October 9, 1863---The bitter end of Wheeler's Raid

OCTOBER 9, 1863:    

Wheeler’s Raid against Union forces in the Lookout Mountain area, after having wreaked havoc in its first days, ends ignominiously when Wheeler is forced to retreat deep into northern Alabama. Pursuing Union troops kill almost 400 of Wheeler’s men in the last days of the Raid. Wheeler’s Command is rendered a shambles.

October 8, 1863---The Confederacy's 'other' submarine

OCTOBER 8, 1863:    

The submarine C.S.S. DAVID launches an attack against the U.S.S. NEW IRONSIDES which is a tactical failure. The DAVID’s “torpedo” (a mine) explodes, but barely dents the ironclad’s hull. The DAVID, unlike its more famous cousin  C.S.S. H.L. HUNLEY, lives to fight another day, but never inflicts significant damage on any Union vessel. At the end of the war the U.S. Navy scraps her. 

October 7, 1863---Shore Patrol

OCTOBER 7, 1863:    

The crew of the U.S.S. OSAGE, serving on the Mississippi River, leave their ship behind to mount an overland attack on Confederate vessels operating on the Red River. Surprised by a landward assault, two Confederate vessels, the C.S.S. ARGUS and the C.S.S. ROBERT FULTON, are destroyed and their crews captured.  

October 6, 1863---The Death of Johnny Fry

OCTOBER 6, 1863:   

The Battle of Fort Baxter (The Battle of Fort Blair; The Fort Baxter Massacre). Quantrill’s Raiders, numbering 400, attack the Union outpost of Fort Baxter, Kansas, and are driven off. While retreating, they fall upon a small Union column of 150 lightly-armed men who are accompanying Major General James G. Blunt to his new Kansas command post. Quantrill orders the Union soldiers butchered. Only a few escape, including Blunt. One of the dead is Johnny Fry, the original rider of the Pony Express. 

October 5, 1863---The Battle of Pine Bluff, Arkansas

OCTOBER 5, 1863:    

The Battle of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Confederate troops numbering 2,000 try to take the Union-garrisoned town of Pine Bluff, and are repulsed by 1,000 Federals, a large number of whom are emancipated slaves.  

October 4, 1863---The lingering stench of death: Gettysburg in Autumn.

OCTOBER 4, 1863:    

Burials and reburials are still going on at Gettysburg. However, it is a hot Indian Summer, and the three-month sojourn that many of the corpses have already had in the ground (buried helter-skelter after the battle and now disinterred for reburial in the new National Cemetery) has turned the task both sickening and pestilential. The stench of death hovers like a miasma over the town. It is finally decided, on this day, that all handling of remains will be delayed until after the first frost. The frost occurs very late, on October 25^th.

Many of the wounded still remain in the hospitals that now spot the town.