Confederate Congress adjourns; Lee, others made full general

• In Washington, the Asst. Sec. of Navy Gustavus V. Fox and Gen. Benjamin Butler awaken President Lincoln late at night to inform him of the capture of Forts Hatteras and Clark, in North Carolina./1861
• In Richmond, Virginia, the Third Session of the Provisional Confederate Congress adjourns after approving the promotions of Samuel Cooper, Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard to full general in the Confederate Army./1861 
• The C.S.S. Teaser shells Union Camp Butler on Newport News Point, Virginia./1861 
• The USS George Peabody, commanded Lieutenant Lowry, captures the brig Henry C. Brooks in Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. /1861 
• The USS Jamestown under Commander Green, captures the British blockade running schooner Aigburth off the Florida coast./1861

• A skirmish occurs at Munson's Hill, Virginia./1861

Related articles

• Why does no one remember Samuel Cooper? (michaelchardy.blogspot.com)
• Hatteras Expedition departs, CS win at Kessler's Cross Lanes (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)

Fremont declares martial law, confiscations in Missouri

• General John Fremont declares a dictatorial martial law across the state of Missouri. The unauthorized act provides for confiscation of all property belonging to "those who shall take up arms against the United States," with his intention to shoot any of them who are convicted by military court-martial. Fremont also declares that "slaves . . . are hereby declared free men." In defense of this unpopular move, Fremont says Missouri is a victim of "helplessness of civil authority and total insecurity of life." This Missouri Emancipation Proclamation is later revoked by President Lincoln. /1861
• The Confederate tug Harmony attacks the USS Savannah under Captain Joseph B. Hull at Newport News, Virginia, inflicting damage before withdrawing./1861
• Skirmishing continues at Bailey's Corners, Virginia./1861

Related articles

• Martial law declared in St. Louis (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• The West: Reconnaissance, reinforcements, and reconfigurations (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• This Week in the Civil War (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Feds try to stop Johnston's movement toward Manassas (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• This Week in the Civil War (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Confederate Navy contracts British shipbuilders

Cmdr. James D. Bulloch, CSN

• Confederate Naval Commander and Secret Service Agent James Dunwoody Bulloch writes from Liverpool in the United Kingdom to Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory: “After careful examination of the shipping lists of England, and inspecting many vessels, I failed to find a single wooden steamer fit for war purposes, except one paddle steamer, too large and costly for our coast. Wood as a material for ships has almost entirely gone out of use in the British merchant service, and their iron ships, though fast, well built, and staunch enough for voyages of traffic, are too thin in the plates and light in the deck frames and stanchions to carry guns of much weight. I therefore made arrangements to contract with two eminent builders for a gun vessel each . . .” Bulloch has signed his first contract with Fawcett & Preston Engineers in Liverpool and WC Miller and Son Ship Builders to build the CSS Florida, which would be finished by years’ end. He has signed the second contract in July 1861 with John Laird Sons and Company who has a shipyard near Liverpool to build the Enrica, the alias for the famous Confederate raider, the CSS Alabama. To be commanded by Admiral Raphael Semmes beginning one year from today, the CSS Alabama would range the globe for two years destroying Union merchant ships – 55 in all valued at US$4.5 million, plus ten others bonded at an additional US$562,000. In addition, Semmes would capture over 2,000 prisoners, not one harmed but deposited at the nearest port, all this without losing a single man./1861
• In Washington, Gen. Robert Anderson, the Kentucky native who had commanded the US forces inside Fort Sumter back in April, dines with the President and is informed of his appointment on completion of his convalescence to a command in Kentucky, violating the state’s neutrality. Gen. George B. McClellan also spends most of the evening at White House. /1861
• The USS Powhatan, commanded by Lieutenant David D. Porter, recaptures the schooner Abby Bradford off the mouth of the Mississippi River./1861

