1861 August 7th

August 7 1861 Wednesday

Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Wilson’s Creek Campaign

Go to August 8 1861

USA. The US War Department contracted with James Buchanan Eads of St Louis, Missouri, for the construction of seven shallow-draft armoured river gunboats. They were built with the aid of Naval Constructor Samuel M Pooks and were later nicknamed “Pook’s Turtles”.  Their official names were USS Cairo, USS Carondelet, USS Cincinnati, USS Louisville, USS Mound City, USS Pittsburg, and USS St Louis. The armoured flotilla was to bring decisive mobility and gunpower to the Union efforts to invade the Southern states along the western rivers.

Alabama. Reconnaissance to Athens began.

Mississippi. USS Massachusetts, Commander Melancton Smith, captured the blockade-running sloop Charles Henry near Ship Island.

Missouri. A four-day expedition under Union Major John McDonald (8th Missouri Infantry) began with Union troops being ferried aboard the US steamer Luella. They made stops en route to occupy Benton, Commerce, Hamburg, and Price’s Landing.

North Carolina.  The USS Union destroyed the Confederate privateer York and recaptured the schooner G V Baker. The G V Baker had been taken as a prize off Cape Hatteras but was beached unsuccessfully to prevent recapture.

Virginia. The village of Hampton near Fort Monroe was burned by Confederate forces under Brigadier-General John Bankhead Magruder. Magruder said he had learned that Major-General Benjamin Franklin Butler intended to use the town to illegally harbour runaway slaves. Union troops prevented the destruction of the bridge but could not save the houses.

Union Organisation

USA: David Hunter confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Erasmus Darwin Keyes confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Fitz-John Porter confirmed Brigadier-General 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Don Carlos Buell confirmed Brigadier-General USV August 7 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: George Archibald McCall confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Philip Kearny confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Samuel Ryan Curtis confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Charles Smith Hamilton confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Rufus King confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

USA: Franz Sigel confirmed Brigadier-General USV 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861.

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

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
Ambrose Everett Burnside

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
Isaac Ridgway Trimble
Daniel Ruggles