Civil War Archives - Page 2 of 4

Today In Western History: The Battle of Shiloh

Posted on April 6, 2016March 2, 2016 by larry

April 06 —

One of the most confusing aspects of studying Civil War Battles and engage-ments is the frustrating tendency for a single event to have two names. The most common example is the name of the war itself: In the North, it is often referred to as the “War of The Rebellion”, or “The War For the Union, while the South refers to it as ‘The War Of Northern Aggression”.

The reason for this multiplicity of names is that Northern soldiers were more often than not from cities or urbanized areas, so they were impressed with the geography of the south, the mountains, valleys and streams and abundant rivers. Finding themselves in unfamiliar locations, they named many of their battles after these natural local and distinguishable features. For the Confed-erate soldiers, most of whom were quite familiar with the rural, and natural terrain, towns and buildings were more memorable, and in the south many of the same battles were referred to after the man-made structures they saw around them.

The Civil War explodes in, what was at that time called the west, today in 1862, as armies of Union General Ulysses S. Grant and his adversary, Confederate

General Albert Sidney Johnston collide at Shiloh, near Pittsburgh Landing in

Tennessee. The Battle of Shiloh, as it was called in the North, (or the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing, as it was known in the South) became one of the bloodiest engagements of the war, and the level of violence shocked North and South alike.

For six months, Yankee troops had been working their way up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Kentucky was firmly in Union hands, and now the Federals controlled much of Tennessee, including the capital at Nashville. Grant scored major victories at Forts Henry and Donelson in February, forc-ing Johnston to gather the scattered Rebel forces at Corinth in northern Mississippi. Grant brought his army, 42,000 strong, with plans to rendezvous with General Don Carlos Buell and his 20,000 troops. Grant’s objective was to

sieze Corinth, a vital rail center that if captured would give the Union total control of the region. Twenty miles away, Johnston was sitting at Corinth with 45,000 soldiers. Johnston did not wait for Grant and Buell to combine their forces. He advanced on April 3, delayed by rains and muddy roads that also slowed Buell. In the early dawn of April 6, a Yankee patrol found the Confed-erates poised for battle just a mile from the main Union army. Johnston attacked, driving the surprised bluecoats back near a small church called Shiloh, meaning “place of peace.” Throughout the day, the Confederates battered the Union army, driving it back towards Pittsburgh Landing and threatening to trap it against the Tennessee River. Many troops on both sides had no experience in battle. The chances for a complete Confederate victory diminished as troops from Buell’s army began arriving, and Grant’s command on the battlefield shored up the sagging Union line. In the middle of the after-noon, Johnston rode forward to direct the Confederate attack and was struck in the back of the knee by a bullet, severing an artery and causing him to very quickly bleed to death. The ball severed an artery, and Johnston quickly bled to death. He would become the highest ranking general on either side killed during the war. General Pierre G. T. Beauregard assumed control, and he

Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

halted the advance at nightfall. The Union army was driven back two miles, but it did not break. The arrival of additional troops from Buell’s army provided Grant with reinforcements, while the Confederates were worn out from their march. The next day, Grant pushed the Confederates back to Corinth for a major Union victory.

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Today In Western History: Richmond Falls

Posted on April 3, 2016March 2, 2016 by larry

April 3

Today in 1865, the Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia, falls to the Union, the most significant sign that the Confederacy is nearing its final days. In fact, there are only six days left.

For ten months, General Ulysses S. Grant had tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate

the city. After Lee made a desperate attack against Fort Stedman along the Union line on March 25, Grant prepared for a major offensive. He struck at Five Forks on April 1, crushing the end of Lee’s line southwest of Petersburg. On April 2, the Yankees struck all along the Petersburg line, and finally the exhausted Confederates collapsed under the weight of Grant’s extended front.

On the evening of April 2, the Confederate government fled the city with the army right behind. Now, on the morning of April 3, blue-coated troops entered the capital. Richmond was the holy grail of the Union war effort, the object of four years of campaigning. Tens of thousands of Yankee lives were lost trying to get it, and nearly as many Confederate lives lost trying to defend it. Now, the Yankees came to take possession of their prize. One resident, Mary Fontaine, wrote, “I saw them unfurl a tiny flag, and I sank on my knees, and the bitter, bitter tears came in a torrent.” Another observer wrote that as the Federals rode in, the city’s black residents were “completely crazed, they danced and shouted, men hugged each other, and women kissed.” Among the first forces into the capital were black troopers from the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, and the next day President Abraham Lincoln visited the city. For the residents of Richmond, these were symbols of a world turned upside down. It was, one reporter noted, “…too awful to remember, if it were possible to be erased, but that cannot be.”

