Posted on Jul 6, 2016
What was the most significant event on July 4 during the U.S. Civil War?
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Retreat From Gettysburg - Part One
Part one of two describing the Army of Northern Virginia's retreat back to Virginia on 7/4 - 7/14, 1863 after the Battle of Gettysburg. The maps seen in this...
Independence Day in the Civil War. Fireworks of a different kind than most people wanted to experience.
July 4, 1863 was a bad day for the Confederacy. It saw the surrender of Vicksburg and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia retreat from Gettysburg. The defeat at Helena, Arkansas while not in the same league, combined with the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi to leave Arkansas vulnerable to Union attack.
Confederate retreat from Gettysburg in 1863: “The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.”
Brother and US Ambassador father write to Charles, Jr., a cavalry officer in the Union army:
1. Friday, July 04, 1862: Henry Adams, son of the U.S. Ambassador in London, Charles Francis Adam, Sr., writes to his brother Charles, Jr., a cavalry officer in the Union army, expressing the anxieties they feel for the cause of the Union from the London point of view: “The truth is we are suffering now under one of those periodical returns of anxiety and despondency that I have often written of. . . . but meanwhile we are haunted by stories about McClellan and by the strange want of life that seems justly or not to characterize our military and naval motions. You at Charleston seem to be an exception to the rule of stagnation which leaves us everywhere on the defensive even when attacking. A little dash does so much to raise one’s spirits, and now our poor men only sicken in marshes. I think of it all as little as I can.”
He adds observations about how the cotton shortage is affecting the working class in England---without saying how such a situation may turn British sympathies toward the South: “The suffering among the operatives in Lancashire is very great and is increasing in a scale that makes people very uncomfortable though as yet they keep quiet about it. Cotton is going up to extraordinary prices; in a few days only it advanced three cents a pound and is still rising. Prices for cotton goods are merely nominal and vary according to the opinions of the holders, so that the whole trade is now pure speculation. Mills are closing in every direction.”
2. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- His father, Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, Sr., writes also to Charles, Jr.: “This detestable war is not of our own choosing, and out of it must grow consequences important to the welfare of coming generations, . . . I had hoped that the progress of General McClellan would have spared us much of this trouble. But it is plain that he has much of the Fabian policy in his composition which threatens to draw the war into greater length. Of course we must be content to take a great deal on trust. Thus far the results have been all that we had a reasonable right to expect. Let us hope that the delay is not without its great purposes. My belief is unshaken that the end of this conflict is to topple down the edifice of slavery. Perhaps we are not yet ready to come up to that work, and the madness of the resistance is the instrument in the hands of Divine Providence to drive us to it. It may be so. I must hold my soul in patience, and pray for courage and resignation.
This is the 4th of July. Eighty-six years ago our ancestors staked themselves in a contest of a far more dangerous and desperate character. The only fault they committed was in omitting to make it more general and complete. . . . I am not a friend of the violent policy of the ultras who seem to me to have no guide but their own theories. This great movement must be left in a degree to develope itself, and human power must be applied solely to shape the consequences so far as possible to the best uses.”
Reconstruction efforts were discussed but were unfocused in 1864: “As Grant continued to grind away at Lee’s forces around Petersburg, the work in Washington was beginning on how to go about re-integrating the South into the Federal nation. The word “Reconstruction” began to be in use around this time, and virtually nobody agreed about how it should be accomplished. Abraham Lincoln was being very judicious in releasing the details of his plans, which were surprisingly conciliatory to what was, after all, a conquered nation. It was less the Democrats giving him trouble than the members of his own party, known as the Radical Republicans, including the more fanatical abolitionists. Lincoln today pocket-vetoed a measure called the Wade-Davis bill, which would have barred any man who had ever borne arms against the Union from voting or holding office. Essentially the debate was over whether Congress or the President would control the rebuilding process.”
Gettysburg faceoff and confederate retreat Background: During the night of July 3-4, Lee continued the rearrangement of his lines, withdrawing Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s corps from Culp’s Hill, which then joined Lt. Gens. A.P. Hill’s and James Longstreet’s corps in a generally straight defensive line on Seminary Ridge. Most accounts describe Lee riding alone among his army long into the night. He finally met up with Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden, who was to provide the cavalry escort for the wagon train of wounded. General, this has been a hard day on you, Imboden said to his commander. Yes, Lee replied, it has been a sad, sad day to us. Lee lauded the performance of Pettigrew’s and Pickett’s men and added: If they had been supported as they were to have been — but for some reason not fully explained to me were not — we would have held the position and the day would have been ours. Too bad, too bad. Oh, too bad.
Aftermath: As both the Federal and Confederate armies commenced their race to the Potomac, they left a terrible scene of death and pain. Thousands of bodies lay blackened, bloated and festering in the sun. Before leaving Gettysburg, Meade contracted with a local resident, Samuel Herbst, to organize able-bodied citizens to bury the dead. Additionally, Pennsylvania militiamen, who had been ordered out to meet the emergency of Lee’s invasion, were pressed into the grisly work, fashioning hooks from bayonets and pulling bodies into shallow graves by their belts. There were still more than 21,000 wounded in Gettysburg, 14,500 Northerners and 6,800 Southerners. Since another battle with Lee was expected, most of the Army medical units marched off with Meade, leaving only 106 medical officers, about one-third of whom were operating surgeons. Volunteer nurses from the U.S. Sanitary Commission arrived to help, and fresh food and vegetables purchased from local sources also aided the convalescence of those who were not too seriously hurt.
Of course, in both burials and medical treatment, Northern soldiers received care first. According to some accounts, it took surgeons five days to complete their amputations, while Rebel soldiers lay dying. Not that Confederate soldiers were purposely treated callously — when a torrential rain began on July 4, hundreds of Southern wounded lying near a field hospital in danger of drowning were carried to higher ground by Northern soldiers. There were also instances of Southern women coming north to tend wounded Confederates and being permitted to carry out their mercy missions unhindered.
Some idea of the horrific conditions at Gettysburg in the wake of the battle can be gathered from the account of Cornelia Hancock, a New Jersey Quaker, who arrived to nurse the wounded: A sickening, overpowering, awful stench announced the presence of the unburied dead on which the July sun was mercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler until it seemed to possess a palpable, horrible density that could be felt and cut with a knife. At a field hospital the first sight that met our eyes was a collection of semi-conscious but still living human forms, all of whom had been shot through the head and were considered hopeless….Yet a groan came from them and their limbs tossed and twitched.
There was hardly a tent to be seen. Earth was the only available bed during the first hours after the battle….A long table stood in [the] woods and around it gathered a number of surgeons and attendants. This was the operating table, and for seven days it literally ran blood. A wagon stood near, rapidly filling with amputated legs and arms. Then, wholly filled, this gruesome spectacle withdrew from sight and returned for another load.
Lee directed his army to move across South Mountain to Hagerstown and then to Falling Waters. The wounded in their wagon train left first, at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th. The trail of pain stretched 17 miles. The wounded were accompanied by about 5,000 able-bodied men who were hurrying back to Virginia as rapidly as possible. Lieutenant General Richard Ewell’s corps was in the van between Imboden and the rest of the army. He was continually harassed by cavalry and got involved in a nasty night fight at Monterey Pass, where the flashes of the muskets were answered with bolts of lightning. Ewell lost his wagons and about 1,500 men, but fought off the Federals.
The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.
So important was our movement that no halt for bivouac, though we marched scarcely two miles an hour, was made on our route from Gettysburg to Williamsport — a march of over forty miles. The men and officers on horseback would go to sleep without knowing it, and at one time there was a halt occasioned by all the drivers…being asleep in their saddles. In fact, the whole army was dozing while marching and moved as if under enchantment or a spell — asleep and at the same time walking.
During the retreat, Lee ordered the impressment of horses to replace those lost in battle or those too jaded for further service. The Rebels paid for the horses either in Confederate currency or by giving the owners a written description of the animals confiscated, signed by a Confederate officer. These could be, and were, used by citizens to file a claim with the U.S. government for their losses.
For the hundreds of wounded, conveyed in springless wooden wagons, the retreat proved especially horrifying. The torrential rains that began on the 4th added to the misery of the torn men being hurried south to the safety of Virginia. Imboden issued orders prohibiting a halt, and stationed sentinels every third of a mile. During the first night of the retreat he rode to the head of the column and later recalled that in four hours he was never out of the hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in one hundred had received adequate surgical aid….Many of the wounded in wagons had been without food for 36 hours….except for the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in this vast procession of misery. During this one night I realized more of the horror of war than I had in all the two previous years.
Pictures: 1863-07-04 Lees Retreat from Gettysburg; 1862-07-04 battle damage on the CSS Teaser; 1862-07-04 USS Maratanza (1862-1868); 1864-07-04 Harpers Weekly July Fourth-1200
A. 1862: CSS Teaser versus USS Maratanza near Haxell's Landing on the James River in Virginia. The Teaser was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. The CSS Teaser’s boiler was pierced by a shell, the crew abandoned it and union ship’s crew captures it, as well as the observation balloon.
B. 1863: Vicksburg, Mississippi is captured by U.S. Grant. Union army took control of the city. In recognition of that day, the townsfolk of Vicksburg did not celebrate Independence Day for 81 years following the siege. The capture of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in half and was a major turning point of the Civil War. In the few days it took for Grant’s message announcing the capture of Vicksburg to reach Abraham Lincoln, the President had also received word that Port Hudson, the only other Confederate stronghold left on the Mississippi, had also fallen. “The Father of Waters once again goes unvexed to the sea,” he proclaimed.
With no length of the Mississippi River now safe from Union power, the Confederacy was unable to send supplies or communications across its breadth. Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas were cut off from the rest of the rebellious nation. This was doubly damaging, as the Texas-Mexico border was a favorite route of secessionist suppliers and the possibility of French intervention across the border was precluded by the nigh-impassable boundary of a Union-held Mississippi River. The fall of Vicksburg came just one day after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg, prompting many to point to early July, 1863 as the turning point of the Civil War.
C. 1863: Army of Northern Virginia face-off at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Both armies stared at each other in stunned silence and exhaustion, messengers rode back and forth across the lines. Lee held about 4,000 Federal troops prisoner and asked for an exchange. Meade declined, reasoning that guarding and feeding 4,000 prisoners during the retreat would work against the Confederates. Lee ordered his troops in front of Seminary Ridge to go through the motions of entrenching to deceive Meade as to his true intentions. Willing away the sense of despair and disappointment that had characterized his mood the night before, Lee affected an outward show of confidence. On greeting Longstreet, whose corps had borne the brunt of the fighting on the second and third days of the battle, Lee called out, Well, here is my old war horse. To Longstreet he repeated his remarks at the failure of Pickett’s Charge: It is all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.
While Lee was preparing his retreat, Meade issued General Orders No. 68, congratulating his men for their performance during the battle. His message concluded, Our task is not yet accomplished and the commanding general looks to the Army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader.
Although Meade clearly showed signs of strain from the burden of command in a crucial campaign, he ordered Maj. Gen. William French, stationed at Frederick, Md., to proceed to the ford at Falling Waters, near Williamsport, and destroy the pontoon bridge there. Meade apparently had some hope of trapping Lee north of the Potomac and assumed another major battle would be fought outside Virginia.
D. 1863: Battle of Helena, Arkansas. CSA loss. CSA planned to take advantage of reduced Federal forces to relive pressure on Vicksburg. Union garrison at Helena had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south) which gave them a distinct advantage even with forces reduced from 20,000 to 4,000.
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: US General Prentiss repulses an attack on Helena, Arkansas. [1863 or 1864]
CSA LT Gen Theophilius H. Holmes had 7,000 men at his disposal. He planned a three-pronged attack. General Stirling Price, with 3,000 men, was to attack the Federal centre on Graveyard Hill. Generals John S. Marmaduke and L.M. Walker, with 2,780 men, were to attack Fort Righter and General James F. Fagan with 1,770 was to attack Fort Hindman.
The flank attacks were launched at daybreak on 4 July. Price's attack in the centre went in a little later. However, it was Price who met with the most success, capturing Graveyard Hill after a series of charges. With the flank attacks bogged down, all this achieved was to make Price's men the target for every gun in the Union army, as well as those on the Tyler. By 10.30 it was clear to Holmes that the attack had failed, and he ordered Price's men to pull back.
Prentiss reported losses of 57 dead, 146 wounded and 36 captured or missing, for a total of 239. Confederate losses were much higher, at 173 dead, 687 wounded and 776 missing or captured, for a total of 1,636, or just over 20% of Holmes's entire force. Helena remained in Union hands, and was used as the base for the expedition that captured Little Rock, only two months later.
Retreat From Gettysburg - Part One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjXcoAWkhDo
FYI Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. PO3 Edward Riddle COL (Join to see) COL Lisandro MurphySSgt David M.SFC Dr. Jesus Garcia-Arce, Psy.D LTC Trent Klug SFC Ralph E Kelley SrA Ronald Moore PV2 Larry Sellnow PV2 Scott M. SSG Jeffrey Leake PO1 Tony Holland SGT Mark Anderson SSgt David M. SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SSG Bill McCoy COL Randall C.
July 4, 1863 was a bad day for the Confederacy. It saw the surrender of Vicksburg and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia retreat from Gettysburg. The defeat at Helena, Arkansas while not in the same league, combined with the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi to leave Arkansas vulnerable to Union attack.
Confederate retreat from Gettysburg in 1863: “The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.”
Brother and US Ambassador father write to Charles, Jr., a cavalry officer in the Union army:
1. Friday, July 04, 1862: Henry Adams, son of the U.S. Ambassador in London, Charles Francis Adam, Sr., writes to his brother Charles, Jr., a cavalry officer in the Union army, expressing the anxieties they feel for the cause of the Union from the London point of view: “The truth is we are suffering now under one of those periodical returns of anxiety and despondency that I have often written of. . . . but meanwhile we are haunted by stories about McClellan and by the strange want of life that seems justly or not to characterize our military and naval motions. You at Charleston seem to be an exception to the rule of stagnation which leaves us everywhere on the defensive even when attacking. A little dash does so much to raise one’s spirits, and now our poor men only sicken in marshes. I think of it all as little as I can.”
He adds observations about how the cotton shortage is affecting the working class in England---without saying how such a situation may turn British sympathies toward the South: “The suffering among the operatives in Lancashire is very great and is increasing in a scale that makes people very uncomfortable though as yet they keep quiet about it. Cotton is going up to extraordinary prices; in a few days only it advanced three cents a pound and is still rising. Prices for cotton goods are merely nominal and vary according to the opinions of the holders, so that the whole trade is now pure speculation. Mills are closing in every direction.”
2. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- His father, Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, Sr., writes also to Charles, Jr.: “This detestable war is not of our own choosing, and out of it must grow consequences important to the welfare of coming generations, . . . I had hoped that the progress of General McClellan would have spared us much of this trouble. But it is plain that he has much of the Fabian policy in his composition which threatens to draw the war into greater length. Of course we must be content to take a great deal on trust. Thus far the results have been all that we had a reasonable right to expect. Let us hope that the delay is not without its great purposes. My belief is unshaken that the end of this conflict is to topple down the edifice of slavery. Perhaps we are not yet ready to come up to that work, and the madness of the resistance is the instrument in the hands of Divine Providence to drive us to it. It may be so. I must hold my soul in patience, and pray for courage and resignation.
This is the 4th of July. Eighty-six years ago our ancestors staked themselves in a contest of a far more dangerous and desperate character. The only fault they committed was in omitting to make it more general and complete. . . . I am not a friend of the violent policy of the ultras who seem to me to have no guide but their own theories. This great movement must be left in a degree to develope itself, and human power must be applied solely to shape the consequences so far as possible to the best uses.”
Reconstruction efforts were discussed but were unfocused in 1864: “As Grant continued to grind away at Lee’s forces around Petersburg, the work in Washington was beginning on how to go about re-integrating the South into the Federal nation. The word “Reconstruction” began to be in use around this time, and virtually nobody agreed about how it should be accomplished. Abraham Lincoln was being very judicious in releasing the details of his plans, which were surprisingly conciliatory to what was, after all, a conquered nation. It was less the Democrats giving him trouble than the members of his own party, known as the Radical Republicans, including the more fanatical abolitionists. Lincoln today pocket-vetoed a measure called the Wade-Davis bill, which would have barred any man who had ever borne arms against the Union from voting or holding office. Essentially the debate was over whether Congress or the President would control the rebuilding process.”
Gettysburg faceoff and confederate retreat Background: During the night of July 3-4, Lee continued the rearrangement of his lines, withdrawing Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s corps from Culp’s Hill, which then joined Lt. Gens. A.P. Hill’s and James Longstreet’s corps in a generally straight defensive line on Seminary Ridge. Most accounts describe Lee riding alone among his army long into the night. He finally met up with Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden, who was to provide the cavalry escort for the wagon train of wounded. General, this has been a hard day on you, Imboden said to his commander. Yes, Lee replied, it has been a sad, sad day to us. Lee lauded the performance of Pettigrew’s and Pickett’s men and added: If they had been supported as they were to have been — but for some reason not fully explained to me were not — we would have held the position and the day would have been ours. Too bad, too bad. Oh, too bad.
