The American Civil War

February 11, 1862: P.G.T. Beauregard to Roger Pryor

2012-02-11T10:00:00.001-05:00

Roger Pryor was something of a wannabe. Before the war he had been a U.S. Representative. After getting into an argument with John F. Potter, a U.S. Representative from Wisconsin, and challenged Potter to a duel. Potter seems to have had the measure of his man, because Potter, being the one challenged, had the choice of weapons and he chose bowie knives. Pryor apparently was not up to the challenge of carving up a colleague with a large knife, and he backed out, claiming that bowie knives were not civilized weapons.

Pryor had made his way to Charleston, South Carolina in time to be offered the opportunity to fire one of the first shots of the war against Fort Sumter. Just as he had when offered a bowie knife, Pryor drew back and refused the honor of firing the first shot at Fort Sumter.

The Confederate commander at Charleston during the siege of Fort Sumter was Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, and few Civil War generals were more aware of politics than Beauregard. Beauregard marked down Pryor as a politician who should be cultivated. After the fall of Fort Sumter, Beauregard went north to participate in the Manassas/Bull Run campaign and Pryor was elected to the Confederate Congress. Pryor became someone Beauregard could confide in, especially when he wanted to undermine a rival.

NASHVILLE, TENN., February 11th, 1862.

Dear Colonel, Your favor of the 9th inst. has been received. I regret much you did not come on from Lynchburg, for the rumors you refer to were all unfounded, and the matters General Johnston and myself had to communicate, through you, to the government, were of great importance being to provide for the very unfortunate contingency now existing here.

Moreover, I desired you to see for yourself and others the exact condition of things here, in justice to my own self; for I am taking the helm when the ship is already on the breakers, and with but few sailors to man it. How it is to be extricated from its present perilous condition Providence alone can determine, and, unless with its aid, I can accomplish but little. My health, moreover, has failed me completely lately. I was confined to my room by a wretched cold all the time I was at Bowling Green. It was the most unfortunate thing that could have happened to me; for the loss of one or two weeks now is, or may be, most fatal to us. However, I am better now, and am hurrying on to my post as fast as possible. We must defeat the enemy somewhere, to give confidence to our friends. Large depots of provisions, ammunition, etc., ought to be provided for at Atlanta, Montgomery, and Jackson, Miss., etc.. without loss of time, for future contingency.

We must give up some minor points, and concentrate our forces, to save the most important ones, or we will lose all of them in succession.

The loss of Fort Donelson (God grant it may not fall) would be followed by consequences too lamentable to be now alluded to.

General Johnston is doing his best, but what can he do against such tremendous odds?

Come what may, however, we must present a bold front and stout hearts to the invaders of our country.

In haste, yours truly,

G. T. BEAUREGARD.

Colonel R. A. PRYOR, Richmond, Va.

February 11, 1862: Grant issues marching orders for Fort Donelson

2012-02-11T08:02:00.000-05:00

John A. Rawlins later in the war, c.1863

Just five days after the fall of Fort Henry on February 6, 1862, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant had consolidated his position at Fort Henry and was ready to issue marching orders for an advance on nearby Fort Donelson. Grant's orders were written and delivered by his indispensable Assistant Adjutant-General, Captain John A. Rawlins.

GENERAL FIELD ORDERS,
No. 11

HDQRS. DISTRICT OF CAIRO,
Fort Henry, February 11, 1862.

The troops designated in General Field Orders, No. 7, will move tomorrow, as rapidly as possible, in the following order:

One brigade of the First Division will move by the Telegraph road directly upon Fort Donelson, halting for further orders at a distance of 2 miles from the fort. The other brigades of the First Division will move by the Dover or Ridge road, and halt at the same distance from the fort, and throw out troops so as to form a continuous line between the two wings.

The two brigades of the Second Division now at Fort Henry will fol- low as rapidly as practicable by the Dover road, and will be followed by the troops from Fort Heiman as fast as they can be ferried across the river.

One brigade of the Second Division should be thrown into Dover to cut off all retreat by the river, if found practicable to do so.

The force of the enemy being so variously reported, it is impossible to give exact details of attack, but the necessary orders will be given on the field.

By order of Brig. Gen. U.S. Grant, commanding:

JNO. A. RAWLINS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

Grant was moving fast to capitalize on the victory at Fort Henry.

February 10, 1862: The Mosquito Fleet destroyed at Elizabeth City

2012-02-10T18:36:00.004-05:00

The U.S.S Delaware, Union flagship at the Battle of Elizabeth City

Elizabeth City, North Carolina sits at the head of navigation on the Pasquotank River at the northern end of the Albemarle Sound. Elizabeth City was also the southern terminus of the Dismal Swamp Canal, and as such was the back door to Norfolk, Virginia. Before the Union seizure of Roanoke Island on February 8, 1862, significant quantities of supplies had been brought up the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and sent through the canal to Norfolk. On the morning of February 10, 1862, a Union squadron of warships found the remnants of the Confederate "Mosquito Fleet" holed up in Elizabeth City.

U.S.S. DELAWARE,
Off Elizabeth City, February 10, 1862.

SIR: I have the happiness to report that I met the enemy off this place this morning at 9:06, and, after a very sharp engagement, succeeded in destroying or capturing his entire naval force and silencing and destroying his battery on Cobbs Point.

The only vessel saved from destruction is the steamer Ellis, Captain J. W. Cooke, who is wounded and a prisoner on board this ship. I have other prisoners.

I am happy to say that our casualties are few consideriiig the warmth of the enemy's fire, say two or three killed and some wounded.

I sent the Ellis to you, under command of Acting Master Chase, of this ship, whom I hope you will confirm in the command.

The conduct of the gallant men I have the honor to command is worthy of all praise.

A detailed account will be furnished when I have time.

I am happy to say that none of the vessels are severely injured.

I shall leave here a small force and visit the canals and take a look into the other places before I return.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S.C. ROWAN,
Commander, U.S. Navy.

Flag-Officer L.M. GOLDSBOROUGH,
Commanding North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

The 13 Union gunboats quickly disposed of the Confederate defenders: 5 gunboats, a sailing schooner, and a small fort with four guns. The Confederates were outnumbered, outgunned, and were critically short of ammunition, and the battle was a short and one-sided Union victory.

February 10, 1862: The Union's raid up the Tennessee River

2012-02-10T15:25:00.000-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, Lieutenant S.L. Phelps, commanding the U.S.S. Conestoga, reported on his raid up the Tennessee River. Phelps, along with the gunboats Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington had been sent up the Tennessee River almost the same hour as Fort Henry had fallen. Dashing up the Tennessee River, Phelps and his men wrecked bridges, burned rebel steamboats, seized supplies, and even captured a half finished Confederate ironclad.At Florence, where he should have destroyed the railroad bridge. The railroad bridge at Florence would later be used by the Confederates to move troops intended to counter the advance of Grant's army.

U.S. GUNBOAT CONESTOGA,
Tennessee River, February 10, 1862.

SIR: Soon after the surrender of Fort Henry, on the 6th instant, I proceeded, in obedience to your order, up the Tennessee River with the Tyler, Lieutenant Commanding Gwin; Lexington, Lieutenant Commanding Shirk, and this vessel, forming a division of the flotilla, and arrived after dark at the railroad crossing, 25 miles above the fort, having on the way destroyed a small amount of camp equipage, abandoned by the fleeing rebels. The draw of the bridge was found closed and the machinery for turning it disabled. About 1 1/2 miles above, were several rebel transport steamers escaping upstream. A party was landed and in one hour I had the satisfaction to see the draw open. The Tyler being the slowest of the gunboats, Lieutenant Commanding Gwin landed a force to destroy a portion of the railroad track and to secure such military stores as might be found, while I directed Lieutenant Commanding Shirk to follow me with all speed in chase of the fleeing boats. In five hours this boat succeeded in forcing the rebels to abandon and burn three of their boats, loaded with military stores. The first one fired (Samuel Orr) had on board a quantity of submarine batteries, which very soon exploded; the second one was freighted with powder, cannon, shot, grape, balls, etc. Fearing an explosion from the fired boats (there were two together), I had stopped at a distance of 1,000 yards; but even there our skylights were broken by the concussion; the light upper deck was raised bodily, doors were forced open, and locks and fastenings everywhere broken.

The whole river for half a mile around about was completely beaten up by the falling fragments and the shower of shot, grape, balls, etc. The house of a reported Union man was blown to pieces, and it is suspected there was design in landing the boats in front of the doomed home. The Lexington having fallen astern, and without a pilot on board, I concluded to wait for both of the boats to come up. Joined by them we proceeded up the river. Lieutenant Commanding Gwin had destroyed some of the trestlework at the end of the bridge, burning with them a lot of camp equipage. I. N. Brown, formerly a lieutenant in the Navy, now signing himself Lieutenant, C. S. N., had fled with such precipitation as to leave his papers behind. These Lieutenant Commanding Gwin brought away and I send them to you, as they give an official history of the rebel floating preparations on the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee. Lieutenant Brown had charge of the construction of gunboats. At night on the 7th we arrived at a landing in Hardin County, Tenn., known as Cerro Gordo, where we found the steamer Eastport being converted to a gunboat. Armed boats crews were immediately sent on board and search made for means of destruction that might have been devised. She had been scuttled and the suction pipes broken. These leaks were soon stopped. A number of rifle shots were fired at our vessels, but a couple of shells dispersed the rebels. On examination I found that there were large quantities of timber and lumber prepared for fitting up the Eastport; that the vessel itself, some 280 feet long, was in excellent condition and already half finished; considerable of the plating designed for her was lying on the bank and everything at hand to complete her. I therefore directed Lieutenant Commanding Gwin to remain with the Tyler to guard the prize, and to load the lumber, etc., while the Lexington and Conestoga should proceed still higher up.

Soon after daylight on the 8th we passed Eastport, Miss., and at Chickasaw, farther up, near the State line, seized two steamers, the Sallie Wood and Muscle; the former laid up and the latter freighted with iron destined for Richmond and for rebel use. We then proceeded on up the river, entering the State of Alabama and ascending to Florence, at the foot of the Mussel Shoals. On coming in sight of the town three steamers were discovered, which were immediately set on fire by the rebels. Some shots were fired from the opposite side of the river below. A force was landed and considerable quantities of supplies, marked Fort Henry, were secured from the burning wrecks. Some had been landed and stored. These I seized, putting such as we could bring away on board our vessels and destroying the remainder. No flats or other craft could be found. I found also more of the iron and plating intended for the Eastport.

A deputation of citizens of Florence waited upon me, first desiring that they might be made able to quiet the fears of their wives and daughters with assurances from me that they would not be molested; and, secondly, praying that I would not destroy their railroad bridge. As for the first I told them we were neither ruffians nor savages, and that we were there to protect from violence and to enforce the law; and with reference to the second, that if the bridge were away we could ascend no higher, and that it could possess, so far as I saw, no military importance, as it simply connected Florence itself with the railroad on the south bank of the river.

We had seized three of their steamers, one the half-finished gun- boat, and had forced the rebels to burn six others loaded with sup- plies, and their loss, with that of the freight, is a heavy blow to the enemy. Two boats are still known to be on the Tennessee, and are doubtless hidden in some of the creeks, where we shall be able to find them when there is time for the search.

We returned on the night of the 8th to where the Eastport lay. The crew of the Tyler had already gotten on board of the prize an immense amount of lumber, etc. The crews of the three boats set to work to finish the undertaking, and we have brought away probably 250,000 feet of the best quality of ship and building lumber, all the iron, machinery, spikes, plating, nails, etc., belonging to the rebel gunboat, and I caused the mill to be destroyed where the lumber had been sawed.

Lieutenant Commanding Gwin in our absence had enlisted some 25 Tennesseeans, who gave information of the encampment of Colonel Crews' rebel regiment, at Savannah, Tenn. A portion of the 600 or 700 men were known to be "pressed" men, and all were badly armed. After consultation with Lieutenants Commanding Gwin and Shirk, I determined to make a land attack upon the encamp- ment. Lieutenant Commanding Shirk, with 30 riflemen, came on board the Conestoga, leaving his vessel to guard the Eastport, and accompanied by the Tyler we proceeded up to that place, prepared to land 130 riflemen and a 12-pounder rifled howitzer. Lieutenant Commanding Gwin took command of this force when landed, but had the mortification to find the camp deserted. The rebels had fled at 1 o'clock in the night, leaving considerable quantities of arms, clothing, shoes, camp utensils, provisions, implements, etc., all of which were secured or destroyed, and their winter quarters of log huts were burned. I seized also a large mail bag, and send you the letters giving military information. The gunboats were then dropped down to a point where arms gathered under the rebel press law had been stored, and an armed party under Second Master Goudy, of the Tyler, succeeded in seizing about 70 rifles and fowling pieces. Returning to Cerro Gordo, we took the Eastport, Sallie Wood, and Muscle in tow, and came down the river to the railroad crossing. The Muscle sprung a leak, and all efforts failed to prevent her sinking, and we were forced to abandon her, and with her a considerable quantity of fine lumber. We are having trouble in getting through the draw of the bridge here.

I now come to the, to me, most interesting portion of this report, one which has already become lengthy; but I must trust you will find some excuse for this in the fact that it embraces a history of labors and movements day and night from the 6th to the 10th of the month, all of which details I deem it proper to give you. We have met with the most gratifying proofs of loyalty everywhere across Tennessee, and in the portions of Mississippi and Alabama we visited most affecting instances greeted us almost hourly. Men, women, and children several times gathered in crowds of hundreds, shouted their welcome and hailed their national flag with an enthusiasm there was no mistaking. It was genuine and heartfelt. Those people braved everything to go to the river bank, where a sight of their flag might once more be enjoyed, and they have experienced, as they related, every possible form of persecution. Tears flowed freely down the cheeks of men as well as of women, and there were those who had fought under the stars and stripes at Moultrie, who, in this manner testified to their joy. This display of feeling and sense of gladness at our success, and the hopes it created in the breasts of so many people in the heart of the Confederacy astonished us not a little, and I assure you, sir, I would not have failed to witness it for any consideration. I trust it has given us all a higher sense of the sacred character of our present duties. I was assured at Savannah that of the several hundred troops there, more than one-half, had we gone to the attack in time, would have hailed us as deliverers and gladly enlisted with the national force. In Tennessee the people generally in their enthusiasm braved secessionists and spoke their views freely; but in Mississippi and Alabama what was said was guarded. If we dared express ourselves freely you would hear such a shout greeting your coming as you never heard. We know there are many Unionists among us, but a reign of terror makes us afraid of our shadows. We were told, too, Bring us a small organized force with arms and ammunition for us, and we can main- tain our position and put down rebellion in our midst. There were, it is true, whole communities who, on our approach, fled to the woods, but these were where there was less of the loyal element and where the fleeing steamers in advance had spread tales of our com- ing with firebrands, burning, destroying, ravishing, and plundering.

The crews of these vessels have had a very laborious time, but have evinced a spirit in their work highly creditable to them. Lieutenants Commanding Gwin and Shirk have been untiring, and I owe to them and to their officers many obligations for our entire success.

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,

S.L. PHELPS, Lieutenant,
Commanding, U. S. Navy.

Flag-Officer, A. H. FOOTE, U. S. Navy,
Commanding Naval Forces, Western Waters.

The long-term effects of Phelp's raid were devastating. The Tennessee River had been an important artery of commerce and supply for the Confederacy. Phelps captured or burned all but two of the Confederacy's steamboats on the Tennessee River, which was a problem because the Confederates themselves lacked the ability to build steamboats. By destroying the Confederate shipping on the Tennessee River, Phelps rendered the Tennessee River useless to the Confederates. Phelps also did critical damage to railroad bridges that cross the river, though he missed his chance at Florence when he failed to destroy the railroad bridge there. The railroad bridge at Florence would be used later in the year by the Confederates to move troops to counter the advance of Grant's army.

February 9, 1862: George Washington Whitman to his mother

2012-02-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

On this day, 150 years ago, George Washington Whitman--brother of poet Walt Whitman--wrote home from Roanoke Island to his mother, Louisa Van Velsor Whitman.

1862

Roanoak Island North Carolina Feb 9th

Dear Mother

I wrote you last when we arived at Hateras Inlet nearly a month since but dont know as you received it as I hear the leters did not leave there untill we left to come here, which was on Wednesday last, this island is on Palmico Sound about 45 miles from Hateras and is about 12 miles long and 4 wide we left Hateras with a fleet of about 70 vessels only 15 or 16 of which was fighting crafts the rest were tow boats old steamboats and schooners, we had about 13000 Infantry on board the transports and came to anchor near hear on Thursday afternoon on Friday Morning we got under way the gunboats taking the lead and as soon as we got within range the gunboats opened fire on the Batteries here, and they blazed away back, it was a fine sight the shells bursting all around the batteries and sending up a column of sand 20 feet high and the Batteries throwing shot and shells like blazes the Staten Island Ferry boat Hunchback which had some heavy guns on board was shot through and through but she anchored and stuck to it like a good fellow they kept it up untill dusk and then hauled off for the night About 5 O Clock in the afternoon our regiment landed one of the gunboats throwing shell to cover us one of the Mass regts landing just about the same time, we were on boad of an old stern wheel steamboat which took us up so close that we jumped on shore we had to wade about 200 yards through mud and water up to our knees and then found a spot not very dry but we stoped there for the night we built fires and tried to dry ourselves as well as we could took our supers of hard crackers and then laid down for the night. About 11 O Clock it comenced to rain not very hard but enough to make it very unpleasant I stuck it out until my blanket got wet through, and then got up and stood around the fire until morning we had breakfast of good crackers, put more crackers in our haversacks and then fell in for a march we moved off in two Brigades we being the second numbering all told about 7000 men with a battery of 5 howitzers we struck directly into the woods and soon heard the firing comence on the right of the first Brigade we were in a wagon path and all around us was a thick wood almost as thick as the woods around Deer Park we kept on, the first Brigade driving the enemy untill we got into a thick swamp where the mud and water was over the top of my boots and the bushes was so thick that we had the greatest difficulty in getting through we kept on however untill we drove them chock into their Batery which was one of the celabrated masked Bateries we have heard so mutch about our regiment worked around on their right flank through a thicket that you would think it was imposible for a man to pass through it was might trying to a fellows nerves as the balls was flying around pretty thick cutting the twigs off overhead and knocking the bark off the trees all around us, but our regiment behaved finely and pressed on as fast as possible we were under fire about an hour and a half before our regiment dare fire a shot for fear of shooting our own friends as we could not see 10 yards on either side. As soon as our regt got sight of the Batery Gen Renno who is our Brigadeer General gave the order to charge and away we went the water flying over our heads as we splashed through it I was in my position on the left flank of our regt when I heard the order to charge so that when I reached the Battery our colors and the flag of the 9th New York and the 21st Mass were planted there ours were there first however but it was mighty tight between us and the others when the other regts came in you can bet there was some tall shouting but there was nary a rebel in sight for as soon as they saw us start on a charge they started to run, one of the rebels lay there dead by his gun another lay badly wounded a few feet further in the bushes lay an old man with beard perfectly white, dead, here and there heaps of knapsacks haversacks and clothes guns and amunition I picked up this paper and envelope inside the Battery and as I wanted a pair of drawers I found a new pair and a lot of hankerchiefs which I lost again we soon formed again and started after the rebels quite a number of whome had broke for the shore about a mile off the way was pretty well strewn with blankets an coats thrown off by the rebels as they ran. a few of them escaped in boats but we got 40 or 50 there among the rest was Mr. O jennings Wise son of Gov Wise of Virginia who was badly wounded and I believe dided to day. he came to the Island yesterday morning with 600 of the noted Wise Legion he was a fine looking young fellow and plucky, we took these prisoners to a house near by and started off in the woods to look for more game and we found it, after traveling about an hour we found two dead rebels lying in the woods and farther on lay another just dying the top of his head being shot off a little way from these we met a dozen rebels with a white flag we took care of them and soon met another party with a flag they said they came from a large force and wanted to make terms for a surender our general told them unles they made an unconditional surender at once he would order his forces to fire but they had had enough for one day and stacked their arms and wilted without a strugle they numbered about 1600 men and had cleared a space of a couple of hundred acres of land in the woods and erected splendid barracks for I should think 20,000 men the buildings have floors and fire places and shingle roofs I have not counted the buildings but should think there was 75 or 80 some 25 or 30 of which are about 100 feet by 50 and a good many first rate log houses and a large hospital Building quite a quantity of stores were found in some of the buildings consisting of bacon, rice, crackers all of which we took peacable posession of and we have slaughtered hogs enough in the woods to keep us all in fresh pork last night and today with a small stock for tomorrow we are living now like fighting cocks and prisoners have been comeing in and giving themselvs up and squads of them have been taken by our pickets all day so that we must have some 2500 to night I have seen 1 or 2 Colonels and lots of captain and other Officers among them they have been working here the prisoners say for the last 5 months puting up these buildings and I give them credit for haveing built tip top quarters the loss of our regiment was remarkable small I think not over 10 killed and 10 or 12 wounded I think the loss on our side not more than 40 killed and 70 or 80 wounded it is a miracle to me that our loss was so small when I think how the bullets wized around our heads. The enemy had a great advantage in knowing the ground and could pick his position while we had to follow without knowing were we were going they thought they would tole us up to the Bateries and then slaughter us as they did at Bethell they say they did not think we would go in that water and fight the Batery was made of turf and had 4 guns we whiped them fair and square on their own ground and they say we are a good deal smarter than they thought we were. It was rather a sickening sight to see the wounded brought along the road but I expected sutch things so that it did not effect me mutch and after a while we would pass them lying in the bushes and think nothing of it I was as calm and cool during the whole affair as I am at any time and I was perfectly surprised to see how well our troops acted our Generals too Renno and Foster acted first rate Burnside and Pratt I believe was not on shore they were atending to the forts on shore Pratts Brigade I believe did not land untill the fleet silenced some of the Bateries the fleet went to work yesterday morning about the same time that we did knocked tar out of some of the Batteries on the shore and scared the rebels so that they left others before the fleet fired a shot into them I went down to one of their Batteries this afternoon and was surprised to see how large and well aranged it was it was made of turf the parapet which shields the guners being about 15 ft thick and 8 or 9 feet high with embrasures to rain the guns out it mounted 10 guns 2 of them being 32 pound Parrot guns rifled and the others heavy smoothe bore guns I could see from there three other Forts one they say just like the one I was in another mutch larger and mounting 18 large guns and I believe there are some others that I have not seen some of them were silenced by the fleet and I supose they it was no use to try to hold the others as we were in the rear of them and we would have been at them if they had staid. So Mammy I think we done a pretty good days work yesterday marching 15 or 16 miles and fighting with boots filed with water for 4 hours. Wel Mammy how are you all and whats the news are you and Mat and the baby and all the rest wel write to me as soon as ever you can and tell me all the news I wish Walt if he is home, or Jeff would send me some papers often it is a great treat to get a sight of a New York Paper I should like one giveing a discription of the battle I supose you will see a good acount of it as I saw 2 or three reporters in the field yesterday, Direct 51 Regt N.Y.V. Burnsides coast division Roanoak Island North Carolina good night Mother

G W Whitman

The only efects I feel of my work yesterday is a little stiffness in my legs from walking

February 8, 1862: The Battle of Roanoke Island - Day Two

2012-02-08T06:00:00.003-05:00

The Battle of Roanoke Island - Day Two. Click on image to enlarge.

One day short of a month from their departure from Hampton Roads, the men of the Burnside Expedition face the climactic moment of their mission to the Carolina Coast. From Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside's official report of February 14, 1862:

By 12 o'clock that night the entire division (except the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts, Colonel Stevenson, detained below by the grounding of the steamer), together with Porter's battery of Dahlgren howitzers, had been landed. During the night a careful reconnaissance was made by my three brigade generals and their troops most judiciously posted, the leading regiment, the Twenty-first Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel Maggi, occupying a position at the forks of the road above Hammond's house.

Early the next morning, in pursuance of the plan of action, General Foster ordered an advance. I arrived on the ground after the first three regiments of the brigade had filed through the woods, the other regiments being in line ready to move forward as room was made for them. General Reno's and Parke's brigades were also in readiness for a forward movement.

On reaching a point some mile and a half by the road from Hammond's house, General Foster came upon the battery across the road which, from information received, we had been led to suppose was there, and immediately commenced the disposition of his forces for his attack; and I here beg leave to say that I must refer you almost entirely to the reports of my brigadier-generals for an accurate knowledge of their movements during the day, as the face of the island precluded the possibility of any general oversight of operations on the field. The road from the opening in front of Hammond's house to the battery, some mile and a half; was very narrow and winding, leading through a deep marsh, covered with small pines and thick undergrowth, presenting the appearance of being impenetrable. The battery is not visible until a point some 600 yards from it is reached, when the road takes a turn to the left, and the timber in front is cleared away, that the guns may have full sweep. For more accurate information I beg leave to refer you to the accompanying map of the road.

Soon after the attack was commenced I ordered General Parke to place a regiment in the woods to the north of Hammond's house and extending up to the main road, to prevent the possibility of the enemy's turning our left. The Eighth Connecticut, Colonel Harland, was detailed for this service. The Fifth Rhode Island Battalion, Major Wright, had been ordered to occupy Ashby's house. I then ordered Captain D'Wolf, with a boat's crew kindly loaned me by the Delaware, which way lying off the shore, to move down and land, and carefully reconnoiter the ground south and east of Ashby's, thus ascertaining that there was no force in the rear or on our right flank. Soon after this the firing indicated that General Foster was very warmly engaged with the enemy. General Reno's brigade was forcing its way up to his relief and General Parke's brigade was ready to follow. I had ordered General Parke to have the Ninth New York, Colonel Hawkins, land their Dahlgren howitzers from their floating battery on the shore, but as the marshy ground would have made it a half day's work, I countermanded the order, which was most fortunate, as the regiment moved forward in time to take a most important part in the action.

