Started By
Message
re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 3/31/15 at 5:29 am to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 3/31/15 at 5:29 am to BadLeroyDawg
Friday, 31 March 1865
This morning, the final offensive of the Army of the Potomac gathers steam when Union Major General Philip H. Sheridan moves against the left flank of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia near Dinwiddie Court House. The limited action set the stage for the Battle of Five Forks, Virginia, on 1 April.
This engagement took place at the end of the Petersburg, Virginia, line. For 10 months, the ever growing Union army had laid siege to Lee’s army at Petersburg, but the trenches stretched all the way to Richmond, some 25 miles to the north. Lee’s thinning army attacked Fort Stedman on 25 March in a futile attempt to break the siege, but the Union line, initially badly broken, regrouped with reserves and eventually held. On 29 March, Lieutenant General Hiram U. Grant, General-in-Chief of the Union Army and the field commander around Petersburg, had begun moving his men past the western end of Lee’s line.
Torrential rains almost delayed the move. Grant had planned to send Sheridan against the Confederates early on 31 March, but then called off the operation. Sheridan, however, would not be denied a chance to fight with his superior numbers. "I am ready to strike out tomorrow and go to smashing things!" he told his officers. They encouraged him to meet with Grant, who consented to begin the move today. Near Dinwiddie Court House, Sheridan's large force, along with Major General Gouverneur Kemble Warren's V Corps, advanced but was driven back by General George Pickett’s small division. Pickett, being alerted to the Union advance, decided during tonight's council to pull his men back to Five Forks. This set the stage for a major strike by Sheridan on 1 April, when the Yankees finally overwhelmed and crushed the Rebel flank and finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg.
Actions commence near Montevallo, Alabama, where Union Brigadier General James Harrison Wilson and his Cavalry force destroys iron furnaces and equipment while combating Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Confederate troops.
Union troops under General Wilson occupy Asbyville, Alabama, and also see action at Six-Mile Creek.
Union Major General Frederick Steele's column reaches Stockton, Alabama, the Mobile Campaign.
Federal operations begin around Aquia Eria, in the New Mexico Territory, as the Yankees respond to a scared rancher reporting that Indians had crossed his ranch last night. Upon further scouting, the Yankees determine the horse tracks had been made by either peaceful Navajo or Pueblo Indians. The tracks were so close to his house that the nervous rancher referred to, might have been his own.
Skirmish at Galley's, and at Hookerton, North Carolina.
Union Major General Jacob D. Cox resumes the command of the 23rd US Army Corps, North Carolina.
Skirmishing breaks out at Magnolia, Tennessee.
Confederate Major General John Bankhead Magruder is assigned to the command of the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and vice Major General John G. Walker is relieved of command.
Actions occur at the White Oak Road, or White Oak Ride, at Crow's House, and at Hatcher's Run, or Boydton Road, Virginia, in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign.
The St. Mary's, a 115 ton schooner out of St. Mary's, Maryland, loaded with an assorted cargo valued at over $20,000, was boarded and captured off the Patuxent River in Chesapeake Bay by a Confederate raiding Party led by Master John C. Braine, CSN. The disguised Southerners were in a yawl and had come alongside the schooner on the pretext that their craft was sinking. Braine took St. Mary's to sea where they captured a New York bound schooner, the J. B. Spafford. The latter prize was released after the raiders had placed St. Mary's crew on board her and had taken the crew members' personal effects. The Confederates indicated to their captives that their intention was to take St. Mary's to St. Marks, Florida, attempting to run the blockade but they put into Nassau in April.
The USS Iuka, Lieutenant William C. Rogers in charge, captures the blockade running British schooner Comus off the coast of Florida with a cargo of cotton.
This morning, the final offensive of the Army of the Potomac gathers steam when Union Major General Philip H. Sheridan moves against the left flank of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia near Dinwiddie Court House. The limited action set the stage for the Battle of Five Forks, Virginia, on 1 April.
