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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 3/15/15 at 8:56 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 3/15/15 at 8:56 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Thursday, 16 March 1865
The Battle of Averasboro occurred in North Carolina, as Major General William T. Sherman's Federals, advancing from Fayetteville, attacked a smaller force of Confederates blocking their path. The Confederates withdrew toward Smithfield after suffering some 865 virtually irreplaceable casualties; the Federals lost 682.
Full report: On this day in 1865, the mighty "Bummer" army of Union General William T. Sherman encounters its most significant resistance as it continues tearing through the Carolinas on its way to join General Hiram U. Grant’s army at Petersburg, Virginia. Confederate General William J. Hardee tried to block one wing of Sherman’s force, commanded by General Henry W. Slocum, but the patchwork Rebel force was eventually swept aside at the Battle of Averasboro, North Carolina.
Sherman’s army left Savannah, Georgia, in late January 1865 and began to drive through the Carolinas with the intention of inflicting the same damage, or worse, on those states as it infamously had done on Georgia two months prior. The vastly outnumbered Confederates could offer little opposition save a few well placed cavalry skirmishes, and Sherman rolled northward while engaging in only a few other small battles. Now, however, the Rebels had mobilized more soldiers and dug in their heels as the Confederacy entered its final days.
Hardee placed his troops across the main roads leading away from Fayetteville in an effort to determine Sherman’s objective. Union cavalry under General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick contacted some of Hardee’s men along the old Plank Road northeast of Fayetteville on 15 March. Kilpatrick could not punch through, so he regrouped and waited until this morning to renew the attack. When they tried again, the Yankees still could not break the Confederate lines until two divisions of Slocum’s infantry finally arrived. In danger of being outflanked and possibly surrounded, Hardee adroitly withdrew his troops and headed toward a rendezvous with General Joseph Johnston’s gathering army at Bentonville, North Carolina.
The Yankees lost approximately 95 men killed, 530 wounded, and 50 missing, while Hardee lost about 865 total. The battle did little to slow the march of Sherman’s army.
Several members of the Confederate Congress submitted a rebuttal to President Jefferson Davis' message from three days ago: "Nothing is more desirable than concord and cordial cooperation between all departments of Government. Hence your committee regrets that the Executive deemed it necessary to transmit to Congress a message so well calculated to excite discord and dissension..."
Major General Edward R. S. Canby requested Rear Admiral Henry Knox Thatcher to provide naval gunfire and transport support to the landing and movement of Federal troops against Mobile, Alabama. The response again demonstrated the close coordination with ground operations which was so effective throughout the conflict; Thatcher replied: "I shall be most happy and ready to give you all the assistance in my power. Six tinclads are all the light-draft vessels at my disposal. They will be ready at any moment."
The USS Pursuit, Acting Lieutenant William R. Browne in charge, captured the British schooner Mary attempting to run the blockade into the Indian River on the East Coast of Florida. Her cargo consisted of shoes, percussion caps, and rum.
The USS Quaker City, under Commander William F. Spicer, captured the small blockade running sloop Telemico in the Gulf of Mexico with a cargo of cotton and peanuts.
The Battle of Averasboro occurred in North Carolina, as Major General William T. Sherman's Federals, advancing from Fayetteville, attacked a smaller force of Confederates blocking their path. The Confederates withdrew toward Smithfield after suffering some 865 virtually irreplaceable casualties; the Federals lost 682.
Full report: On this day in 1865, the mighty "Bummer" army of Union General William T. Sherman encounters its most significant resistance as it continues tearing through the Carolinas on its way to join General Hiram U. Grant’s army at Petersburg, Virginia. Confederate General William J. Hardee tried to block one wing of Sherman’s force, commanded by General Henry W. Slocum, but the patchwork Rebel force was eventually swept aside at the Battle of Averasboro, North Carolina.
Sherman’s army left Savannah, Georgia, in late January 1865 and began to drive through the Carolinas with the intention of inflicting the same damage, or worse, on those states as it infamously had done on Georgia two months prior. The vastly outnumbered Confederates could offer little opposition save a few well placed cavalry skirmishes, and Sherman rolled northward while engaging in only a few other small battles. Now, however, the Rebels had mobilized more soldiers and dug in their heels as the Confederacy entered its final days.