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Today In Western History: Richmond Falls

Posted on April 2, 2016March 1, 2016 by larry

Today, in 1865, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant finally capture the trenches around Petersburg,

Virginia, after a dreary ten-month siege and Confederate General Robert E. Lee leads his troops on a desperate retreat westward.

Robert E. Lee, General CSA, Hero of the Confederacy

The ragged Confederate troops could no longer maintain the 40-mile network of defenses that ran from southwest of Petersburg to north of Richmond, the Rebel capital 25 miles north of Petersburg. Through the long winter, desertion and attrition melted Lee’s army down to less than 60,000, while Grant’s army swelled to over 120,000. Grant attacked Five Forks southwest of Petersburg on April 1, scoring a huge victory that cut Lee’s supply line and inflicted 5,000 casualties on the already thin lines. The next day, Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, “I think it absolutely necessary that we should

Jefferson Davis, President of the CSA — Jefferson Davis, First and Only President of the CSA

abandon our position tonight…” Davis began to pack the Government files.

Grant’s men attacked all along the Petersburg front. In the predawn hours, hundreds of Federal can-non roared to life as the Yankees bombarded the Rebel fortifications. Said one soldier, “the shells screamed through the air in a semi-circle of flame.” At 5:00 in the morning, Union troops silently crawled toward the Confederates, shrouded in darkness. Confederate pickets alerted the troops, and the Yankees were raked by heavy fire, but the determined troops poured forth and began over-running the trenches. Four thousand Union troops were killed or wounded, but a northern officer wrote, “It was a great relief, a positive lifting of a load of misery to be at last let at them.”

Confederate General Ambrose Powell Hill, a corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia and one of Lee’s most trusted lieutenants, rode to the front to rally his men. As he approached some trees with his aide, two Union soldiers emerged and fired, killing Hill instantly. Hill had survived four years of war and dozens of battles only to die during the final days of the Confederacy. When Lee received the news, he quietly said, “He is at rest now, and we who are left are the ones to suffer.”

By nightfall, President Davis and the Confederate government were in flight and Richmond was on fire. Retreating Rebel troops set ablaze several huge warehouses to prevent them from being captured by the Federals and the fires soon spread. With the army and government officials gone, bands of thugs roamed the streets looting what was left.

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Today In Western History: General Lee’s Supply Line Is Closed

Posted on April 1, 2016March 1, 2016 by larry

April 01 —

Confederate General Robert E. Lee‘s supply line into Petersburg, Virginia, is closed when Union forces

under General Ulysses S. Grant collapse the end of Lee’s lines around Petersburg. The Confederates

suffer heavy casualties, and the battle triggered Lee’s retreat from Petersburg as the two armies began a race that would end a week later at Appomattox Court House.

For nearly a year, Grant had laid siege to Lee’s army in an elaborate network of trenches that ran from Petersburg to the Confederate capital at Richmond, 25 miles north. Lee’s hungry army slowly dwindled through the winter of 1864-65 as Grant’s army swelled with well-fed reinforcements. On March 25, Lee attacked part of the Union trenches at Fort Stedman in a desperate attempt to break the siege and split Grant’s force. When that attack failed, Grant immediately began mobilizing his forces along the entire 40-mile front. Southwest of Petersburg, Grant sent General Philip Sheridan against Lee’s right flank.

Sheridan moved forward on March 31, but the tough Confederates halted his advance. Sheridan moved troops to cut the railroad that ran from the southwest into Petersburg, but the focus of the battle became Five Forks, a road intersection that provided the key to Lee’s supply line. General Lee told his commander there, General George Pickett, to “Hold Five Forks at all hazards.” On April 1, Sheridan’s

CSA General George Pickett, sartorial dandy and lowest in his class at West Point,

men slammed into Pickett’s troops. Pickett had his force poorly positioned, and he was taking a long lunch with his staff when the attack occurred. General Gouverneur K. Warren’s V Corps supported

Sheridan, and the 27,000 Yankee troops soon crushed Pickett’s command of 10,000. The Union suffered 1,000 casualties, but nearly 5,000 of Pickett’s men were killed, wounded, or captured. During the battle, Sheridan, with the approval of Grant, removed Warren from command despite Warren’s effective deployment of his troops. It appears that a long-simmering feud between the two was the cause, but Warren was not officially cleared of any wrongdoing by a court of inquiry until 1882.

