January 12, 1864: A Civil War In Mexico

JANUARY 12, 1864:            

A rebellion has been brewing for some time South of the (Southern) Border, as Mexican patriots have been conducting their own insurgency against Emperor Maximilian’s French-supported puppet empire. Union troops intercede in Matamoros when the home of the U.S. Consul in that city is attacked by the Mexican rebels. The Union troops ensure that the consular staff evacuates Matamoros safely and reaches the Union-controlled enclave on the border.

January 11, 1864: The 13th Amendment goes to the Senate: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . shall exist within the United States . . ."

JANUARY 11, 1864:             

Fully aware that the Emancipation Proclamation is only a wartime measure that legally impacts only slaves in the rebellious South, and that the Proclamation may not survive the end of the war, Missouri Senator John Henderson, a War Democrat, submits a joint resolution to Congress in favor of a 13^th  Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. This joint resolution follows hard on the heels of two House resolutions submitted in December by Congressmen James Ashley (R) Ohio, and James Wilson (R) Iowa, that were seeking only House approval of such an Amendment. Although all three resolutions stall in the House, the Senate begins working on the appropriate legislation. The long legislative battle to abolish slavery throughout the United States has begun. 

January 10, 1864---The loss of the U.S.S. IRON AGE

JANUARY 10, 1864:           

The U.S.S. IRON AGE runs aground in Lockwood’s Folly Inlet near Wilmington, N.C., one of several Civil War vessels to be lost in the inlet.  One of the Holden family of nearby Holden Beach salvages the Captain’s razor from the wreck. It becomes a family heirloom, still passed down through the generations.

January 9, 1864---The Battle of Loudon Heights, VA; a bad augury

JANUARY 9, 1864:   

The Battle of Loudon Heights: 

The North American continent is locked in subzero cold as far south as Memphis, Tennessee. All Americans, though particularly Southerners, are suffering from the truly arctic conditions, especially with shortages of firewood and coal. John Singleton Mosby’s vaunted Rangers choose this day to launch a surprise attack against Union troops stationed in Loudon County, Virginia. For the first time, Mosby’s Rangers are decisively repulsed. Although casualties are light on both sides, one of the dead is Willie Mosby, the brother of The Gray Ghost.

In a measure of how dire the South’s military manpower needs have become the Richmond Daily Dispatch reports that:

In Georgia there have been exempted — civil officers, 522; railroad employees, 616; telegraph employees, 13; newspaper employees, 174; ministers of the gospel, 274; shoe makers, 504; tanners, 377; blacksmiths, 590; wagonmakers, 266; millers, 409; factory employees, 554; school teachers, 266; salt manufacturers 151; overseers, 201; ferrymen, 10; physicians, 486; militia officers, 397 (?); (N. C. 3,437;) aliens, 628; (Va. 69;) express company, 13; cadets, 12; manufacture of dental instruments, 3; batters, 14; nitre and mining service, 120; mail contractors and carriers, 4; shepherds, 107; physical disability, 1,499; substitutes 7,000.

Altogether, this number makes up a bare fraction of the number under arms. That the Confederacy is counting so closely is a bad augury. The number of Exempts (6,711 minus the disabled) almost equals the number of Substitutions (7,000). “Aliens” includes citizens of other Confederate States (are their own States looking for them?)