Related articles

• May 30, 1861: USS Powhatan seizes a prize off New Orleans (civilwar-online.com)
• July 13, 1861: CSS Patrick Henry ordered to sea (civilwar-online.com)
• Confederates routed at Rich Mountain (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• July 8, 1861: "Running the Blockade" (civilwar-online.com)
• May 29, 1861: The blockade of New Orleans begins (civilwar-online.com)
• Confederates surprised at Phillippi (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• Merrimack to become ironclad (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)

Apaches attack West Texas Confederates

Image via Wikipedia

Fort Davis, West Texas

• Confederate States Army troops at Fort Davis in West Texas, are attacked by Mescalero Apaches. The native warriors raid the garrison's livestock herd, killing two guards and making off with about 100 horses and or cattle./1861
• Off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the Confederate privateer, CSS York captures the schooner George G. Baker. Then the USS Union under Commander J.R. Goldsborough recaptures the George G. Baker. Then the York’s crew sets the ship afire to prevent her capture by the Union./1861

US Congress invests in ironclad technology as blockade tightens

• In Washington, the US Congress authorizes Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to appoint a three-member board to plan and construct “iron or steel-clad steamships or steam batteries” and appropriates $1.5 million dollars for the purpose./1861
• US General Nathaniel Lyon skirmishes with Missouri State Guard troops at McCulla's Store, Missouri/1861 
• In Washington, Prince Napoleon (Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte) of France, the nephew of the former French emperor and traveling in U.S. as private citizen, visits President Lincoln at noon. The Prince, arriving at the White House with Baron Mercier, found no one—neither butler nor doorman—at the main entrance to show him in, and an employee who happened to be passing by, took care of this duty. The meeting was "not so gay"; the Prince, huffed at his reception, "took a cruel pleasure in remaining silent." At 7 p.m., President Lincoln and his wife, Mary, host a state dinner for Prince Napoleon. He is seated at the right of Mrs. Lincoln and opposite General Winfield Scott, who is at the President's left. Gen. George B. McClellan is at the right of the Prince. The dinner turns out to be an unusually sociable and enjoyable affair./1861
• At Hampton Roads, Virginia, John LaMountain makes the first ascent in a balloon from Union ship Fanny to observe Confederate batteries on Sewell’s Point, Virginia—a harbinger of the twentieth century aircraft carrier./1861
• Off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina, the USS Wabash, commanded by Captain Mercer, recaptures the American schooner Mary Alice, which had been taken by Confederate ship Dixie, and also captures the blockade running brig Sarah Starr. /1861  
• At Galveston, Texas, the USS South Carolina under Commander Alden, engages Confederate batteries on the Galveston coast./1861

Related articles

• William Howard Russell's Diary: Prince Napoleon. - Mr. Brekinridge. (dotcw.com)
• A Peevish Prince, a Hairy-Handed President, a Disastrous Dinner Party (opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)
• William Howard Russell's Diary: Reception at Mr. Seward's. - Prince Napoleon. (dotcw.com)
• August 9, 1861: Lyon maneuvers to strike Price (civilwar-online.com)
• McClellan made Army of Potomac commander (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• A Diary of American Events. - August 10, 1861 (dotcw.com)

McClellan made Army of Potomac commander

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George B. McClellan

• At Washington, Lincoln officially turns over command of the Federal Division of the Potomac to George B. McClellan, replacing Irvin McDowell, who was routed by Confederates at Manassas almost a week ago. Lincoln summons McClellan to a Cabinet meeting without inviting General of the Army, Winfield Scott. Learning of it, Scott keeps McClellan in a meeting with him until the Cabinet meeting is over. When Gen. McClellan is able to explain his absence to Lincoln, the President is amused. Lincoln wants his new general to seize Manassas Junction and Strasburg, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley, and push toward Tennessee, attacking Memphis on the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois, and east Tennessee from Cincinnati, Ohio. Never mind that neutral Kentucky is in the way. Apparently desperate for a good general anywhere he could get one, Lincoln also offers a commission in the US Army to Giuseppe Garibaldi, liberator of Italy. /1861 
• The Confederate privateer Petrel slips out of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, during the night to do damage to Yankee trading vessels. /1861
• At Mathias Point, Virginia, Confederate forces repel a Federal attempt to land a force./1861