General Foster commenced the attack by putting six Dahigren howitzers in position in front of the enemy's battery, supporting it with the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts, Colonel Upton. This regiment was supported by the Twenty-third Massachusetts, Colonel Kurtz, also in line. After the Tenth Connecticut, Colonel Russell, came up, General Foster ordered the Twenty-third Massachusetts and Twenty-seventh Massachusetts, Colonel Lee, to pass into the swamp on the right, for the purpose of getting on the left flank of the enemy. Soon after this the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts exhausted its ammunition, and the Tenth Connecticut advanced to its position. All these movements were performed by the regiments under lead of their respective commanders with the most commendable efficiency. The skill with which the Dahlgren howitzers were handled by Midshipman Benjamin Porter and Acting Master J. B. Hammond is deserving the highest praise, and I take great pleasure in recommending them to the favorable notice of the Navy Department. At this time the number of wounded arriving on litters indicated that the engagement was serious, and two hospitals were established by my brigade surgeon, Dr. W.H. Church, one at Hammond's house and the other at Ashbys, where the wounded were well cared for.

In the meantime, General Reno, coming up, sent word to General Foster that he would try to penetrate the dense wood to the left and thus turn their right flank, which movement was approved by General Foster and was carried out by General Reno, the Twenty-flrst Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel Maggi, leading, followed by the Fifty-first New York, Colonel Ferrero; Ninth New Jersey, Lieutenant-Colonel Heckman, and Fifty-first Pennsylvania, Colonel Hartranft, each most gallantly led by their respective commanders, and resulting in a complete success. When it is remembered that in addition to the obstacles of thicket and underbrush the men were more than knee-deep in mud and water, it seems a most wonderful feat. Immediately after General Reno's brigade had cleared the road General Parke came up with his brigade, and was ordered by General Foster to support the Twenty-third Massachusetts and Twenty-seventh Massachusetts Regiments, which had by direction of General Foster most gallantly initiated under their colonels a movement to turn the left flank of the enemy, when he at once turned his brigade to the right, the Fourth Rhode Island in advance, gallantly led by its colonel and Capt. Lewis Richmond, my assistant adjutant-general, meeting with obstacles equal to those on the left.

Just as the Ninth New York was entering the woods to follow the Fourth Rhode island Generals Foster and Parke, discovering that the appearance of General Reno on the enemys right had staggered him, they decided to order the Ninth New York to charge the battery in front, which was instantly done, and at once the road was filled with a sea of red caps, the air resounding with their cheers. The charge of General Reno's leading regiment, the Twenty-first Massachusetts, and Fifty-first New York was simnnltaneous with the charge of the Ninth New York, when the enemy broke and ran in the greatest possible confusion, while the cheers of our men indicated to every omme on time island that we had carried the battery. The merit of first entering the fort is claimed by the Twenty-first Massachusetts and Fifty-first New York, a few men from each regiment entering at the same time, one regiment hoisting the regimental flag and the other the national flag on the parapet.

Just before the charge the steamer Union arrived with the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts, which I hastened forward, with the exception of three companies, detailed to carry up ammunition. It must be remembered that up to this time there had not been a single horse landed, owing to the impossibility of getting them through the marsh on the shore. All the ammunition and stores had to be transferred by our soldiers, and the general and field officers had to perform their duties on foot. On moving up the road toward the battery I met my aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Fearing, whom I had sent to the front to report progress, when he informed me that an advance was made by General Reno's brigade immediately after the battery was taken, thus anticipating my order sent by Lieutenant Anderson. I had learned from an officer of the Richmond Blues, taken prisoner and brought to me by Capt. William Cutting and Lient. D. A. Pell, that there were no more batteries on the road.

The Twenty-fourth Massachusetts, Colonel Stevenson, coming up fresh, General Foster pushed on, followed by General Parke. On arriving at the road leading to Pork Point Battery I detailed the Fourth Rhode Island and the Tenth Connecticut from General Foster's brigade, sending them under General Parke down this road to take the battery in the rear, but on their arrival it was found to have been just evacuated. The pursuit was continued by Generals Foster and Reno to the head of the island in rear of Weir's Point Battery, where the entire force on the island had concentrated in two camps. A slight engagement ensued, in which the enemy lost four men killed, after which they surrendered to Generals Foster and Reno at discretion. The entire force of the enemy on the island, in the batteries, and stationed as sharpshooters was about 4,000. Gov. H. A. Wise had a force in reserve at Nags Head, with which he left as soon as he heard of our victory. Their troops were well posted for defense and their inland battery well masked, so that our men were really fighting against an enemy almost entirely concealed. The force that surrendered to Generals Foster and Reno consisted of 159 officers and over 2,500 men. Among these are two colonels, two lieutenant-colonels, and three majors.

I omitted to mention that the Ninth New York was diverted to the right of the main road by General Reno, where they captured some 60 prisoners in their attempt to escape through Shallow Bag Bay. Among these prisoners was Capt. O. Jennings Wise, who was severely wounded and has since died. The loss of the enemy is unknown, as many had been removed, but it will not exceed 150 killed and wounded.

By this victory we have gained complete possession of this island, with five forts, mounting thirty-two guns, winter quarters for some 4,000 troops, and 3,000 stand of arms, large hospital buildings, with a large amount of lumber, wheelbarrows, scows, pile-drivers, a mud dredge, ladders, and other appurtenances for military service, of which a careful inventory will be made and sent on, with an accurate list of prisoners, by our next dispatches.

Fort Forrest, on the main-land, opposite Weir's Point, was burned by the rebels on the evening of the 8th instant. It contained eight guns, thus making their loss forty guns in all. The Navy has recovered nearly all from this fort in good condition.

Southern defeat was crushing and complete on Roanoke Island. A significant portion of the artillery lost at the Gosport navy yard was recaptured, and more importantly, Norfolk's back door to the Atlantic Ocean through the Dismal Swamp Canal was slammed shut. The vast inland waterway of the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds was lost to the South. Henceforth, supplies for the Southern capitol of Richmond and the troops that defended it would have to travel over rickety, crumbling Southern railroads.

A battery of Dahlgren boat howitzers supported Burnside's troops

February 7, 1862: The Battle of Roanoke Island - Day One

2012-02-07T06:00:00.001-05:00

On the morning of February 7, 1862, the vessels of the Burnside Expedition made their final run in to Roanoke Island. The Navy gunboats crowded forward to silence the Confederate battery at Pork Point and fend off the Confederate Navy's "mosquito fleet." With the battery's guns silenced and the beach at Ashby's Harbor cleared of Confederate defenders, the infantry of Burnside's division landed in force. Probably the best contemporary account of the day's action comes from "Rough notes of the naval expedition to Roanoke Island, etc.," by Henry Van Brunt, secretary to flag-officer Louis M. Goldsborough:

Friday, February 7. At 7 a.m. the flag-steamer Southfield signalized, "Let the men take their breakfast;" a heavy fog bank to the north-ward driven over and dispersed by 9 a.m.; troopships steaming forward a little into line and taking their tows. At 9:40 a.m. the army steamer Chasseur joined the other army gunboats. At 9:40 a.m. the flag-steamer hoisted signal, "Prepare to get underway;" at 9:55 a.m., "Get underway." At 10: 10 a.m. the Delaware signalized to her division, "In two columns, keep in close order." At 10: 15 a.m. the flag-steamer hoisted, "Our country expects every man to do his duty." At 10:30 a.m. the enemy discharged a heavy gun. At 10:25 the flag-steamer signalized, "Steamers with 9-inch guns close up." At 10:50 a.m. the Putnam and Louisiana both got aground in passing through the marshes into Croatan, but both were soon got off. At 10:55 a.m. flag-steamer signalized, "Prepare for action." At 11:20 a.m. the Delaware hoisted, "Keep the lead going." During the great movement into the sound the Ceres and Underwriter were sent ahead, the former to feel the way and ascertain if there were obstructions in the channel, the latter with orders to discover if there was a fortification on Sand Point. At 11:25 a.m. the Underwriter fired the first shot into the point, without drawing a reply, and hoisted accordingly, No battery on Sand Point. At 11:50 a.m. all the gunboats were fairly in Croatan Sound, the transports meanwhile crowding after, and the signal was made, "Keep in close order." As we approached the enemy's boats appeared, eight in number, behind a barrier built of piles and sunken vessels, and extending from Redstone Point on the mainland eastward to within half a mile of the island. The action became general about meridian [noon], our gunboats being engaged with the enemy's vessels, with a battery of 9 guns on Pork Point, a battery of 4 guns 2 miles above this point, and a battery of 8 guns on Redstone Point on the mainland, the last two batteries, however, firing only occasionally and with little effect. During the action most of our fire was directed against the Pork Point battery, with reference to which the signal was several times made from the flag-steamer, "Close in." Throughout the day it was the effort of the enemy's vessels to draw our fire from this battery, and by retreating when pursued, to get our vessels entangled among the piles and sunken vessels of the barrier, where they would be exposed not only to the fire of the three batteries above named, but especially to that of a battery on Weir's Point mounting 12 guns. At 1:30 p.m. the barracks and storehouses behind the Pork Point battery were set on fire by our shells. At 2 p.m. General Burnside ran alongside the flag-steamer to communicate concerning the landing of troops, etc. At 2: 15 p.m. the buildings of the fort seemed to be on fire in many places, burning furiously; the signal halyards had been shot away and the rebel flag floated from a staff temporarily raised on the earthworks. At about this time the fire was hottest from the fleet, and the fort responded steadily but with considerable deliberation. At 2:30 p.m. the Hetzel signalized, "I am struck below water." The flag-steamer replied, "Haul off and repair." At 3 p.m. the army steamers Patuxent and Union filled with troops left the transports (which were lying at anchor in a body about 2 miles above the marshes) and approached Ashby's Harbor, a landing place 2 miles south of Pork Point. At 3:25 p.m. the army steamer Pilot Boy followed, towing a large number of boats and a pontoon bridge, all loaded with troops. At 3:55 p.m. the Ceres amid afterward several other vessels signalized, "Ammunition nearly expended." These vessels were directed to obtain a supply of the articles wanted from the schooner Howard and the steamer Philadelphia. At 4 p.m. five out of the eight rebel steamers ran down closer, in order to draw the fire of our gunboats, which were engaging the Pork Point battery very warmly. At 4: 25 p.m. this battery ceased to reply, and at 4: 30 p.m. the five rebel steamers were driven back behind Weir's Point, several of them disabled. The first landing of our troops at Ashby's Harbor was effected under the fire of the Delaware, and subsequently under that of the army steamer Picket. At 4:45 p.m. a large body of the enemy, stationed to oppose the landing, was dispersed by our shrapnel. The two lower batteries, after having been silent for about three-quarters of an hour, opened again at about 5 p.m. At the same time several small steamers of the enemy appeared to be landing troops at Weir's Point by means of flatboats. At 5:10 p.m. the flag-steamer signalized, "Shots are failing short," and at about the same time the enemy's gunboats ran down toward us, but were driven back before 5:45 p.m., and at 6 p.m. signal was hoisted from flag-steamer, "Cease firing." In the evening, at 9:30, General Burnside went on board flag-steamer and reported that 6,000 men had landed, and that through the night he would land his men at the rate of 1,000 an hour. In the evening six naval launches, under the command of Midshipman Porter, landed their howitzers and reported to the general for orders.

By 9:30 p.m., Burnside had 6,000 men and a battery of light howitzers on Roanoke Island--roughly three times the number of defenders--and before daylight the next day, Burnside would have a total of 10,000 troops poised to attack the Confederate defenders.

February 6, 1862: The Defense of Fort Henry

2012-02-06T09:20:00.000-05:00

The following is an eyewitness account of the Battle of Fort Henry from the Confederate perspective from "The Defense of Fort Henry" by Captain Jesse Taylor, C.S. Army:

On the 4th of February the Federal fleet of gun-boats, followed by countless transports, appeared below the fort. Far as eye could see, the course of the river could be traced by the dense volumes of smoke issuing from the flotilla-indicating that the long-threatened attempt to break our lines was to be made in earnest. The gunboats took up a position about three miles below and opened a brisk fire, at the same time shelling the woods on the east bank of the river, thus covering the debarkation of their army. The 5th was a day of unwonted animation on the hitherto quiet waters of the Tennessee; all day long the flood-tide of arriving and the ebb of returning transports continued ceaselessly. Late in the afternoon three of the gun-boats, two on the west side and one of the east at the foot of the island, took position and opened a vigorous and well-directed fire, which was received in silence until the killing of one man and the wounding of three provoked an order to open with the Columbiad and the rifle. Six shots were fired in return,-three from each piece,-and with such effect that the gun-boats dropped out of range and ceased firing.

At night General Tilghman called his leading officers in consultation-Colonels Heiman, Forrest, and Drake are all that I can now recall as having been present. The Federal forces were variously estimated by us, 25,000 being, I think, the lowest. To oppose this force General Tilghman had less than four thousand men,-mostly raw regiments armed with shot-guns and hunting-rifles; in fact, the best-equipped regiment of his command, the 10th Tennessee, was armed with old flint-lock "Tower of London" muskets that had "done the state some service" in the war of 1812. The general opinion and final decision was that successful resistance to such an overwhelming force was an impossibility, that the army must fall back and unite with Pillow and Buckner at Fort Donelson. General Tilghamn, recognizing the difficulty of withdrawing undisciplined troops from the front of an active and superior opponent, turned to me with the question, "Can you hold out for one hour against a determined attack?" I replied that I could. "Well, then, gentlemen, rejoin your commands and hold them in readiness for instant motion." The garrison left at the fort to cover the withdrawal consisted of part of Company B, 1st Tennessee Artillery, Lieutenant Watts, and fifty-four men.

The forenoon of February 6th was spent by both sides in making needful preparations for the approaching struggle. The gun-boats formed line of battle abreast under the cover of the island. The Essex, the Cincinnati, the Carondelet, and the St. Louis, the first with 4 and the others each with 13 guns, formed the van; the Tyler, Conestoga, and Lexington, with 15 guns in all, formed the second or rear line. Seeing the formation of battle I assigned to each gun a particular vessel to which it was to pay its especial compliments, and directed that the guns be kept constantly trained on the approaching boats. Accepting the volunteered services of Captain Hayden (of the engineers) to assist at the Columbiad, I took personal supervision of the rifle. When they were out of cover of the island the gun-boats opened fire, and as they advanced they increased the rapidity of their fire, until as they swung into the main channel above the island they showed one broad and leaping sheet off lame. At this point, the van being a mile distant, the command was given to commence firing from the fort; and here let me say that as pretty and as simultaneous a "broadside" was delivered as I ever saw flash from the sides of a frigate. The action now became general, and for the next twenty or thirty minutes was, on both sides, as determined, rapid, and accurate as heart could wish, and apparently inclined in favor of the fort. The iron-clad Essex, disabled by a shot through her boiler, dropped out of line; the fleet seemed to hesitate, when a succession of untoward and unavoidable accidents happened in the fort; thereupon the flotilla continued to advance. First, the rifle gun, from which I had just been called, burst, not only with destructive effect to those working it, but with disabling effect on those in its immediate vicinity. Going to the Columbiad as the only really effective gun left, I met General Tilghman and for the first time knew that he had returned to the fort; I supposed that he was with his retreating army. While consulting with him a sudden exclamation drew me to the Columbiad, which I found spiked with its own priming wire, completely disabled for the day at least. The Federal commander, observing the silence of these two heavy guns, renewed his advance with increased precision of fire. Two of the 32-pounders were struck almost at the same instant, and the flying fragments of the shattered guns and bursted shells disabled every man at the two guns. His rifle shot and shell penetrated the earth-works as readily as a ball from a navy Colt would pierce a pine board, and soon so disabled other guns as to leave us but four capable of being served.

General Tilghman now consulted with Major Gilmer and myself as to the situation, and the decision was that further resistance would only entail a useless loss of life. He therefore ordered me to strike the colors, now a dangerous as well as a painful duty. The flag-mast,which had been the center of fire, had been struck many times; the top-mast hung so far out of the perpendicular that it seemed likely to fall at any moment; the flag halyards had been cut by shot, but had fortunately become "foul" at the cross-trees. I beckoned-for it was useless to call amid the din-to Orderly-Sergeant Jones, an old "man-o'-war's man," to come to my assistance, and we ran across to the flag-staff and up the lower rigging to the cross-trees, and by our united efforts succeeded in clearing the halyards and lowering the flag. The view from that elevated position at the time was grand, exciting, and striking. At our feet the fort with her few remaining guns was sullenly hurling her harmless shot against the sides of the gun-boats, which, now apparently within two hundred yards of the fort, were, in perfect security, and with the coolness and precision of target practice, sweeping the entire fort; to the north and west, on both sides of the river, were the hosts of "blue coats," anxious and interested spectators, while to the east the feeble forces of the Confederacy could be seen making their weary way toward Donelson.

On the morning of the attack, we were sure that the February rise of the Tennessee had come; when the action began, the lower part of the fort was already flooded, and when the colors were hauled down, the water was waist-deep there; and when the cutter came with the officers to receive the formal surrender, she pulled into the "sally-port"; between the fort and the position which had been occupied by the infantry support was a sheet of water a quarter of a mile or more wide, and "running like a mill-race." If the attack had been delayed forty-eight hours, there would hardly have been a hostile shot fired; the Tennessee would have accomplished the work by drowning the magazine.

The fight was over; the little garrison were prisoners; but our army had been saved. We had been required to hold out an hour; we had held out for over two.

We went into the fight with nine guns bearing on the river approach,-we had two more 42-pounders, but neither shot nor shell for them; of these all were disabled but four. Of the 54 men who went into action 5 were killed, 11 wounded or disabled, and 5 missing. When the Essex dropped our of the fight I could see her men wildly throwing themselves into the swollen river. Admiral Foote reported that his flag-ship was struck thirty-eight times, and the commanding officers of gun-boats (with several of whom I had enjoyed a arm personal acquaintance) complimented me highly on what they termed the extraordinary accuracy of the fire. I believe that with effective guns the same precision of fire would have sunk or driven back the flotilla.

The formal surrender was made to the naval forces; Lieutenant-Commander Phelps acting for Flag-Officer Foote, and I representing General Tilghman. The number captured, including Tilghman and staff, hospital attendants and some stragglers from the infantry, amounted to about seventy.

During the evening a large number of army officers came into the fort, to whom I was introduced by my old messmates, Lieutenant-Commanders Gwin and Shirk. Here I first saw General Grant, who impressed me, at the time, as a modest, amiable, kind-hearted but resolute man. While we were at headquarters an officer came in to report that he had not as yet found any papers giving information of our forces, and, to save him further looking, I informed him that I had destroyed all the papers bearing on the subject, at which he seemed very worth, fussily demanding, "By what authority?" Did I not know that I laid myself open to punishment, etc., etc. Before I could reply fully, General Grant quietly broke in with, "I would be very much surprised and mortified if one of my subordinate officers should allow information which he could destroy to fall into the hands of the enemy."

We were detained for several days at the fort and were confined to the same steamer on which General Grant had established his headquarters, and as the officers, Confederate and Federal, messed together, I saw much of the general during that time. We were treated with every courtesy; so our confinement was less irksome than we had anticipated and was only marred by one incident. Two of the younger Confederate officers having obtained liquor became vociferous. At dinner General Grant did not take his seat with the rest, and this restraint being removed, the young men, despite frowns and nudges, persisted in discussing politics, military men and movements, etc. While they were thus engaged General Grant, unobserved by them, entered, took his seat, and dined without appearing to notice their conversation, but when the youngsters left the table they were dumfounded to meet a corporal and file of men, who ceremoniously conducted them to the "nursery" and left them under guard, where I shortly visited them. At last I promised to intercede, which I did, carrying with me regrets, explanations, and apologies. The general smiled and said that he had confined them partly for their own sakes, lest they might fall in with some of his own men in a similar condition; that he did not believe the young men knew of his presence, and that he would order their release so soon as they became sober, which he did.

February 6, 1862: Union vessels sighted eight miles from Roanoke Island

2012-02-06T05:45:00.003-05:00

After nearly a month in transit since they'd left Hampton Roads on January 9, 1862, the Burnside Expedition finally was in sight of their target: Roanoke Island.

PORK POINT [ROANOKE ISLAND], February 6, [1862] -- 1 p.m.

COLONEL: The fog has cleared away from below, and I can distinctly see that the enemy is about 8 miles from us, in full force. I can make out more than fifty vessels, either at anchor or underway, in tow of steamers. I believe that they are at anchor. I am of opinion that they have stopped to consider, but it requires a bright lookout to keep the run of them.

Very respectfully,

B.P. LOYALL, Lieutenant, C.S. Navy.

[Colonel SHAW, C.S. Army.]

Loyall sent his message to Colonel Shaw because Brigadier General Henry A. Wise so violently ill that he was in the island's hospital. In spite of the month long respite caused by storms and the Union force's difficulty in getting over the bar at Hatteras Inlet, the Confederates on Roanoke Island were poorly prepared. The Confederate Navy had seven small gunboats mounting a grand total of 8 small guns. They were faced by no fewer than twenty U.S. Navy gunboats and nine more gunboats controlled by the Union Army. The Union gunboats carried a total of 108 guns, many of them much larger and heavier than the Confederate mosquito fleet's guns. While there were between 2,000 and 2,500 Confederate troops on Roanoke Island, the Union transports with Burnside carried 10,000 troops. Across the board the Union forces were better armed, equipped and supplied than their Confederate opponents.

Time had run out for Roanoke Island.

February 6, 1861: Foote's gunboats capture Fort Henry!

2012-02-06T05:45:00.002-05:00

Early in the afternoon of February 6, 1862, Union ground forces--15,000 troops--under the command of Ulysses S. Grant moved to attack the Confederate Fort Henry on the Tennessee River in Tennessee near the border with Kentucky. While Grant's men slogged over the soggy ground between their landing ground and the fort, seven gunboats--including four new ironclads--under the command of Flag Officer Andrew S. Foote steamed upriver to silence Fort Henry's guns. Later that same day, Foote sent the following report.

U.S. FLAG-STEAMER CINCINNATI,
Off Fort Henry, Tennessee River, February 6, 1862. (Received 7th.)

The gunboats under my command, Essex, Commander Porter; Carondelet, Commander Walke; Cincinnati, Commander Stembel; St. Louis, Lieutenant Commanding Paulding; Conestoga, Lieutenant Commanding Phelps; Tyler, Lieutenant Commanding Gwin, and Lexington, Lieutenant Commanding Shirk, after a severe and rapid fire of one hour and a quarter, have captured Fort Henry and have taken General Lloyd Tilghman and his staff, with 60 men, as prisoners. The surrender to the gunboats was unconditional, as we kept an open fire upon them until their flag was struck. In half an hour after the surrender I handed the fort and prisoners over to General Grant, commanding the army, on his arrival at the fort in force. The Essex had a shot in her boilers, and after fighting most effectually for two-thirds of the action was obliged to drop down the river, as I hear that several of her men were scalded to death, including the two pilots. She, with the other gunboats, officers and men, fought with the greatest gallantry. The Cincinnati received 31 shots and had 1 man killed and 8 wounded, 2 seriously. The fort, with 20 guns and 17 mounted, was defended by General Tilghman with the most determined gallantry. I will write as soon as possible. I have sent Lieutenant Commanding Phelps and three gunboats after the rebel gunboats.

A.H. FOOTE,
Flag-Officer.

Hon. G. WELLES,
Secretary Navy.

The reason the fort fell so easily became obvious after its capture. Tilghman had seen how completely outmatched his 3,400 infantrymen--most of whom were armed with smoothbore flintlocks--and decided to send his men to Fort Donelson 12 miles away on the Cumberland River. Tilghman himself stayed behind with a handful of artillerymen to make a show of defense and delay the pursuit. After a fierce artillery engagement, Tilghman and his remaining men were forced to surrender to Foote thirty minutes before Grant and his men arrived at the scene of battle.

The capture of Fort Henry opened up the Tennessee River to Union gunboats, and Foote sent his three wooden gunboats to raid upriver all the way to Muscle Shoals in Alabama. The fall of Fort Henry was--in short--a disaster for the Confederate war effort.

February 5, 1862: "Wise is quite ill"

2012-02-05T12:55:00.001-05:00

Henry A. Wise

On this day 150 years ago, an improvised, but powerful Union fleet was bearing down on Roanoke Island. All the same, Confederate war clerk John B. Jones seemed confident that political brigadier general Henry A. Wise--former governor of Virginia--would see the Union attackers off:

February 5th.—I am sorry to hear that Gen. Wise is quite ill. But, on his back, as on his feet, he will direct operations, and the enemy will be punished whenever he comes in reach of him.

Jones' assessment was far off the mark. Wise's defenses on Roanoke Island lacked men, sufficient artillery, ammunition, and effective naval support. Roanoke Island was supposed to be a fortress guarding Norfolk, Virginia's southern flank, but in reality it was a man trap for its defenders.

February 4, 1862: The Daily Dispatch says forts are stronger than ships

2012-02-04T07:30:00.004-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, the editors of Richmond's Daily Dispatch reassured their readers with a defiant exposition of the ways in which forts are superior to warships and how the Union's Navy will not be a match for the South's shore defenses.

Ships and batteries.

We gave some months ago a minute history of the conflicts between ships and batteries in the great wars of modern times, both in Europe and in our own country, from which it appeared that, in the great majority of cases, vessels of war were unable to compete with strong land fortifications. In all the wars of England with the continental nations, and in the war of the American Revolution and 1812, there was scarcely one exception to this general rule. That such does not seem to be the experience of the present war, is attributed by some to the introduction of steam, and the greater perfection in the mechanical agencies both of the ship and armament, and the more powerful and destructive character of the materials of war. This is an important subject in a country so assailable by sea as our own, which has no navy, and can only rely upon its shore defences to meet the numerous fleets of an enemy who has the whole navy and the whole mercantile marine, now armed, of the all United States at his command.

We confess that we have seen nothing of the experiences of this war to change our conviction of the superiority of land fortifications, when properly constructed and efficiently armed, to ships-of-war. The introduction of steam and other naval improvements has not reversed the relative strength of fortifications and vessels, though it undoubtedly requires the former, in order to maintain their old superiority, to be something more than mere earth works, without bomb-proof coverings, which, at Hatteras and Port Royal, were easily reduced by the vigorous shelling of the ships. The conflict at Pensacola was the only fair illustration of the question which the present war has furnished. There the fortifications were properly constructed, the men were sheltered by those defences which military art has provided against the descent of shells, the guns were of proper range, and handled by skillful and practised gunners. The consequence was, that some of the enemy's most powerful ships-of-war were perfectly riddled by the fire of the fortifications, and abandoned the contest precipitately, having failed to inflict the slightest injury upon the works of the Confederates, and only killing one or two men. We believe that the result would be the same in every similar engagement between shore and floating batteries if the former are properly built, provided with bomb-proofs, and guns of equal range with the enemy, and manned by experienced gunners, who have been disciplined and practiced to the skillful performance of their duties.