Hardee placed his troops across the main roads leading away from Fayetteville in an effort to determine Sherman’s objective. Union cavalry under General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick contacted some of Hardee’s men along the old Plank Road northeast of Fayetteville on 15 March. Kilpatrick could not punch through, so he regrouped and waited until this morning to renew the attack. When they tried again, the Yankees still could not break the Confederate lines until two divisions of Slocum’s infantry finally arrived. In danger of being outflanked and possibly surrounded, Hardee adroitly withdrew his troops and headed toward a rendezvous with General Joseph Johnston’s gathering army at Bentonville, North Carolina.
The Yankees lost approximately 95 men killed, 530 wounded, and 50 missing, while Hardee lost about 865 total. The battle did little to slow the march of Sherman’s army.
Several members of the Confederate Congress submitted a rebuttal to President Jefferson Davis' message from three days ago: "Nothing is more desirable than concord and cordial cooperation between all departments of Government. Hence your committee regrets that the Executive deemed it necessary to transmit to Congress a message so well calculated to excite discord and dissension..."
Major General Edward R. S. Canby requested Rear Admiral Henry Knox Thatcher to provide naval gunfire and transport support to the landing and movement of Federal troops against Mobile, Alabama. The response again demonstrated the close coordination with ground operations which was so effective throughout the conflict; Thatcher replied: "I shall be most happy and ready to give you all the assistance in my power. Six tinclads are all the light-draft vessels at my disposal. They will be ready at any moment."
The USS Pursuit, Acting Lieutenant William R. Browne in charge, captured the British schooner Mary attempting to run the blockade into the Indian River on the East Coast of Florida. Her cargo consisted of shoes, percussion caps, and rum.
The USS Quaker City, under Commander William F. Spicer, captured the small blockade running sloop Telemico in the Gulf of Mexico with a cargo of cotton and peanuts.
1
Posted on 3/16/15 at 8:53 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Friday, 17 March 1865
Sporadic, but at times heavy, skirmishing continued at Falling Creek, North Carolina, following the previous day’s battle at Averasboro as General William Joseph Hardee issued a congratulatory order to his Confederate troops for "...giving the enemy the first check he has received since leaving Atlanta."
Union Major General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby began maneuvering his 32,000 troops against Mobile, a vital Confederate seaport city on Alabama’s coast. One Federal force moved from Pensacola, Florida, and another from the area of Mobile Point up the east side of Mobile Bay. About 2,800 Confederates under Brigadier General Randall Lee Gibson defended the city.
In Washington, D.C., Union President Abraham Lincoln addressed the increasing sales of arms to Native Americans by proclaiming that all people detected in the sale of arms and/or ammunition to the Indians or caught conducting such transactions would be arrested and tried by a military tribunal court martial.
The following are appointed Confederate Brigadier Generals: Richard Montgomery Gano, CSA; Henry Gray, CSA; William Polk Hardeman, CSA; Walter Paye Lane, CSA.
More Federal expeditions commence against partisan guerrillas from Pine Bluff to Bass' Plantation, Arkansas, crossing the river aboard the steamer, Argosy, but reporting no encounters with the enemy.
Colonel John Morrill, 64th Illinois Infantry, assumes the command of the District of Rolla, Missouri.
Federal troops scout from Winchester to Edinburg, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
A Federal expedition begin from Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
The Coast Survey Steamer Bibb, commanded by Charles O. Boutelle, struck a submerged torpedo in Charleston Harbor. "Fortunately for us..." Boutelle reported, "...the blow was upon the side. To this fact and the great strength of the vessel may be ascribed our escape from serious injury." Nevertheless, as Rear Admiral John A. B. Dahlgren noted a few days later, the Bibb "...was much jarred..." by the impact and required considerable repairs.
The USS Quaker City, Commander William F. Spicer in charge, captured the blockade running schooner George Burkhart in the Gulf of Mexico with a cargo of cotton, bound from Lavaca, Texas for Matamoras, Mexico.
