April 2 1861 Tuesday
USA. The Morrill Tariff Act was passed by the US Congress. The Morrill Tariff was an increased import tariff and it was the twelfth of the seventeen planks in the platform of the incoming Republican Party, which had not yet been inaugurated. The tariff appealed to industrialists and factory workers as a way to foster rapid industrial growth. Its sponsor was Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont, who drafted it with the advice of the Pennsylvania economist Henry Charles Carey. The eventual passage of the tariff in the US Senate was assisted when opposing Senators from the South resigned from Congress after their states declared their secession. The tariff rates were raised to make up for a Federal deficit that had led to increased government debt in recent years, to encourage domestic industry, and to foster high wages for industrial workers. The Morrill Tariff replaced a lower Tariff of 1857 which had been developed in response to a Federal budget surplus in the mid-1850s. Two additional tariffs sponsored by Morrill, each higher than the previous one, were passed later under President Abraham Lincoln to raise revenue that was urgently needed during the American Civil War. The tariff inaugurated a period of continuous protectionism in the United States, and that policy remained until the adoption of the Revenue Act of 1913, and the Underwood Tariff.
Union Organisation
Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles
African Squadron: William Inman
Brazil Squadron: Joshua Ratoon Sands
East Indian (Asiatic) Squadron: Cornelius Kinchiloe Stribling
European Squadron: vacant
Home Squadron: Garrett J Prendergast
Mediterranean Squadron: Charles H Bell
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of New Mexico: William Wing Loring
Department of the Pacific: Albert Sidney Johnston interim, Edwin Vose Sumner awaited
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Texas: Carlos Adolphus Waite
Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke
Department of the West: William Selby Harney
Confederate Organisation
CSA: The Forces in Harper’s Ferry was established, comprising Virginia Militia troops occupying Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
CSA: Major-General of Virginia Militia Kenton Harper assumed command of the Forces in Harper’s Ferry.
Commander in Chief: President Jefferson Finis Davis
Vice-President: Alexander Hamilton Stephens
Secretary of War: Leroy Pope Walker
Secretary of the Navy: Stephen Russell Mallory
“Department of Louisiana”: David Emanuel Twiggs
- “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg
Department of South Carolina: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
- “Forces in Charleston”: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg
- “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg
Forces in Harper’s Ferry” established: Kenton Harper assumed
Union Generals
Major-General USA
Winfield Scott
Brigadier-General USA
John Ellis Wool
William Selby Harney
Edwin Vose Sumner
Brigadier-General USA (Staff)
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Confederate Generals
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Brigadier-General ACSA
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Braxton Bragg
American Civil War High Command 