1861 March 5th

March 5 1861 Tuesday

Go to March 6 1861

USA. US President Abraham Lincoln announced the membership of his cabinet.

Secretary of State – William Henry Seward (assumed on 6 March 1861)
Secretary of the Treasury – Salmon Portland Chase
Secretary of the Navy – Gideon Welles
Secretary of War – Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Interior – Caleb Blood Smith
Attorney General – Edward Bates
Postmaster General – Montgomery Blair.

USA. Gideon Welles was appointed AS US Secretary of the Navy. He was ably assisted by First Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Vasa Fox. Fox later planned the naval relief of Fort Sumter in 1861, as well as the operations against New Orleans and the opening of the Mississippi River. He was a superb administrator and naval planner who master-minded much of the Union naval strategy of the war. At the outbreak of hostilities, the US Navy was described as demoralised and scattered. Only 42 of its 90 ships were reported as ready for active service and only 12 were immediately ready for action. Of its 1,457 officers, 137 defected to the South. By the end of the war, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Fox had increased the number of warships from 23 to 641, including river-based warships and many ocean-going ironclad warships of revolutionary designs.

Missouri. The Missouri state convention resolved that the protest of St Louis against coercion be reduced to writing and a copy sent to the President of the United States. Resolutions were also adopted informing Georgia commissioner Luther J Glenn that Missouri dissented from the position taken by the state of Georgia and that Missouri refused to join Georgia in secession from the Union.

South Carolina. Confederate Brigadier-General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard arrived in Charleston to assume command of the forces investing Fort Sumter.

Texas. All US troops in the Department of Texas were ordered by the Confederate authorities to travel to the coast for transportation to the state of New York.

Union Organisation

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

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 awaited

• “Forces in Charleston”: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard awaited

Union Generals

Major-General USA

Winfield Scott

Brigadier-General USA

John Ellis Wool
David Emanuel Twiggs

Brigadier-General USA (Staff)

Joseph Eggleston Johnston

Confederate Generals

Brigadier-General ACSA

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard