The American Civil War, day by day - Page 39 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15087929
May 1, Thursday

Steadily increasing Federal pressure is soon to force decisive action by besieged Confederates at Yorktown, Virginia. The siege guns of the Federals under McClellan are being mounted. And when Yorktown goes, so will Norfolk, the naval yard, and other important points along the James River.

President Davis writes General Joseph E. Johnston at Yorktown, “accepting your conclusion that you must soon retire, arrangements are commenced for the abandonment of Navy Yard and removal of public property both from Norfolk and Peninsula.” But the plan to withdraw so soon does take Davis by surprise. At the same time President Lincoln wires McClellan on the Peninsula that the general’s call for heavy guns “alarms me—chiefly because it argues for indefinite procrastination. Is anything to be done?”

Major General Benjamin F. Butler, with his troops, officially takes over in New Orleans, beginning a reign of efficiency in sanitary and other conditions, corruption in administration, and suppression of the people. Citizens of New Orleans will never forget or forgive Butler for what will be termed “bestial acts.” Others, mostly Northerners, now and later, mitigate the charges.

Elsewhere, Federal Brigadier General James G. Blunt assumes command of the Department of Kansas.

In response to General Banks’ request for his army to leave the Shenandoah Valley and join either McClellan or McDowell, Secretary of War Stanton, after consulting President Lincoln, orders that one of Stanton’s two divisions march to unite with General McDowell at Fredericksburg; upon arrival of the Valley troops McDowell with 40,000 men is to move south to combine with McClellan for the drive against the Confederate capital. Banks himself is to stay in the Valley with a force now reduced to a single division.

Meanwhile Jackson is on the move southwestward from his camp of the past weeks at Swift Run Gap on a dirt road running along the east bank of the South Fork to the town of Port Republic. The previous day, marching in a downpour, the troops had only managed five miles before nightfall. Today is much worse. To veterans, the march is reminiscent of the awful trek to Romney in January, except that snow and ice has been replaced by rain and mud. Under a lashing torrent, the track becomes a quagmire. Marching men sink to their knees; wagons and gun carriages are mired to their axles; struggling horses have to be pried from the much with fence rails. As the rain continues to pelt the miserable men, Jackson himself pitches in to carry fence rails and stones for filling the mud holes. Still, the army bogs down after another five miles.

Skirmishing is considerable at Rapidan Station, Virginia; Clark’s Hollow and Camp Creek in Stone River Valley, western Virginia; and near Pulaski, Tennessee. In northern Alabama there are two days of operations around Athens, Mooresville, Limestone Bridge, and Elk River.

Confederate troops begin to arrive in Vicksburg, by the middle of the month there will be about 3,500 of them, with more on the way. The first to appear are Louisianans up from fallen New Orleans and its environ.

General Mitchel proceeds to advertise his accomplishments in Tennessee. He has already been sending reports directly to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, and this day he has stirring news for Washington: “This campaign is now ended, and I can now occupy Huntsville in perfect security, while all of Alabama north of the Tennessee floats no flag but that of the Union.” Stanton is pleased, and he is not alone in his approval. The Secretary sends word to Mitchel that his “spirited operations afford great satisfaction to the President.”
#15088100
May 2, Friday

General Beauregard calls on the soldiers of the Confederacy to defend Corinth, Mississippi, from the invading “despoilers of our homes,” as the Federal army under Halleck begins to move toward the Southern concentration point.

In the Shenandoah Valley the sun comes out, but the mud remains. General Jackson sends Jed Hotchkiss ahead with an entire regiment as a work crew to try to shore up the road. In the late afternoon Jackson’s men finally near Port Republic; but instead of crossing the Shenandoah River bridge that leads to the town, they are ordered to turn east toward the Blue Ridge. The miserable troops sleep this night at the western foot of Brown’s Gap. In two and a half days of hard marching, the Valley army has progressed a mere 15 miles.

There is skirmishing at Trevilian’s Depot and Louisa Court House, Virginia; at Litchfield, Arkansas; and near Deep Gully on the Trenton Road, North Carolina.

Edward Stanley is appointed Federal military governor of North Carolina.
#15088532
May 3, Saturday

On the Peninsula in front of Yorktown, McClellan’s army has been working tirelessly to prepare for the bombardment of the Confederate works. To protect the big siege guns McClellan has brought with him, soldiers have worked under cover of night to dig a line of earthworks paralleling the enemy line about a mile from it. Behind this parallel, ramps and platforms of logs and earth have been erected. The big guns could be brought up part of the way by barge on a creek bordering the York River, but then to convey them inland over knee-deep much, logs have had to be laid crosswise and great carts shipped in to carry the guns down the corduroy roads. The biggest guns, seacoast Parrott guns that fire 200-pound shells, weigh more than 10 tons each and have required teams of up to 100 horses to pull them. Then the guns have had to be maneuvered onto their platforms by elaborate rigs of block and tackle. Other troops have labored endlessly at fashioning defenses for the gun batteries and earthworks. Mosquitoes and fleas abound. It has rained two out of every three days, and every hour or so the Confederate artillery would send over lethal greetings. But now, nearly all the siege guns are in place—114 of them in addition to the more than 300 pieces of smaller field artillery accompanying the army. Most of the batteries are arrayed in front of Yorktown, where in the weakly fortified gap between Yorktown and the head of the Warwick River, McClellan intends to concentrate his infantry assault.

But Johnston has plans of his own—he has decided to withdraw. Though he knows his old Mexican War comrade is overly cautious, he understands that he cannot compete with McClellan’s big guns. Late this afternoon, to mask his intentions, Johnston’s artillery sends up a terrific din. Then, after dark, the Confederates file out of their soggy fortifications and begin retreating up the Peninsula toward the old colonial capital, Williamsburg, 12 miles to the west. The evacuation, which requires several hours, is carried out with great stealth. In the Federal camp in front of Yorktown, McClellan is writing his wife shortly after midnight when he notes uneasily “the perfect quietness which reigns now.” At daybreak it becomes apparent that the Confederates are gone. Thus, in the end, McClellan wins Yorktown as he has always hoped to—without a fight.

Jackson’s Valley army rises with the dawn of a beautiful spring day, yet spirits are low as the men labor up the steep inclines of Brown’s Gap, heading toward Charlottesville on the eastern side of the mountains. To their mystification and discontent, they are leaving the Shenandoah Valley without a fight.

