Civil War 150th

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

General Benjamin Butler published his proclamation to the people of New Orleans. He had written it on the day his troops marched into the city, but the newspaper refused to publish it. (Butler solved this obstacle by having his soldiers take over the printing presses.) In the proclamation, Butler declared the city under martial law, disbanded the police force, forbade the publication of anti-Union papers, and decreed that the United States flag was to be “treated with the utmost deference and respect by all persons, under pain of severe punishment.”


At Yorktown, Virginia, Confederate commander Joseph Johnston had learned of the mass of siege artillery being arrayed against him and decided to evacuate, never mind that Jefferson Davis would be displeased. His preparations did not go unnoticed: both Union pickets and runaway slaves reported large numbers of wagons being rolled up to the Southern lines and loaded with equipment.

But on this date, Johnston ordered a bombardment of the Union lines. A canny general would have seen through the ruse: the Rebel guns were firing all up and down the lines, rather than concentrating on one position to prepare for an assault. But the Northern soldiers went to cover, and after dark, the Confederate evacuation began, undetected.

General McClellan had decided to put his trust in Allan Pinkerton rather than the reports of the "contrabands" or his own officers and men. Pinkerton claimed to have a spy in the Confederate commissary department who said that 119,000 rations per day were being distributed to Johnston's army. With 112,000 men on hand, McClellan came to the astonishing conclusion that he was outnumbered.

(Pinkerton is seated on the right.)

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Since the advance in the Virginia peninsula had stalled, the Union army had set up observation balloons to view the Confederate positions. Early in the morning, a balloon carrying a lieutenant by the name of George Armstrong Custer went up for daily observation. Custer soon noted the smoke from many cooking fires from Northern soldiers preparing their breakfasts, but a complete absence of such fires on the Rebel side. The Yorktown fortifications had been abandoned.

Advancing into the entrenchments, the Yankees found a few things had been left behind. Several dozen smoothbore naval cannons had been too heavy for the Southerners' rapid retreat, and had remained in place. More worrisome, "torpedoes" (later called land mines) had been buried in the ground, ready to explode when a tripwire was stepped on. (This was not the first time such things had been used: they had first been deployed during the Seminole Wars in Florida.)

Whatever his faults as a field commander, George McClellan could read a map. The roads which the Confederate forces would need to retreat by intersected near the town of Williamsburg. (Which was once the capital of colonial Virginia.) McClellan promptly ordered his cavalry to occupy the place, hoping to trap the Rebel army on the march. The problem was that Confederate commander Joseph Johnston had read his maps also, and had already had a modest fort named Fort Magruder built to defend the spot. When it arrived, Union cavalry was sent back in retreat by a swarm of musket balls. Infantry would be needed for this job.

[parusski]

Great work Capt. H.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

The town of Williamsburg had seen better days. It was the site of the College of William and Mary, the second oldest institute of higher learning in America after Harvard, and Thomas Jefferson's alma mater. But the college had been closed for the duration of the war, since nearly all the college-age males in Virginia had joined the Confederate army instead. Now things got considerably worse as a division of Yankees under Brigadier General Joseph Hooker marched to the attack.

The Southerners had brought more men as well. Troops under Major General James Longstreet not only stopped the Union advance but threatened to overwhelm them. The affair turned into a classic "meeting engagement" where each side called for more and more reinforcements. Eventually 41,000 Northerners were fighting against 31,000 Southerners. Names to become famous were on both sides, with Philip Kearny and Winfield Hancock reinforcing Hooker while D. H. hill and Jubal Early reinforced Longstreet. The fighting ended essentially in a draw, with the Union losing 2,300 casualties to the Confederate loss of 1,700. The Rebels stayed in possession of Williamsburg for one day more, then continued their retreat towards Richmond.

McClellan described the action as a victory over superior forces. He was entirely wrong, for the extra day allowed the rest of the Confederate army to re-group and retreat in safety. Still, the advantage of sheer numbers remained with the Federals -- and they had moved closer to Richmond.

[british exil]

Did the union and confederate forces have 2 days rest?

What happened on the 6th and 7th May??

Mat

[rodney727]

If you have an iPad or android tablet the civil war today app is filled with day to day stuff. It even keeps track of casualties from day to day. What I really enjoy is actual hand written letters that they scanned into this app. Also it let's you see who visited president Lincoln and why. I enjoy this thread too. Excellent work captain harlock.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

With the capture of Yorktown, the York river was now open to Union ships. McClellan took advantage by sending a division of infantry by water to a place called Eltham's Landing. He hoped to cut off the Confederate army retreating towards Richmond, but their arrival did not go unnoticed. The few Southern pickets immediately on the scene were easily driven off, but the next day a considerably larger force showed up.

