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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 11/9/13 at 3:52 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 11/9/13 at 3:52 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Holy frick that's a long read
1
Posted on 11/9/13 at 4:55 pm to dawgfan24348
Better get ready. Gonna be a mid-term next week.
Posted on 11/10/13 at 7:20 am to BadLeroyDawg
Tuesday, 10 November 1863
Captain Raphael Semmes, Confederate States Navy, and his famed and feared CSS Alabama, had been the terror of US-flag shipping all over the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean to the Arctic waters. So many Union ships were now hunting him there that prudence suggested a change of venue, so he had shifted operations to the Pacific. The news had not gotten to all the ships at sea yet, and there was not a lot that their captains could do about it if they did find out. This was the position in which the captain of the clipper ship Cutter found himself today. Sailing off the Gaspar Strait, East Indies, bound from Japan to New York, the Cutter found herself in Semmes’ grasp, and after the crew had been taken off, the ship was sunk. Then the Alabama captured and burned the clipper ship Winged Racer in the Straits of Sunda off Java, with a cargo of sugar, hides, and jute. "She had, besides," wrote Semmes, "a large supply of Manila tobacco, and my sailors' pipes were beginning to want replenishing."
As an intensive two-week Union bombardment of Fort Sumter drew to a close, General P.G.T. Beauregard noted: "Bombardment of Sumter continues gradually to decrease...Total number of shots [received] since 26th, when attack recommenced, is 9,306."
Major General James B. McPherson reported to Lieutenant Commander E. K. Owen, of the USS Louisville, that he anticipated an attack by Confederate troops near Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana. "I have to request," the General wrote, "that you will send one or two gunboats to Goodrich's Landing to assist General [John P.] Hawkins if necessary." For more than two months McPherson relied on naval support in the face of Southern movements in the area.
The USS Howquah, under Acting Lieutenant John MacDiarmid, captured the blockade running steamer Ella off Wilmington, North Carolina.
A successful advance was made by General Judson Kilpatrick, of the Army of the Potomac. He passed through Culpeper without seeing any Confederates, and continued his march through Stevensburg, Virginia, followed by the Rebel army.
Colonel Emory Upton, who commanded the brigade which last Saturday successfully charged and captured the Rebels' works at Rappahannock Station, accompanied by deputations from each of the regiments participating in the assault, presented General George Meade with the eight battle-flags taken at that time. Upton presented the flags in behalf of his command, naming the regiments — the Fifth and Sixth Maine, the Fifth Wisconsin, and the One Hundred and Twenty-first New York--the latter, Upton's own. Meade responded as follows: Colonel Upton, officers and men of the Sixth corps: I receive with great satisfaction the battle-flags, evidences of the good conduct and gallantry you displayed on the seventh instant. The assault of the enemy's position at Rappahannock Station, entrenched by redoubts and rifle-pits, defended by artillery and infantry, carried as it was at the point of the bayonet, was work which could only be executed by the best of soldiers, and in the result you may be justly proud. It gives me great confidence that in future operations I can implicitly rely on the men under my command doing, when called on, all that men can do; and, although it is my desire to place you in such positions as to avoid, if possible, recurring to such severe tests, yet there are occasions, such as the recent one, when it is the only and best course to pursue; and to feel as I do now, that I command men able and willing to meet and overcome such obstacles is a source of great satisfaction. I shall transmit these flags to the War Department. I have already reported your good conduct, and received and transmitted to your commanders the approval of the President. I shall prepare, as soon as I receive the requisite information, a general order, in which it is my desire to do justice to all the troops who have distinguished themselves; and it is my purpose, by every means in my power, to have those soldiers rewarded who have merited such distinction. Soldiers: In the name of the army and of the country, I thank you for the services you have rendered, particularly for the example you have set, which, I doubt not, on future occasions will be followed and emulated.
Captain Raphael Semmes, Confederate States Navy, and his famed and feared CSS Alabama, had been the terror of US-flag shipping all over the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean to the Arctic waters. So many Union ships were now hunting him there that prudence suggested a change of venue, so he had shifted operations to the Pacific. The news had not gotten to all the ships at sea yet, and there was not a lot that their captains could do about it if they did find out. This was the position in which the captain of the clipper ship Cutter found himself today. Sailing off the Gaspar Strait, East Indies, bound from Japan to New York, the Cutter found herself in Semmes’ grasp, and after the crew had been taken off, the ship was sunk. Then the Alabama captured and burned the clipper ship Winged Racer in the Straits of Sunda off Java, with a cargo of sugar, hides, and jute. "She had, besides," wrote Semmes, "a large supply of Manila tobacco, and my sailors' pipes were beginning to want replenishing."
As an intensive two-week Union bombardment of Fort Sumter drew to a close, General P.G.T. Beauregard noted: "Bombardment of Sumter continues gradually to decrease...Total number of shots [received] since 26th, when attack recommenced, is 9,306."
Major General James B. McPherson reported to Lieutenant Commander E. K. Owen, of the USS Louisville, that he anticipated an attack by Confederate troops near Goodrich's Landing, Louisiana. "I have to request," the General wrote, "that you will send one or two gunboats to Goodrich's Landing to assist General [John P.] Hawkins if necessary." For more than two months McPherson relied on naval support in the face of Southern movements in the area.
The USS Howquah, under Acting Lieutenant John MacDiarmid, captured the blockade running steamer Ella off Wilmington, North Carolina.
A successful advance was made by General Judson Kilpatrick, of the Army of the Potomac. He passed through Culpeper without seeing any Confederates, and continued his march through Stevensburg, Virginia, followed by the Rebel army.
Colonel Emory Upton, who commanded the brigade which last Saturday successfully charged and captured the Rebels' works at Rappahannock Station, accompanied by deputations from each of the regiments participating in the assault, presented General George Meade with the eight battle-flags taken at that time. Upton presented the flags in behalf of his command, naming the regiments — the Fifth and Sixth Maine, the Fifth Wisconsin, and the One Hundred and Twenty-first New York--the latter, Upton's own. Meade responded as follows: Colonel Upton, officers and men of the Sixth corps: I receive with great satisfaction the battle-flags, evidences of the good conduct and gallantry you displayed on the seventh instant. The assault of the enemy's position at Rappahannock Station, entrenched by redoubts and rifle-pits, defended by artillery and infantry, carried as it was at the point of the bayonet, was work which could only be executed by the best of soldiers, and in the result you may be justly proud. It gives me great confidence that in future operations I can implicitly rely on the men under my command doing, when called on, all that men can do; and, although it is my desire to place you in such positions as to avoid, if possible, recurring to such severe tests, yet there are occasions, such as the recent one, when it is the only and best course to pursue; and to feel as I do now, that I command men able and willing to meet and overcome such obstacles is a source of great satisfaction. I shall transmit these flags to the War Department. I have already reported your good conduct, and received and transmitted to your commanders the approval of the President. I shall prepare, as soon as I receive the requisite information, a general order, in which it is my desire to do justice to all the troops who have distinguished themselves; and it is my purpose, by every means in my power, to have those soldiers rewarded who have merited such distinction. Soldiers: In the name of the army and of the country, I thank you for the services you have rendered, particularly for the example you have set, which, I doubt not, on future occasions will be followed and emulated.
Posted on 11/11/13 at 4:10 am to BadLeroyDawg
Wednesday, 11 November 1863
Union General Benjamin "Spoons" Butler, was one of the more colorful, not to say controversial, figures of the War. Never considered handsome by the ladies, and not much of a combat commander, he had been shifted into administration, particularly of occupied cities. During his tenure in command of New Orleans, he had infuriated so many that his picture was pasted in the bottom of chamber pots. Finally he was replaced, not for irritating his subjects but for failing to sufficiently support the campaign up the Mississippi River. This morning, he got his new assignment, replacing General John G. Foster in the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. He got off to a reasonably typical start, issuing an order forbidding the populace to harass citizens loyal to the Union with “...opprobrious and threatening language.” Women, for once, were not singled out. His other popular nickname of "Beast" was still used with regularity.
Major General Foster having been relieved from the command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, issued an order bidding farewell to the officers and men serving in the department.
After Major General Butler assumed command of the departments of Eastern Virginia and North Carolina, his order contained the following: Representations having been made to the Commanding General that certain disloyally disposed persons within this department do occasionally, by force, interfere with, and by opprobrious and threatening language insult and annoy loyal persons employed in the quiet discharge of their lawful occupations, it is hereby announced that all such conduct and language is hereafter strictly forbidden, and will be punished with military severity. All officers of this department are directed to order the arrest, and to bring such persons as are found offending against this order before the tribunal established for the purpose of punishing offences within this department.
The feared CSS Alabama, commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes, captured and destroyed the clipper ship Contest after a long chase off Gaspar Strait with a cargo of Japanese goods bound for New York.
Federal Secretary of the Navy Gideon Stanton sent the following dispatch to the Mayor of Buffalo, New York, this night: The British Minister, Lord Lyons, has tonight officially notified the Government that, from telegraphic information received from the Governor-General of Canada, there is reason to believe there is a plot on foot by persons who have found asylum in Canada to invade the United States and destroy the city of Buffalo; that they propose to take possession of some steamboats on Lake Erie, to surprise Johnson's Island, free the prisoners of war confined there, and proceed with them to Buffalo. This Government will employ all means in its power to suppress any hostile attack from Canada; but as other towns and cities on the shores of the lakes are exposed to the same danger, it is deemed proper to communicate this information to you in order that any precautions which the circumstances of the case will permit may be taken. The Governor-General suggests that steamboats or other vessels, giving cause for suspicion by the number or character of persons on board, shall be arrested.
Union General Benjamin "Spoons" Butler, was one of the more colorful, not to say controversial, figures of the War. Never considered handsome by the ladies, and not much of a combat commander, he had been shifted into administration, particularly of occupied cities. During his tenure in command of New Orleans, he had infuriated so many that his picture was pasted in the bottom of chamber pots. Finally he was replaced, not for irritating his subjects but for failing to sufficiently support the campaign up the Mississippi River. This morning, he got his new assignment, replacing General John G. Foster in the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. He got off to a reasonably typical start, issuing an order forbidding the populace to harass citizens loyal to the Union with “...opprobrious and threatening language.” Women, for once, were not singled out. His other popular nickname of "Beast" was still used with regularity.
Major General Foster having been relieved from the command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, issued an order bidding farewell to the officers and men serving in the department.
After Major General Butler assumed command of the departments of Eastern Virginia and North Carolina, his order contained the following: Representations having been made to the Commanding General that certain disloyally disposed persons within this department do occasionally, by force, interfere with, and by opprobrious and threatening language insult and annoy loyal persons employed in the quiet discharge of their lawful occupations, it is hereby announced that all such conduct and language is hereafter strictly forbidden, and will be punished with military severity. All officers of this department are directed to order the arrest, and to bring such persons as are found offending against this order before the tribunal established for the purpose of punishing offences within this department.
The feared CSS Alabama, commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes, captured and destroyed the clipper ship Contest after a long chase off Gaspar Strait with a cargo of Japanese goods bound for New York.
Federal Secretary of the Navy Gideon Stanton sent the following dispatch to the Mayor of Buffalo, New York, this night: The British Minister, Lord Lyons, has tonight officially notified the Government that, from telegraphic information received from the Governor-General of Canada, there is reason to believe there is a plot on foot by persons who have found asylum in Canada to invade the United States and destroy the city of Buffalo; that they propose to take possession of some steamboats on Lake Erie, to surprise Johnson's Island, free the prisoners of war confined there, and proceed with them to Buffalo. This Government will employ all means in its power to suppress any hostile attack from Canada; but as other towns and cities on the shores of the lakes are exposed to the same danger, it is deemed proper to communicate this information to you in order that any precautions which the circumstances of the case will permit may be taken. The Governor-General suggests that steamboats or other vessels, giving cause for suspicion by the number or character of persons on board, shall be arrested.
Posted on 11/12/13 at 5:02 am to BadLeroyDawg
Thursday, 12 November 1863
The Army of the Cumberland was eating better these days, thanks to the opening of the "cracker line" which greatly shortened the distances required for food to be brought in. Mere avoidance of starvation, however, did not mean that they were ready for battle to break them out of Chattanooga, where they had been besieged since the debacle of Chickamauga Creek. General Hiram U. Grant, who had fired commanding General William Rosecrans and taken over the scene himself, was awaiting one final factor he felt necessary to get the show on the road: General William T. Sherman and his 15th Army Corps. That unit was accustomed to fighting and winning. The other reinforcements which had been provided, two Army of the Potomac corps under Gen. Hooker, had not had such good fortune in combat.
A very spirited skirmish with the Confederate forces occurred at a point about ten miles from the Cumberland Gap, in Virginia. A forage train of twenty-one wagons had been sent out with a guard of twenty-eight men. The wagons were loaded, and started for the Gap, with no appearance of danger, when suddenly a small party of seventy partisan guerrillas rushed from a convenient ambush, overpowering the guard, and compelling a surrender. The officers' clothing was immediately transferred to Confederate backs, and their wallets appropriated. Ten minutes after the capture, Colonel Lemert, commanding the forces at the Gap, appeared in a bend of the road. Whilst the Rebels were approaching, Colonel Lemert immediately led the charge with ten men of the Fourth battalion Ohio volunteer cavalry. A fierce hand-to-hand sabre-fight occurred for a few minutes, when the Confederates left the field. The train and prisoners were recaptured, eleven of the enemy captured, two killed and four wounded, and some small arms and horses taken. An exciting chase of ten miles failed to overtake the fleeing Rebels.
Major General Dabney H. Maury, in command of the Confederate forces at Mobile, Alabama, sent the following to Adjutant General Cooper, at the war department at Richmond, Virginia: The following dispatch from Tunica, Mississippi, was received yesterday, dated tenth instant, from Colonel Harry Maury, commanding the Fifteenth cavalry regiment: 'We dashed in yesterday above Bayou Sara on a plundering party of Yankees, three hundred strong, and drove them to their ironclads with great slaughter. We brought off their wagon trains and twenty-five prisoners from under the broadsides of their gunboats. Only three wounded of ours.'
Two bridges and trestle-works on the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad at Caligula, near Lynnville, Tennessee, were destroyed by a party of Confederate cavalry under the command of the partisan guerrilla Roddy.
A cannonading between the Confederate batteries on Lookout Mountain and the Union forces at Moccasin Point, took place today.
At the Confederate Senate, in session at Richmond, Virginia, Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, offered the resolution: Resolved, That in the present condition of the country, Congress ought, with the least practicable delay, to enact the following:
1. To declare every white male person residing in the Confederate States, and capable of bearing arms, to be in the military service of the country.
2. To repeal all laws authorizing substitutes or granting exemptions.
3. To authorize the President to issue his proclamation requiring all male persons claiming and receiving foreign protection to make their election within sixty days, to take up arms or quit the country.
4. To detail from those in the military service such only as are absolutely needed in civil pursuits, having reference in making such details to competency alone.
5. To levy a direct tax of----per cent on every kind of property, according to its value in confederate notes, including the notes themselves.
