June 1 1861 Saturday
Aquia Creek, VA (CWSAC Limited Battle – Inconclusive)
Fairfax Court House, VA
McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign
Chesapeake Bay Blockade
Great Britain. Great Britain refused to receive in port any prizes taken by armed vessels or privateers of the United States or the belligerent Confederate States.
North Carolina. USS Union, Commander J R Goldsborough, captured the Confederate schooner F W Johnson with a cargo of railroad iron off the coast.
Virginia. Skirmish at Arlington Mills.
Virginia. Union Colonel Thomas Armstrong Morris arrived in Grafton with a brigade of volunteers. This movement secured the safety of the vital junction of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from Confederate control. Morris approved Colonel Benjamin Franklin Kelley’s plan to make a two-pronged attack against the Confederate forces in Philippi, about thirty miles from Grafton. The principal advance would be made by 1,600 men led by Kelley himself, and would include six companies of his own regiment, nine companies from the 9th Indiana Infantry under Colonel Robert Huston Milroy, and six companies from the 16th Ohio Infantry. In order to deceive the enemy into believing their objective was Harper’s Ferry, they departed eastwards by train. They de-trained at the small village of Thornton and marched south on a back road (on the same side of the river as Philippi) intending to arrive at the rear of the town. Meanwhile, the 7th Indiana Infantry under Colonel Ebenezer Dumont was sent to Webster, about three and a half miles southwest of Grafton. There they would combine with the 6th Indiana Infantry under Colonel Thomas Turpin Crittenden and the 14th Ohio Infantry under Colonel James Blair Steedman. The combined column, with a total of 1,400 men and two 6-pounder guns under the overall command of Dumont (with the assistance of Colonel Frederick West Lander, acting as a volunteer aide-de-camp to Major-General George Brinton McClellan), would march directly south from Webster on the Turnpike. In this way, the Union force would execute a double envelopment of the Confederates at Philippi.
Virginia. Incident at Arlington Mills.
Aquia Creek, Virginia. The bombardment of the Confederate batteries at Aquia Creek was resumed by USS Thomas Freeborn, USS Anacostia, USS Resolute, and the sloop USS Pawnee for almost five hours. They fired over 500 rounds but the Confederates reported the deaths only of a chicken and a horse. Both the USS Thomas Freeborn and USS Pawnee took minor damage but no crewmen were seriously wounded or killed. Following the attack, the Confederates reinforced the defences by constructing a third battery on the bluff and a fourth across the mouth of Aquia Creek at Brent Point. (CWSAC Limited Battle – Inconclusive)
Fairfax Court House, Virginia. In the early morning, a detachment of 50 men of Company B 2nd US Cavalry under Lieutenant C H Tompkins entered Fairfax Court House and engaged the Warrenton Rifles in the first land conflict between organised military units on land in the Civil War. Confederate Captain John Quincy Marr was struck by a stray bullet and became the first Confederate officer killed in the Civil War
Union Organisation
USA: Major-General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks assumed command of the Department of Annapolis, arriving on 11 June 1861, succeeding Major-General John Adams Dix.
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
Western Gunboat Flotilla: John Rodgers
Potomac Flotilla: James Harmon Ward
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of Annapolis: John Adams Dix interim Nathaniel Prentiss Banks awaited
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
Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Pennsylvania: 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
Department No 1: David Emanuel Twiggs
- “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg
Department of the Potomac: Milledge Luke Bonham temporary Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard awaited
- Army of the Potomac: Milledge Luke Bonham interim Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard awaited
Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger
Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
- Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Department of the Peninsula: Daniel Harvey Hill temporary
- Army of the Peninsula: Daniel Harvey Hill temporary
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
Potomac Line: Daniel Ruggles
Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
Forces in the Kanawha Valley: Christopher Quarles Tompkins
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
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Brigadier-General ACSA
Robert Edward Lee
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
American Civil War High Command 