April 30, 1862---McClellan closes in on Richmond

APRIL 30, 1862:         

Despite General George B. McClellan’s snail-like pace up the Virginia Peninsula, the overwhelming mass of Union troops and materiel is beginning to have an impact. And though McClellan is chary of open battle, and chary of a sea-borne assault because of the C.S.S. VIRGINIA, which had developed a legendary  (if exaggerated) reputation as a destroyer of ships, he has no such compunctions about siege engines---the Union’s big guns are moving into position and a massive bombardment of Yorktown is scheduled for May 8^th.  

General Joseph E. Johnston, in command of the Confederate Army of The Potomac (soon to be renamed the Army of Northern Virginia) writes to General Lee:

“GENERAL: 

We are engaged in a species of warfare at which we can never win. 

It is plain that General McClellan will adhere to the system adopted by him last summer, and depend for success upon artillery and engineering. 

We can compete with him in neither. We must therefore change our course, take the offensive, collect all the troops we have in the East and cross the Potomac with them, while Beauregard, with all we have in the West, invades Ohio. Our troops have always wished for the offensive, and so does the country. 

Please submit this suggestion to the President. We can have no success while McClellan is allowed, as he is by our defensive, to choose his mode of warfare.

    

Most respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. E. JOHNSTON, 

General.”

April 29, 1862---Outflanked forts flutter white flags

APRIL 29, 1862:         

Under a brutal mortar attack, Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, having failed to defend New Orleans, and now outflanked on the Mississippi River, finally surrender to the Union after their garrisons mutiny and raise white flags in defiance of their officers.

April 28, 1862---Halleck keeps crawling toward Corinth

APRIL 28, 1862:         

The Siege of Corinth (The First Battle of Corinth).  

After entrenching every night for almost a month against a possible Confederate strike, General Henry W. Halleck U.S.A. manages to have moved the veterans of Shiloh across 40 miles of open country to take Corinth, Mississippi. 

Corinth is overpopulated with the Confederate troops---many wounded, many sick, many dying, many dispirited, and all in need of rations, supplies and medicines---that were defeated at Shiloh. 

Fearing a defeat, though he has twice as many troops as his Confederate counterpart P.G.T. Beauregard, and though his troops are fed, healthy and overburdened with heavy weapons including cannons and Parrott guns, Halleck refuses to attack the town. Every Confederate feint causes him to withdraw and press another point. 

Instead of fighting he settles down into an interminable 30 day siege, like his counterpart in the East, General McClellan. 

All in all, it will take some seven weeks to capture Corinth.

April 27, 1862---Confederate Native Americans make life tough for the Union

APRIL 27, 1862:         

Confederate commanders along the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers order that the cotton fields be burned to deny the crop to the Union. 

In the same region, pro-Confederate members of the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Seminole tribes set ambushes and make raids where the Yankees are weakest, appearing out of the dark woods to destroy a convoy of wagons, only to disappear again before the cavalry can set upon them.   

Without the burden of trying to capture territory, and with the benefit of wooded terrain in many places, they are destroying at will, burning supplies, frightening the populace, and most of all, distracting the Federal military in the area. 

Their actions have slowed the Union advance, and kept them from invading into Arkansas.

April 26. 1862---The fall of Fort Macon

APRIL 26, 1862:         

The Siege of Fort Macon, North Carolina. 

As a preliminary step in capturing the small ports of Morehead City and Beaufort, the Union attacks Fort Macon on the coast. Fort Macon, predating the War of 1812, has not been well-maintained, it is only lightly garrisoned under an unpopular commander, it has been invested since March 23^rd and it is unable to resupply. Morale is low. When the Union begins attacking it with Parrott guns the walls collapse.  The fort surrenders.