Aftermath: As both the Federal and Confederate armies commenced their race to the Potomac, they left a terrible scene of death and pain. Thousands of bodies lay blackened, bloated and festering in the sun. Before leaving Gettysburg, Meade contracted with a local resident, Samuel Herbst, to organize able-bodied citizens to bury the dead. Additionally, Pennsylvania militiamen, who had been ordered out to meet the emergency of Lee’s invasion, were pressed into the grisly work, fashioning hooks from bayonets and pulling bodies into shallow graves by their belts. There were still more than 21,000 wounded in Gettysburg, 14,500 Northerners and 6,800 Southerners. Since another battle with Lee was expected, most of the Army medical units marched off with Meade, leaving only 106 medical officers, about one-third of whom were operating surgeons. Volunteer nurses from the U.S. Sanitary Commission arrived to help, and fresh food and vegetables purchased from local sources also aided the convalescence of those who were not too seriously hurt.
Of course, in both burials and medical treatment, Northern soldiers received care first. According to some accounts, it took surgeons five days to complete their amputations, while Rebel soldiers lay dying. Not that Confederate soldiers were purposely treated callously — when a torrential rain began on July 4, hundreds of Southern wounded lying near a field hospital in danger of drowning were carried to higher ground by Northern soldiers. There were also instances of Southern women coming north to tend wounded Confederates and being permitted to carry out their mercy missions unhindered.
Some idea of the horrific conditions at Gettysburg in the wake of the battle can be gathered from the account of Cornelia Hancock, a New Jersey Quaker, who arrived to nurse the wounded: A sickening, overpowering, awful stench announced the presence of the unburied dead on which the July sun was mercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler until it seemed to possess a palpable, horrible density that could be felt and cut with a knife. At a field hospital the first sight that met our eyes was a collection of semi-conscious but still living human forms, all of whom had been shot through the head and were considered hopeless….Yet a groan came from them and their limbs tossed and twitched.
There was hardly a tent to be seen. Earth was the only available bed during the first hours after the battle….A long table stood in [the] woods and around it gathered a number of surgeons and attendants. This was the operating table, and for seven days it literally ran blood. A wagon stood near, rapidly filling with amputated legs and arms. Then, wholly filled, this gruesome spectacle withdrew from sight and returned for another load.
Lee directed his army to move across South Mountain to Hagerstown and then to Falling Waters. The wounded in their wagon train left first, at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th. The trail of pain stretched 17 miles. The wounded were accompanied by about 5,000 able-bodied men who were hurrying back to Virginia as rapidly as possible. Lieutenant General Richard Ewell’s corps was in the van between Imboden and the rest of the army. He was continually harassed by cavalry and got involved in a nasty night fight at Monterey Pass, where the flashes of the muskets were answered with bolts of lightning. Ewell lost his wagons and about 1,500 men, but fought off the Federals.
The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.
So important was our movement that no halt for bivouac, though we marched scarcely two miles an hour, was made on our route from Gettysburg to Williamsport — a march of over forty miles. The men and officers on horseback would go to sleep without knowing it, and at one time there was a halt occasioned by all the drivers…being asleep in their saddles. In fact, the whole army was dozing while marching and moved as if under enchantment or a spell — asleep and at the same time walking.
During the retreat, Lee ordered the impressment of horses to replace those lost in battle or those too jaded for further service. The Rebels paid for the horses either in Confederate currency or by giving the owners a written description of the animals confiscated, signed by a Confederate officer. These could be, and were, used by citizens to file a claim with the U.S. government for their losses.
For the hundreds of wounded, conveyed in springless wooden wagons, the retreat proved especially horrifying. The torrential rains that began on the 4th added to the misery of the torn men being hurried south to the safety of Virginia. Imboden issued orders prohibiting a halt, and stationed sentinels every third of a mile. During the first night of the retreat he rode to the head of the column and later recalled that in four hours he was never out of the hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in one hundred had received adequate surgical aid….Many of the wounded in wagons had been without food for 36 hours….except for the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in this vast procession of misery. During this one night I realized more of the horror of war than I had in all the two previous years.
Pictures: 1863-07-04 Lees Retreat from Gettysburg; 1862-07-04 battle damage on the CSS Teaser; 1862-07-04 USS Maratanza (1862-1868); 1864-07-04 Harpers Weekly July Fourth-1200
A. 1862: CSS Teaser versus USS Maratanza near Haxell's Landing on the James River in Virginia. The Teaser was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. The CSS Teaser’s boiler was pierced by a shell, the crew abandoned it and union ship’s crew captures it, as well as the observation balloon.
B. 1863: Vicksburg, Mississippi is captured by U.S. Grant. Union army took control of the city. In recognition of that day, the townsfolk of Vicksburg did not celebrate Independence Day for 81 years following the siege. The capture of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in half and was a major turning point of the Civil War. In the few days it took for Grant’s message announcing the capture of Vicksburg to reach Abraham Lincoln, the President had also received word that Port Hudson, the only other Confederate stronghold left on the Mississippi, had also fallen. “The Father of Waters once again goes unvexed to the sea,” he proclaimed.
With no length of the Mississippi River now safe from Union power, the Confederacy was unable to send supplies or communications across its breadth. Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas were cut off from the rest of the rebellious nation. This was doubly damaging, as the Texas-Mexico border was a favorite route of secessionist suppliers and the possibility of French intervention across the border was precluded by the nigh-impassable boundary of a Union-held Mississippi River. The fall of Vicksburg came just one day after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg, prompting many to point to early July, 1863 as the turning point of the Civil War.
C. 1863: Army of Northern Virginia face-off at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Both armies stared at each other in stunned silence and exhaustion, messengers rode back and forth across the lines. Lee held about 4,000 Federal troops prisoner and asked for an exchange. Meade declined, reasoning that guarding and feeding 4,000 prisoners during the retreat would work against the Confederates. Lee ordered his troops in front of Seminary Ridge to go through the motions of entrenching to deceive Meade as to his true intentions. Willing away the sense of despair and disappointment that had characterized his mood the night before, Lee affected an outward show of confidence. On greeting Longstreet, whose corps had borne the brunt of the fighting on the second and third days of the battle, Lee called out, Well, here is my old war horse. To Longstreet he repeated his remarks at the failure of Pickett’s Charge: It is all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.
While Lee was preparing his retreat, Meade issued General Orders No. 68, congratulating his men for their performance during the battle. His message concluded, Our task is not yet accomplished and the commanding general looks to the Army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader.
Although Meade clearly showed signs of strain from the burden of command in a crucial campaign, he ordered Maj. Gen. William French, stationed at Frederick, Md., to proceed to the ford at Falling Waters, near Williamsport, and destroy the pontoon bridge there. Meade apparently had some hope of trapping Lee north of the Potomac and assumed another major battle would be fought outside Virginia.
D. 1863: Battle of Helena, Arkansas. CSA loss. CSA planned to take advantage of reduced Federal forces to relive pressure on Vicksburg. Union garrison at Helena had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south) which gave them a distinct advantage even with forces reduced from 20,000 to 4,000.
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: US General Prentiss repulses an attack on Helena, Arkansas. [1863 or 1864]
CSA LT Gen Theophilius H. Holmes had 7,000 men at his disposal. He planned a three-pronged attack. General Stirling Price, with 3,000 men, was to attack the Federal centre on Graveyard Hill. Generals John S. Marmaduke and L.M. Walker, with 2,780 men, were to attack Fort Righter and General James F. Fagan with 1,770 was to attack Fort Hindman.
The flank attacks were launched at daybreak on 4 July. Price's attack in the centre went in a little later. However, it was Price who met with the most success, capturing Graveyard Hill after a series of charges. With the flank attacks bogged down, all this achieved was to make Price's men the target for every gun in the Union army, as well as those on the Tyler. By 10.30 it was clear to Holmes that the attack had failed, and he ordered Price's men to pull back.
Prentiss reported losses of 57 dead, 146 wounded and 36 captured or missing, for a total of 239. Confederate losses were much higher, at 173 dead, 687 wounded and 776 missing or captured, for a total of 1,636, or just over 20% of Holmes's entire force. Helena remained in Union hands, and was used as the base for the expedition that captured Little Rock, only two months later.
Retreat From Gettysburg - Part One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjXcoAWkhDo
FYI Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. PO3 Edward Riddle COL (Join to see) COL Lisandro MurphySSgt David M.SFC Dr. Jesus Garcia-Arce, Psy.D LTC Trent Klug SFC Ralph E Kelley SrA Ronald Moore PV2 Larry Sellnow PV2 Scott M. SSG Jeffrey Leake PO1 Tony Holland SGT Mark Anderson SSgt David M. SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SSG Bill McCoy COL Randall C.
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Retreat From Gettysburg - Part Two
Part 2 of two describing the Army of Northern Virginia's retreat back to Virginia on 7/4 - 7/14, 1863 after the Battle of Gettysburg. The maps seen in this v...
1863 was the turning point of the Civil War as Confederate defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg ended confederate serious attempts to bring the war to the north and severed the confederate forces east of the Mississippi from those west of the Mississippi which died on the vine so to speak. Similarly, the Nazi juggernaut was defeated at Kursk (July 5–August 23, 1943).
Below are a number of journal entries from 1862 and 1863 which shed light on what life was like for soldiers and civilians – the good, the bad and the ugly.
Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Private Oliver Willcox Norton of the Union army writes home with a detailed account of his experience in the Battle of Gaines Mill, showing the tendency of his rifle to be more prone to getting wounded than his body: “The order was given to face about. We did so and tried to form in line, but while the line was forming, a bullet laid low the head, the stay, the trust of our regiment—our brave colonel, and before we knew what had happened the major shared his fate. We were then without a field officer, but the boys bore up bravely. . . . Those in the rear of us received the order but the aide sent to us was shot before he reached us and so we got no orders. Henry and Denison were shot about the same time as the colonel. I left them together under a tree. I returned to the fight, and our boys were dropping on all sides of me. I was blazing away at the rascals not ten rods off when a ball struck my gun just above the lower band as I was capping it, and cut it in two. The ball flew in pieces and part went by my head to the right and three pieces struck just below my left collar bone. The deepest one was not over half an inch, and stopping to open my coat I pulled them out and snatched a gun from Ames in Company H as he fell dead. Before I had fired this at all a ball clipped off a piece of the stock, and an instant after, another struck the seam of my canteen and entered my left groin. I pulled it out, and, more maddened than ever, I rushed in again. A few minutes after, another ball took six inches off the muzzle of this gun. I snatched another from a wounded man under a tree, and, as I was loading kneeling by the side of the road, a ball cut my rammer in two as I was turning it over my head. Another gun was easier got than a rammer so I threw that away and picked up a fourth one. Here in the road a buckshot struck me in the left eyebrow, making the third slight scratch I received in the action. It exceeded all I ever dreamed of, it was almost a miracle. Then came the retreat across the river; rebels on three sides of us left no choice but to run or be killed or be taken prisoners. We left our all in the hollow by the creek and crossed the river to Smith’s division. The bridge was torn up and when I came to the river I threw my cartridge box on my shoulder and waded through. It was a little more than waist deep. I stayed that night with some Sherman boys in Elder Drake’s company in the Forty-ninth New York.
Sunday night we lay in a cornfield in the rain, without tent or blanket. Monday we went down on the James river, lying behind batteries to support them. Tuesday the same—six days exposed to a constant fire of shot and shell, till almost night, when we went to the front and engaged in another fierce conflict with the enemy. Going on to the field, I picked up a tent and slung it across my shoulder. The folds of that stopped a ball that would have passed through me. I picked it out, put it in my pocket, and, after firing sixty rounds of my own and a number of a wounded comrade’s cartridges, I came off the field unhurt, and ready, but not anxious, for another fight.”
Friday, July 04, 1862 --- William C. Horton, of the U.S. Navy, assigned to the U.S.S. Hartford under Flag Officer Farragut on the Mississippi, tells of the fleet’s run past the guns of Vicksburg, and how they celebrated the Fourth of July: “During the night the mortars were moved up to easy range, and on the 28th, before daylight, the mortars opened in earnest. The whole fleet now moved up to the attack. Our ships were before the city, while the shells from the mortars were being hurled right over our heads, and, as battery after battery was unmasked from every conceivable position, the ridge of the bluff was one sheet of fire. The big ships sent in their broadsides, the mortars scores of shell, and all combined to make up a grand display and terrible conflict. After nearly two hours of hard fighting, our ships had nearly all passed the city, out of range, and the firing ceased.
On looking around I found the Hartford riddled from stem to stern; first a hole through her bow, then two through the side, one below water, then another through the bulwarks, another through the stern and cabin, and another through the smoke-pipe, &c., &c., the main topsail-yard cut in twain, and the rigging terribly cut fore and aft.
Our casualties in killed and wounded were light. . . . The afternoon was devoted to burying the dead and communicating with the ram fleet belonging .to Commodore Davis’s division. From our anchorage we’ could see across the point of land to General Williams’s camp and the transports below, and we immediately established communication with them. Here we spent the Fourth of July, which was celebrated by the booming of cannon from both fleets, and a volley of shells to the rebels. . . .”
Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Young Sarah Morgan of Baton Rouge writes of her feelings about the future of the nation---sure of her Confederate loyalties and yet uncertain about the vicious nature of the division between North and South: “For a few days before his arrival here, we saw a leading article in the leading Union paper of New Orleans, threatening us with the arming of the slaves for our extermination if England interfered, in the same language almost as Butler used when here; three days ago the same paper ridiculed the idea, and said such a brutal, inhuman thing was never for a moment thought of, it was too absurd. And so the world goes! We all turn somersaults occasionally.
And yet, I would rather we would achieve our independence alone, if possible. It would be so much more glorious. And then I would hate to see England conquer the North, even if for our sake; my love for the old Union is still too great to be willing to see it so humiliated. If England would just make Lincoln come to his senses, and put an end to all this confiscation which is sweeping over everything, make him agree to let us alone and behave himself, that will be quite enough. But what a task! . . .”
Saturday, July 04, 1863: A Unionist woman in Vicksburg records her impressions of the victorious Federal troops marching into conquered Vicksburg: “July 4th. – It is evening. All is still. Silence and night are once more united. I can sit at the table in the parlor and write. Two candles are lighted. I would like a dozen. We have had wheat supper and wheat bread once more. … [The author relates the history of the past 24 hours, including the stars and stripes being raised at the courthouse and federal transport boats coming around the bend full of provisions.] Towards five Mr. J– passed again. “Keep on the lookout,” he said; “the army of occupation is coming along,” and in a few minutes the head of the column appeared. What a contrast to the suffering creatures we had seen so long were these stalwart, well-fed men, so splendidly set up and accoutered. Sleek horses, polished arms, bright plumes, – this was the pride and panoply of war. Civilization, discipline, and order seemed to enter with the measured tramp of those marching columns; and the heart turned with throbs of added pity to the worn men in gray, who were being blindly dashed against this embodiment of modern power. And now this “silence that is golden” indeed is over all, and my limbs are unhurt, and I suppose if I were Catholic, in my fervent gratitude, I would hie me with a rich offering to the shrine of “our Lady of Mercy.”
Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Sergeant James T. Odem of the 5th New Jersey Infantry Regiment writes home to his wife from Westminster, Maryland, where his regiment was on guard duty. He passes on what information he is getting from Gettysburg, and comments on the depredations of the Rebels in northern country---as well as on Yankee depredations amongst the local farmers: “My wife: I again pen a few lines for Your Entertainment and perusal. Well here I am Sitting In the wagon to keep out of the rain which is falling in torrents, the first heavy rain that we have had for Some days, and of Course very acceptable, although it is very bad for the troops who are Now Wounded, or fighting upon the Battlefield. there has been Some very hard fighting at Gettysburg Pa. within the last few days and the Loss is heavy on both Sides. Our forces have Captured Several thousand Rebels that I have Seen and I have been talking with Some of the Rebs which talk as Poison as the bite of a Rattler Snake. they Say they will fight us as long as they have a man Left. this town is part Secesh, but Many of the Ladies are Caring for our wounded that are brought here. We are not far from the State Line, yet I am Some 25 Miles from where the fighting is going on. Our trains are mostly all parked here, out of the way of the Enemy, for fear of Capture as the Rebel Cavalry are all over the Country and was in this place Last Monday, when they Sacked all the Stores and destroying what they did not care to carry off, besides Stealing about 4,000 horses from the farmers, and Robbing Private houses and insulting the females, but they are Paying very dearly for their Crimes just now. Our forces are whipping them at all points here we have traveled Some 300 miles but Now we have Come to a halt for awhile, and I believe that before we Leave again for Virginia, that the Rebel army which is here in Maryland and Pennsylvania will pretty much all be Killed Or Captured, as the water in the Potomac is So high that they cannot Escape. . . . The wheat Looks good, but I tell you that the army is doing Much Mischief to the farmers destroying trees and Crops but Buy what Hay and grain as victuals they take away. . . . I would Like to have been home to spend the 4th with you, yet I am doing well to what Many poor Souls are. Please give My love and Compliments to Christian and family. Likewise to you and the Children. Good by from your Husband James T. Odem”
Pictures: 1863-07-04 Surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, meeting of Generals Pemberton and Grant, July 4, 1863; 1862-07-04 Morgan's Lexington Rifles in Camp; 1863-07-04 Gettysburg Campaign Retreat; 1862-07-04 CSS Teaser
F. Friday, July 04, 1862: CSS Teaser versus USS Maratanza near Haxell's Landing on the James River in Virginia. The Teaser was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. The CSS Teaser’s boiler was pierced by a shell, the crew abandoned it and union ship’s crew captures it, as well as the observation balloon.