In other military action, bridges are destroyed on Lookout Creek near Lookout Mountain and there is skirmishing at Watkins Ferry, Georgia; and at Farmington near Corinth; and on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad in Mississippi. Near Batesville, Arkansas, there is yet another skirmish and in southwest Virginia the Confederates proclaim martial law.

General Halleck tells Washington that he is personally leaving Pittsburg Landing and that his army will be in front of Corinth by the end of the night of May 4.
#15088766
May 4, Sunday

The Army of the Potomac advances cautiously into Yorktown, Virginia, following Confederate evacuation. They find 56 naval guns, which the Confederates have abandoned as too heavy to transport. And they find something more insidious—the Confederates have buried cannon shells attached to wire fuses that are activated by the weight of men or horses. These so-called torpedoes take several lives, and in angry reaction McClellan denounces the devices as “murderous and barbarous,” and assigns Confederate prisoners of war the task of digging them up.

Partly because of the torpedoes, but mainly because the Confederate evacuation has come as such a surprise, McClellan’s cavalry don’t start in pursuit until about noon, and it takes even longer for five divisions of infantry to follow the horsemen up the Peninsula. But while muddy roads have slowed the Federals’ horses, the progress of Johnston’s artillery is even slower. The two Confederate columns—on the roads from Yorktown and from Lee’s Mill in the middle of the Peninsula—average less than a mile an hour. Finally in midafternoon, the Federal cavalry and horse artillery catch up with Johnston’s rearguard horsemen a few miles short of Williamsburg. After a series of running skirmishes, the Confederate cavalrymen take refuge behind a line of earthworks two miles east of town, where they are soon reinforced by several brigades of infantry that Johnston has detached from his rear guard to check his pursuers. Well-aimed Confederate artillery fire soon drives back the pursuing horsemen.

The line of light fieldworks manned by the Confederates were constructed by Magruder some months ago. It consists of 13 redoubts and extends for about four miles across the narrow neck of the Peninsula. Its flanks are impassible, blocked by creeks and marshes. The largest redoubt is Fort Magruder, an enormous bastion 600 yards wide that occupies the center of the line. Guns in the port commands the point a mile away where the two roads up the Peninsula converge. An open plain dotted with rifle pits extends from the fort. Beyond this plain and along the two converging roads lies a tangled stretch of logs, stumps, and brush; the debris was left when part of the woods was cut to give the defenders a clear field of fire and to build an obstructive abatis—a barricade of felled trees—to slow the attackers.

Just east of the Shenandoah Valley a surprise awaits the troops of General “Stonewall” Jackson’s Valley army. As they arrive at Mechum’s River Station, a stop on the Virginia Central line ten miles west of Charlottesville, the men find Jackson already weeding out the sick and lame. The healthy are packed into railway baggage cars—which they suppose will carry them to Richmond and to the aid of General Joseph Johnston. But when the trains pull out they aren’t heading east toward Richmond but westward over the Blue Ridge, back to the Valley that only yesterday had been abandoned. The whole heartbreaking exercise has been an elaborate charade—perhaps the first time in history that railroads are used for a military deception—designed by Jackson to trick his enemy into thinking he has departed the Valley for good. This afternoon Jackson arrives in Staunton, which is in a panic over rumors that his army is giving up the Valley. Ashby’s cavalry is already screening Staunton from General Banks, whose army is still at Harrisonburg. To maintain strict secrecy, Jackson sets up picket lines to halt all traffic out of Staunton; civilians from the surrounding countryside, who have come to town to see relatives and friends in the returning army, are barred from going home.

There is more skirmishing at Farmington Heights, Mississippi, as Halleck’s army closes in toward Corinth, and there is a raid on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad near Bethel and a skirmish near Purdy, Tennessee. W.T. Sherman’s division is within six miles of Corinth’s defenses. There is a skirmish at Pulaski, Tennessee, south of Nashville.

In view of Colonel Carleton’s “California Column” moving east from California, Confederates evacuate Tucson, New Mexico Territory.
#15089002
May 5, Monday

Neither McClellan nor Johnston have anticipated the Battle of Williamsburg, and neither are there when it begins. McClellan has stayed behind near Yorktown to supervise the embarkation of four divisions; he is sending these units 30 miles up the York River to West Point in hopes of cutting off the Confederate retreat. But Johnston, who suspects just such a flanking move by McClellan, is already beyond Williamsburg, his column hurrying to get safely past the West Point area.

The day is miserable, with torrential rain. Early in the morning a division of the Union IV Corps takes up positions astride the road from Yorktown in front of Fort Magruder and slightly to the right. They are waiting for orders from Brigadier General Edwin Sumner, temporarily detached from his II Corps to command the pursuit. At 65, Sumner is the older of the corps commanders; he has served in the Army since 1819. Sumner is good at following orders, but not very imaginative at formulating them. While Sumner is trying to figure out what to do, a division of III Corps under Brigadier General Joseph Hooker marches up the road to Smith’s left. Hooker is spoiling for a fight and quickly takes it upon himself to attack. At 7:30 am he sends forward skirmishers to engage the Confederates in the rifle pits in front of Fort Magruder. He also calls for artillery to soften up the enemy lines, and six cannons go into action. But soon Confederate artillery fire kills two officers and throws the artillerymen into confusion. This is the first taste of battle for most of them, and some break and run. Hooker’s Chief of Artillery rides up to the guns and tries to rally the panicky men, but fails. So he orders another battery alongside the first, and its men use the guns of both batteries to open up a deadly fire.

Covered by the cannonading, Hooker’s men move forward and for two hours or so make headway across the slashed clearing in front of the enemy redoubts. But Confederate strength is building. General Johnston, up beyond Williamsburg with the main body of his army, needs to delay the Federal attackers long enough to get his wagon trains out of their reach. So he sends back Major General James Longstreet, a burly, stolid man who is the most dependable of his division commanders. By noon, Longstreet has committed his entire oversized division of six brigades; he counterattacks and begins driving Hooker back. Two regiments overrun and capture both Federal batteries, but the 12 guns are so deeply bogged down in the mud that the Confederates can only extract four guns. Longstreet is able to concentrate his troops against Hooker because the other Federal forces in the area are unaccountably idle. On Hooker’s right, Sumner has not committed the bulk of the first division on the scene nor has he called up the two newly arrived divisions that are milling around aimlessly in the immediate rear. Hooker’s regiments yield only stubbornly. In places along the front, charging Confederates overrun fleeing Federals and gunfire gives way to hand-do-hand fighting. Several Federal battle flags are captured in the melee. Smelling a rout, the Confederate cavalry commander, Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart, orders his men to ride in the wake of Longstreet’s infantry, ready to pursue. By about 4 pm, the Federals have fallen back into the woods a good mile and a half from Fort Magruder. Just then, and just in time, help finally comes.