If the application of steam to ships of war and other naval improvements accounts for the success of the enemy in his two assaults upon inconsiderable earthworks, how is it that the great naval squadrons of England and France were unable to assail Sebastopol and other Russian seacoast fortifications with any success, but came off worsted in every encounter, whilst Admiral Napier did not even attempt to cope with Cronstadt? There was scarcely a sailing vessel in either of these magnificent fleets, the equal of which in numbers, guns, and all the equipments and appliances of war, had never before floated upon the waves. The single ship which bore the broad pennant of Admiral Napier, the largest and most powerful war ship in the world, would be more than a match for three of the best ships in the Yankee navy. Every one recollects the impression produced upon the public mind of England by the magnificent naval review which took place before Admiral Napier sailed for the Baltic, and never did Old England seem more completely mistress of the seas than when that vast squadron of magnificent steamships-of-war, led by the colossal flag-ship of the Admiral, set sail for the enemy's waters. It would be ridiculous to compare the fifty ships-of-war which comprise the Yankee navy, and their fleet of old merchantmen, patched up for fighting purposes, with the grand English squadron of Napier in any one particular that gives efficiency to a ship in these times; in machinery, guns, armament and missiles, crews or gunners; and yet it came back to England without having reduced or even engaged a single Russian fortification. We must evidently look to some other cause than naval improvements for the Yankee successes at Haiti Port Royal, and that cause is to be fo the weakness of the fortifications, rather than in the strength of the ships. If Hatteras and Port Royal had been provided with proper defences against the shell and-shot of the enemy, the result would have been different, as it will be hereafter, if we do not neglect the common provisions against naval assault which have elsewhere rendered shore batteries invulnerable.

We do not recollect but one single success which the combined fleets of England and France, both in the Baltic and the Black Seas, achieved during the Russian war. That was the reduction of the fortification of Kinburn by the iron-plated vessels introduced by Louis Napoleon. That experiment served to demonstrate the capacity of vessels sheltered with that metal to resist the fire of the forts. But it is, of course, clear that fortifications sheltered in the same armor would be equally invulnerable by ships of war, and an English periodical has lately argued that this defence can be provided as readily and even more economically for fortifications than ships. We earnestly hope that our Government and engineers will give this subject their prompt and serious attention. We have our choice of Pensacola and Port Royal in future conflicts between fortifications and ships. It is hardly worth while to construct coast and river defences merely as slaughter pens for our brave soldiers, and only to invite the enemy to make an attack in which he has every advantage of assault, and little peril. If we do not wish to build defences merely that they may be taken, and involve in their destruction the loss of both life and prestige, let us construct them upon proper principles, and we shall have no future repetitions of Hatteras and Port Royal.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina and Tennessee, two Union naval expeditions were bearing down on Southern forts.

February 4, 1862: Union troops land near Fort Henry

2012-02-04T07:00:00.002-05:00

Ulysses S. Grant's troops begin to arrive in the vicinity of Fort Henry.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF CAIRO,
Near Fort Henry, Tenn., February 4, 1862.

Maj. Gen. H.W. HALLECK, Saint Louis, Mo.:

This morning the debarkation of one division, under General McClernand, took place 3 miles below Fort Henry, nearly in view of the rebel batteries. Not having sufficient transportation for all the troops, the larger portion of the steamers have to return to Paducah for the remainder of the command, under General Smith. I went up on the Essex this morning with Captain Porter, two other iron-clad boats accompanying, to ascertain the range of the rebel guns. From a point about 1 mile above the place afterwards decided on for place of debarkation several shells were thrown, some of them taking effect inside the rebel fort. This drew the enemy's fire, all of which fell far short, except from one rifled gun, which threw a ball through the cabin of the Essex and several near it.

I expect all the troops by 10 a.m. to-morrow. Enemy are represented as having re-enforced rapidly the last few days. General L. Tilghman commands Fort Henry.

U. S. GRANT Brigadier-General.

February 3, 1862: Grant gets underway for Fort Henry

2012-02-03T11:55:00.004-05:00

Only a handful of Civil War generals were as decisive and aggressive as Ulysses S. Grant. His request to attack Fort Henry had been approved on January 31, 1861. Three days later, Grant was on the move: he notified his superior with this terse telegram.

PADUCAH, February 3, 1862.

Major-General HALLECK, Saint Louis: Will be off up the Tennessee at 6 o'clock. Command, twenty-three regiments in all.

U.S. GRANT, Brigadier-General.

February 3, 1862: Lincoln to McClellan

2012-02-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

In the West, Grant and Foote were moving fast to strike the Confederates at Fort Henry and down on the Carolina Coast, Ambrose Burnside was doggedly working his way towards Roanoke Island, but very little was going on in the army camps around Washington, DC. Major General George B. McClellan refused to budge or move forward unless Lincoln approved his plan to move his army by water down the Chesapeake Bay to Urbanna, on the Rappahannock River. A frustrated Abraham Lincoln wrote to McClellan to ask him to explain his plan better.

To George B. McClellan

Executive Mansion,
Major General McClellan Washington, Feb. 3, 1862.

My dear Sir: You and I have distinct, and different plans for a movement of the Army of the Potomac---yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the Railroad on the York River---, mine to move directly to a point on the Railroad South West of Manassas.

If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I shall gladly yield my plan to yours.

1st. Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time, and money than mine?

2nd. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?

3rd. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?

4th. In fact, would it not be less valuable, in this, that it would break no great line of the enemie's communications, while mine would?

5th. In case of disaster, would not a safe retreat be more difficult by your plan than by mine?

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

February 2, 1862: Andrew H. Foote issues orders to his boat captains

2012-02-02T15:00:00.002-05:00

Two days earlier, Andrew H. Foote and Ulysses S. Grant had been given the go ahead to attempt the capture of Fort Henry. In a situation where so many other Civil War leaders might have dithered or delayed, Foote and Grant acted with speed and decision. On this day 150 years ago, Foote issued three "special" orders to his boat commanders, laying down his expectations for their conduct in the coming battle.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
No. 1.

U.S. GUNBOAT TYLER,
Ohio River, February 2, 1862.

The captains of the gunboats, before going into action, will always see that the hoods covering the gratings of the hatches at the bows and sterns and elsewhere are taken off, otherwise great injury will result from the concussion of the guns in firing. The anchors also must be unstocked if they interfere with the range of the bow guns.

In attacking the fort, the first order of steaming will be observed; as, by the vessels being parallel, they will be much less exposed to the enemy's range than if not in a parallel line, and by moving ahead or astern, which all the vessels will do by following the motions of the flagship, it will be difficult for the enemy to get an accurate range of the gunboats.

Equal distances from one another must be observed by all the vessels in action. The flagship will, of course, open the fire first, and then others will follow when good sight of the enemy's guns in the fort can be obtained.

There must be no firing until correct sights can be obtained, as this would not only be throwing away ammunition, but it would encourage the enemy to see us firing wildly and harmlessly at the fort. The captains will enforce upon their men the absolute necessity of observing this order, and let it be also distinctly impressed upon the mind of every man firing a gun that, while the first shot may be either of too much elevation or too little, there is no excuse for a second wild fire, as the first will indicate the inaccuracy of the aim of the gun, which must be elevated or depressed, or trained, as circumstances require. Let it be reiterated that random firing is not only a mere waste of ammunition, but, what is far worse, it encourages the enemy when he sees shot and shell falling harmlessly about and beyond him.

The great object is to dismount the guns in the fort by the accuracy of our fire, although a shell in the meantime may occasionally be thrown in among a body of the enemy's troops. Great caution will be observed, lest our own troops are mistaken for the enemy.

When the flagship ceases firing, it will be a signal for the other vessels also to cease, as the ceasing of fire will indicate the surrender, or the readiness to surrender the fort. As the vessels will all be so near one another, verbal communication will be had with the commander in chief when it is wanted. The commander in chief has every confidence in the spirit and valor of officers and men under his command, and his only solicitude arises lest the firing should be too rapid for precision, and that coolness and order, so essential to complete success, should not be observed, and hence he has in this general order expressed his views, which must be observed by all under his command.

A. H. FOOTE,
Flag-Officer, Commanding Naval Forces, Western Waters.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
No.2.

U. S. GUNBOAT TYLER,
Ohio River, February 2, 1862.

The division of the three gunboats, not armored, and consequently, not prepared to encounter at so short a range the batteries of the fort as the four armored boats; will take a position astern, and, if practicable, inshore on the right of the main division. Lieutenant Commanding Phelps, in charge of this division, from his great experience and successful charge of our interest, for most of the time on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, will, I trust, be enabled to throw shells into Fort Henry with no greater exposure to his division, comparatively, than that of the armored boats, while the main division more directly in the face of the fort, attempts to dismount its guns in close range by a more direct fire. The captains of this division will also see that no gun is fired without accurate aim, as we have no ammunition to throw away, but, what would be far worse, rapid, random, harmless firing would encourage the enemy to a more determined resistance.

Great care must be observed lest our troops should be mistaken for the enemy. When the main division ceases firing, it will be an indication that the fort is ready to surrender.

A.H. Foote,
Flag-Officer, Commanding Naval Forces, Western Waters.

SPECIAL ORDERS,
No.3.

U.S. GUNBOAT TYLER,
Paducah, February 2, 1862.

Lieutenant-Commanding Phelps will, as soon as the fort shall have surrendered and upon signal from the flagship, proceed with the Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington up the river to where the railroad bridge crosses, and, if the army shall not already have got possession, he will destroy so much of the track as will entirely prevent its use by the rebels. He will then proceed as far up the river as the stage of water will admit and capture the enemy's gunboats and other vessels which might prove available to the enemy.

A.H. FOOTE,
Flag-Officer, Comdg. Naval Forces, Western Waters.

The third special order is particularly interesting as it shows that Foote wasn't merely planning for the seizure of Fort Henry, he was also planning ahead on how best to exploit the victory he anticipated. Once the fort was in Union hands, Foote's light wooden gunboats would stab deep into the enemy's rear to disrupt transportation and wreck his supply and logistics.

It was a fateful moment in the history of the United States. The ironclads of the Western Gunboat Squadron were the right weapon, western Tennessee was the right place to strike the Confederacy, and Foote and Grant were the right kind of aggressive leaders to press home a determined attack on this weak spot in the Confederacy's defense.

Foote's orders show that he was exactly the kind of naval leader the Union needed on the Western Waters, a man determined to come to grips with the enemy and destroy him.

February 1, 1862: North Carolina Governor Henry T. Clark to Judah P. Benjamin

2012-02-01T07:00:00.001-05:00

The Burnside Expedition had just completed the process of sailing, slipping, and dragging itself over the shallow bar at Hatteras Inlet when North Carolina's Governor Henry T. Clark wrote nervously to Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin.

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Raleigh, February 1, 1862.

Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of War:

SIR: The various and conflicting rumors about the destination of the Burnside expedition is now settled by its rendezvous at Hatteras. It has no doubt suffered from the late storm, but not enough to divert its object or its means of successful assault. If you will glance at the map you will readily perceive the extent of injury both to North Carolina and the Confederacy by an expedition into the interior from any part of Albemarle or Pamlico Sound. And I regret again to allude to our inability to check so formidable an expedition, whatever route it may select, and I have refrained as long as I could from alluding to re-enforcements. I am aware of the zeal you devote to the immense labors before you, and of the great strain pressing on you from every quarter, and that you would send re-enforcements unasked if you had them to spare.

But I will respectfully tender a suggestion, and be gratified if it coincides with your views; that is, to spare us two or three-regiments from the Peninsula, particularly the Fifth North Carolina Volunteers. I make the suggestion on the ground that General Magruder has had every facility in men and good, skillful officers for seven months to fortify the Peninsula; that it has been successfully done; that his intrenchments, fortifications, and guns have been so successfully and extensively done that they can now be defended with one-half of the men required some months ago; that the place will only allow a defensive warfare, and he is prepared for that, and he can now spare some of his force. A commanding general always asks for more, and never consents to give up a single company. Upon these grounds I refer you to this position, where I hope you can spare at least our own regiment.

I thank you for aid of General Wise’s Legion to the Albemarle country, but I regret to say that Roanoke, not having the benefit of engineers and skillful officers, is not much benefited by the last four months’ occupancy of [it] by the Confederate Government. General Wise writes to me that it needs everything, whereas it should have been an impregnable barrier to the Yankees and a protection for a great extent of North Carolina and Virginia. There has been culpable negligence or inefficiency at this place. I hope Colonel Clarke’s (Twenty-fourth Regiment North Carolina Volunteers) regiment, now stationed at Petersburg, will have sufficiently recruited to be serviceable.

I have now to rely on an unarmed and undrilled militia for protection, and a draft which has been made for one-third of them has, I regret to say, developed or occasioned much dissatisfaction.

I tender these suggestions to you most respectfully. Should they fail in enlisting your favor, I shall regret to believe that there are other places besides our coast which claim your protection from overwhelming forces and need more help than we do, for I feel assured of your assistance if it could be spared.

Very respectfully, yours,
HENRY T. CLARK.

January 31, 1862: Burnside finally over the bar at Hatteras

2012-01-31T09:25:00.001-05:00

Louis M. Goldsborough

After weeks of effort, the Burnside Expedition had finally dragged itself across the bar at Hatteras Inlet and Burnside had set a date for the next move forward. On February 3, 1862, the Burnside Expedition would leave Hatteras for the short journey north to Roanoke Island.

U.S. FLAG-STEAMER PHILADELPHIA,
Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. Friday, January 31, 1862.

SIR: General Burnside has now over the bulkhead all the vessels of his branch of the expedition that he needs, and he assures me that on Monday next at the furthest he will be ready to move. If so, then we shall start for Roanoke Island, unless prevented by bad weather. This refers to the launching of the Monitor. According to information which we received last night the enemy has 2,300 men on the island, and 5,000 at Nags Head. The latter, no doubt, are intended for the twofold purpose of securing a retreat by the sea-side and of preventing us from approaching Norfolk by that way, of which serious dread seems to be entertained. From what we gather, the forts on the island have not been materially strengthened.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

L.M. GOLDSBOROUGH,
Flag-Officer, Commanding North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

Hon. GIDEON WELLES,
Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D. C.

Goldsborough, for his part, had transferred his flag from the powerful steam frigate U.S.S. Minnesota--which drew in excess of 22 feet--to the more modest paddle wheel steamer Philadelphia, which was armed with just two light guns. He was ready to escort Burnside and his men to Roanoke Island.

U.S. flag steamer Philadelphia

January 30, 1862: The launching of the U.S.S. Monitor

2012-01-30T11:25:00.000-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, a revolutionary new warship named the U.S.S. Monitor was launched into New York's East River. The Monitor had been constructed in less than 120 days, but time was pressing. As this congratulatory telegram from Gustavus V. Fox to John Ericcson indicated, the Confederate conversion of the U.S.S. Merrimack into the C.S.S. Virginia was nearly complete and the Monitor would soon be needed in Hampton Roads.

NAVY DEPARTMENT,
January 30, 1862.

I congratulate you and trust she will be a success. Hurry her for sea, as the Merrimack is nearly ready at Norfolk and we wish to send her here.

G.V. Fox,
Assistant Secretary Navy.

J. ERICSSON,
New York.

January 29, 1862: Ambrose Burnside to George B. McClellan

2012-01-29T08:05:00.001-05:00

Slowly and painfully, the Burnside Expedition continued to drag itself across the bar at Hatteras Inlet.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
Hatteras Inlet, January 29, 1862.

Major General GEORGE B. McCLELLAN,
Commanding U. S. Army, Washington:

GENERAL: Since my last report on the 26th instant we have been incessantly engaged in getting our vessels over the bar into the sound. They have all had to be lightened of their cargo in order to bring them to the necessary draught for crossing. This has necessarily consumed much time, owing to the limited means for towing and discharging. We have, however, at anchor in the sound this morning transportation for twelve regiments.

All the necessary arrangements for a considerable movement having been made, I shall, in conjunction with Commodore Goldsborough, at once make an advance upon Roanoke Island. These arrangements have all been made in the best spirit and we have received much valuable assistance from the commodore's vessel. Of the eight tug boats ordered from Baltimore only one has arrived; the other seven are still at Old Point Comfort, afraid to go out to sea. The want of these boats has been a most serious hindrance to our progress. I have never undertaken a work that has presented so many obstacles.

Since our last dispatch four water schooners have come in, affording us much relief. We look for others daily. The inclosed list of vessels will show you our strength now at anchor in the sound.

The health of the troops has been and still is very good, considering their long confinement on shipboard, and the men are all eager for a forward movement, I have landed at this point, and shall leave in charge of General Williams the Eighty-ninth New York, Sixth New Hampshire, Eleventh Connecticut Regiments, with the Rhode Island Battery. I find I cannot use so many men to advantage upon the island, and these regiments, under the care of General Williams, will be ready and accessible at all times.

In my last I made mention of Colonel Hawkins in a way that may convey to you a wrong impression.

The pilots were engaged for service in the harbor and in the sound, but failed to fulfill their contract, either from unwillingness or incompetency, and we have suffered much for want of experienced men in towing the vessels.

I neglected to mention in my last dispatch a painful occurrence that happened on the 15th during a heavy blow. A boat containing Colonel Allen and Surgeon Weller, of the Ninth New Jersey Regiment, with a boat's crew, was upset in the breakers while returning from this ship to his own vessel, he having come on board to report the arrival of his command. The colonel and surgeon were both drowned. Their bodies were recovered and will be sent home by the Suwanee to-day.

The bark John Trucks, with Fifty-third Regiment New York Volunteers, Colonel L. J. D'Epineuil, arrived here after a long passage, but owing to the great draught of the vessel and the consequent impossibility to bring her over the bar and the difficulty of landing her troops she was ordered back to Fort Monroe on the 26th to report to General Wool.

The brigadier-generals have all been incessant in their labors, and the best of feeling pervades the whole command, both among officers and men. The weather for the last two or three days has been bright and clear, and everything evinces a much more cheerful aspect than at the time of my last dispatch.

January 28, 1862: Foote and Grant want to seize Fort Henry

2012-01-28T07:00:00.006-05:00

After reading the reports from the men who had led the feint down the Tennessee River, Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote and Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant concluded that Fort Henry was ripe for the picking.

CAIRO, January 28, 1862.

Major-General HALLECK.
St. Louis, Mo.

Commanding General Grant and myself are of the opinion that Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, can be carried with four ironclad gunboats and troops, and be permanently occupied. Have we your authority to move for that purpose when ready?

A. H. FOOTE,
Flag- Officer.

And Grant himself followed up with:

CAIRO, January 28, 1862.

Maj. Gen. H. W. HALLECK,
Saint Louis Mo.:

With permission, I will take Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, and establish and hold a large camp there.

U.S. GRANT,
Brigadier General.

January 27, 1862: President's General War Order No. 1

2012-01-27T07:24:00.000-05:00

Trying to communicate a sense of urgency to his commanders, President Abraham Lincoln issued his President's General War Order No.1 on this day 150 years ago.

PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO. 1

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 27, 1862.

Ordered, That the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of the land and the naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces.

That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready for a movement on that day.

That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given.

That the heads of departments, and especially the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General-in-chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for the prompt execution of this order.

A. LINCOLN.

January 27, 1862: The threat to Roanoke Island

2012-01-27T07:00:00.002-05:00

Rebel war clerk John B. Jones recorded the growing sense of a threat to Roanoke Island.

January 27th.—The Secretary of War has issued such a peremptory order to Gen. Wise, that the latter has no alternative but to attempt the defense of Roanoke Island with 3000 men against 15,000 and a fleet of gun-boats. The general is quite sick, but he will fight. His son, Capt. O. Jennings Wise, who has been under fire many times already, commands a company on the island. He will deserve promotion. The government seems to have proscribed the great men of the past and their families, as if this government was the property of the few men who happen to wield power at the present moment. Arrogance and presumption in the South must, sooner or later, have a fall. The great men who were the leaders of this revolution may be ignored, but they cannot be kept down by the smaller fry who aspire to wield the destinies of a great and patriotic people. Smith and Lovell, New York politicians and Street Commissioners, have been made major-generals, while Wise and Breckinridge are brigadiers.

January 26, 1862: Beauregard ordered west to Kentucky

2012-01-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

In the space of less than a year, P.G.T. Beauregard had gone from being the South's first hero at Fort Sumter and the co-victor of the Battle of Manassas to being a total pain in Jefferson Davis' ass. Beauregard had written a series of letters that burnished his reputation at the cost of Davis'. He also chafed as Joseph Johnston's second-in-command. Albert Sidney Johnston was begging for reinforcements to hold Kentucky--what he got, on this day 150 years ago--was P.G.T. Beauregard.

WAR DEPARTMENT, C. S. A.,
Richmond, Va., January 26, 1862.

General JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, Centreville, Va.:

SIR: Inclosed you will find an order detaching General Beauregard from the army under your command and assigning him to do duty at Columbus, Ky., which you are requested to forward to him at once. Regretting that the exigencies of the public service force us to deprive you of the aid of this valuable officer, I still entertain undiminished confidence in your capacity, with the aid of the able generals who still surround you, to maintain the position which you have thus far successfully defended.

I am, your obedient servant,

J. P. BENJAMIN,
Secretary of War.

[Inclosure]

General G. T. BEAUREGARD, Manassas, Va.:

SIR: Colonel Pryor has reported to the President, as the result of his interview with you, that you would cheerfully accept the command of the defenses at Columbus, Ky., and that your absence from the Army of the Potomac would not seriously impair its efficiency. He therefore desires that you proceed at once to report to General A. S. Johnston, at Bowling Green, Ky., and thence proceed, as promptly as possible, to assume your new command at Columbus, which is threatened by a powerful force, and the successful defense of which is of vital importance. You are authorized to take with you your present staff or such members of it as you wish to accompany you.

I am, your obedient servant,

J. P. BENJAMIN,
Secretary of War.

January 25, 1862: Maury's gunboats thwarted

2012-01-25T20:30:00.001-05:00

Matthew Fontaine Maury is celebrated as the "Pathfinder of the Seas" and has a statue on Richmond, Virginia's famed Monument Avenue to commemorate his accomplishments as an oceanographer. Maury is also remembered for his role in promoting the use of naval mines--then known as "torpedoes"--in defense of Southern harbors and rivers. What is not as well known is Maury's role in promoting the construction of "mosquito fleets" of many small gunboats carrying one or two heavy guns. Maury did not believe in the efficacy of ironclads; he proposed the construction of one hundred or more small, fast gunboats that could swarm attacking fleets. On this day 150 years ago, Maury wrote to the Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory to complain that too many skilled carpenters were being diverted from his plan to build small gunboats.

"SPECIAL SERVICE,"
Navy Department, January 25, 1862.

SIR: I beg leave to state that in our gunboat preparations we are brought to a standstill for the want of ship carpenters and other artisans, for whom we depend almost entirely upon the Army. I earnestly request that the call which has been made for them may have a speedy answer.

Respectfully, etc.,

M.F. MAURY,
Commander, C.S. Navy.

Hon. S. R. MALLORY,
Secretary Navy, Present.

Maury's theory of "mosquito fleets" would be tested in the coming days when the Confederate mosquito fleet defending Roanoke Island met the Burnside Expedition in battle.

January 24, 1862: A suspicious vessel fitting out in Liverpool

2012-01-24T06:00:00.006-05:00

The Oreto, soon to be the C.S.S. Florida

U.S. Consuls in Europe were kept busy keeping tabs on Confederate purchasing agents, and Thomas H. Dudley was no exception. In addition to the comings and goings of blockade runners, Dudley also spotted a suspicious new vessel fitting out in Liverpool.

U.S. CONSULATE, Liverpool, January 24, 1862.

SIR: * * * The Oreto, a screw gunboat, is fitting out at one of the docks at this place. She is built of iron and is 700 tons. She is reported for the Italian Government, but the fact of the machinery being supplied by Fawcett & Preston, and other circumstances connected with it, make me suspicious and lead me to believe she is intended for the South.

The Bermuda arrived here from Havre yesterday. This is the steamer which ran the blockade.

The Helen, Captain Westrelay, which ran the blockade at Charleston some time back (and of which I addressed you in a previous dispatch), cleared on the 23d instant for Rio de Janeiro and sailed the same day. She has on board 400 kegs containing shot and flints, 70 barrels said to contain lead, between 300 and 400 sheets of copper, a quantity of bar iron, and a number of crates said to contain earthenware. She is a bark, 340 tons, hull painted black, bottom coppered; Helen, Charleston, and some of the carvings on stern painted white, the remainder of the carvings painted black; scroll for figurehead gilded; two boats, keels upward, on quarter-deck, one painted white, the other, bottom white and sides black; two wood-stock anchors painted red, stocks painted black; lower masts painted white, topmasts bright, yards black; house and gallery abaft the foremast. When she arrived at this port, she had flying the Confederate flag. She now sails with the English flag. I am informed she was formerly the Rowena, of New York.

A Confederate bark called the West India, Captain Foot, arrived here on the 22d instant, flying the Confederate flag. She was loaded with turpentine, and ran the blockade at Charleston on the 24th of Decem- ber last.

D.C. Lowber, W.H. Brynes, P. Schneider, and J.O. Baker arrived yesterday in the Etna.

I am, etc.,

THOS. H. DUDLEY, U.S. Consul.

January 23, 1862: A.S. Johnston's Kentucky bluff about to be called

2012-01-23T05:44:00.004-05:00

Albert Sidney Johnston was Jefferson Davis' favorite general, but Davis had handed Johnston an impossible situation in Kentucky, with far too few men to do the job that needed to be done. Don Carlos Buell was another McClellan; constantly dithering and finding excuses not to move, Ulysses S. Grant and Andrew H. Foote were two leaders who were willing to move aggressively, and they were beginning to suspect that Johnston's line was weak. Rebel war clerk John B. Jones noted the worsening situation in Kentucky in his journal on this day 150 years ago.