Details: On July 4, the Confederate gunboat CSS Teaser, a gunboat armed with a 32-pounder gun, in addition to a 57-pounder rifled gun, and a 12-pounder gun was commanded by Lt. Hunter Davidson and was on the James River. It was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. It was sailing near Haxall's Landing, just north of City Point, when it encountered the side-wheel gunboat USS Maratanza. The Maratanza commanded by Lt. Thomas H. Stevens sortied up the James River and encounters the C.S.S. Teaser. After the exchange of several shots, the Yankee vessel fired a shell that pierced the Teaser’s boiler, after which its crew abandons it in haste. Stevens captures the Teaser captured after being disabled as well as the observation balloon. The Federals were surprised when they discovered the Teaser's mission. Aboard the Teaser, its new Union owners discover electric mines ready to be laid in the river, as well as an observation balloon for spying on the Army of the Potomac. The silk for the balloon is rumored to come from dresses donated by Richmond belles. It’s actually very colorful silk dress material, $514 worth, which would be something around $11,682 today per this calculator (though that’s a very uncertain conversion, since these were Confederate dollars and it was wartime).
G. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Vicksburg, Mississippi is captured by U.S. Grant. Union army took control of the city. In recognition of that day, the townsfolk of Vicksburg did not celebrate Independence Day for 81 years following the siege. The capture of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in half and was a major turning point of the Civil War. In the few days it took for Grant’s message announcing the capture of Vicksburg to reach Abraham Lincoln, the President had also received word that Port Hudson, the only other Confederate stronghold left on the Mississippi, had also fallen. “The Father of Waters once again goes unvexed to the sea,” he proclaimed.
With no length of the Mississippi River now safe from Union power, the Confederacy was unable to send supplies or communications across its breadth. Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas were cut off from the rest of the rebellious nation. This was doubly damaging, as the Texas-Mexico border was a favorite route of secessionist suppliers and the possibility of French intervention across the border was precluded by the nigh-impassable boundary of a Union-held Mississippi River. The fall of Vicksburg came just one day after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg, prompting many to point to early July, 1863 as the turning point of the Civil War.
H. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Army of Northern Virginia face-off at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Both armies stared at each other in stunned silence and exhaustion, messengers rode back and forth across the lines. Lee held about 4,000 Federal troops prisoner and asked for an exchange. Meade declined, reasoning that guarding and feeding 4,000 prisoners during the retreat would work against the Confederates. Lee ordered his troops in front of Seminary Ridge to go through the motions of entrenching to deceive Meade as to his true intentions. Willing away the sense of despair and disappointment that had characterized his mood the night before, Lee affected an outward show of confidence. On greeting Longstreet, whose corps had borne the brunt of the fighting on the second and third days of the battle, Lee called out, Well, here is my old war horse. To Longstreet he repeated his remarks at the failure of Pickett’s Charge: It is all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.
While Lee was preparing his retreat, Meade issued General Orders No. 68, congratulating his men for their performance during the battle. His message concluded, Our task is not yet accomplished and the commanding general looks to the Army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader.
Although Meade clearly showed signs of strain from the burden of command in a crucial campaign, he ordered Maj. Gen. William French, stationed at Frederick, Md., to proceed to the ford at Falling Waters, near Williamsport, and destroy the pontoon bridge there. Meade apparently had some hope of trapping Lee north of the Potomac and assumed another major battle would be fought outside Virginia.
Background: During the night of July 3-4, Lee continued the rearrangement of his lines, withdrawing Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s corps from Culp’s Hill, which then joined Lt. Gens. A.P. Hill’s and James Longstreet’s corps in a generally straight defensive line on Seminary Ridge. Most accounts describe Lee riding alone among his army long into the night. He finally met up with Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden, who was to provide the cavalry escort for the wagon train of wounded. General, this has been a hard day on you, Imboden said to his commander. Yes, Lee replied, it has been a sad, sad day to us. Lee lauded the performance of Pettigrew’s and Pickett’s men and added: If they had been supported as they were to have been — but for some reason not fully explained to me were not — we would have held the position and the day would have been ours. Too bad, too bad. Oh, too bad.
We must now return to Virginia, Lee continued. As many of our poor wounded as possible must be taken home. As Lee gave Imboden his orders, he added: The duty will be arduous, responsible and dangerous, for I am afraid you will be harassed by the enemy’s cavalry. How many men do you have? Imboden replied that he had 2,000 men and 23 cannons available for the task.
Aftermath: As both the Federal and Confederate armies commenced their race to the Potomac, they left a terrible scene of death and pain. Thousands of bodies lay blackened, bloated and festering in the sun. Before leaving Gettysburg, Meade contracted with a local resident, Samuel Herbst, to organize able-bodied citizens to bury the dead. Additionally, Pennsylvania militiamen, who had been ordered out to meet the emergency of Lee’s invasion, were pressed into the grisly work, fashioning hooks from bayonets and pulling bodies into shallow graves by their belts. There were still more than 21,000 wounded in Gettysburg, 14,500 Northerners and 6,800 Southerners. Since another battle with Lee was expected, most of the Army medical units marched off with Meade, leaving only 106 medical officers, about one-third of whom were operating surgeons. Volunteer nurses from the U.S. Sanitary Commission arrived to help, and fresh food and vegetables purchased from local sources also aided the convalescence of those who were not too seriously hurt.
Of course, in both burials and medical treatment, Northern soldiers received care first. According to some accounts, it took surgeons five days to complete their amputations, while Rebel soldiers lay dying. Not that Confederate soldiers were purposely treated callously — when a torrential rain began on July 4, hundreds of Southern wounded lying near a field hospital in danger of drowning were carried to higher ground by Northern soldiers. There were also instances of Southern women coming north to tend wounded Confederates and being permitted to carry out their mercy missions unhindered.
Some idea of the horrific conditions at Gettysburg in the wake of the battle can be gathered from the account of Cornelia Hancock, a New Jersey Quaker, who arrived to nurse the wounded: A sickening, overpowering, awful stench announced the presence of the unburied dead on which the July sun was mercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler until it seemed to possess a palpable, horrible density that could be felt and cut with a knife. At a field hospital the first sight that met our eyes was a collection of semi-conscious but still living human forms, all of whom had been shot through the head and were considered hopeless….Yet a groan came from them and their limbs tossed and twitched.
There was hardly a tent to be seen. Earth was the only available bed during the first hours after the battle….A long table stood in [the] woods and around it gathered a number of surgeons and attendants. This was the operating table, and for seven days it literally ran blood. A wagon stood near, rapidly filling with amputated legs and arms. Then, wholly filled, this gruesome spectacle withdrew from sight and returned for another load.
Lee directed his army to move across South Mountain to Hagerstown and then to Falling Waters. The wounded in their wagon train left first, at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th. The trail of pain stretched 17 miles. The wounded were accompanied by about 5,000 able-bodied men who were hurrying back to Virginia as rapidly as possible. Lieutenant General Richard Ewell’s corps was in the van between Imboden and the rest of the army. He was continually harassed by cavalry and got involved in a nasty night fight at Monterey Pass, where the flashes of the muskets were answered with bolts of lightning. Ewell lost his wagons and about 1,500 men, but fought off the Federals.
The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.
So important was our movement that no halt for bivouac, though we marched scarcely two miles an hour, was made on our route from Gettysburg to Williamsport — a march of over forty miles. The men and officers on horseback would go to sleep without knowing it, and at one time there was a halt occasioned by all the drivers…being asleep in their saddles. In fact, the whole army was dozing while marching and moved as if under enchantment or a spell — asleep and at the same time walking.
During the retreat, Lee ordered the impressment of horses to replace those lost in battle or those too jaded for further service. The Rebels paid for the horses either in Confederate currency or by giving the owners a written description of the animals confiscated, signed by a Confederate officer. These could be, and were, used by citizens to file a claim with the U.S. government for their losses.
For the hundreds of wounded, conveyed in springless wooden wagons, the retreat proved especially horrifying. The torrential rains that began on the 4th added to the misery of the torn men being hurried south to the safety of Virginia. Imboden issued orders prohibiting a halt, and stationed sentinels every third of a mile. During the first night of the retreat he rode to the head of the column and later recalled that in four hours he was never out of the hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in one hundred had received adequate surgical aid….Many of the wounded in wagons had been without food for 36 hours….except for the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in this vast procession of misery. During this one night I realized more of the horror of war than I had in all the two previous years.
I. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Battle of Helena, Arkansas. CSA loss. CSA planned to take advantage of reduced Federal forces to relive pressure on Vicksburg. Union garrison at Helena had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south) which gave them a distinct advantage even with forces reduced from 20,000 to 4,000.
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: US General Prentiss repulses an attack on Helena, Arkansas. [1863 or 1864]
CSA LT Gen Theophilius H. Holmes had 7,000 men at his disposal. He planned a three-pronged attack. General Stirling Price, with 3,000 men, was to attack the Federal centre on Graveyard Hill. Generals John S. Marmaduke and L.M. Walker, with 2,780 men, were to attack Fort Righter and General James F. Fagan with 1,770 was to attack Fort Hindman.
The flank attacks were launched at daybreak on 4 July. Price's attack in the centre went in a little later. However, it was Price who met with the most success, capturing Graveyard Hill after a series of charges. With the flank attacks bogged down, all this achieved was to make Price's men the target for every gun in the Union army, as well as those on the Tyler. By 10.30 it was clear to Holmes that the attack had failed, and he ordered Price's men to pull back.
Prentiss reported losses of 57 dead, 146 wounded and 36 captured or missing, for a total of 239. Confederate losses were much higher, at 173 dead, 687 wounded and 776 missing or captured, for a total of 1,636, or just over 20% of Holmes's entire force. Helena remained in Union hands, and was used as the base for the expedition that captured Little Rock, only two months later.
Background: Helena was one of the many towns along the line of the Mississippi occupied by Union forces during 1862 (American Civil War). In the summer of 1863 Union occupation of Helena served two purposes. First, it helped to protect the supply line along the Mississippi to the troops besieging Vicksburg. Second, it provided a possible base for any attack on the state capitol, at Little Rock.
The Confederate commander west of the Mississippi was Edmund Kirby-Smith (since March 1863). He had replaced Lieutenant-General Theophilius H. Holmes, who had demoted to command the District of Arkansas. Together, they decided to launch an attack on the Federal garrison at Helena, partly to help relieve the pressure at Vicksburg, and partly to protect the Confederate position in Arkansas.
Their timing was good. The Union garrison at Helena had recently been reduced from 20,000 men to 4,000, under Major-General B. M. Prentiss, when most of the men had been transferred to Vicksburg. However, they did have a strong position. Helena was overlooked by a line of hills, on which they had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south). A single gunboat, the U.S.S. Tyler, protected them from the river.
1. July 4, 1827: Leonidas Polk graduates from West Point.
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2. July 4, 1831: Date chosen for Nat Turner's Slave rebellion in Virginia. It was postponed because Turner was sick.
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3. July 4, 1840: Democrat Martin Van Buren signs the Independent Treasury Act into law.
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4. July 4, 1850: Following an Independence Day celebration centered around the as yet unfinished Washington Monument, Zachary Taylor becomes sick.
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5. Friday, July 04, 1856: Under direct orders from President Franklin Pierce, Edwin Vose Sumner leads 200 infantrymen into Topeka, Kansas, unlimbers his artillery and informs the freestaters they may not hold a convention.
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6. Saturday, July 04, 1857: Sewanee, The University of the South is founded by Leonidas Polk at the top of Lookout Mountain.
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7. Monday, July 04, 1859: The Oregon Flag is introduced. It will be the first flag under which U. S. troops enter the Civil War.
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8. Thursday, July 04, 1861: The Kansas Flag is introduced.
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9. Thursday, July 04, 1861: Leonidas Polk is put in charge of the Confederate Department Number 2.
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10. Thursday, July 04, 1861: President Lincoln addressed Congress on the 84th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He gave a rousing speech about the indivisibility of the Union. Several government figures also addressed Congress. Among them was Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, who recommended that Congress supported his idea that volunteers served for three years. The Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Chase asked Congress for $240 million to pay for the running of the war.
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11. Friday, July 04, 1862: John Hunt Morgan leads a Confederate raid into Kentucky.
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12. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Henry Adams, son of the U.S. Ambassador in London, Charles Francis Adam, Sr., writes to his brother Charles, Jr., a cavalry officer in the Union army, expressing the anxieties they feel for the cause of the Union from the London point of view: “The truth is we are suffering now under one of those periodical returns of anxiety and despondency that I have often written of. . . . but meanwhile we are haunted by stories about McClellan and by the strange want of life that seems justly or not to characterize our military and naval motions. You at Charleston seem to be an exception to the rule of stagnation which leaves us everywhere on the defensive even when attacking. A little dash does so much to raise one’s spirits, and now our poor men only sicken in marshes. I think of it all as little as I can.”
He adds observations about how the cotton shortage is affecting the working class in England---without saying how such a situation may turn British sympathies toward the South: “The suffering among the operatives in Lancashire is very great and is increasing in a scale that makes people very uncomfortable though as yet they keep quiet about it. Cotton is going up to extraordinary prices; in a few days only it advanced three cents a pound and is still rising. Prices for cotton goods are merely nominal and vary according to the opinions of the holders, so that the whole trade is now pure speculation. Mills are closing in every direction.”
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13. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- His father, Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, Sr., writes also to Charles, Jr.: “This detestable war is not of our own choosing, and out of it must grow consequences important to the welfare of coming generations, . . . I had hoped that the progress of General McClellan would have spared us much of this trouble. But it is plain that he has much of the Fabian policy in his composition which threatens to draw the war into greater length. Of course we must be content to take a great deal on trust. Thus far the results have been all that we had a reasonable right to expect. Let us hope that the delay is not without its great purposes. My belief is unshaken that the end of this conflict is to topple down the edifice of slavery. Perhaps we are not yet ready to come up to that work, and the madness of the resistance is the instrument in the hands of Divine Providence to drive us to it. It may be so. I must hold my soul in patience, and pray for courage and resignation.
This is the 4th of July. Eighty-six years ago our ancestors staked themselves in a contest of a far more dangerous and desperate character. The only fault they committed was in omitting to make it more general and complete. . . . I am not a friend of the violent policy of the ultras who seem to me to have no guide but their own theories. This great movement must be left in a degree to develope itself, and human power must be applied solely to shape the consequences so far as possible to the best uses.
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14. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Private Oliver Willcox Norton of the Union army writes home with a detailed account of his experience in the Battle of Gaines Mill, showing the tendency of his rifle to be more prone to getting wounded than his body: “The order was given to face about. We did so and tried to form in line, but while the line was forming, a bullet laid low the head, the stay, the trust of our regiment—our brave colonel, and before we knew what had happened the major shared his fate. We were then without a field officer, but the boys bore up bravely. . . . Those in the rear of us received the order but the aide sent to us was shot before he reached us and so we got no orders. Henry and Denison were shot about the same time as the colonel. I left them together under a tree. I returned to the fight, and our boys were dropping on all sides of me. I was blazing away at the rascals not ten rods off when a ball struck my gun just above the lower band as I was capping it, and cut it in two. The ball flew in pieces and part went by my head to the right and three pieces struck just below my left collar bone. The deepest one was not over half an inch, and stopping to open my coat I pulled them out and snatched a gun from Ames in Company H as he fell dead. Before I had fired this at all a ball clipped off a piece of the stock, and an instant after, another struck the seam of my canteen and entered my left groin. I pulled it out, and, more maddened than ever, I rushed in again. A few minutes after, another ball took six inches off the muzzle of this gun. I snatched another from a wounded man under a tree, and, as I was loading kneeling by the side of the road, a ball cut my rammer in two as I was turning it over my head. Another gun was easier got than a rammer so I threw that away and picked up a fourth one. Here in the road a buckshot struck me in the left eyebrow, making the third slight scratch I received in the action. It exceeded all I ever dreamed of, it was almost a miracle. Then came the retreat across the river; rebels on three sides of us left no choice but to run or be killed or be taken prisoners. We left our all in the hollow by the creek and crossed the river to Smith’s division. The bridge was torn up and when I came to the river I threw my cartridge box on my shoulder and waded through. It was a little more than waist deep. I stayed that night with some Sherman boys in Elder Drake’s company in the Forty-ninth New York.
Sunday night we lay in a cornfield in the rain, without tent or blanket. Monday we went down on the James river, lying behind batteries to support them. Tuesday the same—six days exposed to a constant fire of shot and shell, till almost night, when we went to the front and engaged in another fierce conflict with the enemy. Going on to the field, I picked up a tent and slung it across my shoulder. The folds of that stopped a ball that would have passed through me. I picked it out, put it in my pocket, and, after firing sixty rounds of my own and a number of a wounded comrade’s cartridges, I came off the field unhurt, and ready, but not anxious, for another fight.”
