Civil War Archives - Page 3 of 4

Today In Western History: Stonewall Loses A Fight

Posted on March 23, 2016February 28, 2016 by larry

Today in 1862, at the First Battle of Kernstown, Virginia, Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson suffers a rare defeat when his attack on Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley fails.

Jackson was trying to prevent Union General Nathaniel Banks from sending any troops from the Shenandoah to General George McClellan’s army near Washington, D.C. McClellan was preparing to

send his massive army by water to the James Peninsula southeast of Richmond, Virginia, for a summer campaign against the Confederate capital. When Turner Ashby, Jackson’s able cavalry commander,

CSA Col., and Stonewall Jackson's favorite cavalry commander. — CSA Col., and Stonewall Jackson’s favorite cavalry commander.

detected that Yankee troops were moving out of the valley, Jackson decided to attack and keep the Union forces divided. Ashby attacked at Kernstown on March 22. He reported to Jackson that only four Union regiments were present–perhaps 3,000 men. In fact, Union commander James Shields actually had 9,000 men at Kernstown but kept most of them hidden during the skirmishing on March 22. The rest of Jackson’s force arrived the next day, giving the Confederates about 4,000 men. The 23rd was a Sunday, and the religious Jackson tried not to fight on the Sabbath. The Yankees could see his deploy-ment, though, so Jackson chose to attack that very afternoon. He struck the Union left flank, but the Federals moved troops into place to stop the Rebel advance. At a critical juncture, Richard Garnett

withdrew his Confederate brigade due to a shortage of ammunition, and this exposed another brigade to a Union attack. The Northern troops poured in, sending Jackson’s entire force in retreat.

Jackson’s troop losses included some 80 killed, 375 wounded, and 260 missing or captured, while the Union lost 118 dead, 450 wounded, and 22 missing. Despite the defeat, the battle had positive results for the Confederates. Unnerved by the attack, President Abraham Lincoln ordered McClellan to leave an entire corps to defend Washington, thus drawing troops from McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign. The battle was the opening of Jackson’s famous campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Over the following three months, Jackson’s men marched hundreds of miles, won several major battles, and kept three separate Union forces occupied in the Shenandoah.

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Today In Western History” Braxton Bragg Is Born

Posted on March 22, 2016March 4, 2016 by larry

March 22 —

On this day in 1817, Confederate General Braxton Bragg is born in Warrenton, North Carolina. Bragg

CSA General Braxton Bragg, President Davis's favorite and everyone else's headache. — CSA General Braxton Bragg, President Davis’s favorite and everyone else’s headache.

commanded the Army of Tennessee for 17 months, leading them to several defeats and losing most of the state of Tennessee to the Yankees.

Bragg graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1837, and went on to fight in the Seminole War of the 1830s and the Mexican War in 1846 and 1847. In Mexico, he earned three pro-motions but also managed to survived two assassination attempts by by his own soldiers. Bragg was temperamental and acerbic, a capable soldier but a difficult personality. These character flaws would later badly damage the Confederate war effort, as despite being a favorite of Jefferson Davis, Bragg fought with every other officer in the Confederate Army.

When the Civil War began, Bragg was appointed commander of the Gulf Coast defenses but he was quickly promoted to major general and then sent to join General Albert Sidney Johnston’s Army of

Tennessee. Bragg fought bravely at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862, leading attacks while having two horses shot out from under him. When Johnston was killed during the battle, Bragg became second in command to Pierre G. T. Beauregard. After Beauregard was forced to relinquish his command for

Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

health reasons, Confederate President Jefferson Davis turned to Bragg.

Bragg’s record as army commander was absolutely dismal. He marched northward in the fall of 1862 to regain Kentucky, but was turned back at the Battle of Perryville in October. On New Year’s Eve, Bragg clashed with the army of Union General William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River, Tennessee

US General William "Old Rosey" Rosecrans — US General William “Old Rosey” Rosecrans

where they fought to a standstill, but Bragg was forced to retreat and leave the Union in control of central Tennessee. Then, in the summer of 1863, Rosecrans totally outmaneuvered Bragg, backing the Confederates entirely out of the state. Only at Chickamauga, Georgia, in September did Bragg finally win a battle, but the victory came in spite of Bragg’s leadership rather than as a result of his leader-ship. Bragg followed up his single victory by pinning the Yankees in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Union forces, now led by General Ulysses S. Grant, broke the siege in November and nearly destroyed Bragg’s

army. Bragg was finished, having now alienated most of his generals and lost the confidence of his soldiers. He resigned his command and went to Richmond, Virginia, to be a military advisor to President Davis. Bragg fled southward with Davis at the end of the war but both men were captured in Georgia. Bragg was soon released, and worked as an engineer and a railroad executive before his death in 1876.

