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An English Combatant, Lieutenant of Artillery of the Field Staff., Battlefields of the South from Bull Run to Fredericksburgh; with sketches of Confederate commanders, and gossip of the camps., Chapter 18: (search)
eginning and go through in proper order. After the disastrous affair of Fort Donelson, Johnston reformed his army, and remained some short time at Murfreesboro, but subsequently fell back to Corinth to defend the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Beauregard came on from Virginia and inspected Columbus. It was deemed inadvisable to defend that place; the works were blown up, and all the cannon and stores transferred to Island No.10, which it was thought might be converted into a little Gibraltar, and successfully beat back the enemy's flotillas on the Mississippi. The command was given to General Mackall; Beauregard was installed second in command at Corinth. Beauregard had strongly fortified this island, and it successfully withstood a fifteen days bombardment from a heavy fleet: Being called to superintend operations at a distant point on the mainland, in Mississippi, the command was given to Major-General Mackall, on the third of April, and, two days later, it was captured
Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee, Chapter 10: Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg. (search)
, under Wolfolk and Moody, which produced the impression that the hill was being abandoned, so Couch directed Humphreys to attack with his two brigades and Getty's division of the Ninth Corps. This was bravely done, but with the same result. Humphreys lost seventeen hundred out of three thousand men. It was hardly possible for Hooker's whole army to have carried Marye's Hill by direct assault as long as Confederate ammunition lasted. It resisted the successive charges of the Federals as Gibraltar withstands the surging seas. It was defended by the famous battalion of Washington Artillery from New Orleans. The men and officers were full of fight, enthusiastic, vigilant, enterprising, and brave. No mistake had been made in committing this important post to that organization. Around and stretching on either side was the left wing of the army. Marye's Hill met the streets leading from the town, and offered the most inviting point of attack. The front sloped to a sunken road, on t
Lt.-Colonel Arthur J. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, June, 1863. (search)
Hardee have got any thing like that number. A division does nearly always number 10,000 men, but then there are generally only two or three divisions in a corps d'armee. At 5.30 P. M. the firing on Morris Island became distinctly audible. Captain Mitchell had evidently commenced his operations against Little Folly. While I was walking on the battery this evening, a gentleman came up to me and recalled himself to my recollection as Mr. Meyers of the Sumter, whom I had known at Gibraltar a year ago. This was one of the two persons who were arrested at Tangier by the acting United States consul in such an outrageous manner. He told me that he had been kept in iron during his whole voyage, in the merchant vessel, to the United States; and, in spite of the total illegality of his capture on neutral ground, he was imprisoned for four months in Fort Warren, and not released until regularly exchanged as a prisoner of war. Mr. Meyers was now most anxious to rejoin Captain Semmes
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 5: Sumter. (search)
as past. But the rebel President doubtless thought it unwise to risk offending and alienating his party friends at the North by placing the responsibility of such an affront and loss upon their administration. Even when General-Beauregard came, the Governor was admonished that no attack must be attempted without mature preparation, as a failure would seriously demoralize and perhaps prematurely wreck the rebellion. Beauregard found, as he reports, that Sumter was naturally a perfect Gibraltar, and that only the weakness of the garrison rendered its capture reasonably feasible. He therefore set himself to work, first of all, to devise obstructions and defences against expected reinforcements, and secondly, to build batteries to breach the walls. He was himself a skilful engineer; many of the works were already well advanced; there was an ample supply of guns and mortars; he had but to make requisitions to obtain unlimited slave labor to do the drudgery of ditching and raising
Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 2, Chapter 29: seven days battles around Richmond. (search)
nd gleam of battle, and as the lurid light drifted down to the Peninsula they rejoiced and thanked God; when it shone nearer to the city they prayed for help from above. The President slept upon the field every night, and was exposed to fire all day. About this time Mr. Davis gave me news of the Sumter. From President Davis to Mrs. Davis. Confederate States of America, Executive Department, July 7, 1862. The Sumter was found to be unseaworthy, and as she could not be prepared at Gibraltar, she was laid up there, the crew discharged, and the officers ordered to go home. Becket sailed from Hamburg, and reached Nassau about the middle of June on his way home. Captain Semmes sailed from England, and reached the same port a few days thereafter, and finding orders which assigned him to a new vessel The 290, or the Alabama. now under construction, returned from Nassau to England to superintend the building of his vessel, and took Becket with him. Nothing important from the