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15. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- William C. Horton, of the U.S. Navy, assigned to the U.S.S. Hartford under Flag Officer Farragut on the Mississippi, tells of the fleet’s run past the guns of Vicksburg, and how they celebrated the Fourth of July: “During the night the mortars were moved up to easy range, and on the 28th, before daylight, the mortars opened in earnest. The whole fleet now moved up to the attack. Our ships were before the city, while the shells from the mortars were being hurled right over our heads, and, as battery after battery was unmasked from every conceivable position, the ridge of the bluff was one sheet of fire. The big ships sent in their broadsides, the mortars scores of shell, and all combined to make up a grand display and terrible conflict. After nearly two hours of hard fighting, our ships had nearly all passed the city, out of range, and the firing ceased.
On looking around I found the Hartford riddled from stem to stern; first a hole through her bow, then two through the side, one below water, then another through the bulwarks, another through the stern and cabin, and another through the smoke-pipe, &c., &c., the main topsail-yard cut in twain, and the rigging terribly cut fore and aft.
Our casualties in killed and wounded were light. . . . The afternoon was devoted to burying the dead and communicating with the ram fleet belonging .to Commodore Davis’s division. From our anchorage we’ could see across the point of land to General Williams’s camp and the transports below, and we immediately established communication with them. Here we spent the Fourth of July, which was celebrated by the booming of cannon from both fleets, and a volley of shells to the rebels. . . .”
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16. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Young Sarah Morgan of Baton Rouge writes of her feelings about the future of the nation---sure of her Confederate loyalties and yet uncertain about the vicious nature of the division between North and South: “For a few days before his arrival here, we saw a leading article in the leading Union paper of New Orleans, threatening us with the arming of the slaves for our extermination if England interfered, in the same language almost as Butler used when here; three days ago the same paper ridiculed the idea, and said such a brutal, inhuman thing was never for a moment thought of, it was too absurd. And so the world goes! We all turn somersaults occasionally.
And yet, I would rather we would achieve our independence alone, if possible. It would be so much more glorious. And then I would hate to see England conquer the North, even if for our sake; my love for the old Union is still too great to be willing to see it so humiliated. If England would just make Lincoln come to his senses, and put an end to all this confiscation which is sweeping over everything, make him agree to let us alone and behave himself, that will be quite enough. But what a task! . . .”
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17. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- A Seneca County, New York newspaper, on this occasion of the nation’s founding, publishes this editorial with a decided Copperhead slant: “The recurrence of the birthday of our National Independence has heretofore been the occasion for universal congratulation and rejoicing. How different the scene in 1862! Instead of Peace, Union, and Prosperity, we have Civil War, Disunion and all their concomitant evils. Instead of National rejoicing, the land is filled with mourning. Upon every breeze is borne the the sad, silent messenger of death. Hearts are bleeding all over the land at the loss of loved ones, stricken down in this most cruel and unnatural, war. What a day for rejoicing! And for what can we rejoice? Our common interests are gone, sacrificed for the sake of our jealousies and passions. Fanaticism and madness rule the hour, and our beloved country seems to be fast drifting toward anarchy and ruin.
. . . We are a guilty nation, proud, wicked, and vain-glorious. If we have not sought war, we are at least guilty of hastening it upon our fellow-countrymen. To avoid all of its horrors we should acknowledge our wrongs and retrace our steps. Our common history must be read and studied anew, and we must again dwell on the glorious deeds of a common ancestry, while a thick and oblivious veil must be drawn over the awful and tragic events of our recent history. The blessings and glories of the past must be rehearsed. . . . One hope – one heart – one future – one magnificent destiny! Inspired by these feelings and actuated by these sentiments only, can Peace be restored and our People again made happy and prosperous. Until then all national rejoicing is mere mockery.
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18. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Sergeant James T. Odem of the 5th New Jersey Infantry Regiment writes home to his wife from Westminster, Maryland, where his regiment was on guard duty. He passes on what information he is getting from Gettysburg, and comments on the depredations of the Rebels in northern country---as well as on Yankee depredations amongst the local farmers: “My wife: I again pen a few lines for Your Entertainment and perusal. Well here I am Sitting In the wagon to keep out of the rain which is falling in torrents, the first heavy rain that we have had for Some days, and of Course very acceptable, although it is very bad for the troops who are Now Wounded, or fighting upon the Battlefield. there has been Some very hard fighting at Gettysburg Pa. within the last few days and the Loss is heavy on both Sides. Our forces have Captured Several thousand Rebels that I have Seen and I have been talking with Some of the Rebs which talk as Poison as the bite of a Rattler Snake. they Say they will fight us as long as they have a man Left. this town is part Secesh, but Many of the Ladies are Caring for our wounded that are brought here. We are not far from the State Line, yet I am Some 25 Miles from where the fighting is going on. Our trains are mostly all parked here, out of the way of the Enemy, for fear of Capture as the Rebel Cavalry are all over the Country and was in this place Last Monday, when they Sacked all the Stores and destroying what they did not care to carry off, besides Stealing about 4,000 horses from the farmers, and Robbing Private houses and insulting the females, but they are Paying very dearly for their Crimes just now. Our forces are whipping them at all points here we have traveled Some 300 miles but Now we have Come to a halt for awhile, and I believe that before we Leave again for Virginia, that the Rebel army which is here in Maryland and Pennsylvania will pretty much all be Killed Or Captured, as the water in the Potomac is So high that they cannot Escape. . . . The wheat Looks good, but I tell you that the army is doing Much Mischief to the farmers destroying trees and Crops but Buy what Hay and grain as victuals they take away. . . . I would Like to have been home to spend the 4th with you, yet I am doing well to what Many poor Souls are. Please give My love and Compliments to Christian and family. Likewise to you and the Children. Good by from your Husband James T. Odem”
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19. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- A Unionist woman in Vicksburg records her impressions of the victorious Federal troops marching into conquered Vicksburg: “July 4th. – It is evening. All is still. Silence and night are once more united. I can sit at the table in the parlor and write. Two candles are lighted. I would like a dozen. We have had wheat supper and wheat bread once more. … [The author relates the history of the past 24 hours, including the stars and stripes being raised at the courthouse and federal transport boats coming around the bend full of provisions.] Towards five Mr. J– passed again. “Keep on the lookout,” he said; “the army of occupation is coming along,” and in a few minutes the head of the column appeared. What a contrast to the suffering creatures we had seen so long were these stalwart, well-fed men, so splendidly set up and accoutered. Sleek horses, polished arms, bright plumes, – this was the pride and panoply of war. Civilization, discipline, and order seemed to enter with the measured tramp of those marching columns; and the heart turned with throbs of added pity to the worn men in gray, who were being blindly dashed against this embodiment of modern power. And now this “silence that is golden” indeed is over all, and my limbs are unhurt, and I suppose if I were Catholic, in my fervent gratitude, I would hie me with a rich offering to the shrine of “our Lady of Mercy.”
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20. Saturday, July 04, 1863: On this day, Vicksburg formally surrendered to Grant.
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21. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Siege of Vicksburg: The city officially surrenders.
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22. Saturday, July 04, 1863: The West Virginia flag is introduced. This is the final Union flag of the Civil War.
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23. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Siege of Vicksburg, Day 43
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24. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Siege of Port Hudson, Day 38
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25. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Ulysses S. Grant accepts the surrender of the second Confederate Army he has defeated, at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
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26. Saturday, July 04, 1863: News of Vicksburg's surrender must have come soon after, because Grant next sent this message to Major General Nathaniel P. Banks in the siege lines around Port Hudson: HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE, Near Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. To Major General N. P. BANKS, Comdg. Department of the Gulf: “GENERAL: The garrison of Vicksburg surrendered this morning. Number of prisoners, as given by the officers, is 27,000; field artillery one hundred and twenty-eight pieces, and a large number of siege guns, probably not less than eighty. The other stores will probably not amount to any great deal. I held all my surplus troops out on Big Black River and between there and Haynes' Bluff, intending to assault in a few days. I directed that they be kept in readiness to move on the shortest notice to attack Johnston. The moment the surrender of Vicksburg was agreed upon, the order was given, and troops are now in motion. General Sherman goes in command of this expedition. His force is so large I think it cannot fail. This move will have the effect of keeping Johnston from detaching a portion of his force for the relief of Port Hudson. Although I had the garrison of Vicksburg completely in my power, I gave them the privilege of being paroled at this place, the officers to retain their side-arms and private baggage, and field, staff, and cavalry officers to take with them one horse each. I regard the terms really more favorably than an unconditional surrender. It leaves the transports and troops for immediate use. At the present junction of affairs in the East and on the river above here, this may prove of vast importance.
I hope, general, and from what Admiral Porter tells me, this probably will find you in possession of Port Hudson.
I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, U. S. GRANT.”
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27. Saturday, July 04, 1863: So it was that Grant was ready to immediately follow up and exploit his win at Vicksburg. Robert E. Lee was probably this nation's greatest battlefield tactician, but for strategic vision and operational command I'll take Ulysses S. Grant every time.
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28. Saturday, July 04, 1863: John Hunt Morgan 's men run into a contigent of federal troops in Columbus, Kentucky.
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29. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Morgan’s Great Raid: Tebb’s Bend, Kentucky. Morgan’s loss here is a foreshadowing of things to come.
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30. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Grant is ready to follow up the fall of Vicksburg
The reason I believe that Ulysses S. Grant was one of this nation's greatest generals is his strategic vision and understanding of the need for exploiting the momentum of events. A lot of Civil War generals, having just won a great victory like Vicksburg, would have settled down to rest on their laurels and "reorganize" their forces. Not "Sam" Grant; even before the surrender at Vicksburg, Grant and Sherman had set in motion plans to crush the dithering Joseph Johnston's army near Jackson, Mississippi. Here is a message sent to Sherman early on the morning of July 4, 1863, telling him to get ready to move.
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31. Monday, July 04, 1864: Lincoln vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill that would have introduced harsh settlements for rebel states. He was still convinced that a policy of reconciliation was required, not retribution.
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32. Monday, July 04, 1864: “As Grant continued to grind away at Lee’s forces around Petersburg, the work in Washington was beginning on how to go about re-integrating the South into the Federal nation. The word “Reconstruction” began to be in use around this time, and virtually nobody agreed about how it should be accomplished. Abraham Lincoln was being very judicious in releasing the details of his plans, which were surprisingly conciliatory to what was, after all, a conquered nation. It was less the Democrats giving him trouble than the members of his own party, known as the Radical Republicans, including the more fanatical abolitionists. Lincoln today pocket-vetoed a measure called the Wade-Davis bill, which would have barred any man who had ever borne arms against the Union from voting or holding office. Essentially the debate was over whether Congress or the President would control the rebuilding process.”
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33. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Gettysburg: General Lee remains in his defensive position on Seminary Ridge all day, hoping General Meade will attack. The US general instead congratulates his army, which leaves Lincoln “a good deal dissatisfied.”
When Meade does not attack, Lee orders a retreat to Virginia. The Army of the Potomac has lost 23,000 men, the Army of Northern Virginia close to 28,000.
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34. Tennessee operations/Tullahoma campaign: No US forces are encountered, and Forrest and his men cross the Tennessee River to join the rest of the Army of Tennessee. “The army having now been withdrawn to the south side of the Tennessee and concentrated at Chattanooga, Forrest’s Division followed and went into cantonments near by, where, for the following fortnight, the conditions of the campaign or the inaction of the enemy, gave it opportunity to rest and refit … .”
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35. Saturday, July 04, 1863: President Lincoln responds (maybe) to CS Vice President Stephens commission: The request of A. H. Stephens is inadmissible. The customary agents and channels are adequate for all needful communication and conference between the United States forces and the insurgents.” [In the absence of the original, it is not certain that Lincoln composed or signed this, and that it was prepared on July 4, 1863 may be questioned.]
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36. Monday, July 04, 1864: "Retreating Joe" Johnston, as he is now called in the Richmond papers, withdraws to his previously prepared Chattahoochee Line, Georgia.
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37. Monday, July 04, 1864: Having outflanked his opponents, Sherman’s force was actually nearer to Atlanta than Southern troops. This forced the South’s commander in the area, Johnston, to make a hasty withdrawal so that Atlanta was better protected. Johnston set up his line of defence along the Chattahoochee River.
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38. Monday, July 04, 1864: Georgia operations, Atlanta campaign: General Sherman again: “By night [July 3-4] Thomas’s head of column ran up against a strong rear-guard intrenched at Smyrna camp-ground, six miles below Marietta, and there on the next day we celebrated our Fourth of July, by a noisy but not a desperate battle, designed chiefly to hold the enemy there till Generals McPherson and Schofield could get well into position below him, near the Chattahoochee crossings.
It was here that General Noyes, late Governor of Ohio, lost his leg. I came very near being shot myself while reconnoitering in the second story of a house on our picket-line, which was struck several times by cannon-shot, and perfectly riddled with musket-balls.”
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39. Saturday, July 04, 1868: North Carolina ratifies the 14th Amendment.
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A Friday, July 04, 1862: near Haxell's Landing, Virginia - On July 4, the Confederate gunboat CSS Teaser, commanded by Lt. Hunter Davidson, was on the James River. It was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. It was sailing near Haxall's Landing, just north of City Point, when it encountered the side-wheel gunboat USS Maratanza. The Maratanza was commanded by Lt. Thomas H. Stevens.
A brief battle ensued between the two boats. Near the end of fight, the Maratanza fired a shot that hit and exploded in the Teaser's boiler. This effectively ended the naval battle. The Teaser was soon captured after being disabled. The Federals were surprised when they discovered the Teaser's mission.
{[mycivilwar.com/battles/1862s.html]}
A+ Friday, July 04, 1862: On the James River, the USS Maratanza and CSS Teaser engage in battle. A shell destroy’s the Teaser’s boiler, and the crew is forced to abandon the ship. Aboard the Teaser, its new Union owners discover electric mines ready to be laid in the river, as well as an observation balloon for spying on the Army of the Potomac. The silk for the balloon is rumored to come from dresses donated by Richmond belles. It’s actually very colorful silk dress material, $514 worth, which would be something around $11,682 today per this calculator (though that’s a very uncertain conversion, since these were Confederate dollars and it was wartime).
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A++ Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Naval action on the James River: Lieutenant T.H. Stevens, commander of the U.S.S. Maratanza, sorties up the James River and encounters the C.S.S. Teaser, a gunboat armed with a 32-pounder gun, in addition to a 57-pounder rifled gun, and a 12-pounder gun. After the exchange of several shots, the Yankee vessel fired a shell that pierced the Teaser’s boiler, after which its crew abandons it in haste. Stevens captures the Teaser, as well as an observation balloon.
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Friday, July 04, 1862 --- John Hunt Morgan, a Kentuckian in the Confederate Cavalry, had been building a reputation as a bold and innovative commander. Having raised a regiment of troops at his own expense, he became colonel in command of the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry Regiment in the Confederate army. More recently, his reputation drew a large battalion of Georgia mounted partisan rangers, and two troops of Texan riders, to join him, forming a light brigade. He trained his men in cavalry tactics that were unconventional, eschewing sabers in favor of rifles. Most of his recruits have trained in the infantry, and Morgan uses them as mounted infantry. In time, Basil Duke is made commander of the 2nd Kentucky as Morgan assumed the duties of brigade commander. He also acquires two light 12-pounder howitzers. On this date, Morgan and his 876 men and two guns start out from Knoxville, embarking on his first major raid. Their goal is the populated and fertile central bluegrass country of central Kentucky, especially Lexington.
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*Across the nation, Americans on both sides consider the meanings of the war on this, the Birthday of the United States:
B Saturday, July 04, 1863: Surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi.: The surrender was finalized the next day, July 4, 1863, and the Union army took control of the city. In recognition of that day, the townsfolk of Vicksburg did not celebrate Independence Day for 81 years following the siege.
Fact #9: The capture of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in half and was a major turning point of the Civil War. In the few days it took for Grant’s message announcing the capture of Vicksburg to reach Abraham Lincoln, the President had also received word that Port Hudson, the only other Confederate stronghold left on the Mississippi, had also fallen. “The Father of Waters once again goes unvexed to the sea,” he proclaimed.
With no length of the Mississippi River now safe from Union power, the Confederacy was unable to send supplies or communications across its breadth. Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas were cut off from the rest of the rebellious nation. This was doubly damaging, as the Texas-Mexico border was a favorite route of secessionist suppliers and the possibility of French intervention across the border was precluded by the nigh-impassable boundary of a Union-held Mississippi River. The fall of Vicksburg came just one day after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg, prompting many to point to early July, 1863 as the turning point of the Civil War.
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B+ Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Vicksburg Surrenders! – On this date, Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton surrenders his Army of Mississippi and the city of Vicksburg to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The Confederate surrender 29,491 men, 172 pieces of artillery, 50,000 muskets and 600,000 rounds of ammunition. Even though Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon had given orders to Joseph Johnston to attack Grant to relieve Vicksburg, Johnston (for reasons that are yet unclear) had chosen to disregard them. Seddon's letter says: “Vicksburg must not be lost without a desperate struggle. The interest and honor of the Confederacy forbid it. I rely on you still to avert the loss. If better resources do not offer, you must hazard attack. It may be made in concert with the garrison, if practicable, but otherwise, without-by day or night, as you think best.
