Civil War events of note on this date.

[william42]

February 16, 1862

Capture of Fort Donelson

General Ulysses S. Grant finishes a spectacular campaign by capturing Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in Tennessee. This battle came ten days after Grant's capture of Fort Henry, just ten miles to the west on the Tennessee River, and opened the way for Union occupation of central Tennessee.

After Grant surround Fort Henry and forced the surrender of 100 men, he moved east to the much more formidable Fort Donelson. The fort sat on a high bluff and had a garrison of 6,000. After the fall of Fort Henry, an additional 15,000 reinforcements were sent to aid Fort Donelson. Grant crossed the narrow strip of land between the two rivers with only about 15,000 troops. One of Grant's officers, Brigadier General John McClernand, initiated the battle on February 13 when he tried to capture a Rebel Battery along Fort Donelson's outer works. Although unsuccessful, this action probably convinced the Confederates that they faced a superior force, even though they actually outnumbered Grant.

Over the next three days, Grant tightened the noose around Fort Donelson by moving a flotilla up the Cumberland River to shell the fort from the east. On February 15, the Confederates tried to break out of the Yankee perimeter. An attack on the Union right flank and center sent the Federals back in retreat, but then Confederate General Gideon Pillow made a fatal miscalculation. Thinking he could win the battle, Pillow threw away the chance to retreat from Fort Donelson. Instead, he pressed the attack but the Union retreat halted. Now, Grant assaulted the Confederate right wing, which he correctly suspected had been weakened to mount the attack on the other end of the line.

The Confederates were surrounded, with their backs to the Cumberland River. They made an attempt to escape, but only about 5,000 troops got away. These included Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest and 500 cavalrymen. Forrest later became a legendary leader in the west and his exploits over the next three years caused much aggravation to the Union army. When the Rebels asked for terms of surrender, Grant replied that no terms "except unconditional and immediate surrender" would be acceptable. This earned Ulysses S. Grant the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant. The loss of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson were unmitigated disasters for the Confederates. Kentucky was lost and Tennessee lay wide open to the Yankees.

[william42]

Sherman sacks Columbia, South Carolina

The soldiers from Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's army ransack Columbia, South Carolina, and leave a charred city in their wake.

Sherman is most famous for his "March to the Sea" in the closing months of 1864. After capturing Atlanta in September, Sherman cut away from his supply lines and cut a swath of destruction across Georgia on his way to Savannah. His army lived off the land and destroyed railroads, burned warehouses, and ruined plantations along the way. This was a calculated effort--Sherman thought that the war would end quicker if civilians of the South felt some destruction personally, a view supported by General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of all Union forces, and President Lincoln.

After spending a month in Savannah, Sherman headed north to tear the Confederacy into smaller pieces. The Yankee soldiers took particular delight in carrying the war to South Carolina, the symbol of the rebellion. It was the first state to secede and the site of Fort Sumter, where South Carolinians fired on the Federal garrison to start the war. When General Wade Hampton's cavalry evacuated Columbia, the capital was open to Sherman's men.

Many of the Yankees got drunk before starting the rampage. General Henry Slocum observed: "A drunken soldier with a musket in one hand and a match in the other is not a pleasant visitor to have about the house on a dark, windy night." Sherman claimed that the raging fires were started by evacuating Confederates and fanned by high winds. He later wrote: "Though I never ordered it and never wished it, I have never shed any tears over the event, because I believe that it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the War." Belatedly, some Yankees helped fight the fires, but more than two-thirds of the city was destroyed. Already choked with refugees from the path of Sherman's army, Columbia's situation became even more desperate when Sherman's army destroyed the remaining public buildings before marching out of Columbia three days later.

[william42]

Lewis Armistead born

Confederate General Lewis Armistead is born in New Bern, North Carolina. Armistead is best known for leading Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, where he was mortally wounded.

