off Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina. Almy would eventually become a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and hold the record for the longest period of seagoing service-27 years, 10 months.
The Third Wisconsin cavalry returned to Fort Smith, Arkansas, from a successful reconnaissance southward. They were within five miles of the Red River, but finding that the Rebels had changed position since last advices, they were unable to proceed further. Their return was a constant skirmish for over one hundred miles, strong bodies of the enemy being posted at all the crossroads to intercept them. They, however, cut their way through. In some places they evaded the enemy by taking blind mountain passes. Their loss was small.
Mrs. Anne Johnston, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was tried at Nashville, Tennessee, before the Military Committee, for acting as a Confederate spy and smuggling saddles and harness from Cincinnati into the Rebel lines. The articles were packed in barrels, purporting to contain bacon, for the shipment of which permits had been regularly obtained.
The schooner USS Fox, Acting Master George Ashbury in charge, tender to the United States flagship San Jacinto and assigned to the East-Gulf squadron, destroyed in the Suwanee River, Florida, a Rebel steamer, supposed to be the Little Leila, formerly the Paw-Paw, and before that the Flushing. She was set fire to by a boat's crew belonging to the Fox. The Fox then captured the steamer Powerful at the mouth of the Suwannee River. The steamer had been abandoned by her crew on the approach of the Union ship, and, unable to stop a serious leak, Ashbury ordered the blockade runner destroyed.
1
Posted on 12/20/13 at 6:21 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Monday, 21 December 1863
Warfare in wintertime was relatively rare, due in large part to the ease with which inclement weather could make movement of large forces impossible. Common sense on the other hand required continual patrols around the areas where the forces were encamped, lest a combination of good weather, good luck and ignorance of military custom cause somebody to sneak up on one another. When patrols from one side ran into parties from the other, hostilities might be undertaken, but were regarded as of little account. Most such activities appeared to be going on in Tennessee, where encounters are recorded as happening in and around Cleveland and Charleston, as the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad bridge was here vitally connecting Knoxville and Chattanooga, as well as skirmishing near Fayette, Mississippi.
Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren wrote Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that, after 10 days of "wretched" weather at Charleston, a quantity of obstructions had been washed down from the upper harbor by the "...wind, rain, and a heavy sea." The Admiral added: "The quantity was very considerable, and besides those made of rope, which were well known to us, there were others of heavy timber, banded together and connected by railroad iron, with very stout links at each end...This is another instance of the secrecy with which the Rebels create defenses; for although some of the deserters have occupied positions more or less confidential, not one of them has even hinted at obstructions of this kind, while, on the other hand, the correspondents of our own papers keep the Rebels pretty well posted in our affairs."
Admiral Franklin Buchanan wrote Commander Catesby ap Roger Jones at the Confederate Naval Gun Foundry and Ordnance Works in Selma, Alabama: "Have you received any orders from Brooke about the guns for the Tennessee? She is all ready for officers, men, and guns, and has been so reported to the Department many weeks since, but none have I received."
The bark Tuscaloosa--formerly the Conrad, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--captured by the CSS Alabama, was seized at St. Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, by British officers, upon an alleged violation of British laws.
Warfare in wintertime was relatively rare, due in large part to the ease with which inclement weather could make movement of large forces impossible. Common sense on the other hand required continual patrols around the areas where the forces were encamped, lest a combination of good weather, good luck and ignorance of military custom cause somebody to sneak up on one another. When patrols from one side ran into parties from the other, hostilities might be undertaken, but were regarded as of little account. Most such activities appeared to be going on in Tennessee, where encounters are recorded as happening in and around Cleveland and Charleston, as the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad bridge was here vitally connecting Knoxville and Chattanooga, as well as skirmishing near Fayette, Mississippi.
Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren wrote Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that, after 10 days of "wretched" weather at Charleston, a quantity of obstructions had been washed down from the upper harbor by the "...wind, rain, and a heavy sea." The Admiral added: "The quantity was very considerable, and besides those made of rope, which were well known to us, there were others of heavy timber, banded together and connected by railroad iron, with very stout links at each end...This is another instance of the secrecy with which the Rebels create defenses; for although some of the deserters have occupied positions more or less confidential, not one of them has even hinted at obstructions of this kind, while, on the other hand, the correspondents of our own papers keep the Rebels pretty well posted in our affairs."
Admiral Franklin Buchanan wrote Commander Catesby ap Roger Jones at the Confederate Naval Gun Foundry and Ordnance Works in Selma, Alabama: "Have you received any orders from Brooke about the guns for the Tennessee? She is all ready for officers, men, and guns, and has been so reported to the Department many weeks since, but none have I received."
The bark Tuscaloosa--formerly the Conrad, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--captured by the CSS Alabama, was seized at St. Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, by British officers, upon an alleged violation of British laws.
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