Civil War History - General DiscussionFor Discussions on Civil War Era Personalities, Politics, Issues, Campaigns, Battles, and more. Serious Civil War Discussions Only Please! All other posts will be deleted.
Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union when a state convention votes 166 to 8 in favor of the measure.
The Texans who voted to leave the Union did so over the objections of their governor, Sam Houston. The hero of the Texas War for Independence was in his third term as the state's chief executive; a staunch Unionist, his election seemed to indicate that Texas did not share the rising secessionist sentiments of the other southern states.
But events in the year following Houston's election swayed many Texans to the secessionist cause. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859 raised the specter of a massive slave insurrection, and the ascendant Republican Party made many Texans uneasy about continuing in the Union. After Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, pressure mounted on Houston to call a convention so that Texas could consider secession. He did so reluctantly in January, and he sat in silence on February 1 as the convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Houston grumbled that Texans were "stilling the voice of reason," and he predicted an "ignoble defeat" for the South.
Texas' move completed the first round of secession. Seven states--South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas--left the Union before Lincoln took office. Four states--Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas-- waited until the formal start of the war with the firing on Ft. Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, before deciding to leave the Union. The remaining slave states--Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri--never mustered the necessary majority for secession.
Saturday, Feb. 1, 1862
RIVER RELATIONSHIPS REASONABLY RESPECTFUL
Union forces began preparations for the actual assault on Ft. Henry and Donelson. As the Confederate navy had so forces to speak of on the rivers of Tennessee, the effort would be unopposed. Flag Officer Foote wrote to Washington that the cooperative command with the Army was working smoothly, a fairly amazing development in itself.
President Lincoln today issued an order that another half-million men be drafted on or before March 10. The period of enlistment was to be three years, or the duration of the war. Pressure was also used to encourage troops whose time was nearly up to re-enlist on the same basis. At the beginning of the war, enlistments of nine, six, and even three months had been permitted.
Wednesday, Feb. 1, 1865
SHERMAN SURGES SERIOUSLY
After weeks of preparation, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman set out on his next mission. He moved wings of his armies to seem to threaten either Charleston, S.C, or Augusta, Ga--but his actual target was Columbia, S.C., capital of the Secession State. Defenders attempted to slow the Federals by felling trees across roads and burning bridges, but the only real threat was the flooded Savannah River, which slowed the advance of Gen. Henry Slocum on the left wing. http://www.civilwarinteractive.com/T...ateResults.asp
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
Flag Officer Andrew Foote, commander of the Union naval forces on the Mississippi and tributaries, held his gunboat crews to strict standards. He issued these orders to the four crews sailing today: “Let it also be distinctly impressed upon the mind of every man firing a gun that, while the first shot may be either of too much elevation or too little, there is no excuse for a second wild fire, as the first will indicate the inaccuracy of the aim of the gun...Let it be reiterated that random firing is not only a mere waste of ammunition, but, what is far worse, it encourages the enemy.”
Monday, Feb. 2, 1863
QUIXOTIC QUEEN QUEST QUASHED
Federal Col. C. R. Ellet took his ramship Queen of the West, covered her decks with confiscated cotton bales, and went under the guns of Vicksburg. Her mission: destroy the steamer “City of Vicksburg”. Alas, the ramming failed when the current caught the Queen’s stern and she lost momentum. She shot incendiaries at her foe, which proved not to be a great idea as it imediately started a tit-for-tat: the “City” shot incendiaries back and set the cotton bales on fire, nearly asphyxiating several of Ellet’s men. All fires were eventually extinguished and little harm was done.
Despite the vast superiority of the Union naval forces over the Confederate, as reflected in the ever-tightening noose that they were inflicting on shipments into Southern ports, things did not all go the Union way at this point in the war. On this day, Confederate navy men, manning inconspicuous small boats rather than great warships, snuck up on the U.S. gunboat “Underwriter”, boarded her and captured her in the Neuse River near New Berne, N.C. The intent was to sail her into Confederate port and switch her allegiance, but such was not to be the case. Unable to get underway, and threatened by other Union ships, they had no choice but to set her afire, sink her, and escape.
Gen. William T. Sherman’s march through Carolina was being slowed far more by foul weather and high rivers than the efforts of Confederate resistors. On this day his right wing, the 20th Corps under Gen. O. O. Howard, was on, if not in, the Salkehatchie River. Nasty skirmishing took place all along the river: Lawtonville, Barker’s Mill, Duck Branch, and Whippy Swamp. Nothing resembling full-scale resistance, however, was forthcoming.