In delivering it, General Sumner for some reason ignores the 8,000 idle troops on Hooker’s right and the nearly 20,000 troops to the immediate rear; instead, he orders up Brigadier General Philip Kearny’s division of III Corps. Though Kearny’s outfit was the last to leave Yorktown, the flamboyant one-armed general has pushed his vanguard past road jams of thousands of Federal soldiers, threatening to burn their baggage trains if they didn’t get them off the road. To move faster, his men have flung off their knapsacks by the side of the road. They reach the front at 4 pm and Kearny himself charges into the thick of the fighting, clenching his reins in his teeth and waving his saber with his good right arm, deliberately drawing enemy fire to expose Confederate positions. Two of his staff officers are shot dead as they gallop behind him. After reconnoitering carefully to determine the enemy strength, Kearny launches his attack, personally leading a charge that retakes the captured Federal batteries.

As Kearny’s fresh troops gradually force the Confederates back into the clearing in front of Fort Magruder and the redoubts to the left, an engagement takes shape more than two miles to the north that will win the day for the Union. Sumner has not been entirely idle. After a morning reconnaissance reveals two vacant redoubts at the northern end of the Confederate line, Sumner orders a flanking move in that direction by about 2,500 men. The brigade commander chosen for the task is Brigadier General Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock leads his men about two miles to the right, crosses a narrow dam over a creek, and at noon seizes the two unoccupied redoubts, then moves forward to a strong position on a crest with woods on either flank. He can see several other redoubts on the plain that appear to be lightly held, and beyond them the battle in front of Fort Magruder. Hancock, in fact, is slightly to the rear of the fort, in position to cut Longstreet’s line of retreat to Williamsburg. Hancock unlimbers his light field artillery but cannot advance further without reinforcements to protect his exposed right flank and rear. Twice he sends messengers to Sumner requesting help, and twice the old general refuses him. Worse, at about 2 pm Sumner notes Hooker’s deteriorating position on the Federal left and orders Hancock to retire to the two empty redoubts he captured two hours earlier. Hancock stalls, dispatching additional messengers in hopes Sumner will reconsider. No help comes, and shortly after 5 pm Hancock is finally preparing to retire when the Confederates take the decision out of his hands.

At Fort Magruder General Longstreet has finally taken notice of Hancock on his left flank. Until Hancock’s field artillery began hitting his position, Longstreet apparently didn’t know about the undefended redoubts—the only general with intimate knowledge of the defenses is John Magruder, and he has lain ill this day. Longstreet’s reserve division is under the command of Major General Daniel Harvey Hill, a cynical, strong-willed and extremely capable soldier. Hill and one of his brigade commanders, Brigadier General Jubal A. Early, are confident they can silence Hancock’s artillery and request permission to attack with 2,700 men. Longstreet doubts the wisdom of such an attack. He is only fighting to cover the withdrawal of the Confederate wagon trains past Williamsburg, and that outcome is now ensured. But the attack is finally approved by either Longstreet or Johnston (accounts differ), who has hurried back from beyond Williamsburg. Hill and Early form their line of four regiments and swarm forward, screaming the Rebel yell as they drive back Hancock’s skirmishers. Facing this ragged onslaught, Hancock calmly moves his infantry behind the crest of the ridge. The Confederates, exhilarated by the enemy’s apparent retreat, sweep ahead. As they close to within 30 paces, Hancock’s whole battle line stands up and opens fire. Scores of Confederates are cut down by the first withering volley. General Early is himself shot in the shoulder as he urges his men onward; he is soon led away, faint from loss of blood. And the Confederates keep falling. Then, as the Confederate assault buckles and stops, Hancock gallops to the front and orders the charge that will make his reputation as a bold leader. The Federal line sweeps forward and the Confederates fall back in a rout, leaving behind 150 prisoners and a battle flag, which is proudly displayed by a young Federal officer named George Armstrong Custer. General McClellan has arrived in front of Fort Magruder just before the start of Hancock’s engagement and immediately sends the reinforcements that Sumner has refused to commit, but they are no longer necessary. Hancock’s engagement has ended in triumph, only 23 minutes after it began. McClellan is elated. “Hancock was superb,” he wires Washington.

In the Valley, Jackson’s entire army is camped around Staunton. Only six miles to the west are General Edward Johnson’s six regiments, withdrawing under pressure from Milroy’s Federal troops.

Other fighting this day is at Lebanon, Tennessee; Princeton and Franklin, western Virginia; and Columbia Bridge, Virginia.

In the evening President Lincoln, with Cabinet members Stanton and Chase, leave by ship for Fort Monroe to take a personal look at the advance into Virginia.
#15089237
May 6, Tuesday

The day dawns bright and clear with General McClellan determined to crush Fort Magruder from Hancock’s reinforced position on the far right. The rain is gone but so are the demoralized Confederates, who resumed their retreat during the night. “Thousands of soldiers had sought shelter from the storm,” General D.H. Hill will recall. “It was with the utmost difficulty that they could be driven out. Cold, tired, hungry, and jaded, many seemed indifferent alike to life or capture.” The unplanned Battle of Williamsburg has cost the Confederates 1,570 killed and wounded and 133 missing for a total of 1,703 casualties out of 31,000 engaged, and the Federals have lost 456 killed, 1,410 wounded, and 373 missing for 2,239 out of 40,000—heavy casualties for what is essentially a delaying and a probing action. But McClellan holds the field and moves on to occupy Williamsburg, close behind the retiring enemy. His giant army at last has had a battle—and more importantly a victory—under its belt.

The presence of Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates at Staunton in the Shenandoah after their stay at Conrad’s Store has confused the Federals under Banks at Harrisonburg, who fall back toward New Market and go on to Strasburg by May 13. Jackson and his reinforced command march westward toward McDowell, aiming at Federal forces in that area.

