1861 June 18th

June 18 1861 Tuesday

Chesapeake Bay Blockade
McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign
Lyon’s Operations in Missouri

Go to June 19 1861

Maryland. Union troops crossed the Potomac into Virginia from Hagerstown to Williamsport.

Maryland. Skirmishes at Edwards Ferry and Goose Creek.

Missouri. Incident at Camp Cole.

Missouri. Thirty-five Confederates were captured at Liberty by US Regular Army soldiers sent from Kansas City.

Missouri. As parts of the Missouri State Guard accompanied pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Jackson from Boonville towards southwest Missouri, a Union Home Guard regiment was moved to interfere with his retreat. In Benton County, the majority of the inhabitants were of Southern origin and pro-Confederate in sentiment,. However, the large numbers of German immigrants in the area were exclusively pro-Union and anti-slavery. These Germans made up the core of the Benton County Home Guard. Captain Abel H W Cook began to form his regiment in early June and called for the volunteers to assemble northeast of Cole Camp on 11 June. Cook’s men had about 400 smoothbore muskets. While up to 900 men had initially gathered, half of them were on furlough for lack of weapons or for other reasons. The Union force occupied two adjoining farms 600 yards apart owned by Henry Harms and John Heisterberg. The Home Guards called this location Camp Lyon.
At the same time, a pro-secession force was gathering nearby at Warsaw. Confederate Captain Walter S O’Kane organized the Warsaw “Grays” and Major Thomas W Murray organized the Warsaw “Blues.” The combined force numbered about 350 men, with 100 of them mounted. O’Kane was elected to command the battalion as its Lieutenant-Colonel. The secessionists were aided by Benton County’s Sheriff Bartholomew W Keown who attempted to arrest Captains Cook and Mitchell at the Union Home Guard camp, but the Unionists refused to submit. The arrest apparently concealed Keown’s real mission of gathering intelligence about Union activity. Meanwhile, O’Kane’s force marched from Warsaw to attack them. A respected citizen, John Tyree, had witnessed the preparations of the secessionists and reported it to the officers at Camp Lyon. As he returned from reporting this, he was captured by O’Kane’s men and shot as a spy.

North Carolina. The relocation of ordnance equipment from the Harper’s Ferry Arsenal to the Fayetteville Arsenal in North Carolina was completed and the manufacture of arms began.

South Carolina. USS Union, Commander J R Goldsborough, captured the Confederate blockade-runner Amelia at Charles­ton with a cargo of contraband from Liverpool.

Virginia. Lieutenant Robert Randolph Carter CSN, commanding the tender CSS Teaser, was ordered to support the batteries at Jamestown Is­land for the defence of the James River, and to scout for intelligence about Union movements on either side of the river.

Virginia. The relocation of ordnance equipment from the Harper’s Ferry Arsenal to the Richmond Arsenal in Virginia was completed and the manufacture of arms began.

Virginia. Confederates from Romney destroyed the railroad bridge at New Creek.

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: James Harmon Ward

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 New Mexico: Edward Richard Sprigg Canby

Department 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

Department 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

Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg

• “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg

Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton

Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch

Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Joseph Eggleston Johnston

Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy

Army of the Kanawha: Henry Alexander Wise

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

Confederate Generals

Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission

General ACSA

Samuel Cooper
Albert Sidney Johnston
Robert Edward Lee

Major-General PACS

David Emanuel Twiggs

Brigadier-General ACSA

Joseph Eggleston Johnston
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