1861 June 19th

June 19 1861 Wednesday

Cole Camp, MO

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

Louisiana. USS Massachusetts, Commander Melancton Smith, captured the blockade-running brig Nahum Stetson off Pass a l’Outre outside the Mississippi River.

Cole Camp, Missouri, also known as Camp Cole. Pro-Confederate forces made a surprise attack on pro-Union troops at Cole Camp. Despite advanced warnings, the Union pickets at Cole Camp were overrun before they could alert the Unionist Missouri Home Guard. There had been extensive drinking in the camp and the men were sleeping in the early morning hours when the Confederate attack began. Confederate Lieutenant-Colonel Walter S O’Kane’s infantry advanced at the double-quick from the east to the Heisterberg barn, where a portion of the Home Guard was encamped and fired a volley into the shocked men. However, a company of Home Guards under Captain Elsinger was just north of the barn. They responded with fire into the flank of the attackers but they had little ammunition and were soon forced to withdraw. O’Kane’s mounted force then drove away another nearby group of Home Guards that was attempting to form to repel the attack. Meanwhile, the remaining unengaged Union men at the Harms barn under Captains Grother and Mueller formed up to enter the fray. The presence of a Union flag now in the hands of the Confederates confused the men and they held their fire until they were fired upon. They withdrew without engaging and the fighting ended. Union Captain Abel H W Cook was reported to have fled at the beginning of the fight. He claimed unconvincingly that he left to consult with artillery Captain James Totten of Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon’s forces. The victory opened a path for the continued escape of the Missouri State Guard towards the southwest corner of the state.
Union casualties were heavy with at least 34 killed or mortally wounded, 60 wounded, and 25 made prisoners out of about 800 men. Confederate losses were around seven men killed and 25 wounded or possibly as many as 45 in all. O’Kane’s men allegedly murdered one of the prisoners who was a cook and spoke little English.

Virginia. Skirmish at New Creek.

Virginia. Pro-Union loyalists of Virginia met in Wheeling to elect Francis Henry Pierpont as the Provisional Governor of the putative new state of West Virginia. In the interim, the loyalists named the new entity the “Restored Government of Virginia”. It was also described as the “Loyal Government of Western Virginia”.

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