The American Civil War - Chronologically

April 25, 1862 C. S. S. Mississippi Burned to Avoid Capture  New Orleans, LA * It's not that I haven't been to New Orleans. But for this date, I am using Ernest Hemingway's house and Key West. Seems weird, but true. Hemingway's home in Florida was originally owned by Asa Tift. He and his brother Nelson built some ironclads for the Confederacy: the Mississippi and the Louisiana . Both got burned when the Union steamed into New Orleans.     * Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory was also a Key West guy.  Mallory Square is now where everyone goes to see the sunsets. Tift and Mallory were on the same page with armoroing ships.  * As we know from Fort Taylor, Key West stayed in Union hands the whole time. So Tift was allegedly expelled from Key West for refusing to fuel a Union ship, returning to die in 1889.  * Anyway, here's the fountain that Tift designed to replicate his ironclad. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=246967 Asa Tift Designs Fo...

April 21, 1862 Mount Clare Shops at the B&O Railroad Baltimore, MD  https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=60965 Now the B&O Railroad Museum, but then it was the... " site of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s Mount Clare Shops, a large industrial complex critical to maintaining every aspect of the railroad’s daily operations. Because of their strategic importance, the shops were among the first sites in Baltimore that the U.S. Army secured when the Civil War began. From this heavily guarded location the B&O supported the Northern war effort. Thousands of troops, tons of supplies and munitions, and material essential to rebuild damaged sections of track moved west from Baltimore along the B&O. With armies constantly maneuvering, with the ceaseless demands for military supplies, and with the numerous attacks on the rail line by Confederate raiders, the vital work here never stopped." from the Baltimore Sun in April of 1862 Baltimore Sun on April 21, 1862: CAVALRY PRADES-s...

April 19, 1862 Battle of South Mills (or Battle of Camden or The Battle of Sawyer's Lane) near South Mills, North Carolina, in Camden County (at the South end of the Dismal Swamp Canal) Burnside: Brig. Gen. Jesse Lee Reno vs. Col. Ambrose Wright's home command * Part of Burnside's North Carolina Expedition that started in the Outer Banks. He entrusted Reno to destroy the Dismal Swamp Canal locks to prevent the Confederate ironclads from getting to Albemarle Sound. *  "Wright, had prepared for the enemy. They dug a ditch across the road with marsh woodland at each end, then filled it with wood from fences and buildings and set it on fire to block the Union's movement. This ditch, known as "the roasted ditch," is still extant." (And why am I just learning this when I get home?!) Wright's guys retired exhausted, but Reno abandoned the plan based on false rumors of massive Confederate reinforcements.  * Don't worry: Reno's troops get to New B...

April 6, 1862 Union Gen. Robert H. Milroy briefly occupies Monterey  Monterey, VA https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=257005 Monterey "I never saw such a sight" Monterey, the seat of Highland County government, also served as the headquarters for Confederate and Union forces at different times during the Civil War. Confederate Gen. Henry R. Jackson, who led a brigade under Gen. Robert E. Lee during the First Campaign (or Mountain Campaign) of 1861, established his headquarters here . In the winter of 1861-1862, skirmishes occurred across the county as the no-man's-land between the armies shifted from the Allegheny Mountains on today's state line to West View in Augusta County.  On April 6, 1862, Union Gen. Robert H. Milroy and his forces occupied Monterey, and Milroy used the Osborne Wilson-Fenn House on Main Street as his headquarters. The town remained in Federal hands until after the Battle of McDowell on May 8, 1862, near the beginning of Confederate Gen. Thomas J. ...

April 5 - May 4, 1862  (Siege of) Yorktown Yorktown, VA George B. McClellan's whole damn Army of the Potomac  vs. Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder's small Confederate force * McClellan trying to get to Richmond through the backdoor is stopped by a much smaller force. He gets through eventually with minimal actual sieging, mostly just the threat of big guns. The Confederates slip away and provide a bigger challenge up the peninsula at Williamsburg.  * Magruder did a good job building defenses and, using his experience as an actor, was ostentatiously moving troops back and forth to make his force appear larger. It worked. * Yes, it is the same Yorktown battlefield from the Revolution - even some of the same entrenchments dug by Cornwallis are used. (Feel free to skip over all of the many following historical markers for that OTHER war!) * One of my personal favorites, Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, is around here with his Union Army Balloon Corps, trying to make observations. Previou...