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Jefferson Davis receives word that he has been selected president of the new Confederate States of America.
Davis was at his plantation, Brierfield, pruning rose bushes with his wife Varina when a messenger arrived from nearby Vicksburg. It was not a job he wanted, but he accepted it out of a sense of duty to his new country. Varina later wrote that she saw her husband's face grow pale and she recalled, "Reading that telegram he looked so grieved that I feared some evil had befallen our family. After a few minutes he told me like a man might speak of a sentence of death."
Davis said of the job: "I have no confidence in my ability to meet its requirement. I think I could perform the function of a general." He could see the difficulties involved in launching the new nation. "Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles innumerable. We are without machinery, without means, and threatened by powerful opposition but I do not despond and will not shrink from the task before me."
Davis was prescient in his concerns. He drew sharp criticism during the war--Alexander Stephens, the vice president, said Davis was "weak and vacillating, timid, petulant, peevish, obstinate," and Stephens declared that he held "no more feeling of resentment toward him" than he did toward his "poor old blind and deaf dog."
Cmdr. Rowan, in the USS Delaware, looked around the morning after Roanoke Island was taken, and saw several Confederate ships running for cover. He took off in pursuit up the Pasquotank River. Rowan and his force of Marines caught up with the fleet of Flag Officer Lynch, CSN. Lynch made it as far as Elizabeth City, NC. before Rowan caught him. The CSS Ellis was captured, the Seabird was sunk, and CSS Black Warrior, Fanny and Forrest were burnt to prevent capture.
Admiral Samuel duPont was forced to write a rather unpleasant letter to headquarters today. He was trying to run a large force of ships for the serious job of blockading the South Atlantic coast of the Confederacy, and it was becoming increasingly difficult. “We have been out of oil for machinery. Coal is not more essential...We were purchasing [lubricating oil] from transports or wherever it could be found, two or three barrels at a time. My commanding officers complain that their wants are not supplied...”
Volunteer firefighter Abraham Lincoln dashed out of the White House this evenIng to assist when flames broke out in the stables attached to the White House grounds. Despite the assistance of other Executive employees, as well as the District of Columbia fire department, casualties amounted to six horses and ponies. Lincoln, already distraught because his son had come down with typhoid, was seen with tears in his eyes.
Charleston Harbor was not a happy place to be for the Southern defenders on this day. By land, they had to face the seemingly unstoppable army of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. If the view in that direction was not depressing enough, they had only to look out into the harbor to see James Island and Johnston’s Station, which were threatened by Union naval forces.
Location: nope, this ain't it toto. Get back in the truck.
Posts: 93
Tuesday, Feb. 11 1862
DUAL DONELSON DOOM DESCENDS
Repeating the pairing that had been sucessful in the attack on Fort Henry, Gen. McClernand set out at the head of Grant’s land forces as Flag Officer Foote’s gunboats took the longer water route. The boats had to go back down the Tennessee River to Paducah, up the Ohio a brief way, then up the Cumberland River to Donelson. The land route was only about 10 miles, which sounded unimpressive until the soldiers saw what awful land it was to try to traverse.
Supplies were getting to be a problem everywhere in the South--even for the Northern naval forces holding the blockade line. On the Mississippi, Admiral D.D. Porter was having severe difficulties keeping his ships’ boilers supplied with coal. He ordered an extra 16,000 bushels of coal delivered to him on the Yazoo River from Cairo, Il, besides the normal monthly alottment, but had no assurance of getting either shipment, or any at all. Freezing on the rivers was nearly as big a problem as Confederate fire.
Thursday, Feb. 11 1864
DESPERATE DAVIS DODGING DUO
President Jefferson Davis sent an urgent letter to Gen. Joseph Johnston today, imploring that the Federal advance into Mississippi be stopped at all costs. His fear was that Sherman would get through to the Gulf and establish a base. Sherman in fact had no such plan, but he was moving on *******n, Miss., while Gen. W. Sooy Smith’s column was moving from Memphis to Collierville, Tenn.
