May 4 1861 Saturday
USA. In orders issued on 1 May 1861, US Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed Captain Silas Horton Stringham USN to command the Coast Blockading Squadron. Stringham received this order and took command on 4 May 1861. His headquarters were at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and he took responsibility for the blockade of the Atlantic Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to the southern extremity of Florida and Key West.
Louisiana. The steamship Queen of the West, captured earlier at Indianola, Texas, was commissioned as the receiving ship of the Confederate Navy in New Orleans.
Missouri. The US Ordnance Store at Kansas City was seized by Confederate sympathisers.
Virginia. Confederate Virginia State Colonel George A Porterfield was assigned to command state forces in north-western Virginia. He moved to Grafton to take charge of enlistments in that area and to provide a defence for the strategically vital junction on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
Virginia. Virginia State Brigadier-General Joseph Eggleston Johnston was ordered to proceed by the Orange & Alexandria Railroad to Harper’s Ferry, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Kirby Smith as chief of staff and Major William Henry Chase Whiting as chief engineer.
Virginia. USS Cumberland, Captain Garrett J Pendergrast, seized the schooner Mary and Virginia with a cargo of coal, and also reported the capture of the schooner Theresa C, running the blockade off Fort Monroe with cotton on board.
Union Organisation
USA: The Coast Blockading Squadron of the US Navy was established to patrol the coasts of the seceded Southern States.
USA: Captain Silas Horton Stringham USN assumed command of the Coast Blockading Squadron of the US Navy.
Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles
Coast Blockading Squadron: Silas Horton Stringham
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery
Potomac Flotilla: James Harmon Ward
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of Annapolis: Benjamin Franklin Butler awaited
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of Florida: Harvey Brown
Department of New Mexico: Vacant
Department of the Ohio: George Brinton McClellan awaited
Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner awaited
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Pennsylvania: Robert Patterson
Department of Texas: Vacant
Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke
Department of Washington: Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Department of the West: Edmund Brooke Alexander temporary
Confederate Organisation
CSA: The Defences of Savannah was extended to include the entire coastline of Georgia.
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: Philip St George Cocke
- Alexandria Line: Philip St George Cocke
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 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
Potomac Line: Daniel Ruggles
“Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
“Forces in Norfolk”: Walter Gwynn
Forces in Richmond: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Forces in the Kanawha Valley: Christopher Quarles Tompkins
Union Generals
Major-General USA
Winfield Scott
Brigadier-General USA
John Ellis Wool
William Selby Harney
Edwin Vose Sumner
Confederate Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Brigadier-General ACSA
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Braxton Bragg
Brigadier-General PACS
Alexander Robert Lawton
Milledge Lake Bonham
American Civil War High Command 