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 bastion 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 headquarters at Fortress Monroe, comprising the area of Virginia within sixty miles of Fort Monroe, detached from the Department of the East. It also assumed authority over any areas of North Carolina and South Carolina to be occupied by forces.
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 / Massachusetts Militia 1840 / Brigadier-General Massachusetts Militia 17 April 1861 / Colonel 8th Massachusetts Militia April 1861 / Major-General USV May 16 1861 Resigned USV November 30 1865 / Died 11 January 1893 / 27 April 1861 – 14 May 1861 Department of Annapolis, 22 May 1861 – August 15 1861 Department of Virginia, 1 October 1861 – 19 February 1862 Department of New England, 23 February 1862 – 16 December 1862 Department of the Gulf, 23 February 1862 – 14 December 1862 Army of the Gulf, 28 August 1863 – 26 July 1864 Department of Virginia and North Carolina, 18 November 1863 – 1 May 1864 XVIII Corps Virginia and North Carolina, 28 April 1864 – 7 January 1865 Army of the James, 7 September 1864 – 13 December 1864 Department of Virginia and North Carolina, 24 December 1864 – 17 January 1865 Department of Virginia and North Carolina
Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles
- Coast Blockading Squadron USN: Flag Officer Silas Horton Stringham USN
- Gulf Blockading Squadron USN: Flag Officer William Mervine USN
- Pacific Squadron USN: Captain John B Montgomery USN
- Western Gunboat Flotilla USN: Commander John Rodgers USN
- Potomac Flotilla USN: Commander James Harmon Ward USN
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 1811 Lebanon, Ohio | Colonel USV 2nd Mississippi 1847-1848 Major-General Mississippi Militia Brigadier-General PACS 22 May 1861 Resigned PACS 31 October 1863 | WIA Shiloh 1862 WIA & CIA Baton Rouge 1862 | Died 18 December 1877
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
- Major-General USA Winfield Scott 5 July 1841 to rank from 25 June 1841 General-in-Chief
- Major-General USA George Brinton McClellan 14 May 1861 Department of the Ohio
- Major-General USA John Charles Frémont 3 July 1861 to rank from 14 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USA John Ellis Wool 25 June 1841 Department of the East
- Brigadier-General USA William Selby Harney 14 June 1858 Department of the West
- Brigadier-General USA Edwin Vose Sumner 16 March 1861 Department of the Pacific
- Brigadier-General USA Irvin McDowell 14 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USA Joseph Fenno King Mansfield May 17 1861 to rank from May 14 1861 Department of Washington
- Brigadier-General USA Montgomery Cunningham Meigs 15 May 1861 Quartermaster-General
- Brigadier-General USA Robert Anderson 17 June 1861 to rank from 15 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USA William Starke Rosecrans 16 June 1861 to rank from 16 May 1861
- Major-General USV John Adams Dix 16 May 1861 Department of Annapolis
- Major-General USV Benjamin Franklin Butler 16 May 1861 Department of Virginia
- Major-General USV Nathaniel Prentiss Banks 3 June 1861 to rank from 16 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Nathaniel Lyon 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Jacob Dolson Cox 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Samuel Peter Heintzelman 27 May 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Robert Cumming Schenck 5 June 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV John Pope 14 June 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Joseph Jones Reynolds 14 June 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Stephen Augustus Hurlbut 14 June 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV William Tecumseh Sherman 3 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Andrew Porter 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV William Buel Franklin 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Charles Pomeroy Stone 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Thomas West Sherman 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Benjamin Franklin Kelley 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Joseph Hooker 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV John Alexander McClernand 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Frederick West Lander 6 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Erasmus Darwin Keyes 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV David Hunter 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Don Carlos Buell 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Fitz-John Porter 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV George Archibald McCall 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Rufus King 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Franz Sigel 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 17 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Charles Smith Hamilton 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Samuel Ryan Curtis 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Philip Kearny 7 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Alpheus Starkey Williams 9 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV William Reading Montgomery 9 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Israel Bush Richardson 9 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss 9 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Darius Nash Couch 9 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 17 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Ulysses Simpson Grant 9 August 1861 to rank from May 17 1861
- Brigadier-General USV James Cooper 12 August 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Brigadier-General USV Julius Stahel 12 November 1861 to rank from 17 May 1861
- Colonel George Wright 3 March 1855 District of Oregon
- Colonel Philip St George Cooke 14 June 1858 Department of Utah
- Colonel Edward Richard Sprigg Canby 14 May 1861 Department of New Mexico
- Colonel Harvey Brown 14 May 1861 Department of Florida
- State Major-General Robert Patterson Department of Pennsylvania
Confederate Generals
- General ACSA Samuel Cooper 31 August 1861 to rank from 16 May 1861 Adjutant-General and Inspector General
- Major-General PACS David Emanuel Twiggs March 22 1861 District of Louisiana
- Brigadier-General ACSA Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard March 1 1861 Department of South Carolina & Forces in Charleston
- Brigadier-General ACSA Braxton Bragg March 7 1861 Forces in Louisiana & Department of West Florida & Forces in Pensacola & Forces in New Orleans
- Brigadier-General ACSA Joseph Eggleston Johnston May 15 1861 to rank from May 14 1861 Forces in Harper’s Ferry interim
- Brigadier-General ACSA Robert Edward Lee 14 June 1861 to rank from 15 May 1861
- Brigadier-General PACS Alexander Robert Lawton 13 April 1861 Defences of Savannah
- Brigadier-General PACS Milledge Luke Bonham 23 April 1861 Department of Alexandria & Alexandria Line
- Brigadier-General PACS Benjamin McCulloch 11 May 1861 Indian Territory
- Brigadier-General PACS William Wing Loring 20 May 1861 Department of Southwestern Virginia
- Brigadier-General PACS Charles Clark 22 May 1861.
- Colonel Earl Van Dorn 16 March 1861 Department of Texas
- Colonel Theophilus Hunter Holmes March 1861 Department of North Carolina & Defences of North Carolina
- Colonel Thomas Jonathan Jackson 21 April 1861 Forces in Harper’s Ferry interim
- Colonel John Bankhead Magruder 16 May 1861 Hampton Line
- State Brigadier-General Daniel Ruggles May 1861 Potomac Line
- State Brigadier-General Benjamin Huger Forces in Norfolk
- Colonel Christopher Quarles Tompkins Forces in the Kanawha Valley
- Colonel Thomas Turner Fauntleroy Forces in Richmond
