1861 July 10th

July 10 1861 Wednesday

McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign
Patterson’s Shenandoah Valley Operations

USA. The US House of Representatives passed Bills authorising loans of $500,000,000 and the enlistment of 50,000 volunteers to suppress the Rebellion of the seceded Confederate states. The closure of Confederate ports by blockade was also formally empowered in legislation.

Indian Territory. The Confederate government signed a peace treaty with the Creek Indian Nation.

Monroe Station, Missouri. Union and Confederate forces skirmished at Monroe Station. Detachments of the Union 16th Illinois Infantry, 3rd Iowa Infantry, and the Hannibal Home Guards were led by Colonel Robert F Smith from Palmyra on 9 July to within a few miles of Monroe Station. The column was fired upon from ambush but counterattacked. The enemy escaped on horseback. On 10 July, a few shots were fired from a Union artillery piece into a party of Confederates approaching Monroe Station and quickly dispersed them. On 11 July, the Union column surrounded the town and opened fire with two guns. The smaller of the Confederate guns was dismounted and, later in the day, the Confederates withdrew altogether. Casualties were not reported.

New Mexico Territory. Fort Breckenridge was abandoned by the US Army and burned to prevent it from being used by intruding Confederates from Texas. It was first established in 1860 as Camp San Pedro River by Captain Richard Stoddert Ewell and troops from the 1st US Dragoons at Fort Buchanan. This was only the second US Army post established in the Arizona Territory after the Gadsden Purchase and it was built to protect emigrant wagon trains and to control hostile Apache Indians. It was sited on the north bank of Aravaipa Creek south of present-day Dudleyville, Arizona. It began as Camp San Pedro River in 1860, then became Fort Aravaipa and Fort Breckinridge (after John Cabell Breckinridge, Vice President of the USA) the same year. The fort was recoccupied by Union troops from California on 18 May 1862 under Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Rdoman West. It was renamed Camp Stanford after Leland Stanford, Governor of California. The Union garrison was withdrawn on 29 June 1862 and the post remained empty until after the war. In October 1865, Colonel Thomas F Wright (2nd California Infantry), reestablished the post as Camp San Pedro River and on 1 November 1865 renamed it Camp Grant after Lieutenant-General Ulysses Simpson Grant. It was abandoned in 1873 and a new Fort Grant was built in Graham County.

Tennessee. Government Postal services were suspended by Confederate authorities in Middle and West Tennessee.

Virginia. Confederate naval forces on the James River were placed under the command of Commander George Nichols Hollins CSN.

Virginia. USS Minnesota, Captain Silas Horton Stringham, captured the Confederate brig Amy Warwick in Hampton Roads.

Virginia. Incidents at Laurel Hill, Rich Mountain, Belington, and Camp Garnett. In these preliminary skirmishes before the action at Rich Mountain, one Union soldier was reported killed and two wounded. Virginia. Confederate troops occupying an advanced location at Meadow Bluff spotted Union troops and Brigadier-General John Buchanan Floyd advanced immediately with reinforcements. On 14 July, Floyd ordered Brigadier-Geenral Henery Alexander Wise to join him at Meadow Bluff, but Wise was sluggish, blaming a shortage of wagons and other problems. Nevertheless, Wise later sent 2,000 men to occupy Big Sewell Mountain. Floyd retired to Summersville where he could outflank either Union Brigadier-General Jacob Dolson Cox at Gauley or Brigadier-General William Starke Rosecrans if he attempted to move in from the north. The threat of Cox’s force was greatly exaggerated as Cox currently had available only the 7th Ohio Infantry of Colonel Erastus Barnard Tyler.

Union Organisation

USA: Commander Thomas Tingey Craven USN assumed command of the Potomac Flotilla of the US Navy, succeeding Commander Stephen Clegg Rowan USN.

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

Department of Annapolis: Nathaniel Prentiss Banks

Department of the East: John Ellis Wool

Department of Florida: Harvey Brown

Department of Kentucky: Robert Anderson

Department of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell

Army of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell

Department of the Ohio: George Brinton McClellan

Army of Occupation: George Brinton McClellan

Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner

District of Oregon: George Wright

Department of Pennsylvania: Robert Patterson

Army of the Shenandoah: Robert Patterson

Department of Texas: Vacant

Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke

Department of Virginia: Benjamin Franklin Butler

Department of Washington: Joseph King Fenno Mansfield

Western Department: Nathaniel Lyon interim John Charles Frémont awaited

District of Ironton: Benjamin Gratz Brown
Army of the West: Nathaniel Lyon

Confederate Organisation

CSA: Daniel Harvey Hill was promoted Brigadier-General PACS 10 July 1861.
CSA: Jones Mitchell Withers was promoted Brigadier-General PACS 10 July 1861.

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: Theophilus Hunter Holmes

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: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

Army of the Potomac: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

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
Forces in Missouri: Benjamin McCulloch

Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton

District of Harper’s Ferry: Joseph Eggleston Johnston

Army of the Shenandoah: Joseph Eggleston Johnston

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: Robert Selden Garnett

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

Brigadier-General USA (Staff)

Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (Quartermaster-General)

Confederate Generals

Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission

General ACSA

Samuel Cooper
Albert Sidney Johnston
Robert Edward Lee
Joseph Eggleston Johnston

Major-General PACS

David Emanuel Twiggs
Leonidas Polk

Brigadier-General ACSA

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
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
Robert Selden Garnett
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
Barnard Elliott Bee
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