Armistead's father, Walker Keith Armistead, and his five uncles served in the military during the War of 1812. One of them, George Armistead, commanded Fort McHenry at Baltimore during the British bombardment that produced the Star Spangled Banner. Lewis Armistead entered West Point in 1834 but did not graduate due to poor grades, although some sources indicate that the reason was a fight with another cadet, Jubal Early, who was later a comrade in the Army of Northern Virginia.

Despite this, Armistead joined the military as a second lieutenant and fought in the Seminole War in Florida and was cited for heroism three times in the Mexican War. During the 1850s, he served on the frontier and developed a very close friendship with another officer, Pennsylvanian Winfield Scott Hancock. When the Civil War broke out, he resigned his commission to join his home state, Virginia.

At the beginning of the war, Armistead commanded the 57th Virginia Infantry, but by April 1862 he was in a brigadier general. He fought during the Seven Days' battles in June and July 1862, but played only minor roles at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. On July 3, 1863, he led a brigade in Pickett's division during the climactic charge at Gettysburg. In a tragic coincidence, Armistead's men attacked Hancock's corps at the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Armistead crossed the wall that protected the Federal cannon, representing the high water mark of the Confederacy. He fell wounded there, and the attack stalled. Armistead was found by Captain Henry Bingham, an aide to Hancock, and Armistead told him to, "Say to General Hancock for me that I have done him and done you all an injury which I shall regret the longest day that I live." Armistead lingered for two days, and he requested that his personal effects be given to Hancock, who was also seriously wounded that day. Armistead was buried in a family plot at St. Paul's Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

[william42]

Battle of Olustee

In the largest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War, a Confederate force under General Joseph Finegan decisively defeats an army commanded by General Truman Seymour. The victory kept the Confederates in control of Florida's interior for the rest of the war.

Olustee was the climax to a Union invasion of Florida a few weeks before. General Quincy Gilmore, commander of the Union's Department of the South, dispatched Seymour to Jacksonville on February 7. Seymour's troops secured the town and began to send cavalry raiders inland to Lake City and Gainesville. Just behind the troops came John Hay, private secretary to President Lincoln. Hay began issuing loyalty oaths to residents in an effort to form a new, Republican state government in time to send delegates to the 1864 party convention. Under the president's plan of reconstruction, a new state government could be formed when 10 percent of the state's prewar voting population had taken a loyalty oath.

Seymour began moving towards Lake City, west of Jacksonville, to destroy a railroad bridge and secure northern Florida. Finegan possessed only 500 men at Lake City, but reinforcements were arriving. By the time the two sides began to skirmish near the railroad station of Olustee, each side had about 5,000 troops. Throughout the day on February 20, a pitched battle raged. The Confederates were close to breaking the Yankee lines when they ran low on ammunition. When more cartridges arrived, the attack continued. By late afternoon, Seymour realized the fight was lost and he began to retreat.

The Yankees suffered 1,800 killed, wounded, or captured, while the Confederates lost about 900 men. It was one of the highest casualty rates of the war for the Union. The battle did disrupt the flow of supplies from Florida to other Confederate armies, but it failed to bring about a new state government. Most of Florida remained in Confederate hands until the end of the war.

[william42]

Battle of Val Verde

Confederate troops under General Henry Hopkins Sibley attack Union troops commanded by Colonel Edward R. S. Canby near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory. The first major engagement of the war in the far West, the battle produces heavy casualties but no decisive result.

This action was part of the broader movement by the Confederates to capture New Mexico and other parts of the West. This would secure territory that the Rebels thought was rightfully theirs but had been denied them by political compromises made before the Civil War. Furthermore, the cash-strapped Confederacy could use western mines to fill their treasury. From San Antonio, the Rebels moved into southern New Mexico (which included Arizona) and captured the towns of Mesilla, DoÝa Ana, and Tucson. Sibley, with 3,000 troops, now moved north against the Federal stronghold at Fort Craig on the Rio Grande.

