July 24 1861 Wednesday
Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Patterson’s Shenandoah Valley Operations
USA. The US Congress authorised the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Gustavus Vasa Fox was duly appointed and provided inestimable service alongside the Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles.
Missouri. Incident at Blue Mills.
New Mexico Territory. A Confederate battalion of the 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles under Lieutenant-Colonel John R Baylor arrived in Mesilla and prepared to launch a surprise attack on Fort Fillmore the following morning. However, a Confederate deserter informed the fort’s commander, Major Isaac Lynde, of the plans. Baylor camped within six hundred yards of the fort ready to cross the river in the morning.
Virginia. A Union naval expedition set out from Fort Monroe along Back River, carrying 300 soldiers. They destroyed nine sloops and schooners and captured a tenth.
Virginia. Union Brigadier-General Jacob Dolson Cox’s force advanced from Pocataligo and attacked Confederates under the command of Brigadier-General Henry Alexander Wise at Tyler Mountain. The Confederates were forced to abandon their camps around Charleston and Wise led his men back towards Gauley Bridge.
Union Organisation
USA: The Cheat Mountain District was established in the Department of the Ohio, comprising the vicinity of Cheat Mountain, Virginia.
USA: Brigadier-General Joseph Jones Reynolds assumed command of the Cheat Mountain District.
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 the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of Florida: Harvey Brown
Department of Kentucky: Robert Anderson
Department of Maryland: John Adams Dix awaited
Department of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell
- Army of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell
Department of the Ohio: William Starke Rosecrans
- Cheat Mountain District: Joseph Jones Reynolds
- Army of Occupation: William Starke Rosecrans
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 the Shenandoah: Nathaniel Prentiss Banks awaited
Department of Texas: Vacant
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: Daniel Harvey Hill
- District of Aquia: Daniel Ruggles
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: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- Army of the Potomac: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- Army of the Kanawha: Henry Alexander Wise
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
Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch
Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
Army of Liberation: Gideon Johnson Pillow
Army of the Northwest: William Wing Loring
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
James Brewerton Ricketts
Orlando Bolivar Willcox
Michael Corcoran
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
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Leonidas Polk
Brigadier-General ACSA
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
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
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
Richard Heron Anderson
Robert Augustus Toombs
Samuel Jones
Arnold Elzey
William Henry Chase Whiting
Jubal Anderson Early
American Civil War High Command 