Civil War 150th

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Nathaniel Lyon proved as good as his word when he had said "This means war." His troops now took control of Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri. Governor Jackson, along with most of the state government, had decided they could not hold against the more numerous (about 1,700) and better-equipped Union forces. They had therefore abandoned the city and retreated to Boonville, where they hoped to raise more men. Lyon installed a pro-Union government, left 300 soldiers as a garrison, and marched towards Boonville the next day.

[ilovestrategy]

You know, even though I'm a Confederate fanboy I'm starting to like Nathaniel Lyon.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Nathaniel Lyon's forces reached Governor Jackson's camp, resulting in the Battle of Boonville. It was little more than a skirmish, but it had serious consequences for Confederate hopes in Missouri.
Lyon's troops marched along the Rocheport Road toward Boonville at around 7 AM. Sterling Price had fallen ill, so the Southerners were poorly led. Ill-equipped State Guard companies waited on a ridge behind the bluff, totalling about 500 men. They had no artillery support, since the workable guns were elsewhere. Inexplicably, Governor Jackson, who was observing from about a mile's distance, held his only effective soldiers in reserve; they took no part in the battle.
Whatever his flaws as a diplomat, Lyon was a capable soldier. His men brushed aside the State Guard pickets, and his artillery was quickly set up and brought into action while his infantry closed with the line of State Guard. After several volleys, the guardsmen began to retreat. Some attempts were made to rally and resist the Federal advance, but these collapsed when a Union company flanked the Guard's line, supported by a gun on a river steamer. The Guard's retreat rapidly turned into a rout. Some continued on to their homes, while the rest retreated with the Governor all the way to the southwest corner of Missouri. Lyon's force occupied Boonville before noon, and the victory gave the Union control of central Missouri for a time.
Union losses were five men killed or mortally wounded and about seven with lesser wounds. There are no reliable casualty figures for the Southerners, which is true of a number of engagements. Killed and wounded were likely similar to the Northerners , while about 80 were made prisoners. Lyon's men captured much of the State Guard's supplies, including two 6-pounder cannon without ammunition, 500 obsolete flintlock muskets, and 1200 pair of shoes.This last was probably the most serious loss: the South had few shoe-making factories, and would be plagued throughout the war by a shortage of footwear for its soldiers.

The Battle of Vienna, Virginia was an engagement between a Union Army force of 271 men of the 1st Ohio Volunteer Militia and about 575 men of the South Carolina 1st Infantry. It was basically an ambush of a Union troop train in Faifax County, Virginia. Eight Union men were killed and four wounded (cannon fire hitting a train tends to be lethal) and no Confederate casualties were reported. The one thing remarkable is that, as far as your humble correspondent knows, this was the first combat involving train-carried troops anywhere.

[ilovestrategy]

Now that was interesting about the first battle involving train carrying troops anywhere. In many ways The Civil War was the first modern war.

[Ugly Guy]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

Now that was interesting about the first battle involving train carrying troops anywhere. In many ways The Civil War was the first modern war.

I can't say I am extremely familiar with European military history during this time frame, but it did seem that the ACW brought about many paradigm shifts in the conventional thinking of warfare.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

The Confederacy began its ocean-going navy. The CSS Sumter under Capt. Raphael Semmes sailed from New Orleans, evading the Union blockade, to begin a career of commerce raiding. The Sumter had begun life as a merchant steamer, but with the addition of five guns she became a potent warship in Semmes' hands. During the next six months she would capture or burn 18 U.S. vessels.

And the Confederacy had plans for more and better. About this time James D. Bulloch arrived in Liverpool, England, and began negotiating to buy or build more powerful ships.

[ilovestrategy]

Oh Bulloch caused havoc. After the war he spent his remaining days in Britain.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

After several days' debate, the Second Wheeling Convention had come to consensus and unanimously adopted the plan to create a new government. Now, the delegates selected officials to fill the offices of the "Restored Government of Virginia". Francis Pierpont, of Marion County, was elected governor, and Daniel Polsley, lieutenant governor. Over the next few days, more selections would follow, including two U.S. Senators and three Congressmen.

[Capt. Harlock]

Late June, 1861:

Chief General Winfield Scott had come up with a plan for subduing the South with the minimum loss of life. He proposed surrounding the Confederacy, both on land and by sea, and slowly strangling it into submission. No effort was made to keep this plan secret: is was widely discussed and dubbed the "Anaconda Plan":



But at this point it was politically impossible. Public opinion wanted a swift end to the war. Especially vocal was Horace Greely, easily the most influential newspaper editor in America at the time. (And the originator of "Go West, young man".) Greely would blow hot and cold: before Fort Sumter he had advocated letting the "Cotton States" leave in peace. But now he published headlines demanding that Richmond be occupied before the Confederate Congress had its first session there, scheduled for July 20.

