May 22 1861 Wednesday
Chesapeake Bay Blockade
Mississippi. The Federal fortress at Ship Island was destroyed to prevent it from falling into Confederate hands.
Missouri. Union Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon ordered the seizure of the steamer J C Swan, thirty miles below St Louis. A large supply of lead bound for the Confederacy was seized at Ironton.
Virginia. Union Major-General Benjamin Franklin Butler arrived to command the new Department of Virginia at Fort Monroe. The fortified stronghold became a base of operations for advances along the coasts and tidal waters of Virginia and North Carolina.
Virginia. The Confederates began to construct batteries at Aquia Creek to dominate the Potomac River.
Virginia. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was a vital artery for the movement of Union troops and supplies, and the depot at Grafton was a decisive strategic location. Union supporters joined the Grafton Guards and Confederate supporters joined the Confederate Letcher’s Guard. During the evening the two forces skirmished at Fetterman (now a part of Grafton). Two members of the Grafton Guards, Lieutenant Daniel Wilson and Private Thornsbury Bailey Brown went from Grafton to a rally in Pruntytown, to recruit men for the Union army. When they returned that evening, they encountered three members of a Virginia militia company with Confederate sympathies, George E Glenn, Daniel W S Knight and William Reese of the Letcher Guards, who were on picket duty at the Fetterman Bridge. The bridge was located at the crossing of the Northwestern Turnpike with the tracks of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The pickets ordered Wilson and Brown to halt. Brown responded by firing his pistol. The shot injured Knight’s ear. Knight and his two companions fired at Brown and killed him. According to the official and more generally accepted story, T Bailey Brown, therefore, became the first Union combat fatality of the American Civil War; or more precisely, the first Union soldier to be killed by a Confederate soldier during the Civil War.
Union Organisation
USA: The Department of Virginia was established with its headquarters at Fortress Monroe. It comprised the area of Virginia within sixty miles of Fort Monroe, which was detached from the Department of the East. It also assumed authority over any areas of North Carolina and South Carolina to be occupied by Union forces in the future.
USA: Major-General Benjamin Franklin Butler assumed command of the Department of Virginia.
Butler, Benjamin Franklin / New Hampshire / Born 5 November 1818 Deerfield, New Hampshire / Died Washington, District of Columbia 11 January 1893
3rd Lieutenant Massachusetts Militia 1839 / Brigadier-General Massachusetts Militia 1855 / Major-General USV 16 May 1861 / Military Governor of Louisiana 1 May 1862-2 June 1862 / Resigned USV 30 November 1865 /
Colonel 8th Massachusetts Militia 17 April 1861 / Department of Annapolis 27 April 1861-15 May 1861 / Department of Virginia 22 May 1861-17 August 1861 / Department of New England 1 October 1861-20 February 1862 / Army of the Gulf 23 February 1862-14 December 1862 / Department of the Gulf 20 March 1862-17 December 1862 / Department of Virginia and North Carolina 12 November 1863-27 August 1864 / XVIII Corps Virginia and North Carolina 18 November 1863-1 May 1864 / XVIII Corps Virginia and North Carolina 21 April 1864-2 May 1864 / Army of the James 2 May 1864-27 August 1864 / Department of Virginia and North Carolina 7 September 1864-14 December 1864 / Army of the James 18 October 1864-2 November 1864 / Army of the James 18 November 1864-8 January 1865 / Department of Virginia and North Carolina 24 December 1864-8 January 1865
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
Western Gunboat Flotilla: John Rodgers
Potomac Flotilla: James Harmon Ward
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of Annapolis: John Adams Dix
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of Florida: Harvey Brown
Department of New Mexico: Edward Richard Sprigg Canby
Department of the Ohio: George Brinton McClellan
Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Pennsylvania: 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: William Selby Harney
Confederate Organisation
CSA: Charles Clark promoted Brigadier-General PACS 22 May 1861.
Clark, Charles / Ohio-Mississippi / Born 24 May 1810 Lebanon, Ohio / Died Bolivar, Mississippi 18 December 1877
Captain USV 2nd Mississippi Infantry 1847 / Colonel USV 1848 / Mustered Out USV 1848 / Brigadier-General Mississippi Militias 23 January 1861 / Major-General Mississippi Militia 15 April 1861-June 1861 / Brigadier-General PACS 22 May 1861 / Resigned PACS 31 October 1863 / Paroled Fort Pulaski, Georgia 2 September 1865 / WIA Shiloh 6 April 1862 WIA & CIA Baton Rouge 5 August 1862 Exchanged February 1863
1st Brigade Longstreet’s Division Army of the Potomac 21 August 1861-22 October 1861 / Clark’s Brigade District of the Potomac 22 October 1861-5 November 1861 / Clark’s Brigade Army of Central Kentucky 5 November 1861-February 1862 / 1st Division I Corps Army of Mississippi 12 March 1862-6 April 1862 / 1st Division I Corps Army of Mississippi 8 April 1862-July 1862 / 1st Division Breckinridge’s Corps District of Mississippi July 1862-5 August 1862
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 Alexandria: Milledge Luke Bonham
- Alexandria Line: Milledge Luke Bonham
Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
- Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Department of South Carolina: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
- “Forces in Charleston”: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring
Department of Texas: Earl Van Dorn
Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg
- “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg
District of Louisiana: David Emanuel Twiggs
- “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg
Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton
Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch
Potomac Line: Daniel Ruggles
Hampton Line: John Bankhead Magruder
Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Thomas Jonathan Jackson interim, Joseph Eggleston Johnston awaited
“Forces in Norfolk”: Benjamin Huger
Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
Forces in the Kanawha Valley: Christopher Quarles Tompkins
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
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Brigadier-General ACSA
Robert Edward Lee
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
American Civil War High Command 