1861 May 28th

May 28 1861 Tuesday

Chesapeake Bay Blockade
McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign

Go to May 29 1861

USA. The services of Dorothea L Dix were accepted by the US War Department, and she began to establish military hospitals and recruit women nurses.

California. Incidents at Eel River and South Fork Eel River.

Georgia. USS Union under Commander John R Goldsborough USN established the naval blockade of Savannah.

Virginia. Confederate President Jefferson Finis Davis arrived at the Confederate capital in Richmond.

Virginia. To strengthen his offensive into western Virginia, Union Major-General George Brinton McClellan ordered an advance by 3,000 troops under the overall command of Indiana State Brigadier-General Thomas Armstrong Morris.

Virginia. Brigadier-General Irvin McDowell assumed command of Union forces in northeastern Virginia and Washington, DC. His Department of Northeastern Virginia became the territorial command for the soon-to-be-announced Army of Northeast tern Virginia. These organisations were the precursors of the Department and the Army of the Potomac, the primary military force active in the eastern theatre until the end of the war.

Virginia. The Confederates built defences and barricades at Harper’s Ferry, Point of Rocks and Manassas Junction.

Union Organisation

USA: The Department of Kentucky was established, comprising that area of the state within 100 miles of the Ohio River, detached from the Department of the East.
USA: Brigadier-General USA Robert Anderson assumed command of the Department of Kentucky.

USA: Brigadier-General USA Irvin McDowell arrived to assume command of the Department of Northeastern Virginia.

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 Kentucky: Robert Anderson

Department of New Mexico: Edward Richard Sprigg Canby

Department of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell

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

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 No 1: David Emanuel Twiggs awaited

• “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg

Department of Alexandria: Milledge Luke Bonham

• Army of the Potomac: Milledge Luke Bonham

Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger

Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes

• Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes

Department of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

• Army of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

Department of South Carolina: Daniel Harvey Hill

Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring

Department of Texas: Earl Van Dorn

Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg

• “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg

Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton

Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch

Potomac Line: Daniel Ruggles

Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Joseph Eggleston Johnston

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
John Buchanan Floyd
William Henry Talbot Walker