1861 January 7th

January 7 1861 Monday

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Alabama. The Alabama state convention met to discuss matters of secession.

Florida. The Florida state convention received Commissioners from South Carolina and Alabama.

Florida. The US Arsenal and Fort Marion at St Augustine were seized by Florida state troops. Fort Marion included the site of the earlier Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. It was located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St Augustine. It was designed by the Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza, with construction beginning in 1672. After Spain signed the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, ceding Florida to the United States, the state and the fort were transferred to the USA in 1821. Upon receiving the fort from Spain, the Americans changed its name to Fort Marion to honor Revolutionary War hero General Francis Marion.
Union troops withdrew from the fort, leaving one man behind as caretaker. On 7 January, three days before Florida officially seceded, 125 militiamen marched on the fort by the order of Governor Madison S Perry. The Union guard refused to surrender it unless he was given a receipt for it from the Confederacy. He was given such a receipt and the fort was taken by the Confederacy without a shot. Subsequently, Confederate General Robert Edward Lee, when in command of the coastal defenses of South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida, ordered that most of the artillery in the fort be sent to more strategically important, forts. This left only five guns in the water battery to defend Fort Marion.

Florida. The US Arsenal at Chattahoochee was seized by the state authorities. The arsenal was built between 1834 and 1839. It was the scene of the first military encounter of the Civil War in Florida. The site was on the high hills where the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers meet to form the Apalachicola. The adjacent community was originally called Mount Vernon, but this led to confusion with the Federal arsenal at Mount Vernon, Alabama, so the name of the village was changed to Chattahoochee. The complex itself was officially named the Apalachicola Arsenal after the Apalachicola River. It was not in the city of Apalachicola but near the Georgia border in Gadsden County. On 2 January 1861, US Senators David Levy Yulee and Stephen Mallory wrote to the Secretary of War and requested information on the active military posts in the state. Its inventory included one 6-pounder iron gun and 57 flintlock muskets, 5,122 pounds of powder, 173,476 cartridges for small arms, and equipment. While the muskets were outdated, the pounds of gunpowder and the prepared cartridges represented a valuable military stockpile. To prevent its destruction, Governor Madison S Perry ordered the occupation of the arsenal.

Mississippi. The Mississippi state convention met to discuss matters of secession.

New Mexico Territory. Fort Fauntleroy was abandoned by the US Army. The fort was at Ojo del Oso, a Navajo place visited for good grazing and water, near the present day Gallup. Fort Fauntleroy was established at Bear Springs (Ojo del Oso) as an outpost of Fort Defiance in 1860 by Captain William Carpenter, 5th US Infantry on the orders of Colonel Thomas Turner Fauntleroy.  When Fauntleroy left to join the Confederacy, although abandoned, it was renamed Fort Lyon after Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon. Fort Lyon was closed on 10 September 1861.

Tennessee. The Tennessee legislature met to discuss matters of secession.

Virginia. The Virginia state legislature met to discuss matters of secession.

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