- 19 Feb 2020 14:19
#15068343
February 19, Wednesday
Federal forces of General C.F. Smith from Grant’s command occupy Clarksville, Tennessee. While Grant is looking toward Nashville there is an inter-army squabble brewing. Grant’s men are accused of entering the territory of General Don Carlos Buell, who also is advancing slowly south toward Nashville from the Bowling Green, Kentucky, area.
In New Mexico Territory, Confederate General Sibley has decided that rather than directly attack Fort Craig, deciding it is too strong, he will cross to the east bank of the Rio Grande and bypass the fort, then recross the river six miles north at Valverde—from there he can follow an almost straight track paralleling the Rio Grande to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, leaving Fort Craig isolated with its supply line to the north cut. This move has been delayed two days by a sandstorm, but now the Confederates cross to the east side of the Rio Grande and move to bypass the fort.
In North Carolina, General Burnside’s Federal expedition continues mopping up after its capture of Roanoke Island. Today Commander Rowan leads eight gunboats carrying 1,000 troops up the Chowan River toward the village of Winton, intending to destroy two railroad bridges and contact the powerful faction of pro-Unionists rumored to be in the area. The Confederates have anticipated the attack and secreted a four-gun battery, backed by a battalion of Volunteers, on a bluff overlooking the village. Down at the village below a slave has been instructed by her master to wave a handkerchief as if to indicate that the town is undefended and safe to enter. The ploy almost works, but at the last moment Colonel Hawkins up in the rigging of Rowan’s flagship, the Delaware, spots the glint of Confederate muskets on the bluff and the flotilla withdraws with nothing worse than the Delaware’s low guards, wheel house and masts riddled with bullets. This night the citizens of Winton celebrate, believing they’ve routed the foe, but the Federal flotilla will return in the morning, pulverize the Confederate positions from midstream, then loot and burn the town.
A skirmish at West Plains, Missouri, marks the day.
In a transparent effort to undermine General McClellan, the Federal Secretary of War Edwin Stanton writes in the New York Tribune: “Battles are to be won, now, and by us, in the same and only manner that they were ever won by any people since the days of Joshua—by boldly pursuing and striking the foe.”
President Davis writes General Joseph E. Johnston that “Events have cast our arms and our hopes the gloomiest shadows, and at such a time we must show redoubled energy and resolution.” He summons the general to a day-long strategy meeting with the president and Cabinet. All the news is bad—the recent fall of Roanoke Island on the North Carolina coast has made possible a Federal attack against the important Confederate base at Norfolk, Virginia; in Tennessee, Davis’s favorite general, Albert Sydney Johnston, is in full retreat after the loss of Forts Henry and Donelson; these reverses have dimmed Confederate hopes for British recognition and Royal Navy help in breaking the Federal blockade. General Johnston brings more bad news to the meeting, saying that his position around Manassas will soon become untenable, the good spring weather will dry the muddy roads and make it possible for McClellan to attack with superior forces. He recommends a withdrawal to the south as soon as the roads are solid enough to bear artillery. When Davis asks how far, Johnston says he doesn’t know yet because he is unfamiliar with the topography to his rear. Although Davis doesn’t dispute the recommendation for withdrawal, he will later call Johnston’s ignorance of the terrain “inexplicable on any other theory than that he had neglected the primary duty of a commander.”
Johnston’s determination to withdraw is reinforced when he returns to his Richmond hotel after the meeting only to find that the lobby is humming with word of the withdrawal, and again on the train back to Centreville. But the withdrawal will be a mammoth task—mountains of baggage have accumulated there; over Johnston’s protests, the Confederate commissary department has stockpiled twice the rations he wanted; and a meat-packing plant has even been built at Thoroughfare Gap, northwest of Manassas, where more than two million pounds of bacon and salt beef are now piled up dangerously close to enemy lines. Because horse-drawn wagons soon bog down in the winter mud, Johnston has to rely on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad to move nearly everything south. The railroad has only a single track and practically no sidings, and traffic soon becomes so snarled that some trains require 36 hours to crawl the 60 miles from Manassas south to the junction at Gordonsville.
Meanwhile, the new Confederate Congress counts the electoral vote and orders the release of two thousand Federal prisoners of war.