6. To make confederate notes a legal tender in payment of debts, after the expiration of six months.
7. To prohibit the buying and selling of gold and silver coin, or the notes on banks in the United States, or United States Treasury notes, during the war, under heavy penalties, or, in lieu thereof, to prohibit "running the blockade" by individuals, under pain of forfeiture of the goods brought in, and imprisonment during the war.
8. Declare these laws war measures, and make those who violate them amenable to the military courts.
The City Council of Richmond, Virginia, made an appropriation of sixty thousand dollars for the purchase of a family residence for General Robert Edward and Mary Custis Lee. This was due to some 14,000 troops having crossed the Potomac River on May 24, 1861, and having seized their 1,100-acre estate at Arlington without compensation as the Constitution required.
The Army of the Cumberland was eating better these days, thanks to the opening of the "cracker line" which greatly shortened the distances required for food to be brought in. Mere avoidance of starvation, however, did not mean that they were ready for battle to break them out of Chattanooga, where they had been besieged since the debacle of Chickamauga Creek. General Hiram U. Grant, who had fired commanding General William Rosecrans and taken over the scene himself, was awaiting one final factor he felt necessary to get the show on the road: General William T. Sherman and his 15th Army Corps. That unit was accustomed to fighting and winning. The other reinforcements which had been provided, two Army of the Potomac corps under Gen. Hooker, had not had such good fortune in combat.
A very spirited skirmish with the Confederate forces occurred at a point about ten miles from the Cumberland Gap, in Virginia. A forage train of twenty-one wagons had been sent out with a guard of twenty-eight men. The wagons were loaded, and started for the Gap, with no appearance of danger, when suddenly a small party of seventy partisan guerrillas rushed from a convenient ambush, overpowering the guard, and compelling a surrender. The officers' clothing was immediately transferred to Confederate backs, and their wallets appropriated. Ten minutes after the capture, Colonel Lemert, commanding the forces at the Gap, appeared in a bend of the road. Whilst the Rebels were approaching, Colonel Lemert immediately led the charge with ten men of the Fourth battalion Ohio volunteer cavalry. A fierce hand-to-hand sabre-fight occurred for a few minutes, when the Confederates left the field. The train and prisoners were recaptured, eleven of the enemy captured, two killed and four wounded, and some small arms and horses taken. An exciting chase of ten miles failed to overtake the fleeing Rebels.
Major General Dabney H. Maury, in command of the Confederate forces at Mobile, Alabama, sent the following to Adjutant General Cooper, at the war department at Richmond, Virginia: The following dispatch from Tunica, Mississippi, was received yesterday, dated tenth instant, from Colonel Harry Maury, commanding the Fifteenth cavalry regiment: 'We dashed in yesterday above Bayou Sara on a plundering party of Yankees, three hundred strong, and drove them to their ironclads with great slaughter. We brought off their wagon trains and twenty-five prisoners from under the broadsides of their gunboats. Only three wounded of ours.'
Two bridges and trestle-works on the Tennessee and Alabama Railroad at Caligula, near Lynnville, Tennessee, were destroyed by a party of Confederate cavalry under the command of the partisan guerrilla Roddy.
A cannonading between the Confederate batteries on Lookout Mountain and the Union forces at Moccasin Point, took place today.
At the Confederate Senate, in session at Richmond, Virginia, Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, offered the resolution: Resolved, That in the present condition of the country, Congress ought, with the least practicable delay, to enact the following:
1. To declare every white male person residing in the Confederate States, and capable of bearing arms, to be in the military service of the country.
2. To repeal all laws authorizing substitutes or granting exemptions.
3. To authorize the President to issue his proclamation requiring all male persons claiming and receiving foreign protection to make their election within sixty days, to take up arms or quit the country.
4. To detail from those in the military service such only as are absolutely needed in civil pursuits, having reference in making such details to competency alone.
5. To levy a direct tax of----per cent on every kind of property, according to its value in confederate notes, including the notes themselves.
6. To make confederate notes a legal tender in payment of debts, after the expiration of six months.
7. To prohibit the buying and selling of gold and silver coin, or the notes on banks in the United States, or United States Treasury notes, during the war, under heavy penalties, or, in lieu thereof, to prohibit "running the blockade" by individuals, under pain of forfeiture of the goods brought in, and imprisonment during the war.
8. Declare these laws war measures, and make those who violate them amenable to the military courts.
The City Council of Richmond, Virginia, made an appropriation of sixty thousand dollars for the purchase of a family residence for General Robert Edward and Mary Custis Lee. This was due to some 14,000 troops having crossed the Potomac River on May 24, 1861, and having seized their 1,100-acre estate at Arlington without compensation as the Constitution required.
Posted on 11/13/13 at 4:59 am to BadLeroyDawg
Friday, 13 November 1863
General Robert E. Lee and his men had experienced a rough summer. Heavy action in the spring, constant movement, finally the desperate move into Maryland and Pennsylvania culminating in the three days of the Gettysburg Campaign. Even after that, movement if not active battle, had been constant. This had been hard on the men of the Army of Northern Virginia, harder on their supplies and equipment. It had, however, been hardest of all on the members of the army least able to protest: the horses and other beasts of burden. General Lee sent a telegram from Orange Court House, Virginia, to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond today, imploring him to find a supply of food for the animals, saying that they had had only three pounds of corn per day per horse for the last five days. Davis ordered other supplies delayed until corn could be shipped in.
A skirmish took place near Natchez, Mississippi, between company H, of the Seventy-first Illinois regiment, and a few volunteers of the Sixth Mississippi regiment of loyal colored troops, and the Confederate cavalry under William Wirt Adams. The circumstances are as follows: The wagons of the above command were sent out for forage, the company just designated was detailed as an escort, and left camp at seven A. M. After proceeding about one mile and a half a small force of rebels was seen, the company halted, and a messenger was dispatched to inform the commanding officer, and report for instructions. Immediately on receipt of the news, Colonel Smith took the camp-guard and proceeded out on the Washington road, came up to where the foraging party had halted, and ordered it forward. [It is necessary here to state that this road leads to a village, bearing the same name, some six miles distant from this place, and two miles out it intersects the Palestine road, both of which run quite close together for a mile or more.] Both commands marched on to the "forks," when it was decided that Captain 0. H. Hitchcock, with his company, should proceed with the train toward Palestine, as was originally intended. Colonel Smith, taking the guard, followed the other road, and after marching more than a mile ordered a halt, and threw out a picket still farther on, as the rebels had been there but a few moments before. Presently a volley was heard, then another, and still another. He immediately "double-quicked" his men back, but arrived too late to participate in the engagement. Lieutenants Richards and Green, who were some distance in advance of the train, on horseback, met a squad of eight or ten cavalry coming around a bend in the road at full speed. They therefore fell back, hotly pursued by the rebels, who, when they [7] came in sight of the party immediately fled, and on meeting their comrades, they all joined and came back, and found the colored troops prepared to give them battle. Captain Hitchcock, not knowing the strength of his opposers, fell back a short distance, and the enemy rallied and charged furiously again. The rebel captain ordered Hitchcock to surrender, firing at the same time his revolver at Corporal John Heron, who dropped unhurt to his knees, and sent a ball through the miscreant's breast, which proved fatal. Rebel citizens state that the opposing force numbered fifty men, and acknowledge their loss to be one captain, sergeant, and two privates killed, and eight wounded. The Union loss was as follows:
Killed ? George Diegs, company H; Lewis Taylor, company H; Peter Grant, company H; Samuel Moden, company G. Wounded ? William Gallin, company B; Henry Brown, company H; Mil Beckford, company H; William Hegdon, company H; Zeno Callahan, company H; Duncan Turner, company H; John Bodly, company H.
John C. Crane, acting quartermaster at Nashville, Tennessee, in a note to Andrew Johnson, Governor of that State, says: The bearer, (colored,) Jane Woodall, is my house-servant. She is a slave, claimed by Christopher Woodall, a resident of Tennessee. It is said that he is disloyal, and on a previous occasion the military authorities prevented him from taking her.
The Governor's response. Executive office, Nashville, Tenn., November 18, 1868.
Respectfully returned. If the girl referred to within is willing to return with Mr. Woodall, she should be allowed to go, but, if not willing, she will not be compelled to go with him. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor.
In accordance with an order from the War Department, Major General John A. Logan surrendered his command of the Third division of the Seventeenth army corps. In addressing the officers and soldiers of the different brigades, he reminded them of the history the division had made for itself ? a history to be proud of; a history never to be forgotten; for it is written as with a pen of fire dipped in ink of blood on the memories and in the hearts of all. He besought them always to prove themselves as loyal in principle, as valiant in arms, as their record while under his command would show them to have been; to "...remember the glorious cause you are fighting for, remember the bleaching bones of your comrades killed on the bloody fields of Donelson, Corinth, Champion Hill, and Vicksburg, or perished by disease during the past two years of hardships and exposure ? and swear by these imperishable memories never, while life remains, to prove recreant to the trust high heaven has confided to your charge." He assured them of his continued sympathy and interest in their well-being, no matter how great a distance might separate them; and closed by heartily recommending them to their future commander, his own companion in arms, and successor, Brigadier General Mortimer Dormer Leggett.
General Robert E. Lee and his men had experienced a rough summer. Heavy action in the spring, constant movement, finally the desperate move into Maryland and Pennsylvania culminating in the three days of the Gettysburg Campaign. Even after that, movement if not active battle, had been constant. This had been hard on the men of the Army of Northern Virginia, harder on their supplies and equipment. It had, however, been hardest of all on the members of the army least able to protest: the horses and other beasts of burden. General Lee sent a telegram from Orange Court House, Virginia, to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond today, imploring him to find a supply of food for the animals, saying that they had had only three pounds of corn per day per horse for the last five days. Davis ordered other supplies delayed until corn could be shipped in.
A skirmish took place near Natchez, Mississippi, between company H, of the Seventy-first Illinois regiment, and a few volunteers of the Sixth Mississippi regiment of loyal colored troops, and the Confederate cavalry under William Wirt Adams. The circumstances are as follows: The wagons of the above command were sent out for forage, the company just designated was detailed as an escort, and left camp at seven A. M. After proceeding about one mile and a half a small force of rebels was seen, the company halted, and a messenger was dispatched to inform the commanding officer, and report for instructions. Immediately on receipt of the news, Colonel Smith took the camp-guard and proceeded out on the Washington road, came up to where the foraging party had halted, and ordered it forward. [It is necessary here to state that this road leads to a village, bearing the same name, some six miles distant from this place, and two miles out it intersects the Palestine road, both of which run quite close together for a mile or more.] Both commands marched on to the "forks," when it was decided that Captain 0. H. Hitchcock, with his company, should proceed with the train toward Palestine, as was originally intended. Colonel Smith, taking the guard, followed the other road, and after marching more than a mile ordered a halt, and threw out a picket still farther on, as the rebels had been there but a few moments before. Presently a volley was heard, then another, and still another. He immediately "double-quicked" his men back, but arrived too late to participate in the engagement. Lieutenants Richards and Green, who were some distance in advance of the train, on horseback, met a squad of eight or ten cavalry coming around a bend in the road at full speed. They therefore fell back, hotly pursued by the rebels, who, when they [7] came in sight of the party immediately fled, and on meeting their comrades, they all joined and came back, and found the colored troops prepared to give them battle. Captain Hitchcock, not knowing the strength of his opposers, fell back a short distance, and the enemy rallied and charged furiously again. The rebel captain ordered Hitchcock to surrender, firing at the same time his revolver at Corporal John Heron, who dropped unhurt to his knees, and sent a ball through the miscreant's breast, which proved fatal. Rebel citizens state that the opposing force numbered fifty men, and acknowledge their loss to be one captain, sergeant, and two privates killed, and eight wounded. The Union loss was as follows:
Killed ? George Diegs, company H; Lewis Taylor, company H; Peter Grant, company H; Samuel Moden, company G. Wounded ? William Gallin, company B; Henry Brown, company H; Mil Beckford, company H; William Hegdon, company H; Zeno Callahan, company H; Duncan Turner, company H; John Bodly, company H.
John C. Crane, acting quartermaster at Nashville, Tennessee, in a note to Andrew Johnson, Governor of that State, says: The bearer, (colored,) Jane Woodall, is my house-servant. She is a slave, claimed by Christopher Woodall, a resident of Tennessee. It is said that he is disloyal, and on a previous occasion the military authorities prevented him from taking her.
The Governor's response. Executive office, Nashville, Tenn., November 18, 1868.
Respectfully returned. If the girl referred to within is willing to return with Mr. Woodall, she should be allowed to go, but, if not willing, she will not be compelled to go with him. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor.
In accordance with an order from the War Department, Major General John A. Logan surrendered his command of the Third division of the Seventeenth army corps. In addressing the officers and soldiers of the different brigades, he reminded them of the history the division had made for itself ? a history to be proud of; a history never to be forgotten; for it is written as with a pen of fire dipped in ink of blood on the memories and in the hearts of all. He besought them always to prove themselves as loyal in principle, as valiant in arms, as their record while under his command would show them to have been; to "...remember the glorious cause you are fighting for, remember the bleaching bones of your comrades killed on the bloody fields of Donelson, Corinth, Champion Hill, and Vicksburg, or perished by disease during the past two years of hardships and exposure ? and swear by these imperishable memories never, while life remains, to prove recreant to the trust high heaven has confided to your charge." He assured them of his continued sympathy and interest in their well-being, no matter how great a distance might separate them; and closed by heartily recommending them to their future commander, his own companion in arms, and successor, Brigadier General Mortimer Dormer Leggett.
Posted on 11/14/13 at 4:09 am to BadLeroyDawg
Saturday, 14 November 1863
Still on duty in the Charleston, South Carolina area, General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard had a different assignment today than last year, but not a more pleasant one. His job was to inspect the gunboats protecting the harbor and river, and report on them His report was not happy. "Our gunboats are defective in six respects", he wrote. "First, they have no speed...second, they are of too great a draft to navigate our inland waters. Third, they are unseaworthy...even in the harbor they are at times...unsafe in a storm. Fourth, they are incapable of resisting the enemy's...shots. Fifth, they can not fight at long range. Sixth, they are very costly, warm, uncomfortable and badly ventilated; consequently sickly." Beauregard's bluntness gained him no friends. Everybody knew the ships were awful, but they also knew those vessels were the only ships the South had.
Timely intelligence reports played an important role in alerting the Union blockaders. This date, Rear Admiral Bailey advised Lieutenant Commander McCauley, of the USS Fort Henry: "I have information that the steamers Alabama and Nita sailed from Havana on the 12th, with a view of running the blockade, probably at Mobile, but possibly between Tampa Bay and St. Marks [Florida]; also that the steamers Montgomery (formerly Habanero), the Isabel, the Fannie, the War-rior, and the Little Lily were nearly ready for sail, with like intent. . . the Isabel, which sailed on the 7th, has undoubtedly gone either to Bayport, the Waccasassa, or the Suwanee River. You will therefore keep a sharp lookout for any of these vessels. . . ." Four of the seven ships were captured by the blockading forces within a month.
