APRIL 30, 1861:
The 28th Brooklyn Regiment, Colonel Michael
Bennett commanding, departs for three months Federal service in Washington D.C.
All Civil War Regiments are named after their State of origin, except
Brooklyn’s.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
April 29, 1861---"Our cause is just and holy..."
APRIL 29, 1861:
Jefferson Davis addresses the Confederate Congress and the
North; his speech reads in part:
“We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest
solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that
of honor and independence; we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no
concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated;
all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall
not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we will, this we must, resist to
the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned the sword
will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity
and commerce that cannot but be mutually beneficial. So long as this pretension
is maintained, with a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with its
protection the just cause, we will continue to struggle for our inherent right
to freedom, independence, and self-government.”
On the
same day, Maryland rejects secession 53-13.
April 28, 1861---YMCA...
APRIL 28, 1861:
A “Committee of Three” from the YMCA of Baltimore meets with
President Lincoln to encourage him to recognize the independence of the
Southern States in order to avoid war.
April 27, 1861---Old Blue Light
APRIL 27, 1861:
Major General Robert E. Lee orders Colonel Thomas Jonathan
Jackson to take charge of the troops at Harper's Ferry, Virginia and expedite
the removal of the armory machinery to Richmond. Jackson is also ordered to
better organize the militia companies in the area and assemble them into larger
units.
“T.J.” Jackson, who would become famed as “Stonewall” Jackson evolved
into one of the finest and truly legendary Confederate commanders of the Civil
War. Jackson was a complex man. He tended toward the idiosyncratic, and some
who knew him called him “Old Tom Fool.”
He was also more respectfully known as
“Old Blue Light” because his light blue eyes would shine in battle---otherwise
he was a dispassionate soldier. He always kept an index finger in the air “to
balance himself” after a joint of that finger was shot off. He did not drink. He
compulsively sucked lemons. He avoided pepper because he claimed it weakened
his left leg.
A sternly religious man and a born-again Christian, he prayed
many times daily, believing that God vouchsafed him victories and that defeats
were by way of moral chastisement. He was said to have looked out on the
carnage of Antietam and affirmed, “God has been good to us this day.”
And yet,
he hated war, and many of his comments reflected this, but when his men freed a
captured Union Color Sergeant “because he was so brave,” Jackson is said to
have replied, “I don’t want them brave, I want them dead.” Some reports say he
executed the man.
He was a slaveowner who was morally uncomfortable with slavery;
before the war he had even taught at a Sunday School for black children in open
defiance of Virginia State law.
April 26, 1861---Confederate Los Angeles
APRIL 26, 1861:
The Monte Mounted Rifles, a California-based
secessionist militia, is suppressed by Federal troops amidst fears that
southern California may secede from the State and join the Confederacy. Other
pro-Confederate forces provide support for C.S.A. actions in Arizona and New
Mexico.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)