The vital intersection was in Union hands, and Lee’s supply line was cut. Grant now attacked all along the Petersburg-Richmond front and Lee evacuated the cities. The two armies began a race west, but Lee could not outrun Grant. The Confederate leader surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9.

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Today In Western History: Sheridan Closes In

Posted on March 31, 2016February 29, 2016 by larry

On this day in 1865, the final offensive of the Army of the Potomac gathers steam when Union General Philip Sheridan moves against the left flank of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern

Virginia near Dinwiddie Court House. The limited level action set the stage for the Battle of Five Forks, Virginia, on April 1. This engagement took place at the end of the Petersburg, Virginia, line. For 10 months, the Union had laid siege to Lee’s army at Petersburg, but the trenches stretched all the way to Richmond, some 25 miles to the north. Lee’s thinning army attacked Fort Stedman on March 25 in a futile attempt to break the siege, but the Union line held. On March 29, General Ulysses S. Grant,

General-in-Chief of the Union Army and the field commander around Petersburg, began moving his men past the western end of Lee’s line.

Torrential rains threatened to delay the move as. Grant had planned to send Sheridan against the Confederates on March 31, but called off the operation. Sheridan would not be denied a chance to fight, though. “I am ready to strike out tomorrow and go to smashing things!” he told his officers. They en-couraged him to meet with Grant, who consented to begin the move. Near Dinwiddie Court House, Sheridan advanced but was driven back by General George Pickett’s division. Pickett was alerted to the

Union advance, and during the night of March 31, he pulled his men back to Five Forks. This set the stage for a major strike by Sheridan on April 1, when the Yankees crushed the Rebel flank and forced Lee to evacuate Richmond and Petersburg. The Rebel Confederacy had only a week left to live.

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Today In Western History: Samuel Maxey Is Born

Posted on March 30, 2016February 29, 2016 by larry

March 30 —

On this day in 1825, Confederate General Samuel Maxey is born in Tompkinsville, Kentucky.

During the Civil War, Maxey served in the West and led Native Americans troops in Indian Territory. Maxey attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and graduated in 1846, second to last in a class of 59. He was sent immediately to fight in the Mexican War (1846-48). Although he did well there and fought at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, Maxey resigned his commission after the war to study law in Kentucky. In 1857, he moved to Texas and became active in politics. When the war began, he raised a regiment, the 9th Texas Infantry, and took his unit to fight in Mississippi. Maxey was promoted to brigadier general in March 1862 and his force participated in the Vicksburg campaign before aiding in the defense of Port Hudson, Louisiana. He avoided capture when those locations fell into Union hands, and was sent to assist in the Confederate siege of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in September 1863.

While there, Maxey received a promotion to commander of Indian Territory. In 1864, he worked to recruit and train members of the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw tribes. On April 18, 1864, troops under Maxey’s command attacked a Union wagon train at Poison Spring, Arkansas. They routed the federal force, which was led by the 1st Kansas Colored Regiment. Maxey’s men proceeded to kill all black soldiers who were wounded or captured.

After the war, Maxey continued to support his Native American friends when he served in the U.S. Senate and was an outspoken advocate of Indian rights. He died in 1895.

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Today In Western History: The End of the War Begins

Posted on March 29, 2016February 28, 2016 by larry

Today in 1865, with the end in sight, the final campaign of the Civil War begins in Virginia when Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant begin to move against the Confederate trenches built around

Petersburg. General Robert E. Lee’s outnumbered Rebels were soon forced to evacuate the city and

begin a desperate race to escape to the west.

Eleven months earlier, Grant had moved his army across the Rapidan River in northern Virginia and began the bloodiest campaign of the war. For six weeks, Lee and Grant fought along an arc that swung east of the Confederate capital at Richmond. They engaged in some of the conflict’s bloodiest battles at Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor before settling into trenches for a siege of Petersburg, 25 miles south of Richmond. The fighting in the Wilderness and at Cold Harbor had earned Grant the uneviable nickname of “Butcher” as a result of the heavy casualties. Years later, Grant said that fight was a mistake. The trenches eventually stretched all the way to Richmond, and during the ensuing months the armies glowered at each other across a no man’s land. From time to time, Grant would launch attacks against sections of the Rebel defenses, but Lee’s men always managed to fend them off.

