OCTOBER 29, 1864:
Six Confederate prisoners
held at the Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis were executed near Lafayette
Square. The executions were in retaliation for the murder of Union Major James
Wilkinson and six of his men by Confederate guerrillas. A crowd of three
thousand watched the executions.
The
Battle of Decatur, Alabama. 5,000 Union land troops and a flotilla of gunboats block
John Bell Hood’s 28,000-strong Army of Tennessee from crossing the Tennessee
River. After several hot skirmishes that cost him minimal casualties, Hood decides
the Union force is too strong to challenge and seeks another crossing point.