The result was one of the more evenly matched battles of the Civil War, with each side having about 11,000 men engaged. The Southern commander's orders were only to make sure the Federals did not advance and block any important crossroads. However, among the Rebel forces was the Texas Brigade of John Bell Hood, and neither that general nor his men were inclined to take it easy on the Yankees. They pushed the Union advance lines back almost to the river banks, until supporting fire came from the Union gunboats. At the end of the day, there were 194 Union casualties and 48 Confederate casualties, and the main body of the Southern army had made it past any points where they could be checked by the Union landing.

Still, the Union had a toehold less than 35 miles (56 Km) from Richmond -- which meant they had covered more than half the distance from their start at Fort Monroe.


In the Shenandoah Valley, Union Brigadier General Robert H. Milroy was leading a column of 6,000 men down the west side of the Valley. They caught sight of a column of Confederate soldiers marching in their general direction. That meant one thing -- Stonewall Jackson was on the move. Aware that Jackson had at least 10,000 men now that conscripts were reaching him, Milroy ordered his cannon unlimbered and delivered a volley. The Rebels kept on coming. The Federals quickly re-entrained their artillery and retreated to a small village occupying high ground named McDowell.

Jackson's famous Valley Campaign was about to begin in earnest.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Brigadier General Robert C. Schenck arrived with Union reinforcements at the village of McDowell. The Northerners still numbered less than 7,000, and so it was decided to attack before Stonewall Jackson could assemble his entire army. The attempt led to a day of hard fighting, and the results were mixed: The Federals failed to break the Confederate lines, but they prevented Jackson from mounting an attack of his own.

In Jackson's army, one unit was not from the Virginia area: the 12th Georgia regiment. The Georgians took especially heavy losses, partly because they refused to fall back from the Yankee onslaught, and partly because there were armed with smoothbores against Northern rifled muskets. This allowed the attackers to inflict more casualties than they sustained, one of the few times in the Civil War that this would happen. The final butcher's bill was Union: 34 killed, 220 wounded, 5 missing, Confederate: 116 killed, 300 wounded, 4 missing. Nonetheless, McDowell is rated as a Confederate victory, because the two Union generals realized they could not hold the position. They were deep in hostile country, and the Southerners would soon outnumber them. They began a retreat late that night. Not surprisingly, Jackson pursued.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

In the Virginia peninsula, McClellan's huge Army of the Potomac continued its advance toward Richmond. The Confederates found themselves compelled to withdraw from Norfolk Navy Yard. As the Northerners had done before them, they destroyed what they could on the base as they left. But there was one critical item they could not bring themselves to dispose of just yet. The famed (and feared) ironclad CSS Virginia was sent upriver.


General David Hunter had been appointed commander of the Union military district composed of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. At first, the Federals controlled only a few islands off the coasts of the Rebel states. But the urgent Confederate demand for troops to defend Richmond had left more and more of the coastline undefended, and the Yankees had taken over a fair amount of it. This also meant a growing number of runaway slaves were coming into the Union lines, and Hunter did not have enough troops to deal with the refugee problem and patrol his growing territory. On this date Hunter issued a declaration that all the slaves in his district were more or less free. The "less" part was that able-bodied adult males were to be conscripted into the Union army. This went far beyond what John Fremont had attempted in Missouri. Given that Kentucky and Maryland still had numbers of influential slave-holders, a political firestorm was in the making.

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

On the northern Mississippi River, the next objectives for the Union were Fort Pillow, and then the city of Memphis. Fort Pillow would need to be taken by land troops, but in the meantime the Federals tried some light shelling from a mortar schooner protected by the ironclad USS Cincinnati. The Southerners were understandably displeased, and on this date the Confederate River Defense fleet attacked with a squadron of gunboats equipped with rams at Plum Point Bend.

The Rebels achieved almost complete surprise, and the Union's Cincinnati and Mound City were rammed. (The mortar schooner managed to evade, and even exploded a shell over the Southern flotilla, showering the decks with shrapnel.) The two ironclads moved away towards shore. With the rest of the Northern fleet raising steam and coming to the scene, the Confederate ships withdrew. Cincinnati and Mound City settled in shallow water. Although the Confederates could claim the victory, both Union ironclads were soon raised and placed back in service.

