September 13 1861 Thursday
Booneville, MO
Cheat Mountain Campaign, West Virginia
Siege of Lexington
Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Rosecrans’ West Virginia Campaign
Canada. USS Susquehanna captured the blockade-running British schooner Argonaut. with a cargo of fish, bound from Nova Scotia for Key West, Florida.
Alabama. A boat expedition led by Lieutenant J H Russell USN from the USS Colorado destroyed the Confederate privateer Judah in Pensacola harbour. The Union reported three men killed and 15 wounded.
Mississippi. The lighthouse at Chandeleur Island, marking a major anchorage for maritime operations around the Gulf of Mexico, was captured by the USS Massachusetts and restored to operation.
Missouri. Siege of Lexington began.
Booneville, Missouri, also known as Boonville. Union Colonel James A Mulligan commanded the entrenched Union garrison of about 2,800 men and a further 700 Home Guards at Lexington. Six companies of the 13th Missouri Infantry, supported by two companies of the 1st Illinois Cavalry opposed State Major-General Sterling Price’s advance elements among the tombstones in Machpelah Cemetery south of town. They hoped to buy time for the rest of Mulligan’s men to complete their defensive preparations at the Masonic College. Price had intended to overwhelm the Union garrison in one quick rush, but the stubborn defence of the cemetery caused his troops to exhaust much of their ammunition. This development combined with the redoubtable nature of the Union fortifications to render any further assault impractical.
Price’s artillery commenced shelling the defenders. Colonel William Brown of the Missouri State Guard led 800 men in an attack on 140 pro-Union Booneville Home Guardsmen while the Union soldiers were eating breakfast. Due to the rain, the Confederates wrapped their flags in black sheathing, which the Home Guard mistook as a sign of no quarter. Spurred on by their fear of massacre if captured, the Home Guardsmen managed to defeat the State Guard troops, killing Colonel Brown in the process. Price completed the isolation of the garrison and decided to await his ammunition wagons, other supplies, and reinforcements before assaulting the fortifications. He ordered his infantry to fall back to the county fairgrounds. The Union reported one man killed and four wounded, and a Confederate loss of 12 killed and 30 wounded.
Virginia. Incident at Gauley Bridge.
Virginia. At 3 am, Union Brigadier-General Joseph Jones Reynolds sent the 13th Indiana Infantry, 3rd Ohio Infantry, and 2nd West Virginia Infantry as reinforcements for Brigadier-General Kimball at Cheat Mountain.
Virginia. CSS Patrick Henry exchanged long-range fire with the USS Savannah and USS Louisiana off Newport News. The shots on both sides fell short.
Union Organisation
USA: Colonel Benjamin Lloyd Beall (1st US Cavalry) assumed temporary command of the District of Oregon, succeeding Colonel George Wright.
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: Benjamin Lloyd Beall
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
- District of Alabama: Jones Mitchell Withers
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
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
American Civil War High Command 