At Dragoon Springs, an abandoned Butterfield Overland Stagecoach station in what will be the southeast corner of the US Arizona Territory, about 100 Chiricahua Apaches ambush a small unit of mounted Confederates escorting Federal prisoners, killing four Confederate soldiers and a young Mexican stock herder and capturing a large number of livestock and horses.

There is a brief skirmish near Harrisonburg; and in western Virginia at Camp McDonald and Arnoldsburg; as well as a skirmish on the White River out in Arkansas.

Near Corinth, Mississippi, Halleck’s advance from Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, decelerates, and soon becomes more of a siege than an offensive.

In the late evening President Lincoln and his party disembark at Fort Monroe. He is eager to find out first hand what is taking McClellan so long. In particular, the President is concerned about the Confederate ironclad Virginia, on the prowl again in Hampton Roads after a period in dry dock for repairs. The Virginia’s presence not only menaces Federal shipping in the area but also prevents gunboats from steaming up the James River to protect the left flank of McClellan’s army as it advances on Richmond. Lincoln wants to try out a plan proposed by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who has accompanied him on the journey. The Virginia’s home port of Norfolk, just across Hampton Roads from Fort Monroe, has been bypassed by McClellan; but, as Stanton has pointed out, the evacuation of Yorktown has now left Norfolk glaringly exposed. With the help of the Federal Navy and the 10,000-man garrison at Fort Monroe, Lincoln and his companions intend to capture Norfolk and thereby deny the Virginia her base.

In New Mexico Territory, General Sibley has made his way past Mesilla to Fort Bliss. Behind him Sibley’s tattered, half-starved Confederates, cursing him for his “want of feeling, poor generalship and cowardice,” are strung out for fifty miles. And the Texans’ nightmare isn’t over, on arriving at Fort Bliss Sibley learns of the fresh Federal army that has left California and is moving in his direction.
#15089584
May 7, Wednesday

On the Pamunkey River near the mouth of the York on the Virginia Peninsula, William B. Franklin’s division of Federals advancing toward Richmond is attacked at Eltham’s Landing by Confederates under G.W. Smith, who are protecting the wagon trains withdrawing from Williamsburg and Yorktown. It is a sharp engagement, to be known as West Point, Barhamsville, or Eltham’s Landing.

In the Shenandoah Valley General Milroy hears from scouts and spies the surprising news that Generals Jackson and Johnson are combining against him; he begins to fall back toward the Alleghenies along the Staunton-Parkersburg highway. Johnson, who is spoiling for a fight, goes after him. Stonewall Jackson gets his own troops on the road early in the morning. While his regiments march westward, he rides ahead and catches up with Johnson’s rear units on the eastern slopes of the Alleghenies.

Elsewhere there is a skirmish at Horse Creek, Missouri; another at Purdy, Tennessee; as well as a two-day reconnaissance to Mulberry Point on the James River in Virginia; and a two-day Federal expedition from Roanoke Island toward Gatesville, North Carolina. Still more light fighting occurs near Wardensville, western Virginia, and Somerville Heights, Virginia.

President Lincoln visits USS Monitor near Fort Monroe and confers with naval and army officers. He is taking an active part in attempting to push the drive on Richmond.
#15089780
May 8, Thursday

On the eastern slopes of the Alleghenies, Jed Hotchkiss guides General Jackson over the huge hump of Bull Pasture Mountain and, shortly before they reach the end of the precipitous descent, leads him off to the left through a narrow gorge. Choked though it is with boulders and brush, the defile is the only negotiable route onto an isolated spur called Sitlington’s Hill. Atop that steep-sided ridge is a mile-long plateau, broken by ravines and studded with sharply rising hillocks. There General Johnson is already deploying his infantry. As the two generals face westward from Sitlington’s Hill, they see 500 feet below them the rain-swollen Bull Pasture River. Beyond the stream on the flood plain, hemmed in on all sides by towering mountains, lies the village of McDowell—crowded with Federal troops. Approximately 500 yards west of Bull Pasture River, on a ridge running roughly parallel to Sitlington’s Hill, Federal artillery is in place. The Confederates seem to hold the advantage. After months of trying, Jackson has at last brought together a numerically superior force against a Federal detachment. If both sides get all their men into action, Jackson will pit nearly 10,000 against Milroy’s 6,000, including reinforcements under Brigadier General Robert C. Schenk, who has just arrived at McDowell and, being senior, has assumed command. There is a hitch, however. The gorge that provides Jackson’s only access to Sitlington’s Hill is too rough to permit the passage of artillery—and thus Jackson loses his main advantage. Ordering Johnson to remain on the hill, he descends to deploy his arriving troops for an attack across Bull Pasture River.

Schenk and Milroy know nothing of the hitch in Jackson’s plans. They do know from the reports of scouts that they are outnumbered. And when the scouts tell them that Confederate guns are headed for Sitlington’s Hill, the Federal commanders judge that retreat is inevitable. But they have to buy time—if the Confederates succeed in placing cannon on Sitlington’s Hill, the retreating Federal columns will be decimated. To prevent that, Milroy suggests a preemptive assault to pin down the Confederates until nightfall and enable the bulk of the Federal troops to get away under cover of darkness. Schenk approves, and shortly after 4:30 pm, 2,000 Federal troops, having crossed Bull Pasture River on a bridge concealed from view by woods, come charging hard up Sitlington’s Hill.

In Jackson’s absence the defense of the hill is in Edward Johnson’s hands, and he has all he can manage. The first Federal rush almost breaks the Confederate right. But Jackson, hearing the gunfire, rushes up General Taliaferro’s infantry and the right flank holds. Then the Federals strike at Johnson’s most vulnerable point—the center, where a Confederate wedge points toward the attacking enemy, exposing the defenders both to frontal and oblique fire. The imperiled sector is manned by the 12th Georgia, the only non-Virginia regiment on the Confederate side, and it means to show its worth. When ordered to pull back to a more defensible line, the Georgians refuse. Instead, they stand up, the better to fire down at the enemy climbing the hill. But this silhouettes them against the sky, making perfect targets, and they take heavy losses. But they hold in spite of the casualties. At the peak of the fighting, Johnson goes down with a mangled ankle. With Jackson still away bringing up his troops, command of the battlefield passes to Taliaferro, who, like the Georgians, has something to prove. As one of the figures in the bitter dispute after Romney, he has earned Jackson’s wholehearted hostility. When Taliaferro was subsequently assigned to the Valley army Jackson protested vehemently, to no avail. Now Taliaferro means to fight his way into Jackson’s good graces, and this battle gives him his chance. He acquits himself well. Throwing in the Valley army’s 2nd Brigade as soon as it arrives, Taliaferro manages to hold Sitlington’s Hill until, at about 9 pm, darkness forces an end to the fighting. The Federals sullenly retire to McDowell, and in the morning they will be gone.