On the Virginia Peninsula, Union troops advanced and occupied the now-defenseless city of Norfolk, along with the Navy Yard. Unlike what had happened at New Orleans, this time the mayor formally surrendered the city.

Something much along those lines was also starting to happen at Pensacola, Florida. The demand for men to deal with the Yankees in Louisiana and Virginia meant the Confederate troops on the scene were pulled out. Before they went, they applied the torch to whatever they could in Pensacola Navy Yard.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

Great effort was made to lighten the CSS Virginia so that she could retreat further up the James River. But even with her guns removed and the wooden hull showing above water, the river was too shallow to allow her to escape the advancing Union army. (If the winds had been blowing in the opposite direction, she likely would have made it.) Allowing her to fall into the hands of the Yankees was unthinkable, so flag officer Josiah Tattnall reluctantly ordered her destroyed. This task fell to Lieutenant Catesby ap Jones, who had commanded her against the Monitor and now became the last man to leave the ship. Early in the morning off Craney Island, the fire reached her magazine and the Virginia went up in a great explosion.

The print below is inaccurate in one respect: Virginia's thirteen-star Stars and Bars battle ensign was saved. Also, her guns were transported to fortifications at Drewy's Bluff, where ironically they would engage the Monitor one last time.

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

With the Confederate army having evacuated, Union troops from Fort Pickens took control of Pensacola, Florida. The Navy Yard had been burned, but was still a useful anchorage for the Northern fleet.


The Union also occupied several other harbors on the Florida coast, although they were unsuccessful in penetrating into the interior of the state. The lithograph below shows the bluecoats marching into Fernandina, Florida, which on the Northeast coast of the state.


When the blockade was first announced, many in the South and also in Europe had been incredulous. The Union Navy seemed completely inadequate for the thousands of miles of Southern coastline. But by now it was clear that the North was making blockade running a difficult task. The Confederacy had given up on the idea of withholding its cotton, and was now smuggling what it could in exchange for munitions and other scarce supplies. Much of this trade now had to go through Texas and then Mexico, for the Union could not blockade a foreign coast. To stop this traffic, the North would have to control the entire Mississippi River.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

The CSS Planter was an armed Confederate transport engaged in ferrying guns and other military supplies to the installations in Charleston harbor. She had a compliment of three white officers and nine slave crewmen, including the steersman Robert Smalls. On the evening of the 12th, all three officers had decided to spend the night ashore after supervising the loading of four cannons meant for a harbor fort.

This was just what Robert Smalls and seven of the other crew had been waiting for. They passed the word to their families, and at 3:00 AM on the 13th, Smalls dressed in the captain's uniform and straw hat, and backed the Planter away from the dock. The conspirators stopped at a nearby wharf to pick up the crewmen's families, who had assembled there. Smalls then piloted the ship past the five Confederate forts which guarded the harbor. Around 4:30 AM the Planter made its way past Fort Sumter, (now manned by Confederate soldiery), and headed for the Federal fleet blockading Charleston. Smalls made sure to hoist a white sheet as a flag, which was wise since the USS Onward prepared to fire until a sailor noticed the white flag.

The Union Navy promptly accepted the windfall of ship, guns, and ammunition. Perhaps most valuable was the code book containing secret signals and the location of the "torpedoes" in Charleston harbor. But there was a slight legal wrinkle. The slave crew were clearly militarily useful, and so were not to be returned under the "contraband" policy. But the women and children of the crewmen's families technically still belonged to their Southern owners. Still, it was clearly unacceptable cruelty to send them back.

By this time, the number of runaway slaves reaching Union ships and army camps was in the tens of thousands, and questions like these popped up more and more. A new policy was going to be needed.

[Capt. Harlock]

Mid-May 1862:

The Union advance had slowed to a crawl. In the west, Henry Halleck had taken over the combined Union army after the battle of Shiloh. He now had 100,000 men at his disposal, enough to overwhelm anything the Confederates could have thrown against him. More, he had the greatest concentration of talented Northern officers of the war, including U. S. Grant, William Sherman, Phillip Sheridan, and George Thomas, later dubbed "the Rock of Chickamauga". It seems quite possible he could have captured Atlanta, or almost anything else in the area, two years earlier. But he chose to advance on Corinth, Mississippi, and a t a snail's pace, building railroads as he went forward and entrenching at every stop. He was making about a mile a day.

