1861 May 9th

May 9 1861 Thursday

San Lucas Springs, TX
Gloucester Point, VA

Camp Jackson Operations

France. The delegation of William L Yancey, Pierre A Rost, and A Dudley Mann met Napoleon III of France to seek recognition for the Confederate government. No commitment was made by the French to intervene unless they were joined by the British government. Further solicitation of the British government proved fruitless despite persistent efforts. Subsequently, several months later, Yancey was recalled, while Mann and Rost were sent to Spain and Belgium.

Great Britain. Former US Navy officer James Dunwoody Bulloch was ordered by the Confederate government to travel to Great Britain to purchase ships, guns, and ammunition. The priority was to acquire warships that could challenge the Union’s naval superiority.

CSA. The Confederate Congress authorised President Jefferson Finis Davis to raise such forces for the duration of the war as was deemed expedient.

District of Columbia. The steamers Philadelphia, Baltimore, Powhatan, and Mount Vernon were armed by the Union authorities to provide an improvised naval defence of the capital on the Potomac River.

Maryland. The US Naval Academy was transferred from Annapolis to Newport, Rhode Island, for the duration of the war.

Maryland. Union troops heading for Washington, DC, landed at Locust Point near Baltimore and were conveyed through the city on a branch line of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Texas. US Brigadier-General David Emanuel Twiggs surrendered all US military posts in the Department of Texas to Texas authorities on 18 February 1861. Most of the US Army troops in Texas, about 2,300 men in total, were located at nineteen distant, widely dispersed posts without any means of quickly concentrating into an effective force. Twiggs negotiated an agreement for the military posts to be turned over to Texas, while their garrisons were permitted to march to the Gulf Coast for transportation north by ship. Some of these posts were far from the coast and the march would be lengthy in distance and time.
The longest march would be from Fort Bliss, then and now located at El Paso in West Texas. It was a march of nearly 700 miles to Corpus Christi, and nearly 800 miles from Galveston from Fort Bliss. This march would be led by Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Van Duzen Reeve (8th US Infantry). On 31 March, Reeve led his command (six companies of the 8th US Infantry) out of Fort Bliss, bound for the Gulf Coast via San Antonio. His column was soon joined by the soldiers from the two other far West Texas garrisons at Fort Quitman and Fort Davis.
After war broke out at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour, the Confederate authorities revoked the Twiggs agreement on 12 April 1861. Those who had not yet departed were made prisoners of war.
Reeve’s column did not reach the San Antonio area until early May, some weeks after the Twiggs agreement had been revoked. Reeve proposed to fight his way to the coast to secure shipping but on 9 May, Reeve was forced to surrender his command to superior Confederate forces at San Lucas Spring, 15 miles west of San Antonio. The Confederates numbered 1,370 men, made up of 848 cavalry, 361 infantry, and 95 artillerymen with six guns. Reeves had with him six companies of the 8th US Infantry, which had been reduced by sickness, desertion, straggling, and hardship from 320 men to 270 men ready for duty. Major James Vote Bomford of the 6th US Infantry was also present.
The captured men of the 8th US Infantry were eventually exchanged in 1862. New recruits joined to enable them to serve throughout the remainder of the war.

Gloucester Point, Virginia. The steamer USS Yankee was fired on by Confederate batteries at Gloucester Point on the York River near Yorktown. This was the first exchange of fire by the Union Navy against pro-Confederate forces in the state of Virginia, which had not yet officially seceded and joined the Confederacy. More Confederate batteries were erected around Norfolk, at Craney Island, Sandy Point, the Hospital, Fort Norfolk, and the Bluffs.

Virginia. The USS Cumberland, USS Pawnee, USS Monticello, and USS Yankee began to enforce the blockade from Fort Monroe.

Union Organisation

USA: The Department of the Ohio was extended to include the parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia north of the Kanawha River and west of the Greenbrier River, and on a line drawn from the Greenbrier River to the southwest corner of Maryland, then to the Pennsylvania border and to the northeast corner of McKean County in Pennsylvania, to its existing area of Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana. These areas were detached from the Department of the East and the Department of Pennsylvania.

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
Gulf Blockading Squadron: William Mervine
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

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

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 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

Potomac Line: Daniel Ruggles

Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Thomas Jonathan Jackson

“Forces in Norfolk”: Walter Gwynn

Forces in Richmond: John Bankhead Magruder

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