There is nothing fancy about this battle; it is a furious little slugging match. Federal casualties are 26 killed, 227 wounded, 3 missing for 256; Confederate casualties are 75 killed, 423 wounded for 498, about a third of them from the 12th Georgia. Yet Jackson has forced the enemy from the field, and effectively prevented any linkup at Staunton between Banks and Fremont. Already his forces are feared in the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding mountain country. Rapid movement on foot is becoming his trademark, his men will become known as “Jackson’s foot cavalry.”

At Hampton Roads, Virginia, President Lincoln’s operation to capture Norfolk begins with a false start. He orders a flotilla of Federal ships, led by the Monitor, to bombard the Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point, seven and a half miles north of Norfolk. Troops are embarked on transports for a landing there under cover of the bombardment. But before the transports can reach shore, the Virginia steams up from Norfolk and takes position off the target area. That ends the invasion at Sewell’s Point.

In Mississippi Halleck’s Federal army, within a few miles of Corinth, sends out a reconnaissance toward the Confederate-held rail center.

There is a skirmish at Glendale, Mississippi. Other fighting occurs at Athens, Georgia.
#15090061
May 9, Friday

At Hampton Roads, Virginia, a new, safer landing place is chosen for the Union troops blocked from landing at Sewell’s Point by the Virginia. That ship is unlikely to venture to the new site east on Chesapeake Bay, to do so she would have to negotiate the narrow channel between Fort Monroe and a tiny offshore bastion, enduring a crossfire from big guns mounted on either side. 5,000 men go ashore this night to begin the march to Norfolk. President Lincoln stays behind to run things from Fort Monroe. In the face of these forces, the 9,000-man Confederate garrison evacuate the city army supply depot, leaving behind a demolition crew to wreck the nearby Gosport Navy Yard. The loss of this major base is a severe blow to Confederate control of southside Virginia and northern North Carolina. Supplies and machinery are destroyed, but enough is left to give the Federals a fine haul.

In northeastern Mississippi there is severe fighting between forward units of Halleck’s forces advancing on Corinth, and Confederates at Farmington and another skirmish nearer Corinth as well.

Near McDowell, Virginia, Jackson’s forces follow retreating Federals toward Franklin, western Virginia. Other fighting is on Elk River near Bethel, Tennessee, and at Slatersville, Virginia.

Confederate forces begin evacuating the Pensacola, Florida, area after holding out in the city against Fort Pickens and the naval squadron since the start of the war.

Major General David Hunter at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, orders emancipation of slaves in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, and authorizes arming of all able-bodied Blacks in those states. This order, without the approval of Congress or President Lincoln, will cause a lively ferment in the North. But it does indicate support for emancipation among some army officers, at least as a war measure.

Confederate Captain Sherod Hunter, hearing of the attack on a Confederate detachment by Chiricahua Apaches at Dragoon Springs, orders his men to take back the lost livestock and horses and avenge the four Confederate soldiers killed. His men succeed, killing five Apaches with no loss of their own.

President Lincoln remains at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and tours the area by boat, looking for a place for Federal soldiers to land near Norfolk. He also tells General McClellan, slowly moving up the Peninsula toward Richmond, that he does not want the corps structure of the army broken up. He urges greater cooperation between McClellan and his corps commanders.
#15090353
May 10, Saturday

Federal mortar boats appear on the Mississippi just north of Fort Pillow, Tennessee, on their way to link up with Farragut’s fleet moving up the Mississippi from New Orleans. The ill-disciplined, makeshift Confederate River Defense Fleet, puny in firepower and protection, attack the mortars and the strong Federal ironclad flotilla of seven boats under Captain Charles H. Davis. Captain James E. Montgomery boldly commands the Confederates. The unarmored Southern flotilla drives at the ironclads, although it is almost suicidal. Fighting valiantly, the Confederates manage to ram and sink ironclads Cincinnati and Mound City, in shoal water. They will be raised later. Four of the eight Confederate boats are badly damaged and rendered helpless by the superior firepower of the Federals. Montgomery has to withdraw his remnants to Fort Pillow and then to Memphis. The Battle of Plum Run Bend or Plum Point will be nearly forgotten in history, but it is one of the few “fleet actions” of the war, and on a river at that.

Federal troops accompanied by Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase march up to the outskirts of Norfolk and Portsmouth in Virginia, watched by President Lincoln, where they are met by Mayor William W. Lamb. To give the demolition crew left behind more time to wreck Gosport Navy Yard, the mayor presents Chase and the Union commander, General John E. Wool, with a set of rusty keys to the city. He deliberately drags out the surrender ceremonies, a witness will remark, “with all the formality of a medieval warden.”

Despite the destruction of the navy yard, Lincoln’s operation is a glowing success; with at least one important consequence: The Virginia, standing offshore, is now a ship without a port—and without a future. Federal forts bar her way into Chesapeake Bay, and she draws too much water to make it up the James River to Richmond. Late this night, her captain takes the ironclad over to Craney Island, a couple of miles northwest of Norfolk. He gives the order to abandon ship and then sets fire to a long fuse. At 4:58 am the 16-ton powder magazine explodes, destroying the pride of the Confederate Navy.

McClellan and his army have begun pulling out of West Point. While one contingent moves overland, McClellan leads another 15 miles west up the Pamunkey River, a tributary of York, to a landing where the Richmond & York River Railroad crosses the Pamunkey. Here lies White House, the 4,000-acre plantation on which George Washington courted the widow Martha Custis. The property now belongs to the family of Robert E. Lee, whose wife is the granddaughter of Martha Custis Washington.

Federal troops also take over Pensacola in Florida.

In the fighting near Corinth, there is another skirmish near Farmington and a reconnaissance on the Alabama Road and toward Sharp’s Mill, Mississippi.

Other action is at Bloomfield, Missouri; Lamb’s Ferry, Alabama; and Giles Court House, western Virginia.

Jackson continues his advance toward Franklin, western Virginia.

In New Orleans General Butler furthers his popularity by seizing $800,000 in gold from the Netherlands consulate.

