United States Civil War (1861 – 1865) in Real Time

Day 581 of the United States Civil War, November 11th 1862

Virginia

William C. Nelson spends a portion of his day writing his mother from his camp near Culpeper Court House in Virginia: “I still cherish hopes of seeing my beloved home and parents again [in Mississippi], although the time may be far distant. I believe however that I grow more and more contented every day with the hardships of a soldier’s life. I never let a day pass without reading one or more chapters in my bible and I know that its perusal does me good. . . . A great many of the soldiers of our army are in sad need of clothing, shoes, hats, etc. quite a number are almost barefooted. . . .”

Expedition to Greenbrier County ended.

Skirmish at Jefferson.

Skirmish at Snicker’s Gap.

United States Army, Major General George Brinton McClellan boarded a train at Warrenton Junction and ended his war service. The local garrison of 2,000 men protested his removal and attempted to prevent the train’s departure but their protests were quelled by McClellan and he was allowed to leave.

Florida

The Gunboat USS KENSINGTON under the command of United States Navy, Acting Master Crocker, captured the schooner COURSE off the coast.

North Carolina

Confederates made a demonstration against the 17th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment (United States) under the command of United States Army, Colonel Thoams J Amory at New Bern near Deep Gully.

Tennessee

Incidents at Huntsville and Lebanon.

United States Army, Major General Ulysses Simpson Grant received discretionary orders from United States Army, Major General Henry Wager Halleck permitting him to undertake offensive operations towards Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant was based at Grand Junction and he quickly activated his plans to advance southwards into Mississippi.

Day 583 of the United States Civil War, November 13th 1862

District of Columbia

(United States) President Abraham Lincoln orders his attorney general to take steps to support vigorously the July 17, 1862, Confiscation Act passed by Congress.

(United States) President Abraham Lincoln and United States Army, Major General Henry Wager Halleck approved the proposed change of base of the United States Army of the Potomac to Falmouth and Fredericksburg and communicated the decision to United States Army, Major General Ambrose Everett Burnside. This enabled Burnside to commence his advance towards Richmond by way of Fredericksburg rather than from Warrenton.

Virginia

Confederate States Army, colonel Edward Guerrant girds himself for the service to come: “How much I desire to see those I love, no one can tell, but I more desire to see established the great principles of Constitutional liberty without which home & friends are but companions in our misery.”

Skirmish at Sulphur Springs.

South Carolina

From South Carolina, diarist Emma Holmes records: “Charlestonians now feel very confident of being able to defend our city, since the genius of Beauregard has been at work. New fortifications and redoubts have sprung up all around and in the city, till now it is one of the most strongly fortified in the world and still they are being multiplied.”

Mississippi

Confederate States Army, Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, assumes the command of the 2nd Army Corps, the Confederate Army of the Mississippi.

Expedition to Southern Mississippi ended.

A United States cavalry force skirmished with local Confederates at Holly Springs. After driving away the Confederates, the United States troops took over the railroad depot in the town and this opened the way for an advance by United States Army, Major-General Ulysses Simpson Grant’s army from Grand Junction. The infantry and artillery followed on and established Holly Springs as the main supply depot for an advance southwards along the Mississippi Central Railroad.

Tennessee

Confederate States Army, General Braxton Bragg, Army of Tennessee, moves his troops from Chattanooga, toward Murfreesboro, TN, to unite his forces with Confederate States Army, Major General John Cabell Breckinridge.

Skirmish near Nashville.

Missouri

Expedition to Doniphan began.

South Carolina

United States expedition from Beaufort to Doboy River, Georgia, began.

Day 585 of the United States Civil War, November 15th 1862

District of Columbia

(United States) President Abraham Lincoln, United States Secretary of State, William Henry Seward and United States Secretary of War, Edwin McMasters Stanton, visited United States Navy, Captain John Adolphus Dahlgren at the Washington Navy Yard. They were present for the trial of the new Hyde rocket. Although a defective rocket exploded accidentally, the President escaped injury.