The USS Bermuda, Acting Master J. W. Smith, seized the British blockade runners Carmita, with a full cargo of cotton, and Artist, with a cargo including liquor and medicine, off the Texas coast.
The farmers of Warren, Franklin, and Johnson counties, North Carolina, having refused to pay the Confederate tax in kind by delivering the government's tenth to the quartermaster-general, James A. Seddon, the Confederate States Secretary of War, issued the following letter of instructions to that officer:
It is true the law requires farmers to deliver their tenth at depots not more than eight miles from the place of production; but your published order requesting them for the purpose of supplying the immediate wants of the army, to deliver at the depots named, although at a greater distance than eight miles, and offering to pay for the transportation in excess of that distance, is so reasonable that no good citizen would refuse to comply with it.
You will, therefore, promulgate an addition to your former order, requiring producers to deliver their quotas at the depots nearest to them by a specified day, and notifying them that in case of their refusal or neglect to comply therewith, the Government will provide the necessary transportation at the expense of the delinquents, and collect said expense by an immediate levy on their productions, calculating their value at the rates allowed in cases of impressment.
If it becomes necessary to furnish transportation, the necessary teams, teamsters, etc., must be impressed as in ordinary cases.
All persons detected in secreting articles subject to the tax, or in deceiving as to the quantity [8] produced by them, should be made to suffer the confiscation of all such property found belonging to them.
The people in the counties named, and in fact nearly all the western counties of that State, have ever evinced a disposition to cavil at, and even resist the measures of the Government, and it is quite time that they, and all others similarly disposed, should be dealt by with becoming rigor. Now that our energies are taxed to the utmost to subsist our armies, it will not do to be defrauded of this much-needed tax. If necessary, force must be employed for its collection. Let striking examples be made of a few of the rogues, and I think the rest will respond promptly.
Major General John M. Schofield, from the headquarters of the Department of the Missouri, at St. Louis, issued an important order regarding the enlisting of colored troops. Originally the slave owner's consent was required before a slave could enlist. Order No. 135 changed this, allowing enlistment without consent. If the owner did consent they were given some compensation. In addition, the order abolished the highly effective recruitment patrols. There was much dispute that these patrols were forcing some slaves against their will.
Still on duty in the Charleston, South Carolina area, General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard had a different assignment today than last year, but not a more pleasant one. His job was to inspect the gunboats protecting the harbor and river, and report on them His report was not happy. "Our gunboats are defective in six respects", he wrote. "First, they have no speed...second, they are of too great a draft to navigate our inland waters. Third, they are unseaworthy...even in the harbor they are at times...unsafe in a storm. Fourth, they are incapable of resisting the enemy's...shots. Fifth, they can not fight at long range. Sixth, they are very costly, warm, uncomfortable and badly ventilated; consequently sickly." Beauregard's bluntness gained him no friends. Everybody knew the ships were awful, but they also knew those vessels were the only ships the South had.
Timely intelligence reports played an important role in alerting the Union blockaders. This date, Rear Admiral Bailey advised Lieutenant Commander McCauley, of the USS Fort Henry: "I have information that the steamers Alabama and Nita sailed from Havana on the 12th, with a view of running the blockade, probably at Mobile, but possibly between Tampa Bay and St. Marks [Florida]; also that the steamers Montgomery (formerly Habanero), the Isabel, the Fannie, the War-rior, and the Little Lily were nearly ready for sail, with like intent. . . the Isabel, which sailed on the 7th, has undoubtedly gone either to Bayport, the Waccasassa, or the Suwanee River. You will therefore keep a sharp lookout for any of these vessels. . . ." Four of the seven ships were captured by the blockading forces within a month.
The USS Bermuda, Acting Master J. W. Smith, seized the British blockade runners Carmita, with a full cargo of cotton, and Artist, with a cargo including liquor and medicine, off the Texas coast.
The farmers of Warren, Franklin, and Johnson counties, North Carolina, having refused to pay the Confederate tax in kind by delivering the government's tenth to the quartermaster-general, James A. Seddon, the Confederate States Secretary of War, issued the following letter of instructions to that officer:
It is true the law requires farmers to deliver their tenth at depots not more than eight miles from the place of production; but your published order requesting them for the purpose of supplying the immediate wants of the army, to deliver at the depots named, although at a greater distance than eight miles, and offering to pay for the transportation in excess of that distance, is so reasonable that no good citizen would refuse to comply with it.
You will, therefore, promulgate an addition to your former order, requiring producers to deliver their quotas at the depots nearest to them by a specified day, and notifying them that in case of their refusal or neglect to comply therewith, the Government will provide the necessary transportation at the expense of the delinquents, and collect said expense by an immediate levy on their productions, calculating their value at the rates allowed in cases of impressment.
If it becomes necessary to furnish transportation, the necessary teams, teamsters, etc., must be impressed as in ordinary cases.
All persons detected in secreting articles subject to the tax, or in deceiving as to the quantity [8] produced by them, should be made to suffer the confiscation of all such property found belonging to them.
The people in the counties named, and in fact nearly all the western counties of that State, have ever evinced a disposition to cavil at, and even resist the measures of the Government, and it is quite time that they, and all others similarly disposed, should be dealt by with becoming rigor. Now that our energies are taxed to the utmost to subsist our armies, it will not do to be defrauded of this much-needed tax. If necessary, force must be employed for its collection. Let striking examples be made of a few of the rogues, and I think the rest will respond promptly.
Major General John M. Schofield, from the headquarters of the Department of the Missouri, at St. Louis, issued an important order regarding the enlisting of colored troops. Originally the slave owner's consent was required before a slave could enlist. Order No. 135 changed this, allowing enlistment without consent. If the owner did consent they were given some compensation. In addition, the order abolished the highly effective recruitment patrols. There was much dispute that these patrols were forcing some slaves against their will.
Posted on 11/15/13 at 4:21 am to BadLeroyDawg
Sunday, 15 November 1863
The bombardment of Fort Sumter had been going on for a few days now, and 2328 shells had been thrown at the dilapidated pile of masonry since Thursday. This evening the defenders responded, and the guns at Confederate Fort Moultrie commenced their own bombardment of Cummings Point on Morris Island elsewhere in Charleston Harbor. Concerned that this might presage an amphibious attack, Union General Quincy Adams Gilmore asked his Navy counterpart, Admiral John A. Dahlgren, to send some ships to screen the point. Dahlgren promptly sent the requested vessels, some tugs and the USS Lehigh, but it was after dark before they reached station. The Lehigh promptly ran aground. It proved impossible to free her till the tide turned at dawn, and she attracted heavy fire before getting out of range.
Another report: Confederate-held Fort Moultrie opened a heavy, evening bombardment on the Union Army positions at Cummings Point, Morris Island, lasting well into the morning. Brigadier General Gillmore immediately turned to Rear Admiral Dahlgren for assistance. "Will you have some of your vessels move up, so as to prevent an attack by boats on the sea face of the point," he wired late at night. The Admiral answered "...at once" and ordered the tugs on patrol duty to keep "...a good lookout." The USS Lehigh, under Commander Andrew Bryson, grounded while covering Cummings Point and was taken under heavy fire the next morning before the USS Nahant, Lieutenant Commander John J. Cornwell in charge, got her off. Landsmen Frank S. Gile and William Williams, gunner's mate George W. Leland, coxswain Thomas Irving, and seaman Horatio N. Young from Lehigh were subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism while carrying a line from their ship to the Nahant, thus enabling the Lehigh to work free from her desperate position. “Thursday morning last until yesterday (Saturday) at sundown, one thousand five hundred and twenty-three mortar shells and rifled shots were fired at the fort. The Union fire has ceased to be of any injury to that defense.”
The USS Lodona, under Acting Lieutenant Brodhead, seized the blockade running British schooner Arctic southwest of Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina, with a cargo of salt.
Conrad Posey, a Brigadier General in the Confederate service, died at Charlottesville, Vitrginia, from a wound received in the fight at Bristoe Station, Virginia. General Posey was formerly colonel of the Forty-eighth Mississippi regiment, belonging to General Featherstone's brigade, and when the latter was transferred from the army of Virginia to the West, General Posey was commissioned to succeed him. The firing on Fort Sumter continued steadily. From
Major General Stephen Augustus Hurlbut, from his headquarters, Sixteenth Army Corps, at Memphis, Tennessee, issued the following general order:
I. The people in the District of West-Tennessee and the northern counties of Mississippi having shown no disposition, and made no attempt to protect themselves from marauders and guerrilla bands, but having submitted themselves, without organized resistance, to the domination of these petty tyrants, and combined, in many instances, with the known enemies of the United States to procure from corrupt traders in the city of Memphis and elsewhere, supplies for the use of the public enemy, have proved themselves unworthy of the indulgence shown them by the Government.
It is therefore ordered, that the lines of pickets around the several military posts of this command, in Tennessee and Mississippi be closed, and that no goods of any description be allowed to pass out, nor any thing be brought in, except fire-wood and provisions, by any citizen, without the written order of some general officer, each of which permits, and the reason for granting the same, will be reported to these headquarters, and for the necessity of which each officer granting will be held rigidly responsible.
II. All merchants, and others doing business, will be held responsible for knowledge of the residence of the parties to whom they sell, and the sale of merchandise to persons beyond the lines of pickets will be punished with the highest rigor known to the laws of war.
III. All persons residing under the protection of the United States, and physically capable of military duty, are liable to perform the same in a country under martial law. Especially in the city of Memphis, where it is known many have fled to escape liability to military service at home, this rule will be strictly applied. In pursuance, therefore, to orders to this effect from Major-General W. T. Sherman, commanding department and army of the Tennessee, all officers commanding districts, divisions, and detached brigades of this corps, will immediately proceed to impress into the service of the United States such able-bodied persons liable to military duty as may be required to fill up the existing regiments and batteries to their maximum. Those persons so levied upon, if they enlist for three years or the war, will be entitled to the full benefits provided by the acts of Congress. If not, they will receive clothing and rations, and be borne at the foot of each company roll with remarks stating their time of service and the advances made by the Government in clothing; a certificate of which will be given them when discharged from such forced service, the question of pay or other compensation to be settled by proper authorities hereafter. They will be discharged when no further military necessity appears for their enforced service.
IV. The senior surgeons and inspectors present will constitute a Board of Inspection on the physical capacity of recruits.
Early this morning, a party of Confederate cavalry crossed the Rapidan River in front of Kilpatrick's line, at Morton's Ford, Virginia, attacked the pickets, capturing some six or eight of them, and retreated across the river again. This morning the affair was reported to Brigadier General George Custer, who was temporarily in command of the division, when he immediately ordered a regiment of cavalry and Pennington's battery of three-inch rifled guns down to the rear, and drove them back from the ford, notwithstanding they had brass twelve-pounders. This was done in the midst of a heavy rain-storm. No serious casualties were reported to Major General Alfred Pleasanton.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter had been going on for a few days now, and 2328 shells had been thrown at the dilapidated pile of masonry since Thursday. This evening the defenders responded, and the guns at Confederate Fort Moultrie commenced their own bombardment of Cummings Point on Morris Island elsewhere in Charleston Harbor. Concerned that this might presage an amphibious attack, Union General Quincy Adams Gilmore asked his Navy counterpart, Admiral John A. Dahlgren, to send some ships to screen the point. Dahlgren promptly sent the requested vessels, some tugs and the USS Lehigh, but it was after dark before they reached station. The Lehigh promptly ran aground. It proved impossible to free her till the tide turned at dawn, and she attracted heavy fire before getting out of range.
Another report: Confederate-held Fort Moultrie opened a heavy, evening bombardment on the Union Army positions at Cummings Point, Morris Island, lasting well into the morning. Brigadier General Gillmore immediately turned to Rear Admiral Dahlgren for assistance. "Will you have some of your vessels move up, so as to prevent an attack by boats on the sea face of the point," he wired late at night. The Admiral answered "...at once" and ordered the tugs on patrol duty to keep "...a good lookout." The USS Lehigh, under Commander Andrew Bryson, grounded while covering Cummings Point and was taken under heavy fire the next morning before the USS Nahant, Lieutenant Commander John J. Cornwell in charge, got her off. Landsmen Frank S. Gile and William Williams, gunner's mate George W. Leland, coxswain Thomas Irving, and seaman Horatio N. Young from Lehigh were subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism while carrying a line from their ship to the Nahant, thus enabling the Lehigh to work free from her desperate position. “Thursday morning last until yesterday (Saturday) at sundown, one thousand five hundred and twenty-three mortar shells and rifled shots were fired at the fort. The Union fire has ceased to be of any injury to that defense.”
The USS Lodona, under Acting Lieutenant Brodhead, seized the blockade running British schooner Arctic southwest of Frying Pan Shoals, North Carolina, with a cargo of salt.
Conrad Posey, a Brigadier General in the Confederate service, died at Charlottesville, Vitrginia, from a wound received in the fight at Bristoe Station, Virginia. General Posey was formerly colonel of the Forty-eighth Mississippi regiment, belonging to General Featherstone's brigade, and when the latter was transferred from the army of Virginia to the West, General Posey was commissioned to succeed him. The firing on Fort Sumter continued steadily. From
Major General Stephen Augustus Hurlbut, from his headquarters, Sixteenth Army Corps, at Memphis, Tennessee, issued the following general order:
I. The people in the District of West-Tennessee and the northern counties of Mississippi having shown no disposition, and made no attempt to protect themselves from marauders and guerrilla bands, but having submitted themselves, without organized resistance, to the domination of these petty tyrants, and combined, in many instances, with the known enemies of the United States to procure from corrupt traders in the city of Memphis and elsewhere, supplies for the use of the public enemy, have proved themselves unworthy of the indulgence shown them by the Government.
It is therefore ordered, that the lines of pickets around the several military posts of this command, in Tennessee and Mississippi be closed, and that no goods of any description be allowed to pass out, nor any thing be brought in, except fire-wood and provisions, by any citizen, without the written order of some general officer, each of which permits, and the reason for granting the same, will be reported to these headquarters, and for the necessity of which each officer granting will be held rigidly responsible.
II. All merchants, and others doing business, will be held responsible for knowledge of the residence of the parties to whom they sell, and the sale of merchandise to persons beyond the lines of pickets will be punished with the highest rigor known to the laws of war.
III. All persons residing under the protection of the United States, and physically capable of military duty, are liable to perform the same in a country under martial law. Especially in the city of Memphis, where it is known many have fled to escape liability to military service at home, this rule will be strictly applied. In pursuance, therefore, to orders to this effect from Major-General W. T. Sherman, commanding department and army of the Tennessee, all officers commanding districts, divisions, and detached brigades of this corps, will immediately proceed to impress into the service of the United States such able-bodied persons liable to military duty as may be required to fill up the existing regiments and batteries to their maximum. Those persons so levied upon, if they enlist for three years or the war, will be entitled to the full benefits provided by the acts of Congress. If not, they will receive clothing and rations, and be borne at the foot of each company roll with remarks stating their time of service and the advances made by the Government in clothing; a certificate of which will be given them when discharged from such forced service, the question of pay or other compensation to be settled by proper authorities hereafter. They will be discharged when no further military necessity appears for their enforced service.