More, neither the Union Army or Navy was as yet up to the job. Already it was clear that Lincoln's first call for 75,000 state militia, most enlisted for just 90 days, would not be adequate. Union recruiters covered the country looking for more, and longer-serving, troops, and the Confederates were not far behind. But neither side had the equipment to expand their armies that fast. Agents from both sides were scouring Europe for arms, and as often as not sending home obsolete and/or damaged weapons. The word "shoddy" comes from re-manufactured wool which was used for uniforms because it could be produced quickly.

Lastly, the encirclement could not as yet be completed. Missouri and Arkansas bordered Indian territory, Texas was not cut off from Mexico and never would be, and Kentucky required gentle handling. The Union turned a blind eye to trading with the Southern states: Lincoln is supposed to have said that he hoped to have God on his side, but he must have Kentucky.

[ilovestrategy]

Man, what a political quagmire. I always thought the Civil War was cut and dry, but I was wrong!

[NefariousKoel]

The war kicked off in my home state quite early; sympathies were very split, and heated. There's a lot that happened before any big hostilities started and, of course, there was much "partisan" conflict during and after the war.

This is a very interesting read on the "Camp Jackson Affair" and the "St. Louis Massacre". General Lyon and the Union forces definitely meant business.

The Camp Jackson Affair was an incident of civil unrest in the American Civil War on May 10, 1861, when Union military forces clashed with civilians on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, resulting in the deaths of at least 28 people and injuries to another 100. The highly publicized affair polarized the border state of Missouri, leading some citizens to advocate secession and others to support the Union, thus setting the stage for sustained violence between the opposing factions.

In March 1861 the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1861 voted 98 to 1 to stay in the Union but not supply weapons or men to either side if war broke out. The security of a large munitions depot became an immediate flash point. On April 20, 1861, eight days after the start of the war at Fort Sumter, a pro-Confederate mob at Liberty, Missouri, seized the Liberty Arsenal and made off with about 1,000 rifles and muskets. This set the stage for fears that Confederates would also seize the much larger St. Louis Arsenal, which had nearly 40,000 rifles and muskets—the most of any slave state.

The January-April 1861 period was a period of furious military organization in Missouri. Pro-secessionists established Minutemen para-military groups, usually with the overt support of state authorities. In February 1861, the St. Louis area Minutemen were enrolled in the Missouri Volunteer Militia by Brigadier General Daniel Frost as companies in a new Second Regiment, MVM. Unionist activists were forced to organize in secret, as a February 1861 Missouri state law banned any militia activity outside the framework of the MVM.

On April 23, 1861, on orders of the War Department, Union Captain Nathaniel Lyon temporarily replaced Brigadier General William S. Harney as (acting) Commander of the U.S. Army's Western Department. Lyon also began enlisting and arming St. Louis Unionist volunteer, an action previously ordered by the Secretary of War, but not acted on by General Harney. The majority of Lyon's early recruit's were German immigrants and members of the Wide Awakes political organization. According to one estimate, 80% of the volunteers in the first Missouri Volunteer regiments were Germans.[1] The Germans in particular were unpopular with many native-born Missourians with Southern backgrounds, who deeply resented their anti-slavery views.

On the orders of the War Department, in the early morning hours of April 26, U.S. Regulars, Illinois state troops, and Missouri volunteers loaded 21,000 of the Arsenal's 39,000 weapons on the steamer City of Alton, which carried them across the river to Illinois.

Around May 1, Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, who had been elected on the ticket of the (Unionist) Douglas faction of the Democratic party, but privately supported secession, called out the Missouri Volunteer Militia for "maneuvers" about 4.5 miles northwest of the arsenal at Lindell's Grove (the current campus of St. Louis University on Lindell Boulevard), then outside the city of St. Louis, at an encampment christened "Camp Jackson" by the militiamen

Previously in mid-April 1861, Governor Jackson had sent two pro-secessionist militia officers (Colton Green and Basil Wilson Duke) to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, with a letter asking for heavy artillery with which to attack the St. Louis Arsenal.[2] On May 9, the steamer 'J.C. Swon' delivered the Confederate aid: two 12 pound Howitzers; two 32 pound siege guns; five hundred muskets; and ammunition in crates marked as Tamoroa marble. The munitions had been captured by the Confederates when they seized the Federal arsenal at Baton Rouge. MVM officers met the shipment at the St. Louis riverfront, and transported it to Camp Jackson, six miles inland.[3]

The Conflict
Based on the presence of the "stolen" U.S. artillery, and strong evidence of state militia conspiracy against the U.S. government, on May 10, Lyon marched on Camp Jackson with approximately 6,000 Federally enrolled Missouri Volunteers and U.S. Regulars, and forced the surrender of 669 members of the Missouri Volunteer Militia under General Daniel M. Frost. The militiamen refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Federal government. As a result, Lyon decided to place them under arrest and march the militia to the arsenal through downtown St. Louis before providing them with a parole and ordering them to disperse. This lengthy march was widely viewed as a public humiliation for the state forces, and angered citizens who had gathered to watch the commotion.