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Today In Western History: The Sanitary Commission Fair Closes

Posted on March 18, 2016February 20, 2016 by larry

On this day in 1864, the U.S. Sanitary Commission Fair in Washington, D.C., closes with President Abraham Lincoln commending the organization for its work on behalf of Union soldiers.

Established in 1861 as a federal government agency, the Sanitary Commission was responsible for coordinating the efforts of thousands of volunteers during the Civil War. The group’s workers raised some $25 million in donations and medical supplies; sent inspectors to military camps to oversee the establishment of clean water supplies, latrines, and cooking facilities; worked alongside doctors and nurses on the frontlines to help evacuate wounded troops; they sewed uniforms and blankets and even provided lodging and meals to injured soldiers returning home on furlough. Although the program was administered by men, the organization was made up primarily of female volunteers and represented a major contribution by Yankee women to the war effort.

Some generals and Army doctors found Sanitary Commission volunteers annoying and meddlesome, especially when they criticized the military’s medical practices, such as performing operations drunk or failing to clean their instruments between operations. One physician complained about what he saw as “sensation preachers, village doctors, and strong-minded women” interfering with his work and that of his colleagues. Prominent among the group’s members was the formidable and no-nonsense Mary Ann Bickerdyke, who became the commission’s agent to the Army of the Tennessee before the

Mary Ann Bickerdyke, known as "Mother Bickerdyke" for her care of the wounded soldiers — Mary Ann Bickerdyke, known as “Mother Bickerdyke” for her care of the common soldiers

Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. She quickly became known to all the soldiers as “Mother Bickerdyke”. Bickerdyke was dedicated to caring for common soldiers and she wasn’t afraid to challenge doctors and officers when she thought troop care was being compromised. At Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bickerdyke ordered timbers for breastworks burned to keep wounded soldiers warm. When military police asked her who had authorized the burning, she replied, “Under the authority of God Almighty. Have you got anything better than that?” At one point, some medical officers complained to General William Sherman about her but got nowhere, as Sherman just said in exasperation, “I can do nothing, she ranks me!” The Sanitary Commission’s work fit traditional roles for 19th-century American women as caretakers and nurturers of men. However, the group’s activities also enabled women to gain work experience outside the home, and in that way can be seen as a step forward for the women’s rights movement. At the closing of the March 1864 Sanitation Commission Fair, Lincoln stated: “If all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.”

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Today In Western History: The Battle of Kelly’s Ford

Posted on March 17, 2016February 20, 2016 by larry

On this day in 1863, Union cavalry attack Confederate cavalry at Kelly’s Ford, Virginia. The engageent proved that the Federal troopers could hold their own against their Rebel counterparts, despite their being pushed back and failing take any ground.

In the war’s first two years, the Union cavalry had fared poorly in combat, coming off a poor second to the Rebel horsemen. This was especially true in the Eastern theater, where Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart boasted an outstanding force comprised of excellent horsemen. On several occasions, Stuart

James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart, CSA General — James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, CSA General

embarrassed the Union cavalry with his daring exploits. During the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, Stuart rode around the entire 100,000-man Union army in just four days, to the great embarrassment of the union generals and President Lincoln. Later that year, he made a daring raid to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and returned unmolested to Virginia after capturing tons of much needed supplies and inflicting significant damage. In February 1863, a raid by General Fitzhugh Lee (son of Confederate

Gen. William Henry Fitzhugh "Fitz" Lee, son of Robert E. Lee — Gen. William Henry Fitzhugh “Fitz” Lee, son of Robert E. Lee

commander Robert E. Lee) also left the Federals running in circles in search of the enemy force. Now, in another change of commanders, General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker assumed command of the

USA General Joseph D. "Fighting Joe" Hooker — USA General Joseph D. “Fighting Joe” Hooker

Federal Army of the Potomac. He planned to bring an end to the Confederate raids by stopping Stuart’s cavalry. Hooker assigned General William Averell to attack the Rebel cavalry near Culpeper Court

House, Virginia. Averell assembled 3,000 men for the mission, but he left 900 more behind to protect against a rumored Confederate presence near Catlett’s Station. Averell led the rest of his men towards Kelly’s Ford, a crossing of the Rappahannock River east of Culpeper Court House. Fitzhugh Lee learned of the advance and positioned his cavalry brigade, which was part of Stuart’s corps, to block the ford and dig rifle pits above the river.