The Confederacy had two groups of forces on either side of Sherman’s army marching through South Carolina: one on the coast in Charleston and the other in Augusta Ga. Neither was of sufficient size to offer any real opposition. There were differences of opinion as to how to proceed: President Davis advised uniting the two groups in Charleston and fighting Sherman there; Gen. Beauregard advocating evacuating Charleston and saving the men to fight another day. The South, he said, could not afford to lose another army. The fact that the South could not afford to lose many more major cities was, presumably, something he tried not to think about.
U. S. Grant’s Federal army, under the command of Gen. McClernand, was on this day arrayed on the hills around the west side of Ft. Donelson. The delay was caused by the fact that the gunboats, which had left Ft. Henry at the same time as the army, had to travel about eight times further to arrive. Although the Confederate defenders could still enter and exit the fort to the east, it was in fact under seige.
The USS Queen of the West, although unsuccessful as a ramship last week, was still an implacable hunter on the waters and tributaries of the Mississippi. Today she took a jaunt up the Red River. Her commander, Col. C.R. Ellet, took a landing party as far as the Atchafalaya, where he came upon a Confederate wagon train. The twelve wagons were destroyed, along with seventy barrels of beef, ammunition and stores from another train.
Shortages of almost every conceivable material were plaguing the Confederacy by this stage of the war. Among the annoyances was a lack of proper cloth to use for cartridge bags, which held gunpowder required to fire naval guns. Today Cmdr. John Brooke of the Confederate Office of Ordnance and Hydrograpy wrote to France for 22,00- yards of material, to be sent by 22 different ships to keep it from all being lost to capture.
A Confederate force under Lt. Charles W. Read had loaded four torpedo boats onto wagons and hauled them across Drewry’s Bluff, intending to use them to attack Union boats on the James River. Caught by a sleet storm today, they hid in a barn. A young Confederate soldier came to tell them that one of their scouts had been captured and Union troops knew all about the plan and lay in wait for them at the James. Were it not for the storm, they would have walked straight into the trap.
The attack on Ft. Donelson began today. The gunboat Carondelet started the morning with a bombardment. This was followed by an attack by Grant’s forces, led by C.F. Smith on the left and McClernand on the right. In an unusual move the Confederates changed commanders in the middle of the battle, when Gen. John B. Floyd arrived with reinforcements and assumed command from Gen. Pillow. The change failed to lead to any improvement in the Confederate situation.
Friday, Feb. 13 1863
INTACT INDIANOLA IS INVINCIBLE
The union gunboat USS Indianola, commanded by George Brown, was in a rather tricky position. She was serving as a tugboat, ignominiously enough, and needed to get past Vicksburg to deliver supplies. Brown simply waited for nightfall, got up steam, and ran the river. Despite heavy Confederate fire, his ship and the three barges she had in tow passed the city untouched.
Saturday, Feb. 13 1864
CHUNKY CREEK COMBAT COMMENCES
Gen. William T. Sherman’s forces continued their progress through Mississippi today. This particular stretch was known as the *******n Campaign, for the excellent reason that that was their next objective. On this day heavy fighting flared at Chunky Creek, Miss., with additional combat taking place at Wayne.
Monday, Feb. 13 1865
CONGAREE CROSSING COMING CLOSE
Today Gen. Sherman was marching through South Carolina, approaching the banks of the Congaree River. All the forces the South had available, Beauregard in Atlanta, Hardee in Charleston and Fort Sumter, even the great cavalryman Wade Hampton, who had been sent South to help with the defense, seemed unable to do anything to stop or even slow the implacable Sherman. After crossing the Congaree, he would make clear his target: Columbia, the capital. At this point, though, nobody had a clue where he was headed.
Both of you were beat to it by civilwarinteractive.com. Anyone wishing to pick a day and see what happened can get on cwt and find out.
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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If I took over the thread, at that time I would be hit by a bus crossing the street and it wouldn't get done..
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