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"Edwin McMasters Stanton was confirmed by Congress as Secretary of War, two days after being nominated. Formerly Attorney General (during the Buchanan Administration), the choice had political elements of a most interesting nature. Stanton had made a number of public statements exceedingly critical of Lincoln. Moreover, he was quite well known to be a friend of Gen. McClellan, who was not devoid of political dreams of his own. Stanton would be a controversial figure in history--held by some analysts to be sneaky, dishonest and underhanded; regarded by others as one of the prime movers in the victory of the Union in the War. It is entirely possible that both are true."
1865
"Despite two days of relentless bombardment, Confederate forces wreaked havoc on the Naval landing force, killing many of the officers (who were leading the charge) and repelling the attack. In an unusual move, the first Union officer to breach the parapet of the installation was Navy Capt. Thomas Selfridge, but he was eventually driven off. As the southern defenders paused to celebrate this repulse they realized, horrified, that the Federal Army wing of the amphibious attack had occupied the other end of the fort. When they tried to rush to that end of the fort, pinpoint shelling from the Navy vessels began, killing and wounding many. It still took hours of hand to hand fighting to drive the last of Col. Lamb’s Confederates from the fort. Despite being himself wounded in the hip, Lamb did not finally surrender until nightfall. The fort’s only hope of succor would have been for Gen. Bragg to attack the US forces on the Cape Fear River side of the fort, but Bragg did not move."
" 1861 : Crittenden Compromise is killed in Senate
The Crittenden Compromise, the last chance to keep North and South together, dies in the U.S. Senate.
Proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, the compromise was a series of constitutional amendments. The amendments would continue the old Missouri Compromise provisions of 1820, which divided the west along the ******** of 36Ý 30". North of this line, slavery was prohibited. The Missouri Compromise was negated by the Compromise of 1850, which allowed a vote by territorial residents (popular sovereignty) to decide the issue of slavery. Other amendments protected slavery in the District of Columbia, forbade federal interference with the interstate slave trade, and compensated owners whose slaves escaped to the free states.
Essentially, the Crittenden Compromise sought to alleviate all concerns of the southern states. Four states had already left the Union when it was proposed, but Crittenden hoped the compromise would lure them back. Crittenden thought he could muster support from both South and North and avert either a split of the nation or a civil war. The major problem with the plan was that it called for a complete compromise by the Republicans with virtually no concession on the part of the South. The Republican Party formed in 1854 solely for the purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories, particularly the areas north of the Missouri Compromise line. Just six years later, the party elected a president, Abraham Lincoln, over the complete opposition of the slave states. Crittenden was asking the Republicans to abandon their most key issues.
The vote was 25 against the compromise and 23 in favor of it. All 25 votes against it were cast by Republicans, and six senators from states that were in the process of seceding abstained. One Republican editorial insisted that the party "cannot be made to surrender the fruits of its recent victory." There would be no compromise; with the secession of states continuing, the country marched inexorably towards civil war."
Dandridge, Tenn., and its environs was the scene of a sizeable cavalry battle on this day and the next. The Federal forces were somewhat undermanned because Gen. William Sooy Smith had led a cavalry expedition from Memphis towards *******n, Miss., where he would eventually run into trouble of his own with Nathan Bedford Forrest. Back and forth the action went today , extending nearly to Clark’s Ferry, and inflicting large numbers of casualties on both sides. At the end of the engagement the Federals withdrew to the area of Strawberry Plains, Tenn.
Monday, Jan. 16, 1865
FORT FISHER FIRE FATAL
Ft. Fisher, N.C. was not done killing Union soldiers. The conquering Federal forces, who had taken control of the facility on the second day of the third attempt, figured they had quite a bit of frustration to vent, and celebrating to do. They did not, however, pick a good place to do it. Their first action was to get as drunk as possible. This was followed by celebrations with such utensils were at hand, mostly shooting off pistols and other weapons. In the course of all this they continued looting everything left in the fort. Somehow in the festivities a spark from one of the guns fell into the main ammunition magazine, which promptly went up in a tremendous explosion. Casualties included 25 dead, 66 wounded, and 13 missing and never accounted for, for a total of at least 104 casualties."
