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For everyone who hates income taxes, which is pretty much everyone, it was a black day 150 years ago. Having had to arm, clothe, feed and house the first 75,000 volunteers, and now with 500,000 more being called into service, and with having to purchase every ship it could find and convert it into a war vessel, the US government was spending money at an unprecedented rate, one which would reach a million dollars a day at the war's peak.
The government couldn't just print the needed currency, that would rapidly wreck the economy with runaway inflation. (As happened when the Confederates did it.) Someone was going to have to pay for this war and Congress decided that those whose annual incomes were 800 dollars or more, could chip in 3 % of it to defeat the rebellion. It was the first income tax in American history. A year later the flat rate would be changed to a graduated one, 5 % on income over 10,000 dollars.
It was designed to be a temporary measure, set to expire in 1866.
In Missouri, Governor Jackson and the state militia had stopped their retreat from General Lyon's forces. Marching up to try and restore the rebel fortunes in Missouri came General Ben McCulloch leading several brigades of Arkansas infantry. The combined forces swelled the Confederate numbers to 12,000, doubling the 5800 Union troops with which Lyon was in pursuit.
150 years ago today, the lead elements of both armies encountered one another and this meeting developed into a skirmish called the Battle of Dug Springs. The The fight was inconsequential, but it served to alert Lyon that the tactical situation had done a dramatic about face. His senior officers advised that they fall back on Springfield and Lyon agreed.
But this was the hyper aggressive Nathaniel Lyon, outnumbered two to one or not, his instincts were always to attack. The above moves were the first steps in a campaign which would result in the war's second major battle eight days later at Wilson Creek.
Last edited by Grandstander; 08-01-2011 at 09:42 PM..
General Benjamin Butler commanded the Union troops in and around Fortress Monroe on the tip of the Virginia peninsula formed by the York and James rivers. Commanding the Confederate troops keeping an eye on Butler was Brigadier John Magruder. Both sides sent scouts and spies poking about the other's territory, and the fruit of one such venture was Magruder receiving a copy of a Northern newspaper which had printed Butler's official report. Magruder became engraged upon reading one section which he reported as:
Quote:
that he (Butler) did not know what to do with the many negroes in his possession unless he possessed Hampton; that they were still coming in rapidly; that as their masters had deserted their homes and slaves, he should consider the latter free, and would colonize them at Hampton, the home of most of their owners, where the women could support themselves by attending to the clothes of the soldiers, and the men by working on the fortifications of the town
Magruder was a theatrical man, one who believed in broad gestures and bombastic messages. To register his displeasure with Butler's plans for Hampton, he acted. In his official report of the action, Butler wrote:
Quote:
The enemy then proceeded to fire the town in a great number of places. By 12 o'clock it was in flames, and is now entirely destroyed. They gave but fifteen minutes' time for the inhabitants to remove from their houses, and I have to-day brought over the old and infirm, who by that wanton act of destruction are now left houseless and homeless. The enemy took away with them most of the able-bodied white men.
........
The town was the property of the secession inhabitants of Virginia, and they and their friends have chosen deliberately to destroy it, and under circumstances of cruel indifference to the inhabitants, who had remained in their homes, entirely without parallel.
Of the towns nearly 500 buildings, seven remained standing when the fire was finally exhausted. And though Magruder did attempt to evacuate all before starting the fire, about twenty white citizens and forty slaves known to have been in town, could not be accounted for later.
General Benjamin McCulloch's Arkansas militia, combined with General Sterling Price's Missouri state guardsmen, pushed after the retreating General Nathanile Lyon and began making preparation for an attack on Springfield. On this day 150 years ago they were camped near Wilson's Creek, about ten miles SW of that city.
However, rather than perfecting their plans for the assault on Lyon, the two Confederate generals invested their time in arguing over who was in overall command and whose plans for the attack would prevail. McCulloch did not trust the inexperienced Missouri guardsmen and wanted to delay the attack. Price was eager to avenge his having been driven across the state by Lyon, and favored an immediate strike. The exchange grew heated and Price threatened to go ahead with the attack without McCulloch's support. This caused McCulloch to give in and agree to an attack on the morning of the 10th. Ultimately that plan was canceled when heavy rains fell on the night of the 9th.