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events, Diary from December 17, 1860 - April 30, 1864 (ed. Frank Moore), 1862, March (search)
d the attention of the House to the blockade of the Southern ports, and moved for a copy of any correspondence on the subject, subsequent to the papers already before the House. He expressed his strong sympathy for the struggle going forward in the confederate States, and declared that a separation of the South from the North, and a reconstruction of the Union, were the only means by which they could hope to see slavery abolished in America. The rebel steamer Sumter still remained at Gibraltar, the United States gunboat Tuscarora watching her. A brisk cannonading took place on the Lower Potomac at four o'clock this morning, when the Freeborn, Satellite, Island Belle, and the Resolute opened fire on the line of batteries extending from opposite Liverpool Point to Boyd's Hole, including three at Aquia Creek. The rebels returned the fire, but without striking any of the National vessels. Proceeding up to Wade's Bay in the afternoon, in which direction heavy firing had been h
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events, Diary from December 17, 1860 - April 30, 1864 (ed. Frank Moore), 1862, May (search)
th Virginia and Seventh Louisiana, which indicates that the enemy's force was one of Ewell's brigade.--(Doc. 8.) General Franklin's division, Army of the Potomac, was attacked while landing at West-Point, Va., by the rebel Army of the Peninsula. After a hard fight the rebels were repulsed with considerable loss, and the landing effected.--(Doc. 9.) A letter from Algesiras, Spain, published this day, gives the final account of the pirate Sumter. She had lain closely blockaded in Gibraltar, by the United-States gunboat Tuscarora, which lay in Spanish waters within sight of her, for two months. Thirteen of the Sumter's crew meanwhile deserted to the gunboat. Seeing no other end to such a state of affairs, the Captain of the Sumter discharged his crew and sold his ship.--N. Y. Times, May 7. General Cox's advance, consisting of part of the Twenty-third Ohio, under Major Cauley, occupied Giles's Court-House and the narrows of New River, driving out the rebels, who were tak
Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Volume 2., Captain Wilkes's seizure of Mason and Slidell. (search)
r of 500 tons, and was armed with 5 guns — an 8-inch pivot, and 24-pound howitzers. She cruised for two months in the Caribbean Sea and along the coast of South America, receiving friendly treatment and coaling without hindrance in the neutral ports. During the succeeding two months she cruised in the Atlantic. On the night of the 23d of November, she ran out of the port of St. Pierre, Island of Martinique, eluding the Iroquois (Captain Palmer), which had been sent to search for her. At Gibraltar, having been effectually blockaded by the Tuscarora, she was sold, afterward becoming a blockade runner. Among the vessels sent in search of her were the Niagara, Powhatan, Keystone State, Richmond, and San Jacinto. In his volume, The blockade and the Cruisers (Charles Scribner's Sons), Professor J. R. Soley sums up her career thus: During her cruise she had made 17 prizes, of which 2 were ransomed, 7 were released in Cuban ports by order of the Captain-General, and 2 were recaptur
Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Volume 3., Naval operations in the Vicksburg campaign. (search)
ture them, the army was landed lower down the river, which resulted in the evacuation of Grand Gulf on the 3d of May. Rear-Admiral Henry Walke writes as follows to the editors regarding this engagement, in which he commanded the Lafayette: To one approaching Grand Gulf on the river from the northward, six miles above, Bald Head presents a very formidable appearance. Rising abruptly 180 feet, surrounded by hills higher still, and with the wide gulf beneath, it is not unlike a little Gibraltar, as it is called. Here the river turns due west, and the principal fortification was on the Point of Rocks, a precipitous bluff about fifty feet high, at the foot of Bald Head. Three-quarters of a mile east of it is the mouth of Big Black River, which was defended with two 8-inch Columbiads. Here the gulf is about a mile and a half wide, and two hundred yards north or in front of the Point of Rocks there is a shoal which becomes an island at low water. The lower fort of heavy guns was
Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Volume 4., The Confederate cruisers. (search)
f-war in April and May, 1861, and, under the command of Captain Raphael Semmes, escaped from the Mississippi early in July, after an unsuccessful chase by the Brooklyn, which was at the time blockading the mouth of the river. Her cruise lasted six months, during which she made fifteen prizes. Of these seven were destroyed, one was ransomed, one recaptured, and the remaining six were sent into Cienfuegos, where they were released by the Cuban authorities. In January the Sumter arrived at Gibraltar, where she was laid up and finally sold. The Confederate Government early recognized that in order to attack the commerce of the United States with any hope of success it must procure cruisers abroad. For this purpose it sent several agents to Europe. The foremost of these was Captain James D. Bulloch, of the Confederate navy, who arrived in England and established himself at Liverpool in June, 1861. Having satisfied himself as to the scope and bearing of the neutrality laws, he lost
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