June 25 1861 Tuesday
McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign
Chesapeake Bay Blockade
Tennessee. Leonidas Polk was appointed Major-General in command of the Confederate forces in western Tennessee and on the southern borders of neutral Kentucky. Polk was the second officer, after David Emanuel Twiggs, to be appointed to this grade and thereby immediately outranked twenty-four Brigadier-Generals, of whom the majority had far more substantial military credentials. Having resigned from the Army very soon after graduating from the US Military Academy, his military qualifications were modest. His close association with President Jefferson Finis Davis and his position as Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana apparently sufficed to justify his unexpectedly high position. Until the three Brigadier-Generals in the Confederate Regular Army were confirmed as full Generals in the coming weeks, Polk was for a time the fifth-highest ranking officer in the Confederate Army – or third-highest, if Samuel Cooper (staff commission) and Albert Sidney Johnston (not yet confirmed) are disregarded. The rank was appropriate to the importance of his command but not necessarily to his unproven military talent. West of the Mississippi opposite Polk’s positions, the much better qualified Brigadier-General William Joseph Hardee took command of the Forces in Arkansas.
Virginia. The Virginia popular vote for secession was announced as 128,884 in favour and 32,124 against secession.
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
CSA: The Western Department (or Department No 2) was established, comprising the area north of the 31st parallel on the Mississippi River and bounded on the east by the Tennessee River.
CSA: Major-General Leonidas Polk assumed command of the Western Department (Department No 2), having arrived to take unofficial command of forces in the area on 13 June 1861.
CSA: Leonidas Polk promoted Major-General PACS 25 June 1861
CSA: The District of Upper Arkansas was established in the Western Department, comprising the part of Arkansas north of the White and Black Rivers, and north of the Arkansas River.
CSA: Brigadier-General William Joseph Hardee was appointed to command the District of Upper Arkansas, arriving on 22 July 1861.
CSA: The Defences of Galveston was established in the Department of Texas, comprising the forces collected on Galveston Island, Bolivar Point and the Galveston Peninsula.
CSA: Captain John Creed Moore assumed command of the Defences of Galveston.
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
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 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
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
Leonidas Polk
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
John Henry Winder
American Civil War High Command 