This Date in 1861

[W. Richardson]

APRIL 17, 1861: While Missouri and Tennessee refuse to fill their quotas of Union militia, and Maryland secessionists hold a meeting in Baltimore, the Virginia State Convention votes 88– 55 in favor of secession, a decision that will be confirmed by popular referendum on May 23. Among the facilities that will be taken over by the government of this crucial upper-South state are the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry and Gosport Navy Yard, near Norfolk, Virginia, the largest shipbuilding and repair facility in the South (see April 20, 1861). 34

In the Confederate Capital at Montgomery , Jefferson Davis, whose armed forces include only the barest rudiments of a navy, invites applications for letters of marque, which permit privately owned armed vessels to act "in the service of the Confederate States on the high seas, against the United States of America, its ships and vessels, and those of its citizens…" The Lincoln administration , which does not regard the Confederate States as a separate political entity, will see this as an instigation of the criminal act of piracy, which, under United States law, is a capital offense. 35

34 - McPherson, Battle Cry, 279; CWDR, 143; Long, Day by Day, 60– 61.

35 - New York Times, "An Important Document: Jeff. Davis' Letters-of-Marque," May 24, 1861; McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, 120.


Wagner, Margaret E.; Library of Congress (2011-10-24). The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War (p. 15). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Respectfully,

William

 

[W. Richardson]

APRIL 18, 1861: Five companies of Pennsylvanians become the first forces to reach Washington , DC, to assist in the capital's defense. Within their ranks is sixty-five-year-old Nicholas Biddle, one of the few African American men who have been allowed to join all-white units, in Biddle's case as the orderly to Captain James Wren. The previous day, as Biddle marched through Baltimore, Maryland, his presence in the ranks had particularly incensed a crowd of whites who were sympathetic to the Confederacy and already angry at having Union soldiers in their streets. Shouting insults at Biddle, some also threw stones and other missiles, wounding Biddle and several of his comrades. Thus one of the first people to shed blood for the Union is a black man. 36 As the Pennsylvanians arrive in the capital city, the U.S. Army's legendary general in chief, Winfield Scott, meets with Colonel Robert E. Lee (whom Scott had once called "the very best soldier that I ever saw in the field"). He offers Lee command of the main Union army; Lee declines. Two days later, he will write to Scott, tendering his resignation:

It would have been presented at once, but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted all the best years of my life & all the ability I possessed…. I shall carry with me to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind consideration…. Save in the defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword. 37

This same day, civilian railroad executive George Brinton McClellan, a West Point graduate who had served as a junior officer under Winfield Scott and Robert E. Lee during the Mexican War of 1846–1848— and who was considered an intellectual light of the prewar U.S. Army —writes to his friend Fitz John Porter. Though McClellan is a conservative Democrat with no love for abolitionists, he proclaims himself foursquare for the Union: "I throw to one side now all questions as to… political parties etc— the Govt is in danger, our flag insulted & we must stand by it." 38 At Sewell's Point, near Norfolk, Virginia , Union gunboats clash with Confederate batteries as Union forces attempt to seize control of the vital waterways leading to the interior of Virginia. At the same time, the Confederacy is seeking to block access to Washington, DC, via Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. 39


36 John David Hoptak, "A Forgotten Hero of the Civil War," article on the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission website at http:// www.portal.state.pa.us/ portal/ server.pt/ community/ beginnings/ 18088/ nick_biddle/ 689875 , originally published in Pennsylvania Heritage, Spring 2010; CWDR, 427.

37 Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won : A Military History of the Civil War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 28; Clifford Dowdey, ed. The Wartime Papers of R. E. Lee (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961), 8– 9.

38 Stephen W. Sears, George McClellan: The Young Napoleon (New York: Da Capo Press, 1999), 66.

39 CWDR, 243– 44.



Wagner, Margaret E.; Library of Congress (2011-10-24). The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War (pp. 15-16). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Respectfully,

William

 

[damYankee]

April 15, 1861 Pres. Lincoln issues his proclamation for 75,000 militia, as a result 91,816 men enlisted.
Missouri's quota was 3,123, men furnished from Missouri was 10,591, many of those were from Kansas, Kentucky and other border states where secessionist were harassing the enlistment posts.
Doesn't sound to me like a "state" that refused to respond to the call to arms.

