1861 February 21st

February 21 1861 Thursday

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CSA. The Confederate Cabinet was chosen at Montgomery, Alabama. President Jefferson Finis Davis proposed the following members, seeking to represent all of the seceded states:

Judah Philip Benjamin, Louisiana – Attorney General
Stephen Russell Mallory, Florida – Secretary of Navy
Christopher G Memminger, South Carolina – Secretary of the Treasury
John H Reagan, Texas – Postmaster General
Robert Augustus Toombs, Georgia – Secretary of State
Leroy Pope Walker, Alabama – Secretary of War

CSA. The Provisional Confederate Government authorised and established the creation of the War Department and the Navy Department to direct the military forces of the Confederate States.

Georgia. Three New York ships were seized at Savannah by order of the Georgia governor in retaliation against the confiscation of military cargo by New York state authorities in January.

Texas. Camp Cooper was evacuated by the US Army. Camp Cooper was on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, seven miles north of the site of present-day Fort Griffin. It was established in January 1856 and named for Adjutant-General Samuel Cooper. Its mission was to protect the frontier and to monitor the nearby Comanche reservation. The area had been a campsite for three companies of the 5th US Infantry in 1851 and was later surveyed by Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy and Captain Robert S Neighbors. The post was founded by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston in January 1856 and became the headquarters for four companies of the 2nd US Cavalry under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Edward Lee. This was Lee’s first command of a fort, from 9 April 1856 to 22 July 1857. Major George Henry Thomas succeeded Lee and commanded the Cimarron expedition into Northwest Texas the same year.
US Army Captain S D Carpenter surrendered the post to Texas Colonel W C Dalrymple on 25 February 1861 and by March all military activity at Camp Cooper had ceased.

Texas. The US post at Brazos Santiago on Brazos Island was seized by Texas state forces. Although the Rio Grande could support boat traffic, a sandbar at the mouth of the river prevented large ships from entering its deeper inland waters. The solution was to unload ships at Brazos Island and ferry their cargoes upriver. During the Mexican War, General Zachary Taylor established a military depot on the island’s north end. When the US Navy tried to halt the trade through Brazos Island as part of its blockade of the Confederate coast, the Confederates were forced to shift their commerce to Bagdad, across the river in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Until Union troops landed and occupied the island in November 1863, it remained a haven for blockade runners.

Union Organisation

Commander in Chief: President James Buchanan
Vice-President: John Cabell Breckinridge
Secretary of War: Joseph Holt
Secretary of the Navy: Isaac Toucey

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: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy interim, William Wing Loring awaited

Department of the Pacific: Albert Sidney Johnston

• District of Oregon: George Wright

Department of Texas: Carlos Adolphus Waite temporary

Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke

Department of the West: William Selby Harney

Confederate Organisation

President: Jefferson Finis Davis
Vice-President: Alexander Hamilton Stephens
Secretary of War: Leroy Pope Walker
Secretary of the Navy: Stephen Russell Mallory

Union Generals

Major-General USA

Winfield Scott

Brigadier-General USA

John Ellis Wool
David Emanuel Twiggs
William Selby Harney

Brigadier-General USA (Staff)

Joseph Eggleston Johnston