Two groups of Union forces were on the move in Kentucky this day...or at least trying to. Troops of Grant’s command, under McClernand, struggled along through increasingly unpleasant weather and ground conditions. Theoretically, they made up one arm of a two-prong assault down the Mississippi, the overall intent of which was to take Vicksburg, Miss., and reclaim the Father of Waters for the union. In practical terms, Grant could not really have expected this to succeed, especially in one of the bitterest winters in memory. Afloat, gunboats under the overall command of Brig.Gen. C.F.Smith were working up the Tennessee River, intending to threated Ft. Henry. These ships represented the waterborne arm of the two-pronged assault. They were not making much progress: Ice was so bad on the Mississippi that shipping was blocked just below St. Louis."
General William T. Sherman's army is rained in at Savannah, Georgia, as it waits to begin marching into the Carolinas.
In the fall of 1864, Sherman and his army marched across Georgia and destroyed nearly everything in their path. Sherman reasoned that the war would end sooner if the conflict were taken to the civilian South, a view shared by President Lincoln and General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman's men tore up railroads, burned grain stores, carried away livestock, and left plantations in ruins. The Yankees captured the port city of Savannah just before Christmas, and Sherman paused for three weeks to rest his troops and resupply his force.
After his rest, he planned to move into the Carolinas and subject those states to the same brutal treatment that Georgia received. His 60,000 troops were divided into two wings. General Oliver O. Howard was to take two corps and move northeast to Charleston, South Carolina, while General Henry Slocum was to move northwest toward Augusta, Georgia. These were just diversions to the main target: Columbia, South Carolina.
As Sherman was preparing to move, the rains began. On January 17, the Yankees waited while heavy rains pelted the region. The downpour lasted for ten days, the heaviest rainfall in 20 years. Some of Sherman's aides thought a winter campaign in the Carolinas would be difficult with such wet weather, but Sherman had spent four years in Charleston as a young lieutenant in the army, and he believed that the march was possible. He also possessed an army that was ready to continue its assault on the Confederacy. Sherman wrote to his wife that he "...never saw a more confident army...The soldiers think I know everything and that they can do anything."
Sherman's army did not begin moving until the end of the month. When the army finally did move, it conducted a campaign against South Carolina that was worse than that against Georgia. Sherman wanted to exact revenge on the state that had led secession and started the war by firing on Fort Sumter."
"Wednesday Jan. 18 1865
SEMANTICS SNARLS SERENITY SUGGESTIONS
Very, very quietly did the peace missions go back and forth between Richmond and Washington. No press conferences were held, no photographs were taken, and there is no record of any argument over the shape of the table, largely because the negotiations consisted primarily of letters between Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. They were carried, however, by Francis Preston Blair, Sr., whose behind-the-scenes efforts throughout the course of the War are little-studied or appreciated even to this day. Today Blair, who had returned from one such trip on Monday, was headed back to see Davis again, with another letter. The one he had just brought back to Lincoln had held Davis’ offer to begin formal peace talks “between our two nations.” The one Lincoln wrote for Blair to carry today turned that offer down flat. Lincoln proposed instead to talk about peace as it pertained “to our one common country.” After spending four years of blood and pain upholding the principle that secession simply could not occur, Lincoln was not about to back down now."
This is a fine example of another battle that the yanks miss-named (such as Antietam vs. Sharpsburg). This one was called Fishing Creek by those who knew where they were at the time! Also, it happened to be one of the first major battles fought by troops newly recruited and sparsely trained from Middle Tennessee. Farmers going up against US soldiers, not a pretty thing.
__________________ 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
Union General Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac begins an offensive against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogs down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later.
The Union army was still reeling from the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. Burnside's force suffered more than 13,000 casualties as it assaulted Lee's troops along hills above Fredericksburg. Lee suffered only 5,000 casualties, making Fredericksburg one of the most one-sided engagements in the eastern theater of operations. Morale was very low among the Yankees that winter.
