Today in the WBTS, October 16th 1859 John Brown’s Raid. Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite an insurrection and destroy the institution of slavery. Born in Connecticut in 1800 and raised in Ohio, Brown came from a staunchly Calvinist and antislavery family. He spent much of his life failing at a variety of businesses--he declared bankruptcy at age 42 and had more than 20 lawsuits filed against him. In 1837, his life changed irrevocably when he attended an abolition meeting in Cleveland, during which he was so moved that he publicly announced his dedication to destroying the institution of slavery. As early as 1848 he was formulating a plan to incite an insurrection, and he shared the idea with Frederick Douglass. In the 1850s, Brown traveled to Kansas with five of his sons to fight against the proslavery forces in the contest over that territory. On May 21, 1856, proslavery men raided the abolitionist town of Lawrence, and Brown personally sought revenge. On May 25, Brown and his sons attacked three cabins along Pottawatomie Creek. They killed five men with broad swords and triggered a summer of guerilla warfare in the troubled territory. One of Browns sons was killed in the fighting. By 1857, Brown returned to the East and began raising money to carry out his vision of a mass uprising of slaves. He secured the backing of six prominent abolitionists, known as the Secret Six, and he assembled an invasion force. His army grew to include 22 men, including five black men and three of Browns sons. The group rented a Maryland farm near Harpers Ferry and prepared for the assault. Although Brown spent years dreaming of the raid, he apparently put little thought into the specifics of its execution. He made no attempt to notify the slaves that he hoped would join him, and he had little idea what to do with the armory he planned to capture. On October 16, 1859, John Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 19 men in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Armory. He had received 200 breech loading .52 caliber Sharps carbines and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves. They would then head south, drawing off more and more slaves from plantations, and fighting only in self-defense. As Frederick Douglass and Browns family testified, his strategy was essentially to deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one county after another, until the movement spread into the South, essentially wreaking havoc on the economic viability of the pro-slavery states. Thus, while violence was essential to self-defense and advancement of the movement, Browns hope was to limit and minimize bloodshed, not ignite a slave insurrection as many have charged. From the Southern point of view, of course, any effort to arm the enslaved was perceived as a definitive threat. Initially, the raid went well. They met no resistance entering the town. They cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grand-nephew of George Washington. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand. Things started to go wrong when an eastbound Baltimore & Ohio train approached the town. The trains baggage master tried to warn the passengers. Browns men yelled for him to halt and then opened fire. The baggage master, Hayward Shepherd, became the first casualty of John Browns war against slavery. Ironically, Shepherd was a free black man. For some reason, after the shooting of Shepherd, Brown allowed the train to continue on its way. News of the raid reached Washington by late morning. In the meantime, local farmers, shopkeepers, and militia pinned down the raiders in the armory by firing from the heights behind the town. Some of the local men were shot by Browns men. At noon, a company of militia seized the bridge, blocking the only escape route. Brown then moved his prisoners and remaining raiders into the engine house, a small brick building at the entrance to the armory. He had the doors and windows barred and loopholes were cut through the brick walls. The surrounding forces barraged the engine house, and the men inside fired back with occasional fury. Brown sent his son Watson and another supporter out under a white flag, but the angry crowd shot them. Intermittent shooting then broke out, and Browns son Oliver was wounded. His son begged his father to kill him and end his suffering, but Brown said If you must die, die like a man. A few minutes later he was dead. The exchanges lasted throughout the day. By morning (October 18) the engine house, later known as John Browns Fort, was surrounded by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee of the United States Army. A young Army lieutenant, J.E.B. Stuart, approached under a white flag and told the raiders that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, No, I prefer to die here. Stuart then gave a signal. The Marines used sledge hammers and a make-shift battering-ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives. Altogether Browns men killed four people, and wounded nine. Ten of Browns men were killed (including his sons Watson and Oliver). Five of Browns men escaped (including his son Owen), and seven were captured along with Brown. 1861: Federal occupation of Lexington, Missouri. Skirmishes near Linn Creek and Warsaw, Missouri Skirmish at Bolivar Heights, near Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia 1862: Skirmish at Elkhorn Tavern, Arkansas Skirmishes at Mountain Gap and, Wild Cat Mountain, Big Rockcastle Creek, and Mount Vernon, Kentucky. Skirmishes at Portland, Shells Mill and Auxvasse Creek, Missouri Beginning of a two day Federal reconnaissance form Sharpsburg, Maryland to Smithfield, West Virginia. Federal reconnaissance from Harper’s Ferry to Charlestown, West Virginia. Skirmish enroute 1863 Skirmish at fort Brooks, Tamp Bay, Florida. Skirmish at Grand Coteau, Louisiana. Beginning of a five day Federal operation from Natchez, Mississippi, to Red River, Louisiana. Skirmish at Treadwell’s, near Clinton and Vernon Crossroads, Mississippi Skirmishes on Deer Creek at Humansville and Johnstown, Missouri Skirmish at Pungo Landing, North Carolina. Skirmish near Island #10, Tennessee. U.S. President Lincoln appointed General Ulysses S. Grant to command all operations in the western theater. 1864 Federal expedition from Devall‘s Bluff aboard the steamer, Celeste, on the Cache River toward Clarnedon, Arkansas. Skirmish at Ship‘s Gap, Florida. Skirmish near Morganza, Louisiana Skirmish at Ridgley, Missouri Beginning of a 25 day Confederate cavalry raid under Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest into western Tennessee. Skirmish near Bull Gap, Tennessee. Beginning of a three day Federal expedition from City Point into Surry County, Virginia. Skirmish at Blackwater River, Virginia : Engagement at Fort Brooke, Florida: Two Union ships bombarded Fort Brooke on October 16 as a diversion, while a landing party under Acting Master T.R. Harris disembarked at Ballast Point and marched 14 miles to the Hillsborough River to capture several steamers. Harris and his men surprised and captured the blockade running steamer Scottish Chief and sloop Kate Dale. The Rebels destroyed the steamer A.B. Noyes to preclude her capture. On its way back to the ship, Harriss force was surprised by a detachment of the garrison, causing casualties. Today in the WBTS, October 17th 1861: Beginning of two days of skirmishing at Federicktown, Missouri 1862: Skirmishes at Mountain Home and Sugar Creek, Arkansas Skirmishes at Camp Wild Cat, Valley Woods, and Rocky Hill, Kentucky Skirmish at Lexington, Missouri. Civilian resistance to the Union draft breaks out in Carbon, Luzerne, and Schuylkill Counties in Pennsylvania. Skirmish at Shepherdstown, West Virginia 1863: Engagement at Fort Brooke, Florida: Skirmishes at Bogue Chitto Creek, Robinson’s Mills (near Livingston) and near Sartarsia, Mississippi Skirmish in Cedar County, Missouri Skirmish near Camden Court House, North Carolina Skirmishes at Accotink. near Chantilly, Groveton, Berryville, Frying Pan Church, and Manassas Junction, Virginia 1864: Skirmish at Eddyville, Kentucky Skirmishes Carrollton, Smithville, and near Lexington, Missouri Sffair at Cedar Run Church, Virginia Longstreet returns to command after being shot by his own troops. Confederate General James Longstreet assumes command of his corps in Robert E. Lees Army of Northern Virginia. Wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in May, Longstreet missed the campaign for Richmond and spent five months recovering before retuning to his command. Longstreet was one of the most effective corps commanders in the war. He became a brigadier general before the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, and he quickly rose through the ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia. He became a divisional commander, and his leadership during the Seven Days Battles and the Second Battle of Bull Run earned him the respect of the armys commander, General Robert E. Lee, who gave him command of a corps just before the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. His leadership at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg sealed his reputation as a brilliant corps leader, but Longstreet was less successful when given an independent command. In spring 1863, he led a force in northern North Carolina and southern Virginia, and he made an expedition to relieve Confederate forces in Tennessee in fall 1863. He enjoyed little success in either situation. The Union Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan River in early May 1864 for another attempt at capturing the Confederate capital at Richmond. At the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, Longstreet was shot by his own troops while scouting the lines