JANUARY 23D.—Again the Northern papers give the most extravagant numbers to our army in Kentucky. Some estimates are as high as 150,000. I know, and Mr.: Benjamin knows, that Gen. Johnston has not exceeding 29,000 effective men. And the Secretary knows that Gen. J. has given him timely notice of the inadequacy of his force to hold the position at Bowling Green. The Yankees are well aware of our weakness, but they intend to claim the astounding feat of routing 150,000 men with 100,000! And they suppose that by giving us credit for such a vast army, we shall not deem it necessary to send reinforcements. Well, reinforcements are not sent.

January 22, 1862: Flag Officer Lynch's report on the federals at Hatteras

2012-01-22T07:00:00.000-05:00

The two ships seen by the federals at Hatteras Inlet the day before were the C.S.S. Sea Bird and C.S.S. Raleigh under the command of Flag Officer William F. Lynch, C.S. Navy. Faced with a greatly superior Union force, Lynch fled back up Pamlico Sound and the next day, filed this report.

C.S.S. SEA BIRD,
Off Roanoke Island, January 22, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to report that on the 20th instant, with this steamer and the Raleigh, I started on a cruise in Pamlico Sound and for a reconnoissance of Hatteras. Yesterday afternoon we looked into the inlet and there saw a large fleet of steamers and transports. We counted 21 of the former, all inside the spit; a fog bank concealed those outside. Two large steamers were outside the bulkhead, and one was being lightened over by two schooners. They are evidently prepared for a general movement.

The commanding officer at Middletown, in Hyde County, learned through a deserter that the enemy's force consists of 24 gunboats, 7 large steamers, and 16 transports. To meet these I have 2 old side-wheel steamers and 6 propellers, the former possessing some speed, the latter slow in their movements, and one of them frequently displacing its shaft; but my greatest difficulty is in the want of men. So great has been the exposure of our crews that a number have been necessarily invalided; consequently, the complements are very much reduced, some of them one-half. I have sent to Washington, Plymouth, Edenton, and Elizabeth City for recruits without success, and an earnest appeal to Commodore Forrest brought me only four from Norfolk. To meet the enemy I have not more than a sufficient number of men to fight half the guns.

In a former communication I have informed you of my appeal to Colonel Shaw, commanding the military forces here, for some of the North Carolina volunteers who had been sailors and wished to enlist in the naval service and of my limited success. Enclosed I send a letter addressed this day to him, asking for 50 men, and detailing Lieutenant Commanding Parker to personally urge compliance. I request the letters to be placed on file, to be referred to in the event of calamity.

My opinion is that North Carolina volunteers will not stand to their guns. Men so devoid of energy are incapable of determined and long- continued resistance.

General Wise has sent troops to Nags Head, upon the sea beach, where they can be driven from their position by a single gunboat, and is selecting points of defense in Currituck which can scar6ely be reached in rowboats, owing to the shallowness of the water. Here is the great thoroughfare from Albemarle Sound and its tributaries, and if the enemy obtain lodgments, or succeed in passing here, he will cut off a very rich country from Norfolk market. His next aim, I presume, will be to obtain possession of the Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad.

Since the preceding page was written I have received a note from Colonel Shaw, wherein he promises to let me have some men temporarily, but declines increasing the garrison at the floating batteries. Those two batteries mounted together 7 guns, manned by 70 men; on my last inspection only three and a half guns crews could be mustered. Thirty-two pounders of 5 hundredweight require 13 men each to work them, and when the sick and casualties are taken into consideration, it will be seeu how very inefficiently those batteries are manned.

I mention these things to protect, in a very probable event, the repu- tation of the Navy. The Army now has the batteries in charge, as General Wise refused to allow the volunteers to remain unless the control was assigned to him. Not having any men to send, I was constrained to comply, but have placed an officer there to train the men.

Should General Wise be in Richmond, you cannot exert your great influence more patriotically than by urging him to come here at once, or at least to send some energetic officer of rank to take command.

I have this moment received your communication of the 17th instant. General Huger is misinformed. When the propeller Powhatan was offered to me, Mr. Parks told me that another party had offered him $10,000 for her, but that he would not take less than $12,000. Understanding him to mean a private person, I told him I would telegraph to you, and that the desire of individuals to purchase should not conflict with the wants of the Government. He did not undeceive me. I did telegraph to you; next day received your anthority, and immediately sent my secretary, with a note to Mr. Parks, closing the purchase. Mr. Parks was not in his office, but my note was delivered to his brother, who transacts business for him. In the meantime the Powhatan had left for this island, and I overtook her in the Currituck Canal with Mr. Parks on board. I then told him of my note, and claimed the Powhatan. He informed me that Major Johnston, quartermaster at Norfolk, was the one who had offered him $10,000, but that the offer was a conditional one, based upon the approval at Richmond of his application for authority to make the purchase. As Mr. Parks had told me that $12,000 was his very lowest price, and as the quartermasters offer, if sanctioned, would not be accepted (supposing Mr. Parks to be truthful), I felt justified (as there was a large force at Hatteras) in taking possession of the Powhatan.

If the enemy is coming this way and there is every indication that such is his intention his visit has only been delayed by the inclemency of the weather; and I submit to you whether I would not have been derelict to my duty if, under the circumstances, I had not availed myself of an auxiliary means of defense. The crisis will soon be over, and desirable as it is to keep the Powhatan until some of the new gunboats are ready, I have no wish to detain her unjustly. I do not think the claim of the Army as good as our own; yet, although we were treated unkindly in the matter of the Kakakee, I feel no disposition to retaliate.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

W.F. LYNCH,
Flag-Officer.

S.H. MALLORY,
Secretary of the Navy.

January 21, 1862: The Confederates discover the Burnside Expedition at Hatteras Inlet

2012-01-21T07:05:00.002-05:00

U.S.S. Delaware, the Burnside Expedition's shallow draft flagship

The Confederacy had lost track of the Burnside Expedition. Burnside (and Louis M. Goldsborough) had sailed out of Hampton Roads weeks before, and then the South had waited for the hammer blow to fall--and then nothing happened. Weeks passed. Finally, on January 20, 1862, someone thought to take a couple of gunboats down to Hatteras Inlet to see what the federals were up to. From the log of the U.S.S. Stars and Stripes:

January 21, 1862 - At 1 p.m. two rebel steamers in sight; flagship Delaware, with six of the fleet, gave chase.

The federals gave chase, but they did not catch the interlopers. The Confederacy finally knew for certain where the Burnside Expedition was: it was still hung up on the bar at Hatteras Inlet. Several of the shallower draft federal gunboats and transports had already crossed the bar and entered Pamlico Sound. Many other larger vessels still waited outside while an attempt was made to scour a deeper channel through the bar. Ambrose Burnside recalled this period in a memoir after the war:

From time to time we made efforts to cross the fleet from the inlet into Pamlico Sound, over what was called the swash, which separated it from the inlet. We had been led to believe that there eight feet of water upon the swash, but when we arrived we discovered to our sorrow that there were but six fee; and as most of our vessels, as well of the naval fleet which we found at Hatteras Inlet on our arrival, drew more water than that, it was necessary to deepen the channel by some process. The current upon the swash was very swift, a circumstance which proved to be much in our favor. Large vessels were sent ahead, under full steam, on the bar when the tide was running out, and then anchors were carried out by boats in advance, so as to hold the vessels in position. The swift current would wash the sand from under them and allow them to float, after which they were driven farther on by steam and anchored again, when the sand would again wash out from under them. This process was continued for days, until a broad channel of over eight feet was made, deep enough to allow the passage of the fleet into the sound.

Slowly, and with much labor, the Burnside Expedition was literally dragging itself over the bar into the Pamlico Sound.

January 20, 1862: John Ericsson suggests a name for his ironclad

2012-01-20T07:31:00.003-05:00

John Ericsson

On this day, 150 years ago, John Ericsson wrote to Gustavus V. Fox to suggest a name for the new ironclad warship Ericsson had designed.

New York - January 20, 1862

Sir:

In accordance with your request, I now submit for your approbation a name for the floating battery at Greenpoint. The impregnable and aggressive character of this structure will admonish the leaders of the Southern Rebellion that the batteries on the banks of their rivers will no longer present barriers to the entrance of the Union forces. The iron-clad intruder will thus prove a severe monitor to those leaders. But there are other leaders who will also be startled and admonished by the booming of the guns from the impregnable iron turret. "Downing Street" will hardly view with indifference this last "Yankee Notion," this monitor. To the Lords of the admiralty the new craft will be a monitor, suggesting doubts as to the propriety of completing those four steel clad ships at three and a half million apiece. On these and many similar grounds, I propose to name the new battery "Monitor."

Your obedient servant,
J. Ericsson

Gustavus V. Fox
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Washington, D.C.

Gustavus Vasa Fox

January 20, 1862: Farragut ordered to capture New Orleans

2012-01-20T07:00:00.003-05:00

With the Burnside Expedition at Hatteras Inlet and the Western Gunboat Squadron poised to sail south, Gideon Welles set still another naval expedition in motion with the following orders to Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut.

NAVY DEPARTMENT, January 20, 1862.

SIR: When the Hartford is in all respects ready for sea, you will proceed to the Gulf of Mexico with all practicable dispatch and communicate with Flag-Officer W. W. McKean, who is directed by the enclosed dispatch to transfer to you the command of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, composed at present of the following vessels:

Colorado
Mississippi
Brooklyn
R.R. Cuyler
Santee
Vincennes
Richmond
Potomac
Ethan Allen
De Soto
Hatteras
Wissahickon
Maria A. Wood
Itasca
Sagamore
Huron
Sciota
Portsmouth
Winona
Kittatinny
Arthur
Pursuit
Tahoma
James L. Davis
Bohio
Pensacola

Coal vessels:
Fearnot
Pampero
J. C. Kuhn
National Guard

In addition, there will be attached to your squadron a fleet of bomb vessels, and armed steamers enough to manage them, all under command of Commander D. D. Porter, who will be directed to report to you. As fast as these vessels are got ready they will be sent to Key West to await the arrival of all, and the commanding officers, who will be permitted to organize and practice with them at that port.

When these formidable mortars arrive, and you are completely ready, you will collect such vessels as can be spared from the blockade and proceed up the Mississippi River and reduce the defenses which guard the approaches to New Orleans, when you will appear off that city and take possession of it under the guns of your squadron, and hoist the American flag thereon, keeping possession until troops can be sent to you. If the Mississippi expedition from Cairo shall not have descended the river, you will take advantage of the panic to push a strong force up the river to take all their defenses in the rear. You will also reduce the fortifications which defend Mobile Bay and turn them over to the army to hold. As you have expressed yourself satisfied with the force given to you, and as many more powerful vessels will be added before you can commence operations, the Department and the country will require of you success. Upon consultation with Flag-Officer McKean, and with his consent, you may modify the division of the present squadron as herein ordered, notifying the Department of any change. There are other operations of minor importance which will commend themselves to your judgment and skill, but which must not be allowed to interfere with the great object in view, the certain capture of the city of New Orleans.

Destroy the armed barriers which these deluded people have raised up against the power of the United States Government, and shoot down those who war against the Union, but cultivate with cordiality the first returning reason which is sure to follow your success.

Very respectfully, etc.,

GIDEON WELLES

Flag-Officer D.G. FARRAGUT, Appointed to Command West Gulf Squadron.

The Confederacy was about to receive a series of naval hammer blows from every point of the compass.

Januay 19, 1862: The Battle of Mill Springs (Logan's Cross Roads)

2012-01-19T08:30:00.000-05:00

George H. Thomas

From "Holding Kentucky for the Union," by Colonel R.M. Kelly, U.S.V.:

A FEW days before this General George B. Crittenden had arrived at Zollicoffer's camp and assumed command. Hearing of the arrival of Thomas with part of his command, and Fishing Creek, a troublesome stream at any stage of water, was unfordable from recent rains, he called a council of his brigade and regimental commanders to consider the propriety of making an attack on Thomas before he could be reached by Schoepf or his regiments in the rear. There was little delay in coming to a decision. Their camp on the north side of the river was not tenable against a strong attack, and the means of crossing the river were so insufficient that a withdrawal without great loss could not have been effected, in the face of an enterprising enemy. The only chance for a satisfactory issue was to attack Thomas before he could concentrate. Crittenden ordered a movement to begin at midnight on the 18th in the following order: General Zollicoffer's brigade, consisting of two cavalry companies, a Mississippi regiment, three Tennessee regiments, and a battery in front; next, the brigade of General Carroll, composed of three Tennessee regiments and a section of artillery. An Alabama regiment and two cavalry regiments, intended as a reserve, closed the column. After a march of nine miles over muddy roads and through the rain, his cavalry about daylight encountered Wolford's pickets, who after firing fell back on the reserve, consisting of two companies of the 10th Indiana, and with them made a determined stand, in which they were promptly supported by Wolford with the rest of his battalion, and soon after by the rest of the 10th Indiana, ordered up by Manson, who had been advised by courier from Wolford of the attack. Colonel Manson proceeded in person to order forward the 4th Kentucky and the battery of his brigade and to report to General Thomas. On his way he notified Colonel Van Cleve, of the 2d Minnesota. As Manson dashed through the camp of the 4th Kentucky shouting for Colonel Speed S.Fry, and giving warning of the attack, the men, wearied with the muddy march of the day before, were just beginning to crawl out of their tents to roll-call. Forming rapidly, Fry led them at double-quick in the direction of the firing. Having no one to place him, on coming in sight of the enemy, he took position along a fence in the edge of the woods, with his right resting near the Mill Springs road. In front of him was an open field, across which the enemy were advancing from the shelter of woodland on the opposite side. A ravine ran through the open field parallel to Fry's front, heading near the road on his right, with steep sides in his front, but sloping gradually beyond his left. Before Fry's arrival zollicoffer had deployed his brigade, and had forced Wolford and the 10th Indiana to fall back, almost capturing the horses of Wolford's men, who were fighting on foot. A portion of Wolford's command, under his immediate charge, and Vanarsdall's company of the 10th Indiana, rallied on the 4th Kentucky when it appeared, the remainder of the 10th falling back to its encampment, where it re-formed its lines. Fry was at once subjected to a severe attack. The enemy in his front crawled up under shelter of the ravine to within a short distance of his lines before delivering their fire, and Fry, mounting the fence, in stentorian tones denounced them as dastards, and defied them to stand up on their feet and come forward like men.

A little lull in the firing occurring at this juncture, Fry rode a short distance to the right to get a better view of the movement of the enemy in that direction. The morning was a lowering one, and the woods were full of smoke. As Fry turned to regain his position he encountered a mounted officer whose uniform was covered with a water-proof coat. After approaching till their knees touched, the stranger said to Fry: "We must not fire on our own men"; and nodding his head to his left, he said, "Those are our men." I would not do so intentionally:' and he began to move toward his regiment, when turning he saw another mounted man riding from the trees who fired and wounded Fry's horse. Fry at once fired on the man who had accosted him, and several of his men, observing the incident, fired at the same time. The shots were fatal, and the horseman fell dead, pierced by a pistol-shot in his breast and by two musket-balls. It was soon ascertained that it was Zollicoffer himself who had fallen. In the mean time, the enemy were pressing Fry in front and overlapping his right. On his right front only the fence separated the combatants. The left of his regiment not being assailed, he moved two companies not being assailed, he moved two companied from that flank to his right. As he was making this change General Thomas appeared on the field, and at once placed the 10th Indiana in position to cover Fry's exposed flank.

The fall of Zollicoffer and the sharp firing that followed caused woof his regiments to retreat in confusion. Crittenden then brought up Carroll's brigade to the support of the other two, and ordered a general advance. Thomas met this by placing a section of Kenny's battery on the left of the 4th Kentucky, which was overlapped by Caroll's line, ordered the 12th Kentucky to the left of Kenny's two guns, and Carter with the two East Tennessee regiments, and Wetmore's battery still farther to the left, in front of the Somerset road. Standart's battery and Kenny's remaining guns were held in the rear of the center, and McCook's two regiments were ordered up, the 9th Ohio on the right of the 10th Indiana, and the 2d Minnesota in reserve behind the latter regiment and the 4th Kentucky. During these movements Kenny's section was so threatened that it was withdrawn some distance to the rear. There was little opportunity for the effective use of artillery on either side, and that arm played an insignificant part in the engagement, Thomas's superiority in that particular availing him little. Carroll's attack was pressed with great courage, and the ammunition of the 4th Kentucky and 10th Indiana beginning to fail, the 2d Minnesota was ordered to relieve them, which it did under severe fire. Both of McCook's regiments were admirably drilled and disciplined, and moved to the attack with the order and steadiness of veterans. Thomas's disposition of his troops had begun to tell. The advance of the 12th Kentucky on the left, the firing of Wetmore's battery, and the movement of Carter's East Tennesseans checked the enemy's right, and it soon began to give back. The 2d Minnesota was slowly pushing forward over the ground that had been the scene of the most persistent fighting from the first, and the 9th Ohio, on the right, was forcing back the enemy through open ground, when, slightly changing direction, it made a bayonet charge against the enemy's left, which gave way in confusion. Their whole line then broke into a disorderly retreat. After replenishing cartridge-boxes, Thomas pushed forward in pursuit. Within a few miles, a small body of the enemy's cavalry attempted to make a stand, but were scattered by a few shells from Standart. The road which the retreating force followed was strewn with evidences that the retreat had degenerated into a panic. A piece of artillery was found abandoned in a mud hole, hundreds of muskets were strewn along the road and in the fields, and, most convincing proof of all, the flying foe had thrown away their haversacks filled with rations of corn pone and bacon. Those were the days when stories of "rebel atrocities" in the way of poisoning wells and food were current, and the pursuers, who had gone into the fight break fastness, were doubtful about tasting the contents of the first haversacks they observed. Their great number, however, soon became a guarantee of good faith, and the hungry soldiers seized on them with avidity. As Crittenden in his report mentioned the loss of all the cooked rations carried to the field as enhancing the distress of his subsequent retreat, the abundance of the supply obtained by the pursuing force may be inferred. on arriving near the enemy's intrenchments the division was deployed in line of battle, advancing to the summit of the hill at Moulden's, which commanded the enemy's intrenchments. From this point Standart and Wetmore's batteries kept up a cannonade till dark, while Kenny's on the left, at Russell's house, fired upon their ferry to keep them from crossing. The 14th Ohio and the 10th Kentucky had come up during the pursuit, and were placed in advance for the assault ordered for daybreak. General Schoepf arrived about dark with the 17th, 31st, and 38th Ohio.

At daybreak next morning Wetmore's Parrott guns, which had been moved to Russell's, began firing on the steamer which was evidently engaged in crossing troops, and it was soon abandoned and set on fire by the enemy. The assaulting columns moved forward, the 10th Kentucky and the 14th Ohio in advance, and reaching the intrenchments found them abandoned. In the bottom near the ferry-crossing were found 11 pieces of artillery, with their caissons, battery-wagons, and forges, hitched up and ready to move but abandoned by the artillerymen, more than 150 wagons, and over 1000 horses and mules. All the troops had escaped. The steep road on the other bank was strewn with abandoned baggage and other evidences of disorderly flight. The boats used for crossing having been destroyed by the retreating enemy, no immediate pursuit was possible; but during the day means were improvised for getting the 14th Ohio across for a reconnaissance and to secure abandoned property.

Thomas reported his loss in action as 39 killed and 207 wounded, the casualties being confined entirely to the 10th Indiana, 4th Kentucky, 2d Minnesota, 9th Ohio, and Wolford's cavalry. Colonels McCook and Fry were among the wounded. The enemy's loss he reported as 192 killed, 89 prisoners not wounded, and 68 prisoners wounded. Crittenden's report stated his own loss at 125 killed, 209 wounded, and 99 missing,much the heaviest loss being in the 15th Mississippi (Lieutenant-Colonel E. C. Walthall), of Zollicoffer's brigade, which had led the attack on Fry and fought through the whole engagement.

Besides the property mentioned above, a large amount of ammunition, commissary stores, intrenching tools, camp and garrison equipage and muskets, and five stands of colors were fund in the camp. The demoralization was acknowledged by Crittenden in his report, in which he says: "From Mill Springs and on the first steps of my march offices and men, frightened by false rumors of the movements of the enemy, shamefully deserted, and, stealing horses and mules to ride, fled to Knoxville, Nashville, and other places in Tennessee." Of one cavalry battalion, he reported that all had deserted except twenty-five. On his retreat his sick-list increased greatly from lack of food and fatigue, and the effective force of his army was practically destroyed.

After entrance into his intrenchments had demonstrated the panic that existed in the enemy's forces, Fry said to Thomas: "General, who didn't' you send in a demand for surrender last night?" Looking at him a moment as if reflecting, Thomas replied: "Having it, Fry, I never once thought of it." At this time originated a saying often heard in the Western army afterward. A sprightly young prisoner slightly wounded was allowed the freedom of the camp. To some soldiers chaffing him about his army being in such a hurry as even to throw away their haversacks, he replied: "Well, we were doing pretty good fighting till old man Thomas rose up in his stirrups, and we heard him holler out: 'Attention, Creation! By kingdoms right wheel!' and then we knew you had us, and it was no time to carry weight."

Thomas's victory was complete, and the road was opened for the advance into East Tennessee which he had so long endeavored to make and which was contemplated by his instructions, but the scarcity of provisions, the badness of the roads, and the difficulty of crossing the river made progress on that line impracticable, and shortly afterward Carter was ordered with his brigade against Cumberland Gap and Thomas to rejoin Buell's main column, and the East Tennessee expedition, which Nelson had devised and McClellan had strongly urged and Thomas had labored so to put in motion, was definitively abandoned.

January 19, 1862: Blockade runner Fingal turned over to Confederate Navy

2012-01-19T07:00:00.002-05:00

James D. Bulloch

Back in October of 1861, Confederate agent James D. Bulloch had purchased the Scottish steamer Fingal and packed her with the supplies and munitions acquired by Confederate agents in Britain. Bulloch then proceeded, by way of Nassau, to sail through the blockade into Savannah, Georgia on the night of November 11-12, 1861. Bulloch and the Fingal brought with them a large cargo of munitions at a critical moment for the South: 14,000 Enfield rifles, 1,000,000 cartridges, 2,000,000 percussion caps, 3,000 cavalry sabers, 1,000 short rifles with cutlass bayonets, 1,000 rounds per rifle, cannon, 400 barrels of coarse cannon powder, medical supplies, military clothing, and cloth for sewing more uniforms.

Bulloch had been lucky to slip by the Union blockaders before they consolidated their control of the entrances to Savannah, but by the time the Fingal had been prepared and loaded for a return run through the blockade, the federals had occupied Tybee Island and closed both the Savannah River and Wassaw Sound. The Fingal was trapped in Savannah. Bulloch hung on for a few more weeks, waiting for an opening to slip the Fingal out to sea, but on January 19, 1862, he finally saw the writing on the wall and he turned Fingal over to the Confederate Navy.

SAVANNAH, January 19, 1862.

SIR: I have this day formally turned over to Lieutenant G. T. Sinclair the control and management of the Fingal, and have furnished him with a copy of your letter of the 10th January. It is proper for me to call your attention to the fact that the crew of the Fingal signed articles in England as British seamen, under the British merchant seamen's act, and if discharged away from England it must be by their own consent. If the Fingal remains permanently blocked up here, the men might be induced to enter the Confederate service; if not, it would be necessary to furnish them the means of returning to England or some one of the British colonies. Otherwise they would have a claim against the nominal English owner in Great Britain, which would doubtless give trouble and annoyance. I have communicated this fact to Lieutenant Sinclair. The Fingal is now in perfect order for any voyage and is completely arranged and furnished for 30 or 40 passengers. She would require much alteration and the loss of much valuable furniture to convert her into a regular gun vessel, and even then she would be a very vulnerable ship, both from the exposed position of her engines and the nature of her material. The engineer considers her engines and boilers good for ten years, and at the end of this war I think she ought to bring fully her prime cost. I know of no vessel so well adapted in every respect for the trade between New Orleans and Havana.

Your letter of the 14th instant, with enclosed plans for iron corvettes, has been received and its contents shall meet my careful and earnest attention. Messrs. John Laird & Sons, of Birkenhead, are now building a ship of 7,000 tons for the British Government and the Napier's, of Greenock, had just completed the Black Prince when I left England. These are the best-informed builders in England, and from the Messrs. Laird I could get every information, having already had much intercourse with them as the contractors for one of our ships now building on the other side. I will write you more fully before sailing. Tomorrow I shall finish all business here, and on Tuesday or Wednesday shall go to Charleston, communicate with Messrs. Jno. Fraser & Co., and proceed on Thursday to Wilmington, N. C., to join the steamer North Carolina, in which ship the above-mentioned gentleman have kindly offered me a passage. Any further instructions you may have to send me you will please, therefore, direct to me at Wilmington, from which place I will report.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JAMES D. BULLOCH

Hon. S. R. MALLORY,
Secretary of the Navy.

January 18, 1862: Union gunboats on the Tennessee River

2012-01-18T07:00:00.001-05:00

U.S.S. Conestoga

As part of Brigadier General C.F. Smith's feint south, two Union "timberclad" gunboats along with a transport loaded with troops raided up the Tennessee River nearly as far as Fort Henry.

U.S. GUNBOAT CONESTOGA,
Paducah, January 18, 1862.

SIR: The Lexington and this vessel have returned this afternoon from a cruise on the Tennessee River. We have been for the past three days carrying out the wishes and instructions of General Smith.

On the 16th we proceeded up the river, accompanied by the transport steamer Wilson, having on board a force of 500 men, infantry and artillery, under command of Major [I. C.] Elston, and anchored for the night near where the Tennessee line strikes the right bank of the river. A few miles above Paducah the Lexington struck a rock and lay upon it over an hour, but was not apparently much injured.

