1861 March 17th

March 17 1861 Sunday

Go to March 18 1861

Louisiana. The Confederate Navy Department sent Commander Lawrence Rousseau, Commander Ebenezer Farrand, and Lieutenant Robert T Chapman to New Orleans to negotiate for the construction of gunboats for service on the Mississippi River.

Texas. Camp Hudson was abandoned by the US Army. Camp Hudson was established on 7 June 1857 to protect wagon traffic on the San Antonio-El Paso Road and the stagecoaches of the San Antonio-El Paso Mail and San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line between Fort Clark and Fort Lancaster. It was named for Lieutenant Walter W Hudson who died of injuries received in a fight with hostile Indians in April 1850. It was located on the west bank of the Devils River, below the Second Crossing of Devils River by the San Antonio-El Paso Road, 19 miles south of Juno and 21 miles north of Comstock in Val Verde County. It lay near the mouth of Hudson Canyon and near Huffstutler Springs. It was later occupied by the Confederate 2nd Texas Cavalry as a frontier outpost until 1862.

Union Organisation

Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles

African Squadron: William Inman
Brazil Squadron: Joshua Ratoon Sands
East Indian (Asiatic) Squadron: Cornelius Kinchiloe Stribling
European Squadron: vacant
Home Squadron: Garrett J Prendergast
Mediterranean Squadron: Charles H Bell
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery

General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott

Department of the East: John Ellis Wool

Department of New Mexico: Thomas T Fauntleroy interim, William Wing Loring awaited

Department of the Pacific: Albert Sidney Johnston

• District of Oregon: George Wright

Department of Texas: Carlos Adolphus Waite

Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke

Department of the West: William Selby Harney

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 of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg

• “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg

Department of South Carolina: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

• “Forces in Charleston”: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg

• “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg

Union Generals

Major-General USA

Winfield Scott

Brigadier-General USA

John Ellis Wool
David Emanuel Twiggs
Edwin Vose Sumner

Brigadier-General USA (Staff)

Joseph Eggleston Johnston

Confederate Generals

Brigadier-General ACSA

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Braxton Bragg