Confederates routed at Rich Mountain

Image via Wikipedia

William Rosecrans

• Image via Wikipedia

  John Pegram

  Union troops under General George B. McClellan score another major victory in western Virginia at the Battle of Rich Mountain. Confederate General Robert Garnett and Colonel John Pegram have positioned their forces at Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill to block two key roads and keep McClellan from penetrating any further east. McClellan has planned a feint against Garnett at Laurel Hill while sending the bulk of his force against Pegram at Rich Mountain. In an area of western Virginia with many Union sympathizers, Gen. William S. Rosecrans with 2000 Federal troops is guided on a less-traveled, rugged mountain path to completely surprise the left wing of Lieutenant Colonel John Pegram’s Confederate troops at Rich Mountain. McClellan has promised to attack the Confederate front when he hears gunfire from Rosecrans's direction. After a difficult march through a drenching rain, Rosecrans strikes Pegram’s left wing. After several attempts, he finally drives the Confederates from their position. McClellan shells the Confederates but does not assault them as expected. Each side suffers around 70 casualties. Pegram is forced to abandon his position, but Rosecrans blocks his escape route, forcing Pegram to surrender 560 men and opens the road to Beverly, western Virginia. McClellan gets the credit for Rosecrans’ hard work and becomes a Union hero. McClellan is on his way to becoming the commander of the Army of the Potomac. Meanwhile Gen. T.A. Morris forces Gen. Robert S. Garnett to evacuate Laurel Hill, western Virginia. Union losses are 12 killed, 49 wounded. Confederate losses are unknown./1861
• Confederate Congress appropriates $172,523 for the reconstruction of Merrimack into an ironclad. Secretary of the Navy Stephen F. Mallory orders flag Officer French Forrest to begin the transformation of the Merrimack into an ironclad./1861

  Image via Wikipedia

  Battle of Rich Mountain

• In Washington, the United States Senate formally expels the following members of that body: J. M. Mason and R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia; T. L. Clingman and Thomas Bragg of North Carolina; Louis T. Wigfall and J. U. Hemphill of Texas; C. B. Mitchell and W. K. Sebastian of Arkansas, and A. O. F. Nicholson of Tennessee./1861

Related articles

• McClellan moves on Rich Mountain (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• Patterson Reconsiders Attacking; McClellan & Lyon Push Forward (civilwardailygazette.com)
• Ambushing in Western Virginia (civilwardailygazette.com)
• Patterson and McClellan Exaggerate the Rebs (civilwardailygazette.com)

Cold reception for Ohio Congressman

C.L. Vallandigham (D-OH)

• Clement Laird Vallandigham, Ohio’s third district Democratic US Congressman, an ardent abolitionist, states’ rights constitutionalist, and pacifist, today speaks to the Ohio regiments serving in Northern Virginia, but the response is cold. At one stop he is shouted down and pelted with stones and rubbish. His activities will get the attention of the Lincoln Administration before long, and that will not bode well for him. He will become known as a Copperhead, a Southern sympathizer in the North, and his wing of the Democratic Party will become known as Peace Democrats. /1861
• Confederate Lieutenant Kennon tries out mines on Union ships at Hampton Roads and the USS Pawnee on the Potomac with limited success. /1861 

Diplomacy and the Confederate Navy

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Cdr. Raphael Semmes, CSN

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Cienfuegos, Cuba

• At Cienfuegos, Cuba, the commander of the CSS Sumter, Raphael Semmes, has in less than a week captured seven United States shipping vessels. He attempts to deposit the prizes in the port of Cienfuegos by casually telling the Spanish colonial governor that he assumes Cuba would treat Confederate ships with “the same friendly reception as to cruisers of the enemy.” Because such action could appear as diplomatic recognition of the Confederate government, the governor refuses the vessels, and Semmes is forced to release his prizes./1861
• President Jefferson Davis writes Lincoln that if the captured crewmen of the CSS Savannah are executed as pirates as has been determined, that Davis will order a like number of Northern prisoners executed. /1861 