In the morning (yesterday) we proceeded up to near Fort Henry, the transport remaining a little below, and shelled the river bank at a point where all informants have uniformly reported a masked battery of two rifled guns, but we did not succeed in drawing its fire, although we approached to abreast the place. We also fired a few shells at Fort Henry, 2 miles, too distant for effect. having complied with General Smith's wish in feigning an attack at early morn with the whole force in view, we dropped below to Aurora, where the troops disembarked and marched for Murray. The transport returned downstream, while the two gunboats again returned to the neighborhood of Fort Henry and remained overnight at anchor about 3 miles by water below the fort. The rebels made numbers of signals in the evening. In the morning we left there, coming directly down. A charge of slugs was fired yesterday at a group of officers, and Mr. Hamilton, gunner, was slightly wounded in the neck.

There was a coal barge lying at a landing some 3 miles below Fort Henry on the Kentucky side, evidently taken there to freight a quantity of wood thrown down from the banks in readiness, and the wood could only have been intended for use at the fort. There is no other market for it there, and no other possible reason could exist for loading it in boats. I therefore seized the barge, loaded the wood in, and brought it down. These vessels will use the wood. Their barge or flat is a very fine one and might be of service at Cairo. I also cut adrift a small wood boat at the same landing to prevent its use in transporting supplies to the rebels.

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,

S.L. PHELPS, Lieutenant, Commanding, U. S. Navy.

Flag-Officer A. H. FOOTE, U. S. Navy,
Commanding Naval Forces, Western Rivers.

U.S.S. Lexington

Phelp's raid revealed that the Tennessee River was more or less undefended below Fort Henry. U.S. Grant and A.H. Foote began to think about converting the raid into a full on offensive movement against Fort Henry.

January 17, 1862: Judah P. Benjamin warned about Roanoke Island again

2012-01-17T17:48:00.002-05:00

Judah P. Benjamin

On this day 150 years ago, Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin received yet another blunt warning about the situation on Roanoke Island. From John B. Jones' "A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital":

January 17th.—A Mr. O. Hendricks, very lately of the U. S. Coast Survey, has returned from a tour of the coast of North Carolina, and has been commissioned a lieutenant by the Secretary of War. He says Burnside will take Roanoke Island, and that Wise and all his men will be captured. It is a man-trap.

Mr. O. Hendricks was pretty blunt in his assessment, but Benjamin remained unhurried in his response.

January 16, 1862: U.S.S. Hatteras raids Cedar Keys, Florida

2012-01-16T07:00:00.003-05:00

U.S.S. Hatteras

On the night of January 15-16, 1862, the U.S.S Hatteras surprised the tiny Confederate garrison of Cedar Keys, Florida and proceeded to capture or burn every ship in the harbor of the tiny coastal town.

U.S.S. HATTERAS,
Cedar Keys, January 16, 1862

SIR: I have the honor to report that in carrying out your instructions in this locality I have been entirely successful, with the expenditure of very little powder and no one killed that I am aware of, capturing or destroying all the public property here, including a battery of two long eighteens in position on the east end of Sea Horse Key, with their carriages and some ammunition and barracks, a 6-pounder fieldpiece in Depot Key, with the railroad depot and wharf, several cars, telegraph office, and a turpentine storehouse, besides four schooners and three sloops, one ferry scow, sailboat, and launch.

Two of the former were laden with turpentine, rosin, and cotton, and nearly ready for sea, and the first, the schooner Stag, was run on shore and fired while our boats were approaching her and after I had fired two shells to prevent her escape.

The only other vessel in port was the schooner Fanny, 100 tons, partially loaded with turpentine. This is the same vessel that was captured with Lieutenant Selden on board several months since, and she succeeded in escaping over the reefs to the southward and eastward during the night.

The ferryboat was captured on its way between the railroad depot to Depot Key, having on board, among others, a lieutenant and 13 armed soldiers belonging to the Fourth Florida Regiment, all of whom were taken prisoners.

The boats that were sent on this duty were in the charge of Acting Master Hoffner, aided by Masters Mates McGrath and Hazlitt, and, with the crews, were employed nearly all of the first night.

All were zealous and performed their duty most faithfully, and deserve more than my humble thanks.

I enclose a list of the prisoners taken and a more detailed statement of property captured and destroyed.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

GEO. F. EMMONS,
Commander.

W. W. MCKEAN,
Flag-Officer Commanding Gulf Squadron.

January 15, 1862: Confederate preparations on Roanoke Island

2012-01-15T21:20:00.000-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, Ambrose Burnside's expedition to the Carolina Coast had hit a snag, quite literally.Burnside had been told that the water over the bar at Hatteras Inlet was reliably eight feet deep, and he had purchased or chartered the ships for his expedition based on that figure. Whether because of a poor job of sounding the bar or because of a sudden change in the channel due to the recent heavy storms, the water in the channel was more lie six or six-and-a-half feet deep, making it impossible for much of Burnside's fleet to enter Pamlico Sound until a solution could be worked out. For the moment, the Confederates on Roanoke Island were given a brief reprieve and an opportunity to improve their defenses.

Less than sixty miles away on Roanoke Island, artillerist Captain John S. Taylor, C.S. Army wrote the following report to Major General Benjamin Huger in Norfolk, Virginia. Taylor's report focuses on the state of the heavy artillery that was key to Roanoke Island's defense.

ROANOKE ISLAND, N. C., January 15, 1862.

Sir: In compliance with your orders, Lieutenant Loyall and myself have reported at this place for duty connected with the heavy batteries, and up to this time have inspected and frequently exercised them, with the exception of Fort Forrest, on the other side of the sound. This we have not visited, in consequence of the weather, which has not been favorable for the past few days. We find the batteries well constructed and arranged, except that at Pork Point, which requires a flank to the southward, to prevent its being enfiladed. This has been recommended to Colonel Shaw, and orders have probably been given to have the work done. The equipment of the guns is incomplete, only one gun on the island being sighted, and the rifled guns (three in number) are mounted on navy barbette carriages, which are very unwieldy. The instruction is indifferent, but the officers and men evince such a good disposition to learn, that we hope, with the facilities offered us, to be able in short time to report very favorably of their proficiency. I would here state that I found Major Hill in command at Pork Point Battery. He was an old Army officer, and is no doubt a better artillerist than I am; and, as I did not desire to supersede a superior and could not suppose that you wished it, I placed myself under his command, and offered my services to him to assist in instructing his men, and detailed Mr. Loyall for that particular duty. None of the guns have locks, nor are any of them drilled for either locks or sights; but this could be very easily done here if locks and sights should be furnished. I presume they know at the navy-yard exactly what guns are here, and could make sights for them without the measures of the guns being sent. We have no shells for any but the rifled guns, and there is no shot furnace fit for use. The engineer officer assures me that the furnace at Fort Huger (the only one constructed) is worthless, and that he tried it for five hours without any other effect than to burst it. He recommends one for each battery here, after the pattern of Mr. Singleton's, of the engineer's office at Norfolk. The amount of ammunition on hand is not more than twenty rounds for each gun.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN S. TAYLOR,
Captain, C.S. Army.

General HUGER.,
Commanding Department of Norfolk, Va.

No explosive shells for many of the guns. No gunsights. No hot shot. Only twenty rounds (presumably mostly solid shot) per gun. Hatteras Inlet had fallen to Union forces on August 29, 1861--four-and-a-half months before--and in the intervening time the Confederacy hadn't managed to build adequate defenses at the next obvious target of Union forces.

January 15, 1862: The City-Class ironclads are completed

2012-01-15T17:50:00.001-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, the seven ironclads of the City class were declared complete and were accepted for service from their builder, James B. Eads. These seven ironclads: Cairo, Carondelet, Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburg, and St. Louis (later renamed Baron De Kalb), along with two that had been created by converting existing boats: Essex and Benton, meant that the Union now had nine ironclads poised above the heart of the Confederacy like a dagger.

CAIRO, January 15, 1862.

We do hereby certify that the work on the seven gunboats, built by Mr. James B. Eads, the contractor, has been completed according to the terms of the contract with the Government, excepting the time at which they ought to have been finished and delivered at Cairo.

A.M. PENNOCK,
Commander.

R.N. STEMBEL,
Commander.

JAS. R. MCGEE,
Master Carpenter Gunboat Flotilla.

Upon the above certificate I have accepted the gunboats from Mr. Eads, the contractor.

A.H. Foote,
Flag-Officer

CAIRO, January 15, 1862.

January 14, 1862: Frederick Douglass' "The Reasons for Our Troubles"

2012-01-14T08:32:00.002-05:00

Frederick Douglass addressed the underlying causes of the American Civil War in a speech he delivered 150 years ago today.

THE REASONS FOR OUR TROUBLES:
Speech on the War Delivered in National Hall, Philadelphia, January 14, 1862.
Douglass' Monthly, February, 1862

Ladies and Gentlemen:—

My purpose to-night is not to win applause. I have no high-sounding professions of patriotism to make. He is the best friend of this country, who, at this tremendous crisis, dares tell his countrymen the truth, however disagreeable that truth may be; and such a friend I will aim to be to-night. Many things have been said against the free colored people of the North, and a strong current is turned against them; but I believe that up to this time, no man, however malignant, has been able to cast the shadow of a doubt upon the loyalty and patriotism of the free colored people in this the hour of the nation's trial and danger. Without exulting, but with thankfulness, I may say it, while treason and rebellion have counted upon aid and comfort all over the North, among those who have every reason to be true and faithful to the State, no rebel or traitor has dared look at the free colored men of the North, but as an enemy. There are English rebels, Scotch rebels, Irish rebels, but I believe there are no black rebels. The black man at heart, even if found in the rebel camp, is a loyal man, forced out of his place by circumstances beyond his control. I really wish we had some other expressive title for the traitors and rebels who are now striking at the heart of the country which has nursed and brought them up. Rebel and Traitor are epithets too good for such common monsters of perfidy and ingratitude. Washington, Jefferson, John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and many other brave and good men, have worn those appelations, and I hate to see them now worn by wretches who, instead of being rebels against slavery, are actually rebelling against the principles of human liberty and progress, for the hell-black purpose of establishing slavery in its most odious form.

I am to speak to you to-night of the civil war, by which this vast country—this continent is convulsed. The fate of the greatest of all modern Republics trembles in the balance. "To be, or not to be—that is the question." The lesson of the hour is written down in characters of blood and fire. We are taught, as with the emphasis of an earthquake, that nations, not less than individuals, are subjects of the moral government of the universe, and that flagrant, long continued, and persistent transgressions of the laws of this Divine government will certainly bring national sorrow, shame, suffering and death. Of all the nations of the world, we seem most in need of this solemn lesson. To-day, we have it brought home to our hearths, our homes, and our hearts.

Hitherto, we have been content to study this lesson in the history of ancient governments and nationalities. To-day, every thoughtful American citizen is compelled to look at home. Egypt, Palestine, Greece and Rome all had their warnings. They disregarded them, and they perished. Today, we have our warning, not in comets blazing through the troubled sky, but in the terrible calamity of a wide-spread rebellion enacted before our eyes. The American Republic is not yet a single century from the date of its birth. Measuring its age by that of other great nations, our great Republic—for such it truly is—great in commerce, great in numbers, great in mechanical skill, great in mental, moral and physical resources, great in all the elements of national greatness—fills but a speck on the dial plate of time, and stands within the inner circle of childhood. In the brief space of three quarters of a century, this young nation, full of promise and the hope of political liberty throughout the world, rose from three millions to thirty millions. Its mighty heart beats with the best blood of all nations. It was literally sown in weakness and raised in Power. It began life in toil and poverty, and up to the present moment, it is conspicuous among the nations of the earth for opulence and ease. In the fullness of our national strength and glory, we had already begun to congratulate ourselves upon the wisdom and stability of our Government. When all Europe, a few years ago, was convulsed with revolution and bloodshed, America was secure, and sat as a queen among the nations of the earth, knowing no sorrow and fearing none.

To-day, all is changed. The face of every loyal citizen is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought. Every pillar in the national temple is shaken. The nation itself has fallen asunder in the centre. A million of armed men confront each other. Hostile flags wave defiance in sight of the National Capital during a period of six long and anxious months. Our riches take wings. Credit is disturbed, business is interrupted, national debt—the mill-stone on the neck of nations—and heavy taxation, which breaks the back of loyalty, loom in the distance. As the war progresses, property is wantonly destroyed, the wires are broken down, bridges demolished, railroads are pulled up and barricaded by fallen trees; still more and worse, the great writ of habeas corpus is suspended from necessity, liberty of speech and of the press have ceased to exist. An order from Richmond or Washington—one stroke of the pen from Davis or Lincoln sends any citizen to prison, as in England, three centuries ago, British subjects were sent to the Tower of London. A hateful system of espionage is in process of formation, while war and blood mantles the whole land as with the shadow of death. We speak and write now by the forbearance of our rulers, not by the sacredness of our rights. I speak this not in complaint; I admit the necessity, while I lament it. The scene need not be further portrayed. It is dismal and terrible beyond all description. We have it burnt upon our very souls. I will not mock you by further painting that scene.

The spoilers of the Republic have dealt with the nation as burglars—stealing all they could carry away, and burning the residue.—They have emptied your treasury, plundered your arsenals, scattered your navy, corrupted your army, seduced your officers, seized your forts, covered the sea with pirates, "heated your enemies, cooled your friends," insulted your flag, defied your Government, converted the national defences into instruments of national destruction, and have invited hostile armies of foreign nations to unite with them in completing the national ruin. All this, and more, has been done by the very men whom you have honored, paid and trusted, and that, too, while they were solemnly sworn to protect, support and defend your Constitution and Government against all foes at home and abroad.

To what cause may we trace our present sad and deplorable condition? A man of flighty brain and flippant tongue will tell you that the cause of all our national troubles lies solely in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the President of the Republic. To the superficial this is final. Before Lincoln there was peace; after Lincoln there was rebellion. It stands to reason that Lincoln and rebellion are related as cause and effect. such is their argument; such is their explanation. I hardly need waste your time in showing the folly and falsehood of either. Beyond all question, the facts show that this rebellion was planned and prepared long before the name of Abraham Lincoln was mentioned in connection with the office he now holds, and that though the catastrophe might have been postponed, it could not have been prevented, nor long delayed. The worst of our condition is not to be sought in our disaster on flood or field.—It is to be found rather in the character which contact with slavery has developed in every part of the country, so that at last there seems to be no truth, no candor left within us. We have faithfully copied all the cunning of the serpent without any of the harmlessness of the dove, or the boldness of the lion.

In dealing with the causes of our present troubles we find in quarters, high and low, the most painful evidences of dishonesty. It would seem, in the language of Isaiah, that the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint, that there is no soundness in it.—After-coming generations will remark with astonishment this feature in this dark chapter in our national history. They will find in no public document emanating from the loyal Government, anything like a frank and full statement of the real causes which have plunged us in the whirlpool of civil war. On the other hand, they will find the most studied and absurd attempts at concealment. Jefferson Davis is reticent. He seems ashamed to tell the world just what he is fighting for. Abraham Lincoln seems equally so, and is ashamed to tell the world what he is fighting against.

If we turn from the heads of the Government to the heads of the several Departments, we are equally befogged. The attempt is made to conceal the real facts of the case.—Our astute Secretary of State is careful to enjoin it upon our foreign ministers to remain dumb in respect to the real causes of the rebellion. They are to say nothing of the moral differences existing between the two sections of the country. There must be no calling things by their right names—no going straight to any point which can be reached by a crooked path. When slaves are referred to, they must be called persons held to service or labor. When in the hands of the Federal Governments, they are called contrabands—a name that will apply better to a pistol, than to a person. The preservation of slavery is called the preservation of the rights of the South under the Constitution. This concealment is one of the most contemptible features of the crisis.

Every cause for the rebellion but the right one is pointed out and dwelt upon. Some make it geographical; others make it ethnographical.

"Lands intersected by a narrow frith abhor each other;
Mountains interposed make enemies of nations,
Which else like kindred drops had mingled into one."

But even this cause does not hold true.—There is no geographical reason for national division. Every stream is bridged, and every mountain is tunnelled. All our rivers and mountains point to union, not division —to oneness, not to warfare. There is no earthly reason why the corn fields of Pennsylvania should quarrel with the cotton fields of South Carolina. The physical and climatic differences bind them together, instead of putting them asunder.

A very large class of persons charge all our national calamities upon the busy tongues and pens of the Abolitionists. Thus we accord to a handful of men and women, everywhere despised, a power superior to all other classes in the country. Absurd and ridiculous as this is, its adherents are hoary-headed and bearded men.

Others still explain the whole matter, by telling us that it is the work of defeated and disappointed politicians at the South. I shall waste no time upon either. The cause of this rebellion is deeper down than either Southern politicians or Northern Abolitionists. They are but the hands of the clock. The machinery moves not because of the hands, but the hands because of the machinery. The ship may be great, but the ocean that bears it is greater. The Southern politicians and the Northern Abolitionists are the fruits, not the trees. They indicate, but are not original causes. The trouble is deeper down, and is fundamental; there is nothing strange about it. The conflict is in every way natural.—"How can two walk together except they be agreed?" "No man can serve two masters." "A house divided against itself cannot stand." It is something of a feat to ride two horses going the same way, and at the same pace, but a still greater feat when going in opposite directions.

Just here lies a true explanation of our troubles. We have made the mistake—the great and deplorable mistake of supposing that we could sow the wind without reaping the whirlwind. We have attempted to maintain our Union in utter defiance of the moral chemistry of the universe. We have endeavored to join together things which in their nature stand eternally asunder. We have sought to bind the chains of slavery on the limbs of the black man, without thinking that at last we should find the other end of that hateful chain about our own necks.

A glance at the history of the settlement of the two sections of this country will show that the causes which produced the present rebellion, reach back to the dawn of civilization on this continent. In the same year that the Mayflower landed her liberty-seeking passengers on the bleak New England shore, a Dutch galliot landed a company of African slaves on the banks of the James river, Virginia. The Mayflower planted liberty at the North, and the Dutch galliot slavery at the South.—There is the fire, and there is the gunpowder. Contact has produced the explosion. What has followed might have been easily predicted. Great men saw it from the beginning, but no great men were found great enough to prevent it.

The statesmanship of the last half century has been mainly taxed to perpetuate the American Union. A system of compromise and concessions has been adopted. A double-dealing policy—a facing-both-ways statesmanship, naturally sprung up, and became fashionable—so that political success was often made to depend upon political cheating. One section or the other must be deceived. Before railroads and electric wires were spread over the country, this trickery and fraud had a chance of success. The lighting made deception more difficult, and the Union by compromise impossible. Our Union is killed by lightning.

In order to have union, either in the family, in the church, or in the State, there must be unity of idea and sentiment in all essential interests. Find a man's treasure, and you have found his heart. Now, in the North, freedom is the grand and all-comprehensive condition of comfort, prosperity and happiness. All our ideas and sentiments grow out of this free element. Free speech, free soil, free men, free schools, free inquiry, free suffrage, equality before the law, are the natural outgrowths of freedom. Freedom is the centre of our Northern social system. It warms into life every other interest, and makes it beautiful in our eyes. Liberty is our treasure, and our hearts dwell with it, and receives its actuating motives from it.

What freedom is to the North as a generator of sentiment and ideas, that slavery is to the South. It is the treasure to which the Southern heart is fastened. It fashions all their ideas, and moulds all their sentiments.—Politics, education, literature, morals and religion in the South, all bear the bloody image and superscription of slavery. Here, then, are two direct, point-blank and irreconcilable antagonisms under the same form of government. The marvel is not that civil war has come, but that it did not come sooner. But the evil is now upon us, and the question as to the causes which produced it, is of less consequence than the question as to how it ought to be, and can be thrown off. How shall the civil war be ended?

It can be ended for a time in one of two ways. One by recognizing the complete independence of the Southern Confederacy, and indemnifying the traitors and rebels for all the expense to which they have been put, in carrying out this tremendous slaveholding rebellion; and the second is by receiving the slaveholding States back into the Union with such guarantees for slavery as they may demand for the better security and preservation of slavery. In either of these two ways it may be put down for a time; but God forbid that any such methods of obtaining peace shall be adopted; for neither the one nor the other could bring any permanent peace.

I take it that these United States are to remain united. National honor requires national unity. To abandon that idea would be a disgraceful, scandalous and cowardly surrender of the majority to a rebellious minority—the capitulation of twenty million loyal men to six million rebels—and would draw after it a train of disasters such as would heap curses on the very graves of the present generation. As to giving the slave States new guarantees for the safety of slavery, that I take to be entirely out of the question. The South does not want them, and the North could not give them if the South could accept them. To concede anything to these slaveholding traitors and rebels in arms, after all their atrocious crimes against justice, humanity, and every sentiment of loyalty, would be tantamount to the nation's defeat, and would substitute in the future the bayonet for the ballot, and cannon balls for Congress, revolution and anarchy for government, and the pronunciamentoes of rebel chiefs for regulating enacted laws.

There is therefore no escape. The only road to national honor, and permanent peace to us, is to meet, fight, dislodge, drive back, conquer and subdue the rebels. When a man and woman are lawfully joined together for life, the only conditions upon which there can be anything like peace in the family, are that they shall either love or fear each other. Now, during the last fifty years, the North has been endeavoring, by all sorts of services and kindnesses, to win and secure the affection of the South. It has stepped sometimes a little beyond the requirements of true manly dignity to accomplish this, but all in vain.

We have bought Florida, waged war with friendly Seminoles, purchased Louisiana, annexed Texas, fought Mexico, trampled on the right of petition, abridged the freedom of debate, paid ten million to Texas upon a fraudulent claim, mobbed the Abolitionists, repealed the Missouri Compromise, winked at the accursed slave trade, helped to extend slavery, given slave-holders a larger share of all the offices and honors than we claimed for ourselves, paid their postage, supported the Government, persecuted free Negroes, refused to recognize Haiti and Liberia, stained our souls by repeated compromises, borne with Southern bluster, allowed our ships to be robbed of their hardy sailors, defeated a central road to the Pacific, and have descended to the meanness and degradation of Negro dogs, and hunted down the panting slave escaping from his tyrant master—all to make the South love us; and yet how stand our relations?

At this hour there is everywhere at the South, nursed and cherished, the most deadly hate towards every man and woman of Northern birth. We, here at the North, do not begin to understand the strength and bitter intensity of this slaveholding malice. Mingled with it is a supercilious sense of superiority—a scornful contempt—the strutting pride of the turkey, with the cunning and poison of the rattlesnake. I say again, we must meet them, defeat them, and conquer them. Do I hear you say that this is more easily said than done? I admit it. Nevertheless, there is a way to do it, and to do it effectually.

I have not a very exalted idea of Southern courage, notwithstanding the successes attending their arms, thus far, during the rebellion. Their domestic habits make them passionate and cruel, but not calm and brave. They will readily fight when they have every advantage. They can whip a Negro with his hands tied, catch a Connecticut peddler a thousand miles from home, beat and ride him out of town on a rail—capture a hospital full of sick folks, or bombard, with ten thousand men, a starving garrison of seventy men. I never got into a dispute with one of the Southern braves yet, but that he expressed the wish that he had me in the South, where, of course, he would have every advantage.

But how shall the rebellion be put down ? I will tell you; but before I do so, you must allow me to say that the plan thus far pursued does not correspond with my humble notion of fitness. Thus far, it must be confessed, we have struck wide of the mark, and very feebly withal. The temper of our steel has proved much better than the temper of our minds. While I do not charge, as some have done, that the Government at Washington is conducting the war upon peace principles, it is very plain that the war is not being conducted on war principles,

We are fighting the rebels with only one hand, when we ought to be fighting them with both. We are recruiting our troops in the towns and villages of the North, when we ought to be recruiting them on the plantations of the South. We are striking the guilty rebels with our soft, white hand, when we should be striking with the iron hand of the black man, which we keep chained behind us. We have been catching slaves, instead of arming them. We have thus far repelled our natural friends to win the worthless and faithless friendship of our unnatural enemies. We have been endeavoring to heal over the rotten cancer of slavery, instead of cutting out its death-dealing roots and fibres. We pay more attention to the advice of the half-rebel State of Kentucky, than to any suggestion coming from the loyal North. We have shouldered all the burdens of slavery, and given the slaveholders and traitors all its benefits; and robbed our cause of half its dignity in the eyes of an on-looking world.

I say here and now, that if this nation is destroyed—if the Government, shall, after all, be broken to pieces, and degraded in the eyes of the world—if the Union shall be shattered into fragments, it will neither be for the want of men, nor of money, nor even physical courage, for we have all these in abundance; but it will be solely owing to the want of moral courage and wise statesmanship in dealing with slavery, the cause and motive of the rebellion.

Witness the treatment of Fremont's proclamation. When that memorable document was given to the public, all truly loyal men felt that the Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains had found the true path out of our national troubles. His words were few and simple, but strong enough to vibrate the heart of a continent. The weakness and imbecility of the letter of the President, condemning that proclamation, have thus far characterized the whole war. Slavery has been, and is yet the shield and helmet of this accursed rebellion; but for this its brains would have been out long ago. President, Government, and army, stand paralyzed in the presence of slavery. They are determined only to save the Union so far as they can save slavery.—The President asserts that he approved of the proclamation of Fremont generally, but disapproved of one feature of it. What was the proclamation generally? Why this: the establishment of martial law in Missouri.—The President approved of that. What was it specially? Why, the confiscation and emancipation of all the slaves belonging to rebels. The President was in favor of martial law, in favor of shooting rebels, but was not in favor of freeing their slaves. In this brief letter to Fremont, we have the secret of all our misfortune in connection with rebellion.

I have been often asked since this war began, why I am not at the South battling for freedom. My answer is with the Government. The Washington Government wants men for its army, but thus far, it has not had the boldness to recognize the manhood of the race to which I belong. It only sees in the slave an article of commerce—a contraband. I do not wish to say aught against our Government, for good or bad; it is all we have to save us from anarchy and ruin; but I owe it to my race, in view of the cruel aspersions cast upon it, to affirm that, in denying them the privileges to fight for their country, they have been most deeply and grievously wronged. Neither in the Revolution, nor in the last war did any such narrow and contemptible policy obtain. It shows the deep degeneracy of our times—the height from which we have fallen—that, while Washington, in 1776, and Jackson, in 1814, could fight side by side with Negroes, now, not even the best of our generals are willing so to fight. Is McClellan better than Washington? Is Halleck better than Jackson?

