January 18 1861 Friday
USA. Joseph Holt resigned his post as US Postmaster General after being re-appointed as US Secretary of War. Holt took up the new office as US Secretary of War after deputising in that role instead of John Buchanan Floyd since 30 December 1860. Floyd had declared his sympathies for the seceded states. Holt later became a Brigadier-General and Judge Advocate General of the US Army.
Alabama. Confederate sympathisers seized the US lighthouse tender Alert at Mobile.
Florida. The state of Florida appointed delegates to the Southern Congress at Montgomery, Alabama.
Florida. Fort Jefferson, on the Dry Tortugas off Key West, was garrisoned by 62 US troops under Captain Lewis Golding Arnold (2nd US Artillery). Fort Jefferson was the largest brick masonry structure in the Americas, at the time, covering 16 acres and made with over 16 million bricks. Among United States forts, only Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Adams in Rhode Island were larger. The fort was built on Garden Key in the lower Florida Keys within the Dry Tortugas, 68 miles west of the island of Key West. In December 1824 and early January 1825, Commodore David Porter USN inspected the Dry Tortugas islands to find a suitable site for a naval station that would help suppress piracy in the Caribbean. He reported that the Dry Tortugas were unfit for any kind of naval establishment. Nevertheless, Bush Key (later Garden Key), was selected as the site for the the Garden Key Lighthouse. Construction began in 1825 and was completed in 1826. In 1829, Commodore John Rdiegrs and USS Florida stopped at the Dry Tortugas to re-evaluate the anchorage. Contrary to Porter, a large and safe anchorage was identified, including a harbour suitably deep for warships. Captain John Gross Barnard made a detailed reconnaissance in November 1844 and on 17 September 1845, the Dry Tortugas became a national military reservation. Construction of Fort Jefferson (named after the third US President, Thomas Jefferson) began in December 1846. The new fort incorporated the lighthouse within the walls of the fort and it continued to guide ships until it was replaced in 1876. The design called for two tiers of casemate in a hexagonal plan. Two curtain walls measured 325 feet and the other four measured 477 feet. Each tier of casemates could mount 150 guns with a further 150 on top of the fort.
Captain Montgomery Cunnigham Meigs took over as the Superintending Engineer in 1860 and improved the security and defences so that Golding’s men could fire the fort’s heavy guns for the first time on 26 January 1861.
Two more companies with 160 soldiers, of the 6th New York Zouaves arrived on 4 July 1861, under the command of Colonel William Wilson. In succession, the garrison was relieved i coming years by the 7th New Hampshire Infantry, the 90th New York Infantry, the 47th Pennsylvania Infantry, and the 110th New York Infantry.
In September 1861, the first prisoners arrived, including US Army soldiers sentenced by courts-martial to confinement and hard labor for acts such as mutinous conduct, as well as politicial detainees. President Abraham Lincoln later substituted imprisonment on the Dry Tortugas in lieu of execution for those found guilty of desertion. By November 1863, the number of military convicts reached 214. In June 1864 there were 653 soldiers and 753 convicts. In November 1864, only 583 soldiers guarded 882 prisoners and eight of them were able to escape.
Florida. A third demand for the surrender of Fort Pickens was refused by the US garrison.
Georgia. The state of Georgia adopted resolutions declaring the State’s right and duty to secede.
Virginia. The Virginia state legislature appropriated $1,000,000 for the defence of the State.
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 Pacific: Albert Sidney Johnston
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of New Mexico: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
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
American Civil War High Command 