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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 6/5/15 at 9:01 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 6/5/15 at 9:01 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Tuesday, 6 June 1865
Notorious Confederate partisan guerrilla leader, William Clarke Quantrill, dies while in Federal captivity in Louisville, Kentucky, from wounds received while being captured by Federal irregular troops near Taylorsville, in Spencer County, Kentucky, on 10 May 1865.
Leader of perhaps the most savage fighting unit in the Civil War, Quantrill developed a style of guerrilla warfare that terrorized civilians and soldiers alike. Quantrill was born in 1837 in Ohio, but little is known of his early life. It appears that after being a schoolteacher for several years, he traveled to Utah in 1858 with an army wagon train and there made his living as a gambler, using the alias of Charles Hart. After a year, he moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where he was again a schoolteacher from 1859 to 1860. But his past and predisposition soon caught up with him and, wanted for murder and horse theft, Quantrill fled to Missouri in late 1860.
Quantrill entered the War Between the States on the Confederate side with great enthusiasm. By late 1861, he was the leader of Quantrill's Raiders, a small force of no more than a dozen men who continuosly harassed Union soldiers and sympathizers along the Kansas-Missouri border and often clashed with Jayhawkers, the pro-Union guerrilla bands that reversed Quantrill's tactics by staging raids from Kansas into Missouri. Union forces soon declared him an outlaw, and the Confederacy officially made him a captain. To his supporters in Missouri, he was a dashing, free-spirited hero.
The climax of Quantrill's guerilla career came on August 21, 1863, when he led a force of 450 raiders into Lawrence, Kansas, a stronghold of pro-Union support and the home of Senator James H. Lane, whose leading role in the struggle for free-soil in Kansas had made him a public enemy to pro-slavery forces in Missouri. Lane managed to escape, racing through a cornfield in his nightshirt, but Quantrill and his men killed 183 men and boys, dragging some from their homes to murder them in front of their families, and set the torch to much of the city.
The Lawrence Massacre led to swift retribution, as Union troops forced the residents of four Missouri border counties onto the open prairie while Jayhawkers looted and burned everything they left behind. Quantrill and his raiders took part in the Confederate retaliation for this atrocity, but when Union forces drove the Confederates back, Quantrill fled to Texas. His guerrilla band broke up into several smaller units, including one headed by his vicious lieutenant, "Bloody Bill" Anderson, known for wearing a necklace of Yankee scalps into battle.
Even after his death, Quantrill and his followers remained almost folk heroes to their supporters in Missouri, and something of this celebrity later rubbed off on several ex-Raiders -- the James brothers, Frank and Jesse, and the Younger brothers, Cole and Jim -- who went on in the late 1860's to apply Quantrill's hit-and-run tactics to bank and train robbery, building on his legacy of bloodshed a mythology of the Western outlaw that remains fixed in the popular imagination.
After landing in Vera Cruz, Matthew Fontaine Maury proceeded to Mexico City. He was confident that Emperor Maximilian would give him a warm welcome. In December 1857 the then Archduke and head of the Austrian Navy had sent a present to Maury for his wife, and wrote: "I have observed, with intense interest and admiration, your noble and unequaled efforts, in order to forward the improvement of the scientific part of our profession. I trust you will accept this little present as a token of my gratitude towards a man whom all seafaring nations are bound to look upon with respect and thankfulness."
Maury proposed to offer his services not only as a torpedo expert but also on a broader scale that would be of far reaching benefit to his own loved people and to the new Empire--the emigration of Confederates to Mexico. At the time, it appeared to him that he might never be able to return home because of the several categories that applied to exclude him from the amnesty, including his leadership in the development of torpedoes and his overseas intrigue. Throughout this summer he received communications from home advising against his return. For example, on 19 June his daughter Elizabeth Herndon Maury wrote: "Don't trust to any parole or any promise. General Curtis of the U.S. Army, who is staying here, said to me this morning that you ought not to come under any circumstances. General Lee said to me the other day, 'Mrs. Maury, tell your father from me not to think of coming home.'"
Citizens of Missouri ratify a new state constitution abolishing slavery.
Confederate prisoners of war who are willing to take the oath of allegiance are declared released by President Andrew Johnson. Officers above the rank of army captain or navy lieutenant were exceptions.
Major General John Hartranft, concluding that the Lincoln conspirator prisoners were suffering too much while wearing hoods during the trial, ordered them removed.
Notorious Confederate partisan guerrilla leader, William Clarke Quantrill, dies while in Federal captivity in Louisville, Kentucky, from wounds received while being captured by Federal irregular troops near Taylorsville, in Spencer County, Kentucky, on 10 May 1865.
Leader of perhaps the most savage fighting unit in the Civil War, Quantrill developed a style of guerrilla warfare that terrorized civilians and soldiers alike. Quantrill was born in 1837 in Ohio, but little is known of his early life. It appears that after being a schoolteacher for several years, he traveled to Utah in 1858 with an army wagon train and there made his living as a gambler, using the alias of Charles Hart. After a year, he moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where he was again a schoolteacher from 1859 to 1860. But his past and predisposition soon caught up with him and, wanted for murder and horse theft, Quantrill fled to Missouri in late 1860.
