November 16, 1863---The Battle of Campbell’s Station, Tennessee

NOVEMBER 16, 1863:        

The Battle of Campbell’s Station, Tennessee. 

General James Longstreet’s Confederates execute a forced march to take the crossroads town of Campbell’s Station (now known as Farragut). Taking the town will allow the Confederates to control all road (and rail) traffic in the Knoxville hinterlands, thus dominating Knoxville. As soon as General Ambrose Burnside U.S.A. gets word of the maneuver, he sends his own men racing for the town. They occupy it barely fifteen minutes before the first of Longstreet’s men arrive. The Confederates launch a spirited attack on the barely-anchored Federals, hoping to drive them out of the town, but Burnside’s by now notorious mulishness pays off, as he refuses to allow his troopers to withdraw. Longstreet is forced to break off. Union casualties are 400 out of 5,000. The Confederates lose 600 of 5,000.   

Campbell’s Station Inn was President Andrew Jackson’s favorite hotel.

November 15, 1863---Charleston fights on!

NOVEMBER 15, 1863:       

Confederate-held Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor opened a heavy bombardment on Union Army positions on Morris Island, which resulted in U.S.S. LEHIGH running aground. Still under fire at daybreak November 16th, U.S.S. NAHANT was able to release her. Five sailors from U.S.S. LEHIGH were awarded the Medal of Honor for toiling under fire to free their ship.

November 14, 1863---Confederate ships are sinking

NOVEMBER 14, 1863:       

General P.G.T. Beauregard inspects the Confederate gunboats at Charleston, S.C. His report is not encouraging: 

“Our gunboats are defective in six respects . . . First, they have no speed . . . Second, they are of too great a draft to navigate our inland waters. Third, they are unseaworthy . . . even in the harbor they are at times . . . unsafe in a storm. Fourth, they are incapable of resisting the enemy’s . . . shots. Fifth, they cannot fight at long range. Sixth, they are very costly, warm, uncomfortable and badly ventilated; consequently sickly.”

November 13, 1863---Confederate horses are starving

NOVEMBER 13, 1863:        

On this day, a Friday, Robert E. Lee wires Jefferson Davis imploring him to send horse fodder to the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s horses have been subsisting on only three pounds of corn a day for the last week. A war horse requires about 26 pounds of mixed feed per day. 

November 12, 1863---Another Civil War

NOVEMBER 12, 1863:        

Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian nationalists have been waging an armed rebellion against Tsarist Russia since January. This January Uprising will last until April 11, 1865. On this day, the United States declares its support for the Russian Empire. Russia immediately withdraws from the British-French-Russian entente that has been trying, less and less enthusiastically over time, to bring the American Civil War to a diplomatic conclusion. Britain has already ceased its “neutral” arms shipments to the Confederacy, and France is primarily concerned with propping up its puppet Mexican Empire. The entente collapses, and the last ghost of a chance that the Confederacy might benefit from foreign interventions vanishes on the wind. King Cotton has lost and President Lincoln has won the diplomatic war.