(United States) President Abraham Lincoln issues a Executive Order — General Order Respecting the Observance of the Sabbath Day in the Army and Navy:

November 15, 1862
The President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people. and a due regard for the divine will demand that Sunday labor in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.

The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer nor the cause they defend be imperiled by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. "At this time of public distress," adopting the words of Washington in 1776, "men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the Father of his Country after the Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our institutions were rounded and should ever be defended:

The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.

Abraham Lincoln.

Virginia

John Sappington Marmaduke is made Brigadier General in the Confederate States Army.

A growing impasse reaches a conclusion as Confederate States Secretary of War, George W. Randolph submits his resignation, which (Confederate States) President Jefferson Davis promptly accepts.

Governor of Virginia, John Letcher issued a proclamation for the distribution of salt among various counties.

Operation at Harper’s Ferry began.

Skirmish on the Guyandotte River.

Skirmishes at Sulphur Springs and Warrenton Springs. The United States troops were from the commands of United States Army, Brigadier General Orlando Bolivar Willcox and United States Army, Brigadier-General Edward Ferrero.

United States Army, Major General Ambrose Everett Burnside sent a vanguard of the Army of the Potomac to occupy the vicinity of Falmouth near Fredericksburg. United States Army, Major General Edwin Vose Sumner’s Right Grand Division departed from their camps at Warrenton and led the march to Fredericksburg.

Having dismissed his original plan to move the Army of Northern Virginia to the line of the North Anna River, Confederate States Army, General Robert Edward Lee sent
Confederate States Army, Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s I Corps to occupy instead the more defensible heights overlooking the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg. Longstreet was ordered to build entrenchments to forestall any future United States advance.

Missouri

Expedition to Doniphan ended.

Skirmish at Yocum Creek.

Tennessee

United States reconnaissance to Clarksville from Edgefield Junction began.

New York

The Palisades, the rock formation, on the west bank of the Hudson River near the north end of Manhattan, was bombarded by the single turreted, coastal monitor USS PASSAIC (1 × 15 in (380 mm) smoothbore gun and 1 × 11 in (280 mm) smoothbore gun), a newly built Monitor. The PASSAIC used the sheer cliffs of the Palisades for target practice to tests its new 15 inch guns on a shakedown run. The so-called Monitor’s were based on the Brooklyn-built ship which had fought the CSS Virginia to a stand-still.

Harper's Weekly: PASSAIC in gun trials at the palisades, 15 November 1862



Drawing: The monitor USS PASSAIC as she would have appeared during the American Civil War

Day 587 of the United States Civil War, November 17th 1862

Virginia

Confederate States Army, Major General Gustavus Woodson Smith took office as interim Confederate Secretary of War, succeeding George Wythe Randolph.

Skirmish halfway between Holland’s Corners and Carrsville.

Skirmish at Falmouth.

United States Army, Major General Edwin Vose Sumner’s Right Grand Division of the Army of the Potomac (Major-General Darius Nash Couch’s II Corps and Brigadier-General Orlando Bolivar Willcox’s IX Corps) reached the north bank of the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg. United States Army, Major General Joseph Hooker’s Centre Grand Division of the Army of the Potomac departed from Warrenton and headed for Fredericksburg, following the Left Grand Division. United States Army, Major General William Buel Franklin’s Left Grand Division was on the march between them.

Alabama

The UNADILLA-class gunboats USS KANAWHA under the command of United States Navy, Lieutenant-Commander John C Febiger, and USS KENNEBEC under the command of United States Navy, Lieutenant Commander John H Russell, chased a schooner ashore near Mobile where she was set afire and destroyed by her crew. United States ships prevented the Confederate coast guard from boarding the vessel to extinguish the flames.

California

Incident at Madelaine Plains.

Kentucky

United States Army, Major General Granger assumed command of the reformed Army of Kentucky. One division under United States Army, Brigadier General Absalom Baird had four brigades, including two brigades from the former “Army of Kentucky” under United States Army, Colonel John Coburn and United States Army, Colonel Smith Dykins Atkins. United States Army, Brigadier General Stephen Gano Burbridge took a second division, ultimately commanded by United States Army, Brigadier General Andrew Jackson Smith. The third division went to United States Army, Brigadier General Green Clay Smith (later to Brigadier-General Quincy Adams Gillmore).