Tensions quickly mounted on the streets as civilians hurled rocks, paving stones, and insults at Lyon's troops. The heavily German Missouri Volunteer units were particularly targeted by the mob and shouts of "Damn the Dutch" were hurled at them from the crowd.[4] Exactly what provoked the shooting remains unclear, but the most common explanation is that a drunkard stumbled into the path of the marching soldiers, and fired a pistol into their ranks, fatally wounding Captain Constantin Blandowski of the Third Missouri Volunteers.[5] The volunteers, in reaction, fired over the heads of...and then into.... the crowd, killing some 28 people, some of whom were women and children, and wounding as many as 50 more.

The incident sparked several days of rioting and anti-German animosity in St. Louis. On May 11, another incident occurring at the intersection of 5th and Walnut streets saw German Volunteers fired at from windows and once again return fire into the mob. Col. Henry Boernstein, publisher of the Anzeiger des Westens a prominent German Language newspaper in St. Louis and commander of the 2nd Regiment of Missouri Volunteers, remarked in his memoirs that he gave several of his men leave to visit their families on the morning of May 11 and that, “Most of them did not return…until it grew dark, with clothing torn, faces beaten bloody, and all the signs of having suffered mistreatment…Two of them never returned and they were never heard of again.”[6]

Rumors spread throughout the city that the Germans were planning to murder the American population of the city which caused many of the wealthy citizens of St. Louis to flee to either Illinois or the Missouri Interior.

Eventually the installation of martial law and the arrival of Federal Regulars to relieve the German volunteers would bring the situation to a conclusion but the impact of the Camp Jackson Affair left its mark on St. Louis permanently.

Continued...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Massacre

The wiki is chock full of info on it. Good read.

[Capt. Harlock]

Early July, 1861 -- Nathaniel Lyon continued his pursuit of Governor Claiborne Jackson and the State Guard troops through Missouri. This may not have been wise, for Lyon had to march further and further away from his base at St. Louis. He continued to receive reinforcements, however, since he could now draw recruits from larger and larger areas of the state.

But not as fast as Jackson. Militia from Arkansas, and some regulars from the growing army of the Confederacy, came over the state line in south-west Missouri. The small Confederate army was transforming into a good-sized one, and one with trained officers and men.

The news of Benjamin Butler's "contraband" policy had spread from mouth to mouth among the slave community, and now slaves were escaping by ones and twos, and then by dozens, across Union lines. At first, most of them were not welcomed. In some cases the Union commanders returned them to their owners, in others they were kept in the camps as prisoners. But soon the Northern soldiers realized they now had a ready source of labor for what camp followers had been doing for centuries: cooking, washing and mending clothes, fetching water and firewood, etc. The runaways were willing to work for very little money--sometimes for rations and a tent above their heads. A decision was going to have to made as to what official Union policy would be.

Of course, the main event was northern Virginia. General Irvin McDowell now had an army approaching 35,000 men. This was larger than any single force the Confederates had at that time, but not larger than their forces in Virginia combined. Still, if McDowell could destroy the main blocking force under General P. G. T. Beauregard (the same from the reduction of Fort Sumter) camped at Manassas Junction, the way to Richmond would be open. McDowell was keenly aware that much of his force was not yet trained, and he wanted more time. But it was also true that the rebels were busy training as well, and at the end of July the enlistments of most of McDowell's 90-day soldiers would be up. Time did not seem to be on the side of the North -- if they did nothing, then the South would for practical purposes have its independence.

[Yogi the Great]

Welcome Back! Nice to see the posts again.

[ilovestrategy]

Capt. Harlock has returned! I live for these posts because they have so many small details I knew nothing about.

[parusski]

I was suffering from withdrawal.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

As part of the plan to march to Richmond, General Robert Patterson took his troops across the Potomac River to advance on the Confederates at Harpers Ferry. He ran into a smaller force at a place called Hoke's Run. But this brigade of rebels was commanded by Colonel Thomas Jackson, and they gave as good as they got before retiring. More, the southerners had cavalry commanded by one James Ewell Brown Stuart (AKA "Jeb"), who showed the dash that he would frequently display during the Civil War by sweeping his command around a flank and capturing a number of Union soldiers.

Final casualties were: Union 10 killed, 18 wounded and 50 captured, Conferates 11 wounded and around 10 captured.

[ilovestrategy]

The amount of casualties in a short time never ceases to amaze me.

[Capt. Harlock]

I was suffering from withdrawal.

Yes, sorry about that. Alas, there was very little in the way of combat between June 17 and July 2, 1861. Be it confessed that I missed the skirmish at Cole Camp, Missouri, on June 19, between smaller detachments of the Union and Confederate armies. I got complacent, as well -- you'll note I came in just under the wire for July 2 for the Battle of Hoke's Run. Happily, there was action in July 1861, including Bull Run or First Manassas. Posts will be more frequent.

[ilovestrategy]

I like your sentence " Happily there was action in July 1961". [:D]

[parusski]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

I like your sentence " Happily there was action in July 1961". [:D]

LOL, I had the same chuckle.