One situation only has been offered me, and that is the office of a body servant to a Colonel. I would not despise even that, if I could by accepting it be of service to my enslaved fellow-countrymen. In the temple of impartial liberty there is no seat too low for me. But one thing I have a right to ask when I am required to endure the hardships and brave the dangers of the battle field. I ask that I shall have either a country, or the hope of a country under me—a Government, or the hope of a Government around me, and a flag of impartial liberty floating over me.

We have recently had a solemn fast, and have offered up innumerable prayers for the deliverance of the nation from its manifold perils and calamities. I say nothing against these prayers. Their subjective power is indispensable; but I know also, that the work of making, and the work of answering them, must be performed by the same hands. If the loyal North shall succeed in suppressing this foul and scandalous rebellion, that achievement will be due to the amount of wisdom and force they bring against the rebels in arms.

Thus far we have shown no lack of force. A call for men is answered by half a million. A call for money brings down a hundred million. A call for prayers brings a nation to its altars. But still the rebellion rages.—Washington is menaced. The Potomac is blockaded. Jeff Davis is still proud and defiant, and the rebels are looking forward hopefully to a recognition of their independence, the breaking of the blockade, and their final severance from the North.

Now, what is the remedy for all this? The answer is ready. Have done at once and forever with the wild and guilty phantasy that any one man can have a right of property in the body and soul of another man. Have done with the now exploded idea that the old Union, which has hobbled along through seventy years upon the crutches of compromise, is either desirable or possible, now, or in the future. Accept the incontestible truth of the "irrepressible conflict." It was spoken when temptations to compromise were less strong than now. Banish from your political dreams the last lingering adumbration that this great American nation can ever rest firmly and securely upon a mixed basis, part of iron, part of clay, part free, and part slave. The experiment has been tried, and tried, too, under more favorable circumstances than any which the future is likely to offer, and has deplorably failed. Now lay the axe at the root of the tree, and give it—root, top, body and branches—to the consuming fire.—You have now the opportunity.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their lives
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat.
We must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."

To let this occasion pass unimproved, for getting rid of slavery, would be a sin against unborn generations. The cup of slave-holding iniquity is full and running over; now let it be disposed of and finished forever. Reason, common sense, justice, and humanity alike concur with this necessary step for the national safety. But it is contended that the nation at large has no right to interfere with slavery in the States—that the Constitution gives no power to abolish slavery. This pretext is flung at us at every corner, by the same men who, a few months ago, told us we had no Constitutional right to coerce a seceded State—no right to collect revenue in the harbors of such States—no right to subjugate such States—and it is part and parcel of the same nonsense.

In the first place, slavery has no Constitutional existence in the country. There is not a provision of that instrument which would be contravened by its abolition. But if every line and syllable of the Constitution contained an explicit prohibition of the abolition of slavery, the right of the nation to abolish it would still remain in full force. In virtue of a principle underlying all government—that of national self-preservation—the nation can no more be bound to disregard this, than a man can be bound to commit suicide. This law of self preservation is the great end and object of all Governments and Constitutions. The means can never be superior to the end. But will our Government ever arrive at this conclusion? That will depend upon two very opposite elements.

First, it will depend upon the sum of Northern virtue.

Secondly, upon the extent of Southern villainy.

Now, I have much confidence in Northern virtue, but much more in Southern villainy.— Events are greater than either party to the conflict. We are fighting not only a wicked and determined foe, but a maddened and desperate foe. We are not fighting serviles, but our masters—men who have ruled over us for fifty years. If hard pushed, we may expect them to break through all the restraints of civilized warfare.

I am still hopeful that the Government will take direct and powerful abolition measures. That hope is founded on the fact that the Government has already traveled further in that direction than it promised. Neither our law-makers, nor our laws, are like those of the Medes and Persians. They are but the breath of the people, and are under the control of events. No President, no Cabinet, no army can withstand the mighty current of events, or the surging billows of the popular will. The first flash of rebel gunpowder, ten months ago, pouring shot and shell upon the starving handful of men at Sumter, instantly changed the whole policy of the nation. Until then, the ever hopeful North, of all parties, was still dreaming of compromise. The heavens were black, the thunder rattled, the air was heavy, and vivid lightning flashed all around; but our sages were telling us there would be no rain. But all at once, down came the storm of hail and fire.

And now behold the change! Only one brief year ago, the great city of Boston, the Athens of America, was convulsed by a howling pro-slavery mob, madly trampling upon the great and sacred right of speech. It blocked the streets; it shut up the halls; it silenced and overawed the press, defied the Government, and clamored for the blood of Wendell Phillips, a name which will live and shine while Boston is remembered as the chief seat of American eloquence, philanthropy and learning. Where is that mob to-night? You must look for it on the sacred soil of old Virginia.

Nothing stands to-day where it stood yesterday. Humanity sweeps onward. To-night with saints and angels, surrounded with the glorious army of martyrs and confessors, of whom our guilty world was not worthy, the brave spirit of old John Brown serenely looks down from his eternal rest, beholding his guilty murderers in torments of their own kindling, and the faith for which he nobly died steadily becoming the saving faith of the nation. He was "justly hanged," was the word from patriotic lips two years ago; but now, every loyal heart in the nation would gladly call him back again. Our armies now march by the inspiration of his name; and his son, young John Brown, from being hunted like a felon, is raised to a captaincy in the loyal army.

We have seen great changes—everybody has changed—the North has changed—Republicans have changed—and even the Garrisonians, of whom it has been said that repentance is not among their virtues, even they have changed; and from being the stern advocates of a dissolution of the Union, they have become the uncompromising advocates of the perpetuity of the Union. I believed ten years ago that liberty was safer in the Union than out of the Union; but my Garrisonian friends could not then so see it, and of consequence dealt me some heavy blows. My crime was in being ten years in advance of them. But whether the Government shall directly abolish slavery or not, the war is essentially an abolition war. When the storm clouds of this rebellion shall be lifted from the land, the slave power, broken and humbled, will be revealed. Slavery will be a conquered power in the land. I am, therefore, for the war, for the Government, for the Union, for the Constitution in any and every event.

January 13, 1862: Lincoln to Don Carlos Buell

2012-01-13T07:15:00.002-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln wrote to Brigadier General Don Carlos Buell to encourage him to advance and explain Lincoln's strategy in prosecuting the war.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 13, 1861

BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL.
MY DEAR SIR—Your despatch of yesterday is received, in which you say, "I received your letter and General McClellan's, and will at once devote my efforts to your views and his." In the midst of my many cares I have not seen, nor asked to see, General McClellan's letter to you. For my own views, I have not offered and do not now offer them as orders; and while I am glad to have them respectfully considered, I would blame you to follow them contrary to your own clear judgment, unless I should put them in the form of orders. As to General McClellan's views, you understand your duty in regard to them better than I do.

With this preliminary I state my general idea of this war to be, that we have the greater numbers and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail unless we can find some way of making our advantage an overmatch for his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at different points at the same time, so that we can safely attack one or both if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize and hold the weakened one, gaining so much.

To illustrate: Suppose last summer, when Winchester ran away to reinforce Manassas, we had forborne to attack Manassas, but had seized and held Winchester. I mention this to illustrate and not to criticise. I did not lose confidence in McDowell, and I think less harshly of Patterson than some others seem to.... Applying the principle to your case, my idea is that Halleck shall menace Columbus and "down river" generally, while you menace Bowling Green and East Tennessee. If the enemy shall concentrate at Bowling Green, do not retire from his front, yet do not fight him there either, but seize Columbus and East Tennessee, one or both, left exposed by the concentration at Bowling Green. It is a matter of no small anxiety to me, and which I am sure you will not overlook, that the East Tennessee line is so long and over so bad a road.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.
(Indorsement.)

Having to-day written General Buell a letter, it occurs to me to send General Halleck a copy of it.

A. LINCOLN.

January 12, 1862: John Boston to his wife

2012-01-12T08:05:00.000-05:00

The flag of the 14th Regiment New York State Militia

On this day 150 years ago a runaway slave named John Boston wrote to his wife who remained in slavery in Maryland.

Upton Hill [Va.] January the 12 1862

My Dear Wife it is with grate joy I take this time to let you know Whare I am i am now in Safety in the 14th Regiment of Brooklyn this Day i can Adress you thank god as a free man I had a little truble in giting away But as the lord led the Children of Isrel to the land of Canon So he led me to a land Whare fredom Will rain in spite Of earth and hell Dear you must make your Self content i am free from al the Slavers Lash and as you have chose the Wise plan Of Serving the lord i hope you Will pray Much and i Will try by the help of god To Serv him With all my hart I am With a very nice man and have All that hart Can Wish But My Dear I Cant express my grate desire that i Have to See you i trust the time Will Come When We Shal meet again And if We dont met on earth We Will Meet in heven Whare Jesas ranes Dear Elizabeth tell Mrs Own[ees] That i trust that She Will Continue Her kindness to you and that god Will Bless her on earth and Save her In grate eternity My Acomplements To Mrs Owens and her Children may They Prosper through life I never Shall forgit her kindness to me Dear Wife i must Close rest yourself Contented i am free i Want you to rite To me Soon as you Can Without Delay Direct your letter to the 14th Reigment New york State malitia Uptons Hill Virginea In Care of Mr Cranford Comary Write my Dear Soon As you C Your Affectionate Husban Kiss Daniel For me

John Boston

Give my love to Father and Mother

John Boston's letter was intercepted and was used to protest the Lincoln administration's policy towards runaway slaves. The regiment that sheltered John Boston, the 14th Regiment New York State Militia, had already had an active war, fighting at Bull Run, and would see much hard service in the years to come. The 14th Regiment New York State Militia was a Zouave unit and dressed in bright red breeches and red kepis, which led to their being nicknamed the "Red Legged Devils."

January 11, 1862: The Monitor gets a commander

2012-01-11T16:45:00.000-05:00

Lieutenant John L. Worden

A revolutionary new warship was taking shape at the Continental Iron Works in Brooklyn, New York. The ironclad designed by Swedish engineer John Ericsson was unlike any other vessel to ever sail before her. Such a drastic leap in technology called for a special kind of officer to take command, and that man was Lieutenant John L. Worden.

Private.] JANUARY 11, 1862.

Mv DEAR SIR: I have only time to say I have named you for the command of the battery under contract with Captain Ericsson, now nearly ready at New York.

This vessel is an experiment. I believe you are the right sort of officer to put in command of her.

Yours, truly, in haste,

Jos. SMITH.

Lieutenant J. L. WORDEN,
U.S. Navy, Naval Rendezvous, New York, N.Y.

Advancement was slow in the pre-war U.S. Navy and Worden was 43 years and still just a lieutenant with 28 years of service under his belt, including at least half that time on sea duty. Like so many U.S. Navy officers of the time he was a tough, professional, and thoroughly experienced fighter.

In April 1861 he had carried dispatches south by railroad to Pensacola, Florida only to be captured on his return trip near Montgomery, Alabama and held prisoner for seven months before being exchanged. In January 1862, Worden was itching to get into the fight against his former captors. The new ironclad was Worden's ticket to the dance.

Plan of U.S.S. Monitor

January 10, 1862: Flag Officer Goldsborough prepares to leave Hampton Roads

2012-01-10T13:20:00.000-05:00

Flag Officer Louis M. Goldborough, commanding the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron headquartered in Hampton Roads, was planning to leave the Hampton Roads to participate in the Burnside Expedition, but before he could leave he needed to make provision for the defense of the roads and Fortress Monroe in his absence. Goldsborough was taking most of the Navy's light draft steam gunboats with him.

Behind him, to guard the Hampton Roads, he would leave two powerful sailing warships, the U.S.S. Congress and the U.S.S. Cumberland. Congress and Cumberland were well-armed ships. The Congress carried ten 8-inch Dahlgren smooth bore guns and forty 32-pounder smooth bore guns, while Cumberland carried twenty-two 9-inch Dahlgren smooth bores, one 10-inch Dahlgren smooth bore, and one 70-pound rifle. The catch was that, as sailing vessels, they would not be able to maneuver as easily as a steam opponent. Goldsborough hoped to offset this disadvantage by assigning each ship a steam-powered tugboat to help them maneuver against any threat. On this day, 150 years ago, Goldsborough laid out his intentions in a message to the commander of the Congress.

U.S. FLAGSHIP MINNESOTA,
Hampton Roads, January 10, 1862.

SIR Before leaving here I desire to say to you that the tugs Dragon and Zouave are to attend expressly upon the Congress and Cumberland at Newport News, so as to tow them into an advantageons position in case of an attack from the Merrimack or any other quarter. Both tugs are now here, and the senior naval officer remaining here will be instructed with regard to my wishes concerning the duty to which they are to be applied, viz, I repeat, to attend exclusively upon the Congress and Cumberland. I request that you will arrange which one is to attend the Congress and which one the Cumberland.

In case all the fitments of magazines, etc., for both or either of these vessels should not be completed before they get to you, be good enough to have them finished by the mechanics of the two ships.

You are at liberty to fix these tugs in any way you may think best for the purpose they are intended to subserve.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

L.M. GOLDSBOROUGH,
Flag-Officer.

Commander WM. SMITH, Commanding
U. S. S[hip] Congress, Newport News.

P.S. I omitted to mention, in the hurry of writing the above, that the Dragon is to be armed with a 20-pounder rifled Parrott forward and a 24-pounder brass smoothbore aft, and the Zouave with a 30-pounder rifled Parrott forward and a 12-pounder brass smoothbore aft. The guns are all here and are being put on board as fast as the arrangements can be made.

It may be that until the Dragon can be completed the Young America will have to take her place with you. Should you find fitments in any particular incomplete, I wish you would finish them with your own mechanics and resources.

Of course you will use the tugs on guard or any other service you may like.

L.M.G.

January 10, 1862: Lincoln to Simon Cameron

2012-01-10T07:00:00.003-05:00

On January 10, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln expressed his frustration at his own inability to get his generals--in this case Henry W. Halleck--moving forward.

January 10, 1862

The within is a copy of a letter just received from General Halleck. It is exceedingly discouraging. As everywhere else, nothing can be done.

A. LINCOLN

Things weren't as bleak as Lincoln thought they were. Ambrose Burnside's expedition to the Carolina coast was underway and in Cairo, Illinois an obscure brigadier general named Ulysses S. Grant thinking about an expedition of his own.

January 9, 1862: The Western Gunboat Squadron prepares to move

2012-01-09T15:40:00.002-05:00

Andrew H. Foote

On January 9, 1862, Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote received word from Generals Halleck and Grant regarding a forward movement involving the army and the gunboat squadron. Foote immediately updated his superior, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles on the status of the gunboats under his command, their commissioning, and the need for additional crewmen.

CAIRO, January 9, 1862.

Sir: I have received from General Grant, commanding this post, confidential communications in relation to an expedition of troops planned by General Halleck.

On consultation with General Grant, I have ordered two gunboats up the Tennessee River, in charge of Lieutenant Commanding Phelps, a judicious officer. Also two gunboats will leave this place to-day for the protection of the transports, which take troops a short distance down the river. I shall reserve one gunboat to go down the river with myself to-morrow or next day, in time to join the two other boats when they move farther down.

Our force being thus divided, the Department will infer that it will be rather of a demonstrative character than otherwise. I shall in person, however, accompany and take charge of the gunboats which go down the Mississippi, remaining here on account of the pressure of work till the latest moment.

I purpose commissioning the gunboats Cincinnati and Carondelet to-day and to-morrow, and having the remainder in commission during the ensuing week. We have but one-third of a crew (60 men) for each gunboat, while the carpenters and machinists are still at work, but they have nearly completed their duties.

I can obtain no authority to prepare the mortar boats. In fact, the report of the officers ordered by General Halleck upon these boats has but just been forwarded. I had made arrangements, on the arrival of General Halleck, to have had the mortar beds made in fourteen days at St. Louis and to have the mortars sent to this place from Pittsburg, but he declined to give authority. I could do nothing then, as General Meigs informed me that General Halleck had instructions what course to take relative to these mortar boats. General Halleck said that he had no instructions, and soon afterwards ordered the officer I had obtained to attend to the mortars to a company at or near Tipton, Mo. I intend writing General Meigs to-day on the subject.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A.H. Foote,
Flag-Officer.

Hon. GIDEON WELLES,
Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D.C.

The Carondelet and Cincinnati were City-class ironclads, two of seven City-class boats built by James B. Eads according to a design drawn by Samuel M. Pook, and collectively they were often referred to as "Pook's Turtles."

U.S.S. Carondelet

As completed, the Carondelet weighed 512 tons, had a 6' draft, a speed of 8 knots, and was armed as follows: six 32-pounder smooth bore guns 43 cwt, three 8-inch Dahlgren smooth bore guns, four 42-pounder army guns that had been bored out and rifled, and one 12-pounder howitzer for repelling boarders.

U.S.S. Cincinnati

As completed, the Cincinnati weighed 512 tons, had a 6' draft, a speed of 8 knots, and was armed as follows: six 32-pounder smooth bore guns 43 cwt, three 8-inch Dahlgren smooth bore guns, four 42-pounder army guns that had been bored out and rifled, and one 12-pounder howitzer for repelling boarders.

January 8, 1862: Mansfield Lovell wants his troops back

2012-01-08T19:15:00.000-05:00

One of the keys to the Southern defensive strategy was the use of "interior lines" to shift troops around to meet different Union threats as they presented themselves. As the Union threatened northwest Tennessee along the Kentucky border, the South had shifted troops from New Orleans to the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Now, with the Union buildup on Ship Island, not far from New Orleans, the Confederate commander in New Orleans, Mansfield Lovell, worried that he might not get his troops back in time.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT No. 1,
New Orleans, La., January 8, 1862.

Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN,
Secretary of War:

SIR: Some six weeks since, at the urgent call of an officer in Kentucky, and believing that I would be safe from attack until January, I sent two regiments to Columbus, with the distinct understanding on my part, and so expressed both to Generals Johnston and Polk, that when the enemy appeared here they should be returned. General Polk now, in answer to my call, telegraphs me that he has asked you to send me other troops, and you have consented. I hope that this is not so. The troops I sent him are natives of this part of the country and cannot be replaced by others. The Third Mississippi Regiment is composed largely of the fishermen, oystermen, and sailors of Louis Bay, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, & c., and are well acquainted with all the inlets, bayous, and soundings of that intricate and difficult coast, and can be of more service there than any other body of men. I have therefore written to General Polk to insist that the Third Mississippi Regiment, at all events, shall be sent down. They can as well be replaced there as here by fresh troops, but none can supply their place to me on the Mississippi coast. The regiment was raised particularly for that service, about half of it being amphibious, and I shall want to put a number of them in boats. The country troops will not answer my purpose. I beg, therefore, that even if you permit General Polk to retain the Thirteenth Louisiana you will telegraph him to send me the Third Mississippi Regiment immediately. He does me great injustice by leaving me until this late hour under the impression that when I wanted these two regiments they should be returned, and I have so written him.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

M. LOVELL,
Major-General Commanding.

January 7, 1862: Burnside receives orders to attack Roanoke Island

2012-01-07T11:05:00.001-05:00

George B. McClellan

On January 7, 1862, Union general in chief George B. McClellan gave Brigadier General Ambrose formal orders for what would become known as the Burnside Expedition. These orders show a clarity of purpose and strategic vision rarely associated with McClellan or Burnside.

HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, January 7, 1862.

GENERAL: In accordance with verbal instructions heretofore given you, you will, after uniting with Flag-Officer Goldsborough, at Fort Monroe, proceed under his convoy to Hatteras Inlet, when you will, in connection with him, take the most prompt measures for crossing the fleet into the bulkhead into the waters of the sound. Under the accompanying general order, constituting the Department of North Carolina, you will assume command of the garrison at Hatteras Inlet and make such dispositions in regard to that place as your ulterior operations may render necessary, always being careful to provide for the safety of that very important station in any contingency.

Your first point of attack will be Roanoke Island and its dependencies. It is presumed that the Navy can reduce the batteries on the marshes and cover the landing of your troops on the main island, by which, in connection with a rapid movement of the gunboats to the northern extremity as soon as the marsh battery is reduced, it may be hoped to capture the entire garrison of the place.

Having occupied the island and its dependencies, you will at once proceed to the erection of the batteries and defenses necessary to hold the position with a small force. Should the flag-officer require any assistance in seizing or holding the debouches of the canals from Norfolk, you will please afford it to him.

The commodore and yourself having completed your arrangements in regard to Roanoke Island and the waters north of it, you will please at once make a descent upon New Berne, having gained possession of which and the railroad passing through it, you will at once throw a sufficient force upon Beaufort, and take the steps necessary to reduce Fort Macon and open that port. When you seize New Berne you will endeavor to seize the railroad as far west as Goldsboro should circumstances favor such a movement. The temper of the people, the rebel force at hand, etc., will go far toward determining the question as to how far west the railroad can be safely occupied and held. Should circumstances render it advisable to seize and hold Raleigh, the main north and south line of railroad passing through Goldsboro should be so effectually destroyed for a considerable distance north and south of that a point as to render it impossible for the rebels to use it to your disadvantage. A great point would be gained in any event by the effectual destruction of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.

I would advise great caution in moving so far into the interior as upon Raleigh. Having accomplished the objects mentioned, the next point of interest would probably be Wilmington, the reduction of which may require that additional means shall be afforded you. I would urge great caution in regard to proclamation. In no case would I go beyond a moderate joint proclamation with the naval commander, which should say as little as possible about politics or the negro. Merely state that the true issue for which we are fighting is the preservation of the Union and upholding the laws of the General Government, and stating that all who conduct themselves properly will, as far as possible, be protected in their persons and property.

You will please report your operations as often as an opportunity offers itself.

With my best wishes for your success, I am, etc.,

GEG. B. MCCLELLAN,
Major-General, Commanding in Chief

Brigadier-General AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE,
Commanding Expedition

P.S. Any prisoners you take should be sent to the most convenient Northern post. You can, however, exchange any of them for any of your own men who may be taken.

The race for Roanoke Island was now officially on. Could the Confederates muster enough defensive power to hold Roanoke Island, or would Burnside and Goldsborough get there first?

Ambrose Burnside

January 6, 1862: Benjamin Huger to Judah P. Benjamin

2012-01-06T20:35:00.000-05:00

Suddenly awakened to the possibility of a coming disaster at Roanoke Island, Benjamin Huger hastily telegraphed Judah P. Benjamin with a justification of his actions (and inaction).

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NORFOLK,
Norfolk, January 6, 1862.

Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of War:
SIR: In obedience to the orders of the Department of War, Brigadier General Wise has assumed command of the military department assigned to him, and left here on Friday, 3d instant, to visit Roanoke Island and other points within his command.

As I have been fully occupied with my front, and the position of Roanoke Island has been without my control, I hardly know what to do to strengthen this important position (I consider it the key to Albemarle Sound) until I get the reports of General Wise.

All the work that has been done there has been done by my direction, and with the assistance of the Navy (Commodore Forrest, commanding dock-yard, and Captain Lee, the executive officer, having aided me most materially) all the batteries have been erected, gun carriages and ammunition supplied. I cannot see that any one else has done anything towards its protection, except the sending of two regiments of North Carolina troops there. Much of the work I recommended has been neglected. One very important thing, obstructing the channel, has yet to be done. I have now sent the means, and directed General Wise to prosecute the work with all vigor. I have dispatched all the most necessary supplies, but powder I have none to send.

I regret I had not the preparation of the defenses of this place during the last few months. With the disposition to a panic apparent in that section of the country, if the flotilla of the enemy now assembling under the guns of Fortress Monroe makes a dash at Roanoke Island, I do fear a stampede. As soon as powder can be obtained I must beg you to send me some.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
BENJ. HUGER, Major-General, Commanding.

P. S. I beg to refer to my reports concerning the part I took in occupying Roanoke Island from the 31st August last.

January 6, 1862: Judah P. Benjamin to Henry T. Clark

2012-01-06T12:34:00.004-05:00

The day before, January 5, 1862, North Carolina's Governor Henry T. Clark had sent a frantic message to the Confederacy's Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin begging for additional troops and weapons to defend Roanoke Island and the coast of North Carolina from the expected Union naval expedition. The next day, January 6, 1862, Judah P. Benjamin replied, dismissively, with the following arrogant message:

RICHMOND, VA., January 6, 1862.

Gov. HENRY T. CLARK, Raleigh, N.C.: We are fully alive to the necessity of defending your coast; have much better sources of information than you can possibly have. Be assured we are vigilant, and will use our utmost means for your defense.

J.P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of War.

It's pretty easy to understand why so many people disliked Judah P. Benjamin.

January 5, 1862: Governor Henry T. Clark to Judah P. Benjamin

2012-01-05T07:40:00.000-05:00

Henry T. Clark, Governor of North Carolina 1861-1862

Rumors of the Burnside expedition have reached North Carolina and a sense of panic is building. On this day 150 years ago, Henry T. Clark, Governor of North Carolina, wrote to Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin. Clark was desperate to get reinforcements for the coast of North Carolina.

RALEIGH, January 5, 1862.

J.P. BENJAMIN:

We have reliable information that the Burnside expedition at Fort Monroe is destined for Pamlico Sound and New Berne. The batteries at New Berne are slight, and manned with inexperienced volunteers, and there are only two imperfect regiments there. We have no arms for volunteers or militia. Will you send us troops from Richmond or some of our own regiments from James River? Can we have arms for three regiments from the recent arrival at Wilmington?

HENRY T. CLARK.

January 4, 1862: C.S.S. Sumter anchors in Cadiz, Spain

2012-01-04T11:20:00.002-05:00

C.S.S. Sumter

After spending the second half of 1861 raiding Union shipping in the Caribbean, Raphael Semmes and the C.S.S. Sumter had made their way across the North Atlantic to Cadiz, Spain. Semmes was looking for a place to refuel, repair a bad leak in Sumter's propeller shaft housing, and release the 43 prisoners he had cramped aboard the small cruiser. His reception in the Spanish port was chilly, to say the least.

The next morning revealed Cadiz, fraught with so many ancient, and modern memories, in all its glory, though the weather was gloomy and the clouds dripping rain.
“Fair Cadiz, rising o’er the dark blue sea!”
as Byron calls thee, thou art indeed lovely! with thy white Moresque-looking houses, and gayly curtained balconies, thy church-domes which carry us back in architecture a thousand years, and thy harbor thronged with shipping. Once the Gades of the Phœnician, now the Cadiz of the nineteenth century, thou art perhaps the only living city that can run thy record back so far into the past.

