FEBRUARY 26, 1865:
Although the attention of most
Americans --- North and South --- is focused intently on developments in
Virginia and the Carolinas, the Civil War continues to rage in forgotten
corners of the continent. A skirmish erupts today in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
between two squads of troops, Union and Confederate, of about sixty men each.
After a half hour firefight that takes eight Confederate lives but no Union
ones, the Rebels withdraw from Pine Bluff.
Afar off, Union troops
make an amphibious landing in force at Cedar Key, in Florida.
In
Austin, Governor Pendleton Murrah of Texas receives an answer to his request to
have the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia returned home. Robert
E. Lee, (through Jefferson Davis) advises Murrah that, “small as the Texas Brigade is, it cannot be spared now. It contains
some of the best troops in the army and its loss would be severely felt.”
