- 05 May 2021 13:42
#15170878
May 6, Wednesday
Lee’s victorious Confederates cautiously advance in the Wilderness, only to find Hooker has withdrawn during the night before and in the morning. Hooker informs Washington of his movements and Lincoln gains further knowledge by reading Richmond newspapers. In the morning he wires Hooker, “God bless you, and all with you. I know you will do your best.” Late in the afternoon President Lincoln and Halleck leave to meet Hooker. On the Confederate side, A.P. Hill is assigned to command the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, replacing the wounded Jackson.
On the Red River in Louisiana, Porter’s Federal flotilla occupies Alexandria, which the Confederates have just evacuated. There are skirmishes at Warrenton, Virginia, and West Union, West Virginia. A Federal expedition operates from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to the Tennessee state line. Federals scout between the White and St. Francis rivers in Arkansas until the fifteenth; and until the nineteenth from Creek Agency, Indian Territory, to Jasper County, Missouri. During the latter scout skirmishes break out at Martin’s House, Centre Creek, and near Sherwood, which is destroyed.
Former congressman and Peace Democrat Clement L. Vallandigham, arrested yesterday, is tried by a military commission in Cincinnati. He is convicted of expressing treasonable sympathies. In speeches at Columbus and Mount Vernon, Vallandigham has called the war “wicked and cruel” and declared that it is an attempt to destroy slavery in order to establish a Republican dictatorship. He has long been a thorn in the side of the Administration, but now his arrest and conviction presents real problems to Washington.
When the Keokuk sank the day after the April 7 assault on Charleston Harbor by the US Navy, the Union made no plans to refloat her. Surveyed within days, the official report described her as already “full of sand, impossible at that time to put the magazine of powder below her decks” to destroy her. Determined beyond salvage or destruction, she was left where she lay. The Union had a more than ample supply of Dahlgrens, so no plans were made to recover the guns.
The Confederates hadn’t been informed of the hopelessness of a salvage operation, and they needed the cannons. General Beauregard decided to try to retrieve them. After working a few hours a night over several weeks, the decks of Keokuk’s citadels had been removed, exposing the guns, now released from their carriages. To remove them, the old lightship Rattlesnake Shoals was modified with outriggers and block and tackle over her bow. One night in late April—no records will survive to give exact dates for most of the entire operation—the Rattlesnake Shoals was towed into place and anchored to the wreck, and workers tied off the first Dahlgren. Once secured, men hoisted away. Slowly, the gun came up out of the water, muzzle down—and got stuck. The outriggers on the lightship were too low to lift the gun above the citadel. It dangled from the tackle block, its muzzle clanging inside the armored housing like a huge bell clapper. Men inside rushed to stop the thunderous reports of metal on metal, all the while staying out of the way of the nearly 16,000-pound pendulum. Now, racing against time as the eastern horizon grew brighter, the men shifted 1,500 sandbags that had been added for ballast to the lightship’s stern. The change in trim, coupled with the rising tide, lifted the bow, allowing just enough space for the gun’s muzzle to clear the wreck and swing free. Keeping an eye to the horizon and the endless line of Union warships on the blockade, the salvage crew lashed the gun to the deck as the ship headed for the safety of the harbor. The first gun delivered to the safety of Charleston, three nights later salvage crews returned for the second. The mission had been carried out in such secrecy that the Union Fleet’s first inkling of it comes from a piece on it in today’s edition of the Charleston Mercury, well after both guns are safely ashore. Secretary Welles sends an angry letter to the commander of the Federal South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Rear Admiral Du Pont, blaming him for neglecting “the duty of destroying the Keokuk and preventing her guns from falling into the hands of the rebels.”
From Nashville a group of allegedly disloyal citizens are sent into Confederate lines.
Lee’s victorious Confederates cautiously advance in the Wilderness, only to find Hooker has withdrawn during the night before and in the morning. Hooker informs Washington of his movements and Lincoln gains further knowledge by reading Richmond newspapers. In the morning he wires Hooker, “God bless you, and all with you. I know you will do your best.” Late in the afternoon President Lincoln and Halleck leave to meet Hooker. On the Confederate side, A.P. Hill is assigned to command the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, replacing the wounded Jackson.
On the Red River in Louisiana, Porter’s Federal flotilla occupies Alexandria, which the Confederates have just evacuated. There are skirmishes at Warrenton, Virginia, and West Union, West Virginia. A Federal expedition operates from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to the Tennessee state line. Federals scout between the White and St. Francis rivers in Arkansas until the fifteenth; and until the nineteenth from Creek Agency, Indian Territory, to Jasper County, Missouri. During the latter scout skirmishes break out at Martin’s House, Centre Creek, and near Sherwood, which is destroyed.
Former congressman and Peace Democrat Clement L. Vallandigham, arrested yesterday, is tried by a military commission in Cincinnati. He is convicted of expressing treasonable sympathies. In speeches at Columbus and Mount Vernon, Vallandigham has called the war “wicked and cruel” and declared that it is an attempt to destroy slavery in order to establish a Republican dictatorship. He has long been a thorn in the side of the Administration, but now his arrest and conviction presents real problems to Washington.
When the Keokuk sank the day after the April 7 assault on Charleston Harbor by the US Navy, the Union made no plans to refloat her. Surveyed within days, the official report described her as already “full of sand, impossible at that time to put the magazine of powder below her decks” to destroy her. Determined beyond salvage or destruction, she was left where she lay. The Union had a more than ample supply of Dahlgrens, so no plans were made to recover the guns.
The Confederates hadn’t been informed of the hopelessness of a salvage operation, and they needed the cannons. General Beauregard decided to try to retrieve them. After working a few hours a night over several weeks, the decks of Keokuk’s citadels had been removed, exposing the guns, now released from their carriages. To remove them, the old lightship Rattlesnake Shoals was modified with outriggers and block and tackle over her bow. One night in late April—no records will survive to give exact dates for most of the entire operation—the Rattlesnake Shoals was towed into place and anchored to the wreck, and workers tied off the first Dahlgren. Once secured, men hoisted away. Slowly, the gun came up out of the water, muzzle down—and got stuck. The outriggers on the lightship were too low to lift the gun above the citadel. It dangled from the tackle block, its muzzle clanging inside the armored housing like a huge bell clapper. Men inside rushed to stop the thunderous reports of metal on metal, all the while staying out of the way of the nearly 16,000-pound pendulum. Now, racing against time as the eastern horizon grew brighter, the men shifted 1,500 sandbags that had been added for ballast to the lightship’s stern. The change in trim, coupled with the rising tide, lifted the bow, allowing just enough space for the gun’s muzzle to clear the wreck and swing free. Keeping an eye to the horizon and the endless line of Union warships on the blockade, the salvage crew lashed the gun to the deck as the ship headed for the safety of the harbor. The first gun delivered to the safety of Charleston, three nights later salvage crews returned for the second. The mission had been carried out in such secrecy that the Union Fleet’s first inkling of it comes from a piece on it in today’s edition of the Charleston Mercury, well after both guns are safely ashore. Secretary Welles sends an angry letter to the commander of the Federal South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Rear Admiral Du Pont, blaming him for neglecting “the duty of destroying the Keokuk and preventing her guns from falling into the hands of the rebels.”
From Nashville a group of allegedly disloyal citizens are sent into Confederate lines.
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