The West: Reconnaissance, reinforcements, and reconfigurations
- On the Mississippi River in Missouri, the USS Tyler and Conestoga under Lieutenant S.L. Phelps scouts the river for Confederate fortifications and movements as far south as New Madrid, Missouri, while Lieutenant Roger N. Stembel of the USS Lexington, operating with the US Army, reconnoiters the river north to Cape Girardeau, Missouri./1861
- At Mathias Point, Virginia, the USS Resolute, under command of Acting Master W. Budd, engages Confederate troops in land batteries while on a reconnaissance mission./1861
- The US Department of Kentucky and the Department of the Cumberland are combined under General Robert Anderson, the Union’s tragic hero of Fort Sumter. The new Department of the Cumberland encompasses both Kentucky and Tennessee, violating Kentucky’s neutrality and laying claim to another state which has allied with the Confederacy. Anderson’s department headquarters situated in Cincinnati, Ohio, demonstrates its geographical fiction and Lincoln's invasive intentions./1861
- In Washington, while President Lincoln directs new reinforcements be sent to subdue Missouri and forcibly hold her in the Union, he anxiously works on the volatile situation in Missouri by telegraph. He telegraphs Gen. John Fremont, commanding the Department of the West at Saint Louis: "Been answering your messages ever since day before yesterday. Do you receive the answers? The War Department has notified all the governors you designate to forward all available force. So telegraphed you. Have you received these messages? Answer immediately." Then he telegraphs Governor Morton of Indiana: "Start your four regiments to Saint Louis at the earliest moment possible. . . . hasten everything forward as soon as any one regiment is ready. . . . We shall endeavor to send you the arms this week."/1861
Image via Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment