Today in the WBTS, September 16th 1832 : Confederate General Custis Lee is born. George Washington Custis Lee is born to Robert E. and Mary Custis Lee in Fort Monroe, Virginia. The eldest son and the second of seven children, Custis Lee, as his family called him, followed his fathers footsteps to West Point. At age 16, Custis had been denied entry into the military academy, but his father wrote an appeal to General Winfield Scott and so he was admitted the following year. Though he had needed his fathers influence to gain admission, once in West Point Lee made the most of his opportunity. He graduated first in his class of 46 in 1854. For the last two years of his studies, his father was superintendent of the academy. Lee served in the Engineering Corps until 1860, primarily in California. When Fort Sumter fell in April 1861, he was stationed in Washington, D.C. Lee resigned his commission on May 2, 1861, about two weeks after his father resigned from the U.S. Army, and became a captain in the Confederate Army, assisting in the construction of fortifications for Richmond. In August 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis selected Lee to serve as his aide-de-camp, and he was soon promoted to colonel. Custis Lee spent the next three years in this position, gathering military information for Davis and conferring with him on a wide variety of military issues. For his service, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1863. Lee was always torn between his desire for a field command and Daviss wish that he remain in that position. Although he never seriously lobbied for a field command, opportunities did arise. During the Gettysburg campaign, when his fathers army was in Pennsylvania, Lee commanded part of the force defending Richmond, and he oversaw the Richmond defenses during Union General Ulysses S. Grants Virginia campaign of 1864. He also assumed leadership of a division in October 1864, but his command saw action only when the Confederates evacuated Richmond in March 1865. He and his force were captured at Saylers Creek a few days before his father surrendered the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia. After the war, Custis Lee taught engineering at the Virginia Military Institute. He later replaced his father as president of Washington College (which was eventually renamed Washington and Lee College) upon the elder Lees death in 1870. Custis Lee retired from that post in 1897, and died in Fairfax City, Virginia, on February 18, 1913. 1861 General Sterling Price, CSA, was an aggressive commander when he had the opportunity. He had fought Franz Sigel and Nathaniel Lyon to a draw at Wilson’s Creek in August, then withdrawn to Arkansas to get his large but undisciplined army better organized. Today he was back with a vengeance, in the small Missouri town of Lexington. He had the Union forces under Colonel James Mulligan surrounded and under siege. Mulligan’s commander, General Fremont, (of Pathfinder fame) was supposed to be organizing a relief force to march from St. Louis, but was too busy having his own people who were purportedly allies arrested. Skirmish near Poolesville, Maryland. On this day in 1861 Confederate forces evacuate Ship Island, Mississippi. There wasn’t even a skirmish. The boys in gray were not particularly threatened, they just up and left. Ship Island, which at best is a desert island, is a bleak place. Fresh water is scarce and shade more so. No matter, in the future Ship Island would be used as a valuable staging area for Federal operations against the Mississippi River and New Orleans. It was also utilized as a base of operation for refueling the Federal blockading squadron along the Gulf Coast for the duration of the Civil War. Ship Island also became a Federal prisoner of war camp. Men from the USS Massachusetts took possession of the island and the barely started fortification the Confederates called Fort Twiggs shortly after it was abandoned. This unfinished structure was completed and named Fort Massachusetts. To this day it is easy to see a line marked be the different color of bricks. Prior to being taken over by Confederate forces the bricks came from local sources. After the Federals regained control the bricks came from a different brick yard and were of a different color. All the way around the circumference of the structure you have a visible line made by the pronounced difference in the shade of the bricks Thus far, Fort Massachusetts is still standing. It has taken a beating from hurricanes, especially Katrina. Katrina’s waves came over the top of the structure to the extent that the top portion of the fort was damaged. Skirmish at Magruder’s Ferry, Virginia. Skirmish at Princeton, West Virginia. 1862 Skirmish near Oakland Station, near Munfordville, Kentucky. Little Known Side Light: It was rapidly becoming obvious that a major battle was soon to take place somewhere near Sharpsburg, Maryland. Lee was calling his scattered army together, and McClellan was on his way, albeit slowly, with his. Ahead of both rode Dr. Jonathan Letterman, Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac. He had the grim task of pre-selecting buildings which would serve as hospitals afterwards. His job, although simplified by the fact that most civilians had long since fled, was complicated by the fact that the ambulances had been left behind in Norfolk, Va. In addition, most of the medical supplies had been used up in the Peninsula Campaign over the summer Union General George B. MeClellan arrived in Sharpsburg, Maryland and prepared to attack General Robert E. Lees forces along Antietam Creek. The next day the Battle of Antietam took place. Skirmish in Monroe County, Missouri. Federal reconnaissance from Burnsville to Iuka, Mississippi. Skirmish at Iuka, Mississippi. Federal operation between Aldie and Thoroughfare Gap, Virginia Beginning of a three day Federal operation between Upton’s Hill and Leesburg, Virginia. Skirmish at Leesburg, Virginia. 1863 Skirmish at Brownsville, Arkansas. Skirmishes near Lee and Gordon’s Mills, on Chickamauga Creek, Georgia, 12 miles south of Chattanooga, as Major General Wills S. Rosecrans, USA, positions his forces near that location and Alpine, Georgia. General William Rosecrans’ Federal army had taken Chattanooga four days ago, but Braxton Bragg’s Confederate army was nowhere close to defeated. The Southern forces were strung out on a roughly north-south line on the east side of a ridge called Lookout Mountain. Rosecrans’ army was scattered and vulnerable, especially the men with General George Henry Thomas to the south near LeMoyne Cove. Thomas could have easily been isolated and defeated, but the orders to do so never got delivered to Confederate General Thomas C. Hindman. The man carrying the orders, a French soldier-of-fortune known as Major Nocquot, was not available to testify at the court-martial of Hindman, as he had disappeared. Some $150,000 in Army funds went missing around the same time, but in all the confusion no connection was ever proved. Skirmish at Montezuma, Tennessee. Skirmish at Smithfield, West Virginia. 1864 Beginning of Confederate Cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s nearly month long raid into Alabama and Middle Tennessee. Skirmish at Hay Station, Indian Territory Skirmish at Bayou Maringouin, Louisiana Skirmish at Columbia, Missouri. Skirmishes at Coggins Point and Snicker‘s Gap, Virginia. In the days before mechanical refrigeration, keeping ones troops in food required some interesting logistics. Hardtack could be shipped and stored, but if the troops were to have beef one had to store it on the hoof. Confederate cavalry under Wade Hampton took advantage of superior Union stocks by staging a raid at Coggins Point, Virginia, where they captured 300 Federals and, more importantly, what they were guarding--a herd of some 2400 cattle. Getting them back to Petersburg would take several days and several skirmishes, but the food was desperately needed by the besieged forces there
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 10:50:00 +0000
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