On the morning of March 17, Averell’s men reached Kelly’s Ford where they quickly found themselves under fire from 60 Confederate sharpshooters. It took only four attacks for Averell’s men to capture the rifle pits and by noon the entire force was across the Rappahannock. Now, Fitzhugh Lee arrived with 800 troopers and two pieces of artillery. As the Confederates approached, the cautious Averell ordered his men to form a defensive line, thus giving the initiative to the Confederates. Lee arrived and ordered his men to attack, but Yankee fire drove them back. He attacked again and was again repulsed. Averell had a chance to win the battle with a counterattack, but instead he withdrew across the Rappahannock River. He later defended his retreat by claiming the arrival of Stuart on the battlefield signaled the possible approach of additional Confederate cavalry.

Averell lost 78 men killed, wounded, and captured during the day’s fighting. The Confederates lost a total of 133 men. Among the Rebel dead was Major John Pelham, perhaps the best artillery officer in

CSA General John Pelham, the CSA's best artillery officer — CSA General John Pelham, the CSA’s best field artillery officer

the Confederate army. He happened to be visiting Stuart when the battle began, and rode forward to see the action. Pelham was mortally wounded by a shell splinter as he was observing the Confederate attacks in the afternoon. Although Kelly’s Ford was a tactical Union defeat, it signaled a new phase of the cavalry war in the East. The Yankees were closing the gap with the Confederate horsemen. In the next four months, the Union cavalry fought their Confederate counterparts to a standstill at Brandy Station, Virginia, and then scored a major victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The war was turning in favor of the Union.

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Today In Western History: Burnside Captures New Bern

Posted on March 14, 2016March 7, 2016 by larry

March 14 —

On this day in 1862, at the Battle of New Bern, Union General Ambrose Burnside captures North Carolina’s second largest city and closes

US General Ambrose E. Burnside (sideburns are named for him)

another port through which the Confederates could slip much needed supplies. The capture of New Bern continued Burnside’s success along the Carolina coast. Five weeks earlier, he led an amphibious force against Roanoke Island between Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. The Yankees captured the island on February 8; now Burnside moved against New Bern on the mainland. On March 13, he landed 12,000 troops along the Neuse River, 15 miles south of New Bern. Accompanied by 13 gunboats, Burnside’s army marched up river to face 4,000 Confed-erate troops commanded by General Lawrence O. Branch. The city was protected by extensive defenses, but Branch didn’t have enough

Lawrence O. Branch, Colonel, CSA — General Lawrence O. Branch, CSA

soldiers to properly staff them. He concentrated his men along the inner works a few miles downriver from New Bern. Early on the morning of March 14, Burnside’s men attacked in a heavy fog, and two of the three Yankee brigades crashed into the fortifications. General Jesse Reno’s brigade struck the weakest part of the line, where an inexperienced Rebel militia unit tried to hold off the Federals.

Confederate General, Jesse L. Reno — Union General, Jesse L. Reno

Burnside’s third brigade joined Reno and the Confederate line collapsed. That afternoon, Union gunboats steamed into New Bern. Union casualties for the battle were around 90 killed and 380 wounded, while the Confederates suffered approximately 60 killed, 100 wounded, and 400 captured. The conflict produced a Confederate hero, Colonel Zebulon Vance, who rescued his regiment by using small boats to bypass

Confederate General, Zebulon Vance — Confederate Col. Zebulon Vance

a bridge set afire by his comrades. Vance was elected governor of the state later that year.

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Today In Western History: The Confederacy Approves The Use of Black Troops

Posted on March 13, 2016March 7, 2016 by larry

March 13

On this day in 1865, with the main Rebel armies facing long odds against much larger Union armies, in an act of desperation, the Confederacy reluctantly approves the use of black troops. The situation was quite bleak for the Confederates in the spring of 1865. Although they had no way of knowing it, their beloved Confederacy had just less than a month to live. The hated Yankees had captured large swaths of Southern territory and General William T. Sherman’s Union army was tearing unimpeded throughthe Carolinas. At the same time,

Confederate General Robert E. Lee was struggling futilely to defend and protect the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and he was

trying to do this with a steadily shrinking army, the victim of both severe malnutrition and desertions. His Union opponent, General Ulysses S. Grant, was applying a relentless pressure with an army that was better fed, better supplied, and with unlimited resources. Lee and

Confederate President Jefferson Davis had only two options left to them. One option was for Lee to unite with General Joseph Johnston’s

army in the Carolinas and use the combined force to take on Sherman and Grant one at a time, but this would leave Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, both unprotected and vulnerable to capture. The other option was to arm the slaves, the last source of fresh manpower in the Confederacy. This choice rendered the whole reason for the war as pointless. It was a no-win situation for the leaders of the Confederacy.