Federal forces of General C.F. Smith from Grant’s command occupy Clarksville, Tennessee. While Grant is looking toward Nashville there is an inter-army squabble brewing. Grant’s men are accused of entering the territory of General Don Carlos Buell, who also is advancing slowly south toward Nashville from the Bowling Green, Kentucky, area.
In New Mexico Territory, Confederate General Sibley has decided that rather than directly attack Fort Craig, deciding it is too strong, he will cross to the east bank of the Rio Grande and bypass the fort, then recross the river six miles north at Valverde—from there he can follow an almost straight track paralleling the Rio Grande to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, leaving Fort Craig isolated with its supply line to the north cut. This move has been delayed two days by a sandstorm, but now the Confederates cross to the east side of the Rio Grande and move to bypass the fort.
In North Carolina, General Burnside’s Federal expedition continues mopping up after its capture of Roanoke Island. Today Commander Rowan leads eight gunboats carrying 1,000 troops up the Chowan River toward the village of Winton, intending to destroy two railroad bridges and contact the powerful faction of pro-Unionists rumored to be in the area. The Confederates have anticipated the attack and secreted a four-gun battery, backed by a battalion of Volunteers, on a bluff overlooking the village. Down at the village below a slave has been instructed by her master to wave a handkerchief as if to indicate that the town is undefended and safe to enter. The ploy almost works, but at the last moment Colonel Hawkins up in the rigging of Rowan’s flagship, the Delaware, spots the glint of Confederate muskets on the bluff and the flotilla withdraws with nothing worse than the Delaware’s low guards, wheel house and masts riddled with bullets. This night the citizens of Winton celebrate, believing they’ve routed the foe, but the Federal flotilla will return in the morning, pulverize the Confederate positions from midstream, then loot and burn the town.
A skirmish at West Plains, Missouri, marks the day.
In a transparent effort to undermine General McClellan, the Federal Secretary of War Edwin Stanton writes in the New York Tribune: “Battles are to be won, now, and by us, in the same and only manner that they were ever won by any people since the days of Joshua—by boldly pursuing and striking the foe.”
President Davis writes General Joseph E. Johnston that “Events have cast our arms and our hopes the gloomiest shadows, and at such a time we must show redoubled energy and resolution.” He summons the general to a day-long strategy meeting with the president and Cabinet. All the news is bad—the recent fall of Roanoke Island on the North Carolina coast has made possible a Federal attack against the important Confederate base at Norfolk, Virginia; in Tennessee, Davis’s favorite general, Albert Sydney Johnston, is in full retreat after the loss of Forts Henry and Donelson; these reverses have dimmed Confederate hopes for British recognition and Royal Navy help in breaking the Federal blockade. General Johnston brings more bad news to the meeting, saying that his position around Manassas will soon become untenable, the good spring weather will dry the muddy roads and make it possible for McClellan to attack with superior forces. He recommends a withdrawal to the south as soon as the roads are solid enough to bear artillery. When Davis asks how far, Johnston says he doesn’t know yet because he is unfamiliar with the topography to his rear. Although Davis doesn’t dispute the recommendation for withdrawal, he will later call Johnston’s ignorance of the terrain “inexplicable on any other theory than that he had neglected the primary duty of a commander.”
Johnston’s determination to withdraw is reinforced when he returns to his Richmond hotel after the meeting only to find that the lobby is humming with word of the withdrawal, and again on the train back to Centreville. But the withdrawal will be a mammoth task—mountains of baggage have accumulated there; over Johnston’s protests, the Confederate commissary department has stockpiled twice the rations he wanted; and a meat-packing plant has even been built at Thoroughfare Gap, northwest of Manassas, where more than two million pounds of bacon and salt beef are now piled up dangerously close to enemy lines. Because horse-drawn wagons soon bog down in the winter mud, Johnston has to rely on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad to move nearly everything south. The railroad has only a single track and practically no sidings, and traffic soon becomes so snarled that some trains require 36 hours to crawl the 60 miles from Manassas south to the junction at Gordonsville.
Meanwhile, the new Confederate Congress counts the electoral vote and orders the release of two thousand Federal prisoners of war.
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke
—Edmund Burke