As a result of Johnston’s inaction, Pemberton decides that in order to avert further bloodshed and suffering he should surrender the city. His troops are so malnourished, they are in no condition to fight even if Johnston did attack the Union lines to assist with a breakout.”
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B++ Saturday, July 04, 1863: HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE TENN., near Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. General SHERMAN: “Your note has been received. Propositions have been sent in for the surrender of Vicksburg. Pemberton's reply is momentarily expected. If he does not surrender now, he will be compelled to by his men within two days, no doubt. The orders will be made as you suggest the moment Vicksburg is ours. Ord and Steele have both been notified to move the moment Vicksburg falls, Ord to take ten days' hard bread, salt, coffee, and sugar. I will change this to five in view of the provision train you expect to take. I will let you know the moment Pemberton's answer arrives. U. S. GRANT.”
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C Saturday, July 04, 1863: During the night of July 3-4, Lee continued the rearrangement of his lines, withdrawing Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s corps from Culp’s Hill, which then joined Lt. Gens. A.P. Hill’s and James Longstreet’s corps in a generally straight defensive line on Seminary Ridge. Most accounts describe Lee riding alone among his army long into the night. He finally met up with Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden, who was to provide the cavalry escort for the wagon train of wounded. General, this has been a hard day on you, Imboden said to his commander. Yes, Lee replied, it has been a sad, sad day to us. Lee lauded the performance of Pettigrew’s and Pickett’s men and added: If they had been supported as they were to have been — but for some reason not fully explained to me were not — we would have held the position and the day would have been ours. Too bad, too bad. Oh, too bad.
We must now return to Virginia, Lee continued. As many of our poor wounded as possible must be taken home. As Lee gave Imboden his orders, he added: The duty will be arduous, responsible and dangerous, for I am afraid you will be harassed by the enemy’s cavalry. How many men do you have? Imboden replied that he had 2,000 men and 23 cannons available for the task.
On the 4th, as both armies stared at each other in stunned silence and exhaustion, messengers rode back and forth across the lines. Lee held about 4,000 Federal troops prisoner and asked for an exchange. Meade declined, reasoning that guarding and feeding 4,000 prisoners during the retreat would work against the Confederates. Lee ordered his troops in front of Seminary Ridge to go through the motions of entrenching to deceive Meade as to his true intentions. Willing away the sense of despair and disappointment that had characterized his mood the night before, Lee affected an outward show of confidence. On greeting Longstreet, whose corps had borne the brunt of the fighting on the second and third days of the battle, Lee called out, Well, here is my old war horse. To Longstreet he repeated his remarks at the failure of Pickett’s Charge: It is all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.
While Lee was preparing his retreat, Meade issued General Orders No. 68, congratulating his men for their performance during the battle. His message concluded, Our task is not yet accomplished and the commanding general looks to the Army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader.
Although Meade clearly showed signs of strain from the burden of command in a crucial campaign, he ordered Maj. Gen. William French, stationed at Frederick, Md., to proceed to the ford at Falling Waters, near Williamsport, and destroy the pontoon bridge there. Meade apparently had some hope of trapping Lee north of the Potomac and assumed another major battle would be fought outside Virginia. Nevertheless, he only began his pursuit on July 5, a day after Lee’s withdrawal, leading with the relatively unbloodied VI Corps.
As both the Federal and Confederate armies commenced their race to the Potomac, they left a terrible scene of death and pain. Thousands of bodies lay blackened, bloated and festering in the sun. Before leaving Gettysburg, Meade contracted with a local resident, Samuel Herbst, to organize able-bodied citizens to bury the dead. Additionally, Pennsylvania militiamen, who had been ordered out to meet the emergency of Lee’s invasion, were pressed into the grisly work, fashioning hooks from bayonets and pulling bodies into shallow graves by their belts. There were still more than 21,000 wounded in Gettysburg, 14,500 Northerners and 6,800 Southerners. Since another battle with Lee was expected, most of the Army medical units marched off with Meade, leaving only 106 medical officers, about one-third of whom were operating surgeons. Volunteer nurses from the U.S. Sanitary Commission arrived to help, and fresh food and vegetables purchased from local sources also aided the convalescence of those who were not too seriously hurt.
Of course, in both burials and medical treatment, Northern soldiers received care first. According to some accounts, it took surgeons five days to complete their amputations, while Rebel soldiers lay dying. Not that Confederate soldiers were purposely treated callously — when a torrential rain began on July 4, hundreds of Southern wounded lying near a field hospital in danger of drowning were carried to higher ground by Northern soldiers. There were also instances of Southern women coming north to tend wounded Confederates and being permitted to carry out their mercy missions unhindered.
Some idea of the horrific conditions at Gettysburg in the wake of the battle can be gathered from the account of Cornelia Hancock, a New Jersey Quaker, who arrived to nurse the wounded: A sickening, overpowering, awful stench announced the presence of the unburied dead on which the July sun was mercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler until it seemed to possess a palpable, horrible density that could be felt and cut with a knife. At a field hospital the first sight that met our eyes was a collection of semi-conscious but still living human forms, all of whom had been shot through the head and were considered hopeless….Yet a groan came from them and their limbs tossed and twitched.
There was hardly a tent to be seen. Earth was the only available bed during the first hours after the battle….A long table stood in [the] woods and around it gathered a number of surgeons and attendants. This was the operating table, and for seven days it literally ran blood. A wagon stood near, rapidly filling with amputated legs and arms. Then, wholly filled, this gruesome spectacle withdrew from sight and returned for another load.
Lee directed his army to move across South Mountain to Hagerstown and then to Falling Waters. The wounded in their wagon train left first, at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th. The trail of pain stretched 17 miles. The wounded were accompanied by about 5,000 able-bodied men who were hurrying back to Virginia as rapidly as possible. Lieutenant General Richard Ewell’s corps was in the van between Imboden and the rest of the army. He was continually harassed by cavalry and got involved in a nasty night fight at Monterey Pass, where the flashes of the muskets were answered with bolts of lightning. Ewell lost his wagons and about 1,500 men, but fought off the Federals.
The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.
So important was our movement that no halt for bivouac, though we marched scarcely two miles an hour, was made on our route from Gettysburg to Williamsport — a march of over forty miles. The men and officers on horseback would go to sleep without knowing it, and at one time there was a halt occasioned by all the drivers…being asleep in their saddles. In fact, the whole army was dozing while marching and moved as if under enchantment or a spell — asleep and at the same time walking.
During the retreat, Lee ordered the impressment of horses to replace those lost in battle or those too jaded for further service. The Rebels paid for the horses either in Confederate currency or by giving the owners a written description of the animals confiscated, signed by a Confederate officer. These could be, and were, used by citizens to file a claim with the U.S. government for their losses.
For the hundreds of wounded, conveyed in springless wooden wagons, the retreat proved especially horrifying. The torrential rains that began on the 4th added to the misery of the torn men being hurried south to the safety of Virginia. Imboden issued orders prohibiting a halt, and stationed sentinels every third of a mile. During the first night of the retreat he rode to the head of the column and later recalled that in four hours he was never out of the hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in one hundred had received adequate surgical aid….Many of the wounded in wagons had been without food for 36 hours….except for the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in this vast procession of misery. During this one night I realized more of the horror of war than I had in all the two previous years.
[[civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg/gettysburg-history-articles/battle-of-gettysburg-finale.html]]
C+ Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Gen. Robert E. Lee, uncertain of Meade’s attentions, gives orders for the withdrawal of his army. Johnson’s division pulls back from the base of Culp’s Hill, and Early’s division fall back from the town of Gettysburg to Seminary Ridge. As a heavy rain begins to fall, Gen. Imboden’s cavalry brigade heads for Chambersburg, along with the ambulance and supply trains for the Army of Northern Virginia. Also this evening, Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill and his III Corps begin to pull out of line and march towards Chambersburg.
[[civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=July+4%2C+1863]]
C++ Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Gen. Meade orders his cavalry to probe towards Fairfield, Cashtown, and Emmitsburg in the hope of cutting off any Confederate escape routes. Troops from the XI Corps enter Gettysburg unopposed.
[[civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=July+4%2C+1863]]
C+++ Saturday, July 04, 1863: Both armies continued to face each other at Gettysburg but neither was inclined to fight. That night Lee ordered a withdrawal: his army had lost 22,000 men killed or wounded in just 3 days – 25% of the Army of Northern Virginia. Meade had lost 23,000 men but had emerged from the Battle of Gettysburg as the victor. The Union was also better able to cope with such losses. Bodies of those killed at Gettysburg took weeks to clear and by November 1863 only 25% of those killed had received a proper burial. The local undertaker claimed that he could only manage to move, clean and bury 100 bodies a day.
[[historylearningsite.co.uk/the-american-civil-war/american-civil-war-july-1863/]]
C++++ Saturday, July 04, 1863: Retreat from Gettysburg
• Skirmish at Fairfield Gap, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish at Fountain Dale, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish at Emmitsburg Gap, Maryland
• Battle of Monterey Gap, Pennsylvania
• Battle of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish at Greencastle, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish near Toms Creek (Modern Day Zora), Pennsylvania
• Lee's Pontoon Bridge destroyed at Falling Waters, West Virginia by Cole's Cavalry Company C
[[emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/history/civil_war/engagements_in_the_emmitsburg_area.htm
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: US General Prentiss repulses an attack on Helena, Arkansas. [1863 or 1864]
[[bjdeming.com/2013/07/01/the-american-civil-war-150th-anniversary-july-1-7-1863/]]
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: Battle of Helena, Arkansas. Helena was one of the many towns along the line of the Mississippi occupied by Union forces during 1862 (American Civil War). In the summer of 1863 Union occupation of Helena served two purposes. First, it helped to protect the supply line along the Mississippi to the troops besieging Vicksburg. Second, it provided a possible base for any attack on the state capitol, at Little Rock.
The Confederate commander west of the Mississippi was Edmund Kirby-Smith (since March 1863). He had replaced Lieutenant-General Theophilius H. Holmes, who had demoted to command the District of Arkansas. Together, they decided to launch an attack on the Federal garrison at Helena, partly to help relieve the pressure at Vicksburg, and partly to protect the Confederate position in Arkansas.
Their timing was good. The Union garrison at Helena had recently been reduced from 20,000 men to 4,000, under Major-General B. M. Prentiss, when most of the men had been transferred to Vicksburg. However, they did have a strong position. Helena was overlooked by a line of hills, on which they had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south). A single gunboat, the U.S.S. Tyler, protected them from the river.
Holmes had 7,000 men at his disposal. He planned a three-pronged attack. General Stirling Price, with 3,000 men, was to attack the Federal centre on Graveyard Hill. Generals John S. Marmaduke and L.M. Walker, with 2,780 men, were to attack Fort Righter and General James F. Fagan with 1,770 was to attack Fort Hindman.
The flank attacks were launched at daybreak on 4 July. Price's attack in the centre went in a little later. However, it was Price who met with the most success, capturing Graveyard Hill after a series of charges. With the flank attacks bogged down, all this achieved was to make Price's men the target for every gun in the Union army, as well as those on the Tyler. By 10.30 it was clear to Holmes that the attack had failed, and he ordered Price's men to pull back.
4 July 1863 was a bad day for the Confederacy. It saw the surrender of Vicksburg and Lee's retreat from Gettysburg. The defeat at Helena, while not in the same league, combined with the fall of Vicksburg to leave Arkansas vulnerable to Union attack. Prentiss reported losses of 57 dead, 146 wounded and 36 captured or missing, for a total of 239. Confederate losses were much higher, at 173 dead, 687 wounded and 776 missing or captured, for a total of 1,636, or just over 20% of Holmes's entire force. Helena remained in Union hands, and was used as the base for the expedition that captured Little Rock, only two months later.
{[historyofwar.org/articles/battles_helena.html]]
Retreat From Gettysburg - Part Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmv3AfMTHvU
FYI GySgt Jack Wallace SGT John " Mac " McConnell CWO4 Terrence Clark SPC Michael Oles SR [SPC Michael Terrell TSgt David L. SFC Randy Purham MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca SSG Ed Mikus PFC Eric Minchey TSgt George Rodriguez SSG Bill McCoy SFC Randy Purham SPC Jon O. SFC William Farrell CSM Charles Hayden LTC Trent Klug COL Randall C.
Below are a number of journal entries from 1862 and 1863 which shed light on what life was like for soldiers and civilians – the good, the bad and the ugly.
Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Private Oliver Willcox Norton of the Union army writes home with a detailed account of his experience in the Battle of Gaines Mill, showing the tendency of his rifle to be more prone to getting wounded than his body: “The order was given to face about. We did so and tried to form in line, but while the line was forming, a bullet laid low the head, the stay, the trust of our regiment—our brave colonel, and before we knew what had happened the major shared his fate. We were then without a field officer, but the boys bore up bravely. . . . Those in the rear of us received the order but the aide sent to us was shot before he reached us and so we got no orders. Henry and Denison were shot about the same time as the colonel. I left them together under a tree. I returned to the fight, and our boys were dropping on all sides of me. I was blazing away at the rascals not ten rods off when a ball struck my gun just above the lower band as I was capping it, and cut it in two. The ball flew in pieces and part went by my head to the right and three pieces struck just below my left collar bone. The deepest one was not over half an inch, and stopping to open my coat I pulled them out and snatched a gun from Ames in Company H as he fell dead. Before I had fired this at all a ball clipped off a piece of the stock, and an instant after, another struck the seam of my canteen and entered my left groin. I pulled it out, and, more maddened than ever, I rushed in again. A few minutes after, another ball took six inches off the muzzle of this gun. I snatched another from a wounded man under a tree, and, as I was loading kneeling by the side of the road, a ball cut my rammer in two as I was turning it over my head. Another gun was easier got than a rammer so I threw that away and picked up a fourth one. Here in the road a buckshot struck me in the left eyebrow, making the third slight scratch I received in the action. It exceeded all I ever dreamed of, it was almost a miracle. Then came the retreat across the river; rebels on three sides of us left no choice but to run or be killed or be taken prisoners. We left our all in the hollow by the creek and crossed the river to Smith’s division. The bridge was torn up and when I came to the river I threw my cartridge box on my shoulder and waded through. It was a little more than waist deep. I stayed that night with some Sherman boys in Elder Drake’s company in the Forty-ninth New York.
Sunday night we lay in a cornfield in the rain, without tent or blanket. Monday we went down on the James river, lying behind batteries to support them. Tuesday the same—six days exposed to a constant fire of shot and shell, till almost night, when we went to the front and engaged in another fierce conflict with the enemy. Going on to the field, I picked up a tent and slung it across my shoulder. The folds of that stopped a ball that would have passed through me. I picked it out, put it in my pocket, and, after firing sixty rounds of my own and a number of a wounded comrade’s cartridges, I came off the field unhurt, and ready, but not anxious, for another fight.”
Friday, July 04, 1862 --- William C. Horton, of the U.S. Navy, assigned to the U.S.S. Hartford under Flag Officer Farragut on the Mississippi, tells of the fleet’s run past the guns of Vicksburg, and how they celebrated the Fourth of July: “During the night the mortars were moved up to easy range, and on the 28th, before daylight, the mortars opened in earnest. The whole fleet now moved up to the attack. Our ships were before the city, while the shells from the mortars were being hurled right over our heads, and, as battery after battery was unmasked from every conceivable position, the ridge of the bluff was one sheet of fire. The big ships sent in their broadsides, the mortars scores of shell, and all combined to make up a grand display and terrible conflict. After nearly two hours of hard fighting, our ships had nearly all passed the city, out of range, and the firing ceased.
On looking around I found the Hartford riddled from stem to stern; first a hole through her bow, then two through the side, one below water, then another through the bulwarks, another through the stern and cabin, and another through the smoke-pipe, &c., &c., the main topsail-yard cut in twain, and the rigging terribly cut fore and aft.
Our casualties in killed and wounded were light. . . . The afternoon was devoted to burying the dead and communicating with the ram fleet belonging .to Commodore Davis’s division. From our anchorage we’ could see across the point of land to General Williams’s camp and the transports below, and we immediately established communication with them. Here we spent the Fourth of July, which was celebrated by the booming of cannon from both fleets, and a volley of shells to the rebels. . . .”
Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Young Sarah Morgan of Baton Rouge writes of her feelings about the future of the nation---sure of her Confederate loyalties and yet uncertain about the vicious nature of the division between North and South: “For a few days before his arrival here, we saw a leading article in the leading Union paper of New Orleans, threatening us with the arming of the slaves for our extermination if England interfered, in the same language almost as Butler used when here; three days ago the same paper ridiculed the idea, and said such a brutal, inhuman thing was never for a moment thought of, it was too absurd. And so the world goes! We all turn somersaults occasionally.
And yet, I would rather we would achieve our independence alone, if possible. It would be so much more glorious. And then I would hate to see England conquer the North, even if for our sake; my love for the old Union is still too great to be willing to see it so humiliated. If England would just make Lincoln come to his senses, and put an end to all this confiscation which is sweeping over everything, make him agree to let us alone and behave himself, that will be quite enough. But what a task! . . .”
