1861 September 11th

September 11 1861 Tuesday

Lewinsville, VA

Cheat Mountain Campaign, West Virginia
Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Rosecrans’ West Virginia Campaign

Kentucky. The Kentucky House of Representatives adopted a resolution, by a vote of 71 to 26, directing Governor Beriah Magoffin to issue a proclamation ordering Confederate troops to evacuate Kentucky soil. The governor vetoed the resolution, which was nevertheless passed over his veto. The governor then issued the required Proclamation.

Missouri. Incident at Lexington.

Missouri. US President Abraham Lincoln revoked Major-General John Charles Frémont’s unauthorised military proclamation of emancipation in Missouri. Frémont had come under increasing pressure for decisive action, as the Confederates controlled half of Missouri and guerrillas were causing havoc by cutting railroads and telegraph lines, burning bridges, raiding farms, and attacking Union forces. Confederate sympathies in the stronger slave-holding counties needed to be reduced or suppressed. Thousands of Union loyalists had taken refuge in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas. Frémont came under the influence of radical abolitionists in his camp and of his wife Jessie to free the slaves of those Confederates who were causing trouble in loyal Union counties. Frémont was persuaded that the Confederates were in rebellion and so no longer protected by the Constitution; it was, therefore, deemed legal to confiscate rebel property, including their slaves.
On 30 August 1861, Frémont, without notifying President Lincoln, issued a controversial proclamation putting Missouri under martial law. The edict stipulated that civilians in arms would be subject to court-martial and execution, the property of those who aided secessionists would be confiscated, and the slaves of rebels would be emancipated. Lincoln, fearing that Frémont’s emancipation order would push Missouri and other slave-holding states (such as Kentucky and Maryland) towards the Confederate cause, asked Frémont to revise the order. Frémont refused to do so and sent his wife to plead the case. Lincoln responded by publicly revoking the proclamation. Frémont’s wife Jessie Benton Frémont pleaded his cause in Washington, DC, but caused more harm than good to her husband’s case during an antagonistic interview with the President.
Meanwhile, Lincoln sent Postmaster-General Montgomery Blair, Brigadier-General Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, and Major-General David Hunter to act as advisers to Frémont, whose administration and military command were accused of widespread corruption, incompetence, and inefficiency. Lincoln would finally relieve Frémont of command on 2 November 1861, after a War Department report detailed Frémont’s inadequacies as a military commander and his extreme political interference.

Missouri. The 13^th Missouri Infantry, Van Horn’s Battalion of the US Reserve Corps, and the 27^th Missouri Mounted Infantry arrived at Lexington to strengthen the Union garrison of the 23^rd Illinois Infantry, after having previously evacuated Warrensburg in the face of Confederate Major-General Sterling Price’s relentless advance. Union Colonel James A Mulligan now commanded a garrison of 3,500 men. He constructed extensive fortifications at College Hill around the town’s Masonic College, cutting down trees to make lines of fire and erecting earthworks around the dormitory and classroom buildings. The Union pickets were driven in before nightfall and two 6-pounder guns were placed by the Confederates to command the covered bridge which gave access into the town. Further Union reinforcements were sent under Major Samuel Davis Sturgis (4th US Cavalry), and Mulligan hoped to hold his enlarged position with their help. Sturgis’ men were ambushed by pro-Confederate forces, who were alerted by a secessionist telegraph-tapper, and compelled to retreat. Price arrived outside Lexington later in the day but did not make an immediate assault.

Texas. USS South Carolina, Commander James Alden, captured the ship Soledeid Cos with a cargo of coffee off Galveston.

Virginia. Operation at Cheat Mountain began.

Virginia. Confederate Brigadier-General William Wing Loring’s advancing force encountered Union forces near Cheat Mountain around Conrad’s Mill. Skirmishes also occurred at Cheat Summit, Cheat Mountain Pass, Gauley Bridge, Elkwater, and Point Mountain Turnpike.

Lewinsville, Virginia. Reconnaissance to Lewinsville from the Chain Bridge at Washington, DC, ended. A skirmish at Lewinsville resulted in a Union loss of 6 killed and 10 wounded. Confederate Colonel James Ewell Brown Stuart’s 1st Virginia Cavalry was engaged with men from Union Brigadier’s General William Farrar Smith’s brigade, including the 79th New York Infantry, who had only recently had their colours restored after a mutiny.

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: Silas Horton Stringham
Gulf Blockading Squadron: William Mervine
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 awaited

Department of the East: Vacant

Department of Florida: Harvey Brown

Department of the Ohio: William Starke Rosecrans

Cheat Mountain District: Joseph Jones Reynolds
District of Grafton: Benjamin Franklin Kelley
Army of Occupation: William Starke Rosecrans

Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner

District of Oregon: 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

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

Military Adviser to the President: Robert Edward Lee

Department No 1: David Emanuel Twiggs

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

Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes interim Joseph Reid Anderson awaited

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
Army of the Valley: Thomas Jonathan Jackson

Department of South Carolina: Roswell Sabine Ripley

Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring

Department of Texas: Henry Eustace McCullough temporary Paul Octave Hébert awaited

Defences of Galveston: John Creed Moore

Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg

“Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg

Western Department: Albert Sidney Johnston

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

Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton

Forces in Richmond: Charles Dimmock

Army of the Kanawha: John Buchanan Floyd

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

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

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

Brigadier-General ACSA

Braxton Bragg

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
Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Henry Alexander Wise
Earl Van Dorn
William Joseph Hardee
Richard Stoddert Ewell
David Rumph Jones
Benjamin Huger
John Bankhead Magruder
James Longstreet
Edmund Kirby Smith
John Clifford Pemberton
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
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