On this day President Abraham Lincoln had received a letter from the King of Siam King Rama IV, who in an outburst of enthusiasm, had offered to contribute trained war elephants to the Union cause. Rama waxed eloquent about the beasts’ usefullness in construction as well as warfare. Lincoln wrote, in a masterpiece of tact, that he was unable to accept the offer, as his nation was at such a ******** “as does not...favor the multiplication of the elephant.” The letter had actually arrived late in the Buchanan administration, but like other problems he had left it for Lincoln to deal with.
Cmdr. Ellet’s <i>Queen of the West</i> had missed the chance to ram and sink <i>City of Vicksburg</i> and gone on downriver. Today was more productive: below the mouth of the Red River she caught three Confederate vessels, one empty, one loaded with tons of canned pork and live hogs, and the third filled with molasses, sugar, flour and cotton. After the crews and passengers were taken off, Ellet ordered all three ships, along with their cargos, burned. It is left to the imagination of the reader to contemplate the stench that wafted downwind from this conflagration.
On this day 26,000 men under Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman left Vicksburg, Miss., heading for *******n, with the purpose of tearing up railroads and generally wreaking all the havoc that opportunity presented to them. They were supposed to be accompanied by 7600 cavalrymen under the command of Gen. William Sooy Smith, but the horsemen were late in arriving for march. Sherman was already of the opinion that cavalry was a low, slow and unreliable fighting force. Smith’s delay did little to help matters.
On this day the Hampton Roads Conference took place. This extraordinary meeting brought President Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward, representing the Federals, together with Alexander Stephens, John Campbell and R.M.T. Hunter to speak for the South. On a ship off Hampton Roads, off Ft. Monroe, Va., the southerners proposed a joint mission of the two contries against the French in Mexico. This, they argued, would give the fighting men a common enemy to tackle, reduce the hostility levels, and accomplish what the Mexican War of the 1840’s had set out to do. Lincoln rejected the plan almost out of hand. He denied utterly the notion that there were two countries.
1865 : Hampton Roads Conference
President Lincoln meets with a delegation of Confederate officials to discuss a possible peace agreement. Lincoln refuses to grant the delegation any concessions, and the president departs for the north.
New York Tribune editor and abolitionist Horace Greeley provided the impetus for the conference when he contacted Francis Blair, a Maryland aristocrat and presidential adviser. Greeley suggested that Blair was the "right man" to open discussions with the Confederates to end the war. Blair sought permission from Lincoln to meet with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and he did so twice in January 1865. Blair suggested to Davis that an armistice be forged and the two sides turn their attention to removing the French-supported regime of Maximilian in Mexico. This plan would help cool tensions between North and South by providing a common enemy, he believed.
Meanwhile, the situation was becoming progressively worse for the Confederates in the winter of 1864 and 1865. In January, Union troops captured Fort Fisher and effectively closed Wilmington, North Carolina, the last major port open to blockade runners. Davis conferred with his vice president, Alexander Stephens, and Stephens recommended that a peace commission be appointed to explore a possible armistice. Davis sent Stephens and two others to meet with Lincoln at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
The meeting convened on February 3. Stephens asked if there was any way to stop the war and Lincoln replied that the only way was "for those who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease that resistance." The delegation underestimated Lincoln's resolve to make the end of slavery a necessary condition for any peace. The president also insisted on immediate reunification and the laying down of Confederate arms before anything else was discussed. In short, the Union was in such an advantageous position that Lincoln did not need to concede any issues to the Confederates. Robert M.T. Hunter, one of the delegation, commented that Lincoln was offering little except the unconditional surrender of the South.
After less than five hours, the conference ended and the delegation left with no concessions. The war continued for more than two months.
Sam, this is great stuff. Thank you very much for continuing to post. As you can see, we're reading it. One quick comment:
You posted that the US Navy boys had command of the Cumberland River leading to Dover:
"Saturday, Feb. 1, 1862
RIVER RELATIONSHIPS REASONABLY RESPECTFUL
Union forces began preparations for the actual assault on Ft. Henry and Donelson. As the Confederate navy had no forces to speak of on the rivers of Tennessee, the effort would be unopposed."
What they failed to take into account was a group of Dickson County, TN farm boys with a couple of mighty big cannons who practiced for two weeks before going into shoreline combat with this same navy. The Dickson boys were pretty good shots and blew the #### out of a few of those boats before they decided to draw back a bit from the riverbank. We could handle the navy for a while; it was Grant's army that caused more of a problem.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
Last edited by larry_cockerham; 02-03-2007 at 06:36 PM.
February 4 1861 : Provisional Confederate Congress convenes
The Confederate State of America is open for business when the Provisional Congress convenes in Montgomery, Alabama.
The official record read: "Be it remembered that on the fourth day of February, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the Capitol of the State of Alabama, in the city of Montgomery, at the hour of noon, there assembled certain deputies and delegates from the several independent South State of North America..."
The first order of business was drafting a constitution. They used the U.S. Constitution as a model, and most of it was taken verbatim. It took just four days to hammer out a tentative document to govern the new nation. The president was limited to one six-year term. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the word "slave" was used and the institution protected in all states and any territories to be added later. Importation of slaves was prohibited, as this would alienate European nations and would detract from the profitable "internal slave trade" in the South. Other components of the constitution were designed to enhance the power of the states--governmental money for internal improvements was banned and the president was given a line-item veto on appropriations bills.
The Congress then turned its attention to selecting a president. The delegates settled on Jefferson Davis, a West Point graduate who was the U.S. Secretary of War in the 1850s and a senator from Mississippi.
Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin was not a happy man. His responsibilities were wide-ranging, and little was going well in any of them. He issued today a ruling listing severe penalties for speculating in commodities that were in short supply. Prices were skyrocketing for many items, particularly saltpeter, which was needed for the manufacture of gunpowder. (John Harrolson had not yet started his project to collect the contents of chamberpots, which would make him immortal in song.) Benjamin also appealed to troops who had enlisted for short terms right after Fort Sumter; their enlistments were beginning to expire just as the need for manpower was increasing.
Wednesday, Feb. 4 1863
DUPONT DEMANDS DATA DELIVERY
A problem was arising with the Navy’s new ironclad ships: communications from them. Wooden ships had masts; they communicated with a code of flags of different shapes and colors which could be seen from a long distance when high on the mast. Ironclads, although a technological innovation of great significance, had a small problem: they had no masts to fly these flags from. Today Adm. Samuel DuPont had a brainstorm. He wrote to his Army counterpart, Maj. Gen. David Hunter, suggesting that the Navy adopt the Army Signal Corps system, which used just a few flags but which were waved back and forth in a coded system. An amazing thing then occurred: Hunter promptly agreed. The two made arragements to have Navy men attend Signal Corps school to learn the codes.
The pursuit of blockade-runners was a constant activity, not as well-remembered as many battles but more important in the course of the war than many of them. On this day the steamer Nutfield tried to run the gauntlet into New River Inlet, N.C. Lt. Commander Roe, though, was vigilant aboard the USS Secaucus and chased her till she ran aground. Unable to refloat her, Roe offloaded the cargo of quinine and rifles, and burned her to the waterline. The quinine in particular was of incalculable importance, far more so than a few muskets more or less. Quinine was the only treatment available for malaria for men on both sides. Ignorance of proper dosage, combined with the fact that there often just wasn’t enough to go around, resulted in men getting just enough quinine to get them back on their feet, but not enough to cure them.
Saturday, Feb. 4 1865
SHERMAN, SLOCUM, SUCCESSIVELY SLOG
As the implacable progress of Sherman proceeded northward, the weather began to dry out and he was able to regularize his lines. Slocum managed to get the rest of his men across the flooded Savannah River, which helped straighten out the lines. Slocum was now into higher, less swampy terrain, which allowed faster progress. As on the march through Georgia, Sherman’s men burned, looted, or destroyed any public structure they came across. Private homes, although normally relieved of any livestock, foodstuffs, or items of value that couldn’t be hidden in time, were, by order, not to be destroyed unless the occupants of the house fired on the Union troops.
Wednesday, Feb. 5 1862
VICTORIA VALIDATES VICARIOUS VIOLENCE
Just last week Victoria, Queen of England and head of the British Empire on which the sun still never set, and her government had declared her policy of neutrality towards the internal disputes of the United States. The first hope of the Confederate States of America for recognition by a foreign government was dashed. Today, quietly clearing the way for the massive profits that can accrue to neutral nations in time of war, she announced that, while there would be no taking of sides, there would also be no prohibitions against shipping gunpowder, arms, ammunition, or military supplies of any sort to the combatants.
