August 4 1861 Sunday
Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Wilson’s Creek Campaign
Missouri. Confederate Colonel Martin Edwin Green bivouacked with his division of the Missouri State Guard seven miles west of Athens. Nearby, Union Colonel David Moore was preparing to attack them. However, several of Moore’s company commanders had allowed their men leave to visit their homes, reducing his strength. Moore called for reinforcements from Croton and from Keokuk, Iowa, but they would not cross the river in time to participate in the coming engagement.
Missouri. Union Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon’s Army of the West was at the absolute limit of its line of supplies and communications near the border of Arkansas. He learned that Confederates in increasing strength were encamped nearby at Cowskin Prairie. He decided, after hearing that the Confederates outnumbered him by 20,000 men to 6,000, to retreat immediately to Springfield. The Confederates did outnumber Lyon’s force but they actually had only about 12,000 men, many of whom were poorly trained and equipped, and led by commanders divided by personal rivalry. To remedy this, Confederate Brigadier-General Benjamin McCulloch was put in command of this “Western Army” in southwestern Missouri.
Virginia. Union Major-General George Brinton McClellan began to improve the level of organisation and discipline in the Union Army of Northeastern Virginia. McClellan decided that his infantry should be reorganised into twelve brigades and he reviewed the choice of commanders for his growing force.
Virginia. A cutter from USS Thomas Freeborn, Lieutenant Eastman, captured the schooner Pocahontas loaded with timber, and the sloop Mary Grey, in Pohick Creek.
Union Organisation
Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles
Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Silas Horton Stringham
Gulf Blockading Squadron: William Mervine
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery
West Indies Squadron: Garrett J Pendergrast
Western Gunboat Flotilla: John Rodgers
Potomac Flotilla: Thomas Tingey Craven
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Military Division (Department) of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan
- Department of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell
- Army of the Potomac: Irvin McDowell
- Department of Washington: Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of Florida: Harvey Brown
Department of Kentucky: Robert Anderson
Department of the Ohio: William Starke Rosecrans
- Cheat Mountain District: Joseph Jones Reynolds
- Cheat River District: Charles J Biddle
- District of Grafton: Benjamin Franklin Kelley
- Army of Occupation: William Starke Rosecrans
Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Pennsylvania: John Adams Dix
- Army of the Shenandoah: Vacant
Department of the Shenandoah: Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Department of Texas: Vacant
Department of Virginia: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Western Department: John Charles Frémont
- District of Ironton: Benjamin Gratz Brown
- District of North Missouri: John Pope
- Army of the West: Nathaniel Lyon
Confederate Organisation
CSA: The Forces in Missouri was discontinued and incorporated into the Western Army.
CSA: The “Western Army” was established unofficially in the Western Department, comprising the former Forces in Missouri.
CSA: Brigadier-General Benjamin McCulloch assumed command of the “Western Army”.
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
Military Adviser to the President: Robert Edward Lee
Department No 1: David Emanuel Twiggs
- “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg
Department of Fredericksburg: Daniel Harvey Hill
- District of Aquia: Daniel Ruggles
Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger
Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
- Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Department of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder
- Army of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder
Department of the Potomac: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- Army of the Potomac: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Department of South Carolina: Daniel Harvey Hill
Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring
Department of Texas: Earl Van Dorn
- Defences of Galveston: John Creed Moore
Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg
- “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg
Western Department: Leonidas Polk
- District of Upper Arkansas: William Joseph Hardee
- Western Army: Benjamin McCulloch
District of East Tennessee: Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton
Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch
Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
Army of the Kanawha: Henry Alexander Wise
Army of Liberation: Gideon Johnson Pillow
Army of the Northwest: William Wing Loring
Union Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
Major-General USA
Winfield Scott
George Brinton McClellan
John Charles Frémont
Major-General USV
John Adams Dix
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Benjamin Franklin Butler
Brigadier-General USA
John Ellis Wool
William Selby Harney
Edwin Vose Sumner
Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Irvin McDowell
Robert Anderson
William Starke Rosecrans
Brigadier-General USV
Samuel Peter Heintzelman
David Hunter
Erasmus Darwin Keyes
Andrew Porter
Fitz-John Porter
William Buel Franklin
William Tecumseh Sherman
Charles Pomeroy Stone
Don Carlos Buell
Thomas West Sherman
Nathaniel Lyon
John Pope
George Archibald McCall
William Reading Montgomery
Philip Kearny
Joseph Hooker
John Wolcott Phelps
Ulysses Simpson Grant
Joseph Jones Reynolds
Samuel Ryan Curtis
Charles Smith Hamilton
Darius Nash Couch
Rufus King
Jacob Dolson Cox
Stephen Augustus Hurlbut
Franz Sigel
Robert Cumming Schenck
Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss
Frederick West Lander
Benjamin Franklin Kelley
John Alexander McClernand
Alpheus Starkey Williams
Israel Bush Richardson
James Cooper
James Brewerton Ricketts
Orlando Bolivar Willcox
Michael Corcoran
George Henry Thomas
Brigadier-General USA (Staff)
Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (Quartermaster-General)
Henry Knox Craig
Lorenzo Thomas (Adjutant-General)
James Wolfe Ripley (Ordnance)
Confederate Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
General ACSA
Samuel Cooper
Albert Sidney Johnston
Robert Edward Lee
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Leonidas Polk
Brigadier-General ACSA
Braxton Bragg
Brigadier-General PACS
Alexander Robert Lawton
Milledge Lake Bonham
Benjamin McCulloch
William Wing Loring
Charles Clark
John Buchanan Floyd
William Henry Talbot Walker
Henry Rootes Jackson
Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Henry Alexander Wise
Earl Van Dorn
William Joseph Hardee
Richard Stoddert Ewell
David Rumph Jones
Benjamin Huger
John Bankhead Magruder
James Longstreet
Edmund Kirby Smith
John Clifford Pemberton
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Henry Hopkins Sibley
John Henry Winder
Richard Caswell Gatlin
Daniel Smith Donelson
Samuel Read Anderson
Gideon Johnson Pillow
Benjamin Franklin Cheatham
Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
Daniel Harvey Hill
Jones Mitchell Withers
Richard Heron Anderson
Robert Augustus Toombs
Samuel Jones
Arnold Elzey
William Henry Chase Whiting
Jubal Anderson Early
American Civil War High Command 