The idea of enlisting blacks had been debated for some time. Arming slaves was essentially a way of setting them free, since they could not realistically be sent back to plantations after they had fought. General Patrick Cleburne had suggested enlisting slaves a year before, but very few in the Confederate

leadership considered the proposal, since slavery was the foundation of Southern society. One politic-ian asked, “What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?” Another suggested, “If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” Lee weighed in on this thorny issue and he asked the Confederate government for help. “We must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves.” Lee asked that the slaves be freed as a condition of fighting, but the bill that passed the Confederate Congress on March 13, 1865, did not stipulate freedom for those who served.

The measure did nothing to stop the destruction of the Confederacy. Several thousand blacks were enlisted in the Rebel cause, but they could not begin to balance out the nearly 200,000 blacks who fought for the Union. It was a case of “too little, too late”.

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Today In Western History: The Red River Campaign

Posted on March 12, 2016March 7, 2016 by larry

March 12 —

On this day in 1864, one of the biggest military fiascos, for the Union, of the Civil War begins as a combined Union force of infantry and riverboats starts moving up the Red River in Louisiana. The month-long campaign was very poorly managed and coordinated, achieving none of the objectives desired by frustrated Union commanders.

The Union had hoped to capture everything along the Red River in Louisiana and continue into Texas. President Abraham Lincoln thought this would send a symbolic warning to France, which had set up a puppet government in Mexico and seemed to have designs on territorial expansion. Union officials also wanted to capture cotton-producing regions, as cotton was in short supply in the North.

The plan called for General Nathaniel Banks to lead 27,000 men along the western shore of the river in a land based attack at the same time

as Admiral David Dixon Porter was taking a flotilla of 20 gunboats up the Red River. Porter’s squadron entered the river on March 12. Two days later, Fort Derussy fell to the Yankees and the ships moved upriver and captured Alexandria. The expedition was going well, but Banks was moving too slowly. He arrived two weeks after Porter took Alexandria, and continued to plod towards Shreveport. Banks traveled nearly 20 miles from the Red River, too far for the gunboats to offer any protection. On April 8, Banks’ command was attacked and routed by Confederate General Richard Taylor, son of former U.S. President Zachary Taylor. The two sides fought again the next day, but this time the

Yankees held off the Rebel pursuit. The intimidated Banks elected to retreat back down the river before reaching Shreveport. Porter’s ships followed, but the Red River was unusually low and the ships were stuck above some rapids near Alexandria. It appeared that the ships would have to be destroyed to keep them from falling into Confederate hands, but Lt. Colonel Joseph Bailey of Wisconsin, an engineer with a log-

USA Col. Joseph Bailey, saviour of the Red RIver fleet — USA Lt. Col. Joseph Bailey,
saviour of the Red River fleet

ging background, supervised several thousand soldiers in constructing a series of wing dams that raised the water level enough for the ships to pass. The campaign was deemed a failure–it drew Union strength away from other parts of the South and the expedition never reached Texas.

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Today In Western History: Lincoln Signs War Order #3

Posted on March 11, 2016March 7, 2016 by larry

March 11 —

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues War Order No. 3, a measure making several changes at the top of the Union Army command structure. Lincoln divided the war into sections and created three departments, placing Henry Wager Halleck in charge of the

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

West, John C. Fremont in command of troops in the Appalachian region, and George McClellan in charge in the East.

John C. Fremont, The Great Pathfinder" — John C. Fremont, The Great Pathfinder”

The most significant change in the order removed McClellan from his post as general-in-chief of all Union armies, though he retained command of the Army of the Potomac, the most important Union force. McClellan had assumed leadership of that army after it was defeated at the First Battle of Bull Run, Virginia, in July 1861. He quickly installed an efficient command structure and began training an effective fighting force. Three months later, Lincoln elevated McClellan to general-in-chief. However, the relationship between the president and his commanding officer was strained and some-times contentious. The arrogant McClellan was contemptuous of the president and often ignored Lincoln’s communica-tions or kept information from him. McClellan was stretched thin as general-in-chief, and even he recognized this fact. He was bothered by the March 1862 demotion, but wrote to Lincoln that he would “work just as cheerfully as ever before, and… no consideration of self will in any manner interfere with the discharge of my public duties.” For McClellan, this was a rare show of grace and deference towards Lincoln. The move allowed McClellan to spend more time planning his upcoming campaign against the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.