President Davis writes General Johnston on the Peninsula, “I have been much relieved by the successes which you have gained, and I hope for you the brilliant result which the drooping cause of our country now so imperatively claims....” But he is also concerned about the enemy advance on the Fredericksburg route.
#15090621
May 11, Sunday

President Lincoln returns from Fort Monroe to Washington and hears the news of the Virginia’s destruction on the way. The President wires General Halleck, “Norfolk in our possession, Merrimac blown up, & Monitor & other boats going up James River to Richmond. Be very sure to sustain no reverse in your Department.” Halleck is being quite sure as his advance on Corinth has slowed so drastically that it is hardly distinguishable from a siege.

In the Shenandoah Valley, General Ewell has heard that General Jackson has been in a battle west of Staunton. Still, his orders require him to wait, and so he has—fretfully; by now, he’s half-convinced that Jackson is “a crazy fool, an idiot.” Now Ewell learns from a prisoner that Shield’s division is leaving General Banks for the Union effort against Richmond, and per his orders to prevent anything of the sort he decides to send a regiment to try to delay the Federals.

Other fighting breaks out at Pulaski, Tennessee; Cave City, Kentucky; Princeton, western Virginia; and on the Bowling Green Road near Fredericksburg, Virginia.
#15090814
May 12, Monday

Union forces have occupied Pensacola, Florida, and the surrounding area after the Confederates’ withdrawal the previous Friday.

Farragut’s orders were that, after the fall of New Orleans, he was to steam north up the Mississippi immediately, run the Vicksburg batteries, and link up with a squadron of gunboats making its way downriver from Cairo, Illinois. The two forces would then join in reducing the Vicksburg defenses. But most of Farragut’s ships were damaged during the battle for New Orleans, and Farragut took the time to repair and resupply them. But now Farragut’s fleet is again on the move.

Farragut is a good officer, intelligent and tough, no longer young but still fit, his tendency to testiness redeemed by a sense of humor. On this campaign he will need it. What he requires for the operation are river craft: flat-bottomed, shallow-draft side-wheelers and stern-wheelers. But the only vessels available are the seagoing wooden warships that he brought to New Orleans. They are ill-suited for river warfare; their sails are of little use, their drafts too deep, their steam-powered screws vulnerable to damage in shallow water. Consequently, the fleet’s progress upstream toward Vicksburg is a series of misadventures. Ships frequently run aground attempting to negotiate the narrow, twisting channels. There isn’t enough coal to fire the boilers, and the vessels have to stop frequently to take on wood. The roughly 1,400 soldiers, brought along to serve as a Vicksburg occupation force, huddle miserably aboard the transports, suffering from malaria and dysentery.

Still, some things go alright. Baton Rouge, the Louisiana state capital, is defenseless and surrenders to the menace of naval guns without firing a shot. And today at Natchez, Mississippi, a large crowd turns out in their Sunday best to view the fleet; the mayor, summoned to surrender the city, immediately does so. Most Natchez citizens seem content to be neutral in the presence of the Federals, but one person reveals an allegiance. Commander David Dixon Porter, Farragut’s foster brother, observes a young girl standing alone on the shore. Making sure no one is watching except Federal sailors, she whips out a small US flag, kisses it, and presses it to her heart. (Natchez will be briefly reoccupied by the Confederates as soon as the Federal ships have passed, and the resident who volunteers to carry Farragut’s demand to the mayor jailed for treason; it will take the intervention of General P.G.T. Beauregard to save him from execution.)

To the northeast there is more skirmishing near Farmington, Mississippi, between men of Halleck’s and Beauregard’s armies not far from Corinth, Mississippi.

Other skirmishing occurs at Lewisburg, western Virginia, area for the Shenandoah Valley and Banks’ Federals.

There is a convention of pro-unionists at Nashville, Tennessee, as the military government is taking hold.

President Lincoln proclaims the opening to commerce of the ports of Beaufort, North Carolina, Port Royal, South Carolina, and New Orleans.
#15091068
May 13, Tuesday

In the Shenandoah Jackson is on his way back from Franklin and McDowell toward the main valley to face Banks’ reduced force at Strasburg. He sends an order by courier to General Ewell, still camped at Swift Run Gap, to pursue General Banks’s Federal army if Banks elects to withdraw down the Valley. General Fremont, meanwhile, reaches Franklin with his Union troops.

There is a skirmish at Baltimore Crossroads near New Kent Court House, and an affair on the Rappahannock River, Virginia. Near Corinth, Mississippi, Federal troops raid the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, and in Alabama Union forces under General Mitchel occupy Rogersville and skirmishes at Lamb’s Ferry.

Martial law is declared in Charleston, South Carolina. In Charleston Harbor a crew of Blacks take over the steamer Planter and surrender it to the blockaders.
#15091335
May 14, Wednesday

Panic has gripped Richmond. The Virginia Legislature votes to burn the city rather than see it fall into enemy hands. Preparations are made to ship the Confederate archives to South Carolina. The Treasury gold is crated up, ready to be loaded aboard a train that is kept under steam. Runaway soldiers and refugee families pour into the city, doubling its prewar population of 40,000. Others flee the capital; among them are President Davis’ wife, Varina, and their four children, whom he has sent off to Raleigh, North Carolina. Davis writes his wife, “If the withdrawal from Peninsula and Norfolk had been done with due preparation and a desirable deliberation, I should be more sanguine of a successful defense of this city.... I know not what to expect when so many failures are to be remembered, yet will try to make a successful resistance....”

Some of the residents that have stayed behind are less than confident in the chances of the defenders’ chances, setting aside small quantities of tobacco to be used as currency in dealing with occupation troops. Davis himself shares their doubts, visiting General Robert E. Lee to ask where, if the government is forced to relinquish the capital, the best line of defense south of Richmond would be. General Lee suggests the Staunton River, approximately 100 miles to the southwest. Then emotion breaks through Lee’s iron self-control, and he exclaims, “But Richmond must not be given up! It shall not be given up!”