 

[W. Richardson]

APRIL 19, 1861: In Baltimore, rioters attack the Sixth Massachusetts as the regiment makes its way through the streets of this crucial railroad hub. Some soldiers open fire; four soldiers and twelve civilians are killed, and many people are wounded. Tension increases as other Marylanders tear down railroad bridges and telegraph lines leading to Washington. With Virginia poised to join the Confederacy, these pro-secessionist rumblings in Maryland make many Northerners fearful that Washington might soon be surrounded and cut off from the rest of the Union. Many remember the Richmond (VA) Examiner's editorial challenge, published in its December 25, 1860, edition: "Can there not be found men bold and brave enough in Maryland to unite with Virginians in seizing the Capital in Washington ?" 40
Also on this day, by proclamation, Lincoln initiates a Union naval blockade of Confederate ports in South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, made necessary by "an insurrection against the Government of the United States." Among the actions that he cites as justification for the blockade is the Confederacy's threat "to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in [seagoing] commerce." 41 (See April 17, 1861.)



40 Wagner, Civil War: 365, Feb . 3; Kathryn Allamong Jacob, King of the Lobby : The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-About-Washington in the Gilded Age (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 48.

41 CWDR, 143; McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, 118; Basler, Collected Works, 4: 338– 39.


Wagner, Margaret E.; Library of Congress (2011-10-24). The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War (pp. 16-17). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Respectfully,

William

 

[ole]

Another perspective. You and your buddies are heading for Washington City and some guys give you grief along the way. Do you smile and say "que sera, sera?"

In what world do you live?

 

[W. Richardson]

APRIL 20, 1861: In anticipation of Confederate attack, the Union prematurely abandons the Gosport Navy Yard in Virginia after destroying part of the facility and scuttling a number of vessels. Parts of four vessels will be salvaged by the Confederates, including the remnants of the steam frigate USS Merrimack, destined to be rebuilt as an ironclad and rechristened CSS Virginia. Farther to the north, at Annapolis, Maryland, home of the U.S. Naval Academy, the revered warship USS Constitution is moved away from shore as a precaution against Confederate capture. On April 24, Constitution, under tow and with midshipmen on board, will depart for Newport, Rhode Island, via New York. Given the secessionist sympathies of many in Maryland, Newport will remain the Naval Academy's home until August 1865. 42


42 CWDR, 525; "A Brief History of the United States Naval Academy," at http:// www.usna.edu/ VirtualTour/ 150years/ 1860. htm .

Wagner, Margaret E.; Library of Congress (2011-10-24). The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War (p. 233). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.


Wagner, Margaret E.; Library of Congress (2011-10-24). The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War (p. 17). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Respectfully,

William

 

[W. Richardson]

APRIL 21, 1861: USS Saratoga captures a vessel with the romantic name Nightingale, which is carrying a cargo of 961 slaves. Though the domestic slave trade still thrives, international trade in slaves has been against U.S. law since 1808. But Africans have been brought into the Deep South illegally since well before the outbreak of the Civil War. 43 In Maryland, state authorities sever the telegraph lines that carry messages north from Washington. For a full week , telegrams from the capital will reach only Baltimore. 44 Also today, Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull, one of many Northern citizens whose apprehension over the vulnerability of Washington, DC, increased when a Baltimore mob attacked Union regiments (see April 18 and 19, 1861), writes President Lincoln, urging him to "take possession of Baltimore at once." A few days later, Lincoln will receive a warning that the pending meeting of the Maryland legislature in Annapolis will probably result in a vote to "arm the people of that State against the United States." Some advisers suggest that he direct the army to arrest the state's legislators before that can occur— an action Lincoln deems improper, unless the Maryland lawmakers actually act against the Federal government. 45 Meanwhile, patriotic fervor is spreading among the people of both regions. In the North , William Dean Howells, author of Lincoln's presidential campaign biography, writes to his wife from Columbus, Ohio: "Everything is in an uproar here and the war feeling is on the increase, if possible. The volunteers [for military service] seemed to be in very good spirits and to look on campaigning as something of a frolic." 46



43. McPherson, Battle Cry, 103; Long, Day by Day, 64.

44. Fishel, Secret War, 18.

45. McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, 67– 68.

46. Bruce Tap , Over Lincoln's Shoulder: The Committee on the Conduct of the War ( Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, 1998), 11.



Wagner, Margaret E.; Library of Congress (2011-10-24). The Library of Congress Illustrated Timeline of the Civil War (p. 17). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.


Respectfully,

William