during the battle. Ironically, it was just a few miles from the spot where Confederate General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson had been mortally wounded by his men just one year earlier. Longstreet was hit in the neck and shoulder, and he nearly died. He was incapacitated for the rest of the campaign and did not rejoin his corps until it was mired in the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in October 1864. After the war, Longstreet worked at a variety of government posts, including U.S. minister to Turkey. He broke with his fellow Confederates by joining the Republican Party, and he dared to criticize some of Lees tactical decisions. Though he was reviled by many of his fellow generals for this later behavior, he outlived most of his detractors. He died in Gainesville, Georgia, at the age of 82 in 1904. 1978 U.S. President Carter signed a bill that restored full U.S. citizenship rights to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Today in the WBTS, October 18th 1861: Skirmish near Rockcastle Hills, Kentucky. Skirmish at Warrensburg and Fredericktown, Missouri 1862: Skirmishes at Cross Hollow and near Helena, Arkansas. Skirmishes at Bloomtown, Nelson Crossroads, Big Hill, Little Rockcastle River, Lexington, and Mountainside, Kentucky. Skirmishes at California House and near Uniontown, Missouri Skirmish at Kirks Bluff, South Carolina Skirmish at Thoroughfare Gap, Virginia 1863: Skirmish at Carrion Crow Bayou, Louisiana Skirmish in the Livingston Road, near Clinton, Mississippi. Skirmish at Carthage, Missouri Skirmishes near Annandale, Berryville, and at Bristoe Station, Virginia Skirmish at Charlestown, West Virginia. Union General Daniel Sickles returns to visit his old command, the Third Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He was recovering from the loss of his leg at Gettysburg, and the visit turned sour when the armys commander, General George Meade, informed Sickles that he would not be allowed to resume command until he completely recovered from his injury. Sickles had a somewhat checkered past. As a Congressman in 1859, he killed his wifes lover across from the White House in Washington, D.C., but was acquitted when his lawyers employed a temporary insanity defense. He used his political leverage to secure a commission as a brigadier general when the war began, and his personal skills endeared him to his men. He rose quickly, and by early 1863 he was commander of the Third Corps. At Gettysburg, Meade posted Sickles troops at the left end of the Union line. The Army of the Potomac was arranged in a three-mile long, fishhook-shaped line on the top of Cemetery Ridge and Culps Hill. On the morning of July 2, Sickles noticed that just in front of his position was a section of high ground. In his estimation, this rise could be used by the Confederates to shell the Union position. Sickles expressed confusion over his orders and three times Meade explained that Sickles was to hold the end of Cemetery Ridge. Sickles was unhappy with the explanation, failing to understand that Meade was fighting a defensive battle. He moved his corps forward anyway, and the move nearly cost the Union the battle. A furious Meade ordered Sickles to withdraw his troops, but the Confederates were already attacking. After heavy losses, the Third Corps moved back to Cemetery Ridge. Despite his wound, Sickles hurried back to Washington to conduct damage control. One of his first visitors was President Lincoln. Sickles was one of the few Democrats who welcomed Lincoln to Washington in 1861, and Lincoln remembered that gesture. Sickles gave his account of the battle and justified his move. He even claimed that his action prevented Meade from retreating and therefore prevented a Union defeat. This began a war of words between Meade and Sickles that lasted the rest of their lives. When the reports on the battle were filed that fall, Sickles did not fare well. Many, such as General Gouverneur K. Warren and General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, blasted Sickles for his actions. The hatred that Sickles developed for Meade after the Gettysburg incident peaked on October 18, when Meade made it clear that he had no intention of restoring Sickles to command. Sickles later testified in front of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War against Meade, but his own combat career was effectively over. He spent the next half-century defending his record, attacking Meade, and trying to shape the history of Gettysburg by continuing to promote his account of the battle before he died in 1914. 1864: Skirmish near Huntsville, Alabama Skirmish near Milton, Florida Skirmish at Summerville, Georgia Skirmishing in Berry County, Missouri. Skirmish at Clinch Mountain, Tennessee
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:18:21 +0000
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