1861 January 11th

January 11 1861 Friday

Florida Seceded

Go to January 12 1861

USA. US Secretary of the Treasury Philip F Thomas resigned, completing the withdrawal of all Southern sympathisers from President James Buchanan’s cabinet. Thomas resigned because of differences with the President and a majority of the Cabinet, “in the measures which have been adopted in reference to the recent condition of things in South Carolina,” especially “touching the authority, under existing laws, to enforce the collection of the customs at the port of Charleston”.

USA. John Adams Dix of New York was appointed to replace Philip F Thomas as US Secretary of the Treasury.

Alabama. The state of Alabama passed the Ordinance of Secession in a secret session in Montgomery by a vote of 61 to 39. A proposition to submit the ordinance to the people lost and Alabama seceded directly from the Union. Alabama was the fourth state after South Carolina, Mississippi, ad Florida to secede.

Louisiana. Fort Jackson and Fort St Phillip at the mouth of the Mississippi River, and the US Marine Hospital near New Orleans. were seized by Louisiana state troops by the order of Governor Thomas O Moore. The two forts were sited as a pair some about 25 miles above Head of Passes, where the river divides before it finally enters the Gulf of Mexico, and 75 miles downstream from New Orleans. Fort Jackson was on the right bank (actually due to the bend of the river on the south) while Fort St. Philip was on the left (north) bank of the river. Fort Jackson was slightly east of Fort St Philip. They were designed to defend New Orleans against invasion from the sea and the location was chosen at a bend in the river that forced ships to slow down in passing. Sailing ships would become nearly stationary targets under the combined 177 guns of the forts as they made the passage.

Mississippi. The Mississippi River was blocked at Vicksburg by the deployment of a Mississippi State artillery battery.

South Carolina. Governor Francis W Pickens demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter but this demand was refused by the fort’s commander, US Army Major Robert Anderson.

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 California: Benjamin Lloyd Beall temporary

Department of the East: John Ellis Wool

Department of New Mexico: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy

Department of Oregon: George Wright

Department of Texas: David Emanuel Twiggs

Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke

Department of the West: William Selby Harney

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