1861 July 12th

July 12 1861 Friday

Beverly, VA

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

Indian Territory. Confederate Commissioner Albert Pike signed treaties with the Choctaw Nation and Chickasaw Nation in the Indian Territory.

Kentucky. In a skirmish at Barboursville, the Union 2^nd Kentucky Cavalry overcame a small Confederate force.

Texas. USS South Carolina, Commander James Alden, captured the Confederate schooner General T J Chambers off Galveston with a cargo of lumber.

Virginia. Incident at Belington.

Virginia. Twelve men of the Union 7^th New York Infantry were captured at Newport News.

Virginia. Union Brigadier-General Jacob Dolson Cox began to move forward to confront Confederate Brigadier-General Henry Alexander Wise’s forces in and around the Valley of the Great Kanawha River in western Virginia.

Beverly, Virginia. Confederate Brigadier-General Robert Selden Garnett decided to consolidate his position further east on the Staunton-Parkersburg Pike. With less than 5,000 men against a Union force he estimated to number 20,000 men, he needed to find an easily defended, easily re-supplied stronghold near a railroad. His first choice was between Beverly and Staunton, using Staunton as his base of supply. He decided to move into the nearby mountains rather than face a larger force reported to be further down the road.
Union Colonel (State Brigadier-General) Thomas A Morris pursued Garnett through the mountain gaps towards the Cheat River with 1,800 men under Captain Henry Washington Benham. On the muddy, rain-drenched road from Leadsville to New Interest, Garnett dispatched six men to fell trees in an attempt to block Benham’s advance. Only 20 trees had been dropped when Benham’s men caught up with the Confederate axemen, who hastily returned to their unit. Slowed by the rugged mountains and torrential rain, Garnett’s men spent the night in camp along Shaver’s Fork of the Cheat River, with his rear at Pleasant Run and the head of his column west of Parsons.
During the night Confederate Lieutenant-Colonel John Pegram’s 553 fugitives from the defeat at Rich Mountain were forced to surrender at Beverly. They had found that the friendly positions at Laurel Hill had already been abandoned and they were left behind, isolated and without supplies. The Union force occupied the town of Beverly.

Union Organisation

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

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