By comparison, George McClellan was aggressive. The Army of the Potomac was covering about three miles a day. But McClellan was even more worried about the Rebels than Halleck was. The intelligence had reached him that much of the South was being stripped of troops to reinforce Joseph Johnston's opposing army, and McClellan now estimated he faced 160,000 Southerners while disease and other problems had reduced him to only 80,000 effectives. (Actually it was he who outnumbered the Confederates about two-to-one.) He requested Lincoln to reinforce him with Irwin McDowell's corps of 41,000 men -- but this was the main force protecting Washington D.C.

In New Orleans, things were not going as well as Benjamin Butler had hoped. True, there were no shootings or other armed assaults on the occupying Union troops. But the ladies of the city were making it clear that the Northerners were unwelcome. Some of them crossed the street to avoid direct contact, others refused to move from narrow sidewalks, forcing the soldiers to step into the gutters, and a few seem to have spat directly on the Yankees. The last straw came when one woman accurately if rudely leaned out a second-story window and emptied a chamber pot on Flag Officer Farragut's head. Butler was not the sort of man to overlook this.

[parusski]

I have often pondered just what might have occurred if Grant had not been shoved aside. Or if Halleck had been aggressive. Vicksburg, and the West would most likely have fallen quickly.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

In New Orleans, Benjamin Butler issued General Order #28:

[font="Times New Roman"] As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture, or movement insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.[/font]

The idea that the ladies of even the wealthiest families could be addressed with the same disrespect as street-walkers caused outrage throughout the South. Butler was named "The Beast of New Orleans". But there were no further incidents with chamber pots.

The controversy would eventually reach across the Atlantic, when U.S. Ambassador Charles Francis Adams was summoned for a protest at this policy of his government. Adams explained that the order referred to attitude rather than actually attempting to use the women as prostitutes. (Prostitution was remarkably widespread in Victorian London: one estimate is that one building in seventy was a brothel.)


Since the Union army was advancing slowly in Virginia, it was decided to let the navy try its hand. A small squadron of five gunboats, led by the USS Galena and including the USS Monitor, sailed up the James river to see if they could shell Richmond. Just 7 miles (11 Km) from the capital of the Confederacy, they encountered the fort the Southerners had built on Drewry's Bluff. The Federals also found that several vessels had been thoughtfully sunk in the river, making further progress tricky.

Galena closed to within 600 yd (550 m) of the fort, anchored, and opened fire but her armor was not enough to withstand the counter-fire from the fort. (Some of the guns were those salvaged from the CSS Virginia.) Monitor's armor was still proof against Confederate guns, but now her own cannon could not be elevated enough to hit the fort. After more than three hours, two Union ironclads and one of the wooden vessels had taken damage, with 14 dead or dying and another 10 wounded. The fort had taken minimal damage, with 15 killed or wounded. The Federal flotilla retreated, and Richmond was safe, at least for the moment.

Interestingly, the Union commander reported to McClellan that troops could be safely landed three miles from the fort, but this was ignored for the time being.

[Capt. Harlock]

150 Years Ago Today:

After considerable prodding from Secretary of War Stanton, Lincoln decided to give George McClellan the 41,000-man First Corps he had asked for, which was Commanded by Irwin McDowell. But there were conditions, as Lincoln wrote to McClellan: “At your earnest call for re-enforcements he [McDowell] is sent forward to co-operate in the reduction of Richmond, but charged, in attempting this, not to uncover the city of Washington; and you will give no order, either before or after your junction, which can put him out of position to cover this city.”

McDowell's orders were to “move upon Richmond by the general route of the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad, cooperating with the forces under General McClellan.”, and to always be “in such position as to cover the capital of the nation against a sudden dash of any large body of the rebel forces.” The First Corps was to assist McClellan's Army of the Potomac -- but not to actually be a part of it.

This was not what McClellan believed he needed. His idea was that the First Corps should have been sent by sea, which would have been faster (But would have left it completely unable to block any Confederate moves). The rift between McClellan and his commander-in-chief grew deeper.

And there were about to be Confederate moves. Robert E. Lee, now the chief military adviser to Jefferson Davis, had given instructions to Stonewall Jackson to attack the Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley wherever and whenever he saw fit. Joseph Johnston had requested that Jackson bring his army to help in the Virgina Peninsula, but now Jackson could delay the movement for quite some time -- and it was time that would be put to good use.

[parusski]

“At your earnest call for re-enforcements he [McDowell] is sent forward to co-operate in the reduction of Richmond, but charged, in attempting this, not to uncover the city of Washington; and you will give no order, either before or after your junction, which can put him out of position to cover this city.”

Lincoln was brilliant, just brilliant. He could not be accused of withholding troops from McClellan, but at the same time he covered his own butt if Washington fell. I am in awe of the man.