March 7, 1864---Longstreet disobeys Orders

MARCH 7, 1864:        

General James Longstreet C.S.A. refuses to heed direct orders from President Jefferson Davis to move his Command from the borders of Tennessee into southern Kentucky. 

 

It was Davis’ hope that an invasion of Kentucky might reignite the war there and stimulate action among Confederates within the State. Longstreet however knows that he simply does not have enough men to launch an offensive into the now tightly-held Union Commonwealth of Kentucky; he also knows that whatever Confederates there may have been in Kentucky at the beginning of the war have all long since emigrated southward; but mostly he knows that Davis has no reinforcements to send him. He refuses to sacrifice to no advantage the men he has.

March 6, 1864---The C.S.S. DAVID strikes again---and misses (again)

MARCH 6, 1864:       

The submarine C.S.S. DAVID attacks the blockade ship U.S.S. MEMPHIS outside of Charleston Harbor but fails to sink her. The DAVID’s skipper was always aggressive, but the sub was always ineffective. 

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””