JANUARY 4TH 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865

Today in 1862, President Lincoln and General McClellan inquired of General Buell as to the progress of his movement toward and into east Tennessee.

Today in 1865, Federal troops embarked at Bermuda Hundred for the new expedition against Fort Fisher, NC, under the command of General Alfred Terry.

Source: Long, E. B., The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac 1861-1865.
 
On January 4th,1863 the New York Times reported the execution of 39 Indians whose death sentence was sanctioned by President Lincoln.

President Abraham Lincoln had to agonize over another matter. He had to decide whether to allow the execution of more than 300 Indians convicted of war crimes in Minnesota’s Great Sioux Uprising. One of the first and bloodiest Indian wars on the western frontier, the Great Sioux Uprising (today called the “Dakota-U.S. Conflict) cost the lives of hundreds of Native Americans, white settlers, and soldiers. After the U.S. Army suppressed the uprising it established a commission that condemned 303 Dakota men in trials that were patently unfair. Federal law, however, required the president’s approval of the death sentences. “Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, Lincoln ignored the howling of a white populace thirsting for revenge and began the arduous task of reviewing the trial records and deciding the fates of hundreds of men.

http://www.historynet.com/abraham-l...crimes-in-minnesotas-great-sioux-uprising.htm
 
On January 4th....

January 4, 1854 Committee of Territories chairman Stephen Douglas reports the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

January 4, 1858 A second ratification vote is held for the Lecompton Constitution. The Free-staters reject the Lecompton Constitution.


January 4, 1861 Alabama troops seize an arsenal near Mobile, Alabama

January 4, 1862 Jackson takes Bath (now West Virginia) Virginia

January 4, 1863 Major General McClernand begins to move up the Arkansas River towards Arkansas Post. He orders General Sherman to accompany him, but he has not received authorization for such a movement.

January 4, 1863 Lincoln and Halleck order Ulysses S. Grant to rescind Special Order 11

January 4, 1863 USS Quaker City along with USS Memphis seize the Mercury, a Confederate blockade runner from Charleston on its way to Nassau, Bahamas with turpentine and mail.
 
Saturday January 4, 1862:

Cold and disagreeable, snowed
a little. Cleaned up our
accoutriments for Sunday
inspection. no dress parade.

Pvt. Orange Holmes
7th Pa. Reserves / 36th U.S. Infantry, Co. D
Camp Pierpont, Virginia
 
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