Related articles

• The Escape of the CSS Sumter (civilwardailygazette.com)
• April 22, 1861: Raphael Semmes takes command of CSS Sumter (civilwar-online.com)
• June 30, 1861: The CSS Sumter runs the Blockade! (civilwar-online.com)
• June 29, 1861: CSS Sumter ready for sea (civilwar-online.com)
• CSS Sumter runs blockade, begins career (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)

CSS Sumter runs blockade, begins career

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CSS Sumter

• Raphael Semmes, commanding the CSS Sumter the first Confederate raider, runs the blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi River while being chased by the larger, more powerful, and reputedly faster USS Brooklyn. Semmes out sails the "faster" vessel. He would have a successful career on the Sumter, later even more successful with the CSS Alabama./1861

Related articles

• April 22, 1861: Raphael Semmes takes command of CSS Sumter (civilwar-online.com)
• May 29, 1861: The blockade of New Orleans begins (civilwar-online.com)
• 150-years-ago -- CONFEDERATE NAVY APPOINTMENTS (thesouthsdefender.blogspot.com)

Lincoln plans strategy; The Nicholas takes prizes

Gen. Winfield Scott addresses Lincoln's Cabinet

• In Washington, President Lincoln and Cabinet meet with key military leaders to plan the future course of invasion of the South. Generals Irvin McDowell and Winfield Scott unveil their plans with an eye toward the importance of maintaining public support and enthusiasm for subjugating and destroying the South in order to “preserve” the Union.

  

  I. McDowell
  

  Gen. McDowell presents a plan for attacking the Confederates under Gen. Beauregard at Manassas, Virginia. Gen. Scott proposes sending an expedition down the Mississippi River, establishing a blockade, and starving the South into submission as the best way to suppress the rebellion. Lincoln thinks the troops are too raw for battle and disagrees with the military authorities, but the President and Cabinet believe the public wants action and further delay might cool Northern zeal./1861 
• On the Chesapeake Bay, Confederate sympathizers led by Marylanders and veteran US Navy men George N. Hollins and Richard Thomas Zarvona have seized the side-wheeler St. Nicholas, a commercial vessel, now deposit the crew and passengers in the care of a Tennessee regiment at Coan River, Virginia, and proceed to take 3 small commercial ships today in place of their original purpose of attacking the USS Pawnee. Their first prize is the large brig, Monticello, with 3,500 bags of precious coffee from Brazil to Baltimore, which was commandeered by Lieutenant Rimms and taken to Fredericksburg. In less than a hour, a schooner, Mary Pierce, ten days out of Boston, bound for Washington with a cargo of 200 tons of ice. Lieutenant Robert D. Minor, CSN, took her to Fredericksburg, too, where it was needed by the hospitals. As Hollins and Zarvona grew nervous about the St. Nicholas’ dwindling coal supply, the schooner Margaret, bound from Alexandria to New York, appeared loaded with 270 tons of coal. Putting the Margaret in tow up the Rappahannock out of danger of US Navy vessels who may have caught word of the successful privateering, they coal the St. Nicholas by night and in the morning will start for Fredericksburg. This is the first Confederate naval victory of some lasting merit, and Hollins will get promotion to commodore in the Confederate Navy and will command the famous Mosquito Fleet near New Orleans. Out of respect for the Baltimore owners, the St. Nicholas will be put up for sale by the Richmond District Court in Admiralty for $18,924.17. She will be purchased by the Confederate Navy with the proceeds going to her original owners. The St. Nicholas will become the C.S.S. Rappahannock which would be burned in the evacuation of Fredericksburg in April 1862 to prevent her capture by Union forces. The US flag flying on her staff when she was seized is the first American flag captured in the War between the States./1861

• Confederates make a dash at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, after having abandoned the town earlier in the month, destroying several boats and the railroad bridge./1861

Related articles

• Daring capture of the SS Nicholas on the Potomac (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• St. Nick Gives Up; McDowell Sets a Date (civilwardailygazette.com)
• Manly French Lady Captures US Vessel (civilwardailygazette.com)
• A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, By John Beauchamp Jones (dotcw.com)