Though the gravest threat to Richmond is General McClellan’s army, which is slowly marching over the muddy roads, skirmishing today at Gaines’ Cross Roads, the city is terrified by the more immediate danger posed by five Federal gunboats on the James. The squadron is now less than a day’s journey from Richmond. In the warships’ path lies a single obstacle, and on it General Lee pins his immediate hope for the defense of the Confederate capital. Eight miles below Richmond, at a place called Drewry’s Bluff, crews of soldiers, sailors, and laborers under Lee’s eldest son, Colonel Custis Lee, toil feverishly to expand a set of existing defenses on the south bank of the river. The bluff, rising about 200 feet, commands a sharp bend in the James—the last of the river’s twists and turns before a straight stretch leading to Richmond. About 300 miles downstream from the foot of the bluff, Colonel Lee’s men scuttle old ships and sink huge stone-filled cribs to form two lines of obstructions across the 120-yard-wide river. Just upstream from the obstructions, the wooden gunboat Patrick Henry takes up station. At the foot of the bluff and on the far side of the river, sharpshooters who recently evacuated Norfolk deploy in trenches. Sailors wrestle three heavy guns into place on the bluff to augment the three big columbiads already there. All through the night, Lee’s men work in a drenching rain, digging rifle pits and filling sandbags.

Skirmishing continues near Corinth, Mississippi, on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, and on the Mobile and Ohio as well. Other skirmishes are at Cotton Plant, Arkansas, and Fayetteville, Tennessee.
#15091529
May 15, Thursday

The Confederates are ready at Drewry’s Bluff, eight miles below Richmond, when at 7:35 am the Federal squadron comes into view through the mist. When the lead ship, the newly commissioned ironclad Galena, reaches a point 400 yards from the obstructions, the Confederate batteries on the bluff open fire with the Patrick Henry just upstream joining in. For hours the exchange continues, the roar of the cannon shaking windows in Richmond. On the bluff the Confederate gunners are hard pressed with seven men killed as fragments from 100-pound shells lobbed by the Galena shower the gun emplacements, a gun accidentally loaded with a double charge of powder recoils off its platform, a rain-soaked log casement collapses on its gun, and other Confederate guns have to cease firing temporarily to ration ammunition. But for all their problems, the Union problems are worse. The Confederates are able to pour plunging fire down on the Galena, penetrating the thin deck armor repeatedly. The Monitor attempts to relieve the Galena, but from close in can’t elevate her two guns high enough to reach the high bluff and she soon retires. The fleet’s two wooden ships and little one-gun ironclad remain at anchor half a mile downstream, not daring to venture nearer, and have their own problems from the crossfire of musketry from the Confederate sharpshooters on both banks of the river. By 11 am the Galena has taken about 50 hits. Her railings are shot away, her smokestack is riddled, and on her shattered deck lie 13 men dead and 11 wounded. Commander Rodgers stands fast until a shot from the Patrick Henry tears through the bow gun port, setting the Galena on fire, at which point he gives the order to withdraw to the cheers of the defenders.

Meanwhile, Joseph E. Johnston’s army pulls back across the Chickahominy and at some points is within three miles of Richmond.

There is more fighting at Gaines’ Cross Roads and Linden, Virginia.

Jackson’s Confederates reach the Shenandoah Valley once more after their recursion to McDowell and Franklin.

There is fighting in western Virginia at Ravenswood, Wolf Creek, and Princeton. Farther west there is action again along the Memphis & Charleston Railroad near Corinth, Mississippi, and a Federal naval demonstration upon Galveston, Texas. In Missouri there was Federal scouting on the Little Blue with a skirmish near Independence. Other action this day occurs near Trenton Bridge at Young’s Cross Roads and near Pollocksville, North Carolina.

At Liverpool, England, a vessel known only as 290 is launched at the Laird shipyards. It is not a well-kept secret, however, that the ship is destined to become a Confederate raider.

In Washington Lincoln approves congressional establishment of the Department of Agriculture as a branch of the Federal government, although its secretary will not obtain Cabinet status until 1889.

The most sensational news of the day is an order issued in New Orleans by the commander of the occupying forces, Major General Benjamin F. Butler. “As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans in return for the most scrupulous non-interference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall by word, gesture, or movement insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.” Nothing in Butler’s already unpopular, dictatorial reign over New Orleans incites Confederates as does the notorious Order No. 28. Throughout the South the “beast” is an object of venom, although some later historians will mitigate the tyranny of the order.
#15091750
May 16, Friday

Major General Butler adds to his stringent measures in New Orleans by suspending publication of the New Orleans Bee, and the Delta is taken over by Federal authorities.

Meanwhile, in Virginia, most of General McClellan’s army is encamped along the Pamunkey between White House Landing and Cumberland Landing to the south. McClellan posts a guard around the great house at the Lee plantation and establishes an enormous supply depot on the grounds. Scores of transports steam up the York River and then the Pamunkey, bringing the 500 tons a day of supplies needed to sustain his army. Barges bring five locomotives and 80 rail cars, which McClellan las kept loaded and waiting in Baltimore harbor. The trains are to supply the troops as they march west and to bring up McClellan’s beloved siege guns.

President Davis writes his wife of the defeat of the Federal squadron at Drewry’s Bluff, adding “The panic here has subsided and with increasing confidence there has arisen a desire to see the city destroyed rather than surrendered.” He further says, “The great temporal object is to secure our independence and they who engage in strife for personal or party aggandisement [sic], deserve contemptuous forgetfulness.”
#15092016
May 17, Saturday

General McClellan gets some encouraging news from Washington: His repeated requests for reinforcements are about to be rewarded. He has already been given one division of Irvin McDowell’s I Corps, which had been withheld from the Peninsula Campaign in early April. Now he is to get the rest of McDowell’s corps and additional troops under General James Shields. The reinforcements, adding up to about 40,000 men, has been stationed at Fredericksburg, midway between Richmond and Washington. This welcome development contains an important and unwelcome catch, however. Though McClellan wants McDowell’s army to come by water, joining him at White House Landing, the President insists that McDowell march south toward Richmond by the most direct route. As Lincoln sees it, the overland route will save time and also enable McDowell to remain between Washington and Johnston’s Confederate army. Whatever the merits of either route, Lincoln’s decision forces McClellan to readjust his plan for taking Richmond. In preparation, he had reorganized his army into five corps of two divisions each. He had intended to send the bulk of these forces due west along the railroad where it runs south of the Chickahominy River. But in order to join ranks with McDowell’s southbound corps and cover his base at White House, McClellan will have to extend his right wing. Meanwhile, there is a small Federal expedition up the Pamunkey.

Near Corinth, Mississippi, there is more skirmishing as Halleck’s Federal army also sits in front of a major Confederate center. Today’s action is at Russell’s House.