Saturday, July 04, 1863: A Unionist woman in Vicksburg records her impressions of the victorious Federal troops marching into conquered Vicksburg: “July 4th. – It is evening. All is still. Silence and night are once more united. I can sit at the table in the parlor and write. Two candles are lighted. I would like a dozen. We have had wheat supper and wheat bread once more. … [The author relates the history of the past 24 hours, including the stars and stripes being raised at the courthouse and federal transport boats coming around the bend full of provisions.] Towards five Mr. J– passed again. “Keep on the lookout,” he said; “the army of occupation is coming along,” and in a few minutes the head of the column appeared. What a contrast to the suffering creatures we had seen so long were these stalwart, well-fed men, so splendidly set up and accoutered. Sleek horses, polished arms, bright plumes, – this was the pride and panoply of war. Civilization, discipline, and order seemed to enter with the measured tramp of those marching columns; and the heart turned with throbs of added pity to the worn men in gray, who were being blindly dashed against this embodiment of modern power. And now this “silence that is golden” indeed is over all, and my limbs are unhurt, and I suppose if I were Catholic, in my fervent gratitude, I would hie me with a rich offering to the shrine of “our Lady of Mercy.”
Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Sergeant James T. Odem of the 5th New Jersey Infantry Regiment writes home to his wife from Westminster, Maryland, where his regiment was on guard duty. He passes on what information he is getting from Gettysburg, and comments on the depredations of the Rebels in northern country---as well as on Yankee depredations amongst the local farmers: “My wife: I again pen a few lines for Your Entertainment and perusal. Well here I am Sitting In the wagon to keep out of the rain which is falling in torrents, the first heavy rain that we have had for Some days, and of Course very acceptable, although it is very bad for the troops who are Now Wounded, or fighting upon the Battlefield. there has been Some very hard fighting at Gettysburg Pa. within the last few days and the Loss is heavy on both Sides. Our forces have Captured Several thousand Rebels that I have Seen and I have been talking with Some of the Rebs which talk as Poison as the bite of a Rattler Snake. they Say they will fight us as long as they have a man Left. this town is part Secesh, but Many of the Ladies are Caring for our wounded that are brought here. We are not far from the State Line, yet I am Some 25 Miles from where the fighting is going on. Our trains are mostly all parked here, out of the way of the Enemy, for fear of Capture as the Rebel Cavalry are all over the Country and was in this place Last Monday, when they Sacked all the Stores and destroying what they did not care to carry off, besides Stealing about 4,000 horses from the farmers, and Robbing Private houses and insulting the females, but they are Paying very dearly for their Crimes just now. Our forces are whipping them at all points here we have traveled Some 300 miles but Now we have Come to a halt for awhile, and I believe that before we Leave again for Virginia, that the Rebel army which is here in Maryland and Pennsylvania will pretty much all be Killed Or Captured, as the water in the Potomac is So high that they cannot Escape. . . . The wheat Looks good, but I tell you that the army is doing Much Mischief to the farmers destroying trees and Crops but Buy what Hay and grain as victuals they take away. . . . I would Like to have been home to spend the 4th with you, yet I am doing well to what Many poor Souls are. Please give My love and Compliments to Christian and family. Likewise to you and the Children. Good by from your Husband James T. Odem”
Pictures: 1863-07-04 Surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, meeting of Generals Pemberton and Grant, July 4, 1863; 1862-07-04 Morgan's Lexington Rifles in Camp; 1863-07-04 Gettysburg Campaign Retreat; 1862-07-04 CSS Teaser
F. Friday, July 04, 1862: CSS Teaser versus USS Maratanza near Haxell's Landing on the James River in Virginia. The Teaser was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. The CSS Teaser’s boiler was pierced by a shell, the crew abandoned it and union ship’s crew captures it, as well as the observation balloon.
Details: On July 4, the Confederate gunboat CSS Teaser, a gunboat armed with a 32-pounder gun, in addition to a 57-pounder rifled gun, and a 12-pounder gun was commanded by Lt. Hunter Davidson and was on the James River. It was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. It was sailing near Haxall's Landing, just north of City Point, when it encountered the side-wheel gunboat USS Maratanza. The Maratanza commanded by Lt. Thomas H. Stevens sortied up the James River and encounters the C.S.S. Teaser. After the exchange of several shots, the Yankee vessel fired a shell that pierced the Teaser’s boiler, after which its crew abandons it in haste. Stevens captures the Teaser captured after being disabled as well as the observation balloon. The Federals were surprised when they discovered the Teaser's mission. Aboard the Teaser, its new Union owners discover electric mines ready to be laid in the river, as well as an observation balloon for spying on the Army of the Potomac. The silk for the balloon is rumored to come from dresses donated by Richmond belles. It’s actually very colorful silk dress material, $514 worth, which would be something around $11,682 today per this calculator (though that’s a very uncertain conversion, since these were Confederate dollars and it was wartime).
G. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Vicksburg, Mississippi is captured by U.S. Grant. Union army took control of the city. In recognition of that day, the townsfolk of Vicksburg did not celebrate Independence Day for 81 years following the siege. The capture of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in half and was a major turning point of the Civil War. In the few days it took for Grant’s message announcing the capture of Vicksburg to reach Abraham Lincoln, the President had also received word that Port Hudson, the only other Confederate stronghold left on the Mississippi, had also fallen. “The Father of Waters once again goes unvexed to the sea,” he proclaimed.
With no length of the Mississippi River now safe from Union power, the Confederacy was unable to send supplies or communications across its breadth. Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas were cut off from the rest of the rebellious nation. This was doubly damaging, as the Texas-Mexico border was a favorite route of secessionist suppliers and the possibility of French intervention across the border was precluded by the nigh-impassable boundary of a Union-held Mississippi River. The fall of Vicksburg came just one day after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg, prompting many to point to early July, 1863 as the turning point of the Civil War.
H. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Army of Northern Virginia face-off at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Both armies stared at each other in stunned silence and exhaustion, messengers rode back and forth across the lines. Lee held about 4,000 Federal troops prisoner and asked for an exchange. Meade declined, reasoning that guarding and feeding 4,000 prisoners during the retreat would work against the Confederates. Lee ordered his troops in front of Seminary Ridge to go through the motions of entrenching to deceive Meade as to his true intentions. Willing away the sense of despair and disappointment that had characterized his mood the night before, Lee affected an outward show of confidence. On greeting Longstreet, whose corps had borne the brunt of the fighting on the second and third days of the battle, Lee called out, Well, here is my old war horse. To Longstreet he repeated his remarks at the failure of Pickett’s Charge: It is all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.
While Lee was preparing his retreat, Meade issued General Orders No. 68, congratulating his men for their performance during the battle. His message concluded, Our task is not yet accomplished and the commanding general looks to the Army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader.
Although Meade clearly showed signs of strain from the burden of command in a crucial campaign, he ordered Maj. Gen. William French, stationed at Frederick, Md., to proceed to the ford at Falling Waters, near Williamsport, and destroy the pontoon bridge there. Meade apparently had some hope of trapping Lee north of the Potomac and assumed another major battle would be fought outside Virginia.
Background: During the night of July 3-4, Lee continued the rearrangement of his lines, withdrawing Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s corps from Culp’s Hill, which then joined Lt. Gens. A.P. Hill’s and James Longstreet’s corps in a generally straight defensive line on Seminary Ridge. Most accounts describe Lee riding alone among his army long into the night. He finally met up with Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden, who was to provide the cavalry escort for the wagon train of wounded. General, this has been a hard day on you, Imboden said to his commander. Yes, Lee replied, it has been a sad, sad day to us. Lee lauded the performance of Pettigrew’s and Pickett’s men and added: If they had been supported as they were to have been — but for some reason not fully explained to me were not — we would have held the position and the day would have been ours. Too bad, too bad. Oh, too bad.
We must now return to Virginia, Lee continued. As many of our poor wounded as possible must be taken home. As Lee gave Imboden his orders, he added: The duty will be arduous, responsible and dangerous, for I am afraid you will be harassed by the enemy’s cavalry. How many men do you have? Imboden replied that he had 2,000 men and 23 cannons available for the task.
Aftermath: As both the Federal and Confederate armies commenced their race to the Potomac, they left a terrible scene of death and pain. Thousands of bodies lay blackened, bloated and festering in the sun. Before leaving Gettysburg, Meade contracted with a local resident, Samuel Herbst, to organize able-bodied citizens to bury the dead. Additionally, Pennsylvania militiamen, who had been ordered out to meet the emergency of Lee’s invasion, were pressed into the grisly work, fashioning hooks from bayonets and pulling bodies into shallow graves by their belts. There were still more than 21,000 wounded in Gettysburg, 14,500 Northerners and 6,800 Southerners. Since another battle with Lee was expected, most of the Army medical units marched off with Meade, leaving only 106 medical officers, about one-third of whom were operating surgeons. Volunteer nurses from the U.S. Sanitary Commission arrived to help, and fresh food and vegetables purchased from local sources also aided the convalescence of those who were not too seriously hurt.
Of course, in both burials and medical treatment, Northern soldiers received care first. According to some accounts, it took surgeons five days to complete their amputations, while Rebel soldiers lay dying. Not that Confederate soldiers were purposely treated callously — when a torrential rain began on July 4, hundreds of Southern wounded lying near a field hospital in danger of drowning were carried to higher ground by Northern soldiers. There were also instances of Southern women coming north to tend wounded Confederates and being permitted to carry out their mercy missions unhindered.
Some idea of the horrific conditions at Gettysburg in the wake of the battle can be gathered from the account of Cornelia Hancock, a New Jersey Quaker, who arrived to nurse the wounded: A sickening, overpowering, awful stench announced the presence of the unburied dead on which the July sun was mercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler until it seemed to possess a palpable, horrible density that could be felt and cut with a knife. At a field hospital the first sight that met our eyes was a collection of semi-conscious but still living human forms, all of whom had been shot through the head and were considered hopeless….Yet a groan came from them and their limbs tossed and twitched.
There was hardly a tent to be seen. Earth was the only available bed during the first hours after the battle….A long table stood in [the] woods and around it gathered a number of surgeons and attendants. This was the operating table, and for seven days it literally ran blood. A wagon stood near, rapidly filling with amputated legs and arms. Then, wholly filled, this gruesome spectacle withdrew from sight and returned for another load.
Lee directed his army to move across South Mountain to Hagerstown and then to Falling Waters. The wounded in their wagon train left first, at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th. The trail of pain stretched 17 miles. The wounded were accompanied by about 5,000 able-bodied men who were hurrying back to Virginia as rapidly as possible. Lieutenant General Richard Ewell’s corps was in the van between Imboden and the rest of the army. He was continually harassed by cavalry and got involved in a nasty night fight at Monterey Pass, where the flashes of the muskets were answered with bolts of lightning. Ewell lost his wagons and about 1,500 men, but fought off the Federals.
The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.
So important was our movement that no halt for bivouac, though we marched scarcely two miles an hour, was made on our route from Gettysburg to Williamsport — a march of over forty miles. The men and officers on horseback would go to sleep without knowing it, and at one time there was a halt occasioned by all the drivers…being asleep in their saddles. In fact, the whole army was dozing while marching and moved as if under enchantment or a spell — asleep and at the same time walking.
During the retreat, Lee ordered the impressment of horses to replace those lost in battle or those too jaded for further service. The Rebels paid for the horses either in Confederate currency or by giving the owners a written description of the animals confiscated, signed by a Confederate officer. These could be, and were, used by citizens to file a claim with the U.S. government for their losses.
For the hundreds of wounded, conveyed in springless wooden wagons, the retreat proved especially horrifying. The torrential rains that began on the 4th added to the misery of the torn men being hurried south to the safety of Virginia. Imboden issued orders prohibiting a halt, and stationed sentinels every third of a mile. During the first night of the retreat he rode to the head of the column and later recalled that in four hours he was never out of the hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in one hundred had received adequate surgical aid….Many of the wounded in wagons had been without food for 36 hours….except for the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in this vast procession of misery. During this one night I realized more of the horror of war than I had in all the two previous years.
I. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Battle of Helena, Arkansas. CSA loss. CSA planned to take advantage of reduced Federal forces to relive pressure on Vicksburg. Union garrison at Helena had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south) which gave them a distinct advantage even with forces reduced from 20,000 to 4,000.
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: US General Prentiss repulses an attack on Helena, Arkansas. [1863 or 1864]
CSA LT Gen Theophilius H. Holmes had 7,000 men at his disposal. He planned a three-pronged attack. General Stirling Price, with 3,000 men, was to attack the Federal centre on Graveyard Hill. Generals John S. Marmaduke and L.M. Walker, with 2,780 men, were to attack Fort Righter and General James F. Fagan with 1,770 was to attack Fort Hindman.
The flank attacks were launched at daybreak on 4 July. Price's attack in the centre went in a little later. However, it was Price who met with the most success, capturing Graveyard Hill after a series of charges. With the flank attacks bogged down, all this achieved was to make Price's men the target for every gun in the Union army, as well as those on the Tyler. By 10.30 it was clear to Holmes that the attack had failed, and he ordered Price's men to pull back.
Prentiss reported losses of 57 dead, 146 wounded and 36 captured or missing, for a total of 239. Confederate losses were much higher, at 173 dead, 687 wounded and 776 missing or captured, for a total of 1,636, or just over 20% of Holmes's entire force. Helena remained in Union hands, and was used as the base for the expedition that captured Little Rock, only two months later.
Background: Helena was one of the many towns along the line of the Mississippi occupied by Union forces during 1862 (American Civil War). In the summer of 1863 Union occupation of Helena served two purposes. First, it helped to protect the supply line along the Mississippi to the troops besieging Vicksburg. Second, it provided a possible base for any attack on the state capitol, at Little Rock.
The Confederate commander west of the Mississippi was Edmund Kirby-Smith (since March 1863). He had replaced Lieutenant-General Theophilius H. Holmes, who had demoted to command the District of Arkansas. Together, they decided to launch an attack on the Federal garrison at Helena, partly to help relieve the pressure at Vicksburg, and partly to protect the Confederate position in Arkansas.
Their timing was good. The Union garrison at Helena had recently been reduced from 20,000 men to 4,000, under Major-General B. M. Prentiss, when most of the men had been transferred to Vicksburg. However, they did have a strong position. Helena was overlooked by a line of hills, on which they had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south). A single gunboat, the U.S.S. Tyler, protected them from the river.
1. July 4, 1827: Leonidas Polk graduates from West Point.
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2. July 4, 1831: Date chosen for Nat Turner's Slave rebellion in Virginia. It was postponed because Turner was sick.
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3. July 4, 1840: Democrat Martin Van Buren signs the Independent Treasury Act into law.
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4. July 4, 1850: Following an Independence Day celebration centered around the as yet unfinished Washington Monument, Zachary Taylor becomes sick.
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5. Friday, July 04, 1856: Under direct orders from President Franklin Pierce, Edwin Vose Sumner leads 200 infantrymen into Topeka, Kansas, unlimbers his artillery and informs the freestaters they may not hold a convention.
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6. Saturday, July 04, 1857: Sewanee, The University of the South is founded by Leonidas Polk at the top of Lookout Mountain.
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7. Monday, July 04, 1859: The Oregon Flag is introduced. It will be the first flag under which U. S. troops enter the Civil War.
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8. Thursday, July 04, 1861: The Kansas Flag is introduced.
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9. Thursday, July 04, 1861: Leonidas Polk is put in charge of the Confederate Department Number 2.
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10. Thursday, July 04, 1861: President Lincoln addressed Congress on the 84th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He gave a rousing speech about the indivisibility of the Union. Several government figures also addressed Congress. Among them was Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, who recommended that Congress supported his idea that volunteers served for three years. The Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Chase asked Congress for $240 million to pay for the running of the war.
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11. Friday, July 04, 1862: John Hunt Morgan leads a Confederate raid into Kentucky.
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12. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Henry Adams, son of the U.S. Ambassador in London, Charles Francis Adam, Sr., writes to his brother Charles, Jr., a cavalry officer in the Union army, expressing the anxieties they feel for the cause of the Union from the London point of view: “The truth is we are suffering now under one of those periodical returns of anxiety and despondency that I have often written of. . . . but meanwhile we are haunted by stories about McClellan and by the strange want of life that seems justly or not to characterize our military and naval motions. You at Charleston seem to be an exception to the rule of stagnation which leaves us everywhere on the defensive even when attacking. A little dash does so much to raise one’s spirits, and now our poor men only sicken in marshes. I think of it all as little as I can.”
He adds observations about how the cotton shortage is affecting the working class in England---without saying how such a situation may turn British sympathies toward the South: “The suffering among the operatives in Lancashire is very great and is increasing in a scale that makes people very uncomfortable though as yet they keep quiet about it. Cotton is going up to extraordinary prices; in a few days only it advanced three cents a pound and is still rising. Prices for cotton goods are merely nominal and vary according to the opinions of the holders, so that the whole trade is now pure speculation. Mills are closing in every direction.”