This engagement took place at the end of the Petersburg, Virginia, line. For 10 months, the ever growing Union army had laid siege to Lee’s army at Petersburg, but the trenches stretched all the way to Richmond, some 25 miles to the north. Lee’s thinning army attacked Fort Stedman on 25 March in a futile attempt to break the siege, but the Union line, initially badly broken, regrouped with reserves and eventually held. On 29 March, Lieutenant General Hiram U. Grant, General-in-Chief of the Union Army and the field commander around Petersburg, had begun moving his men past the western end of Lee’s line.
Torrential rains almost delayed the move. Grant had planned to send Sheridan against the Confederates early on 31 March, but then called off the operation. Sheridan, however, would not be denied a chance to fight with his superior numbers. "I am ready to strike out tomorrow and go to smashing things!" he told his officers. They encouraged him to meet with Grant, who consented to begin the move today. Near Dinwiddie Court House, Sheridan's large force, along with Major General Gouverneur Kemble Warren's V Corps, advanced but was driven back by General George Pickett’s small division. Pickett, being alerted to the Union advance, decided during tonight's council to pull his men back to Five Forks. This set the stage for a major strike by Sheridan on 1 April, when the Yankees finally overwhelmed and crushed the Rebel flank and finally forced Lee to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg.
Actions commence near Montevallo, Alabama, where Union Brigadier General James Harrison Wilson and his Cavalry force destroys iron furnaces and equipment while combating Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Confederate troops.
Union troops under General Wilson occupy Asbyville, Alabama, and also see action at Six-Mile Creek.
Union Major General Frederick Steele's column reaches Stockton, Alabama, the Mobile Campaign.
Federal operations begin around Aquia Eria, in the New Mexico Territory, as the Yankees respond to a scared rancher reporting that Indians had crossed his ranch last night. Upon further scouting, the Yankees determine the horse tracks had been made by either peaceful Navajo or Pueblo Indians. The tracks were so close to his house that the nervous rancher referred to, might have been his own.
Skirmish at Galley's, and at Hookerton, North Carolina.
Union Major General Jacob D. Cox resumes the command of the 23rd US Army Corps, North Carolina.
Skirmishing breaks out at Magnolia, Tennessee.
Confederate Major General John Bankhead Magruder is assigned to the command of the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and vice Major General John G. Walker is relieved of command.
Actions occur at the White Oak Road, or White Oak Ride, at Crow's House, and at Hatcher's Run, or Boydton Road, Virginia, in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign.
The St. Mary's, a 115 ton schooner out of St. Mary's, Maryland, loaded with an assorted cargo valued at over $20,000, was boarded and captured off the Patuxent River in Chesapeake Bay by a Confederate raiding Party led by Master John C. Braine, CSN. The disguised Southerners were in a yawl and had come alongside the schooner on the pretext that their craft was sinking. Braine took St. Mary's to sea where they captured a New York bound schooner, the J. B. Spafford. The latter prize was released after the raiders had placed St. Mary's crew on board her and had taken the crew members' personal effects. The Confederates indicated to their captives that their intention was to take St. Mary's to St. Marks, Florida, attempting to run the blockade but they put into Nassau in April.
The USS Iuka, Lieutenant William C. Rogers in charge, captures the blockade running British schooner Comus off the coast of Florida with a cargo of cotton.
1
Posted on 3/31/15 at 10:09 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Saturday, 1 April 1865
Late this afternoon, Federal Major General Phil Sheridan’s cavalry and the Federal Fifth Corps attacked Confederate Major General George Pickett’s dug in troops at Five Forks. As Sheridan’s dismounted cavalry attacked in front, the Fifth Corps of Major General Gouverneur K. Warren got in on the Confederate defender’s left flank and crushed them. Pickett’s forces were now separated from the rest of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Federals sustained losses numbering around 1,000 and captured at least 4,500 Confederates. almost completely surrounding Petersburg, VA, in the process.
Brevetted Major General Charles Griffin relieves Warren of the command of the 5th US Army Corps, VA, as Sheridan removes Warren from command during the height of the Battle of Five Forks for allegedly being slow is reacting to Sheridan's orders.
In North Carolina, Federal Major General William T. Sherman takes the time to reorganize his army as a skirmish breaks out at Snow Hill.
