1861 October 25th

October 25 1861 Thursday

First Battle of Springfield, MO (CWSAC Limited Battle Union Victory)

East Kentucky Operations

Florida. USS Rhode Island, Lieutenant Stephen D Trenchard, captured the schooner Aristides off Charlotte Harbour.

Missouri. Operation at Ironton ended.

Missouri. Operation at Fredericktown ended.

First Springfield, Missouri, also known as Springfield, or Zagonyi’s Charge. Union Major-General John Charles Frémont’s command approached Springfield, where the local Missouri State Guard commander Colonel Julian Frazier had sent out requests to nearby localities for reinforcements. Frémont camped on the Pomme de Terre River about fifty miles from Springfield. Zagonyi’s column (Major Frank J White’s Prairie Scouts and Frémont’s Body Guards under Major Charles Zagonyi) continued on towards Springfield and Frazier’s force of 1,000 to 1,500 prepared to meet it. Frazier set up an ambush along the road that Zagonyi followed. The Union force charged the Confederates immediately, sending them fleeing. Zagonyi’s men continued into town, hailed by Union sympathisers, and released some Union prisoners. Wary of a Confederate counterattack, Zagonyi departed Springfield before night but Frémont’s army returned with a stronger force of 21,000 men a few days later to set up camp in the town. Union casualties were reported as 85 men and Confederate losses as 133. (CWSAC Limited Battle Union Victory)

New York. The keel of the USS Monitor was laid on the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The ship incorporated many new and striking design features, the most significant of which were its iron armour and its armament. Designed by John Ericsson, the USS Monitor represented a completely new concept in warship design. It was 172 feet long, displaced 1,200 tons, and drew 10 and ½ feet. Instead of the large numbers of broadside guns that had characterised warships in the past, Ericsson opted for only two guns of very large calibre. He wanted to mount 12-inch guns but had to settle for 11-inch weapons when the larger size was unavailable. These were mounted in a novel cylindrical turret, 20 feet in diameter and 9 feet high. The whole turret rotated on a central spindle and was moved by a steam engine that could be controlled by one man. The circular turret had eight layers of one-inch iron plates and the vertical sides of the raft-like deck had 4 and ½ inches of iron armour. The decks were awash and only the 9-foot high turret and the 4-foot high pilot house showed above the waves. A serious flaw in the design was the pilothouse from which the ship would be conned, which was housed in a small and vulnerable structure forward of the turret on the main deck. Its location meant that the guns could not fire directly forward. It was isolated inconveniently from other activities on the ship and was vulnerable to enemy fire.

Union Organisation

Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles

Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Louis Malesherbes Goldsborough
Gulf Blockading Squadron: William McKean
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery
Western Gunboat Flotilla: Andrew Hull Foote
Potomac Flotilla: Thomas Tingey Craven

General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott

Department of the Cumberland: William Tecumseh Sherman

Department of the East: Vacant

Department of Florida: Harvey Brown

Department of New England: Benjamin Franklin Butler

Department of the Ohio: Ormsby McKnight Mitchel

District of Grafton: Benjamin Franklin Kelley

Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner interim George Wright awaited

District of Oregon: Albemarle Cady
District of Southern California: James Henry Carleton

Department of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan

District of Harper’s Ferry and Cumberland: Benjamin Franklin Kelley
Army of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan

Department of Texas: Vacant

Department of Virginia: John Ellis Wool

Western Department: John Charles Frémont

District of Western Kentucky: Charles Ferguson Smith
District of North Missouri: John Pope
District of Southeast Missouri: Ulysses Simpson Grant
Southern District of New Mexico: Benjamin Stone Roberts

Department of Western Virginia: William Starke Rosecrans

District of the Kanawha: Jacob Dolson Cox

Confederate Organisation

Commander in Chief: President Jefferson Finis Davis
Vice-President: Alexander Hamilton Stephens
Secretary of War: Judah Philip Benjamin
Secretary of the Navy: Stephen Russell Mallory

Military Adviser to the President: Robert Edward Lee

Department No 1: Mansfield Lovell

Department of Alabama and West Florida: Braxton Bragg

District of Alabama: Jones Mitchell Withers
Army of Pensacola Braxton Bragg awaited

Department of Henrico: John Henry Winder

Department of Middle and Eastern Florida: James Heyward Trapier

Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger

Department of North Carolina: Richard Caswell Gatlin

District of Cape Fear: Joseph Reid Anderson
District of Pamlico: Daniel Harvey Hill

Department of Northern Virginia: Joseph Eggleston Johnston

District of Aquia: Robert Augustus Toombs
District of the Potomac: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Army of the Potomac: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- I Corps Potomac: Earl Van Dorn
- II Corps Potomac: Gustavus Woodson Smith
Valley District: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
- Army of the Valley: Thomas Jonathan Jackson