Quantrill entered the War Between the States on the Confederate side with great enthusiasm. By late 1861, he was the leader of Quantrill's Raiders, a small force of no more than a dozen men who continuosly harassed Union soldiers and sympathizers along the Kansas-Missouri border and often clashed with Jayhawkers, the pro-Union guerrilla bands that reversed Quantrill's tactics by staging raids from Kansas into Missouri. Union forces soon declared him an outlaw, and the Confederacy officially made him a captain. To his supporters in Missouri, he was a dashing, free-spirited hero.
The climax of Quantrill's guerilla career came on August 21, 1863, when he led a force of 450 raiders into Lawrence, Kansas, a stronghold of pro-Union support and the home of Senator James H. Lane, whose leading role in the struggle for free-soil in Kansas had made him a public enemy to pro-slavery forces in Missouri. Lane managed to escape, racing through a cornfield in his nightshirt, but Quantrill and his men killed 183 men and boys, dragging some from their homes to murder them in front of their families, and set the torch to much of the city.
The Lawrence Massacre led to swift retribution, as Union troops forced the residents of four Missouri border counties onto the open prairie while Jayhawkers looted and burned everything they left behind. Quantrill and his raiders took part in the Confederate retaliation for this atrocity, but when Union forces drove the Confederates back, Quantrill fled to Texas. His guerrilla band broke up into several smaller units, including one headed by his vicious lieutenant, "Bloody Bill" Anderson, known for wearing a necklace of Yankee scalps into battle.
Even after his death, Quantrill and his followers remained almost folk heroes to their supporters in Missouri, and something of this celebrity later rubbed off on several ex-Raiders -- the James brothers, Frank and Jesse, and the Younger brothers, Cole and Jim -- who went on in the late 1860's to apply Quantrill's hit-and-run tactics to bank and train robbery, building on his legacy of bloodshed a mythology of the Western outlaw that remains fixed in the popular imagination.
After landing in Vera Cruz, Matthew Fontaine Maury proceeded to Mexico City. He was confident that Emperor Maximilian would give him a warm welcome. In December 1857 the then Archduke and head of the Austrian Navy had sent a present to Maury for his wife, and wrote: "I have observed, with intense interest and admiration, your noble and unequaled efforts, in order to forward the improvement of the scientific part of our profession. I trust you will accept this little present as a token of my gratitude towards a man whom all seafaring nations are bound to look upon with respect and thankfulness."
Maury proposed to offer his services not only as a torpedo expert but also on a broader scale that would be of far reaching benefit to his own loved people and to the new Empire--the emigration of Confederates to Mexico. At the time, it appeared to him that he might never be able to return home because of the several categories that applied to exclude him from the amnesty, including his leadership in the development of torpedoes and his overseas intrigue. Throughout this summer he received communications from home advising against his return. For example, on 19 June his daughter Elizabeth Herndon Maury wrote: "Don't trust to any parole or any promise. General Curtis of the U.S. Army, who is staying here, said to me this morning that you ought not to come under any circumstances. General Lee said to me the other day, 'Mrs. Maury, tell your father from me not to think of coming home.'"
Citizens of Missouri ratify a new state constitution abolishing slavery.
Confederate prisoners of war who are willing to take the oath of allegiance are declared released by President Andrew Johnson. Officers above the rank of army captain or navy lieutenant were exceptions.
Major General John Hartranft, concluding that the Lincoln conspirator prisoners were suffering too much while wearing hoods during the trial, ordered them removed.
1
Posted on 6/6/15 at 9:05 pm to BadLeroyDawg
Wednesday, 7 June 1865
The West Florida Seminary buildings in Tallahassee have now been expropriated by the Federal military and are being used as barracks. According to reports, the school furniture and most of the laboratory equipment have been ransacked and destroyed.
United States Secretary of War Edward M. Stanton appoints Major General George H. Thomas to the command of the Tennessee Military Division, embracing Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, with his headquarters at Nashville. The Department of Florida, now assigned to Major General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, includes the entire state; Humphreys commands from Tallahassee.
Lieutenant Commander William E. Fitzhugh, piloting the U.S.S. Ouachita, seizes the Confederate ship Cotton (No. 2) and takes her to the mouth of the Red River. She had been purchased by the Confederate Navy, but the stipulated payment had not been made and for this reason she was returned to her former owners by Lieutenant Jonathan H. Carter, CSN, prior to surrendering the naval forces. Fitzhugh justifies his seizure of the vessel on the basis that she had been employed in military operations against the Union.
The West Florida Seminary buildings in Tallahassee have now been expropriated by the Federal military and are being used as barracks. According to reports, the school furniture and most of the laboratory equipment have been ransacked and destroyed.
United States Secretary of War Edward M. Stanton appoints Major General George H. Thomas to the command of the Tennessee Military Division, embracing Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, with his headquarters at Nashville. The Department of Florida, now assigned to Major General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, includes the entire state; Humphreys commands from Tallahassee.
Lieutenant Commander William E. Fitzhugh, piloting the U.S.S. Ouachita, seizes the Confederate ship Cotton (No. 2) and takes her to the mouth of the Red River. She had been purchased by the Confederate Navy, but the stipulated payment had not been made and for this reason she was returned to her former owners by Lieutenant Jonathan H. Carter, CSN, prior to surrendering the naval forces. Fitzhugh justifies his seizure of the vessel on the basis that she had been employed in military operations against the Union.
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