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)

Beauregard to command Alexandria Line

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Beauregard

• P. G. T. Beauregard is ordered to assume command of the Confederate Army of the Potomac in northern Virginia at the Alexandria Line where Federal troops have invaded Virginia and taken up positions. In a strategy meeting with President Davis and commander of the Virginia Militia Robert E. Lee, Lee explains that the Federals are now occupying Alexandria and their next obvious move will be against Manassas, an important railroad junction for the Confederate forces./1861
• Union troops which have evacuated forts in Indian territory a month ago arrive at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas today. The path they traveled will come to be known as the Chisholm Trail after one of their guides, Jesse Chisholm./1861
• US Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon and local politico Francis Blair take effective control of St. Louis, Missouri, from Brig. Gen. William Harney, whom they suspected of Southern sympathies and thus sacked with the quiet permission of President Lincoln./1861
• In Washington, Robert Lincoln, John Hay, assistant secretary to President, and John G. Nicolay, private secretary to President, obtain passes to cross Long Bridge and visit the Custis mansion, home of Gen. Robert E. Lee (CSA), in Arlington./1861
• The New Orleans Mint closes./1861

Related articles

• May 31, 1861: Who's in charge in Missouri? (gathkinsons.net)
• May 30, 1861: Harney is dismissed (gathkinsons.net)
• May 21, 1861: The Price-Harney Truce (gathkinsons.net)
• St. Louis Massacre (wbts-calendar.blogspot.com)
• May 24, 1861: Harney worries; Price reassures (gathkinsons.net)

US troops evacuate Indian Territory

Fort Washita, Indian Territory

• Under orders from President Lincoln, US troops evacuate the forts in Indian Territory, leaving the Five Civilized Nations – Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles – virtually under Confederate jurisdiction and responsibility. US Col. William H. Emory evacuates Fort Wachita and marches to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas./1861

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Justice J.A. Campbell

• US Supreme Court Justice John Archibald Campbell of Georgia, who had acted as a mediator between the Confederate peace commissioners and Secretary of State William Seward and who had been a leader in the Washington Peace Conference, resigns today from the U.S. Supreme Court to serve as Assistant Secretary of War for the Confederacy./1861 
• The Tennessee State Legislature convenes in secret session in Nashville. Rumors say they have adopted a secession ordinance, which they will announce after an attack on Washington that is expected to take place on May 4./1861
• Confederate diplomats Pierre Rost and William Lowndes Yancey arrive in London, joining Ambrose Dudley Mann who arrived April 15th. Immediately they begin meeting with those in the British Government who are sympathetic to the South./1861 
  
•  The New York City Yacht Club votes to volunteer its vessels to the Federal Navy if needed to put down the insurrection in the South./1861

Va. alliance proposed, NC Gov calls special session

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VP A.S. Stephens

• President Davis in Montgomery has sent Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens to "get Virginia" and today Stephens proposes a military alliance with Virginia. Meanwhile, Major General Robert E. Lee of the Virginia Militia assigns Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston to the command of Virginia State forces in and about Richmond hours after he arrives in town after having resigned from the US Army on April 22. One of Johnston's officers, Major Thomas J. Jackson, unhappy with his assignment from Virginia Governor as Major of Topographical Engineers, contacts the man who helped him get an appointment to West Point, J.M. Bennett, who has known him since boyhood. Bennett informs Governor Letcher and some members of the Virginia Convention of Jackson's resume -- a West Point graduate with honorable service in the Mexican War. This is good information for Governor Letcher who had only known Jackson as a professor at Virginia Military Institute./1861 
• Georgia Governor Joseph Brown repudiates all debts by the State of Georgia or any of its residents which are owed to any Northern person or company by any of his citizens, the state itself, or any of its agencies./1861

• 

  NC Gov. John Ellis

  In Raleigh, North Carolina,Governor John Ellis, who had already rejected Lincoln’s levy for troops, calling it unconstitutional and “a gross usurpation of power," today issues a proclamation about Lincoln's “high-handed act of tyrannical outrage” calling a special session of the State legislature to consider secession. Ellis says that Lincoln's order for 75,000 troops was “conceived in a spirit of aggression unparalleled by any act of recorded history,” reminding North Carolina citizens that their “first allegiance is due to the sovereignty which protects their homes and dearest interests, as their first service is due for the sacred defence of their hearts, and of the soil which holds the graves of our glorious dead. United action in defence of the sovereignty of North Carolina, and of the rights of the South, becomes now the duty of all.”/1861
• In the White House, President Lincoln addresses the "Frontier Guard, under the command of Senator [James H.] Lane of Kansas." The Frontier Guard's soldiers assist in defending the "neighborhood of the Executive Mansion." Lincoln remarks, "I have desired as sincerely as any man . . . that our present difficulties might be settled without the shedding of blood. . . . But if the alternative is presented, whether the Union is to be broken in fragments and the liberties of the people lost, or blood be shed, you will probably make the choice, with which I shall not be dissatisfied."/1861

Related articles

• Lee offered US Army command, VA militia takes Harper's Ferry
• April 17, 1861: Governor Letcher calls out the Virginia militia
• Virginia secedes
• April 17, 1861: The Virginia Ordinance of Secession
• Johnston and Jackson Promoted; Virginia Gets Some Really Bad Ideas
• Lincoln: 75,000 to quell 'insurrection'
• A Diary of American Events - April 15, 1861
• The Secession of North Carolina

Kansas admitted to the Union

• Kansas is admitted to the Union with a constitution prohibiting slavery, giving property rights to women, but barring the right to vote from women, Americans of African descent, and American Indians. Its admission had been blocked in the Senate, but with the resignation of senators from Southern states, William Seward secured the votes needed (36-16), and the House then voted a second time to admit Kansas (this time 117-42). Today President James Buchanan signed the bill admitting Kansas as the 34th state./1861 

• After having ordered the screw steamer USS Brooklyn to Fort Pickens at Pensacola Bay, Florida, with supplies and reinforcement troops US Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer's command of 81 men on January 21, the Buchanan administration now wisely changes the Brooklyn’s orders to land supplies, but keep the troops on board. The soldiers are to remain at sea unless the fort comes under imminent danger or actual attack. Lt. Slemmer is instructed to act "strictly on the defensive, and avoid as far as possible a collision with the hostile troops concentrated at Pensacola and in the adjacent forts." In return, the Buchanan administration receives "satisfactory assurances" from Florida forces that the Fort Pickens will not be attacked. /1861

• President Buchanan replies today to John Slidell, lately the US Senator from Louisiana (now seceded), telling him he backs his Secretary of War's decision to revoke orders for Slidell's brother-in-law P.Gustave T. Beauregard as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. Beauregard had gained the position through then-Senator Slidell but was then forced out less than a week later because his home state of Louisiana seceded from the Union./1861