Skirmishing occurs with Union Brigadier General James H. Wilson's forces at Randolph, Maplesville, Plantersville, Ebenezer Church, Centerville and Trion, Alabama, forcing Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest to concentrate his troops at Selma. Skirmishing also occurred at White Oak Creek, Tennessee.
President Abraham Lincoln was serving as an observer at City Point, Virginia, and forwarding messages to Washington on the progress of the fighting at Petersburg. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, meanwhile, reported to General Robert E. Lee that he was struggling to advance the raising of Negro troops, noting that “...distrust is increasing and embarrasses in many ways.”
William Babcock Hazen and Wesley Merritt, U.S.A., are appointed Major General.
Skirmishing breaks out near Blakely, Alabama, as Major General Edward R. S. Canby, with 45,000 soldiers brought and supplied by transports, moves on the gates of the crumbling defenses of Mobile manned by fewer than 10,000 Confederates under General Dabney Maury.
Federals scout from Pine Bluff to Bayou Bartholomew, Arkansas.
An affair starts 15 miles northwest of Fort Garland, in the Colorado Territory, as 5 hostile Ute Indians attack a Mexican ranch and kill 1 Mexican and some beeves. As most Utes are friendly, the local Federal officer will await further instructions before declaring a regular war against the entire Ute Indian Nation tribe.
Federal operations commence against Indians west of Fort Laramie, in the Dakota Territory, with a skirmish at Deer Creek Station, as a white man, supposed to be Bill Comstock, formerly of Fort Laramie, seems to have command of the Indians, who have attacked the station.
A Union expedition travels from Dalton to Spring Place and the Coosawattee River, Georgia, with several skirmishes.
Federal scouts move against guerrillas from Licking, Missouri, to places such as Piney Fork of the Gasconade River and Hog Creek where the Yankees are successful in killing more guerrillas, seizing provisions, and destroying anything of value.
Skirmishing starts at the White Oak Road, near Petersburg, Virginia, with Major General Andrew A. Humphreys, USA, and his 2nd US Army Corps under Lieutenant General Hiram U. Grant in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign.
The positions of the opposing forces on this date demonstrated vividly what superiority afloat had meant to the North in this giant struggle that decided the future of the nation. From his over-flowing advance bases on the James at City Point, only a few miles from General Lee's lines, General Grant was on the move for the final battle of the long saga in Virginia.
To the south in North Carolina backed by his seaport bases at New Bern and Wilmington, General Sherman's massive armies were joined to strike General Johnston at the capital city, Raleigh. In South Carolina and Georgia, Charleston and Savannah, key ports from colonial times, were Union bases fed from the sea.
Although constantly under attack by guerrillas along the Mississippi and its eastern tributaries, Federal gunboats kept the river lifeline open to the occupying armies. Trans-Mississippi, still largely held from invasion by the Confederates, was tightly blockaded by the Union Navy. Without control of the water, to paraphrase John Paul Jones, alas! united America. Fortunate indeed was the nation to have men ashore like Lincoln and Grant who made wide use of the irreplaceable advantages to the total national power that strength at sea imparted.
The CSS Shenandoah, Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell, put into Lea Harbor, Ascension Island, (Ponape Island, Eastern Carolines). A number of sail had been sighted from the cruiser's decks as she approached the island, and, Waddell reported,"...we began to think if they were not whale ships it would be a very good April fool." The Confederates had sighted only one vessel between 20 February, shortly after departing Melbourne, and this date. They were not disappointed. Waddell found the whalers Pearl, Hector, Harvest and Edward Carey in the harbor and seized them. The Confederates obtained vital charts from the four ships showing the location of the whaling grounds most frequented by American whalers. "With such charts in my possession," Waddell wrote, "I not only held a key to the navigation of all the Pacific Islands, the Okhotsk and Bering Seas, and the Arctic Ocean, but the most probable localities for finding the great Arctic whaling fleet of New England, without a tiresome search." In addition to obtaining this intelligence and the charts essential to future operations, Waddell stocked Shenandoah's depleted storerooms with provisions and supplies from the four prizes. The ships were then drawn upon a reef where the natives were permitted to strip them from truck halyards to copper sheathing on the keels. Of the 130 prisoners, 8 were shipped on board Shenandoah; the remainder were set ashore to be picked up by a passing whaler. The four stripped vessels, totaling $116,000 in value, were then put to the torch.