Daring capture of the SS Nicholas on the Potomac

R. Thomas Zarvona

• Tonight, a group of undercover Confederate sympathizers led by former US Navy officers Richard Thomas Zarvona and George N. Hollins along with an undercover crew, makes a bold move based on intelligence to seize a private Maryland vessel. A native of Maryland, Hollins is a veteran of the War of 1812, having joined the US Navy at age 15. He was commanding a US warship in the Mediterranean when the war came, and being ordered back to New York, he resigned his commission and joined the Confederate navy as a captain. Zarvona, also a Marylander, is a former West Pointer and adventurer who had fought with pirates in China and Garibaldi revolutionaries in Italy. The group boards in two groups the side-wheel steamship St. Nicholas in Chesapeake Bay. Using the name Madame La Force, Zarvona disguises himself as a flirtatious French woman. Hollins then boards the St. Nicholas at its first stop disguised as an old man on a cane. The conspirators later retreat to the French woman's cabin, where they armed themselves from the heavy trunks “she” had had the St. Nicholas’ crew load for “her,” and then burst out to capture the surprised crew which surrendered easily. Hollins takes control of the vessel and stops on the Virginia bank of the Chesapeake to pick up a crew of Confederate soldiers. They go in search of the USS Pawnee which has been patrolling the Potomac River from Washington downstream, but to Zarvona’s great frustration it has returned to Washington Navy Yard to attend to the funeral of its commander, Lieutenant Ward, who was killed by a Confederate sharpshooter yesterday./1861

Merrimack to become ironclad

Burning of USS Merrimack, April 1861

• At Mathias Point, Virginia, Federal gunboats begin shelling Confederate batteries./1861
• Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen F. Mallory had asked a panel to develop a plan to make ironclads for the Confederacy on June 3. Today the panel delivers its report on Confederate naval ironclad design by Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke, Naval Constructor John Luke Porter, and Chief Engineer William Price Williamson. The panel recommends that the Merrimack, a ship that was partially burned and sunk at the Norfolk Gosport Naval Yard in April by the departing US Navy be transformed into an ironclad./1861
• In the hayloft of Hall’s carriage shop across the street from the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., J.D. Mills of New York demonstrates for President Lincoln a new gun with one barrel mounted on an artillery carriage, which Mills calls “an Army in six feet square.” Lincoln himself turns the crank of the contraption, which fires regular .58 calibre bullets from steel jackets, then neatly drops the jackets into a bin for reloading. Lincoln is delighted, remarking that it reminds him of a coffee mill. The name stuck. Despite several commanders ordering them, they proved too technically difficult and were too innovative for the US War Department to order their general adoption./1861

Related articles

• Merrimack raised; Lyon replaces Harney (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• April 20, 1861: Gosport Navy Yard is evacuated and burned (civilwar-online.com)

North Carolina adopts a state flag

• In Raleigh, the North Carolina Secession Convention votes to adopt a state flag of a blue field with a white horizontal bar and a red vertical bar on the left side with an insignia star and two dates: May 20th, 1775 (Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence) and May 20th, 1861 (Secession from the United States)./1861 

• 

  John Winder
  

  Career US Army officer from Maryland, John H. Winder, is today commissioned Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and assigned  one of the most difficult jobs of the war – Assistant Inspector General for the military Camps of Instruction in the Richmond vicinity. Winder is charged with arming, clothing and equipping the Confederate recruits, local law enforcement, setting commodity prices in a city that is doubling in population, handling paperwork for those unfit for service, capturing deserters, caring for the sick and wounded, and later overseeing military prisons for prisoners of war. His job would prove nearly impossible, hamstrung by the Confederacy's dismal supply system and diminishing resources. Northern newspapers would accuse him of intentionally starving Union prisoners. President Jefferson Davis, Secretary James Seddon, and Adjutant Samuel Cooper would later agree that he was a much-maligned man, set to perform a task made impossible by the inadequacy of supplies of men, food, clothing, and medicines. Despite the criticisms, Winder would order that Federal prisoners receive the same ration as did Confederate soldiers in the field, scanty as it was./1861 
• Career US Navy officer, George N. Hollins, is commissioned a captain in the Confederate States Navy. A veteran of the War of 1812, Hollins joined the navy at age 15 and had a long and distinguished career. The Maryland native had been commander of the USS Susquehanna in the Mediterranean squadron when hostilities erupted. When he put in at Naples in May 1861, he received orders to return to New York. There he resigned his commission. After a brief stop in his hometown, Baltimore, Hollins offered his services to the Confederacy and receives his commission today./1861.