At Fort Craig, Canby was determined to make the Confederates lay siege to the post. The Rebels, Canby reasoned, could not wait long before running low on supplies. Canby knew that Sibley did not possess sufficiently heavy artillery to attack the fort. When Sibley arrived near Fort Craig on February 15, he ordered his men to swing east of the fort, cross the Rio Grande, and then capture the Val Verde fords of the Rio Grande. He hoped to cut off Canby's communication and force the Yankees out into the open.

At the fords, five miles north of Fort Craig, a Union detachment attacked part of the Confederate force. They pinned the Texans in a ravine and were on the verge of routing the Rebels when more of Sibley's men arrived and turned the tide. Sibley's second in command, Colonel Tom Green, filling in for an ill Sibley, made a bold counterattack against the Union left flank. The Yankees fell back in retreat, and headed back to Fort Craig.

The Union suffered 68 killed, 160 wounded, and 35 missing out of 3,100 engaged. The Confederates suffered 31 killed, 154 wounded, and 1 missing out of 2,600 troops. It was a bloody but indecisive battle. Sibley's men continued up the Rio Grande. Within a few weeks, they captured Albuquerque and Santa Fe before they were stopped at the Battle of Glorieta Pass on March 28.

[william42]

Battle of West Point, Mississippi

Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest routs a Union force three times the size of his army in a battle that helped end Union General William T. Sherman's expedition into Alabama.

Sherman was marching an army east across Mississippi from Vicksburg to *******n. He had captured and destroyed a vital Confederate supply center at *******n and was planning to move further east to Selma, Alabama, another Rebel supply base. Sherman was relying on cavalry support from General William Sooy Smith, who was coming southeast from Memphis, Tennessee. Sherman directed Smith to meet him at *******n on February 10, but Sherman did not occupy *******n until February 14. Meanwhile, Smith dallied in Tennessee waiting for the arrival of Colonel George Waring Jr.'s cavalry brigade from Kentucky, and did not leave for Mississippi until February 11.

On February 20, some of Smith's men skirmished with Confederates near West Point, just over 100 miles north of *******n. (M.e.r.i.d.i.a.n.) The Yankee troops slowly drove the Confederates back through West Point. The next day, more skirmishing flared as the troops continued south. The Confederates were led by Jeffrey Forrest, Nathan's younger brother. The elder Forrest waited south of West Point with the intent of drawing Smith's force into a swampy area between two rivers. Smith caught on to the plan just before it was too late and began a retreat back through West Point. On February 22, The Yankees made a stand north of West Point and fought off a Confederate attack during which Jeffrey Forrest was killed. With the older Forrest blocking his way to *******n, Smith retreated back to Memphis.

The Confederates suffered 144 men killed, wounded, or missing, while the Union lost 324. The engagement was significant because Sherman was forced to return to Vicksburg. The battle also lifted Confederate morale and enhanced the reputation of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had taken on a much larger Union force and won.

[william42]

Lincoln arrives in Washington

President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives in Washington amid secrecy and tight security. With seven states having already seceded from the Union since Lincoln's election, the threat of civil war hung in the air.

Allen Pinkerton, head of a private detective agency, had uncovered a plot to assassinate Lincoln when he passed through Baltimore on his way to the capital. Lincoln and his advisors disagreed about how to respond to the threat. Some, including Pinkerton, wanted Lincoln to slip secretly into Washington, which would mean skipping an address to the Pennsylvania legislature in Harrisburg. Lincoln did not want to appear cowardly, but he felt the threats were serious.

Lincoln agreed to the covert arrival. With Pinkerton and Ward Hill Lamon, his former law partner, Lincoln slipped out of the hotel in Harrisburg on the evening of February 22. He wore a soft felt hat instead of his customary stovepipe hat, and he draped an overcoat over his shoulders and hunched slightly to disguise his height. The group boarded a sleeper car and arrived in Baltimore in the middle of the night. The trio slipped undetected from the Calvert Street station to Camden station across town. There, they boarded another train and arrived without incident in Washington at 6:00 a.m. On the platform, the party was surprised when a voice boomed, "Abe, you can't play that on me." It was Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, a friend of Lincoln's from Illinois. Washburne escorted Lincoln to the Willard Hotel.