We fired a gun, and hoisted a jack for a pilot, and one boarding us soon afterward, we steamed into the harbor. The Confederate States’ flag was flying from our peak, and we could see that there were many curious telescopes turned upon us, as we passed successively the forts and the different quays lined with shipping. As the harbor opened upon us, a magnificent spectacle presented itself. On our left was the somewhat distant coast of Andalusia, whose name is synonymous with all that is lovely in scenery, or beautiful in woman. One almost fancies as he looks upon it, that he hears the amorous tinkle of the guitar, and inhales the fragrance of the orange grove. Seville is its chief city, and who has not read the couplet,
“Quien no ha visto Sevilla
No ha visto maravilla,”
which may be rendered into the vernacular thus:
“He who hath not Seville seen,
Hath not seen wonders, I ween.”
The landscape, still green in mid-winter, was dotted with villas and villages, all white, contrasting prettily with the groves in which they were embowered. Casting the eye forward, it[Pg 296] rested upon the picturesque hills of the far-famed wine district of Xeres, with its vineyards, wine-presses, and pack-mules. Some famous old wine estates were pointed out to us by the pilot.

We ran through a fleet of shipping before reaching our anchorage off the main quay, the latter lined on both sides with market-boats; and as much more shipping lay beyond us. I was, indeed, quite surprised to find the harbor, which is spacious, so thronged. It spoke well for the reviving industry of Spain. With a little fancy one might imagine her still the mistress of the “Indies,” and that these were her galleons come to pour the mineral treasures of half a world in her lap. All nations were represented, though the Spanish flag predominated. Wearing this flag there were many fine specimens of naval architecture—especially lines of steamships plying between Cadiz, the West Indies, and South America. A number of the merchant-ships of different nations hoisted their flags in honor of the Sumter as she passed; and one Yankee ship—there being three or four of them in the harbor—hoisted hers, as much as to say, “You see we are not afraid to show it.”

The Spanish officials began to annoy us even before we let go our anchor—a health officer boarding us, and telling us that he should have to quarantine us for three days, unless we could show him a clean bill of health. We told him that our health was clean enough, but that we had no bill to establish the fact, whereupon he went on shore to consult his superiors. I sent by him, the following communication to the United States Consul, whose name was Eggleston:—
Confederate States Steamer Sumter,
Cadiz, January 4, 1862.

Sir:—I have the honor to inform you, that I have on board this ship forty-three prisoners of war—late the crews of a ship, a bark, and a schooner, property of citizens of the United States, burned by me on the high seas. These men having elected to be discharged on parole, I am ready to deliver them to you.
Mr. Eggleston, proving to be quite a diplomat, refused to give me my official title, in replying to my note; and of course, I could have no further communication with him. In the afternoon, the Health Officer again came off to inform us that the important questions, of the cleanness of our health, and the discharge of our prisoners, had been telegraphed to Madrid, and that we might soon expect a reply from her Majesty, the Queen[1]

Notes

1. From "Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States," by Raphael Semmes, pp. 295-297.

January 3, 1862: Henry Wise to Judah Benjamin

2012-01-03T07:30:00.000-05:00

Brigadier General Henry A. Wise was a former governor of Virginia and was one of those "political generals" we read about so much in the American Civil War. For all the criticism of political generals and general questioning of their competence, it is difficult to find a flaw with Wise's analysis of the situation of his new command on Roanoke Island--Wise was in trouble and knew it.

NORFOLK, VA., January 3, 1862.

Hon. J.P. BENJAMIN,
Secretary of War:

Sir: I am on my way to make a reconnaissance of Roanoke Island and other localities of my command. Here this morning I have met Major [Lieutenant-Colonel] Williamson, from Roanoke Island, who is bound to Richmond with requisitions made by Colonel Shaw. He will explain the urgent need of steam pile-drivers to obstruct Croatan and Roanoke Sounds. We have but one, and that is just sent, and is insufficient for piling some two miles of channels in any short time, whilst it is essential to have the work done as soon as possible. I ask for an order to purchase or employ at least three more pile-drivers. Colonel Williamson will also show you how deficient is the supply of ammunition and munitions of war here. General Huger cuts down Colonel Shaw's requisitions not because they are unnecessary, but really because of the deficiency of powder here. Yet every day almost powder is wasted at the northern works around Norfolk in practice, enough to supply the outposts for battles. I beg that the requisitions may be more amply supplied from some quarter. They are wholly wanting in fixed ammunition at the navy-yard for small field pieces and boat howitzers under 24-pounders. Roanoke Island is the very key of the rear defenses of Norfolk, and ought to have its full supplies of every description. The loss of that position may cost us the loss of the navy-yard and of Norfolk, or their connection with Richmond. Norfolk and the navy-yard may well, then, supply Roanoke Island in order to save themselves.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

HENRY A. WISE,
Brigadier- General.

January 2, 1862: Ambrose Doss to W.E. Minter

2012-01-02T19:47:00.003-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, Sergeant Ambrose Doss of the 19th Alabama Regiment dictated this letter to his friend W.E. Minter to another friend who could write for him.

Near Mobile Alabama Head Quarters Jan the 2 1862

Mr W. E. Minter

Dear Sir I Seat my Self this eaving to write you a few lines to inform you that I am in good heaths at this time hoping thes lines may come to hand and find you all injoying the Same blesing of health I have nothing of grate interest to write you at the presant we have Some Sickness in our company at this time and Buck Hanby is in the hospital a lying very low with the fever John Rogers is in the hospital though he is on the mend very fast James Rouse is in good health James Gorman is also in good health their is 2 Regiments at this plase and one battallion and another Regiment a moving here at this time It is Reported that their is Six Thousand of yankeys landed on the main land near Ship island it is thought that their will be a battle Some whare about here in a Shorte time and I think from what I can lern there is Something of the cind a brewing though the big officers dont tell ours anything a bout what is a going on Turn over We have got our arms at last we have got muskets and we got one Barrel of Cataridges to the company I think from what I can lern you will here of a battle being fought down here in a Shorte time we moved in our winter quarters last night and I think if we can Stay in them that the health of our Regiment will be much better if we can Remain in houses we have a plinty to eat Since we came dow her we have kep Poark and a plenty of bread stuff a bout half and half of flour and Meal and Molasses and coffey once a day and Rise a plinty as provissions we have a plenty make out on very well our colonel is ver Strict over his men though he is a grate Military man and our Lieutinant Colonel is a very nise man I donte think that hi is as lite on his men acording to his as Colonel Wheelor is I have Studiyed a bout my family until I have come to the concusion to try to get a Sustitute in my plase maying that my family dos Stand in need of my assistance I want ya and all to write to me as we cant here often from our folks and friends give my best Respects to all enquiring friends and also to your self nothing more at present only Remains your friend

A Doss

January 2, 1862: "To save salt"

2012-01-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

Nowadays we take salt for granted. It is abundant and cheap, and we have so much that our doctors frequently have to tell us to eat less. We also have more options for preserving food: canning, pickling, and freezing. In early 1860s America, the most common method of preservation was to salt and smoke meat. The following recipe from Richmond's Daily Dispatch of January 2, 1862--considered low salt for its time--gives an idea of the scale of consumption of salt in the South.

To save salt.

--A correspondent sends us the following recipes for curing hams, which is said to be quite economical, and useful at the present time; he vouches for its value:
‘ Jersey Hams--To 80 pounds of hams (or shoulders) take 4 oz brown sugar, oz salt petre, and I pint of fine salt, thoroughly pulverized and mixed. Rub the hams well, particularly on the fleshy side. Make the above quantity hold out, shaking off the loose salt Lay on boards for 36 hours, then add 2 quarts fine salt, and pack away. In 15 or 20 days they will be ready to smoke.

’ The above recipe has been used for years; never, however, with very large meat. The hams are particularly fine.

January 1, 1862: Shuffling Sailors in Hampton Roads

2012-01-01T17:10:00.001-05:00

U.S.S. Congress

On the very first day of 1862, Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, Commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, wrote to Commander William Smith of the U.S.S. Congress, instructing him to prepare for the transfer of part of his crew. The enlistments of many of Congress' crew were about to expire, and these men were to be "paid off," and discharged.

The Union Navy was growing at a tremendous rate, and there was a shortage of seamen. Goldsborough reminds Smith that General Burnside was fitting out an expedition and encouraged Smith to steer his discharged men to Annapolis, where they might take service with Burnside.

U.S. FLAGSHIP MINNESOTA,
Hampton Roads, January 1, 1862.

SIR: In reply to your letter of the 28th ultimo I beg to say that the funds for paying off the Congress's crew will doubtless be placed in the hands of your paymaster in the course of a very few days, and as soon as they are so placed those men who are entitled to a discharge are to receive it.

I wish you to direct Commander Livingston to transfer from the Cumberland to the Congress all the supernumeraries he has on board on a day to be appointed by yourself. I wish to keep your ship as fully manned as possible, but at the present moment there is a great scarcity of men, owing to the demands for the service being so unusually large. After discharging all entitled to a discharge, how many, including the number to be taken from the Cumberland, will you, have on board; or, rather, by how many will you still be deficient? Inform me, if you please, as early as you can, accurately, upon this point. I will endeavor to send you some from this quarter, at least 100 if possible.

General Burnside has a large number of vessels under his control at Annapolis, and they are about to be moved on a highly importaut fighting expedition. He is very anxious to secure the services, for say from one to three months, of 100 or more of the men about to be discharged from the Congress, and is authorized to pay as high as $25 per month for good seamen and $40 per month for petty officers. I wish, therefore, that you would, in a quiet way, endeavor to induce the proposed number of the right sort to join the general's vessels at Annapolis immediately upon their discharge. Their country really demands their services, and I sincerely trust that the call will be responded to promptly and cheerfully. In a few weeks the men thus volunteering will be at full liberty to seek their pleasure and enjoy the society of their friends. In times like these, duty to one's country should be paramount to every other consideration, and I trust this feeling will animate those upon whom I call.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

L.M. GOLDSBOROUGH,
Flag-Officer.

Commander WM. SMITH,
Commanding U. S. S[hip] Congress, Newport News, Va.

If some ships had to make do with reduced crews, then the Congress and the Cumberland must have seemed like logical choices.

U.S.S. Cumberland

The two ships were powerful fighting units, but they were also sailing ships in a navy that really needed steamships. The ships were anchored off the tip of Newport News, Virginia where they could effectively enforce the blockade of Hampton Roads without even raising anchor. They were, in effect, floating batteries in sheltered water, and so they could afford to spare some men. After all, what could possibly go wrong in sheltered Hampton Roads?

January 1, 1862: "King Cotton"

2012-01-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Click on the image to enlarge and read song lyrics

While Maryland stayed in the Union, there was a vocal segment of Maryland's population who rooted for the South. On this day 150 years ago, someone in Baltimore printed the lyrics to a song boasting of the power of "King Cotton."

December 31, 1861: Raphael Semmes and the C.S.S. Sumter

2011-12-31T14:00:00.001-05:00

The last day of the first year of the war found Raphael Semmes and the C.S.S. Sumter making their way across the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe. From "Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States," by Raphael Semmes:

December 31st.—The last day of the year, as though it would atone to us for some of the bad weather its previous days had given us, is charming. There is not a cloud, as big as a man’s hat, anywhere to be seen, and the air is so elastic that it is a positive pleasure to breathe it. The temperature is just cool enough to be comfortable, though the wind is from the north. At daylight, a couple of sail were reported from aloft, but, as they were at a great distance, and out of our course, we did not chase. Indeed, we have become quite discouraged since our experience of yesterday. A third sail was seen at noon, also at a great distance. These are probably the laggards of the great Mediterranean wind-bound fleet. We observed, to-day, in latitude 35° 22′; the longitude being 16° 27′. It becoming quite calm at eight p. m., I put the ship under steam; being about 490 miles from Cadiz.

December 31, 1861: Abraham Lincoln reprimands Major General David Hunter

2011-12-31T07:00:00.005-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln found it necessary to reprimand a friend, Major General David Hunter, for his incessant complaints about the size of his command.

TO GENERAL HUNTER.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,

Dec.31, 1861

MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER.

DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 23d is received, and I am constrained to say it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper. I am, as you intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you, not from any act or omission of yours touching the public service, up to the time you were sent to Leavenworth, but from the flood of grumbling despatches and letters I have seen from you since. I knew you were being ordered to Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I aver that with as tender a regard for your honor and your sensibilities as I had for my own, it never occurred to me that you were being "humiliated, insulted, and disgraced"; nor have I, up to this day, heard an intimation that you have been wronged, coming from any one but yourself. No one has blamed you for the retrograde movement from Springfield, nor for the information you gave General Cameron; and this you could readily understand, if it were not for your unwarranted assumption that the ordering you to Leavenworth must necessarily have been done as a punishment for some fault. I thought then, and think yet, the position assigned to you is as responsible, and as honorable, as that assigned to Buell--I know that General McClellan expected more important results from it. My impression is that at the time you were assigned to the new Western Department, it had not been determined to replace General Sherman in Kentucky; but of this I am not certain, because the idea that a command in Kentucky was very desirable, and one in the farther West undesirable, had never occurred to me. You constantly speak of being placed in command of only 3000. Now, tell me, is this not mere impatience? Have you not known all the while that you are to command four or five times that many.

I have been, and am sincerely your friend; and if, as such, I dare to make a suggestion, I would say you are adopting the best possible way to ruin yourself. "Act well your part, there all the honor lies." He who does something at the head of one regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.

Your friend, as ever,

A. LINCOLN.

December 30, 1861: Nathan Bedford Forrest's report on the Action at Sacramento, Kentucky

2011-12-30T07:00:00.007-05:00

Nathan Bedford Forrest had been a businessman, planter, and slave trader before the Civil War. Early in the war he enlisted as a private, but he was soon commissioned a lieutenant colonel and authorized to raise a regiment of cavalry that would bear his name. Forrest soon raised his regiment and whipped them into shape. On December 28, 1861, Forrest was reconnoitering Union positions near Sacramento, Kentucky when he encountered a small force of Union cavalry and engaged them in a sharp fight. Two days later, on December 30, 1861, Forrest filed his report on what would become known as "Forrest's First Fight."

HOPKINSVILLE, KY., December 30, 1861.

Under orders to reconnoiter to the front, especially in the direction of Rochester and Greenville, and if deemed best to continue our observations towards Ramsey, my command left camp Thursday, 26th instant, myself with detachments from Companies A, C, and D, First Lieutenant Crutcher, Captains May and Gould with a detachment of 25 men of Captain Meriwethers company, nuder his command, Major Kelly, with detachments from Companies E, F, and G, under Lieutenants Hampton, Kance, and Cowan, having been ordered to Greenville to await orders. Leaving the Greenville road 4 miles from Hopkinsville I moved in the direction of Rochester, until fully satisfied that there were no movements of the enemy in that direction.

The next day, on reaching the Russellville and Greenville road, I turned towards Greenville, and on Saturday morning formed a junction with a detachment of 40 cavalry from Russellville, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Starnes and Captain McLemore, who, with Major Kelly, were awaiting my arrival at Greenville. Colonel Starnes had the day before been at South Carrollton, where he had engaged a party of the enemy, killing 3.

Hearing nothing still from the enemy, it was determined to extend our march to the vicinity of Rumsey. The command, about 300 strong, were moved forward in one column, with advance guard under Captain Meriwether and rear under Captain McLemore; the head of the column under my command; the center under Major Kelly, and the rear under Lieutenant-Colonel Starnes. We had moved 8 miles down the Rumsey road when information reached me that the enemy 500 strong had that morning crossed from Calhoun to Rumsey. My men were ordered to a rapid pace, and as the news of the proximity of the enemy ran down the column it was impossible to repress jubilant and defiant shouts, which reached the height of enthusiasm as the women from the houses waved us forward. A beautiful young lady, smiling, with untied tresses floating in the breeze, on horseback, met the column just before our advance guard came up with the rear of the enemy, infusing nerve into my arm and kindling knightly chivalry within my heart.

One mile this side the village of Sacramento our advance guard came up with their rear guard, who halted, seemingly in doubt whether we were friends or foes. Taking a Maynard rifle, I fired at them, when they rode off rapidly to their column. The column moved up the hill and formed just over its brow. I ordered up the head of my column, telling my men to hold their fire until within good range. The enemy commenced firing from the time we were within 200 yards of them. When we had moved 120 yards farther I ordered my men to fire. After three rounds I found that my men were not up in sufficient numbers to pursue them with success, and as they showed signs of fight, I ordered the advance to fall back. The enemy at once attempted to flank our left, and moved towards us and appeared greatly animated, supposing we were in retreat. They had moved down over 100 yards and seemed to be forming for a charge, when, the remainder of my men coming up, I dismounted a number of men with Sharps carbines and Maynard rifles to act as sharpshooters; ordered a flank movement upon the part of Major Kelly and Colonel Starnes upon the right and left, and the detachments from the companies under my command, still mounted, were ordered to charge the enemys center.

The men sprang to the charge with a shout, while the undergrowth so impeded the flankers that the enemy, broken by the charge and perceiving the movement on their flanks, broke in utter confusion, and, in spite of the efforts of a few officers, commenced a disorderly flight at full speed, in which the officers soon joined. We pressed closely on their rear, only getting an occasional shot, until we reached the village of Sacramento, when, the best mounted men of my companies coming up, there commenced a promiscuous saber slaughter of their rear, which was continued at almost full speed for 2 miles beyond the village, leaving their bleeding and wounded strewn along the whole route. At this point Captain Bacon, and but a little before Captain Burges, were run through with saber thrusts, and Captain Davis thrown from his horse and surrendered as my prisoner, his shoulder being dislocated by the fall. The enemy, without officers, threw down their arms and depended alone upon the speed of their horses. Those of my men whose horses were able to keep up found no difficulty in piercing through every one they came up with, but as my horses were almost run down while theirs were much fresher, I deemed it best to call off the chase, for such it had become, leaving many wounded men hanging to their saddles to prevent their falling from their horses. Returning, we found their dead and wounded in every direction. Those who were able to be moved we placed in wagons. Captains Bacon and Burges were made as comfortable as we could, and applied to the nearest farm house to take care of them.

There were killed on the field and mortally wounded, who have since died, about 65; wounded and taken prisoners, about 35, making their loss about 100. Among their killed were two captains and three lieutenants and several non-commissioned officers.

The fight occurred in the woods; the run was principally along lanes.

I have the pleasure of stating that Colonel Starnes and Major Kelly acted in the most noble and chivalrous manner, and, indeed, I can say that Captain Gould, Captain May, Captain Meriwether (who unfortunately fell in front of the engagement), Lieutenant Crutcher, in command of Captain Overton's company; Lieutenant Nance left in command of Captain Hambrick's company; Lieutenant Cowan, in command of Captain Logan's company (he acting as surgeon at the time), and Lieutenant Hampton, in command of Captain Truett's company, with the men under their respective commands are deserving praise for their conduct.

Our loss was Captain Meriwether and Private Terry, of Captain McLemore's company, killed, and 3 privates slightly wounded; 2 from Captain May's and the other from Captain Hambrick's.

We returned to Greenville the night of the fight (Saturday), and from thence started to camp, and arrived last night.

Before closing this report I most respectfully call your attention to the gallant conduct of Lieutenant Bailey, of Captain Gould's company; Private J. W. Ripley, of Captain May's company, and Private J. M. Luxton, also of Captain May's; and Private B. W. Johnson, of Captain Logan's company, and, indeed, many others, whose horses being not quite so fast, did not come immediately under my own observation. Capt. M. B. Logan (who was acting as surgeon on that occasion) deserves praise for his noble conduct throughout the engagement.

All of which is most respectfully submitted.

Respectfully,

N. B. FORREST,
Colonel, Commanding Forrest Regiment.

General CHARLES CLARK, C. S. A.

December 29, 1861: Elisha Franklin Paxton to his wife

2011-12-29T18:53:00.002-05:00

Winchester, December 29, 1861.

The weather opened this morning cloudy and showing signs of snow, but, much to my disappointment, the clouds have passed off leaving a clear sky and pleasant day. It is not often I wish for bad weather, but when it opens a way for me of getting home for a little while I bid it a hearty welcome. It troubled me less when there was no prospect of getting a leave of absence and no use of asking it; but as I have been so anxiously indulging the hope of late, it troubles me much to have it deferred. If the bright sunshine of to-day is destined to last, you need not expect me, for Jackson is not disposed to lie idle when there is an opportunity to win laurels for himself and render service to our cause. The arrival of our forces from the West under Loring has given him a very fine army, which I think he is disposed to turn to a very profitable use as soon as an occasion may offer itself. I have much reason to be gratified at the proofs of his good opinion and confidence which I am continually receiving from him. I can rely upon his influence and efforts for my promotion, but my ambition does not run in that direction. The sympathies of my heart and my aspirations for the future are all absorbed in the wife and little ones left at home, and my highest ambition is to spend my life there in peace and quiet. The hope of winning military titles and distinction could not tempt me to leave home, if I were left to consult my wishes and feelings alone. But the sense of public duty which prompts us, and the strong public sentiment which forces us, to leave our homes and families for the public service, now with equal force compels us to remain. If we left the army now, it would be at the sacrifice of such good opinion as we have of ourselves and the good opinion entertained of us by our neighbors and friends at home. Our term of service will expire in May, when each will be left to pursue for himself such course as duty and inclination may then determine. It is sad indeed, to think of being a stranger in my own home, that wife and children are becoming used to my absence and forced by it to seek other sources of happiness than that which we used to have when the society of each other was the greatest source of enjoyment. When separation is so long protracted it seems akin to that which lasts forever, when the body has gone to its long home in the grave and the soul for weal or woe to eternity, when the loved left behind to mourn our loss are no longer left a hope, and after a while become used to the desolation which death has left them. But hope whispers, Love, that all may yet be well with us. The storm may pass away, and, living happily together in after years, it will be a source of pride and happiness to us that the duty patriotism exacts of me now has been faithfully discharged, and the pleasure and comfort of home for the time foregone.

I wrote you a long business letter on Friday, in which you will think, no doubt, I have marked out work enough to keep you employed next year. You will be too busy to think of me and the troubles which this war is bringing on us. Now, darling, as my half sheet is finished I will bid you good-bye. Kiss my three little baby boys for me, and send me your likeness -- the old one which I used to have -- by the first person who comes from Lexington.

December 28, 1861: "England must Break the blockade"

2011-12-28T07:15:00.003-05:00

HMS Warrior, the most powerful ship in the world in 1861

On this day 150 years ago, the editors of Richmond's Daily Dispatch looked longingly over the North Atlantic Ocean to Great Britain and hoped that the British Royal Navy would soon break the blockade. The Daily Dispatch for December 28, 1861 included a reprint of an editorial from the London Weekly that echoed the hopes of many Southerners.

England must Break the blockade.

[From Reynold's London Weekly] One important fact which ought never to be lost sight of in this controversy is that the Southern people and statesmen are extremely anxious to be on friendly political and commercial relations with this country. They want our manufactured goods in exchange for their cotton and tobacco. The produce of the Lancashire looms, of the Scottish and English foundries, of the engine manufacturers of the Tyne and Clide, of the street shops of Sheffield, of the metal works of Birmingham, now excluded from the Southern and Northern States by the Merrill and other protective tariffs, will be eagerly welcomed by the Southern States when once their independence is established or rather as soon as the blockade is raised, for the independence of the Confederation is now an accomplished fact, which not all the might of moon-stricken Yankeedom can undo.--When in addition to this it is bored in mind that the storehouses of New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, and other ports are cram-full, piled from cellar to ceiling with that raw cotton, for the want of which our looms are standing still, our artisans starving, and our manufacturers becoming insolent, it is impossible not to perceive that an overwhelming case in favor of the immediate raising of the blockade by the British fleet has been made.

The idea of procuring from other places enough of cotton to save us from the impending disaster is simply fatuous. Taking the two elements of quantity and quality into account, it is safe to assert that not from any or all ports of the world can we find an equivalent for the American cotton of which we are now deprived. As for the East Indies--the region from which the most sanguine expectations are now cherished — nothing but the grossest ignorance could have given birth to the delusion. That it is a delusion to believe that now, or for years yet, a sufficient supply of cotton can be procured from that country to render us independent of American everybody who has looked into the matter must admit. To grow enough cotton in India, and to provide the ways and means by which it can be transported to England at such terms as will induce manufacturers to purchase it, cannot, on the most moderate computation, be accomplished in less than ten years.

But even if enough of East India cotton could be instantly and cheaply procured, it would not enable the Lancashire mills to keep working. The reason is obvious. East India cotton is both coarser and shorter in fibre than the American. Now, in nineteen out of every twenty mills in this country, the machinery was constructed for the manufacture of the longer and finer fibered product of the American cotton. To adapt this machinery to the East India cotton would necessitate a complete revolution and reconstruction of our machinery.

This indispensable alteration could not be effected in less time than twelve months, or at less cost than fifty millions sterling. But in the meantime, what is to become of our unemployed and famishing citizens ! Why, the very evil which we dread and which we are doing all in our power to prevent, would have taken place, so that before the cotton of India could be got or the machinery prepared for its manufacture, the probabilities are, that we should have no mills to refit, no operatives to employ, no commerce to secure and no country to save.

Once more, then, we call upon our country; aye, and upon our country women, to take instant and energetic action in this matter. But, to the working classes in an especial and emphatic manner, we address our appeal.--Why should they see their wives in rags, their children famishing, their cupboards empty, their grates fireless, their homes denuded or every article of furniture, themselves pressed into pauperism or coerced into crime, because the mad and mean government of the Northern States has committed itself to one of the most foolish and wicked wars ever waged by one power against another ? Were they to be guilty of such complicity in their own extinction, the verdict of the rest of the world would be, that their cowardice was only equaled by their criminality, so that a set of more unmitigated imbeciles never walked or crawled upon the face of the earth. It is, therefore, the most sacred and bounden duty of the working classes, and, indeed, of all classes — but of the former in a precipitant degree — to take up this question and make use of all the constitutional mockery at their disposal, in order to induce the British government to interpose its power for the preservation of our commerce from ruin, and our citizens from starvation.