Both grey generals were basing their plans on the idea that the badly outnumbered Lyon would remain on the defensive in Springfield until the rebels were finally ready to launch their assault.
The war's second major battle, and the first to be staged in the west, was fought 150 years ago today near Wilson's Creek in Missouri.
Heavy rains had caused General's McCulloch and Price to cancel their planned strike against General Nathaniel Lyon's smaller force which was defending Springfield. Discouraged neither by the foul weather, nor the fact that he was outnumbered two to one, Lyon decided that a blow should be struck before he attempted any further retreat. A plan for the attack was developed by Colonel Franz Siegal, who was to go on to an incredibly controversial war career. Siegal, anticipating the daring of Robert E. Lee, proposed that the outnumbered Union command be divided, with Siegal leading 1200 men in a flanking maneuver, while Lyon attacked headlong with the remaining main body.
Thus, 5400 men in blue moved out to assault the 12,000 rebel troops.
At dawn, Lyon's troops slammed into Price's camp, taking it completely by surprise and driving it to the far side of the hill on which they had been camped. There Price rallied his stunned men into a defensive line and Lyon's assault ground to a halt.
At the opposite end of the Confederate host, Siegal also achieved surprise and early success as his force ambushed McCulloch's camp and drove them back at first. But as with Price, McCulloch pulled his units together, stopped Siegal's advance, and when Siegal mistook an advancing Confederate unit for friendly troops, his force was overwhelmed and routed, taking themselves out of the battle and leaving Lyon's troops to face all of the rebels alone.
About 9:30 am, Lyon, who had already been wounded twice, was racing from point to point, urging his men to hold fast, and organizing a counter attack, when a bullet found his heart and killed him instantly. Major Samuel Sturgis assumed command and he formed the remainin Union troops into a defensive position on a hill. There they held out for nienty minutes before Sturgis ordered a retreat.
The Confederates had won the field, but at so great a cost that they were unable to mount any sort of effective pursuit. The Northerners had suffered about 1300 casualties, the South just a hundred fewer. Price was all in favor of launching an invasion to regain Missouiri, but McCulloch was concerned that his supply line, which stretched all the way back to Arkansas, would not be able to support such an undertaking. So instead, he took his Arkansas troops and marched for home, leaving Price to his dreams of a reconquest. Though a battlefield victory, Wilson's Creek yielded no strategic gain for the Confederates, Union forces remained in control in Missouri.
As for the fallen Lyon, his body was eventually returned to his hometown of Eastford, Connecticut for permanent burial. About 15,000 mourners attended the funeral services.
While the Confederates were counting on the support of the civilized tribes who lived in The Nations, 150 years ago today they learned that for the Apache, North and South was still subordinate to red and white. For these New Mexico natives, the internal warring of the white man meant that the white military resources had to be diverted from chasing the Mescaleros, to chasing one another. Mescalero chief Nicholas saw opportunities and launched a series of raids. The Confederates in Texas responded with the troops which they could spare, but most of their soldiers had been shipped to the Virginian army, or were with the force being prepared for the invasion of New Mexico.
Thus, a Confederate patrol sent to police the lands being raided, was composed of just 15 cavalrymen and their interpreter. Their goal was to find Chief Nicholas and attempt to negotiate some sort of peace agreement.
Find him they did, but in the form of a waiting ambush that the Mescaleros had set for them. South of Fort Davis in the Big Bend country, they rode into that ambush and the only survivor was the interpreter.
Northern command in Missouri had been a muddled picture for the first several months of the war. General Harney had supposedly been in command, but actual authority was exercised by his subordinate Nathaniel Lyon in conjunction with Congressman Wathburn. The elected governor had been chased out of his office by Lyon and was heading a government in name only in the SW corner of the state. A provisional govenor had been selected to replace him on behalf of the Union, but his authority came from a self appointed convention of loyalists.
To finally get it all under control, President Lincoln named General Charles C. Fremont to command of the Department of the West, making him the chief military officer and the defacto govenor, which made for three in Missouri...an elected one with no power, an appointed one with no legality, and Fremont who was going to run things because he commanded the people with the guns.