For a time, there was no general-in-chief, and the three regional commanders reported to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The post did not stay empty for long, though, as Halleck was elevated to general-in-chief five months later.

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Today In Western History: The Battle Of Pea Ridge Ends

Posted on March 8, 2016March 7, 2016 by larry

On this day in 1862, Union forces under General Samuel Curtis finish the Battle of Pea Ridge (known as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern by the

Confederates) that was begun the day before, ending with a victory for the Union forces. Pea Ridge was part of a larger campaign for control of Missouri. Seven months earlier, the Confederates defeated a Union force at Wilson’s Creek, some 70 miles northeast of Pea Ridge. General Henry Halleck, the Fed-eral commander in Missouri, now organized an expedition to drive the Confederates from south-western Missouri. In

February 1862, Yankee General Samuel Curtis led the 12,000-man army toward Springfield, Missouri. Confederate General Sterling Price retreated from the city with 8,000 troops in the face of the Union advance. Price withdrew into Arkansas, and Curtis followed him. Price

hooked up with another Rebel force led by General Ben McCulloch, and their combined army was placed under the leadership of General Earl Van Dorn, recently appointed commander of Confederate forces in the trans-Mississippi area. Van Dorn joined Price and McCulloch on March 2, 1862, and he then ordered an advance on Curtis’ army. Curtis received word of the approaching Confederates and concentrated his force

around Elkhorn Tavern. Van Dorn sent part of his army on a march around the Yankees. On March 7, McCulloch slammed into the rear of the Union force, but Curtis anticipated the move and turned his men towards the attack. McCulloch was killed during the battle, and the

Confederate attack withered. Meanwhile, the other part of Van Dorn’s army attacked the front of Curtis’ command. Through bitter fighting the Union troops held their ground. Curtis, suspecting that the Confederates were low on ammunition, attacked the divided Rebel army the following morning. Van Dorn realized he was in danger and ordered a retreat, ending the battle. The Yankees suffered some 1,380 men killed, wounded, or captured out of 10,000 engaged; the Confederates suffered a loss of about 2,000 out of 14,000 engaged. The Union won a decisive victory that also helped them clear the upper Mississippi Valley region on the way to securing control of the Mississippi River by mid-1863.

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Western History Today: The Missouri Compromise Passes

Posted on February 17, 2016February 9, 2016 by larry

The Senate passes the Missouri Compromise, an attempt to deal with the dangerously divisive issue of extending slavery into the western territories today, February 17, in 1820.

From colonial days to the Civil War, slavery and western expansion both played fundamental but inherently incompatible roles in the American republic. As the nation expanded westward, the Con-gress adopted relatively liberal procedures by which western territories could organize and join the union as full-fledged states. Southern slaveholders, eager to repli-cate their plantation system in the West, wanted to keep the new territories open to slavery. Abolitionists, concentrated primarily in the industrial North, wanted the West to be exclusively a free labor region and hoped that slavery would gradually die out if confined to the South. Both factions realized their future congressional influence would depend on the number of new “slave” and “free” states admitted into the union.

Consequently, the West became the first political battleground over the slavery issue. In 1818, the Territory of Missouri applied to Congress for admission as a slave state. Early in 1819, a New York congressman introduced an amendment to the proposed Missouri constitution that would ban importation of new slaves and require gradual emancipation of exist-ing slaves. Southern congressmen reacted with outrage, inspiring a nationwide debate on the future of slavery in the nation. Over the next year, the congressional debate grew increasingly bitter, and southerners began to threaten secession and civil war. To avoid this disastrous possibility, key congressmen hammered together an agreement that became known as the Missouri Compromise. In exchange for admitting Missouri without restrictions on slavery, the Compromise called for bringing in Maine as a free state. The Compromise also dictated that slavery would be prohibited in all future western states carved out of the Louisiana Territory that were higher in latitude than the northern border of Arkansas Territory.

Although the Missouri Compromise temporarily eased the inherent tensions between western expansion and slavery, the divisive issue was far from resolved. Whether or not to allow slavery in the states of Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska caused the same difficulties several decades later, leading the nation toward civil war.

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Tag: Civil War

Today In Western History: Stonewall Loses A Fight

Today In Western History” Braxton Bragg Is Born

Today In Western History: The Sanitary Commission Fair Closes

Today In Western History: The Battle of Kelly’s Ford

Today In Western History: Burnside Captures New Bern

Today In Western History: The Confederacy Approves The Use of Black Troops

Today In Western History: The Red River Campaign

Today In Western History: Lincoln Signs War Order #3

Today In Western History: The Battle Of Pea Ridge Ends

Western History Today: The Missouri Compromise Passes