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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 11/11/13 at 4:10 am to BadLeroyDawg
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.
1
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.
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