160 Years Ago
July 20, 1862 – August 2, 1862
By Phil Kohn
Phil Kohn can be reached at USCW160@yahoo.com.
Phil Kohn can be reached at USCW160@yahoo.com.
Union cavalry surprises Col. John Hunt Morgan’s Confederate raiders at Owensville, Kentucky, on July 20, 1862. The Southerners are forced to scatter, and the Federals capture horses and supplies. In the Far West, a third detachment of the Federal California Column — five companies of infantry — departs Tucson and heads eastward toward the Rio Grande.
July 21 sees a fourth detachment of the California Column head east from Tucson. This time two infantry companies and an artillery battery make the trip. In the East, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman takes command of the District of Memphis (Tennessee).
The U.S. and Confederate governments on July 22 establish the Dix-Hill Cartel (named for the army officers on each side who signed the agreement) for the exchange of prisoners. Exchanges are to take place at two locations: Aiken’s Landing, near Dutch Gap, Virginia, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Previous prisoner exchanges were typically sporadic, ad hoc arrangements between opposing field commanders. In Washington, D.C., President Lincoln presents a draft of his intended Emancipation Proclamation to the members of his Cabinet, surprising most of them. It proposes that as of January 1, 1863, slaves in all states then in rebellion would be freed. After some discussion, President Lincoln agrees with Secretary of State Seward’s suggestion that the pronouncement not be made public until after a Federal military victory.
In the Far West, the fifth and last large detachment of the California Column — five infantry companies — departs Tucson and heads eastward on July 23. In the East, Maj. Gen. John Pope, adding to his already highly restrictive orders, announces that any disloyal citizens within the jurisdiction of his Federal Army of Virginia are to be arrested, risking seizure and destruction of their property. In Tennessee, Confederates under Gen. Braxton Bragg continue moving toward Chattanooga from Tupelo, Mississippi.
Skirmishing occurs between Federal and Confederate forces near Brown’s Spring, Missouri, on July 27.
The governors of Arkansas, Louisiana, (Confederate) Missouri and Texas on July 28 send a joint appeal to President Davis in Richmond for a commanding general for their region, as well as money, armaments and ammunition.
On July 29, the Confederate raider CSS Alabama, commanded by Capt. Raphael Semmes, sets sail from Liverpool, England. U.S. authorities in Great Britain have tried for months to prevent the ship’s departure, but to no avail. Between September 1862 and June 1864, Alabama will capture 69 U.S.-flagged prize ships. In Warrenton, Virginia, a woman named Belle Boyd is arrested by Federal soldiers, accused of being a Confederate spy and courier, and sent to the Old Capital Prison, in Washington, D.C.
Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, now general-in-chief of the U.S. Army, on July 30 orders Maj. Gen. George McClellan to remove his sick and wounded soldiers from Harrison’s Landing, Virginia. Halleck’s ultimate intention is to move the entire Army of the Potomac back towards Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia. Acceding to the request of four western governors, the Confederate War Department appoints Maj. Gen. Theophilus Holmes as commandant of the Trans-Mississippi Department. The 58-year-old, partially deaf West Point graduate from North Carolina had been dismissed by Gen. Robert E. Lee for poor performance during the Seven Days Battles around Richmond, but Holmes’s friend, Jefferson Davis, revives his career with this posting.
Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg and Brig. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith meet in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on July 31 to make plans for a campaign. Smith is to take the Cumberland Gap — a pass in the Cumberland Mountains within the Appalachians near the junction of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee — then join Bragg in a united campaign based out of Chattanooga. In Richmond, reacting to Union Maj. Gen. Pope’s Draconian orders to civilians in the vicinity of his troops, President Jefferson Davis issues orders that any commissioned officers captured from Pope’s Army of Virginia are to be treated as felons rather than prisoners of war. Davis says he regrets threatening such retaliation on the officers, but notes that Pope has put them in the position of being “robbers and murderers.”
Col. Joseph Porter leads his roughly 400 Confederate guerrillas in an attack on Newark, in northeastern Missouri, on August 1. The 75-man Federal garrison is surprised and capitulates quickly. Though the military captives are treated well, the town is put to the torch with homes and businesses looted.
Orange Court House, Virginia, is seized by Federal troops of Maj. Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia on August 2. Several Confederate cavalry regiments that had been holding the town are ousted.
