1861 March 21st

March 21 1861 Thursday

Go to March 22 1861

Alabama. Confederate officials seized the supply sloop, USS Isabella, at Mobile, during its journey to Pensacola.

Louisiana. The State of Louisiana ratified the Confederate Constitution. The Louisiana governor authorised the transfer of arms and property captured from the United States to the Confederate government.

South Carolina. Gustavus Vasa Fox reconnoitred Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour aboard the steamer Baltic in order to determine the best means of relieving the Fort. The former US Navy officer had been given a temporary special appointment in the Navy by US President Abraham Lincoln. Major Robert Anderson, commanding the US Army garrison of eighty-two men, reported that he had insufficient supplies to hold out for any longer than a few weeks. Fox recommended an operation to relieve Fort Sumter by sea. Lincoln subsequently appointed Fox as Assistant Secretary of the Navy on 1 August 1861, an office which he held until the end of the war.

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