Gen. Joseph Hooker was settling into his new job as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Today he completely rearranged it. The former system of dividing the army into Grand Divisions was abolished. In its place were set up a system of eight corps. Named commanders of same were Gen. John Reynolds, Darius Couch, George Meade, John Sedgwick, William Farrar “Baldy” Smith, Franz Sigel, Henry W. Slocum and the infamous Dan Sickles, whose major previous exprience with violence was shooting a man he caught having an affair with his wife. (He was acquitted of murder by pleading temporary insanity, the first time this plea was used in America.)
General William T. Sherman led his men this day on another leg of the trip from Vicksburg. Specifically, they left the vicinity of Bolton Depot and marched to *******n, a distance of some eighteen miles. There was still no formal, organized opposition to Sherman’s march. However, that did not mean that the people of the countryside were thrilled to have them come to visit. The entire trip was so plagued with snipers, traps, deadfalls and other impediments that the men referred to it as an eighteen-mile skirmish. They did, however, make it to *******n.
Boydton Plank Road, and the area known as Hatcher’s Run, were the assigned destination for the Federal II and V Corps today. Moving out from City Point, Va., and accompanied by a unit of cavalry, the two corps’ were the target of sniping and harassment, but little that even approached the level of skirmishing. The real point of the maneuver was to further extend the lines around what was left of Lee’s army, forcing him to extend and thin his lines in defense. The other, more subtle aspect of the well-publicized move was to rub in the point that while the South was desperately short of manpower, the North had whole army corps not yet devoted to the fight.
Union and Confederate forces around Petersburg, Virginia, begin a three-day battle that produces 3,000 casualties but ends with no significant advantage for either side.
Dabney's Mill was another attempt by Union General Ulysses S. Grant to break the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. In 1864, Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee pounded each other as they wheeled south around the cities. After a month of heavy battling that produced the highest casualty rates of the war, Grant and Lee settled into trenches around Petersburg. These lines eventually stretched 25 miles to Richmond, and the stalemate continued for 10 months. Periodically, Grant mounted offensives either to break through Lee's lines or envelope the ends. In June, August, and October, these moves failed to extricate the Confederates from their trenches.
Now, Grant sent cavalry under General David Gregg to capture a road that carried supplies from Hicksford, Virginia, into Petersburg. On February 5, Gregg moved and captured a few wagons along his objective, the Boydton Plank Road. He found little else, so he pulled back toward the rest of the Union army. Yankee infantry under General Gouverneur K. Warren also moved forward and probed the area at the end of the Confederate's Petersburg line. The Rebels responded by moving troops into the area. Skirmishes erupted that evening and the fighting continued for two more days as each side maneuvered for an advantage. The fighting surged back and forth around Dabney's Mill, but the Yankees were never able to penetrate the Confederate lines. The Union suffered 2,000 men killed, wounded, or captured, while the Confederates lost about 1,000. The battle did extend the Petersburg line a few miles to further stretch Lee's thin lines, but the stalemate continued for six more weeks before Grant's forces finally sent Lee racing west with the remnants of his army. The chase ended in April when Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House.
1862 : General Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Henry
General Ulysses S. Grant provides the first major Union victory of the war when he captures Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Ten days later, he captured Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, which gave the Yankees control of northern Tennessee and paved the way for the occupation of Nashville.
Thursday, Feb. 6,1862
THREATENED TILGHMAN TAKES TO TENNESSEE
Brig. Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, CSA, was in command of Ft. Henry, and U.S. Gen. Ulysses “Sam” Grant was on his way to pay a visit. Tilghman’s garrison was threatened from upriver, downriver, and even from the Tennessee River itself, which had invaded the partly-flooded fort. Excercising the better part of valor, he sent all but the sick, a few artillerists and himself to the stronger Ft. Donelson on the Cumberland River. He and the remaining men set about the defenses. Battle started about 11 a.m. with an attack by the U.S. Navy’s gunboats in the river. Tilghman managed to hit Foote’s boats with 59 shots, but was compelled to surrender by 2. Grant’s landbound forces,as it turned out, were stuck in the swamps and missed the fight completely.