Fremont of course was already among the most famous people in the nation. He had combined the virtues of personal courage and general competence, with extremely good fortune. It was the skill and experience of Kit Carson who was responsible for Fremonts very successful explorations of the west on behalf of the government, but Carson thought Fremont was a splendid fellow and didn't mind seeing him get the credit as "The Pathfinder." Helping even more in the making of Fremont's reputation was his highly intelligent and ambitious wife, Jessie, the daughter of the powerful Senator Lloyd Benton. Jessie took her husband's notes from his explorations and it was her prose which converted the story into a national bestseller which made Fremont look awfully good. It was Jessie's shrewd political instincts which guided Fremont to the 1956 Republican nomination for president.
That Fremont's rise was so well aided doesn't mean that he himself was any sort of fop. He endured the rigors of four expeditions across the Rocky Mountains, saved Carson's life in a fight with Indians in California, and acted with bold intiative to secure California for the US at the outbreak of the Mexican War.
Fremont was the sort who could get the job done, if you didn't mind a bit of extra bombast and the high probability of him acting beyond the scope of his authority.
With the death of Union hero Lyon and the Confederate victory at Wilson's Creek, the state's pro secessionists in St. Louis were once more emboldened and active.
150 years ago today, Fremont showed that he was unafraid to exercise authority. He declared martial law for the city of St. Louis. In Fremont's mind, martial law meant that whatever the military commanded, the people did...and Fremont commanded the military. He was giving himself permission to do whatever he wanted to do.
And he was shortly to find himself in trouble as a consequence.
There was also a mutiny 150 years ago today, but since there was another one the following day as well, I'll treat them collectively tomorrow.
Here are some exciting scenes from tomorrow's post:
"You men took an oath! You men are shaming your wives and...put that down, I'm warning you....UGHHH!"
"No furlough, no fight! No furlough, no fight! No furlough, no fight!"
"Front rank! Prepare to fire!"
"Tom! Stop! Tom! Sure he's got it coming, but that's murder! Tom! No! "
On consecutive days, the Union experienced revolts on the part of some of their soldiers.
The 79th New York regiment was camped outside Washington. They were not happy campers. They had thought themselves as having volunteered for three months militia service, but had just been informed by the War Department that their actual enlistments were for three years in the regular army. They reacted to this by by getting drunk, and then on the morning of the 14th, refusing to obey orders to assemble for duty. Their commander, Colonel Issac Stevens, read them the relevant portion of the Articles of War which informed them that the penalty for their actions was death. Still they refused to comply.
General Daniel Sickles, who was already a colorful public figure, and one destined for a colorful war career, happened upon the scene and he immediately reported the situation to General McClellan who dispatched a brigade of infantry, cavalry and artillery to the scene of the mutiny. They surrounded the camp and prepared to open fire. At this point, the mutiny collapsed.
The prisoners were taken before McClellan who ordeered the regiment disbanded and the members incarcerated at hard labor in the Dry Tortugas prison in the Florida Keys. (Same place where Dr. Samuel Mudd was held after his conviction as a Lincoln assassination conspirator.)
And on the 15th, it was members of the Second Maine Volunteers, a regiment in General McDowell's Corps, who repeated the 79th's performance for the same reason. They had thought that they had joined the Maine State militia for three months. When it was incorporated as a unit into the Army of the Potomac, the enlistments were counted as three years, the same as the other regular army terms. The Maine soldiers insisted that their enlistments were up and that they were entitled to be sent home. Around six dozen of them refused to obey orders until this was recognized.
Instead they got the same overwhelming force response as had the 79th, and as with that regiment, the 2nd Maine mutineers were shipped to hard labor in Dry Tortugas.
In the sixties, math prof turned musical satirist, Tom Lehrer, suggested that if any popular songs were going to come out of WW III, we had better start writing them in advance. He had a candidate available called "So Long Mom, I'm Off To Drop The Bomb", the last line of which was..
"I'll look for you when this cruel war's over,
An hour and a half from now."
Anticipating just such a speedy war a hundred years before Lehrer, 150 years ago today the 1st Wisconsin regiment returned home and received a heroic reception from 15,000 townsfolk in Milwaukee. Drinks were bought, toasts were made, a thirty four gun salute was fired, a parade was staged.
Were these war heroes returning for a merited furlough after risking their lives for their nation?
Well, no.