The USS Wyalusing, under Lieutenant Commander Earl English, while engaged in clearing and opening the tributaries of Albemarle Sound, removed 60 nets and captured a Confederate schooner in Scuppernong and Alligator Rivers.
In a speech to the 140th Indiana, Lincoln said, "Whenever (I) hear any one, arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." Lincoln also voiced support for the Confederacy’s recent measure recruiting slaves into the Confederate armies: "I am rather in favor of the measure...We have to reach the bottom of the insurgent resources, and that they employ or seriously think of employing the slaves as soldiers gives us glimpses of the bottom..."
Famed actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth developed a plan to kidnap Lincoln and exchange him for Confederate prisoners of war. This evening, Booth and his accomplices put on disguises and rode to the Soldiers Home on the Washington outskirts, where the Lincolns often stayed. Booth learned that Lincoln was not there and soon changed his plot from mere kidnapping to assassination, following the framework of the Union's Dahlgren-Kilpatrick Raid directed toward Richmond and Jefferson Davis a year earlier.
Sporadic, but at times heavy, skirmishing continued at Falling Creek, North Carolina, following the previous day’s battle at Averasboro as General William Joseph Hardee issued a congratulatory order to his Confederate troops for "...giving the enemy the first check he has received since leaving Atlanta."
Union Major General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby began maneuvering his 32,000 troops against Mobile, a vital Confederate seaport city on Alabama’s coast. One Federal force moved from Pensacola, Florida, and another from the area of Mobile Point up the east side of Mobile Bay. About 2,800 Confederates under Brigadier General Randall Lee Gibson defended the city.
In Washington, D.C., Union President Abraham Lincoln addressed the increasing sales of arms to Native Americans by proclaiming that all people detected in the sale of arms and/or ammunition to the Indians or caught conducting such transactions would be arrested and tried by a military tribunal court martial.
The following are appointed Confederate Brigadier Generals: Richard Montgomery Gano, CSA; Henry Gray, CSA; William Polk Hardeman, CSA; Walter Paye Lane, CSA.
More Federal expeditions commence against partisan guerrillas from Pine Bluff to Bass' Plantation, Arkansas, crossing the river aboard the steamer, Argosy, but reporting no encounters with the enemy.
Colonel John Morrill, 64th Illinois Infantry, assumes the command of the District of Rolla, Missouri.
Federal troops scout from Winchester to Edinburg, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
A Federal expedition begin from Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
The Coast Survey Steamer Bibb, commanded by Charles O. Boutelle, struck a submerged torpedo in Charleston Harbor. "Fortunately for us..." Boutelle reported, "...the blow was upon the side. To this fact and the great strength of the vessel may be ascribed our escape from serious injury." Nevertheless, as Rear Admiral John A. B. Dahlgren noted a few days later, the Bibb "...was much jarred..." by the impact and required considerable repairs.
The USS Quaker City, Commander William F. Spicer in charge, captured the blockade running schooner George Burkhart in the Gulf of Mexico with a cargo of cotton, bound from Lavaca, Texas for Matamoras, Mexico.
The USS Wyalusing, under Lieutenant Commander Earl English, while engaged in clearing and opening the tributaries of Albemarle Sound, removed 60 nets and captured a Confederate schooner in Scuppernong and Alligator Rivers.
In a speech to the 140th Indiana, Lincoln said, "Whenever (I) hear any one, arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." Lincoln also voiced support for the Confederacy’s recent measure recruiting slaves into the Confederate armies: "I am rather in favor of the measure...We have to reach the bottom of the insurgent resources, and that they employ or seriously think of employing the slaves as soldiers gives us glimpses of the bottom..."
Famed actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth developed a plan to kidnap Lincoln and exchange him for Confederate prisoners of war. This evening, Booth and his accomplices put on disguises and rode to the Soldiers Home on the Washington outskirts, where the Lincolns often stayed. Booth learned that Lincoln was not there and soon changed his plot from mere kidnapping to assassination, following the framework of the Union's Dahlgren-Kilpatrick Raid directed toward Richmond and Jefferson Davis a year earlier.
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