The great powers of Europe were beginning to extend gracious offers of mediation to help the backward North Americans resolve their intramural squabbles. Yesterday, Queen Victoria had put a polite spin on things by saying to Parliament that “...it has not yet seemed to Her Majesty that any such overtures could be attended with a probability of success.” Today, Secretary of State Stewart informed the government of France that the kind offer of mediation extended by Napoleon III was being declined by Lincoln’s government. The South, while hoping for full diplomatic recognition from some government someplace, would have settled for negotiations, since it would have acknowledged their existence as a separate nation.
Saturday, Feb. 6, 1864
CONFEDERATE CONGRESS CONFISCATES CARGO
In Richmond on this day a law took effect that was intended to accomplish two things: display defiance toward the Federal government , and relieve the desperate shortage of supplies. In the first part of the law, it was declared illegal to use US paper money in any transaction. In the second, no export of cotton, tobacco, sugar, molasses or rice was to leave port unless the government was given half the proceeds of the sale of the total tonnage.
South of Petersburg today occurred the Battle of Hatcher’s Run. Gen. U. S. Grant was continuing to extend his lines in hopes of surrounding the Army of Northern Virginia. Robert Lee’s forces were doing what they could to impede this. Brig. Gen. John Pelgram, CSA, led his cavalry forces out, and was killed. His wedding to Hetty Caty had been the social event of the year in Richmond; his funeral took place in the same church. Hetty had been a bride for three weeks when she became a widow.
1862 : Confederates order reinforcements to Fort Donelson
One day after the fall of Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of Rebel forces in the west, orders 15,000 reinforcements to Fort Donelson. This fort lay on the Cumberland River just a few miles from Fort Henry. Johnston's decision turned out to be a mistake, as many of the troops were captured when the Fort Donelson fell to the Yankees on February 16.
During the fall and winter of 1861 to 1862, the Union army and navy penetrated through Kentucky and into Tennessee. Led by General Ulysses S. Grant, the Yankees were gaining crucial advantages by controlling parts of the major rivers in the upper South. Johnston sought to stop the bleeding of lost Confederate territory by strengthening the garrison inside Fort Donelson. In retrospect, his mistake was in not providing enough support to Donelson. Johnston wanted to buy time so he could gather his forces from eastern Kentucky and Tennessee to Nashville, which lay south and east of Fort Donelson. If Johnston had concentrated his force at Donelson, he would have had a significant advantage over Grant. Instead, Grant surrounded the fort and sent a squadron to attack from the river. On February 16, the Yankees cut off the fort from the south and forced the surrender of 15,000 Confederates.
Lt. S.L. Phelps, cruising the Tennessee River in command of the USS Conestoga, came upon three Confederate ships and trapped them. Their crews, determining that they were unable to save their ships, set them afire to keep them from capture and dove overboard. Two of them, Appleton Belle and Lynn Boyd, burned uneventfully. The third, Samuell Orr, was loaded with torpedoes. According to Phelps’ report, “..the whole river for half a mile around about was completely beaten up by the falling fragments and the shower of shot, grape, balls, etc.”
William Farrar (better known as “Baldy”) Smith had just recieved command of the newly reorganized Ninth Corps of the Federal army two days ago. On this day, Smith had his new command moved. In order to increase the percieved threat to the Confederate capital at Richmond, the Ninth Corps was taken out of the Army of the Potomac and transferred as an independent command to Newport News, Va.
Gen. George Pickett, whose division had been decimated in the charge at Gettysburg, had exaggerated somewhat if he actually said that day “General Lee, I have no division.” What forces he had left were still fighting for the Confederacy. On this day he had just returned from a foray (unsuccessful) to New Berne, N.C. He was then informed by a letter from President Davis that he was to detach two brigades to come to the defense of Richmond. The populace was alarmed by rumors that the Union prisoners there were plotting to escape and pillage the town.
As Grant continued to extend his forces around Petersburg, he backed off from an attempt to take Boydt Plank Road. He instead fell back and established fortified positions near Hatcher’s Run, below Burgess’ Mill. The effect of this was to force Lee to defend a line from Petersburg to Richmond of almost 37 miles. As Lee had only about 45,000 troops by now, this left the lines very thin indeed. They were still fighting, though: the last two days cost the Federals 170 killed, 1160 wounded and 182 unaccounted for. Confederate casualties are unknown, as records by this time were either never collected or soon destroyed.