IV. The senior surgeons and inspectors present will constitute a Board of Inspection on the physical capacity of recruits.
Early this morning, a party of Confederate cavalry crossed the Rapidan River in front of Kilpatrick's line, at Morton's Ford, Virginia, attacked the pickets, capturing some six or eight of them, and retreated across the river again. This morning the affair was reported to Brigadier General George Custer, who was temporarily in command of the division, when he immediately ordered a regiment of cavalry and Pennington's battery of three-inch rifled guns down to the rear, and drove them back from the ford, notwithstanding they had brass twelve-pounders. This was done in the midst of a heavy rain-storm. No serious casualties were reported to Major General Alfred Pleasanton.
Posted on 11/16/13 at 6:23 am to BadLeroyDawg
Monday, 16 November 1863
After Gettysburg, General James Longstreet's corps had been detached from the Army of Northern Virginia and sent West to assist the Army of Tennessee. Due the circuitous route taken with the fall of Chattanooga previously, they had arrived just in the nick of time to help win the Battle of Chickamauga, the second bloodiest battle in the entire War Between the States. Since then, he and his troops had little to do except help maintain the siege of the Union forces hunkered down back in Chattanooga. Finally, they had headed in the direction of Knoxville, and this morning Longstreet was at the little town of Campbell's Station. General Ambrose Burnside's forces had been nearby, in the small town of Lenoir, Tennessee, but quickly evacuated upon learning of the advance of Longstreet and eventually had to face him and fight a battle at Campbell's Station. The fight lasted for some hours on and off until nightfall. Had Confederate intelligence had been just a little better, or if the army could have moved just a little faster, events could have been greatly different. Longstreet, however, did not move quite fast enough to cut off Burnside's retreat, and his forces all hastily escaped into Knoxville.
The effect of the Union's western successes was severely felt by the Confederate effort in the cast. Commander John K. Mitchell wrote Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory that there was a critical shortage of fuels for manufacturing purposes and naval use. "The occupation of Chattanooga by the enemy in August has effectually cut off the supply from the mines in that region, upon which the public works in Georgia and South Carolina and the naval vessels in the waters of those States were dependent. Meager supplies have been sent to Charleston from this place [ Richmond ] and from the Egypt mines in North Carolina . . . ." He reported that there was a sufficient amount of coal in the Richmond area to supply the Confederate ships operating in Virginia waters and rivers, and he felt that wood was being successfully substituted for coal at Charleston and Savannah. Mitchell paid tribute to the thoroughness of the Union blockade when he wrote of the economic plight of the Confederate States: "The prices of almost all articles of prime necessity have advanced from five to ten times above those ruling at the breaking out of the war, and, for many articles, a much greater advance has been reached, so that now the pay of the higher grades of officers, even those with small families, is insufficient for the pay of their board only; how much greater, then, must be the difficulty of living in the case of the lower grades of officers, and, the families of enlisted persons. This difficulty, when the private sources of credit and the limited means of most of the officers become exhausted, must soon, unless relief be extended to them by the Government, reach the point of destitution, or of charitable dependence, a point, in fact, already reached in many instances."
This morning, the USS Monongahela, under Commander James Hooker Strong, escorted the Army transports and covered the landing of more than a thousand troops on Mustang Island, Aransas Pass, Texas. The Monongahela's sailors manned a battery of two howitzers ashore, and the ship shelled Confederate works until the vastly out-numbered defenders surrendered. General Nathaniel Prentice Banks wrote in high praise of the "great assistance" rendered by the Monongahela during this successful operation.
After Gettysburg, General James Longstreet's corps had been detached from the Army of Northern Virginia and sent West to assist the Army of Tennessee. Due the circuitous route taken with the fall of Chattanooga previously, they had arrived just in the nick of time to help win the Battle of Chickamauga, the second bloodiest battle in the entire War Between the States. Since then, he and his troops had little to do except help maintain the siege of the Union forces hunkered down back in Chattanooga. Finally, they had headed in the direction of Knoxville, and this morning Longstreet was at the little town of Campbell's Station. General Ambrose Burnside's forces had been nearby, in the small town of Lenoir, Tennessee, but quickly evacuated upon learning of the advance of Longstreet and eventually had to face him and fight a battle at Campbell's Station. The fight lasted for some hours on and off until nightfall. Had Confederate intelligence had been just a little better, or if the army could have moved just a little faster, events could have been greatly different. Longstreet, however, did not move quite fast enough to cut off Burnside's retreat, and his forces all hastily escaped into Knoxville.
The effect of the Union's western successes was severely felt by the Confederate effort in the cast. Commander John K. Mitchell wrote Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory that there was a critical shortage of fuels for manufacturing purposes and naval use. "The occupation of Chattanooga by the enemy in August has effectually cut off the supply from the mines in that region, upon which the public works in Georgia and South Carolina and the naval vessels in the waters of those States were dependent. Meager supplies have been sent to Charleston from this place [ Richmond ] and from the Egypt mines in North Carolina . . . ." He reported that there was a sufficient amount of coal in the Richmond area to supply the Confederate ships operating in Virginia waters and rivers, and he felt that wood was being successfully substituted for coal at Charleston and Savannah. Mitchell paid tribute to the thoroughness of the Union blockade when he wrote of the economic plight of the Confederate States: "The prices of almost all articles of prime necessity have advanced from five to ten times above those ruling at the breaking out of the war, and, for many articles, a much greater advance has been reached, so that now the pay of the higher grades of officers, even those with small families, is insufficient for the pay of their board only; how much greater, then, must be the difficulty of living in the case of the lower grades of officers, and, the families of enlisted persons. This difficulty, when the private sources of credit and the limited means of most of the officers become exhausted, must soon, unless relief be extended to them by the Government, reach the point of destitution, or of charitable dependence, a point, in fact, already reached in many instances."
This morning, the USS Monongahela, under Commander James Hooker Strong, escorted the Army transports and covered the landing of more than a thousand troops on Mustang Island, Aransas Pass, Texas. The Monongahela's sailors manned a battery of two howitzers ashore, and the ship shelled Confederate works until the vastly out-numbered defenders surrendered. General Nathaniel Prentice Banks wrote in high praise of the "great assistance" rendered by the Monongahela during this successful operation.
Posted on 11/17/13 at 5:42 am to BadLeroyDawg
Tuesday, 17 November 1863
There had been several attempts to tackle the Western jewel of the Confederate States of America, the state and former republic of Texas, but none so far had succeeded very well or lasted very long. Another such strike was made today, and this time considerably greater force was being employed. The USS Monongahela was the escort gunboat for a fleet of troop transporters. They, in turn, were carrying more than a thousand Federal soldiers as they traveled toward Aransas Pass, Texas. The immediate target was the Confederate garrison guarding this pass from Mustang Island. After a preliminary softening-up barrage from the ships' guns, an amphibious landing was made. The defenders, trapped, had no solution but to surrender, and the first day went well for the Union.
The USS Mystic, under Acting Master William Wright, assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, seized the schooner Emma D. off Yorktown, Virginia. The same day, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox wrote Rear Admiral S.P. Lee praising the effectiveness of the squadron: "I congratulate you upon the captures off Wilmington. Nine steamers have been lost to the Rebels in a short time, all due to the 'fine spirit' of our people engaged in the blockade. It is a severe duty and well maintained and Jeff Davis pays us a higher compliment than our own people when he declares that there is but one port in 3500 miles (recollect that the whole Atlantic front of Europe is but 2900 miles) through which they can get in supplies."
Nearly a hundred prisoners captured by General William Woods Averill in his engagement with the Confederates at Pocahontas County, Virginia, arrived at Wheeling, West Virginia this morning, and were committed to the Athenaeum. There was scarcely a whole suit of clothes in the party, and many of them were without shoes. Judging from the fact that a fall of snow was lately announced in the vicinity of where the fight took place, these shoeless Rebels must have suffered terribly from the cold.
The schooner Joseph L. Gerity, on a voyage from Matamoras to New York, with a cargo of cotton and six passengers, was seized by those six travelers, who overcame the captain and his crew; and after keeping them in confinement for eight days, set them adrift at sea in a small boat, in which they eventually landed on the coast of Sisal. After the crew and captain were put in the boat, the captors hoisted the Confederate flag and fired a salute with pistols, declaring that they would carry the vessel and her cargo into Honduras and sell them for the Southern cause.
There had been several attempts to tackle the Western jewel of the Confederate States of America, the state and former republic of Texas, but none so far had succeeded very well or lasted very long. Another such strike was made today, and this time considerably greater force was being employed. The USS Monongahela was the escort gunboat for a fleet of troop transporters. They, in turn, were carrying more than a thousand Federal soldiers as they traveled toward Aransas Pass, Texas. The immediate target was the Confederate garrison guarding this pass from Mustang Island. After a preliminary softening-up barrage from the ships' guns, an amphibious landing was made. The defenders, trapped, had no solution but to surrender, and the first day went well for the Union.
The USS Mystic, under Acting Master William Wright, assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, seized the schooner Emma D. off Yorktown, Virginia. The same day, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox wrote Rear Admiral S.P. Lee praising the effectiveness of the squadron: "I congratulate you upon the captures off Wilmington. Nine steamers have been lost to the Rebels in a short time, all due to the 'fine spirit' of our people engaged in the blockade. It is a severe duty and well maintained and Jeff Davis pays us a higher compliment than our own people when he declares that there is but one port in 3500 miles (recollect that the whole Atlantic front of Europe is but 2900 miles) through which they can get in supplies."
Nearly a hundred prisoners captured by General William Woods Averill in his engagement with the Confederates at Pocahontas County, Virginia, arrived at Wheeling, West Virginia this morning, and were committed to the Athenaeum. There was scarcely a whole suit of clothes in the party, and many of them were without shoes. Judging from the fact that a fall of snow was lately announced in the vicinity of where the fight took place, these shoeless Rebels must have suffered terribly from the cold.
The schooner Joseph L. Gerity, on a voyage from Matamoras to New York, with a cargo of cotton and six passengers, was seized by those six travelers, who overcame the captain and his crew; and after keeping them in confinement for eight days, set them adrift at sea in a small boat, in which they eventually landed on the coast of Sisal. After the crew and captain were put in the boat, the captors hoisted the Confederate flag and fired a salute with pistols, declaring that they would carry the vessel and her cargo into Honduras and sell them for the Southern cause.
Posted on 11/19/13 at 5:41 am to BadLeroyDawg
Wednesday, 18 November 1863
As a part of the continuing operations along the Louisiana coast, Union gunboats were frequently under fire from Confederate artillery batteries ashore. One such back-and-forth battle took place at Hog Point, along the Mississippi-Louisiana border, today. Combatants were Captain Thomas A. Faries, Confederate States Army, on land, and the officers and men of the USS Choctaw out to sea. Sailing passed the redoubt the Choctaw fired her bow (front), stern (rear) and side guns, enfilading the shore battery. The extent of damage inflicted was not known, as landing parties were not sent ashore. While all this was going on the Choctaw's sister ships, the USS Franklin and Carondelet, simply stood by and observed.
Another report: Captain Thomas A. Faries, CSA, commanding a
battery near Hog Point, Louisiana, mounted to interdict the movement
of the Union shipping on the Mississippi River, reported an engagement
with the USS Choctaw, Franklin, and Carondelet. "The Choctaw,
left her position above, and, passing down, delivered a very heavy fire
from her bow, side, and stern guns, enfilading for a short time the
four rifle guns in the redoubt."
The merchant schooner Joseph L. Garrity, 2 days out of Matamoras bound for New York , was seized by five Southern sympathizers under Thomas E. Hogg, later a Master in the Confederate Navy. They had boarded the ship as passengers. Hogg landed Joseph L. Garrity's crew "without injury to life or limb" on the coast of Yucatan on 26 November, and sailed her to British Honduras where he entered her as blockade runner Eureka and sold her cargo of cotton. Three of the crew were eventually captured in Liverpool, England, and charged with piracy, but on 1 June 1864, Confederate Commissioner James Mason informed Secretary of State Benjamin that they had been acquitted of the charge. In the meantime, Garrity was turned over to the custody of the U.S. commercial agent at Belize, British Honduras, and ultimately returned to her owners.
Acting Master C. W. Lamson, USS Granite City, reported the capture of the schooners Amelia Ann and Spanish bark Teresita, with a cargo of cotton, both attempting to run the blockade at Aransas Pass, Texas.
The firing on Fort Sumter from the Federal batteries continued. A Confederate mortar battery on Sullivan's Island shelled Gregg and the Cummings Point defenses all day.
General Longstreet made an attack upon the Union outposts, on the Kingston road, near Knoxville, Tennessee, and compelled General Sanders, in command of the forces there, to fall back to the town.
General Averill arrived at New Creek, Virginia. At or near Covington he encountered and dispersed a portion of Imboden's command on their way to reinforce Echols, and captured twenty-five prisoners in the skirmish.
The cavalry belonging to the Union forces under the command of Brigadier General J. C. Sullivan, sent out from Harper's Ferry, Virginia, returned this day, having been up the Valley to near New Market, fighting Gilmore's and White's commands at Mount Jackson, bringing in twenty-seven prisoners, two commissioned officers, ninety head of cattle, three four-horse teams, besides thirty tents and all the horses and equipage of the prisoners; the party was under the command of Colonel Bayard, of the Thirty-first Pennsylvania cavalry. He destroyed a number of tents and a quantity of salt. The men helped themselves to a wagon-load of tobacco, weighing about five hundred pounds. The Union loss was two men killed, three wounded and three missing.
Corpus Christi and Aranzas Pass, Texas, were captured by the National forces under the command of Major General Banks. Yesterday afternoon at about three o'clock, the gunboat Monongahela, with a fleet of nine vessels, transports, etc., arrived at the bar and commenced landing troops through the surf on the south point of Mustang Island. This morning at sunrise, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine regiments, Thirty-fourth Iowa, Eighth Indiana, and company F, First Missouri artillery, with a part of the Twentieth Iowa volunteers, were ashore and in column en route up the beach toward Aranzas Pass. About eleven o'clock the Monongahela opened her two hundred-pound Parrott on the enemy's battery, which was planted behind the sand-hills so as to completely cover the channel and southern point of St. Joseph's Island. In the mean time the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine, the two advance regiments, succeeded in getting in the rear of the works within two miles, without being discovered. The armed transport McClellan, Captain Gray, drawing less water than the Monongahela, worked up close on to the battery, soon making it untenable. They abandoned the battery, sought shelter from the sand-hills, until their flag of truce was discovered, when they were permitted to surrender without terms. Their battery consisted of three twenty-four-pounders and one eight-inch sea-howitzer. The force of the garrison consisted of one company of regular artillery and two companies of drafted Texan militia, in all, about one hundred and fifty men
As a part of the continuing operations along the Louisiana coast, Union gunboats were frequently under fire from Confederate artillery batteries ashore. One such back-and-forth battle took place at Hog Point, along the Mississippi-Louisiana border, today. Combatants were Captain Thomas A. Faries, Confederate States Army, on land, and the officers and men of the USS Choctaw out to sea. Sailing passed the redoubt the Choctaw fired her bow (front), stern (rear) and side guns, enfilading the shore battery. The extent of damage inflicted was not known, as landing parties were not sent ashore. While all this was going on the Choctaw's sister ships, the USS Franklin and Carondelet, simply stood by and observed.