Fighting gamely on all fronts, the South also inflicted maritime losses elsewhere. The USS Rodolph, temporarily commanded by her executive officer, Acting Ensign James F. Thompson, struck a torpedo in the Blakely River, Alabama, and "...rapidly sank in 12 feet of water." The tinclad was towing a barge containing apparatus for the raising of USS Milwaukee, a torpedo victim on 28 March. Acting Master N. Mayo Dyer, Rodolph's commanding officer, reported that "from the effects of the explosion that can be seen, I should judge there was a hole through the bow at least 10 feet in diameter..." Four men were killed as a result of the sinking and eleven others were wounded. Rodolph, the third warship in five days to be lost in the same vicinity due to effective Confederate torpedo warfare, had played an important role in the continuing combined operations after the fall of Mobile Bay to Admiral Farragut on 5 August 1864. Arriving in the Bay, from New Orleans on 14 August, she had participated in forcing the surrender of Fort Morgan on 23 August. Acting Master's Mate Nathaniel B. Hinckley, serving on board Rodolph, told his son many years after the war that he had carried the Confederate flag from the captured fort and turned it over to a patrol boat. Rodolph had remained in the Bay and its tributaries as Union seapower projected General Canby's powerful army against the final defenses of the city of Mobile. Hinckley was stationed in the tinclad's forecastle when she struck the torpedo that sank her, but he escaped injury.
Late this afternoon, Federal Major General Phil Sheridan’s cavalry and the Federal Fifth Corps attacked Confederate Major General George Pickett’s dug in troops at Five Forks. As Sheridan’s dismounted cavalry attacked in front, the Fifth Corps of Major General Gouverneur K. Warren got in on the Confederate defender’s left flank and crushed them. Pickett’s forces were now separated from the rest of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Federals sustained losses numbering around 1,000 and captured at least 4,500 Confederates. almost completely surrounding Petersburg, VA, in the process.
Brevetted Major General Charles Griffin relieves Warren of the command of the 5th US Army Corps, VA, as Sheridan removes Warren from command during the height of the Battle of Five Forks for allegedly being slow is reacting to Sheridan's orders.
In North Carolina, Federal Major General William T. Sherman takes the time to reorganize his army as a skirmish breaks out at Snow Hill.
Skirmishing occurs with Union Brigadier General James H. Wilson's forces at Randolph, Maplesville, Plantersville, Ebenezer Church, Centerville and Trion, Alabama, forcing Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest to concentrate his troops at Selma. Skirmishing also occurred at White Oak Creek, Tennessee.
President Abraham Lincoln was serving as an observer at City Point, Virginia, and forwarding messages to Washington on the progress of the fighting at Petersburg. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, meanwhile, reported to General Robert E. Lee that he was struggling to advance the raising of Negro troops, noting that “...distrust is increasing and embarrasses in many ways.”
William Babcock Hazen and Wesley Merritt, U.S.A., are appointed Major General.
Skirmishing breaks out near Blakely, Alabama, as Major General Edward R. S. Canby, with 45,000 soldiers brought and supplied by transports, moves on the gates of the crumbling defenses of Mobile manned by fewer than 10,000 Confederates under General Dabney Maury.
Federals scout from Pine Bluff to Bayou Bartholomew, Arkansas.
An affair starts 15 miles northwest of Fort Garland, in the Colorado Territory, as 5 hostile Ute Indians attack a Mexican ranch and kill 1 Mexican and some beeves. As most Utes are friendly, the local Federal officer will await further instructions before declaring a regular war against the entire Ute Indian Nation tribe.
Federal operations commence against Indians west of Fort Laramie, in the Dakota Territory, with a skirmish at Deer Creek Station, as a white man, supposed to be Bill Comstock, formerly of Fort Laramie, seems to have command of the Indians, who have attacked the station.
A Union expedition travels from Dalton to Spring Place and the Coosawattee River, Georgia, with several skirmishes.