Jackson destroys Martinsburg Shops

"Jackson Commandeers the Railroad," June 20, 1861. Mort Kunstler

• After evacuating Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, Colonel Thomas J. Jackson falls back, arriving this afternoon at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Shops at Martinsburg, Virginia, where “forty-two locomotives and their tenders at that important railroad center, in addition to 305 cars, chiefly coal gondolas are located. Pursuant to orders from Joseph E. Johnston, but against his better judgment that railroad equipment should always be saved, Jackson begins a systematic destruction of the Martinsburg yards. Details begin to rip up track and burn cross-ties. Other soldiers set fire to the round houses and machine shops. Locomotives and tenders, as well as at least 305 coal cars, are either set afire, heaved into the Opequon river, or dismantled to the point of uselessness over the next few days./1861

• At Wheeling, western Virginia, across the river from the state of Ohio, Unionist Virginians from the northwestern counties who are disloyal to their state come to an important point in the Second Wheeling Convention. Today the convention selects new officers of the “Restored government of Virginia.” Among them, delegates elect attorney and railroad magnate Francis H. Pierpont of Marion County as provisional governor of “Federal Virginia,” or what will be named West Virginia./1861
• General George B. McClellan assumes command in person of the US Army in western Virginia./1861 
• The governor of Kansas, Charles L. Robinson, today issues a proclamation forming a state militia to defend the new state against spill-over violence from Missouri. Kansas, with just over 100,000 residents statewide, would eventually send 20,000 to war. Robinson, a Republican, had already served prison time in Kansas for his subversive activities with the son of John Brown and his illegal election as territorial governor. Robinson remains the only Kansas governor who was impeached. /1861 
• Veteran naval officer George Nichols Hollins is commissioned a captain in the Confederate Navy. He will go to work in days and will eventually command the famous Mosquito Fleet at New Orleans./1861

Related articles

• Martinsburg burned; Skirmish at Cole Camp, Missouri (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• Rebels Attack B&O Where No Rebels Should Be; Jackson Marches (civilwardailygazette.com)
• Jackson completes Martinsburg destruction (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)

Johnston evacuates Harper's Ferry

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J.E. Johnston

• Confederate troops retreating from Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, under command of Joseph E. Johnston, take with them the entire munitions manufacturing plant and move it to North Carolina where it will produce munitions for the Confederacy. Along with others which were captured and moved south, the use of the munitions production plants will force US Chief of Ordnance, General James Wolfe Ripley to place large orders for guns from private manufacturers, profiting small arms companies like Colt, Remington, and Winchester./1861
• The CSS Sumter under Raphael Semmes sails down the Mississippi River to await conditions to run the blockade./1861 

Related articles

• June 12, 1861: Joe Johnston writes to Robert E. Lee (civilwar-online.com)
• "Aren't you glad Harper's Ferry has been evacuated without bloodshed? - Woolsey family letters. Eliza Woolsey Howland to Joseph Hpwland (still in Albany.) (dotcw.com)
• April 22, 1861: Raphael Semmes takes command of CSS Sumter (civilwar-online.com)
• Harpers Ferry Burned and Evacuated! (civilwardailygazette.com)

Feds occupy Missouri capitol

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US BG N. Lyon

• US Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon with approximately 1,400 volunteers and U.S. Army regulars occupies the capitol building at Jefferson City without firing a shot and turns to pursue Missouri Governor Claiborne F. Jackson who finished evacuating the capital yesterday to join the Missouri State Guard at Boonville, Missouri./1861