Louisiana

United States Army, Major General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks had assumed command of the Department of the Gulf after receiving personal instructions from (United States) President Abraham Lincoln and United States Army, Major General Henry Wager Halleck. His two divergent objectives were to be the opening of the Mississippi River by the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the occupation of the port of Mobile, Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico. Subsequent operations would be to take Jackson, Mississippi, in order to sever Confederate communications across Mississippi. Banks was to return later to the Mississippi, ascend the Red River, and enter western Louisiana and Texas. Banks was promised an expeditionary force of 10,000 men who would sail from New York and the Yorktown peninsula to New Orleans.

Missouri

Operation at Keetsville and Cassville began.

North Carolina

The gunboat USS CAMBRIDGE under the command of United States Navy, Commander W A Parker, forced the blockade-running British schooner F W PINDAR aground at Masonboro Inlet and sent boat parties from to F W PINDAR through a boiling surf, which swamped one of the boats, to burn the schooner, only to be made prisoner themselves by a party of armed Confederate men who sprang out of the brush.

Tennessee

Expedition to Sparta began.

Martinique

The screw frigate USS SAN JACITNO (1 × 100 pdr Rifle, 10 × 9 in (230 mm) Smoothbore guns and 1 × 20 pdr Rifle) lies in wait off the Caribbean island of Martinique for the screw sloop-of-war CSS ALABAMA under the command of Confederate States Navy, Captain Raphael Semmes, but fails to prevent her from leaving port.

Day 589 of the United States Civil War, November 19th 1862

District of Columbia

George Lucas Hartsuff is made Major General in the United States Army.

Virginia

Skirmish at Philomont.

United States Army, Major General Ambrose Everett Burnside arrived at Fredericksburg, just ahead of the rearguard of the arriving Army of the Potomac. Burnside’s plan of attack was already going awry. He had ordered a large pontoon train to be sent to the front and assembled for his quick crossing of the Rappahannock, but administrative bungling at the War Department meant that the bridges had not preceded the arrival of the army. As soon as United States Army, Major General Edwin Vose Sumner arrived he had strongly urged an immediate crossing of the river to scatter the token Confederate force of 500 men currently in the town and to occupy the commanding heights to the west. However, Burnside began to panic, worried that the increasing autumn rains would make the fording points unusable and that if Sumner’s advanced guard did cross it might be cut off and destroyed. He ordered Sumner to wait in Falmouth and surrendered the initiative. He awaited the arrival of the pontoon bridges from Washington, DC, to enable the army to make a safer, more efficient, and rapid crossing of the 400 feet wide river.

Georgia

The UNADILLA-class gunboat USS WISSAHICKON under the command of United States Navy, Lieutenant-Commander John L Davis, and the screw steamer USS DAWN under the command of United States Navy, Acting Lieutenant John S Barnes, engaged Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee River. USS WISSAHICKON was hit and temporarily disabled in the exchange of fire. USS WISSAHICKON and USS DAWN were currently blockading CSS NASHVILLE in Ossabaw Sound, to prevent her escape for service as a commerce raider.

Kentucky

Skirmish near Tompkinsville involving the Confederate 3rd Alabama Cavalry Regiment (Confederate States) under the command of Confederate States Army, Colonel James R Howard.

Skirmish at Tunnel Hill.

Mississippi

United States expedition from Grand Junction to Ripley began.

Missouri

Skirmish at Pineville.

Tennessee

United States reconnaissance towards La Vergne began.

Martinique

Screw sloop-of-war CSS ALABAMA under the command of Confederate States Navy, Captain Raphael Semmes evaded the blockade of screw frigate USS SAN JACITNO under the command of United States Navy, Commander William Ronckendorff and escaped to sea under the cover of foul weather.