In Arkansas there is a skirmish at Little Red River.

As President Lincoln confers with his Secretary of War regarding McClellan’s oft-repeated calls for reinforcements, President Davis writes General Johnston giving various suggestion but, like Lincoln, declines to direct military operations.
#15092287
May 18, Sunday

The Shenandoah Valley is coming into its own as a scene of battle and marching. Jackson’s Confederates are northward bound from Mount Solon, as Federals fall back in the western valley along the north fork of the Shenandoah. Union General Banks is not sure what Jackson is going to do, but he wants to be ready. Meanwhile, just as the sun is rising, General Ewell gallops up to Jackson’s headquarters—they have a problem. The orders Jackson gave Ewell require him to pursue Banks if he withdraws down the Valley, and according to the reports of cavalry scouts Banks is already at Strasburg, the hub of the Manassas Gap Railroad in the central Valley. But Ewell’s latest orders from General Johnston explicitly state that if Banks’s forces move eastward across the Blue Ridge to link up with the Federal contingent under Irvin McDowell at Fredericksburg, Ewell is to follow to reinforce Johnston. Ewell’s cavalry has reported that General Shields’s 11,000-man division, more than half of Banks’ total force of 18,600, is already on the march across the Blue Ridge.

Now Jackson and Ewell spread their maps over the sacks of flour stacked on the floor of an old gristmill along a creek and study the positions of the opposing forces. The Confederate position looks bleak with Richmond in danger from General McClellan’s Army of the Potomac 30 miles to the east, 105,000 strong, and McDowell’s 40,000-man army to the north. But both generals see a dazzling opportunity. Since Shield’s division has left the Shenandoah Valley to reinforce McDowell, Banks is now isolated and undermanned, with only 10,000 troops. The Federals have given Jackson the very opportunity he has schemed to create—by joining forces with Ewell, Jackson will outnumber Banks by nearly 2 to 1. When Ewell protests that due to his orders he has no choice but to pursue Shields, Jackson shows him a letter from General Lee dated May 16. Lee shares Jackson’s strategic thinking, and although he has no command authority, his opinions carry weight. For weeks Ewell has been aching for a fight, and now he decides that so long as he remains in the Valley, he is within Jackson’s immediate jurisdiction. Straight away, Jackson orders Ewell to write him a letter spelling out the dilemma. Jackson responds on paper immediately: “Your letter of this date, in which you state that you have received letters from Generals Lee, Johnston and myself requiring somewhat different movements, and desiring my views respecting your position, has been received. In reply I would state that as you are in the Valley District you constitute part of my command. Should you receive orders different from those sent from these headquarters, please advise me of the same at as early a period as practicable. You will please move your command as to encamp between New Market and Mount Jackson on next Wednesday night, unless you receive orders from a superior officer and that of a date subsequent to the 16th instant.” Ewell gallops back to Swift Run Gap to get his troops on the road, and Jackson send out the order to his Valley army to be ready to move at 5 am tomorrow.

There is a skirmish at Woodstock, Virginia, in the Valley.

On the Mississippi Farragut’s fleet approaches Vicksburg, hoping for a reprise of Baton Rouge and Natchez. They are in for a rude surprise. An advance force aboard the sloop Oneida delivers a message demanding the city’s surrender, and after waiting five hours receive the city authorities’ answer—an unequivocal no. Farragut is taken aback by this unexpected response. He is not prepared for an assault on what now appears to be a forbidding fortress. His ships’ guns cannot be elevated sufficiently to fire at the hilltop defenses; the Confederate batteries, on the other hand, are perfectly sited to bombard the ships below. An overland attack by the Federal infantry also seems unfeasible: The batteries would have to be silenced first; there are only 1,400 Federal troops; and there are rumors that Rebel reinforcements numbering 20,000 men are on their way to Vicksburg. Practically undefended when New Orleans fell, that is very much not the case now. Farragut has missed his chance; if he had moved up the Mississippi immediately after the fall of New Orleans, Vicksburg might have been his. As it is, Farragut decides to extricate himself. Calling the expedition a “reconnaissance in force,” he departs to return to New Orleans, leaving only a few gunboats behind to observe the city.
#15092582
May 19, Monday

The skirmishing continues on the fringes of the two main Federal offensives, east and west. In Virginia there is fighting at Gaines’ Mill and at City Point, in the west action at Farmington, Mississippi, near Corinth.

There is other skirmishing at Searcy Landing, Arkansas. On the Mississippi a Federal expedition operations to Fort Pillow May 19-23.

A worried President Davis writes Mrs. Davis of the threat to Richmond, “We are uncertain of everything except that a battle must be near at hand.”

An equally concerned President Lincoln disavows the emancipation proclamation of Major General David Hunter issued in the Department of the South, and reserves to the President the power, if it becomes necessary in order to maintain the government, to issue such a proclamation. President Lincoln again appeals for adoption by the states of his policy of gradual, compensated emancipation.
#15092829
May 20, Tuesday

President Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act, which grants a free plot of 160 acres to actual settlers on land in the public domain who will occupy and improve it for five years.

President Davis is disturbed by the impression of governors and others in Arkansas and elsewhere in the Trans-Mississippi that their cause is being neglected.

Stonewall Jackson’s men have hurried north through Harrisonburg, and this afternoon are encamped outside New Market, near the junction of the Valley Turnpike and the road running east across the Massanutten to Luray Valley and the Blue Ridge. It is there that General Ewell finds them, with bad news for Jackson—Ewell has received orders dated after the scheme he and Jackson had come up with, forbidding an attack on General Banks’ remnant and requiring Ewell to immediately leave the Valley and join Johnston. It is stunning news, but Jackson has come too far, his opportunity too great and hopes too high to be thwarted now. Risking a charge of insubordination, he suspends the execution of Johnston’s order and fires off a telegram to General Lee advising him of the situation and hinting that he should intervene. Jackson receives a response this same day authorizing an attack on Banks.

Along the Chickahominy there are minor operations near Bottom’s Bridge as McClellan’s Federals and Johnston’s Confederates wait.

There is raiding on the Virginia Central Railroad at Jackson’s River Depot, Virginia. On the coast Cole’s Island, South Carolina, is bombarded by Federals and there is an affair on Crooked River, Florida. In Tennessee skirmishing breaks out on Elk River.

Tucson, New Mexico Territory, is occupied by Union troops after a small body of Confederates retreats.
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