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13. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- His father, Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, Sr., writes also to Charles, Jr.: “This detestable war is not of our own choosing, and out of it must grow consequences important to the welfare of coming generations, . . . I had hoped that the progress of General McClellan would have spared us much of this trouble. But it is plain that he has much of the Fabian policy in his composition which threatens to draw the war into greater length. Of course we must be content to take a great deal on trust. Thus far the results have been all that we had a reasonable right to expect. Let us hope that the delay is not without its great purposes. My belief is unshaken that the end of this conflict is to topple down the edifice of slavery. Perhaps we are not yet ready to come up to that work, and the madness of the resistance is the instrument in the hands of Divine Providence to drive us to it. It may be so. I must hold my soul in patience, and pray for courage and resignation.
This is the 4th of July. Eighty-six years ago our ancestors staked themselves in a contest of a far more dangerous and desperate character. The only fault they committed was in omitting to make it more general and complete. . . . I am not a friend of the violent policy of the ultras who seem to me to have no guide but their own theories. This great movement must be left in a degree to develope itself, and human power must be applied solely to shape the consequences so far as possible to the best uses.
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14. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Private Oliver Willcox Norton of the Union army writes home with a detailed account of his experience in the Battle of Gaines Mill, showing the tendency of his rifle to be more prone to getting wounded than his body: “The order was given to face about. We did so and tried to form in line, but while the line was forming, a bullet laid low the head, the stay, the trust of our regiment—our brave colonel, and before we knew what had happened the major shared his fate. We were then without a field officer, but the boys bore up bravely. . . . Those in the rear of us received the order but the aide sent to us was shot before he reached us and so we got no orders. Henry and Denison were shot about the same time as the colonel. I left them together under a tree. I returned to the fight, and our boys were dropping on all sides of me. I was blazing away at the rascals not ten rods off when a ball struck my gun just above the lower band as I was capping it, and cut it in two. The ball flew in pieces and part went by my head to the right and three pieces struck just below my left collar bone. The deepest one was not over half an inch, and stopping to open my coat I pulled them out and snatched a gun from Ames in Company H as he fell dead. Before I had fired this at all a ball clipped off a piece of the stock, and an instant after, another struck the seam of my canteen and entered my left groin. I pulled it out, and, more maddened than ever, I rushed in again. A few minutes after, another ball took six inches off the muzzle of this gun. I snatched another from a wounded man under a tree, and, as I was loading kneeling by the side of the road, a ball cut my rammer in two as I was turning it over my head. Another gun was easier got than a rammer so I threw that away and picked up a fourth one. Here in the road a buckshot struck me in the left eyebrow, making the third slight scratch I received in the action. It exceeded all I ever dreamed of, it was almost a miracle. Then came the retreat across the river; rebels on three sides of us left no choice but to run or be killed or be taken prisoners. We left our all in the hollow by the creek and crossed the river to Smith’s division. The bridge was torn up and when I came to the river I threw my cartridge box on my shoulder and waded through. It was a little more than waist deep. I stayed that night with some Sherman boys in Elder Drake’s company in the Forty-ninth New York.
Sunday night we lay in a cornfield in the rain, without tent or blanket. Monday we went down on the James river, lying behind batteries to support them. Tuesday the same—six days exposed to a constant fire of shot and shell, till almost night, when we went to the front and engaged in another fierce conflict with the enemy. Going on to the field, I picked up a tent and slung it across my shoulder. The folds of that stopped a ball that would have passed through me. I picked it out, put it in my pocket, and, after firing sixty rounds of my own and a number of a wounded comrade’s cartridges, I came off the field unhurt, and ready, but not anxious, for another fight.”
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15. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- William C. Horton, of the U.S. Navy, assigned to the U.S.S. Hartford under Flag Officer Farragut on the Mississippi, tells of the fleet’s run past the guns of Vicksburg, and how they celebrated the Fourth of July: “During the night the mortars were moved up to easy range, and on the 28th, before daylight, the mortars opened in earnest. The whole fleet now moved up to the attack. Our ships were before the city, while the shells from the mortars were being hurled right over our heads, and, as battery after battery was unmasked from every conceivable position, the ridge of the bluff was one sheet of fire. The big ships sent in their broadsides, the mortars scores of shell, and all combined to make up a grand display and terrible conflict. After nearly two hours of hard fighting, our ships had nearly all passed the city, out of range, and the firing ceased.
On looking around I found the Hartford riddled from stem to stern; first a hole through her bow, then two through the side, one below water, then another through the bulwarks, another through the stern and cabin, and another through the smoke-pipe, &c., &c., the main topsail-yard cut in twain, and the rigging terribly cut fore and aft.
Our casualties in killed and wounded were light. . . . The afternoon was devoted to burying the dead and communicating with the ram fleet belonging .to Commodore Davis’s division. From our anchorage we’ could see across the point of land to General Williams’s camp and the transports below, and we immediately established communication with them. Here we spent the Fourth of July, which was celebrated by the booming of cannon from both fleets, and a volley of shells to the rebels. . . .”
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16. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Young Sarah Morgan of Baton Rouge writes of her feelings about the future of the nation---sure of her Confederate loyalties and yet uncertain about the vicious nature of the division between North and South: “For a few days before his arrival here, we saw a leading article in the leading Union paper of New Orleans, threatening us with the arming of the slaves for our extermination if England interfered, in the same language almost as Butler used when here; three days ago the same paper ridiculed the idea, and said such a brutal, inhuman thing was never for a moment thought of, it was too absurd. And so the world goes! We all turn somersaults occasionally.
And yet, I would rather we would achieve our independence alone, if possible. It would be so much more glorious. And then I would hate to see England conquer the North, even if for our sake; my love for the old Union is still too great to be willing to see it so humiliated. If England would just make Lincoln come to his senses, and put an end to all this confiscation which is sweeping over everything, make him agree to let us alone and behave himself, that will be quite enough. But what a task! . . .”
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17. Friday, July 04, 1862 --- A Seneca County, New York newspaper, on this occasion of the nation’s founding, publishes this editorial with a decided Copperhead slant: “The recurrence of the birthday of our National Independence has heretofore been the occasion for universal congratulation and rejoicing. How different the scene in 1862! Instead of Peace, Union, and Prosperity, we have Civil War, Disunion and all their concomitant evils. Instead of National rejoicing, the land is filled with mourning. Upon every breeze is borne the the sad, silent messenger of death. Hearts are bleeding all over the land at the loss of loved ones, stricken down in this most cruel and unnatural, war. What a day for rejoicing! And for what can we rejoice? Our common interests are gone, sacrificed for the sake of our jealousies and passions. Fanaticism and madness rule the hour, and our beloved country seems to be fast drifting toward anarchy and ruin.
. . . We are a guilty nation, proud, wicked, and vain-glorious. If we have not sought war, we are at least guilty of hastening it upon our fellow-countrymen. To avoid all of its horrors we should acknowledge our wrongs and retrace our steps. Our common history must be read and studied anew, and we must again dwell on the glorious deeds of a common ancestry, while a thick and oblivious veil must be drawn over the awful and tragic events of our recent history. The blessings and glories of the past must be rehearsed. . . . One hope – one heart – one future – one magnificent destiny! Inspired by these feelings and actuated by these sentiments only, can Peace be restored and our People again made happy and prosperous. Until then all national rejoicing is mere mockery.
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18. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Sergeant James T. Odem of the 5th New Jersey Infantry Regiment writes home to his wife from Westminster, Maryland, where his regiment was on guard duty. He passes on what information he is getting from Gettysburg, and comments on the depredations of the Rebels in northern country---as well as on Yankee depredations amongst the local farmers: “My wife: I again pen a few lines for Your Entertainment and perusal. Well here I am Sitting In the wagon to keep out of the rain which is falling in torrents, the first heavy rain that we have had for Some days, and of Course very acceptable, although it is very bad for the troops who are Now Wounded, or fighting upon the Battlefield. there has been Some very hard fighting at Gettysburg Pa. within the last few days and the Loss is heavy on both Sides. Our forces have Captured Several thousand Rebels that I have Seen and I have been talking with Some of the Rebs which talk as Poison as the bite of a Rattler Snake. they Say they will fight us as long as they have a man Left. this town is part Secesh, but Many of the Ladies are Caring for our wounded that are brought here. We are not far from the State Line, yet I am Some 25 Miles from where the fighting is going on. Our trains are mostly all parked here, out of the way of the Enemy, for fear of Capture as the Rebel Cavalry are all over the Country and was in this place Last Monday, when they Sacked all the Stores and destroying what they did not care to carry off, besides Stealing about 4,000 horses from the farmers, and Robbing Private houses and insulting the females, but they are Paying very dearly for their Crimes just now. Our forces are whipping them at all points here we have traveled Some 300 miles but Now we have Come to a halt for awhile, and I believe that before we Leave again for Virginia, that the Rebel army which is here in Maryland and Pennsylvania will pretty much all be Killed Or Captured, as the water in the Potomac is So high that they cannot Escape. . . . The wheat Looks good, but I tell you that the army is doing Much Mischief to the farmers destroying trees and Crops but Buy what Hay and grain as victuals they take away. . . . I would Like to have been home to spend the 4th with you, yet I am doing well to what Many poor Souls are. Please give My love and Compliments to Christian and family. Likewise to you and the Children. Good by from your Husband James T. Odem”
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19. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- A Unionist woman in Vicksburg records her impressions of the victorious Federal troops marching into conquered Vicksburg: “July 4th. – It is evening. All is still. Silence and night are once more united. I can sit at the table in the parlor and write. Two candles are lighted. I would like a dozen. We have had wheat supper and wheat bread once more. … [The author relates the history of the past 24 hours, including the stars and stripes being raised at the courthouse and federal transport boats coming around the bend full of provisions.] Towards five Mr. J– passed again. “Keep on the lookout,” he said; “the army of occupation is coming along,” and in a few minutes the head of the column appeared. What a contrast to the suffering creatures we had seen so long were these stalwart, well-fed men, so splendidly set up and accoutered. Sleek horses, polished arms, bright plumes, – this was the pride and panoply of war. Civilization, discipline, and order seemed to enter with the measured tramp of those marching columns; and the heart turned with throbs of added pity to the worn men in gray, who were being blindly dashed against this embodiment of modern power. And now this “silence that is golden” indeed is over all, and my limbs are unhurt, and I suppose if I were Catholic, in my fervent gratitude, I would hie me with a rich offering to the shrine of “our Lady of Mercy.”
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20. Saturday, July 04, 1863: On this day, Vicksburg formally surrendered to Grant.
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21. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Siege of Vicksburg: The city officially surrenders.
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22. Saturday, July 04, 1863: The West Virginia flag is introduced. This is the final Union flag of the Civil War.
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23. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Siege of Vicksburg, Day 43
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24. Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Siege of Port Hudson, Day 38
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25. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Ulysses S. Grant accepts the surrender of the second Confederate Army he has defeated, at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
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26. Saturday, July 04, 1863: News of Vicksburg's surrender must have come soon after, because Grant next sent this message to Major General Nathaniel P. Banks in the siege lines around Port Hudson: HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE, Near Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. To Major General N. P. BANKS, Comdg. Department of the Gulf: “GENERAL: The garrison of Vicksburg surrendered this morning. Number of prisoners, as given by the officers, is 27,000; field artillery one hundred and twenty-eight pieces, and a large number of siege guns, probably not less than eighty. The other stores will probably not amount to any great deal. I held all my surplus troops out on Big Black River and between there and Haynes' Bluff, intending to assault in a few days. I directed that they be kept in readiness to move on the shortest notice to attack Johnston. The moment the surrender of Vicksburg was agreed upon, the order was given, and troops are now in motion. General Sherman goes in command of this expedition. His force is so large I think it cannot fail. This move will have the effect of keeping Johnston from detaching a portion of his force for the relief of Port Hudson. Although I had the garrison of Vicksburg completely in my power, I gave them the privilege of being paroled at this place, the officers to retain their side-arms and private baggage, and field, staff, and cavalry officers to take with them one horse each. I regard the terms really more favorably than an unconditional surrender. It leaves the transports and troops for immediate use. At the present junction of affairs in the East and on the river above here, this may prove of vast importance.
I hope, general, and from what Admiral Porter tells me, this probably will find you in possession of Port Hudson.
I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant, U. S. GRANT.”
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27. Saturday, July 04, 1863: So it was that Grant was ready to immediately follow up and exploit his win at Vicksburg. Robert E. Lee was probably this nation's greatest battlefield tactician, but for strategic vision and operational command I'll take Ulysses S. Grant every time.
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28. Saturday, July 04, 1863: John Hunt Morgan 's men run into a contigent of federal troops in Columbus, Kentucky.
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29. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Morgan’s Great Raid: Tebb’s Bend, Kentucky. Morgan’s loss here is a foreshadowing of things to come.
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30. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Grant is ready to follow up the fall of Vicksburg
The reason I believe that Ulysses S. Grant was one of this nation's greatest generals is his strategic vision and understanding of the need for exploiting the momentum of events. A lot of Civil War generals, having just won a great victory like Vicksburg, would have settled down to rest on their laurels and "reorganize" their forces. Not "Sam" Grant; even before the surrender at Vicksburg, Grant and Sherman had set in motion plans to crush the dithering Joseph Johnston's army near Jackson, Mississippi. Here is a message sent to Sherman early on the morning of July 4, 1863, telling him to get ready to move.
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31. Monday, July 04, 1864: Lincoln vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill that would have introduced harsh settlements for rebel states. He was still convinced that a policy of reconciliation was required, not retribution.
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32. Monday, July 04, 1864: “As Grant continued to grind away at Lee’s forces around Petersburg, the work in Washington was beginning on how to go about re-integrating the South into the Federal nation. The word “Reconstruction” began to be in use around this time, and virtually nobody agreed about how it should be accomplished. Abraham Lincoln was being very judicious in releasing the details of his plans, which were surprisingly conciliatory to what was, after all, a conquered nation. It was less the Democrats giving him trouble than the members of his own party, known as the Radical Republicans, including the more fanatical abolitionists. Lincoln today pocket-vetoed a measure called the Wade-Davis bill, which would have barred any man who had ever borne arms against the Union from voting or holding office. Essentially the debate was over whether Congress or the President would control the rebuilding process.”
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33. Saturday, July 04, 1863: Gettysburg: General Lee remains in his defensive position on Seminary Ridge all day, hoping General Meade will attack. The US general instead congratulates his army, which leaves Lincoln “a good deal dissatisfied.”
When Meade does not attack, Lee orders a retreat to Virginia. The Army of the Potomac has lost 23,000 men, the Army of Northern Virginia close to 28,000.
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34. Tennessee operations/Tullahoma campaign: No US forces are encountered, and Forrest and his men cross the Tennessee River to join the rest of the Army of Tennessee. “The army having now been withdrawn to the south side of the Tennessee and concentrated at Chattanooga, Forrest’s Division followed and went into cantonments near by, where, for the following fortnight, the conditions of the campaign or the inaction of the enemy, gave it opportunity to rest and refit … .”
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35. Saturday, July 04, 1863: President Lincoln responds (maybe) to CS Vice President Stephens commission: The request of A. H. Stephens is inadmissible. The customary agents and channels are adequate for all needful communication and conference between the United States forces and the insurgents.” [In the absence of the original, it is not certain that Lincoln composed or signed this, and that it was prepared on July 4, 1863 may be questioned.]
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36. Monday, July 04, 1864: "Retreating Joe" Johnston, as he is now called in the Richmond papers, withdraws to his previously prepared Chattahoochee Line, Georgia.
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37. Monday, July 04, 1864: Having outflanked his opponents, Sherman’s force was actually nearer to Atlanta than Southern troops. This forced the South’s commander in the area, Johnston, to make a hasty withdrawal so that Atlanta was better protected. Johnston set up his line of defence along the Chattahoochee River.
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38. Monday, July 04, 1864: Georgia operations, Atlanta campaign: General Sherman again: “By night [July 3-4] Thomas’s head of column ran up against a strong rear-guard intrenched at Smyrna camp-ground, six miles below Marietta, and there on the next day we celebrated our Fourth of July, by a noisy but not a desperate battle, designed chiefly to hold the enemy there till Generals McPherson and Schofield could get well into position below him, near the Chattahoochee crossings.
It was here that General Noyes, late Governor of Ohio, lost his leg. I came very near being shot myself while reconnoitering in the second story of a house on our picket-line, which was struck several times by cannon-shot, and perfectly riddled with musket-balls.”
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39. Saturday, July 04, 1868: North Carolina ratifies the 14th Amendment.
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A Friday, July 04, 1862: near Haxell's Landing, Virginia - On July 4, the Confederate gunboat CSS Teaser, commanded by Lt. Hunter Davidson, was on the James River. It was on a mission to lay mines in the river. It was also carrying a deflated balloon to take downriver and reconnoiter Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's withdrawal at City Point. It was sailing near Haxall's Landing, just north of City Point, when it encountered the side-wheel gunboat USS Maratanza. The Maratanza was commanded by Lt. Thomas H. Stevens.
A brief battle ensued between the two boats. Near the end of fight, the Maratanza fired a shot that hit and exploded in the Teaser's boiler. This effectively ended the naval battle. The Teaser was soon captured after being disabled. The Federals were surprised when they discovered the Teaser's mission.