December 27, 1861: Negro Hiring for 1862 in Richmond

2011-12-27T10:25:00.001-05:00

The image that many Americans have today of Southern slavery typically envisions the "peculiar institution" as a rural phenomenon, situated on plantations. In fact, in Virginia, where there were more slaves than could be profitably employed in agriculture, a system of slave industrial labor had evolved. Slave owners used agents to help them find jobs for slaves, typically for a year's contract. At the end of the year, during the holidays, many of these slaves were allowed to return to the country to visit their families. At the same time the slaves were on vacation, Richmond's slave agents were gearing up for another season of "negro hiring" that would allocate slave labor to the city's various industries. From Richmond's Daily Dispatch of December 27, 1861.

Negro Hiring for 1862.

The subscribers have associated themselves together to conduct a
General Agency business.

In the city of Richmond, embracing the Hiring out of Negroes, Renting out Houses, Selling Real and Personal Estate, &c.

Their special attention will be given to Hiring out Negroes; and from the long experience which each have had feel confident that they will be able to procure fair prices and good homes for all negroes entrusted to their care. They solicit a continuance of that liberal patronage heretofore bestowed upon each of them. They have made ample arrangements to have negroes cared for till hired out; and in cases of sickness will give our personal attention.

We earnestly request our friends to send their negroes to us by the 1st of January. Better prices and better homes can be obtained by sending them in early. E. A. J. Clopton,

Ro. B. Lyne

Office corner of Franklin and Wall streets. opposite Dickerson & Hill. up stairs.

de25 — dt 5th Jan.

Negro Hiring 1862.

The undersigned offers his services to his friends, and the public generally, for hiring out Negroes the ongoing season; and thankful for past favors, again solicits a share of their patronage.
Alfred L. Holladay,

Office on Cary st., bet. 11th and 12th

de 26--12t

Negro Hiring 1862.

Charles S. Maurice. General Agent and Collector, Office No. 73 Main street, Richmond, Va. tenders his services to the public generally for Renting out Houses, selling Real Estate, Hiring out Servants, negotiating Loans, and collecting Debts.
In Hiring out servants, I shall be careful to select comfortable homes and fair prices and will be prompt in making collections and payments to owners.

Good quarters will also be furnished to servants until homes are procured for them. Satisfactory references given. Letter address, box 1,014, Richmond, Va de 23 --lm

Edward D. Eacho, General Agent and Collector.

Office on 14th, between Main and Franklin sts., corner of Exchange Alley,
Richmond, Virginia,

Would respectfully inform his friends and the public generally, that he will continue the same line of business the ensuing year, viz: Renting out Houses, Farms, &c., Selling Real Estate, Hiring out and Selling Negroes, Negotiating Loans, Collecting Bands, Notes and Open Accounts Adjusting Claims, and a tending to all matters appertaining to a General Agent.

Thankful for the liberal patronage he has received for the last nine years, would respectfully solicit a continuance of the same.

Persons in the country intending to send me their servants for hire, would please do so if possible by the 1st or 2d of January, in order that good prices and comfortable homes may be secured de 19--lm.

Negro Hiring for 1862.

Wm. S. Phillips, General Agent and Collector, will continue to Hire out Negroes, Rent out Houses, Settle and Collect Claims of every description appertaining to an Agency. He takes this opportunity of returning his sincere thanks to his numerous patrons for their liberal petronage, and hopes, by strict attention to business, to merit a continuation of the same. de 23--d&sw3w.

December 26, 1861: Elisha Franklin Paxton to his wife

2011-12-26T15:10:00.001-05:00

Winchester, December 26, 1861.

I applied to-day for a furlough, but was much disappointed to find that an order has been made that none shall be granted. I was promising myself much happiness in spending a few days with you at New Year's, and am much grieved that it has to be deferred -- I hope, however, not very long. I will come as soon as I can get permission. Fair weather cannot last much longer, and winter must soon set in, which will stop active operations, and then I suppose I can get leave to go home for a while. I will make this note short so as to try and get it in to-day's mail. Your box just came to hand as I left the camp this morning, for which accept many thanks. Good-bye, dearest.

December 25, 1861: John B. Jones has no white paper

2011-12-25T07:00:00.001-05:00

While observing the First Battle of Bull Run, New York Congressman Alfred Ely was taken a prisoner by the Confederates. Ely was imprisoned in Richmond's Libby Prison for nearly six months. On December 25, 1861, Congressman Ely was exchanged for Charles James Faulkner, who had been the Confederate Minister to France. As part of the process of his exchange, Ely had a brief meeting with Confederate war clerk John B. Jones.

December 25th.—Mr. Ely, the Yankee member of Congress, who has been in confinement here since the battle of Manassas, has been exchanged for Mr. Faulkner, late Minister to France, who was captured on his return from Europe. Mr. Ely smiled at the brown paper on which I had written his passport. I told him it was Southern manufacture, and although at present in a crude condition, it was in the process of improvement, and that “necessity was the mother of invention.” The necessity imposed on us by the blockade would ultimately redound to our advantage, and might injure the country inflicting it by diminishing its own products. He smiled again, and said he had no doubt we should rise to the dignity of white paper.

December 24, 1861: The Irish Brigade celebrates Christmas

2011-12-24T21:15:00.000-05:00

From "The Irish brigade and its campaigns" by Captain David Power Conyngham:

It is no wonder that most of the regiment were gathered around there, for it was Christmas Eve, and home-thoughts and home-longings were crowding on them; and old scenes and fancies would arise with sad and loving memories, until the heart grew weary, and even the truest and tenderest longed for home associations this blessed Christmas Eve.

No wonder if amidst such scenes, the soldier's thought fled back to his home, to his loved wife, to the kisses of his darling child, to the fond Christmas greeting of his parents, brothers, sisters, friends, until his eyes were dimmed with the dews of the heart. The exile feels a longing desire, particularly at Christmas times, for the pleasant, genial firesides and loving hearts of home. How many of that group will, ere another Christmas comes round, sleep in a bloody and nameless grave I Generous and kind hands may smooth the dying soldier's couch ; or he may linger for days, tortured by thirst and pain, his festering wounds creeping with maggots, his tongue swollen, and a fierce fever festering up his body as he lies out on that dreary battlefield; or, perhaps, he has dragged himself beneath the shade of some pine to die by inches, where no eye but God's and his pitying angels' shall see him, where no human aid can succor him. Years afterwards, some wayfarer may discover a skeleton with the remains of a knapsack under the skull. This is too often the end of the soldier's dreams of glory, and all
"The pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war."
It is but a short transition from love, and hope, and life, to sorrow and death.

Another Christmas, and many a New England cottage, and many a home along the Rhine and the Shannon, will be steeped in affliction for the loving friends who have laid their bones on the battlefields of Virginia.

If any indulged in such reflections, the lively tones of Johnny O'Flaherty's fiddle, and the noisy squeaks of his father's bagpipes, soon called forth the joyous, frolicksome nature of the Celt.

Groups were dancing, around the fire, jigs, reels, and doubles.

Even the colored servants had collected in a little group by themselves, and while some timed the music by slapping their hands on their knees, others were capering and whirling around in the most grotesque manner, showing their white teeth, as they grinned their delight, or " yah-yahed," at the boisterous fun.

The dance is enlivened by laugh, song, story, and music; and the canteen, filled with wretched "commissary" goes freely around, for the men wish to observe Christmas-times right freely.

"Arrah musha, Johnny O'Flaherty, sthop that fiddle and take a drink, alanna," said a why red-haired man, with a strong Kerry accent. " Do, Johnny," said the father, who had taken a long pull at the canteen himself, and now proffered it to his son.

"It is as well to keep up our spirits by pouring spirits down, for sure there's no knowing where well be this night twelvemonth," exclaimed another of the group, as with a sigh he comforted himself from his canteen.

"Thrue for you. Bill Dooley; shure myself thinks that our rations will be mighty short again another Christmas comes round," said a little cynic, who was pulling very hard at a dudeen.

"Begor then, Jem, maybe they would be long enough for us." .

"Well, boys, long or short we won't disgrace the poor ould dart, any way."

"Bravo, Mannigan, bravo! you said the truth in that."

"Bad scran if I can see what the ould dart (Ireland) has to do with it at all, at all," replied the cynic, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the log.

"Oh, dear me! do ye hear that? and would you disgrace it?" exclaimed an indignant patriot.

"And shure won't they be lookin' at us at home, to see how we'll fight?" said another.

"An' I'd rather be in my grave, any day, than have it said that I was a coward," said a young fellow, slapping his hand forcibly on his thigh.

"Well, that's all very fine," said the cynic, who, seeing the force of evidence against him, was fain to recant ; "but, boys, if we were fighting for the poor ould dart, wonldn't it be glorious?"

"Bad luck to you, Jeff Davis, any way ; only for you we'd be at home, comfortable and happy, with the girls, this blessed Christmas Eve!" exclaimed a lovesick youth.

How often in the lull of battle have I heard the Irish soldier, begrimed with powder, as he grasped his comrades' hands, exclaim, "What harm, if it were for the poor old dart ?"

How is it that the Government of England is blind to the ruin that a people so numerous and powerful in foreign countries, and hating her so intensely, is sure to bring on her in her hour of trouble ?

It might be politic to try conciliation, instead of coercion, on such a people.

The dance was followed by songs; and those soft, impassioned Irish airs, "The girl I left behind me," and "Home, Sweet Home," flowed sweetly and softly from hearts that felt their full force ; but as the strong political songs of "The Rapparee," and "The Green above the Red," and "Fontenoy," were chorused by a hundred throats, that dark group of soldiers, scattered around the fire, looked as if ready to grasp their muskets and rush on some hidden foe.

These innocent and exciting revels continued until the tinkle of a small bell from a rustic chapel suddenly hushed the boisterous mirth, and all arose, reverentially doffed their hats, and proceeded to the chapel.

Fathers Willett and Dillon were going to celebrate the midnight Mass. The chapel tents were as well decorated as circumstances would allow. In front of the open tent in which the priest officiated were rude benches of hewn logs, sheltered on each side and overhead by boughs of trees, supported by poles.

The chapel was situated on the brow of a hill, and tall cedars and pines flung their sheltering arms over it.

Father Dillon was chanting a Low Mass, the responses being made by Quartermaster Haverty and Captain O'Sullivan, while the attentive audience crowded the small chapel, and were kneeling outside on the damp ground under the cold night-air.

Father Dillon read the beautiful gospel from Saint Luke, giving an account of the joumeyings of Joseph and Mary, and the birth of the infant Saviour in the manger at Bethlehem ; after which his hearers quietly retired to their tents.

The weather in camp wafi fine, almost resembling an Indian-summer. A slight frost at night and a shower of soft snow were the only indications of winter.

In Virginia, the weather at this season is generally mild and balmy, with little of the heavy frost and angry storms that rage at the North.

Such was Christmas morning, 1861, in the camp of the Irish Brigade, where willing hearts piously welcomed this holy festival, laden with the richest freight of happy recollections.

December 23, 1861: The Diary of John B. Jones

2011-12-23T07:00:00.001-05:00

December 23d.—Gen. T. J. Jackson has destroyed a principal dam on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. That will give the enemy abundance of trouble. This Gen. Jackson is always doing something to vex the enemy; and I think he is destined to annoy them more.

It is with much apprehension that I see something like a general relaxation of preparation to hurl back the invader. It seems as if the government were waiting for England to do it; and after all, the capture of Slidell and Mason may be the very worst thing that could have happened. Mr. Benjamin, I learn, feels very confident that a rupture between the United States and Great Britain is inevitable. War with England is not to be thought of by Mr. Seward at this juncture, and he will not have it. And we should not rely upon the happening of any such contingency. Some of our officials go so far as to hint that in the event of a war between the United States and Great Britain, and our recognition by the former, it might be good policy for us to stand neutral. The war would certainly be waged on our account, and it would not be consistent with Southern honor and chivalry to retire from the field and leave the friend who interfered in our behalf to fight it out alone. The principal members of our government should possess the highest stamp of character, for never did there exist a purer people.

December 22, 1861: Major General Henry W. Halleck's General Orders No. 32

2011-12-22T07:00:00.004-05:00

In response to a wave of railroad bridge burnings, Union Major General Henry W. Halleck issued his General Orders, No 32.

General Orders, No 32.
Hdqrs. Department Of The Missouri,
Saint Louis, Mo., December 22,1861.

I. Insurgent rebels scattered through the northern counties of this State which are occupied by our troops under the guise of peaceful citizens have resumed their occupation of burning bridges and destroying railroads and telegraph wires. These men are guilty of the highest crime known to the code of war and the punishment is death. Any one caught in the act will be immediately shot, and any one accused of this crime will be arrested and placed in close confinement until his case can be examined by a military commission and if found guilty he also will suffer death.
II. Where injuries are done to railroads or telegraph lines the commanding officer of the nearest post will immediately impress into service for repairing damages the slaves of all secessionists in the vicinity and if necessary the secessionists themselves and their property. Any pretended Union man having information of intended attempts to destroy such roads and lines or of the guilty parties who does not communicate such intention to the proper authorities and give aid and assistance in arresting and punishing them will be regarded as particeps criminis and treated accordingly.
III. Hereafter the towns and counties in which such destruction of public property takes place will be made to pay the expenses of all repairs unless it be shown that the people of such towns or counties could not have prevented it on account of the superior force of the enemy.

By order of Major-General Halleck:
J. C. KELTON, Assistant Adjutant-General.

December 21, 1861: John H. Worsham and "the quickest march we made during the war"

2011-12-21T12:55:00.004-05:00

John H. Worsham described his unit's fastest march during the war in his memoir entitled "One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry." Worsham was a member of Company F of the 21st Regiment Virginia Infantry, and he told how it was that the 21st's march on December 21, 1861, went at such a fast pace.

WE were encamped in Augusta County, about one and a half miles north of Staunton. In the valley, that great place for wheat, flour, and hogs, and democrats, the latter could always be heard from in counting the votes after an election.

We remained here until the 10th of December, when we took up our march to join Jackson at Winchester. We marched along quietly each day, until we reached Mt. Jackson on the 20th. It was the custom, during the war, to march with the right of the regiment in front one day, and the left next day. On the 20th the left was marching in front. That threw our company in the rear, as we were the right company. During the day the left led off several times in quick time, which gave our company hard marching. Few know how much easier it is to march in front of a regiment than in the rear. That night our company decided that we would get even next day with the left, and if the officers did not interfere, we would give it to them. Soon after getting into the road the next morning our captain told Sergeant Rawlings, who was leading the company, to step out. Now Sergeant Rawlings was just the man to do it, as he was a powerful man physically, with great endurance. He stepped out at quick time, and kept that pace during the march. In six hours and a half after leaving Mt. Jackson, we went into camp at Strasburg, marching twenty-three and one-half miles. It was said by some of the boys who timed us, that we marched three miles at one time in thirty-three minutes. This was the quickest march we made during the war.

December 20, 1861: Rabbi Arnold Fischel to Henry Hart

2011-12-20T19:27:00.003-05:00

332 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, Dec. 20, 1861

My Dear Sir,

My letter, containing a copy of the President's letter to me, must have reached you on Monday last, and has, I hope, afforded you the same satisfaction it gave me on receiving the same. In accordance with my views described therein, I had an interview with the members of the Military Committee, to whom the President will submit the new law, and learned from them, that perhaps a fortnight will elapse before the bill will come under consideration, that they will bear in mind my suggestions and will be glad to receive my views in writing. Consequently, I will draw up a memorial next week, but before I transmit it to them, I will send you a copy so that you may suggest any alteration in the document. Petitions in favor of Jewish chaplains have been presented by the Senators from Illinois, Iowa and Massachusetts, all of which were referred to the Military Committee. I cannot understand why the Senator from N. York has not presented yr petition. Mr. Conkling presented yr petition to the House, and, strange enough, had it referred to the judiciary instead of the military committee, I presume with the view of ascertaining the constitutionality of the law, but, I fear that no action will be taken in that quarter, and that it will lie there, together with many other petitions that are not pushed through by powerful political influences. As I have no time to write to Mr. Isaacs, you would oblige me by requesting him to urge, in "The Messenger", upon all petitioners to send in the petitions at once and request their representatives to have them referred to the Military Committee. I expect that within a month the matter will be settled to our satisfaction.

Now that I have visited all the camps and hospitals in Virginia, I have a distinct idea of what has to be done, and what can be done. The number of Jews in the army is very large, I found some even among Berdan's Sharpshooters. As a general rule, they are not known as Jews, but hundreds with whom I have conversed express their anxiety and hope that some provision may be made for them, so that in case of sickness or death, they be not left to the mercy of strangers. This was more forcibly impressed upon my mind by the numerous Jewish patients I visited in the Hospitals, nearly all of whom complained that they had not seen a "Yehudee" since they entered the Hospitals, that they have in addition to the sufferings of disease, to submit to the torture of religious controversy, forced upon them by Christian clergymen, who are anxious "to save their souls" (!), and all expressed the wish to be interred in a Jewish burial-ground. I had to write letters for some of them, who had not been able to communicate with their friends. The arrangements in the Hospitals are excellent. I have not yet been able to visit Genl Banks' division, as it takes from 7 to 8 hours by rail to reach Frederic Jcn where he is now stationed, but I expect to go there on Sunday and pass a few days in that army.

In case permanent provision be made by yr Board for a Jewish chaplain for this army, at least until Govt. provides one, I would suggest the following "modus operandi": 1st that he be required to visit the hospitals daily. 2ly that he visit each division of the army once a week, and 3ly that a card be extensively circulated in the camps to the effect that Jewish soldiers in camps and hospitals who are in need of personal assistance send in a written request to Dr._______...& etc. Every Jewish soldier would then have the opportunity of enjoying the chaplain's services at any time he may wish. The Generals have even promised me every facility for religious services.

This remarkably mild here for this season of the year, so much so that I have not yet had the occasion to wear an overcoat.

Wishing you good Shabbat, I remain,

Respectfully yrs,
A. Fischel

Henry I. Hart, Esq.
N. York

December 19, 1861: The trials of Andrew H. Foote

2011-12-19T13:30:00.001-05:00

In Cairo, Illinois, Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, U.S. Navy, struggled mightily to overcome bureaucratic obstacles to the completion of the Western Gunboat Flotilla. It was a question of rank and allocation of resources. For administrative purposes, the flotilla had first been placed under army command with navy officers on loan to command. Now the Navy Department was having second thoughts.

CAIRO, December 19, 1861.

Our masters and officers are all appointed. As we are organized, a change now would greatly embarrass the flotilla. I consider it impolitic to transfer flotilla to the Navy. I would have preferred at first to have it solely under the Navy Department.

A.H. FOOTE,
Flag-Officer.

G.V. Fox.

Foote needed men, but the Union Army under Halleck was slow to give up volunteers that had riverboat experience. He evidently thought that if the flotilla was transferred to the navy, then Halleck would demand his troops back.

Even as Foote had to beg Halleck for men, he had to ask Halleck to stop interfering with the free movement of Foote's men between Cairo, Chicago, and St. Louis as they attended to the finishing details of the new ironclad gunboats

CAIRO, December 19, 1861.

SIR: In reply to your note of the 17th, I respectfully request that you will send 500 men immediately to the flotilla. General Grant will give the men accommodations on shore for a day or two, until I can distribute them among the boats. I will inform you when we are ready to receive another detachment of men.

In a telegram from the Secretary of the Navy, he informs me that the Department can hardly supply the demand for seamen on the coast, and that General McClellan will furnish the men required, or rather will order 1,100 men to be detached for the, gunboats.

I have the honor to be, your obedient servant,

A.H. FOOTE,
Flag-Officer, etc.

Major-General H. W. HALLECK,
Commanding Army of the West, etc.

P.S. My passes here have been refused, and the general agent at Chicago also declines honoring them. This embarrasses my work a good deal, as I am obliged to send officers and men frequently on duty to St. Louis to expedite our work, as well as to send home discharged seamen, etc. I presume it was not your intention to have my passes stopped, and therefore respectfully request that you will direct the agent to have them honored in the future.

A.H.F.

Andrew Foote would prove to be an able combat commander, but as these messages suggest, Foote had also to be an effective bureaucratic warrior as well.

December 18, 1861: A letter to Judah P. Benjamin

2011-12-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

On December 18, 1861, Judah P. Benjamin had been Secretary of War for the Confederacy for three months and a day. Benjamin had no prior experience in military affairs prior to his being chosen to replace Leroy P. Walker. Benjamin's term as Secretary of War was rocky from the start. Many men with greater military resented Benjamin's second guessing of their decisions, but in many cases Benjamin was simply implementing instructions from Jefferson F. Davis. Benjamin received many letters like this one, dated December 18, 1861, which is from Confederate Congressman John W. Brockenbrough. Brockenbrough is passing on the concerns of one of his constituents that the withdrawal of a small Confederate army from Allegheny Mountain would leave the Shenandoah Valley and Staunton, Virginia wide open to Union attack. Just days before, the Confederates on Allegheny Mountain had turned back a Union attack on their position.

Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN,
Secretary of War:

CONGRESS HALL,

December 18, 1861.

DEAR SIR:

I beg leave respectfully to ask your attention to the inclosed letter from Adam Stephenson, esq., a leading citizen of Monterey, remonstrating against the withdrawal of our little force on the top of the Allegheny. Had this little but most gallant army been crushed by the late advance of the enemy upon our lines in seemingly overwhelming numbers, there would have been no obstacle to an onward march to Staunton, in the very heart of the Valley of Virginia. I trust there is no foundation for the rumor which has so much agitated the population of that part of the valley, that it is the purpose of the Government to deprive them of all protection.

Respectfully submitted.

JOHN W. BROCKENBROUGH.

December 16, 1861: Salt production in Georgia

2011-12-16T14:57:00.001-05:00

On this day 150 years ago, the Georgia legislature passed legislation to encourage the production of salt. Georgia's supply of salt--crucial to food preservation--had been almost completely choked off by the Union blockade after less than a year of war.

An Act to encourage the manufacture of Salt within the limits of
the State of Georgia, and for other purposes.

WHEREAS, The supply of salt, in consequence of the blockade of the ports of this State, is exceedingly limited, and much inconvenience must result to the people unless measures are afforded to manufacturers of said article.

1. SEC. I. Be it enacted, That his Excellency the Governor of this State, be and he is hereby authorized to draw his warrant upon the Treasury of this State, for the sum of fifty thousand dollars; which said sum, in his discretion, shall be advanced without interest, to any Company or Corporation, which has been or may hereafter be established in this State for the manufacture of salt: the advance so made to be secured to the State by mortgage, or otherwise, and to be refunded to the Treasury aforesaid, at such time or times, as may be designated by the said Governor, after peace shall have been restored between the United States and Confederate States of America.

2. SEC. II. Be it further enacted, That the Governor is hereby authorized to draw his warrant, or several warrants, upon the Treasury of Georgia, in favor of such persons or Corporations as may be engaged, or may hereafter engage in the manufacture of salt, not to exceed in all the sum of fifty thousand dollars; and the Governor may draw for any part of said sum, in favor of any responsible parties or corporations, in sums as may be, in each case, agreed upon; Provided, that in each case, before the same shall be drawn from the Treasury, good and sufficient security shall be given by the party or corporation in whose favor it shall be made, in bond or mortgage; the sufficiency of the security to be judged of by the Governor, and the time of repayment to the State to be likewise stipulated by his Excellency; Provided, that no interest shall be charged on the sum or sums so advanced.

SEC. III. Repeals conflicting laws.

Assented to December 16, 1861.

December 15, 1861: Elisha Franklin Paxton to his wife

2011-12-15T18:25:00.003-05:00

Winchester, December 15, 1861.

Life in camp is generally dull with me, and I feel especially dull to-day. I have sometimes had a job, such as road-making at Centreville or my late excursion to the Potomac, which kept me busy enough; but these only happen now and then, and but for them my life would be idle enough, I am sure. When here in camp it really seems that I have no way of employing myself. I sometimes think I would prefer a more active campaign, winter as it is. With my stock of bed-clothes I think I could sleep quite comfortably even at this season in a fence corner, but it would not be so comfortable to the soldiers, who are not so well provided with such means of a comfortable night's rest. If the weather continues open and the cold not too severe, I think it possible we may have some activity in our operations this winter. But of this no one can speak with any ce rtainty but Jackson, and even he with but little, as his operations depend upon contingencies over which he has no control.

I sometimes look to the future with much despondency. I think most of our volunteers will quit the service when their year expires, and the news I get from Rockbridge gives me but little reason to hope that many more will volunteer to fill the places thus made vacant in our army. If they come at all, I fear it will be by compulsion. I fear there are more who are disposed to speculate off our present troubles, and turn them to pecuniary profit, than there are to sacrifice personal comfort and pecuniary interest and risk life itself for the promotion of our cause. My judgment dictates to me to pursue the path which I believe to be right, and to trust that the good deed may meet with its just reward. Nothing else could induce me to bear this sad separation from my darling wife and dear little children. This distresses me. I care nothing for the exposure and hardships of the service. But, Love, I should be more cheerful, and if sometimes oppressed with a feeling of sadness, should try to suppress it from you; for I should try and detract nothing from your happiness, which I fear I do in writing in so sad a strain.

And now, Love, good-bye. I shall be glad indeed to hear that you are out of your bed, and happier still to know, by a letter in your familiar hand, that you are nearly well and out of danger. When the winter sets in so cold that there can be no possible use for my services here, I shall try and get leave to spend a week with you at home. I don't think that snow can keep off much longer.

December 14, 1861: Abraham Lincoln to Arnold Fischel

2011-12-14T08:41:00.002-05:00

Days earlier, Rabbi Arnold Fischel had visited with Abraham Lincoln to ask him to help change the law that limited army chaplains to christians only. On this day 150 years ago, Lincoln sent his reply to Fischel's request.

Rev. Dr. A. Fischel Executive Mansion, December 14, 1861.

My dear Sir: I find that there are several particulars in which the present law in regard to Chaplains is supposed to be deficient, all of which I now design presenting to the appropriate Committee of Congress. I shall try to have a new law broad enough to cover what is desired by you in behalf of the Israelites. Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.