October 4, 1864---Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez (1823-1890)

OCTOBER 4, 1864:            

The New Orleans Tribune, America’s first African-American owned daily newspaper, begins bilingual publication (in English and French) in New Orleans. Its publisher, Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez (1823-1890), a successful physician, used the newspaper to champion abolition, universal suffrage, desegregation and black property rights. Dr. Roudanez was the son of a French merchant and a free black woman. Although he was identified as “white” on his baptismal certificate, Dr. Roudanez identified with his mother’s people all his life. Educated in Paris, he lived most of his life in New Orleans.

On this same day, the National Convention of Colored Freemen, meeting in Syracuse, New York, adopts “The Bill of Wrongs and Rights.”

October 3, 1864---Forrest afire

OCTOBER 3, 1864:           

In Kentucky and Tennessee and in northern Georgia, General Nathan Bedford Forrest C.S.A. repeatedly cuts the rail line to Atlanta and takes the small towns of Big Shanty and Kennesaw Water Tank. 

General William Tecumseh Sherman U.S.A. is growing tired of Forrest’s constant raids, and sends General George H. Thomas U.S.A. back toward Chattanooga with several tens of thousands of men belonging to the Army of The Cumberland. The large Union force does not scare off The Wizard, but it does suppress for the moment any major action by General John Bell Hood C.S.A.’s still-depleted Army of Tennessee.

October 2, 1864---The Battle of Saltville, Virginia

OCTOBER 2, 1864:           

The Battle of Saltville, Virginia. After the Beefsteak Raid, the Confederates had used up a large portion of their salt stocks in preserving the purloined beef. Salt was a valuable war commodity for many reasons, and most of Virginia’s wartime salt came from aptly named Saltville, in the Virginia arrowhead.

Ulysses S. Grant, hoping to strangle the Rebel army just a little more, decided to destroy Saltville in order to deprive the Confederates of salt.  8,000 Union troops in Kentucky are dispatched to Saltville, including the Sixth United States Colored Cavalry.

Unfortunately, the mountainous terrain around Saltville made charges, cavalry or otherwise, impracticable. The Union troops discovered that the Saltville garrison (numbered about 3,000) was superbly positioned on the high ground. The raid began to fall apart.

When the local militia realized that black cavalrymen were in the town, they redoubled their attack. Largely ignoring the white Union troops, the Virginians focused most of their fire on the black columns, killing the black soldiers en masse.  All men taken prisoner --- white and black --- were shot.

Some of the Southerners, driven to hysteria, bayoneted the corpses. When their own officers tried to get control of the situation the local men threatened even them, and went on hacking and slashing and stabbing at the living, the nearly dead, and the dead. At least 500 of the 600 men assigned to the brand-new United States Colored Cavalry were slain during the battle, and another fifty at least were killed after they were taken prisoner. “We killed nearly all the negroes,” reported General Felix Robertson C.S.A.

If nothing else, the deportment of the U.S.C.C. men garnered adulation from the white soldiers who were in the battle. "I never thought they would fight until I saw them there. I never saw troops fight like they did. The rebels were firing on them with grape and canister and were mowing them down by the scores but others kept straight on. I have seen white troops fight in twenty-seven battles and never saw any fight any better," wrote a Colonel of (U.S.) Kentucky militiamen.

October 1, 1864---"Wild Rose"

OCTOBER 1, 1864:             

The death of Rose O’Neill Greenhow. Greenhow (born c. 1820) was one of the Confederacy’s earliest and most effective spies. Living in her townhouse on fashionable Lafayette Square, Washington D.C. in the early days of the war, Greenhow was neighbors with many of the Lincoln Administration’s leading lights to whom she regularly opened her salon. Much sensitive business was discussed at these soirees, all within the sharp-eared Rose’s hearing. Unbeknownst to most, she was also having affairs with several Union officers, a Senator, a couple of Congressmen, and a few minor Administration officials from whom she was cadging battle plans and written orders in the midst of their pillow talk. After the war, it was disclosed that Greenhow was chiefly responsible for passing on the information that allowed the ill-prepared and outnumbered Confederacy to win the First Battle of Bull Run.

 

 

Her extensive spy network was discovered in 1862, and she was placed under house arrest, along with several female friends. The house on Lafayette Square became known as “Fort Greenhow.” Unbelievably enough, the popular “At Homes” continued, and Greenhow kept entertaining her paramours. Victorian ethics being what they were, her dalliances were not bruited about. When Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War discovered that Greenhow still had a busy social calendar, he tossed her into prison (where she continued to be visited by her male companions). Finally, she was exiled South by the exasperated Stanton, who had to argue with a plethora of highly-placed individuals before he could send her South. She was officially received in Richmond, where Jefferson Davis breveted her a Captain and gave her a large stipend.

Rose was sent on to Europe, where she acted as a Confederate consul for most of 1863 and 1864.  She was called “Wild Rose.” Her memoir My Imprisonment: The First Year of Abolition Rule in Washington became a European best-seller. She was feted by Queen Victoria and Napoleon III. 

Upon her return to the Confederacy, Greenhow was caught in the blockade. Her ship, the CONDOR, chased by a Union gunboat, ran aground off Wilmington, and the lifeboat she took to capsized in the rough surf. She drowned, and when her body was recovered she was buried with full military honors in Wilmington.   In her honor, the Women’s Auxiliary of The Sons of Confederate Veterans changed its name to The Order of The Confederate Rose in 1993.

September 30, 1864---The Battle of Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights (Day Two); The Battle of Peebles Farm

SEPTEMBER 30, 1864:    

The Battle of Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights (Day Two):         

After losing control of the outer forts of Richmond’s defensive ring, Robert E. Lee counterattacks the Union positions with 12,000 Petersburg troops he has just brought to Richmond. The attack, though forceful, goes nowhere, as the Union troops have reinforced the captured forts, entrenched, and put up obstacles.

Of the 27,000 Union troops engaged, about 3,400 are casualties. The Confederacy loses 2,000 of 14,000 men. The ferocity of the battle may be guessed by considering this one statistic: Of the 16 Medals of Honor bestowed upon U.S.C.T. in the war, 14 are bestowed for this engagement.

After the battle, Lee has no choice but to dig in and leave his reinforcements in place. Petersburg is permanently weakened and the Rebs and Yanks face each other in their miserable trenches outside Richmond all through the winter.

The Battle of Peebles Farm:  As fighting rages along the line at Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights, a corresponding battle is going on at Peebles Farm. Ulysses S. Grant’s attacks the inner defensive ring near Peebles Farm with the intention is to pressure Lee’s lines into collapse, and indeed Lee must rush troops from Chaffin’s Farm (on the eastern side of his defensive ring) to Peebles Farm (on the western side of his defensive ring) and back again to meet the dual threats. The Confederate line at Peebles Farm (along the Squirrel Level Road) ultimately caves in, and the Federals occupy Fort Archer in the Confederate outer defensive ring.