Department of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

Army of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

Department of South Carolina: Roswell Sabine Ripley

Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring

Department of Texas: Paul Octave Hébert

District of Galveston: John Creed Moore

Western Department: Albert Sidney Johnston

First Geographical Division: Leonidas Polk
District of Upper Arkansas: William Joseph Hardee
District of East Tennessee: Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
District of the Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch
Army of Central Kentucky: Simon Bolivar Buckner
Western Army: Benjamin McCulloch

District of Arizona: John Robert Baylor

Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton

Forces in Richmond: Charles Dimmock

Army of the Northwest: William Wing Loring

Union Generals

Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission

Major-General USA

Winfield Scott
George Brinton McClellan
John Charles Frémont
Henry Wager Halleck

Major-General USV

John Adams Dix
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Benjamin Franklin Butler
David Hunter
Edwin Denison Morgan

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
Erasmus Darwin Keyes
Andrew Porter
Fitz-John Porter
William Buel Franklin
William Tecumseh Sherman
Charles Pomeroy Stone
Don Carlos Buell
Thomas West Sherman
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
James Brewerton Ricketts
Orlando Bolivar Willcox
Michael Corcoran
George Henry Thomas
Ambrose Everett Burnside
Henry Hayes Lockwood
Louis Blenker
Henry Warner Slocum
James Samuel Wadsworth
John James Peck
Ormsby McKnight Mitchel
George Webb Morell
John Henry Martindale
Samuel Davis Sturgis
George Stoneman
Henry Washington Benham
William Farrar Smith
James William Denver
Egbert Ludovicus Vielé
James Shields
John Fulton Reynolds
William Farquhar Barry
John Joseph Abercrombie
John Sedgwick
Charles Ferguson Smith
Silas Casey
Lawrence Pike Graham
George Gordon Meade
Abram Duryée
Alexander McDowell McCook
Oliver Otis Howard
Eleazar Arthur Paine
Daniel Edgar Sickles
Charles Davis Jameson
Ebenezer Dumont
Robert Huston Milroy
Lewis Wallace
Willis Arnold Gorman
Daniel Butterfield
Horatio Gouverneur Wright
Edward Otho Cresap Ord
William Nelson
William Thomas Ward
John Gross Barnard
Innis Newton Palmer
Seth Williams
John Newton
Winfield Scott Hancock
Thomas Leonidas Crittenden
George Wright
Isaac Ingalls Stevens
Thomas Williams
George Sykes
William Henry French
William Thomas Harbaugh Brooks
John Milton Brannan
William Wallace Burns
John Porter Hatch
David Sloane Stanley
William Kerley Strong
Albin Francisco Schoepf
Lovell Harrison Rousseau
James Scott Negley
Thomas John Wood
Richard W Johnson
Adolph Wilhelm August Friedrich Von Steinwehr
Joseph Bennett Plummer
John Gray Foster

Brigadier-General USA (Staff)

Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (Quartermaster-General)
Henry Knox Craig
Lorenzo Thomas (Adjutant-General)
James Wolfe Ripley (Ordnance)

Confederate Generals

Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission

General ACSA

Samuel Cooper
Albert Sidney Johnston
Robert Edward Lee
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

Major-General PACS

Leonidas Polk
Braxton Bragg
Earl Van Dorn
Gustavus Woodson Smith
Theophilus Hunter Holmes
William Joseph Hardee
Benjamin Huger
James Longstreet
John Bankhead Magruder
Mansfield Lovell
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Edmund Kirby Smith

Brigadier-General PACS

Alexander Robert Lawton
Milledge Lake Bonham
Benjamin McCulloch
William Wing Loring
Charles Clark
John Buchanan Floyd
William Henry Talbot Walker
Henry Rootes Jackson
Henry Alexander Wise
Richard Stoddert Ewell
David Rumph Jones
John Clifford Pemberton
Henry Hopkins Sibley
John Henry Winder
Richard Caswell Gatlin
Daniel Smith Donelson
Samuel Read Anderson
Benjamin Franklin Cheatham
Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
Daniel Harvey Hill
Jones Mitchell Withers
Richard Heron Anderson
Robert Augustus Toombs
Samuel Jones
Arnold Elzey
William Henry Chase Whiting
Jubal Anderson Early
Isaac Ridgway Trimble
Daniel Ruggles
George Bibb Crittenden
Roswell Sabine Ripley
Albert Pike
Paul Octave Hébert
Joseph Reid Anderson
Simon Bolivar Buckner
Leroy Pope Walker
Albert Gallatin Blanchard
Gabriel James Rains
James Ewell Brown Stuart
Lafayette McLaws
Thomas Fenwick Drayton
Thomas Carmichael Hindman
Adley Hogan Gladden
John Porter McCown
Lloyd Tilghman
Nathan George Evans
Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox
Philip St George Cocke
Robert Emmett Rodes
Richard Taylor
Louis Trezevant Wigfall
James Heyward Trapier
Samuel Gibbs French
Daniel Marsh Frost