Another report: Captain Thomas A. Faries, CSA, commanding a
battery near Hog Point, Louisiana, mounted to interdict the movement
of the Union shipping on the Mississippi River, reported an engagement
with the USS Choctaw, Franklin, and Carondelet. "The Choctaw,
left her position above, and, passing down, delivered a very heavy fire
from her bow, side, and stern guns, enfilading for a short time the
four rifle guns in the redoubt."
The merchant schooner Joseph L. Garrity, 2 days out of Matamoras bound for New York , was seized by five Southern sympathizers under Thomas E. Hogg, later a Master in the Confederate Navy. They had boarded the ship as passengers. Hogg landed Joseph L. Garrity's crew "without injury to life or limb" on the coast of Yucatan on 26 November, and sailed her to British Honduras where he entered her as blockade runner Eureka and sold her cargo of cotton. Three of the crew were eventually captured in Liverpool, England, and charged with piracy, but on 1 June 1864, Confederate Commissioner James Mason informed Secretary of State Benjamin that they had been acquitted of the charge. In the meantime, Garrity was turned over to the custody of the U.S. commercial agent at Belize, British Honduras, and ultimately returned to her owners.
Acting Master C. W. Lamson, USS Granite City, reported the capture of the schooners Amelia Ann and Spanish bark Teresita, with a cargo of cotton, both attempting to run the blockade at Aransas Pass, Texas.
The firing on Fort Sumter from the Federal batteries continued. A Confederate mortar battery on Sullivan's Island shelled Gregg and the Cummings Point defenses all day.
General Longstreet made an attack upon the Union outposts, on the Kingston road, near Knoxville, Tennessee, and compelled General Sanders, in command of the forces there, to fall back to the town.
General Averill arrived at New Creek, Virginia. At or near Covington he encountered and dispersed a portion of Imboden's command on their way to reinforce Echols, and captured twenty-five prisoners in the skirmish.
The cavalry belonging to the Union forces under the command of Brigadier General J. C. Sullivan, sent out from Harper's Ferry, Virginia, returned this day, having been up the Valley to near New Market, fighting Gilmore's and White's commands at Mount Jackson, bringing in twenty-seven prisoners, two commissioned officers, ninety head of cattle, three four-horse teams, besides thirty tents and all the horses and equipage of the prisoners; the party was under the command of Colonel Bayard, of the Thirty-first Pennsylvania cavalry. He destroyed a number of tents and a quantity of salt. The men helped themselves to a wagon-load of tobacco, weighing about five hundred pounds. The Union loss was two men killed, three wounded and three missing.
Corpus Christi and Aranzas Pass, Texas, were captured by the National forces under the command of Major General Banks. Yesterday afternoon at about three o'clock, the gunboat Monongahela, with a fleet of nine vessels, transports, etc., arrived at the bar and commenced landing troops through the surf on the south point of Mustang Island. This morning at sunrise, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine regiments, Thirty-fourth Iowa, Eighth Indiana, and company F, First Missouri artillery, with a part of the Twentieth Iowa volunteers, were ashore and in column en route up the beach toward Aranzas Pass. About eleven o'clock the Monongahela opened her two hundred-pound Parrott on the enemy's battery, which was planted behind the sand-hills so as to completely cover the channel and southern point of St. Joseph's Island. In the mean time the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine, the two advance regiments, succeeded in getting in the rear of the works within two miles, without being discovered. The armed transport McClellan, Captain Gray, drawing less water than the Monongahela, worked up close on to the battery, soon making it untenable. They abandoned the battery, sought shelter from the sand-hills, until their flag of truce was discovered, when they were permitted to surrender without terms. Their battery consisted of three twenty-four-pounders and one eight-inch sea-howitzer. The force of the garrison consisted of one company of regular artillery and two companies of drafted Texan militia, in all, about one hundred and fifty men
Posted on 11/19/13 at 5:45 am to BadLeroyDawg
Wednesday, 19 November 1863
It was the day of dedication for the new National Military Cemetery at Gettysburg. As was expected on such a solemn occasion, the greatest orator of the day, Edward Everett, was engaged to speak. He delivered a brilliant performance, declaiming for two hours on the history of war from ancient times to now. After he was done, the President of the United States rose to the podium. His voice, often described as thin and reedy, was not a match for Everett's. Some in the crowd, unable to hear, pushed forward, or complained that he should speak louder. About the time they got within earshot, President Lincoln sat down again. Newspaper reviews the next day were very mixed. Lincoln-who had left a gravely ill child and very nervous wife back in Washington-and who was not feeling very well himself, headed at once for the train station and home. Below is one version of the speech, read today by many who think it is more dedicated toward the "freedom" of the struggling Southern states at the time, than the despotic Northern invaders bent on forever banishing states' rights from the Constitution.
"The Bliss Copy"- Ever since Lincoln wrote it in 1864, this version has been the most often reproduced,
notably on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. It is named after Colonel
Alexander Bliss, stepson of historian George Bancroft. Bancroft asked President
Lincoln for a copy to use as a fundraiser for soldiers (see "Bancroft Copy" below).
However, because Lincoln wrote on both sides of the paper, the speech could
not be reprinted, so Lincoln made another copy at Bliss's request. It is the last
known copy written by Lincoln and the only one signed and dated by him. Today it
is on display at the Lincoln Room of the White House.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a
new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a
final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not
hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will
little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us --
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall
have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863
General Hampton and General Thomas L. Rosser returned to Fredericksburg, Virginia, from an expedition into Culpeper County. On Tuesday night last they crossed the Rapidan with detachments from Rosser's, Gordon's, and Young's brigades, all under the immediate command of General Rosser, for the purpose of ascertaining the position of the enemy on the other side. After marching all night over a desperate road, they succeeded, about daylight on Wednesday morning, in locating the pickets of the enemy. That being accomplished, General Rosser immediately ordered a charge, which was executed by his brigade in the most gallant style, driving the advance back upon the main body, which was encamped a short distance in the rear. Here the enemy had formed a line of defense; but, in defiance of a heavy fire poured into his command, General Rosser pressed forward, and soon drove the entire force (the Eighteenth Pennsylvania cavalry) through their encampment, and pursued them some miles beyond, in the direction of Stevensburg.
The result of this exploit was the capture of sixty prisoners, among them an adjutant and one lieutenant, two flags, one hundred horses and mules, a number of tents, all the wagons, baggage, etc., of the encampment. The enemy fled through the woods in every direction, many of them without having completed their toilet for the day. Having located the enemy, (the original object of the expedition,) and obtained other valuable information, the command was withdrawn, by the way of Germanna Ford, to the other side of the river, where the prisoners and other captures had been previously forwarded.
A detachment, composed of companies G, H, I, and K, of the Fifty-eighth regiment of Illinois infantry, with a portion of the Second Illinois cavalry, under the command of Captain Franklin B. Moore, pursued Faulkner's Rebel partisans to a point on Obion River, four miles from Union City, Tennessee, where, in attempting to cross the river, the Southerners were fired on, and eleven of their number killed. The Federals captured fifty-three prisoners, a wagon load of small arms, thirty-three horses, and four mules. Their casualties were one man wounded and five horses shot.
Large and spirited meetings were held in all the wards in Boston, Massachusetts, last night, to encourage volunteering. Committees were appointed, and the work was pursued with energy. A similar movement was made in cities and towns throughout the State.
It was the day of dedication for the new National Military Cemetery at Gettysburg. As was expected on such a solemn occasion, the greatest orator of the day, Edward Everett, was engaged to speak. He delivered a brilliant performance, declaiming for two hours on the history of war from ancient times to now. After he was done, the President of the United States rose to the podium. His voice, often described as thin and reedy, was not a match for Everett's. Some in the crowd, unable to hear, pushed forward, or complained that he should speak louder. About the time they got within earshot, President Lincoln sat down again. Newspaper reviews the next day were very mixed. Lincoln-who had left a gravely ill child and very nervous wife back in Washington-and who was not feeling very well himself, headed at once for the train station and home. Below is one version of the speech, read today by many who think it is more dedicated toward the "freedom" of the struggling Southern states at the time, than the despotic Northern invaders bent on forever banishing states' rights from the Constitution.
"The Bliss Copy"- Ever since Lincoln wrote it in 1864, this version has been the most often reproduced,
notably on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. It is named after Colonel
Alexander Bliss, stepson of historian George Bancroft. Bancroft asked President
Lincoln for a copy to use as a fundraiser for soldiers (see "Bancroft Copy" below).
However, because Lincoln wrote on both sides of the paper, the speech could
not be reprinted, so Lincoln made another copy at Bliss's request. It is the last
known copy written by Lincoln and the only one signed and dated by him. Today it
is on display at the Lincoln Room of the White House.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a
new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a
final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not
hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will
little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us --
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall
have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863
General Hampton and General Thomas L. Rosser returned to Fredericksburg, Virginia, from an expedition into Culpeper County. On Tuesday night last they crossed the Rapidan with detachments from Rosser's, Gordon's, and Young's brigades, all under the immediate command of General Rosser, for the purpose of ascertaining the position of the enemy on the other side. After marching all night over a desperate road, they succeeded, about daylight on Wednesday morning, in locating the pickets of the enemy. That being accomplished, General Rosser immediately ordered a charge, which was executed by his brigade in the most gallant style, driving the advance back upon the main body, which was encamped a short distance in the rear. Here the enemy had formed a line of defense; but, in defiance of a heavy fire poured into his command, General Rosser pressed forward, and soon drove the entire force (the Eighteenth Pennsylvania cavalry) through their encampment, and pursued them some miles beyond, in the direction of Stevensburg.
The result of this exploit was the capture of sixty prisoners, among them an adjutant and one lieutenant, two flags, one hundred horses and mules, a number of tents, all the wagons, baggage, etc., of the encampment. The enemy fled through the woods in every direction, many of them without having completed their toilet for the day. Having located the enemy, (the original object of the expedition,) and obtained other valuable information, the command was withdrawn, by the way of Germanna Ford, to the other side of the river, where the prisoners and other captures had been previously forwarded.
A detachment, composed of companies G, H, I, and K, of the Fifty-eighth regiment of Illinois infantry, with a portion of the Second Illinois cavalry, under the command of Captain Franklin B. Moore, pursued Faulkner's Rebel partisans to a point on Obion River, four miles from Union City, Tennessee, where, in attempting to cross the river, the Southerners were fired on, and eleven of their number killed. The Federals captured fifty-three prisoners, a wagon load of small arms, thirty-three horses, and four mules. Their casualties were one man wounded and five horses shot.
Large and spirited meetings were held in all the wards in Boston, Massachusetts, last night, to encourage volunteering. Committees were appointed, and the work was pursued with energy. A similar movement was made in cities and towns throughout the State.
Posted on 11/20/13 at 4:20 am to BadLeroyDawg
Friday, 20 November 1863
At yesterday’s dedication ceremony of the new National Military Cemetery at Gettysburg, Edward Everett, the noted orator, had spoken for some two hours. He was followed by President Abraham Lincoln, who spoke for less than two minutes. The newspapermen in attendance, not all of whom had even been able to hear the President clearly, had been exceedingly lukewarm to harsh in their opinions of his address. This morning, however, it was Everett who sent Lincoln a letter of congratulations on his speech. Lincoln had better grasped “the central idea of the occasion,” he said. Lincoln, modestly, wrote back to Everett his thanks. “I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure.”
Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, eager to return to sea duty in the Gulf, informed Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles from New York that the USS Hartford and Brooklyn "will not be ready for sea in less than three weeks, from the best information I can obtain. I particularly regret it, because I see that General Banks is in the field and my services may be required." The Admiral noted that he had received a letter from Commodore Bell, commanding in his absence, which indicated that there were not enough ships to serve on the Texas coast and maintain the blockade elsewhere as well. Farragut noted that some turreted ironclads were building at St. Louis and suggested: "They draw about 6 feet of water and will be the very vessels to operate in the shallow waters of Texas , if the Department would order them down there." Three days later, the Secretary asked Rear Admiral Potter to "...consider the subject and inform the Department as early as practicable to what extent Farragut's wishes can be complied with." Porter replied on the 27th that he could supply Farragut with eight light drafts "...in the course of a month" and that "six weeks from today I could have ten vessels sent to Admiral Farragut, if I can get the officers and men..."
The Solicitor of the War Department, Mr. William Whiting, in a letter to a gentleman in Boston, wrote as follows: There are several serious difficulties in the way of continuing an exchange of prisoners. One is the bad faith of the enemy in putting into active service many thousands of paroled prisoners, captured at Vicksburg and elsewhere, without releasing any of our soldiers held by them. But another difficulty of still grater importance is the peremptory refusal by the enemy to exchange colored soldiers and their white officers upon any terms whatever. It is well known that they have threatened to sell colored captured soldiers into slavery, and to hang their white officers. The Government demands that all officers and soldiers should be fairly exchanged, otherwise no more prisoners of war will be given up. The faith of the Government is pledged to these officers and troops that they shall be protected, and it cannot and will not abandon to the savage cruelty of slave-masters a single officer or soldier who has been called on to defend the flag of his country, and thus exposed to the hazards of war. It has been suggested that exchanges might go on until all except the colored troops and their white officers have been given up. But if this were allowed, the rebels would not only be relieved of the burden of maintaining our troops, but they would get back their own men, retaining their power over the very persons whom we are solemnly bound to rescue, and upon whom they could then, without fear of retaliation, carry into execution the inhuman cruelties they have so basely threatened. The President has ordered that the stern law of retaliation shall, without hesitation, be enforced, to avenge the death of the first Union soldier, of whatever color, whom the enemy shall in cold blood destroy or sell into slavery. All other questions between us may be postponed for future settlement, but the fair exchange of colored soldiers and of their white officers will be insisted on by the Government before another rebel soldier or officer will be exchanged.
At yesterday’s dedication ceremony of the new National Military Cemetery at Gettysburg, Edward Everett, the noted orator, had spoken for some two hours. He was followed by President Abraham Lincoln, who spoke for less than two minutes. The newspapermen in attendance, not all of whom had even been able to hear the President clearly, had been exceedingly lukewarm to harsh in their opinions of his address. This morning, however, it was Everett who sent Lincoln a letter of congratulations on his speech. Lincoln had better grasped “the central idea of the occasion,” he said. Lincoln, modestly, wrote back to Everett his thanks. “I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure.”
Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, eager to return to sea duty in the Gulf, informed Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles from New York that the USS Hartford and Brooklyn "will not be ready for sea in less than three weeks, from the best information I can obtain. I particularly regret it, because I see that General Banks is in the field and my services may be required." The Admiral noted that he had received a letter from Commodore Bell, commanding in his absence, which indicated that there were not enough ships to serve on the Texas coast and maintain the blockade elsewhere as well. Farragut noted that some turreted ironclads were building at St. Louis and suggested: "They draw about 6 feet of water and will be the very vessels to operate in the shallow waters of Texas , if the Department would order them down there." Three days later, the Secretary asked Rear Admiral Potter to "...consider the subject and inform the Department as early as practicable to what extent Farragut's wishes can be complied with." Porter replied on the 27th that he could supply Farragut with eight light drafts "...in the course of a month" and that "six weeks from today I could have ten vessels sent to Admiral Farragut, if I can get the officers and men..."
The Solicitor of the War Department, Mr. William Whiting, in a letter to a gentleman in Boston, wrote as follows: There are several serious difficulties in the way of continuing an exchange of prisoners. One is the bad faith of the enemy in putting into active service many thousands of paroled prisoners, captured at Vicksburg and elsewhere, without releasing any of our soldiers held by them. But another difficulty of still grater importance is the peremptory refusal by the enemy to exchange colored soldiers and their white officers upon any terms whatever. It is well known that they have threatened to sell colored captured soldiers into slavery, and to hang their white officers. The Government demands that all officers and soldiers should be fairly exchanged, otherwise no more prisoners of war will be given up. The faith of the Government is pledged to these officers and troops that they shall be protected, and it cannot and will not abandon to the savage cruelty of slave-masters a single officer or soldier who has been called on to defend the flag of his country, and thus exposed to the hazards of war. It has been suggested that exchanges might go on until all except the colored troops and their white officers have been given up. But if this were allowed, the rebels would not only be relieved of the burden of maintaining our troops, but they would get back their own men, retaining their power over the very persons whom we are solemnly bound to rescue, and upon whom they could then, without fear of retaliation, carry into execution the inhuman cruelties they have so basely threatened. The President has ordered that the stern law of retaliation shall, without hesitation, be enforced, to avenge the death of the first Union soldier, of whatever color, whom the enemy shall in cold blood destroy or sell into slavery. All other questions between us may be postponed for future settlement, but the fair exchange of colored soldiers and of their white officers will be insisted on by the Government before another rebel soldier or officer will be exchanged.
Posted on 11/21/13 at 4:10 am to BadLeroyDawg
Saturday, 21 November 1863
The Union armies that had been bottled up in Chattanooga since the battle of Chickamauga had reached its disastrous conclusion were about to be idle no longer. General Hiram U. Grant was on the scene and settling the last details of the breakout battle with his commanders. General William Sherman was to engage in a complicated movement requiring not one, but two crossings of the Tennessee River to get to the Confederate right flank. General George Thomas was to strike the center, a formation known as Missionary Ridge. General Joseph Hooker, who was doing much better since his reassignment to the west, was to move into the valley below Lookout Mountain then attack the Confederate left.
The USS Grand Gulf, under Commander George M. Ransom, and the Army transport Fulton seized the blockade running British steamer Banshee south of Salter Path, North Carolina.
The steamer Welcome was attacked this morning at Waterproof, Louisiana, by partisan guerrillas, with cannon planted on the levee, and twelve balls and shells fired through and into the cabin and other parts of the boat, besides nearly three hundred Minie balls from the sharpshooters along the banks of the river.
Acting Master J. F. D. Robinson, commander of the Satellite, and Acting Ensign Henry Walters, who was in command of the Reliance, were dismissed from the Navy of the United States, for gross dereliction in the case of the capture of their vessels on the twenty-third of August, 1863. The Department of the Navy regretted "...the necessity of this action in the case of Acting Ensign Walters, inasmuch as the Court report that 'during the attack he acted with bravery and to the best of his ability, and which, in some measure, relieves his want of precaution against surprise from its otherwise inexcusable character, and shows that his failure to take them proceeded more from inexperience than negligence.' "
At Little Rock, Arkansas, a large Union meeting was held, at which the "...restoration of State Rights under the old Government" was advocated, and a great number of persons took the oath of allegiance and enrolled themselves for home defense.
The British Confederate blockade-runner steamer Banshee, was captured by the United States Steamers Delaware and Fulton, off of Wilmington, North Carolina.
The steamer Black Hawk, when about half a mile below Red River Landing, on the Mississippi River, was fired into from the east bank of the river by a battery of ten or twelve guns, and about fifteen round shot and shell struck the boat. One shell exploded in the Texas, setting fire to and burning that part of the boat and pilot-house. As soon as the captain and officers found the boat on fire, they ran her on a sandbar on the west side of the river, and immediately put all the passengers on shore, after which the fire was extinguished. While the boat lay aground on the sand-bar, the sharp-shooters were pouring in their murderous Minie balls, of which some three hundred struck the boat in different parts of her cabin and hull. It was the guerrillas' intention to follow the boat, but the gunboat stationed at the mouth of Red River followed them so close, pouring in shell among them, that she drove them back, after which the gunboat took the Black Hawk in tow, and carried her back to Red River, where she repaired sufficiently to proceed on her way. The casualties on board the boat were very severe. Mr. Samuel Fulton, a brother of the captain, was shot in the leg by a cannon-ball. His leg was afterward amputated below the knee. A colored man, by the name of Alfred Thomas, had his head blown off while lying flat down on the cable-deck. James Keller, of Louisville, belonging to the Twenty-second Kentucky volunteers, received a wound in the arm from a fragment of a shell. His arm was afterward amputated, and he soon after died. A passenger was slightly wounded in the arm.
The Union armies that had been bottled up in Chattanooga since the battle of Chickamauga had reached its disastrous conclusion were about to be idle no longer. General Hiram U. Grant was on the scene and settling the last details of the breakout battle with his commanders. General William Sherman was to engage in a complicated movement requiring not one, but two crossings of the Tennessee River to get to the Confederate right flank. General George Thomas was to strike the center, a formation known as Missionary Ridge. General Joseph Hooker, who was doing much better since his reassignment to the west, was to move into the valley below Lookout Mountain then attack the Confederate left.
The USS Grand Gulf, under Commander George M. Ransom, and the Army transport Fulton seized the blockade running British steamer Banshee south of Salter Path, North Carolina.
The steamer Welcome was attacked this morning at Waterproof, Louisiana, by partisan guerrillas, with cannon planted on the levee, and twelve balls and shells fired through and into the cabin and other parts of the boat, besides nearly three hundred Minie balls from the sharpshooters along the banks of the river.
Acting Master J. F. D. Robinson, commander of the Satellite, and Acting Ensign Henry Walters, who was in command of the Reliance, were dismissed from the Navy of the United States, for gross dereliction in the case of the capture of their vessels on the twenty-third of August, 1863. The Department of the Navy regretted "...the necessity of this action in the case of Acting Ensign Walters, inasmuch as the Court report that 'during the attack he acted with bravery and to the best of his ability, and which, in some measure, relieves his want of precaution against surprise from its otherwise inexcusable character, and shows that his failure to take them proceeded more from inexperience than negligence.' "
At Little Rock, Arkansas, a large Union meeting was held, at which the "...restoration of State Rights under the old Government" was advocated, and a great number of persons took the oath of allegiance and enrolled themselves for home defense.
The British Confederate blockade-runner steamer Banshee, was captured by the United States Steamers Delaware and Fulton, off of Wilmington, North Carolina.
The steamer Black Hawk, when about half a mile below Red River Landing, on the Mississippi River, was fired into from the east bank of the river by a battery of ten or twelve guns, and about fifteen round shot and shell struck the boat. One shell exploded in the Texas, setting fire to and burning that part of the boat and pilot-house. As soon as the captain and officers found the boat on fire, they ran her on a sandbar on the west side of the river, and immediately put all the passengers on shore, after which the fire was extinguished. While the boat lay aground on the sand-bar, the sharp-shooters were pouring in their murderous Minie balls, of which some three hundred struck the boat in different parts of her cabin and hull. It was the guerrillas' intention to follow the boat, but the gunboat stationed at the mouth of Red River followed them so close, pouring in shell among them, that she drove them back, after which the gunboat took the Black Hawk in tow, and carried her back to Red River, where she repaired sufficiently to proceed on her way. The casualties on board the boat were very severe. Mr. Samuel Fulton, a brother of the captain, was shot in the leg by a cannon-ball. His leg was afterward amputated below the knee. A colored man, by the name of Alfred Thomas, had his head blown off while lying flat down on the cable-deck. James Keller, of Louisville, belonging to the Twenty-second Kentucky volunteers, received a wound in the arm from a fragment of a shell. His arm was afterward amputated, and he soon after died. A passenger was slightly wounded in the arm.
Posted on 11/22/13 at 5:07 am to BadLeroyDawg
A scouting-party of fifty men, belonging to Colonel Higginson's regiment, First South-Carolina colored troops, was sent, under the command of Captain Bryant, Eighth Maine volunteers, and Captain Whitney, First South-Carolina colored volunteers, to release twenty-eight colored people held in pretended slavery by a man named Hayward, near Pocotaligo, S. C. The expedition was successful. The captives were released and their freedom restored to them. Two rebel horse-soldiers, stationed as pickets, were regularly captured as prisoners of war. These men were members of the First South-Carolina cavalry. Their comrades, seventy-five in number, under command of a major, pursued the raiding party toward the ferry at Barnwell's Island. The negroes received them in ambush, and fired on them at twenty paces, emptying several saddles, and putting them to flight. Obtaining reenforcements and artillery, they tracked the retreating colored men with bloodhounds. The dogs dashed into the party in advance of their comrades, the rebels. One hound was shot, and left with broken legs upon the field. Five others were impaled upon the bayonets of the Union troops, and brought as trophies into their camp. The gallantry of the negroes on this occasion was manifested not merely by their brilliant bravery, but by the willingness with which they gave up the ferry-boats (in which they had crossed to the mainland) to their wounded and to the non-combatantSunday, 22 November 1863
At Missionary Ridge in Georgia various forces were preparing for action, but not everyone was preparing properly for the action they were going to face. On the Confederate side, General Braxton Bragg of the Army of Tennessee detached General Simon Bolivar Buckner to Knoxville to support General James Longstreet. Longstreet, himself on detached duty from the Army of Northern Virginia, had General Ambrose Burnside's forces under siege there and hoped to defeat him entirely. Meanwhile on the Union side, General Hiram U. Grant was ordering General George Thomas to perform a "demonstration" in front of Missionary Ridge. A form of preliminary probing before a battle, this helped to detect the enemy's positions while giving away little about the attacker's strength and location. Bragg was very shortly going to wish he had Longstreet back.
This morning, the USS Aroostook, under Lieutenant Chester Hatfield, captured the schooner Eureka off Galveston, Texas. She had been bound to Havana with a cargo of cotton.
The USS Jacob Bell, Acting Master Schulze in charge, transported and supported a troop landing at St. George's Island, Maryland, where some 30 Confederates, some of whom were blockade runners, were captured.
Union Report from Rebellion Record, a Diary of American Events: A scouting-party of fifty men, belonging to Colonel Higginson's regiment, First South-Carolina colored troops, was sent, under the command of Captain Bryant, Eighth Maine volunteers, and Captain Whitney, First South-Carolina colored volunteers, to release twenty-eight colored people held in pretended slavery by a man named Hayward, near Pocotaligo, S. C. The expedition was successful. The captives were released and their freedom restored to them. Two rebel horse-soldiers, stationed as pickets, were regularly captured as prisoners of war. These men were members of the First South-Carolina cavalry. Their comrades, seventy-five in number, under command of a major, pursued the raiding party toward the ferry at Barnwell's Island. The negroes received them in ambush, and fired on them at twenty paces, emptying several saddles, and putting them to flight. Obtaining reenforcements and artillery, they tracked the retreating colored men with bloodhounds. The dogs dashed into the party in advance of their comrades, the rebels. One hound was shot, and left with broken legs upon the field. Five others were impaled upon the bayonets of the Union troops, and brought as trophies into their camp. The gallantry of the negroes on this occasion was manifested not merely by their brilliant bravery, but by the willingness with which they gave up the ferry-boats (in which they had crossed to the mainland) to their wounded and to the non-combatants on their return. In fording the river, two of their number were drowned. Another man, a corporal, was lost. Six of the party were wounded.
At Missionary Ridge in Georgia various forces were preparing for action, but not everyone was preparing properly for the action they were going to face. On the Confederate side, General Braxton Bragg of the Army of Tennessee detached General Simon Bolivar Buckner to Knoxville to support General James Longstreet. Longstreet, himself on detached duty from the Army of Northern Virginia, had General Ambrose Burnside's forces under siege there and hoped to defeat him entirely. Meanwhile on the Union side, General Hiram U. Grant was ordering General George Thomas to perform a "demonstration" in front of Missionary Ridge. A form of preliminary probing before a battle, this helped to detect the enemy's positions while giving away little about the attacker's strength and location. Bragg was very shortly going to wish he had Longstreet back.
This morning, the USS Aroostook, under Lieutenant Chester Hatfield, captured the schooner Eureka off Galveston, Texas. She had been bound to Havana with a cargo of cotton.
The USS Jacob Bell, Acting Master Schulze in charge, transported and supported a troop landing at St. George's Island, Maryland, where some 30 Confederates, some of whom were blockade runners, were captured.
Union Report from Rebellion Record, a Diary of American Events: A scouting-party of fifty men, belonging to Colonel Higginson's regiment, First South-Carolina colored troops, was sent, under the command of Captain Bryant, Eighth Maine volunteers, and Captain Whitney, First South-Carolina colored volunteers, to release twenty-eight colored people held in pretended slavery by a man named Hayward, near Pocotaligo, S. C. The expedition was successful. The captives were released and their freedom restored to them. Two rebel horse-soldiers, stationed as pickets, were regularly captured as prisoners of war. These men were members of the First South-Carolina cavalry. Their comrades, seventy-five in number, under command of a major, pursued the raiding party toward the ferry at Barnwell's Island. The negroes received them in ambush, and fired on them at twenty paces, emptying several saddles, and putting them to flight. Obtaining reenforcements and artillery, they tracked the retreating colored men with bloodhounds. The dogs dashed into the party in advance of their comrades, the rebels. One hound was shot, and left with broken legs upon the field. Five others were impaled upon the bayonets of the Union troops, and brought as trophies into their camp. The gallantry of the negroes on this occasion was manifested not merely by their brilliant bravery, but by the willingness with which they gave up the ferry-boats (in which they had crossed to the mainland) to their wounded and to the non-combatants on their return. In fording the river, two of their number were drowned. Another man, a corporal, was lost. Six of the party were wounded.