The 1st Wisconsin was one of the earliest regiments mustered when President Lincoln had made his call for 75,000 three month volunteers. Consequently, they were among the very first to complete their three months. That 500,000 more were enlisting for three year terms didn't seem to bother them. They had answered their nation's call, served the agreed upon number of days, and had concluded their martial experience as far as they were concerned.
That experience consisted of being on hand and participating in the rout of the rebel militia at Falling Waters in western Virginia. Among 825 officers and enlisted men, one was killed, one was captured, one died of disease and 20 had deserted. Earlier another 20 had been discharged for assorted illnesses or disabilities. So, it was 784 "veteran" Johnnies who came marching home to Wisconsin, their war service concluded.
Also on August 17th, 1861, General John Ellis Wool arrived at Fortress Monroe to take overall command of that department. Benjamin Butler, the politician general, had become a bit too loose of a cannon for the administration's comfort, so Wool was sent to reign him in. In an odd command arrangement designed to smooth Butler's feelings, Wool assumed departmental command while Butler retained command of all the troops.
This solved two problems for the Lincoln administration. It served to curb Butler's tendency toward political activism within his department, and it provided useful employment for the 77 year old senior general Wool while keeping him from any sort of active field command.
On the 16th, 17th and 18th, the Northern government was again generating a civil rights controversy, this time over freedom of the press. A number of northern newspapers were sympathetic with the rebel cause. The Brooklyn Eagle, New York Journal of Commerce, The Daily News and a few other New York papers became the subject of the vague charge of “alleged pro-Southernism” filed against them in Federal Court. Copies of the supposedly seditious editions were rounded up and confiscated.
William Wilson Corcoran had been born to a wealthy Georegtown family in 1798. On his own, he propspered as a dry goods store operator, real estate agent and stock broker who eventually owned his own brokerage firm and his own bank. Incredibly rich, Corcoran had retired at the age of 54 and decided to devote his remaining years to philanthrophy and patronizing the arts. He soon owned one of the largest collections of valuable paintings and sculptures in America. In 1858 he engaged an architect, took him on a tour of Europe to review possible designs, and commissioned him to build a spectacular art gallery in Washington based on the Tuileries addition to the Louvre.
It took three years to construct the building, and just as Corcoran was preparing for the grand opening, the war erupted. Corcoran had been a supported of the South, a daughter had married a Confederate foreign diplomat. Corcoran feared reprisals and decided to sit out the war in Paris.
150 years ago today he was not present when the US government decided that they would seize and make some use of this not yet opened, plush art gallery.
Back in May Great Britain had proclaimed itself officially neutral in the American civil war. It withheld recognition of the Confederacy under the idea that such status would only follow Southern victory in the war, but it did grant the South the status of a belligerent. This was an important distinction for it granted the South the rights of port usage which meant that their commerce raiders could range all over the world and be welcomed to resupply (except arms) in any of the numerous and far flung British overseas holdings.
However, as long as national recognition was withheld, the Confederates could send only unofficial represenatives to Britain and France, not anyone who could be classed as an embassy represenative.
The first group of Confederate delegates to Britain had been headed by William Yancy, but progress broke down when Yancy was asked if an independent Confederacy would be reopening the international slave trade. Yancy refused to give a straight answer for fear of the consequences. Instead he talked about Britain's need for cotton. Yancy got nowhere.
President Davis had become convinced that cotton was the key to obtaining European support. He reasoned that the sooner Britain's mills were denied their imported cotton, the sooner the economic hardship would cause the population to pressure Britain into breaking the Union blockade, which would bring Britain and France into the war on the side of the Confederacy.
Well, why wait for the blockade to take effect, Davis further reasoned. The process could be jump started by declaring a cotton embargo. Thus was born what turned out to be a disastrous policy.
But 150 years ago today, that was not yet known. Davis decided that the embargo would work, and that since diplomatic recognition was just around the corner, persons of greater distinction than Yancy would be needed to become the CSA's first official ambassadors. Receiving their appointments on this date were John Slidell of Louisiana (Britain) and James Mason of Virginia (France).
Also not known to anyone on this date was that this action was the opening chapter of what was to be called "The Trent Affair" where the two Confederate diplomats nearly accomplished their mission by doing nothing more than getting siezed on the high seas.
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