Union General Ambrose Burnside scores a major victory when he captures Roanoke Island in North Carolina. The victory was one of the first major Union victories of the war and it gave the Yankees control of the mouth of Albemarle Sound, a key Confederate bay that allowed the Union to threaten the Rebel capital of Richmond from the south.
During the war's first winter, Union strategists focused their efforts on capturing coastal defenses to deny the Confederates sea outlets. In August 1861, the Yankees took two key forts on North Carolina's Outer Banks, paving the way for the campaign against Roanoke Island. On January 11, 1862, Burnside took a force of 15,000 and a flotilla of 80 ships down to the Outer Banks. The expeditionary force arrived at Hatteras Inlet on January 13, but poor weather delayed an attack for three weeks. On February 7, Burnside landed 10,000 on the island. They were met by about 2,500 Confederates. Burnside attacked, and his force overwhelmed the outer defenses of the island. Confederate commander Colonel Henry Shaw retreated to the north end of the island but had no chance to escape. Shaw surrendered the entire force.
The Yankees suffered 37 men killed and 214 wounded, while the Confederates lost 23 men killed and 62 wounded before the surrender. The Union now controlled a vital section of the coast. The victory came two days after Union General Ulysses S. Grant captured Fort Henry in northern Tennessee, and, for the first time in the war, the North had reason for optimism.
Gen. Ambrose Burnside attacked Roanoke Island today and captured it from Confederate forces. He collected some 2000 prisoners and 30 pieces of artillery from shore batteries. Although little remembered in later years, this battle was of considerable importance at the time. Following the capture of Fort Henry in the west the day before, news that the Federals now commanded the important approaches to Pamlico Sound and a back door to Richmond caused much gloom and doom in the South.
Sunday, Feb. 8 1863
CHICAGO CIRCULATION CRUELLY CURTAILED
Respect for the First Amendment was not considered absolute in these times. There were quite a number of cases in which newspapers, magazines and other periodicals were threatened, harassed, fined, arrested or otherwise aggravated in their pursuit of truth, justice, and their right to editorialize. On this day, circulation of the Chicago Times was suspended by military order. The offense was the publication of disloyal statements. Abraham Lincoln had first authorized the suspension of the right of habeus corpus, despite the fact that the Constitution allows only Congress to do so.
Commander Catesby ap R. Jones, of the Confederate Naval Gun Factory at Selma, Ala., wrote today to Admiral Buchanan at Mobile about the technological innovations the Federals were bringing to marine warfare. “The revolving turret enables the monitor class to bring their guns to bear withour reference to the movements or turning of the vessel. You who fought the Virginia know well how to appreciate that great advantage....”
The Federal House of Representatives today passed a resolution declaring that the states of the Confederacy were not entitled to representation in the Electoral College. There is no record of excessive grief being expressed about this development in the South. In the North, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts today ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the land.
Proving that “political generals” were not an exclusively Northern phenomenon, on this day Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, CSA, was appointed commander of Ft. Donelson. Pillow, whose education was in law, not war, had been the law partner of one James K. Polk. He helped Polk become president in 1844; two years later Polk made Pillow a general in the Mexican War. Pillow’s service at Donelson was, to put it mildly, undistinguished.
Admiral Samuel F. DuPont, commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, was not a happy man. His displeasure was shared by the men of his command, largely because both they and their ships were short of fuel. Oil for machinery was in even shorter supply than coal for their boilers. The men rejoiced to see a ship that was to bring them sugar, coffee, dried fruit and other rations. It was, alas, a different ship and carrying only munitions, which they already had in abundance.
Col. Thomas Rose, USA, came from Pennsylvania mining country. This background helped him engineer a tunnel out of the notorious Libby Prison in Richmond today. Escapees totalled 109, of whom 59 eventually made their way to Union territory; 48 were recaptured, and two were drowned during the escape. The tunnel’s outlet, alas, led out to the James River. The effort was of greater importance than the number of escapees would indicate: the people of Richmond had lived in terror of just such an escape, and now that it had actally occurred, panic was considerable.
Thursday, Feb. 9 1865
LEE’S LATE LABORS LETHARGIC
Today, with great reluctance, Gen. Robert E. Lee accepted his appointment as General-in-Chief of all the Confederate armies. He stated that he would continue to rely on the judgement and competence of the armies’ field commanders. He also stated that the shortage of manpower was becoming desperate, and proposed to pardon deserters if they would return to their units within 30 days. President Davis promptly approved, but the actual number of returnees was fairly slight.
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