Posted on 11/24/13 at 7:33 am to BadLeroyDawg
Tuesday, 24 November 1863
The efforts which took the collective name of "The Battle of Chattanooga" entered their second day today with what is known as the Battle of Lookout Mountain. Three divisions under General Joseph Hooker clambered across Lookout Creek in the morning and started to fight their way up the hill. Heavy fog shrouded the area, and commanders down below had no way of observing the action, causing this day's event to be known as "The Battle Above the Clouds." About halfway up the mountain was a level patch known as Craven's Farm, and there the Confederates put up a spirited defense for a short time. They soon withdrew, as planned, to the main defensive line on Missionary Ridge. General William T. Sherman's men triumphantly took the north end of the ridge, thinking they had pulled off a brilliant flanking maneuver. They would have, except for the fact that a large ravine separated the piece of turf they were now holding from the one the Confederates were actually on.
Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee wrote US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles regarding a conversation with General Benjamin F. "Spoons" Butler while reconnoitering the Sounds of North Carolina: "I gave him my views respecting the best method of attacking Wilmington, viz, either to March from New Berne and seize the best and nearest fortified inlet on the north of Fort Fisher, thence to cross and blockade the Cape Fear River, or to land below Fort Caswell (the key to the position) and blockade the river from the right bank between Smithville and Brunswick." Four days later, Commander W. A. Parker supported the Admiral's views after making his own observations. Recommending a joint Army-Navy assault to capture Fort Fisher, he wrote: "I am of the opinion that 25,000 men and two or three ironclads should be sent to capture this place, if so large a force can be conveniently furnished for this purpose. . . . The ironclads . . . should be employed to divert the attention of the garrison at Fort Fisher during the landing of our troops at Masonboro Inlet, and to prevent the force there from being used to oppose the debarkation. . . . Fort Fisher would probably fall after a short resistance, as I have been informed that the heavy guns all point to seaward, and there is but slight provision made to resist an attack from the interior." Union efforts in the east were concentrated on the capture of Charleston at this time, however, and a thrust at Wilmington was postponed. The city continued as a prime haven for blockade runners until early 1865.
Under cover of the USS Pawnee, Commander Balch in charge, and the USS Marblehead, piloted by Lieutenant Commander Richard W. Meade, Jr., Army troops commenced sinking piles as obstructions in the Stono River above Legareville, South Carolina. The troops, protected by Marblehead, had landed the day before. The naval force remained on station at the request of Brigadier General Schimmelfennig to preclude a possible Confederate attack.
A court of inquiry convened by order of the Confederate War Department to examine and report facts and circumstances attending the capture of the city of New Orleans, in April, 1862, and the defense of the city by the Rebel troops under the command of General Mansfield Lovell, gave as their opinion that General Lovell's "...conduct was marked by all the coolness and self-possession due to the circumstances and his position; and that he evinced a high capacity for his command, and the clearest foresight in many of his measures for the defense of New Orleans."
Herschel V. Johnson, in a speech at Milledgeville, Georgia, used the following language: "There is no step backward. All is now involved in the struggle that is dear to man ? home, society, liberty, honor, every thing ? with the certainty of the most degraded fate that ever oppressed a people, if we fail. It is not recorded in history that eight millions of united people, resolved to be free, have failed. We cannot yield if we would. Yield to the Federal authorities ? to vassalage and subjugation! The bleaching of the bones of one hundred thousand gallant soldiers slain in battle would be clothed in tongues of fire to curse to everlasting infamy the man who whispers yield. God is with us, because He is always with the right." He closed in counselling a firm reliance on Providence, and the cultivation of a spirit of reliance and devotion.
The Richmond Examiner's morning edition contained the following: "Five balls advertised, and flour one hundred and twenty-five dollars per barrel! Who prates of famine and want? Who is suffering for the necessaries of life? Does not all go 'merry as a marriage bell?' If the skeleton come in, put a ball-ticket at five dollars into its bony fingers, a masquerade ball costume upon its back of bony links, and send the grim guest into the ball-room to the sound of cotillion music."
The second day of the battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee. General Hooker, in command of Geary's division of the Twelfth corps, Osterhaus's division of the Fifteenth corps, and two brigades of the Fourteenth corps, carried the north slope of Lookout Mountain with small loss, and a loss to the rebels of five or six hundred prisoners.
There was continuous fighting from twelve o'clock until after nightfall, but the National troops gallantly repulsed every attempt of the enemy to retake the position. General Sherman crossed the Tennessee River before daylight this morning, at the mouth of South Chickamauga, with three divisions of the Fifteenth corps, one division of the Fourteenth corps, and carried the northern extremity of Missionary Ridge.
The efforts which took the collective name of "The Battle of Chattanooga" entered their second day today with what is known as the Battle of Lookout Mountain. Three divisions under General Joseph Hooker clambered across Lookout Creek in the morning and started to fight their way up the hill. Heavy fog shrouded the area, and commanders down below had no way of observing the action, causing this day's event to be known as "The Battle Above the Clouds." About halfway up the mountain was a level patch known as Craven's Farm, and there the Confederates put up a spirited defense for a short time. They soon withdrew, as planned, to the main defensive line on Missionary Ridge. General William T. Sherman's men triumphantly took the north end of the ridge, thinking they had pulled off a brilliant flanking maneuver. They would have, except for the fact that a large ravine separated the piece of turf they were now holding from the one the Confederates were actually on.
Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee wrote US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles regarding a conversation with General Benjamin F. "Spoons" Butler while reconnoitering the Sounds of North Carolina: "I gave him my views respecting the best method of attacking Wilmington, viz, either to March from New Berne and seize the best and nearest fortified inlet on the north of Fort Fisher, thence to cross and blockade the Cape Fear River, or to land below Fort Caswell (the key to the position) and blockade the river from the right bank between Smithville and Brunswick." Four days later, Commander W. A. Parker supported the Admiral's views after making his own observations. Recommending a joint Army-Navy assault to capture Fort Fisher, he wrote: "I am of the opinion that 25,000 men and two or three ironclads should be sent to capture this place, if so large a force can be conveniently furnished for this purpose. . . . The ironclads . . . should be employed to divert the attention of the garrison at Fort Fisher during the landing of our troops at Masonboro Inlet, and to prevent the force there from being used to oppose the debarkation. . . . Fort Fisher would probably fall after a short resistance, as I have been informed that the heavy guns all point to seaward, and there is but slight provision made to resist an attack from the interior." Union efforts in the east were concentrated on the capture of Charleston at this time, however, and a thrust at Wilmington was postponed. The city continued as a prime haven for blockade runners until early 1865.
Under cover of the USS Pawnee, Commander Balch in charge, and the USS Marblehead, piloted by Lieutenant Commander Richard W. Meade, Jr., Army troops commenced sinking piles as obstructions in the Stono River above Legareville, South Carolina. The troops, protected by Marblehead, had landed the day before. The naval force remained on station at the request of Brigadier General Schimmelfennig to preclude a possible Confederate attack.
A court of inquiry convened by order of the Confederate War Department to examine and report facts and circumstances attending the capture of the city of New Orleans, in April, 1862, and the defense of the city by the Rebel troops under the command of General Mansfield Lovell, gave as their opinion that General Lovell's "...conduct was marked by all the coolness and self-possession due to the circumstances and his position; and that he evinced a high capacity for his command, and the clearest foresight in many of his measures for the defense of New Orleans."
Herschel V. Johnson, in a speech at Milledgeville, Georgia, used the following language: "There is no step backward. All is now involved in the struggle that is dear to man ? home, society, liberty, honor, every thing ? with the certainty of the most degraded fate that ever oppressed a people, if we fail. It is not recorded in history that eight millions of united people, resolved to be free, have failed. We cannot yield if we would. Yield to the Federal authorities ? to vassalage and subjugation! The bleaching of the bones of one hundred thousand gallant soldiers slain in battle would be clothed in tongues of fire to curse to everlasting infamy the man who whispers yield. God is with us, because He is always with the right." He closed in counselling a firm reliance on Providence, and the cultivation of a spirit of reliance and devotion.
The Richmond Examiner's morning edition contained the following: "Five balls advertised, and flour one hundred and twenty-five dollars per barrel! Who prates of famine and want? Who is suffering for the necessaries of life? Does not all go 'merry as a marriage bell?' If the skeleton come in, put a ball-ticket at five dollars into its bony fingers, a masquerade ball costume upon its back of bony links, and send the grim guest into the ball-room to the sound of cotillion music."
The second day of the battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee. General Hooker, in command of Geary's division of the Twelfth corps, Osterhaus's division of the Fifteenth corps, and two brigades of the Fourteenth corps, carried the north slope of Lookout Mountain with small loss, and a loss to the rebels of five or six hundred prisoners.
There was continuous fighting from twelve o'clock until after nightfall, but the National troops gallantly repulsed every attempt of the enemy to retake the position. General Sherman crossed the Tennessee River before daylight this morning, at the mouth of South Chickamauga, with three divisions of the Fifteenth corps, one division of the Fourteenth corps, and carried the northern extremity of Missionary Ridge.
Posted on 11/24/13 at 7:36 am to BadLeroyDawg
24 November continued...
The Richmond Examiner published the following: While a furious invading enemy is laying waste our fair fields, demanding unconditional submission to its government, offering no terms of peace, not even hinting at negotiation for peace upon any other basis, but avowing the unanimous purpose to deprive us of all right, of all law and of all property; and while our devoted armies are in the field, with their arms in their hands and their banners flying, to defy and resist and beat back that foul invasion, we do not comprehend how any man in the Confederacy can ? we do not say get "honorable peace" --but even talk of honorable peace, save by vanquishing those invading enemies. If the political system of those invading enemies break up, by reason of reverses in war, or financial troubles; if certain States of their "Union" remember that they have state rights, and act upon them by seceding from the Union, and offering us a peace, so far as they are concerned, it will be well; that will aid us materially in the one single task we have to achieve ? the task of defeating and destroying the military power of our enemies. But reasonable confederates would be at a loss to know how we can contribute to that happy state of things, except by continued and successful resistance in arms. Our sole policy and cunningest diplomacy is fighting; our most insinuating negotiator is the confederate army in line of battle.
Now we perceive, that just as Congress is about to meet, certain newspapers of the Confederacy are preparing the way for discussions in that body about some other method of obtaining peace. The other method suggested, in so far as we can comprehend it, consists in the several States of the Confederacy taking the matter out of the hands of the confederate government, ignoring the government and the army, and all that army has done and suffered for the independence of the Confederacy, and then making peace, each State for itself, as best it can. There would be an honorable peace!
We are sorry to have to mention that such an idea has shown itself. It was believed that it was confined to about two newspapers, both of Raleigh, North-Carolina. But something very similar is to be found in two other newspapers of Atlanta. As it is extremely essential that the time of this Congress should not be diverted for one instant from the business of carrying on the war by any vain palaver about peace, peace, when there is no peace, we reluctantly advert to the disagreeable circumstance in order that the small distracting element may be disposed of and made innocuous the more speedily.
Governor Vance, in a message to the Legislature of North Carolina, said: We know, at last, precisely what we would get by submission, and therein has our enemy done us good service ? abolition of slavery, confiscation of property, and territorial vassalage. These are the terms to win us back. Now, when our brothers bleed and mothers and little ones cry for bread, we can point them back to the brick-kilns of Egypt ? thanks to Mr. Seward--plainly in view, and show them the beautiful clusters of Eschol which grow in the land of independence, whither we go to possess them. And we can remind them, too, how the pillar of fire and the cloud, the vouchsafed guidon of Jehovah, went ever before the hungering multitude, leading away, with apparent cruelty, from the fulness of servitude. With such a prospect before them, people will, as heretofore, come firmly up to the full measure of their duty if their trusted servants do not fail them. They will not crucify afresh their own sons, slain in their behalf, or put their gallant shades to open shame, by stopping short of full and complete national independence.
The Richmond Examiner published the following: While a furious invading enemy is laying waste our fair fields, demanding unconditional submission to its government, offering no terms of peace, not even hinting at negotiation for peace upon any other basis, but avowing the unanimous purpose to deprive us of all right, of all law and of all property; and while our devoted armies are in the field, with their arms in their hands and their banners flying, to defy and resist and beat back that foul invasion, we do not comprehend how any man in the Confederacy can ? we do not say get "honorable peace" --but even talk of honorable peace, save by vanquishing those invading enemies. If the political system of those invading enemies break up, by reason of reverses in war, or financial troubles; if certain States of their "Union" remember that they have state rights, and act upon them by seceding from the Union, and offering us a peace, so far as they are concerned, it will be well; that will aid us materially in the one single task we have to achieve ? the task of defeating and destroying the military power of our enemies. But reasonable confederates would be at a loss to know how we can contribute to that happy state of things, except by continued and successful resistance in arms. Our sole policy and cunningest diplomacy is fighting; our most insinuating negotiator is the confederate army in line of battle.
Now we perceive, that just as Congress is about to meet, certain newspapers of the Confederacy are preparing the way for discussions in that body about some other method of obtaining peace. The other method suggested, in so far as we can comprehend it, consists in the several States of the Confederacy taking the matter out of the hands of the confederate government, ignoring the government and the army, and all that army has done and suffered for the independence of the Confederacy, and then making peace, each State for itself, as best it can. There would be an honorable peace!
We are sorry to have to mention that such an idea has shown itself. It was believed that it was confined to about two newspapers, both of Raleigh, North-Carolina. But something very similar is to be found in two other newspapers of Atlanta. As it is extremely essential that the time of this Congress should not be diverted for one instant from the business of carrying on the war by any vain palaver about peace, peace, when there is no peace, we reluctantly advert to the disagreeable circumstance in order that the small distracting element may be disposed of and made innocuous the more speedily.
Governor Vance, in a message to the Legislature of North Carolina, said: We know, at last, precisely what we would get by submission, and therein has our enemy done us good service ? abolition of slavery, confiscation of property, and territorial vassalage. These are the terms to win us back. Now, when our brothers bleed and mothers and little ones cry for bread, we can point them back to the brick-kilns of Egypt ? thanks to Mr. Seward--plainly in view, and show them the beautiful clusters of Eschol which grow in the land of independence, whither we go to possess them. And we can remind them, too, how the pillar of fire and the cloud, the vouchsafed guidon of Jehovah, went ever before the hungering multitude, leading away, with apparent cruelty, from the fulness of servitude. With such a prospect before them, people will, as heretofore, come firmly up to the full measure of their duty if their trusted servants do not fail them. They will not crucify afresh their own sons, slain in their behalf, or put their gallant shades to open shame, by stopping short of full and complete national independence.
Posted on 11/24/13 at 7:45 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Wednesday, 25 November 1863
The Battle of Missionary Ridge opened today with General William T. Sherman attacking the north end, and making no progress against the troops of General Patrick Cleburne. General Joseph Hooker was attacking the south end, the Confederate left wing, with a similar lack of success. Around 2 p.m. the true attack began: General Hiram U. Grant ordered General George Thomas’ men to attack the center. Fighting straight uphill should have been disastrous for the Federals--but in one of the great mysteries of the war, the artillery had been improperly placed and could only shoot over the heads of the attackers. It was anticipated that about half the hill could be taken today, but the blue-clad fighters, outrunning their commanders, simply didn’t stop until they took the top of the hill. Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur, who much later in life would have a son named Douglas, won the Medal of Honor for his part in this charge.