Now, Burnside sought to raise morale and seize the initiative from Lee. His plan was to swing around Lee's left flank and draw the Confederates away from their defenses and into the open. Speed was essential to the operation. January had been a dry month to that point, but as soon as the Federals began to move, a drizzle turned into a downpour that last for four days. Logistical problems delayed the laying of a pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock River, and a huge traffic jam snarled the army's progress. In one day, the 5th New York moved only a mile and a half. The roads became unnavigable, and conflicting orders caused two corps to march across each others' paths. Horses, wagons, and cannon were stuck in mud, and the element of surprise was lost. Jeering Confederates taunted the Yankees with shouts and signs that read "Burnside's Army Stuck in the Mud."
Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another. The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, "strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion." The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside was removed as commander of the army on January 25."
Two Confederate ships drive away two Union ships as the Rebels recapture Sabine Pass, Texas, and open an important port for the Confederacy.
Sabine Pass lay at the mouth of the Sabine River along the gulf coast of Texas. The Confederates constructed a major fort there in 1861. In September 1862, a Union force captured the fort and, shortly after, the port of Galveston to the southwest. The Yankees now controlled much of the Texas coast. In November, General John Bankhead Magruder arrived to change Southern fortunes in the area. Magruder was an early Confederate hero in Virginia, and now he was assigned the difficult task of expelling the Federals from Sabine Pass and Galveston.
Magruder's efforts paid quick dividends. He recaptured Galveston and then turned his attention to Sabine Pass. The decks of two ships, the Bell and the Uncle Ben, were stacked with cotton bales. Sharpshooters were placed behind the bales and the ships steamed towards two Union ships, the Morning Light and the Velocity. Some of the sharpshooters became seasick and had to be removed, but the expedition continued. The Confederates chased the Yankee ships into open water, and the sharpshooters injured many Union gunners. After a one-hour battle, both Union ships surrendered. Magruder's victory reopened the Texas coast for Confederate shipping.
The Union tried to recapture Sabine Pass later in the year, but the effort was thwarted when less than 50 Confederates inside the fort at Sabine Pass held off a much larger Union force.
Tuesday Jan. 21, 1862
WESTERN WATER WARFARE WARMING
Activities were heating up (although the weather was not) on the Mississippi River as U.S. Gen. U.S. Grant wanted to get an early start on the campaign. Although the ultimate objective was to have the river completely back under Union control, and the eastern Confederacy cut off from the west, it was obviously going to be a long project. Today Lt. S. L. Phelps returned with his ironclad gunboat USS “Conestoga” returned from patrol to report. His assignment was to probe the area and defenses of Ft. Donelson. He informed Flag Officer Foote that in his estimation, the best means of attack would be from boat-borne mortars. Foote had only one problem applying this information to the project: he didn’t have any mortars, and didn’t have any boats that could be refitted in time to carry them if he did, at least not in time to meet the schedule for the attack on the fort.
Wednesday Jan. 21 1863
BRAGG’S BEHAVIOR BRINGS BAD BOTHER
Braxton Bragg had fought the battle of Murfreesboro back at the first of the year. His troops had fought well, and really seemed like they were going to accomplish a clear-cut win for awhile, and Bragg had gone so far as to send a telegram to Richmond to that effect. However, in the end he had concluded that the forces available were not enough to hold the area securely,and the men had withdrawn. His officers were so infuriated by this, as well as other troubles they had had with Bragg’s leadership, that they send a mass protest to Jefferson Davis. Davis responded today by assigning Gen. Joseph E. Johnston to proceed to the army’s camp and investigate the whole matter. Not only did Davis state publicly that there was a lack of confidence between Bragg and his officers which needed to be cleared up, his choice of Johnston to do the investigating sent a clear signal: Johnston and Bragg did not like each other even a little bit.
U.S. Gen. William T. Sherman, when setting forth from Atlanta, had ordered his men to leave everything but weapons and ammunition behind, discouraging even the carrying of tents. The one group that could not be subjected to this rule, however, was his administrative staff. Reports still had to be made, documents kept, files maintained, and desks transported to do all this writing on. As the armies pulled out of Savannah today this staff again got special treatment. They got to leave by boat, headed for Beaufort, S.C., with a stop at Hilton Head Island. The soldiers, naturally, had to go by foot, and it was raining.