Image via Wikipedia

Harper's Ferry today

• Around Harpers Ferry, Virginia, both Confederate and Federal forces are maneuvering near the hamlet where most observers have for some time expected the first large scale battle to take place. Both armies are spending significant effort destroying as much as possible to deny it to the enemy. Near Point of Rocks, Maryland, where the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac River into Virginia for 120 miles, the US Corps of Engineers today find and  explode a 100-ton boulder which they have found sitting on the tracks. To this day no one has figured out how retreating Confederate troops under Colonel Thomas J. Jackson were able to place the boulder there./1861
• The brig USS Perry arrives at New York with the privateer Savannah, captured June 4. The Savannah's crew is paraded through the streets in chains and thrown into cells reserved for felons. They are accused of piracy and face the hangman’s noose./1861

Related articles

• Merrimack raised; Lyon replaces Harney (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• Jackson moves on B&O; Butler to Fortress Monroe (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• June 8, 1861: Lyon gives Jackson and Price safe passage (gathkinsons.net)
• Beauregard takes command; Jackson burns B&O assets (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• Virginia secession ratified; Jackson bags B&O (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• June 1, 1861: Lyon turns the arsenal over to Blair (gathkinsons.net)

Confederates surprised at Philippi, Virginia

• CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL DAY in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana. (Jefferson Davis birthday, 1808).
• The Democrats and the Union lose a strong supporter when Stephen F. Douglas dies unexpectedly at age 48 in Chicago, Illinois,, complications following rheumatic fever or typhoid. In Washington, President Lincoln mourns the “Little Giant” of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates who had defeated the President in the 1858 US Senate race in Illinois but who lost to Lincoln in the 1860 Presidential election./1861



Battle of Philippi, western Virginia

• Union troops under Colonel R.F. Kelley march out of the mountains through the night in driving rain and this morning surprise Confederate forces under Colonel G.A. Porterfield, at Philippi, western Virginia, and the raw Confederates retreat rapidly under fire. The Confederate troops flee the field so quickly that the Northerners call their triumph the “Philippi Races.” Only a skirmish with about 3000 Union soldiers routing roughly 800 Confederate soldiers, no one is killed in this first land engagement of the war. It helps propel the Union commander - General George B. McClellan to fame. The Confederate defeat also has a bearing on western Virginia’s secession from the Old Dominion as the absence of Confederate troops in the area encourages pro-Union Virginians in the west to declare their support for the North./1861 
• In Washington, Lincoln, continuing under the paranoia of an imminent invasion of the District of Columbia by the demon Southerners, writes commander of the Army Winfield Scott, "I have accounts from different sources, tending to some expectation of an attack being made upon our forces across the Potomac to-morrow morning. I think it prudent to say this to you, although it is highly probable you are better informed than I am[.]"/1861



CSS Savannah flying both US and CS flags

• The privateer Savannah, which left port in Charleston, South Carolina, only yesterday, overhauls the brig Joseph and sends her into Georgetown, SC. In the afternoon the brig U.S.S. Perry attacks and captures the privateer Savannah. Her cruise is ended and her crew is arrested and taken to New York./1861 
• Confederate Secretary of War Stephen F. Mallory instructs Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke to develop an ironclad design for construction in the South./1861
• Against its will but forced by Governor Henry M. Rector, the Arkansas Secession Convention finally adjourns, but political turmoil will continue in Confederate Arkansas. General William J. Hardee will be assigned to command Confederate forces in Arkansas, but many soldiers will not want to join the regular army and risk being moved away from their home state. A lack of organization and cohesive command will plague Arkansas for the remainder of 1861./1861

Related articles

• Calls for "New Virginia", Jackson seizes train (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• Tennessee, Arkansas both secede (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• Philippi - The First Land Battle (civilwardailygazette.com)
• The Day Before the Attack on Philippi (civilwardailygazette.com)