October 7 1861 Sunday
CSA. The Confederates appointed seven new Major-Generals to make a total of twelve in post. They were needed to command the new divisions being formed by the accumulation of troops at various key points.
William Joseph Hardee was in Arkansas but was being transferred to the main army in Kentucky, Theophilus Hunter Holmes was guarding the North Carolina coasts, Thomas Jonathan Jackson was in the Shenandoah Valley, James Longstreet was with the Army of the Potomac in northern Virginia (which already had two Major-Generals – Gustavus Woodson Smith and Earl Van Dorn), Benjamin Huger was at Norfolk, Virginia, Mansfield Lovell was at New Orleans, Louisiana, and John Bankhead Magruder was on the Yorktown peninsula in Virginia. Mansfield Lovell was promoted directly to this grade like three of those already in post. The other six were the first Confederate promotions from Brigadier-General to Major-General. All were to play important roles in future fighting but with varied success, and their order of seniority would pose some knotty problems. Four of the new seven later became Lieutenant-Generals. One of the preceding Major-Generals became a General, and one other became a General. That leaves six of the original twelve Major-Generals who did not advance beyond this grade.
Florida. John Milton succeeded Madison S Perry as Governor of Florida.
Indian Territory. The Confederates concluded a Peace Treaty with the Cherokee Indian Nation.
Kentucky. USS Tyler and USS Lexington exchanged fire with Confederate batteries at Iron Bluffs, near Columbus during their reconnaissance from Cairo, Illinois, to Lucas Bend, Missouri.
Louisiana. The Confederates appointed Major-General Mansfield Lovell to replace Major-General David Emanuel Twiggs, who was elderly and failing in health, to command Department No 1 in Louisiana. Lovell instigated energetic plans to protect New Orleans with improved fortifications on the Mississippi River and with a flotilla of gunboats,
Missouri. Reconnaissance to Lucas Bend. Union Brigadier-General Ulysses Simpson Grant travelled from Cairo, Illinois, to Lucas Bend with the USS Lexington and the USS Tyler to determine the prospects of an offensive movement down the Mississippi.
Missouri. Union Major-General John Charles Frémont left St Louis with bold ambitions to avenge the defeat at Lexington, clear the Confederates from the state, and to carry the war onwards into Arkansas and Louisiana. In a bombastic proclamation, he declared that his ultimate objective was New Orleans. His combined force eventually numbered more than 20,000 men concentrated from the dispersed garrisons of his Department’s total of 38,000 men. His accompanying cavalry force numbered 5,000 mounted troops, including Major Frank J White’s Prairie Scouts and Frémont’s Body Guards and Irish Dragoons under Major Charles Zagonyi. Major White became ill and turned his command over to Zagonyi. These two units operated ahead of Frémont’s army to gather intelligence and they rapidly encountered stiff opposition from Confederate forces.
Missouri. US President Abraham Lincoln sent the Secretary of War Simon Cameron to deliver a letter to Brigadier-Samuel Ryan Curtis, who was under Major-General John Charles Frémont’s command. Curtis was asked to assess whether Frémont should be relieved of command after Lincoln received numerous reports of inadequacies and controversies in the Western Department.
New Mexico Territory. Operation at Camp Robledo ended.
Virginia. USS Louisiana, Lieutenant A Murray, captured the schooner S T Garrison, with a cargo of wood, near Wallops Island.
Virginia. The appointment of new Major-Generals allowed the organisation of the Confederate Army of the Potomac to continue with the permanent allocation of division commands. At this period, the four divisions of the army were assigned to Major-General Earl Van Dorn and Major-General Gustavus Woodson Smith (effectively acting as wing or corps commanders, also), Major-General James Longstreet, and Major-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson (in semi-independent command in the Shenandoah Valley).
Van Dorn had three brigades under Brigadier-General Milledge Lake Bonham, Brigadier-John General Juba;l Anderson Early, and Colonel Robert Emmett Rodes. Smith had the brigades of Brigadier-General Samuel Jones, Brigadier-General Robert Augustus Toombs, and Colonel Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox. Longstreet had three brigades under Brigadier-General David Rumph Jones, Brigadier-General Richard Stoddert Ewell, and Brigadier-General Philip St George Cocke. Jackson had the brigades of Colonel Richard Brooke Garnett, Brigadier-General Arnold Elzey, Brigadier-General George Bibb Crittenden, and Colonel William Henry Talbot Walker. The colonels were all soon promoted to the appropriate grade. Walker soon resigned, and Crittenden was later transferred to eastern Kentucky.
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: Robert Anderson interim William Tecumseh Sherman awaited
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
- District of Oregon: Benjamin Lloyd Beall
- District of Southern California: George Wright
Department of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan
- 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
- Western Army: John Charles Frémont
Department of Western Virginia: William Starke Rosecrans awaited
Confederate Organisation
CSA: The Department of West Florida was discontinued and incorporated in the Department of Alabama and West Florida.
CSA: The Forces in Pensacola was discontinued and its field forces incorporated into the Department of Alabama and West Florida.
CSA: The Department of Alabama and West Florida was established (and formally recognised on 14 October 1861), comprising the area of the former Forces in Pensacola, and extended to include the Gulf Coast of Alabama and the panhandle area of Florida.
CSA: Major-General Braxton Bragg was appointed to command the Department of Alabama and West Florida, arriving on 14 October 1861.
CSA: Major-General Mansfield Lovell was appointed to command Department No 1, arriving on 18 October 1861, to succeed Major-General David Emanuel Twiggs.
CSA: Mansfield Lovell promoted Major-General PACS 7 October 1861.
CSA: Theophilus Hunter Holmes promoted Major-General PACS 7 October 1861.
CSA: William Joseph Hardee promoted Major-General PACS 7 October 1861.
CSA: Benjamin Huger promoted Major-General PACS 7 October 1861.
CSA: James Longstreet promoted Major-General PACS 7 October 1861.
CSA: John Bankhead Magruder promoted Major-General PACS 7 October 1861.
CSA: Thomas Jonathan Jackson promoted Major-General PACS 7 October 1861.
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: David Emanuel Twiggs interim Mansfield Lovell awaited
- District of Alabama: Jones Mitchell Withers
Department of Alabama and West Florida: Braxton Bragg
Department of Fredericksburg: Daniel Harvey Hill
- District of Aquia: vacant
Department of Middle and Eastern Florida: John Breckinridge Grayson
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 the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder
- Army of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder
Department of the Potomac: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- Army of the Potomac: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- I Corps Potomac: Earl Van Dorn
- II Corps Potomac: Gustavus Woodson Smith
- Army of the Valley: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
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
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
David Emanuel Twiggs
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
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
Edmund Kirby Smith
John Clifford Pemberton
Henry Hopkins Sibley
John Henry Winder
Richard Caswell Gatlin
Daniel Smith Donelson
Samuel Read Anderson
Gideon Johnson Pillow
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
John Breckinridge Grayson
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
American Civil War High Command 