Federal scouts move against guerrillas from Licking, Missouri, to places such as Piney Fork of the Gasconade River and Hog Creek where the Yankees are successful in killing more guerrillas, seizing provisions, and destroying anything of value.
Skirmishing starts at the White Oak Road, near Petersburg, Virginia, with Major General Andrew A. Humphreys, USA, and his 2nd US Army Corps under Lieutenant General Hiram U. Grant in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign.
The positions of the opposing forces on this date demonstrated vividly what superiority afloat had meant to the North in this giant struggle that decided the future of the nation. From his over-flowing advance bases on the James at City Point, only a few miles from General Lee's lines, General Grant was on the move for the final battle of the long saga in Virginia.
To the south in North Carolina backed by his seaport bases at New Bern and Wilmington, General Sherman's massive armies were joined to strike General Johnston at the capital city, Raleigh. In South Carolina and Georgia, Charleston and Savannah, key ports from colonial times, were Union bases fed from the sea.
Although constantly under attack by guerrillas along the Mississippi and its eastern tributaries, Federal gunboats kept the river lifeline open to the occupying armies. Trans-Mississippi, still largely held from invasion by the Confederates, was tightly blockaded by the Union Navy. Without control of the water, to paraphrase John Paul Jones, alas! united America. Fortunate indeed was the nation to have men ashore like Lincoln and Grant who made wide use of the irreplaceable advantages to the total national power that strength at sea imparted.
The CSS Shenandoah, Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell, put into Lea Harbor, Ascension Island, (Ponape Island, Eastern Carolines). A number of sail had been sighted from the cruiser's decks as she approached the island, and, Waddell reported,"...we began to think if they were not whale ships it would be a very good April fool." The Confederates had sighted only one vessel between 20 February, shortly after departing Melbourne, and this date. They were not disappointed. Waddell found the whalers Pearl, Hector, Harvest and Edward Carey in the harbor and seized them. The Confederates obtained vital charts from the four ships showing the location of the whaling grounds most frequented by American whalers. "With such charts in my possession," Waddell wrote, "I not only held a key to the navigation of all the Pacific Islands, the Okhotsk and Bering Seas, and the Arctic Ocean, but the most probable localities for finding the great Arctic whaling fleet of New England, without a tiresome search." In addition to obtaining this intelligence and the charts essential to future operations, Waddell stocked Shenandoah's depleted storerooms with provisions and supplies from the four prizes. The ships were then drawn upon a reef where the natives were permitted to strip them from truck halyards to copper sheathing on the keels. Of the 130 prisoners, 8 were shipped on board Shenandoah; the remainder were set ashore to be picked up by a passing whaler. The four stripped vessels, totaling $116,000 in value, were then put to the torch.
Fighting gamely on all fronts, the South also inflicted maritime losses elsewhere. The USS Rodolph, temporarily commanded by her executive officer, Acting Ensign James F. Thompson, struck a torpedo in the Blakely River, Alabama, and "...rapidly sank in 12 feet of water." The tinclad was towing a barge containing apparatus for the raising of USS Milwaukee, a torpedo victim on 28 March. Acting Master N. Mayo Dyer, Rodolph's commanding officer, reported that "from the effects of the explosion that can be seen, I should judge there was a hole through the bow at least 10 feet in diameter..." Four men were killed as a result of the sinking and eleven others were wounded. Rodolph, the third warship in five days to be lost in the same vicinity due to effective Confederate torpedo warfare, had played an important role in the continuing combined operations after the fall of Mobile Bay to Admiral Farragut on 5 August 1864. Arriving in the Bay, from New Orleans on 14 August, she had participated in forcing the surrender of Fort Morgan on 23 August. Acting Master's Mate Nathaniel B. Hinckley, serving on board Rodolph, told his son many years after the war that he had carried the Confederate flag from the captured fort and turned it over to a patrol boat. Rodolph had remained in the Bay and its tributaries as Union seapower projected General Canby's powerful army against the final defenses of the city of Mobile. Hinckley was stationed in the tinclad's forecastle when she struck the torpedo that sank her, but he escaped injury.
Page 1 of 1
Back to top
Follow SECRant for SEC Football News