December 1, 1861---Tragedy in Missouri

DECEMBER 1, 1861:            

The area between Lexington and Sedalia, Missouri has become a no-man’s land. Roving bands of Jayhawkers and Border Ruffians have driven the population to seek shelter in the larger towns and cities. The Jayhawkers’ Commander, Charles R. Jennison, has a preference for Cossack dress. 

November 30, 1861---The 1st and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters are organized

NOVEMBER 30, 1861:      

 Hiram Berdan is named Commander of the 1^st and 2^nd U.S. Sharpshooters. The units are equipped with high accuracy rifles invented by Berdan himself fitted with telescopic sights also invented by Berdan. The elite units had distinctive green uniforms and special gear.

November 29, 1861---California Secessionists surrender

NOVEMBER 29, 1861:        

The Incident At Minter’s Ranch:

A showdown (not a battle) between Union troopers and Dan Showalter, leading eighteen pro-Confederates, ends without a shot being fired when the men are arrested peaceably. So ends the closest thing to a Civil War battle in California.

Showalter, the survivor of the last duel to take place in California, is released after five months incarceration at Fort Yuma. He travels to Los Angeles, and then onto Mexico, and eventually into Texas.  

Showalter eventually takes command of the 4^th Texas Cavalry, Arizona Brigade C.S.A. ("4th Arizona Cavalry") . He is promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in March of 1863. 

Thank you to Gene Armistead for contributing to and correcting this post on May 22, 2015.

 

November 28, 1861---Kentucky Confederates perhaps not so populi

NOVEMBER 28, 1861:       

 Kentucky’s rump pro-secession legislature at Bowling Green secedes from the Union. The Bowling Green legislature never overrode the Union legislature at Frankfort, and spent most of its existence as an itinerant body traveling with the C.S.A. Army of Tennessee. It never controlled any geographic area of Kentucky.

November 27, 1861---Mary Boykin Chesnut: "We are human beings of the Nineteenth Century."

NOVEMBER 27, 1861:       Mary Boykin Chesnut, Southern diarist, writes:

"On one side Mrs. Stowe, Greeley, Thoreau, Emerson, Sumner, in nice New England homes—clean, clear, sweet-smelling—shut up in libraries, writing books which ease their hearts of their bitterness to us, or editing newspapers–all which pays better than anything else in the world. Even the politician’s hobbyhorse—antislavery is the beast to carry him highest.

"What self-denial do they practice? It is the cheapest philanthropy trade in the world—easy. Easy as setting John Brown to come down here and cut our throats in Christ’s name.

“Now, what I have seen of my mother’s life, my grandmother’s, my mother-in-law’s:

"These people were educated at Northern schools mostly—read the same books as their Northern contemners, the same daily newspapers, the same Bible—have the same ideas of right and wrong—are highbred, lovely, good, pious—doing their duty as they conceive it. They do not preach and teach hate as a gospel and the sacred duty of murder and insurrection, but they strive to ameliorate the condition of these Africans in every particular. . .  I say we are no better than our judges North—and no worse. We are human beings of the nineteenth century—and slavery has got to go, of course. All that has been gained by it goes to the North and to negroes. The slave-owners, when they are good men and women, are the martyrs. And as far as I have seen, the people here are quite as good as anywhere else. I hate slavery. I even hate the harsh authority I see parents think it their duty to exercise toward their children."