re: 150 years ago this day...

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.