Confederate General John A. McCausland dies in Mason, West Virginia. He lived for over 50 years after the war and remained an unreconstructed rebel at the time of his death.
Nicknamed "Tiger John," McCausland was born to Irish immigrants in St. Louis and moved to Virginia as an adolescent. He attended the Virginia Military Institute and graduated in 1857. When the war began, he organized an artillery regiment and formed the 36th Virginia from the western part of the state. Now a colonel, McCausland spent most of the war in the mountainous region of western Virginia. On May 9, 1864, McCausland distinguished himself at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain. For the victory, he was promoted to brigadier general.
Two bold actions defined McCausland's career. First, in June 1864, he drove a larger Union force commanded by General David Hunter from Lynchburg, Virginia, earning him the undying gratitude of the city. He then joined General Jubal Early's invasion of Maryland in July. Early dispatched McCausland and his cavalry to Hagerstown to exact a $200,000 ransom from city officials. McCausland rode into Hagerstown and delivered his hand-written note to authorities. Unfortunately, he accidentally omitted a zero--only $20,000 was secured. McCausland then moved on to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and pulled his second notorious feat--he tried to extort more than $500,000 from Chambersburg, and he burned the city when he did not receive the money.
McCausland joined General Robert E. Lee for the Confederates' last desperate attempt to escape in early 1865. He broke through the Union lines near Appomattox and surrendered later at Charleston, West Virginia, after many Rebels had laid down their arms. After the war, McCausland, facing an indictment for the burning of Chambersburg, fled to Canada, Britain, and then Mexico. He returned to the U.S. in 1868 after he was told that he would not be prosecuted for his war crimes. He settled on a farm in West Virginia and lived as a recluse for the rest of his life. He stubbornly defended the Confederate cause until his death. He died 13 months before Felix Robertson, the last surviving Confederate general.
Wednesday, Jan. 22 1862
HYDROLOGICAL HEIGHT HINDERS “HENRY” HUNT
The USS “Lexington” set forth to perform reconnaisance in advance of the planned attack on Ft. Henry, Tenn., with Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith in charge of the project and Lt. Shirk assisting him. It was a hard winter, with much snow in the mountains and rain in the lowlands; the river was very high, and still rising. This hampered the effort, but not so much that the “Lexington” and the other union gunboats were prevented from firing a few mortar rounds at Ft. Henry. In other Naval action, Lt. Worden reported to his superiors that construction of the radical new gunboat “Monitor” was progressing on schedule. The only delay was caused by late delivery of the 11-inch guns with which the ship would be armed.
Thursday, Jan. 22, 1863
“MUD MARCH” MORTIFICATION MASSIVE
The last time U.S. Gen. Ambrose Burnside ordered his men across the Rappahannock River from Falmouth to Fredericksburg it cost the lives of around 1300 of them and wounds to 9600 more. The best idea he could come up with now? Attack Fredericksburg again. Burnside’s latest attempt to take his army across the Rappahannock was officially declared a failure today. The ceaseless rains had made it beyond human ability to move wagons and artillery on the mud-filled roads. Ironically, the mere attempt had caused great alarm in the Confederacy. Burnside’s concern now was how to get the army back to their camp opposite Fredericksburg. The term “mud march” was already entering history
Friday, Jan. 22, 1864
MAJOR MISSOURI MANEUVERS MADE
In a major shake-up of military commands in the western areas of the Union, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans was appointed military governor of the Department of the Missouri. Missouri was something of a booby prize for Union generals being kicked upstairs out of combat command. This territory, although no longer under attack by official “Confederate” military forces, was riddled with militia units which had started out as “home guards” but in too many cases degenerated into bands of armed thugs. In addition, it had its own mini-civil war going on between different factions of Union supporters. The former officer, Maj. Gen. J. M. Schofield, fared no better than his numerous predecessors had at managing the mess. He would shortly be reassigned to the larger but calmer Department of the Ohio.
