1861 October 27th

October 27 1861 Saturday

East Kentucky Operations

Atlantic Ocean. The CSS Sumter captured and burned the American schooner Trowbridge, after removing five months’ supply of provisions.

Spring Hill, Missouri. A Union force commanded by Major-General John Charles Frémont was advancing toward Springfield. Near Spring Hill they encountered a retreating Confederate force commanded by State Major-General Sterling Price. After the resulting skirmish, the Confederates continued their retreat. Anxious to keep his command, Frémont reported inaccurately that the Confederates were advancing towards Springfield rather than retreating and implied that he had saved the town.

Missouri. Skirmish at Plattsburg.

South Carolina. Although preparations for the naval expedition to Port Royal in South Carolina proceeded throughout the summer and early autumn, the original schedule proposed by the administration could no longer be met. Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont USN felt that the Navy Department was rushing him into action without proper preparation. Despite his reservations, the force was assembled and departed. The soldiers and their transports left from Annapolis, Maryland, while the sailors and warships left New York. The War Department provided 12,000 to 13,000 troops commanded by Brigadier General Thomas West Sherman. Sherman’s force was organised into three brigades, under Brigadier General Egbert Ludovicus Vielé, Brigadier General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, and Brigadier General Horatio Gouverneur Wright. Final planning was carried out by Du Pont, Sherman, Wright, and the US Army Quartermaster-General Brigadier General Montgomery Cunningham Meigs.
The two branches rendezvoused at Hampton Roads but bad weather delayed their departure for another week, during which time Du Pont and Sherman agreed on the final arrangements. Among the issues to be settled was the definite target. Until this time, the decision of whether to strike at Bull’s Bay or Port Royal had not been finalised. Only after he was sure that the latter location would meet the future needs of the fleet, and that Bull’s Bay was suitable, did Du Pont finally commit the expedition to the attack on Port Royal. In an effort to maintain secrecy, Du Pont had not told anyone other than his immediate staff the destination. He gave each ship’s captain a sealed envelope, to be opened only at sea. Efforts at secrecy notwithstanding, almost everything about the expedition except for its target was made known to the entire world, including the Confederacy on the day of its departure. The Confederate government issued orders for commanders at all coastal fortifications and defences to be alert to an impending attack.
The Union fleet of 17 warships and all of the army transports put out to sea from Fortress Monroe and Hampton Roads. The fully combined fleet of 74 (or 77) vessels was the largest assembly of ships that had ever sailed under the American flag.

Texas. USS Santee, Captain Henry Eagle, captured the brig Delta off Galveston.

Virginia. A boat expedition from USS Louisiana led by Lieutenant Alfred Hopkins surprised and burned three Confederate vessels at Chincoteague Inlet.

Union Organisation

USA: Thomas Leonidas Crittenden promoted Brigadier-General USV 27 October 1861 to rank from 27 September 1861.

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 Florida: Harvey Brown

Department of New England: Benjamin Franklin Butler

Department of New York: Edward Denison Morgan

Department of the Ohio: Ormsby McKnight Mitchel

District of Grafton: Benjamin Franklin Kelley

Department of the Pacific: George Wright

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 Georgia: Alexander Robert Lawton

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
Defences of Pass Cavallo: John W Glenn

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

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
William Henry Carroll
Daniel Marsh Frost