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| The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 http://www.wargame.ch/board/acwgc/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=20025 |
Page 13 of 15 |
| Author: | nsimms [ Mon Jul 13, 2015 2:27 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 14, 1865 Friday Blockade runner Owl, under Commander Maffitt, steamed up the Mersey River and came to anchor in Liverpool harbor. He had brought the ship from Nassau through a Union Navy that had been alerted by Secretary Welles to exert all efforts to capture him. The following day, Maffitt had his boatswain pipe all hands aft where he appeared in an immaculate uniform and addressed the crew. "This is the last time we meet as sailors of the Confederate States Navy. . . . The Confederacy is dead. Our country is in the hands of the enemy, and we must accept the verdict. . . . I am grateful to you for your loyalty to me and to the South." He then paid off the crew, spliced one last mainbrace for the Confederacy and then personally struck the colors to three resounding cheers from the crew. Maffitt turned the ship over to Fraser, Trenholm and Company and established residence in Liverpool. After qualifying for a Master's License, he was employed by a shipping company and commanded the merchant steamer Widgeon trading between Liverpool and South American ports. Maffitt finally returned to the United States in 1868 and made an unsuccessful attempt to secure restitution of confiscated property valued at $75,000. With the money he earned while serving in the British merchant marine, he purchased a 212 acre farm outside Wilmington, North Carolina, where he lived his remaining years. During these sunset years, Maffitt engaged in some very perceptive reflecting. On one occasion he summarized the important role played by sea power in the war, .."The Northern navy," he wrote, "contributed materially to the successful issue of the war. The grand mistake of the South was neglecting her navy. All our army movements out West were baffled by the armed Federal steamers which swarmed on western waters, and which our government provided nothing to meet. Before the capture of New Orleans, the South ought to have had a navy strong enough to prevent the capture of that city, and hold firmly the Mississippi and its tributaries. This would have prevented many disastrous battles; it would have made Sherman's march through the country impossible and Lee would have still been master of his lines . . . the errors of our government were numerous but her neglect of the navy proved irremediable and fatal." Maffitt also astutely commented on the lasting contributions made by the navy he represented. "The Confederate Navy," he wrote, "minute though it was, won a place for itself in history. To the Confederates the credit belongs of testing in battle the invulnerability of ironclads and of revolutionizing the navies of the world. The Merrimack did that. And though we had but a hand full of light cruisers, while the ocean swarmed with armed Federal vessels, we defied the Federal navy and swept Northern commerce from the sea." For this latter achievement, Maffitt personally merited a large share of the credit. As captain of C.S.S. Florida during her 1863 cruise he captured 24 American merchant ships and he commissioned tender Clarence, commanded by Lieutenant Charles W. Read, whose subsequent exploits accounted for 23 additional merchantmen. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Fri Jul 17, 2015 7:45 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 18, 1865 Tuesday Rear Admiral Louis M. Goldsborough arrived at Flushing, in the Netherlands, where he hoisted his flag on U.S.S. Colorado and assumed command of the reinstituted European Squadron. The Squadron consisted of U.S.S. Niagara, Sacramento, Kearsarge, Frolic and Guard and was to cruise from the North Sea to the Canary Islands, as the U.S. Navy resumed its historic role of protecting the nation's interests. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:39 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 20, 1865 Thursday Whaler Milo arrived in San Francisco Bay from the Bering Sea with 200 passengers who had formerly manned ten whalers captured and burned by C.S.S. Shenandoah. Milo had been seized on 22 June and bonded by Lieutenant Waddell for $30,000. Having departed promptly she was over a fortnight ahead of Shenandoah, which was beating down the North Pacific toward the Northwestern United States. Captain David McDougal, Commandant of the Mare Island Navy Yard, telegraphed this arrival to Secretary Welles and reported: "Great apprehension felt by mercantile community of San Francisco in consequence of depredations of Shenandoah." |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:59 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 21, 1865 Friday Francis Trowbridge Sherman, USA, is appointed to Brigadier General. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Tue Jul 21, 2015 3:37 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 22, 1865 Saturday James Hughes Stokes, USA, is appointed to Brigadier General. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:31 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 24, 1865 Monday Ford’s Theatre ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford%27s_Theatre ) in Washington was rented by the United States Government for $1500 a month. The building was purchased by the government for $88,000 in July 1866. It was turned into offices of the Adjutant General’s Department. On June 9, 1893, a section of the front of the building collapsed, killing twenty-two and injuring sixty-five. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Sat Jul 25, 2015 7:55 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 26, 1865 Wednesday Emerson Opdycke, USA, is appointed to Brigadier General. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Wed Jul 29, 2015 5:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 30, 1865 Sunday Brigadier General George Wright ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wright_(general) ), USA, drowns at sea off the coast of northern California in the wreck of the steamship, Brother Jonathan. General Lee wrote Maury's son, Colonel Richard L. Maury: "I received by the last packet from Richmond your letter of the 22d enclosing an extract from a letter of your Father to you dated June 27 and a project of a decree of the Emperor of Mexico to encourage emigration of the planters of the South to that country." "I was very glad to learn of the well being of your Father and of his safe arrival in Mexico and had felt assured wherever he might be that he deeply sympathized in the suffering of the people of the South and was ready to do all in his power to relieve them. I do not know how far their emigration to another land will conduce to their eventual prosperity although their prospects may not now be cheering. I have entertained the opinion that it would be better for them and the country to remain at their homes and share the fate of their respective States. I hope however the efforts of your father will facilitate the wishes and promote the welfare of all who find it necessary or convenient to expatriate themselves but should sincerely regret that either he or his should be embraced in that number." |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:11 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
July 31, 1865 Monday Commodore Henry H. Bell was appointed by Secretary Welles to command the East India Squadron, consisting of Admiral Farragut's former flagship U.S.S. Hartford, and U.S.S. Wachusett, Wyoming, and storeship Relief. The command extended from the Strait of Sunda to the shores of Japan. Wachusett and Wyoming were already in the Pacific at the time having been ordered there by Secretary Welles to search for C.S.S. Shenandoah. Thus the East India Squadron was reactivated after being discontinued upon the outbreak of the Civil War. The squadron had been initially established in 1835 when Commodore Edmond P. Kennedy commanded the sloop U.S.S. Peacock and the schooner Boxer on a cruise of Far Eastern waters. Secretary Welles directed the new squadron commander "to guard with jealous care the honor and interests of your flag and country, defend the citizens of the United States, and protect and facilitate the commerce thereof within the limits of your command." The squadron was an ancestor of today's Seventh Fleet, which alertly guards the long troubled shoreline of Asia from Siberia to Singapore. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:06 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
August 1, 1865 Tuesday George Leonard Andrews, USA, is appointed to Major General. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Sat Aug 01, 2015 3:30 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
August 2, 1865 Wednesday C.S.S. Shenandoah, commanded by Lieutenant Waddell, having quit her Arctic hunting grounds early the previous month, spoke English bark Barracouta, some 13 days out of San Francisco. For the first time Waddell learned positively that the war which he had been doing his part to prosecute had been over since April. He abandoned his daring and prospectively successful plan to lay San Francisco under ransom. The log of Shenandoah recorded: "Having received by the Barracouta the sad intelligence of the overthrow of the Confederate Government, all attempts to destroy the shipping or property of the United States will cease from this date, in accordance with which the first lieutenant, William C: Whittle, Jr., received the order from the commander to strike below the battery and disarm the ship and crew." Lieutenant Whittle, Shenandoah's executive officer, wrote in his journal: "We were bereft of ground for hope or aspiration, bereft of a cause for which to struggle and suffer." Having terminated the raider's commerce destroying mission, Waddell was next confronted with the problem of what to do with the ship--a decision "which involved not only our personal honor, but the honor of the flag entrusted to us which had walked the waters fearlessly and in triumph." In addition to avoiding capture as a matter of honor and pride, Waddell was intent on insuring that the raider's crew should be accorded fair and unprejudiced treatment upon surrendering. After much consideration, he decided that these various purposes could best be served by attempting a nonstop voyage to Liverpool, England, via Cape Horn. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Sun Aug 02, 2015 2:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
August 12, 1865 Saturday Rear Admiral Godon arrived in flagship Susquehanna in the harbor of Bahia, Brazil, pursuant to orders of the Navy Department appointing him to command the Brazil Squadron. This squadron dating back to the early 1820's was reactivated after being temporarily discontinued during the Civil War. Its station extended from the Amazon River to the Magellan Straits and its commander was directed to protect "our flag from insult and the property of our citizens from unlawful seizure." Godon's command consisted of U.S.S. Monadnock, Chippewa, Monticello, Canonicus, Shawmut, Fahkee and Wasp. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Sun Aug 02, 2015 2:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
August 14, 1865 Monday Rear Admiral S. P. Lee hauled down his flag on U.S.S. Tempest and the Mississippi Squadron ceased to exist. The squadron had played a major role in fashioning the Union's ultimate victory. In the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers campaign, naval actions had been decisive in rolling back the Confederacy's northern frontier from Kentucky to Mississippi and Alabama. Its Mississippi River operations at Vicksburg and elsewhere, combined with Admiral Farragut's victory at New Orleans, had severed the Confederacy and denied to the eastern portion the vital supplies of the provision-rich western half. Finally, the squadron's operations on the tributaries of the Mississippi, including support of the Army, had projected Union striking power into the deepest reaches of the Confederacy. The five remaining vessels of the former eighty ship fleet were placed under the operational control of Commodore John W. Livingston, commanding the Mound City Naval Station, the only remaining station on the western rivers. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Sun Aug 02, 2015 2:39 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
August 15, 1865 Tuesday A peace treaty is signed at the mouth of the Little Arkansas River, with the following Indian Nation tribes: Apache, Arapahoe, Comanche, and Kiowa. |
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| Author: | nsimms [ Sun Aug 02, 2015 2:40 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: The American Civil War, Day by Day 1865 |
August 26, 1865 Saturday Brigadier General Marcellus Monroe Crocker ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_M._Crocker ), USA, dies at Washington, D. C. from tuberculosis that had afflicted him for a very long time. |
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