March 5, 1864---Once the Vice-President of The United States, now a Confederate General

MARCH 5, 1864:        

General John C. Breckinridge, C.S.A., the former U.S. senator, U.S. Vice President, and runner-up to Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election, takes control of Confederate forces in the Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia. He commanded all troops in this increasingly obscure theatre until he was elevated to the position of the Confederacy's Secretary of War in the closing weeks of the Civil War.

March 4, 1864---The Taste of Crow

MARCH 4, 1864:        

The Nashville Daily Union rather whimsically reports that:

“A number of rebels come to Nashville daily and take the oath of amnesty. Some of them take it with 'wry faces.' The fact is, they are like the fellow that, on a wager, eats the crow. They can 'eat crow’; but d____d if they have a hankering for it!”

March 3, 1864---The Myth of Small Government In The South

MARCH 3, 1864:         

Despite the supposed Southern penchant for laissez-faire capitalism that endures to this day, the States also knew where their bread was buttered and carefully regulated cotton transactions.

“The State of Texas

County of Austin 

Know all Men by these Presents:

That We Robert M Jones[,] RF Harris & JM Murf of said County have this day sold to the State of Texas, through its authorized agent E.B. Nichols of _______________________, Three Hundred Bales, 150,000 pounds of Cotton marked, weighed and classified as follows, viz:

Bales lbs. Good Middling Cotton,

Bales lbs. Middling Cotton,

300 Three Hundred M Bales 150,000 lbs.

Low Middling Cotton, Bales lbs.

Good Ordinary Cotton,

which Cotton I hereby agree to deliver at Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande, and for which I am to be paid the market value thereof atthe place of delivery, less the actual cost of transportation, in no case to exceed one fourth the value of the cotton at the place of delivery, in the Bonds of the State of Texas, drawing in par and indexed, payable in Specie semi-annually. In the event said Bonds are not ready for delivery at the time said cotton is delivered as aforesaid, then I am to receive the certificate of the agent, to be cancelled by payment of the same in Bonds to be hereafter delivered.

Given under my hand and seal, using scroll for seal,

at Houston

in the County of Harris 

State of Texas,

this the 3rd day of March A.D., 1864

“Signed” R.M. Jones & Co

Witness:

“Signed”

Jessie M. Baker

F.J Suvis””

March 2, 1864---A leg up on the South

MARCH 2, 1864:         

After the death of Ulric Dahlgren (and the discovery of the Dahlgren Orders), a Confederate organization of prosthetic engineers, A.R.M.S. (Association for the Relief of Maimed Soldiers) attempts to buy his body in order to study Union technological advancements in the design of false limbs. (Dahlgren had lost a leg and Gettysburg and wore a prosthesis.) Rebuffed in trying to buy the corpse, A.R.M.S. settles for detailed drawings of Dahlgren’s limb. 

March 1, 1864---The Death of Henry Bellew, a McDonough County man

MARCH 1, 1864:         

Henry H. Bellew, of McDonough County, Illinois, died while a prisoner of war at Richmond, Virginia. He is one of 248 Union men of the County to die in the service of their country during the war. The total population of McDonough County in 1860 was just over 10,000. The losses of this rural county equaled just under 2.5% of the residents; this was the national average.

February 29, 1864---Ulysses S. Grant becomes the Commanding General of all Union Armies

FEBRUARY 29, 1864:        

On the only Leap Day of the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant is promoted to Lieutenant General of the Union Armies. He is the only Lieutenant General in American history to that point, excepting George Washington.