Time was running out for Lee, though, and he knew it. His army was dwindling in size to about 55,000, due to illness, soldiers not coming back from leave, and even mass desertions as the men could see the handwriting on the wall. On the other side of the trenches, Grant’s army continued to grow–the Army of the Potomac now had more than 125,000 men ready for service. On March 25, Lee attempted to split the Union lines when he attacked Fort Stedman, a stronghold along the Yankee trenches. His army was beaten back, and he lost nearly 5,000 men. On March 29, Grant seized the initiative, sending 12,000 men past the Confederates’ left flank and threatening to cut Lee’s escape route from Petersburg. Fight-ing broke out there, several miles southwest of the city. Lee’s men simply were not enought, in number or strength, to stop the Federal advance. On April 1, the Yankees struck at Five Forks, soundly defeat-ing the Rebels and leaving Lee no viable alternative. He pulled his forces from their trenches and raced west, followed by Grant. It was a race that even the great Lee could not win. Upon learning there were boxcars on a railroad siding that held the rations his men so desperately needed to go on, he fled to Danville. When he got there, the boxcars were there as well, but due to a mixup of instructions in the war Department, all they held was ammunition. Lee knew it was over, and there was no reason to sacrifice his men any further. He surrendered his army on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.

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Today In Western History: The Battle of Glorieta Pass

Posted on March 28, 2016February 28, 2016 by larry

On this day in 1862, Union forces stop the Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory when they turn the Rebels back at Glorieta Pass.

This action was part of the broader movement by the Confederates to capture New Mexico and other parts of the West. This would secure territory that the Rebels thought was rightfully theirs but had been denied them by political compromises made before the Civil War. The cash-strapped Confed-eracy was planning on using the wealth from the Western mines to fill its treasury. From San Antonio, the Rebels moved into southern New Mexico (which included Arizona at the time) and captured the towns of Mesilla, Donna Ana and Tucson. General Henry H. Sibley, with 3,000 troops, now moved north

General Henry Hopkins SIbley, CSA — General Henry Hopkins Sibley, CSA, and inventor of the Sibley Army tent

against the Federal stronghold at Fort Craig on the Rio Grande. Sibley’s force collided with Union troops at Valverde near Fort Craig on February 21, but the Yankees were unable to stop the invasion. Sibley left parts of his army to occupy Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and the rest of the troops headed east of Santa Fe along the Pecos River. Their next target was the Union garrison at Fort Union, an out-post on the other side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. At Pigeon’s Ranch near Glorieta Pass, they encountered a Yankee force of 1,300 Colorado volunteers under Colonel John Slough. The battle began in late morning, and the Federal force was thrown back before taking cover among the adobe buildings of Pigeon’s Ranch. A Confederate attack late in the afternoon pushed the Union troops further down the pass, but nightfall halted the advance. Union troops snatched victory from the jaws of defeat when Major John Chivington led an attack on the Confederate supply train, burning 90 wagons and killing 800 animals. With their supplies destroyed, the Confederates had to withdraw to Santa Fe. They lost 36 men killed, 70 wounded, and 25 captured. The Union army lost 38 killed, 64 wounded, and 20 men captured. After a week in Santa Fe, the Rebels withdrew down the Rio Grande. By June, the Yankees controlled New Mexico again, and the Confederates did not return for the rest of the war.

The hero of this attack, Major John Chivington will lose his laurels in just two years, when he leads a

Major John Chivingon, a hero at Glorieta Pass and a disgrace at Sand creek.

surprise morning raid on a band of “tame” – or non-aggressive — Indians who were camped under a United States flag of peace, at Sand Creek, Colorado, in a massacre that to this day is one of the most infamous acts of war on a peaceful people.

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Posted on March 26, 2016February 28, 2016 by larry

Today in 1864, General James B. McPherson assumes command of the Union Army of the Tennessee

US General James B. McPherson, the highest ranking Union General killed in combat on July 22, 1864.

after William T. Sherman is promoted to the rank of commander of the Division of the Mississippi, and becomes the overall leader in the West.

McPherson was born in Ohio in 1828 and graduated first in his class from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1853. He joined the Army’s engineering corps as a second lieutenant, and spent the pre-war years in New York City and Alcatraz Island in California. When the Civil War began, McPherson was transferred to the East and promoted to captain. Yearning for combat, he was disappointed when he was assigned to command the forts of Boston Harbor. McPherson contacted General Henry Halleck,

General Henry W. ("Old Brains") Halleck — General Henry W. (“Old Brains”) Halleck

commander of the Department of the Missouri and a former acquaintance in California, who summon-ed him to St. Louis. In Missouri, McPherson helped set up recruiting stations and inspected defenses.