The valiant, but overpowered Confederate Navy faced many problems in the struggle for survival. One of them was the inability to obtain enough ordnance. Commander Brooke reported to Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory this date that ordnance workshops had been established at Charlotte, Richmond, Atlanta, and Selma, Alabama. While great efforts were made to meet Southern needs, Brooke wrote: "The deficiency of heavy ordnance has been severely felt during this war. The timely addition of a sufficient number of heavy guns would render our ports invulnerable to the attacks of the enemy's fleets, whether ironclads or not."
The USS Fort Hindman, under Acting Lieutenant John Pearce, captured the steamer Volunteer off Natchez Island, Mississippi.
An expedition composed of details from the First North Carolina volunteers, Twelfth New York cavalry, and the Twenty fourth New York battery, under command of Captain George W. Graham, First North Carolina volunteers, (Captain R. R. West, Twelfth [14] New York cavalry, having generously waived his rank, in deference to Captain Graham's familiarity with the country to be traversed,) attacked a camp of Rebels near Greenville, North Carolina, and after a brief and gallant contest, more than fifty prisoners, a hundred stand of arms, and a considerable amount of subsistence and quartermaster's stores fell into the hands of the Federals, while but one of their men was fatally wounded.
It was an affair in which the sterner virtues of the soldier, patience and fortitude, were equally exhibited with gallantry and daring, but twenty-four hours having been occupied in all, and a march of nearly seventy miles having been performed.
The Battle of Missionary Ridge opened today with General William T. Sherman attacking the north end, and making no progress against the troops of General Patrick Cleburne. General Joseph Hooker was attacking the south end, the Confederate left wing, with a similar lack of success. Around 2 p.m. the true attack began: General Hiram U. Grant ordered General George Thomas’ men to attack the center. Fighting straight uphill should have been disastrous for the Federals--but in one of the great mysteries of the war, the artillery had been improperly placed and could only shoot over the heads of the attackers. It was anticipated that about half the hill could be taken today, but the blue-clad fighters, outrunning their commanders, simply didn’t stop until they took the top of the hill. Lieutenant Arthur MacArthur, who much later in life would have a son named Douglas, won the Medal of Honor for his part in this charge.
The valiant, but overpowered Confederate Navy faced many problems in the struggle for survival. One of them was the inability to obtain enough ordnance. Commander Brooke reported to Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory this date that ordnance workshops had been established at Charlotte, Richmond, Atlanta, and Selma, Alabama. While great efforts were made to meet Southern needs, Brooke wrote: "The deficiency of heavy ordnance has been severely felt during this war. The timely addition of a sufficient number of heavy guns would render our ports invulnerable to the attacks of the enemy's fleets, whether ironclads or not."
The USS Fort Hindman, under Acting Lieutenant John Pearce, captured the steamer Volunteer off Natchez Island, Mississippi.
An expedition composed of details from the First North Carolina volunteers, Twelfth New York cavalry, and the Twenty fourth New York battery, under command of Captain George W. Graham, First North Carolina volunteers, (Captain R. R. West, Twelfth [14] New York cavalry, having generously waived his rank, in deference to Captain Graham's familiarity with the country to be traversed,) attacked a camp of Rebels near Greenville, North Carolina, and after a brief and gallant contest, more than fifty prisoners, a hundred stand of arms, and a considerable amount of subsistence and quartermaster's stores fell into the hands of the Federals, while but one of their men was fatally wounded.
It was an affair in which the sterner virtues of the soldier, patience and fortitude, were equally exhibited with gallantry and daring, but twenty-four hours having been occupied in all, and a march of nearly seventy miles having been performed.
Posted on 11/26/13 at 5:52 am to BadLeroyDawg
Thursday, 26 November 1863
A major battle had just been fought and won yesterday on Missionary Ridge, and normal custom would be for the victors to rest, reorganize, gather and tend the wounded and bury the dead, while General Braxton Bragg led the Army of Tennessee a short distance away to do the same. General Hiram U. Grant was not a big believer in custom, however, so he sent Generals William T. Sherman and George Thomas on a major pursuit of the retreating Confederate army. It was to Bragg’s great good fortune that his rear guard was under the command of the outstanding General Pat Cleburne. At Ringgold, Georgia, he turned and fought a short but severe action. Persistence was shown by both sides and other fights occurred at Chickamauga Station, Pea Vine Valley, and Pigeon Hill, Tennessee, and Graysville, Georgia. In the end, the Federals were held off and the Southern retreat protected.
The USS James Adger, under Commander Patterson, seized the British blockade runner Ella off Masonboro Inlet, North Carolina, with a cargo of salt.
The USS Antona, Acting Master Zerega in charge, captured the schooner Mary Ann southeast of Corpus Christi with a cargo of cotton.
At Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a meeting of the United States Christian Commission was held, on behalf of the National prisoners at Richmond. Bishop Potter of Pennsylvania presided, and addresses were made by Governor Brough, of Ohio, Major Boles, late from Libby Prison, G. H. Stuart, President of the Christian Commission, and others.
An engagement took place at Warm Springs, North Carolina. “It shows,” says a Confederate correspondent, “that it was a very gallant affair on the part of our men. Lieutenant Colonel Bryson, of the Twenty-fifth North Carolina troops, with a detachment of eighty men, crossed the French Broad, and was joined that night by twenty militia, under Major Haywood. Proceeding on the march, and arriving at the enemy's outpost at daylight, he was found in line of battle, having already discovered the plan. Although numbering about four hundred, the Yankees were charged and driven from the field. They came up the second time with the same result. A third time they were reenforced, perceiving which, Colonel Bryson gave the order to fall back, which was done in good order. In a hand-to-hand encounter, Sergeant Collins rushed forward and sacrificed his life to save Colonel Bryson's. The enemy's loss was thirty killed and wounded.”
By President Abraham Lincoln's proclamation, Thanksgiving day is celebrated in all of the Northern States.
The Union Army of the Potomac, under the command of Major General George Meade, advanced, crossing the Rapidan River at several points. General Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate forces known as the Army of Northern Virginia, noticing the movement, issued the following general order:
The enemy is again advancing upon our capital, and the country once more looks to this army for its protection. Under the blessings of God, your valor has repelled every previous attempt, and, invoking the continuance of his favor, we cheerfully commit to him the issue of the coming contest.
A cruel enemy seeks to reduce our fathers and our mothers, our wives and our children to abject slavery; to strip them of their property and drive them from their homes. Upon you these helpless ones rely to avert these terrible calamities, and to secure to them the blessings of liberty and safety. Your past history gives them the assurance that their trust will not be in vain. Let every man remember that all he holds dear depends upon the faithful discharge of his duty, and resolve to fight, and, if need be, to die, in defense of a cause so sacred and worthy the name won by this army on so many bloody fields.
A major battle had just been fought and won yesterday on Missionary Ridge, and normal custom would be for the victors to rest, reorganize, gather and tend the wounded and bury the dead, while General Braxton Bragg led the Army of Tennessee a short distance away to do the same. General Hiram U. Grant was not a big believer in custom, however, so he sent Generals William T. Sherman and George Thomas on a major pursuit of the retreating Confederate army. It was to Bragg’s great good fortune that his rear guard was under the command of the outstanding General Pat Cleburne. At Ringgold, Georgia, he turned and fought a short but severe action. Persistence was shown by both sides and other fights occurred at Chickamauga Station, Pea Vine Valley, and Pigeon Hill, Tennessee, and Graysville, Georgia. In the end, the Federals were held off and the Southern retreat protected.
The USS James Adger, under Commander Patterson, seized the British blockade runner Ella off Masonboro Inlet, North Carolina, with a cargo of salt.
The USS Antona, Acting Master Zerega in charge, captured the schooner Mary Ann southeast of Corpus Christi with a cargo of cotton.
At Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a meeting of the United States Christian Commission was held, on behalf of the National prisoners at Richmond. Bishop Potter of Pennsylvania presided, and addresses were made by Governor Brough, of Ohio, Major Boles, late from Libby Prison, G. H. Stuart, President of the Christian Commission, and others.
An engagement took place at Warm Springs, North Carolina. “It shows,” says a Confederate correspondent, “that it was a very gallant affair on the part of our men. Lieutenant Colonel Bryson, of the Twenty-fifth North Carolina troops, with a detachment of eighty men, crossed the French Broad, and was joined that night by twenty militia, under Major Haywood. Proceeding on the march, and arriving at the enemy's outpost at daylight, he was found in line of battle, having already discovered the plan. Although numbering about four hundred, the Yankees were charged and driven from the field. They came up the second time with the same result. A third time they were reenforced, perceiving which, Colonel Bryson gave the order to fall back, which was done in good order. In a hand-to-hand encounter, Sergeant Collins rushed forward and sacrificed his life to save Colonel Bryson's. The enemy's loss was thirty killed and wounded.”
By President Abraham Lincoln's proclamation, Thanksgiving day is celebrated in all of the Northern States.
The Union Army of the Potomac, under the command of Major General George Meade, advanced, crossing the Rapidan River at several points. General Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate forces known as the Army of Northern Virginia, noticing the movement, issued the following general order:
The enemy is again advancing upon our capital, and the country once more looks to this army for its protection. Under the blessings of God, your valor has repelled every previous attempt, and, invoking the continuance of his favor, we cheerfully commit to him the issue of the coming contest.
A cruel enemy seeks to reduce our fathers and our mothers, our wives and our children to abject slavery; to strip them of their property and drive them from their homes. Upon you these helpless ones rely to avert these terrible calamities, and to secure to them the blessings of liberty and safety. Your past history gives them the assurance that their trust will not be in vain. Let every man remember that all he holds dear depends upon the faithful discharge of his duty, and resolve to fight, and, if need be, to die, in defense of a cause so sacred and worthy the name won by this army on so many bloody fields.
Posted on 11/27/13 at 6:09 am to BadLeroyDawg
Friday, 27 November 1863
The Mine Run Campaign was, in a way, the last gasp of a string of events that had started at Gettysburg, when the Army of Northern Virginia had withdrawn at their own pace from the field. U.S. General George Meade had first been hailed as the savior of the Union, but his failure to follow and crush General Robert E. Lee's forces soon made him the target of intense pressure from President Abraham Lincoln. Thus, the continued pursuit in this venture when most armies were already in winter camp. Meade was heading for a small valley called Mine Run. Lee knew this and fortified it heavily. Union General William Henry French's corps was vital to Meade's attack, but they took the wrong road and ran into General Jubal Early's men, which occupied most of the day. Meade later blamed French's mistake for the failure of the entire project.
The USS Two Sisters, under Acting Master Charles H. Rockwell, seized the Confederate blockade running schooner Maria Alberta near Bayport, Florida.
A delegation of Cherokees, headed by Captain Smith Christy, acting Chief, and including Thomas Pegg, a leading Indian, and William P. Ross, with Reverend J. B. Jones as interpreter, went in state to pay their respects to General McNeil, the district commander at Fort Smith, Arkansas, by order of an act of their National Council. The act recited the sufferings, and asked additional protection to the nation and authority to raise an Indian cavalry regiment. After the presentation of their credentials, Chief Christy arose and said that their national council had instructed them to call and pay their respects to the Commanding General, express their confidence in his ability and bravery, and to state the condition and wants of their suffering people. He then recapitulated the contents of the documents they were preparing to present. The greatest annoyance was from roving banditti, who desolated their homes and murdered their people. Their lives and those of their families were not safe away from the military fort. They desired stringent measures to change this state of things. They wished carried into successful practice a plan of Colonel Phillips, to form districts allotted for settlement, which should be adequately protected in order that the families camped in the vicinity of Fort Gibson might remove to more comfortable homes. From their present condition of suffering and disease, they thought the patriotic acts and sacrifices of their nation had not been sufficiently appreciated.
General McNeil replied that it gave him very great pleasure to receive this token of respect of the Cherokee nation. Among the responsibilities of the command to which he had been assigned, there was none greater than his duty toward their suffering people. One of his first acts on assuming command was to represent the condition of the Indian tribes, and he had recommended some measures for the improvement of their condition. The Government is very desirous that you should make a crop this spring, and such a disposition of troops will be made that you can do it in safety.
Mr. Ross.--If white troops will keep away our white enemies, the loyal Indian troops can protect themselves.
General McNeil.--I ask if I may assure the Government that the Cherokees will not make civil war on their tribes except in self defense.
Chief Christy.--You may.
The Mine Run Campaign was, in a way, the last gasp of a string of events that had started at Gettysburg, when the Army of Northern Virginia had withdrawn at their own pace from the field. U.S. General George Meade had first been hailed as the savior of the Union, but his failure to follow and crush General Robert E. Lee's forces soon made him the target of intense pressure from President Abraham Lincoln. Thus, the continued pursuit in this venture when most armies were already in winter camp. Meade was heading for a small valley called Mine Run. Lee knew this and fortified it heavily. Union General William Henry French's corps was vital to Meade's attack, but they took the wrong road and ran into General Jubal Early's men, which occupied most of the day. Meade later blamed French's mistake for the failure of the entire project.
The USS Two Sisters, under Acting Master Charles H. Rockwell, seized the Confederate blockade running schooner Maria Alberta near Bayport, Florida.
A delegation of Cherokees, headed by Captain Smith Christy, acting Chief, and including Thomas Pegg, a leading Indian, and William P. Ross, with Reverend J. B. Jones as interpreter, went in state to pay their respects to General McNeil, the district commander at Fort Smith, Arkansas, by order of an act of their National Council. The act recited the sufferings, and asked additional protection to the nation and authority to raise an Indian cavalry regiment. After the presentation of their credentials, Chief Christy arose and said that their national council had instructed them to call and pay their respects to the Commanding General, express their confidence in his ability and bravery, and to state the condition and wants of their suffering people. He then recapitulated the contents of the documents they were preparing to present. The greatest annoyance was from roving banditti, who desolated their homes and murdered their people. Their lives and those of their families were not safe away from the military fort. They desired stringent measures to change this state of things. They wished carried into successful practice a plan of Colonel Phillips, to form districts allotted for settlement, which should be adequately protected in order that the families camped in the vicinity of Fort Gibson might remove to more comfortable homes. From their present condition of suffering and disease, they thought the patriotic acts and sacrifices of their nation had not been sufficiently appreciated.
General McNeil replied that it gave him very great pleasure to receive this token of respect of the Cherokee nation. Among the responsibilities of the command to which he had been assigned, there was none greater than his duty toward their suffering people. One of his first acts on assuming command was to represent the condition of the Indian tribes, and he had recommended some measures for the improvement of their condition. The Government is very desirous that you should make a crop this spring, and such a disposition of troops will be made that you can do it in safety.
Mr. Ross.--If white troops will keep away our white enemies, the loyal Indian troops can protect themselves.
General McNeil.--I ask if I may assure the Government that the Cherokees will not make civil war on their tribes except in self defense.
Chief Christy.--You may.
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