A myth arose that Lincoln had dressed as a woman to avoid detection, but this was not the case. He did draw considerable criticism in the press for his unceremonious arrival. Northern diarist George Templeton Strong commented that if convincing evidence of a plot did not surface, "the surreptitious nocturnal dodging...will be used to damage his moral position and throw ridicule on his Administration." Lincoln later regretted the caper and commented to a friend "I did not then, nor do I now believe I should have been assassinated had I gone through Baltimore..." Regardless of how he had arrived, Lincoln was safely in Washington, ready to assume the difficult task ahead.

[william42]

Battle of Dalton, Georgia, begins


Union General George Thomas attacks Joseph Johnston's Confederates near Dalton, Georgia, as the Yankees probe Johnston's defenses in search of a weakness. Thomas found the position too strong and he ceased the offensive the next day, but the Yankees learned a lesson they would apply during the Atlanta campaign that summer.


General Ulysses S. Grant, the overall commander of Union troops in the west, drove the Confederates out of Tennessee at the Battle of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain in November 1863. The Army of Tennessee, then commanded by General Braxton Bragg, fell back to northern Georgia, where Bragg was replaced by Johnston. The defensive-minded Johnston arranged his force along the imposing Rocky Face Ridge near Dalton.

Grant sent part of his army under General William T. Sherman to Mississippi for a campaign against *******n, (M.e.r.i.d.i.a.n.)a major supply center. This forced Johnston to send part of his army to reinforce Leonidas Polk, who was defending *******n against Sherman. When Grant became aware of this transfer, he sent Thomas to probe Johnston's defenses in hopes of finding a weak spot among the depleted Confederates. The Yankees enjoyed initial success but soon found that Johnston's troops were strong. The reinforcements sent towards Mississippi were no longer needed after Polk abandoned *******n, so they returned to Johnston's army. Now, Thomas was outnumbered and was forced to retreat after February 25.

Casualties were light. Thomas suffered just fewer than 300 men killed, wounded, or captured, while Johnston lost 140. The Union generals did learn a valuable lesson, though-a direct attack against Rocky Face Ridge was foolish. Three months later, Sherman, in command after Grant was promoted to commander of all forces, sent part of his army further south to another gap that was undefended by the Confederates. The intelligence garnered from the Battle of Dalton helped pave the way for a Union victory that summer.

[william42]

Legal Tender Act passed

The U.S. Congress passes the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the use of paper notes to pay the government's bills. This ended the long-standing policy of using only gold or silver in transactions, and it allowed the government to finance the enormously costly war long after its gold and silver reserves were depleted.

Soon after the war began, the federal government began to run low on specie. Several proposals involving the use of bonds were suggested. Finally, Congress began printing money, which the Confederate government had been doing since the beginning of the war. The Legal Tender Act allowed the government to print $150 million in paper money that was not backed by a similar amount of gold and silver. Many bankers and financial experts predicted doom for the economy, as they believed that there would be little confidence in the scheme. There were also misgivings in Congress, as many legislators worried about a complete collapse of the nation's financial infrastructure.

These notes, called "greenbacks," worked much better than expected. It allowed the government to pay its bills and, by increasing the money in circulation, greased the wheels of northern commerce. The greenbacks were legal tender, which meant that creditors had to accept them at face value. The same year, Congress passed an income tax and steep excise taxes, both of which cooled the inflationary pressures created by the greenbacks.

Another legal tender act passed in 1863, and by war's end nearly a half-billion dollars in greenbacks had been issued. The Legal Tender Act laid the foundation for the creation of a permanent currency in the decades after the Civil War.

[unionblue]

William42,

Thanks for the above about the Legal Tender Act. VERY interesting to see how our paper money came about.

Sincerely,
Unionblue