McPherson was transferred to General Ulysses S. Grant’s command on February 1, 1862, just as Grant

was launching an expedition against forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee. McPherson’s work in analyzing the defenses of Fort Donelson earned him the respect of Grant, and McPherson’s star rose rapidly after the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee in April 1862. McPherson fought with distinction, and was promoted to colonel. Two weeks later, he became a brigadier general. After his actions at the Battle of Corinth, Mississippi, in October 1862, McPherson was again promoted, this time to major general. In December, he capped a successful year by taking command of the XVII Corps in Grant’s Army of the Tennessee.

McPherson served as a corps commander throughout 1863, quite ably leading his men at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Grant’s promotion to general-in-chief of all Union forces created a chain reaction of promotions. Grant left for Washington, D.C., and Sherman assumed com-mand in the West, while McPherson inherited the Army of the Tennessee. This force was not an independent command, as it was one of three armies under Sherman’s leadership during the Atlanta campaign of 1864. When the campaign reached Atlanta in July 1864 after three hard months of fighting, McPherson was charged with attacking Confederate forces on the northeast side of the city. At the Battle of Peachtree Creek on July 22, McPherson was directing operations when he and his staff emerged from a grove of trees directly in front of the Confederate line. They were ordered to surrender but McPherson turned his horse and attempted to escape. He was mortally wounded, becoming the highest-ranking Union general killed in the war.

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Today In Western History: A. E. Burnside Gets A Patent

Posted on March 25, 2016February 28, 2016 by larry

On this date in 1856, Mr. A. E. Burnside obtains a patent for his new and improved military carbine.

What makes this rifle revolutionary is that it is a breech-loading model. The user opened the breech block for loading a cartridge simply by first pressing the weapon’s two trigger guards and then insert-ing a special brass cartridge, also invented by Burnside, to go into his new carbine. Whenever the user squeezed the trigger, the hammer fell on a percussion cap (self contained metal cartridges would not be invented for several years) and caused a spark; a hole in the base of the cartridge exposed the black powder to this spark. The unique, cone-shaped cartridge sealed the joint between the barrel and the breech. Most other breech-loading weapons of the day tended to leak hot gas when fired, but Burnside’s design had effectively eliminated this problem.

In 1857, the Burnside carbine won a competition at West Point against 17 other carbine designs that were vying for a contract to supply arms for the military. In spite of its proven superiority, few of the carbines were immediately ordered by the government. But then something happened that changed the fortunes of the company, and of the rifle’s creator. What happened? The Civil War happened. When the war opened, there was a sudden need for a great increase in the standing army, as many of the men left the Union Army to join the rebel army. But what were these new soldiers to shoot? The War Department decided to order 55,000 rifles for use by Union cavalrymen. This made it the third most popular carbine of the Civil War; with only the Sharps carbine and the Spencer carbine being more widely used in all theaters of the war. There were so many in service that many were captured and used by Confederates. A common complaint made by most of the men who used the Burnside carbine was that the unusually shaped cartridge sometimes became stuck in the breech after firing.

A review of both the ordnance returns (arms returned to the Army after the war or at other times) and the schedule of ammunition requisitions indicates that approximately 43 Union cavalry – as well as at least seven Confederate cavalry — regiments were using the Burnside carbine during the 1863-1864 period. The end of the war saw the end of production of the Burnside rifle, when the Burnside Rifle Company was given a contract to make Spencer carbines instead.

And what of the inventor? What happened to his career? Despite his being in the Army prior to the war, he had resigned to focus his energy on his new company, A. E. Burnside gained his promotions because of his carbine. A. E. Burnside, Ambrose E. Burnside, to give his name in full, was actually a military failure due to his lack of confidence in his skills. He had repeatedly turned down command of the Army of the Potomac when President Lincoln pushed the job on him, telling the President “I was not competent to command such a large army as this. Eventually, however, Burnside gave up refusing and accepted the command. He immediately led the Army of the Potomac to defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg. The battle and the subsequent abortive offensive left many of Burnside’s officers en-raged and they eloquently and loudly expressed their rage to both the White House and the War Department about Burnside’s incompetence.” He also performed poorly at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, and a subsequent court of inquiry also found him responsible for the Union failure at the Battle of the Crater.

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Tag: Civil War

Today In Western History: The Battle of Shiloh

Today In Western History: Richmond Falls

Today In Western History: Richmond Falls

Today In Western History: General Lee’s Supply Line Is Closed

Today In Western History: Sheridan Closes In

Today In Western History: Samuel Maxey Is Born

Today In Western History: The End of the War Begins

Today In Western History: The Battle of Glorieta Pass

Today In Western History: A. E. Burnside Gets A Patent