1861 March 18th

March 18 1861 Monday

Go to March 19 1861

Arkansas. The Arkansas Convention at Little Rock defeated a proposed Ordinance of Secession by 39 votes to 35. The Convention achieved a compromise by agreeing to submit the question of cooperation with the Confederacy or secession to the people of the state on the first Monday in August 1861.

Florida. Confederate Brigadier-General Braxton Bragg issued an order forbidding the passage of supplies to the US garrison at Fort Pickens or to the US Navy squadron off Pensacola. Union garrisons remained in possession of two posts in Florida: Fort Taylor at Key West and Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas but the Confederates had no practicable means by which to threaten or occupy these Federal posts.

Florida. US Lieutenant Adam Jacoby Slemmer, commanding the garrison at Fort Pickens, complied with existing laws and returned four fugitive slaves to their masters.

Texas. Samuel Houston was removed from his post as Governor of Texas. Although Houston was a slaveholder and opposed abolition, he also resisted the secession of Texas from the Union. When Texas joined the Confederate States of America on 2 March 1861, Houston refused to recognise its legality but the Texas legislature upheld the legitimacy of secession. He was evicted from office after refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark succeeded him as Acting Governor until 7 November 1861. To avoid bloodshed, Houston turned down an offer from President Lincoln, conveyed to him by US Colonel Frederick West Lander, to send 50,000 US troops to prevent Texas’s secession.

Washington Territory. Hostile encounters occurred with Indians on the Columbia River near the confluence with the Kootenay River.

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