As if Missouri did not have enough trouble and woe to contend with, it had U.S. Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck to contend with. Halleck was “commander of the Department of Missouri”, essentially the military governor of the state. As such, he had a wide range of powers and no apparent hesitation about using them. He had suspended habeas corpus several weeks earlier. He had also imposed an assessment, levied on "pro-Southerners", for the relief of pro-Northern refugees from areas of fighting. While there were indeed large numbers of refugees whose homes had been destroyed, or communities were in such disarray that they feared for their lives, this affected adherents of both sides. Payments had been slow in coming, and today he ordered the confiscation of property and even the arrest of “pro-Southerners” who had not yet paid, to make up the difference.
Friday, Jan 23 1863
“MUD MARCH” MAKING MEN MAD, MILITARY MISERABLE
As the Army of the Potomac continued to slog back to camp after what was even now becoming known as the “Mud March”, U.S. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was quite depressed about the lack of successful conclusion to the project. He came up with a solution, though: he sent a request to Lincoln that Generals Joseph Hooker, William B. Franklin, W. F. Smith and others be fired, demoted, or transferred. Hooker in particular Burnside wanted removed from the service altogether. Lincoln quietly ignored the tirade, and the orders were never acted upon. Although it was little consolation to either Burnside or his wet, exhausted and shivering troops, the movement had caused tremendous consternation among the Confederate commanders.
President Lincoln announced today a plan which would allow slaveowners in Union territory to manumit their slaves, then re-hire them as free laborers to get plantations and farms back into production. He urged the military commanders of the various departments and territories to support the system and publicize it in their areas. This was just the latest in a succession of plans (what might today be called “trial balloons”) which Lincoln proposed in an attempt to solve the “Negro problem.” Lincoln, like nearly all whites including ardent abolitionists, found it inconceivable that black and white could ever live as equals. The buyout plan did not fly and was quietly abandoned.
Monday, Jan. 23, 1865
TAYLOR TACKLES TROUBLED TENNESSEE
Confederate Lieut. Gen. Richard Taylor was appointed today to take over command of the Army of Tennessee, following the resignation of John Bell Hood in the wake of the latter’s disastrous loss of the Battle of Nashville. The army in question, though, was a wreck. The proud Tennesseeans had numbered 38,000 less than three months ago. After the disastrous Battle of Franklin, in which six generals were killed in a single day, the army had lost 6200; after Nashville they were down in membership to barely 17,700 men. Many who escaped death, wounding, sickness or capture simply took off for home to protect their families. Taylor’s orders were to take the remnants to the Carolinas to try to stop Sherman’s advance. Barely 5000 made it there.
Confederate General John Bell Hood is officially removed as commander of the Army of Tennessee. He had requested the removal a few weeks before; the action closed a sad chapter in the history of the Army of Tennessee.
A Kentucky native, Hood attended West Point and graduated in 1853. He served in the frontier army until the outbreak of the Civil War. Hood resigned his commission and became a colonel commanding the 4th Texas Infantry. Hood's unit was sent to the Army of Northern Virginia, where it fought during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. Hood, now a brigadier general, built a reputation as an aggressive field commander. He distinguished himself during the Seven Days' battle in June, and was given command of a division. His counterattack at Antietam in September may have saved Robert E. Lee's army from total destruction.
After being severely wounded at Gettysburg in July 1863, Hood was transferred to the Army of Tennessee. He was soon wounded again, losing a leg at Chickamauga in September. Hood was promoted to corps commander for the Atlanta campaign of 1864, and was elevated to commander of the army upon the removal of Joseph Johnston in July. Over the next five months, Hood presided over the near destruction of that great Confederate army. He unsuccessfully attacked General William T. Sherman's army three times near Atlanta, relinquished the city after a month-long siege, then took his army back to Tennessee in the fall to draw Sherman away from the deep South. Sherman dispatched part of his army to Tennessee, and Hood lost two disastrous battles at Franklin and Nashville in November and December 1864.
There were about 65,000 soldiers in the Army of Tennessee when Hood assumed command in July. On January 1, a generous assessment would count 18,000 men in the army. The Confederate Army of Tennessee was no longer a viable fighting force.
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