{[mycivilwar.com/battles/1862s.html]}
A+ Friday, July 04, 1862: On the James River, the USS Maratanza and CSS Teaser engage in battle. A shell destroy’s the Teaser’s boiler, and the crew is forced to abandon the ship. Aboard the Teaser, its new Union owners discover electric mines ready to be laid in the river, as well as an observation balloon for spying on the Army of the Potomac. The silk for the balloon is rumored to come from dresses donated by Richmond belles. It’s actually very colorful silk dress material, $514 worth, which would be something around $11,682 today per this calculator (though that’s a very uncertain conversion, since these were Confederate dollars and it was wartime).
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A++ Friday, July 04, 1862 --- Naval action on the James River: Lieutenant T.H. Stevens, commander of the U.S.S. Maratanza, sorties up the James River and encounters the C.S.S. Teaser, a gunboat armed with a 32-pounder gun, in addition to a 57-pounder rifled gun, and a 12-pounder gun. After the exchange of several shots, the Yankee vessel fired a shell that pierced the Teaser’s boiler, after which its crew abandons it in haste. Stevens captures the Teaser, as well as an observation balloon.
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Friday, July 04, 1862 --- John Hunt Morgan, a Kentuckian in the Confederate Cavalry, had been building a reputation as a bold and innovative commander. Having raised a regiment of troops at his own expense, he became colonel in command of the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry Regiment in the Confederate army. More recently, his reputation drew a large battalion of Georgia mounted partisan rangers, and two troops of Texan riders, to join him, forming a light brigade. He trained his men in cavalry tactics that were unconventional, eschewing sabers in favor of rifles. Most of his recruits have trained in the infantry, and Morgan uses them as mounted infantry. In time, Basil Duke is made commander of the 2nd Kentucky as Morgan assumed the duties of brigade commander. He also acquires two light 12-pounder howitzers. On this date, Morgan and his 876 men and two guns start out from Knoxville, embarking on his first major raid. Their goal is the populated and fertile central bluegrass country of central Kentucky, especially Lexington.
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*Across the nation, Americans on both sides consider the meanings of the war on this, the Birthday of the United States:
B Saturday, July 04, 1863: Surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi.: The surrender was finalized the next day, July 4, 1863, and the Union army took control of the city. In recognition of that day, the townsfolk of Vicksburg did not celebrate Independence Day for 81 years following the siege.
Fact #9: The capture of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in half and was a major turning point of the Civil War. In the few days it took for Grant’s message announcing the capture of Vicksburg to reach Abraham Lincoln, the President had also received word that Port Hudson, the only other Confederate stronghold left on the Mississippi, had also fallen. “The Father of Waters once again goes unvexed to the sea,” he proclaimed.
With no length of the Mississippi River now safe from Union power, the Confederacy was unable to send supplies or communications across its breadth. Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas were cut off from the rest of the rebellious nation. This was doubly damaging, as the Texas-Mexico border was a favorite route of secessionist suppliers and the possibility of French intervention across the border was precluded by the nigh-impassable boundary of a Union-held Mississippi River. The fall of Vicksburg came just one day after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg, prompting many to point to early July, 1863 as the turning point of the Civil War.
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B+ Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Vicksburg Surrenders! – On this date, Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton surrenders his Army of Mississippi and the city of Vicksburg to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The Confederate surrender 29,491 men, 172 pieces of artillery, 50,000 muskets and 600,000 rounds of ammunition. Even though Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon had given orders to Joseph Johnston to attack Grant to relieve Vicksburg, Johnston (for reasons that are yet unclear) had chosen to disregard them. Seddon's letter says: “Vicksburg must not be lost without a desperate struggle. The interest and honor of the Confederacy forbid it. I rely on you still to avert the loss. If better resources do not offer, you must hazard attack. It may be made in concert with the garrison, if practicable, but otherwise, without-by day or night, as you think best.
As a result of Johnston’s inaction, Pemberton decides that in order to avert further bloodshed and suffering he should surrender the city. His troops are so malnourished, they are in no condition to fight even if Johnston did attack the Union lines to assist with a breakout.”
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B++ Saturday, July 04, 1863: HDQRS. DEPT. OF THE TENN., near Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. General SHERMAN: “Your note has been received. Propositions have been sent in for the surrender of Vicksburg. Pemberton's reply is momentarily expected. If he does not surrender now, he will be compelled to by his men within two days, no doubt. The orders will be made as you suggest the moment Vicksburg is ours. Ord and Steele have both been notified to move the moment Vicksburg falls, Ord to take ten days' hard bread, salt, coffee, and sugar. I will change this to five in view of the provision train you expect to take. I will let you know the moment Pemberton's answer arrives. U. S. GRANT.”
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C Saturday, July 04, 1863: During the night of July 3-4, Lee continued the rearrangement of his lines, withdrawing Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s corps from Culp’s Hill, which then joined Lt. Gens. A.P. Hill’s and James Longstreet’s corps in a generally straight defensive line on Seminary Ridge. Most accounts describe Lee riding alone among his army long into the night. He finally met up with Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden, who was to provide the cavalry escort for the wagon train of wounded. General, this has been a hard day on you, Imboden said to his commander. Yes, Lee replied, it has been a sad, sad day to us. Lee lauded the performance of Pettigrew’s and Pickett’s men and added: If they had been supported as they were to have been — but for some reason not fully explained to me were not — we would have held the position and the day would have been ours. Too bad, too bad. Oh, too bad.
We must now return to Virginia, Lee continued. As many of our poor wounded as possible must be taken home. As Lee gave Imboden his orders, he added: The duty will be arduous, responsible and dangerous, for I am afraid you will be harassed by the enemy’s cavalry. How many men do you have? Imboden replied that he had 2,000 men and 23 cannons available for the task.
On the 4th, as both armies stared at each other in stunned silence and exhaustion, messengers rode back and forth across the lines. Lee held about 4,000 Federal troops prisoner and asked for an exchange. Meade declined, reasoning that guarding and feeding 4,000 prisoners during the retreat would work against the Confederates. Lee ordered his troops in front of Seminary Ridge to go through the motions of entrenching to deceive Meade as to his true intentions. Willing away the sense of despair and disappointment that had characterized his mood the night before, Lee affected an outward show of confidence. On greeting Longstreet, whose corps had borne the brunt of the fighting on the second and third days of the battle, Lee called out, Well, here is my old war horse. To Longstreet he repeated his remarks at the failure of Pickett’s Charge: It is all my fault. I thought my men were invincible.
While Lee was preparing his retreat, Meade issued General Orders No. 68, congratulating his men for their performance during the battle. His message concluded, Our task is not yet accomplished and the commanding general looks to the Army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader.
Although Meade clearly showed signs of strain from the burden of command in a crucial campaign, he ordered Maj. Gen. William French, stationed at Frederick, Md., to proceed to the ford at Falling Waters, near Williamsport, and destroy the pontoon bridge there. Meade apparently had some hope of trapping Lee north of the Potomac and assumed another major battle would be fought outside Virginia. Nevertheless, he only began his pursuit on July 5, a day after Lee’s withdrawal, leading with the relatively unbloodied VI Corps.
As both the Federal and Confederate armies commenced their race to the Potomac, they left a terrible scene of death and pain. Thousands of bodies lay blackened, bloated and festering in the sun. Before leaving Gettysburg, Meade contracted with a local resident, Samuel Herbst, to organize able-bodied citizens to bury the dead. Additionally, Pennsylvania militiamen, who had been ordered out to meet the emergency of Lee’s invasion, were pressed into the grisly work, fashioning hooks from bayonets and pulling bodies into shallow graves by their belts. There were still more than 21,000 wounded in Gettysburg, 14,500 Northerners and 6,800 Southerners. Since another battle with Lee was expected, most of the Army medical units marched off with Meade, leaving only 106 medical officers, about one-third of whom were operating surgeons. Volunteer nurses from the U.S. Sanitary Commission arrived to help, and fresh food and vegetables purchased from local sources also aided the convalescence of those who were not too seriously hurt.
Of course, in both burials and medical treatment, Northern soldiers received care first. According to some accounts, it took surgeons five days to complete their amputations, while Rebel soldiers lay dying. Not that Confederate soldiers were purposely treated callously — when a torrential rain began on July 4, hundreds of Southern wounded lying near a field hospital in danger of drowning were carried to higher ground by Northern soldiers. There were also instances of Southern women coming north to tend wounded Confederates and being permitted to carry out their mercy missions unhindered.
Some idea of the horrific conditions at Gettysburg in the wake of the battle can be gathered from the account of Cornelia Hancock, a New Jersey Quaker, who arrived to nurse the wounded: A sickening, overpowering, awful stench announced the presence of the unburied dead on which the July sun was mercilessly shining, and at every step the air grew heavier and fouler until it seemed to possess a palpable, horrible density that could be felt and cut with a knife. At a field hospital the first sight that met our eyes was a collection of semi-conscious but still living human forms, all of whom had been shot through the head and were considered hopeless….Yet a groan came from them and their limbs tossed and twitched.
There was hardly a tent to be seen. Earth was the only available bed during the first hours after the battle….A long table stood in [the] woods and around it gathered a number of surgeons and attendants. This was the operating table, and for seven days it literally ran blood. A wagon stood near, rapidly filling with amputated legs and arms. Then, wholly filled, this gruesome spectacle withdrew from sight and returned for another load.
Lee directed his army to move across South Mountain to Hagerstown and then to Falling Waters. The wounded in their wagon train left first, at 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the 4th. The trail of pain stretched 17 miles. The wounded were accompanied by about 5,000 able-bodied men who were hurrying back to Virginia as rapidly as possible. Lieutenant General Richard Ewell’s corps was in the van between Imboden and the rest of the army. He was continually harassed by cavalry and got involved in a nasty night fight at Monterey Pass, where the flashes of the muskets were answered with bolts of lightning. Ewell lost his wagons and about 1,500 men, but fought off the Federals.
The mood of the retreating Confederates was one of both disappointment over the failure of battle and anger over their inability to pay the Yankees back in kind for the repulses the Northerners had meted out to them. Driven by forced marches, they soon added exhaustion to their mixture of emotions and sensations. Napier Bartlett, a Louisiana artilleryman, later recalled the feelings of pressure, apprehension and relief that so many experienced: When we were permitted at length to lie down under the caissons or in fence corners and realized that we had escaped the death that had snatched away so many others, we felt too well satisfied at our good fortune.
So important was our movement that no halt for bivouac, though we marched scarcely two miles an hour, was made on our route from Gettysburg to Williamsport — a march of over forty miles. The men and officers on horseback would go to sleep without knowing it, and at one time there was a halt occasioned by all the drivers…being asleep in their saddles. In fact, the whole army was dozing while marching and moved as if under enchantment or a spell — asleep and at the same time walking.
During the retreat, Lee ordered the impressment of horses to replace those lost in battle or those too jaded for further service. The Rebels paid for the horses either in Confederate currency or by giving the owners a written description of the animals confiscated, signed by a Confederate officer. These could be, and were, used by citizens to file a claim with the U.S. government for their losses.
For the hundreds of wounded, conveyed in springless wooden wagons, the retreat proved especially horrifying. The torrential rains that began on the 4th added to the misery of the torn men being hurried south to the safety of Virginia. Imboden issued orders prohibiting a halt, and stationed sentinels every third of a mile. During the first night of the retreat he rode to the head of the column and later recalled that in four hours he was never out of the hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in one hundred had received adequate surgical aid….Many of the wounded in wagons had been without food for 36 hours….except for the drivers and the guards, all were wounded and utterly helpless in this vast procession of misery. During this one night I realized more of the horror of war than I had in all the two previous years.
[[civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg/gettysburg-history-articles/battle-of-gettysburg-finale.html]]
C+ Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Gen. Robert E. Lee, uncertain of Meade’s attentions, gives orders for the withdrawal of his army. Johnson’s division pulls back from the base of Culp’s Hill, and Early’s division fall back from the town of Gettysburg to Seminary Ridge. As a heavy rain begins to fall, Gen. Imboden’s cavalry brigade heads for Chambersburg, along with the ambulance and supply trains for the Army of Northern Virginia. Also this evening, Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill and his III Corps begin to pull out of line and march towards Chambersburg.
[[civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=July+4%2C+1863]]
C++ Saturday, July 04, 1863 --- Gen. Meade orders his cavalry to probe towards Fairfield, Cashtown, and Emmitsburg in the hope of cutting off any Confederate escape routes. Troops from the XI Corps enter Gettysburg unopposed.
[[civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=July+4%2C+1863]]
C+++ Saturday, July 04, 1863: Both armies continued to face each other at Gettysburg but neither was inclined to fight. That night Lee ordered a withdrawal: his army had lost 22,000 men killed or wounded in just 3 days – 25% of the Army of Northern Virginia. Meade had lost 23,000 men but had emerged from the Battle of Gettysburg as the victor. The Union was also better able to cope with such losses. Bodies of those killed at Gettysburg took weeks to clear and by November 1863 only 25% of those killed had received a proper burial. The local undertaker claimed that he could only manage to move, clean and bury 100 bodies a day.
[[historylearningsite.co.uk/the-american-civil-war/american-civil-war-july-1863/]]
C++++ Saturday, July 04, 1863: Retreat from Gettysburg
• Skirmish at Fairfield Gap, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish at Fountain Dale, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish at Emmitsburg Gap, Maryland
• Battle of Monterey Gap, Pennsylvania
• Battle of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish at Greencastle, Pennsylvania
• Skirmish near Toms Creek (Modern Day Zora), Pennsylvania
• Lee's Pontoon Bridge destroyed at Falling Waters, West Virginia by Cole's Cavalry Company C
[[emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/history/civil_war/engagements_in_the_emmitsburg_area.htm
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: US General Prentiss repulses an attack on Helena, Arkansas. [1863 or 1864]
[[bjdeming.com/2013/07/01/the-american-civil-war-150th-anniversary-july-1-7-1863/]]
D Saturday, July 04, 1863: Battle of Helena, Arkansas. Helena was one of the many towns along the line of the Mississippi occupied by Union forces during 1862 (American Civil War). In the summer of 1863 Union occupation of Helena served two purposes. First, it helped to protect the supply line along the Mississippi to the troops besieging Vicksburg. Second, it provided a possible base for any attack on the state capitol, at Little Rock.
The Confederate commander west of the Mississippi was Edmund Kirby-Smith (since March 1863). He had replaced Lieutenant-General Theophilius H. Holmes, who had demoted to command the District of Arkansas. Together, they decided to launch an attack on the Federal garrison at Helena, partly to help relieve the pressure at Vicksburg, and partly to protect the Confederate position in Arkansas.
Their timing was good. The Union garrison at Helena had recently been reduced from 20,000 men to 4,000, under Major-General B. M. Prentiss, when most of the men had been transferred to Vicksburg. However, they did have a strong position. Helena was overlooked by a line of hills, on which they had built a series of forts (Fort Righter to the north, Graveyard Hill in the middle and Fort Hindman to the south). A single gunboat, the U.S.S. Tyler, protected them from the river.
Holmes had 7,000 men at his disposal. He planned a three-pronged attack. General Stirling Price, with 3,000 men, was to attack the Federal centre on Graveyard Hill. Generals John S. Marmaduke and L.M. Walker, with 2,780 men, were to attack Fort Righter and General James F. Fagan with 1,770 was to attack Fort Hindman.
The flank attacks were launched at daybreak on 4 July. Price's attack in the centre went in a little later. However, it was Price who met with the most success, capturing Graveyard Hill after a series of charges. With the flank attacks bogged down, all this achieved was to make Price's men the target for every gun in the Union army, as well as those on the Tyler. By 10.30 it was clear to Holmes that the attack had failed, and he ordered Price's men to pull back.
4 July 1863 was a bad day for the Confederacy. It saw the surrender of Vicksburg and Lee's retreat from Gettysburg. The defeat at Helena, while not in the same league, combined with the fall of Vicksburg to leave Arkansas vulnerable to Union attack. Prentiss reported losses of 57 dead, 146 wounded and 36 captured or missing, for a total of 239. Confederate losses were much higher, at 173 dead, 687 wounded and 776 missing or captured, for a total of 1,636, or just over 20% of Holmes's entire force. Helena remained in Union hands, and was used as the base for the expedition that captured Little Rock, only two months later.
{[historyofwar.org/articles/battles_helena.html]]
Retreat From Gettysburg - Part Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmv3AfMTHvU
FYI GySgt Jack Wallace SGT John " Mac " McConnell CWO4 Terrence Clark SPC Michael Oles SR [SPC Michael Terrell TSgt David L. SFC Randy Purham MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca SSG Ed Mikus PFC Eric Minchey TSgt George Rodriguez SSG Bill McCoy SFC Randy Purham SPC Jon O. SFC William Farrell CSM Charles Hayden LTC Trent Klug COL Randall C.
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SGT Robert George
I would say the capture of Vicksburg is up there on the list for stopping supplys an communications blocked
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LTC Stephen F.
You are welcome my fellow military history friend and brother-in-Christ SGT John " Mac " McConnell
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July 4 1863 was THEE most important day in the American Civil War. The Union victory at Gettysburg was the most significant event of the day but the capture of Vicksburg would actually be of more strategic value...in my opinion.
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LTC Stephen F.
I concur with your assessment MSG Brad Sand. That day was the turning point of the war.
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SP5 Mark Kuzinski
MSG Brad Sand - Now that comment did make my day - thanks and have a great weekend while i catch up!
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