1861 September 23rd

September 23 1861 Sunday

Osceola, MO

Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Cheat Mountain Campaign, West Virginia

USA. The US Senate confirmed a large number of new Brigadier-Generals in the US Volunteers to command the increasing number of brigades entering service. Between 23 September and 1 October 1861, the following men received their confirmed commissions: Winfield Scott Hancock, John Gross Barnard, Randolph Barnes Marcy, John Newton, Innis Newton Palmer, Stewart Van Vliet, Seth Williams, Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, William Henry French, David Sloane Stanley, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, George Sykes, John Milton Brannan, William Thomas Harbaugh Brooks, William Wallace Burns, John Porter Hatch, William Kerley Strong, Thomas Williams, George Wright, Albin Francisco Schoepf, James Scott Negley, and Lovell Harrison Rousseau. Ten of these were subsequently promoted to Major-General.

Kentucky. Troops from Confederate Brigadier-General Felix Kirk Zollifcoffer’s command encountered Union cavalry scouts at Fort Albany.

Kentucky. USS Lexington proceeded to Owensboro to keep the Ohio River open and to protect Union interests in the area.

Osceola, Missouri. Unionist and abolitionist Jayhawkers from Kansas led by Senator James Henry Lane burned the town of Osceola. Lane’s intention was to drive out secessionist sympathisers but his operation was not authorised by US military authorities. Lane had organised 1,200 men to resist any invasion by Missouri State Guards under Major-General Sterling Price into Kansas. Lane’s brigade was composed of the 3rd Kansas Infantry, 4th Kansas Infantry, and 5th Kansas Infantry.
Lane led his mixed force against pockets of pro-Confederate resistance in northwestern Missouri. After Price defeated Lane at the Battle of Dry Wood Creek near Fort Scott, Kansas, Lane retreated. Price continued his offensive further into Missouri to Lexington rather than entering Kansas. While Price moved north, Lane launched his own counterattack into the rear of Price’s army. After crossing the Missouri border at Trading Post, Kansas on 10 September, Lane moved east to Butler, Harrisonville, Osceola, and Clinton.
At Osceola, where Lane’s forces drove off a small Southern force and then looted and burned the town. An artillery battery under Captain Thomas Moonlight shelled the St Clair County courthouse. Lane’s men also freed 200 slaves. All but three of the town’s 800 buildings burned and the town never recovered. Nine local citizens alleged to be guerrillas were arbitrarily executed. The Kansans lost one man killed and four wounded. After reports of the Jayhawkers pillaging of Osceola reached the authorities, Lane was severely criticised and his brigade was later broken up because of its absence of military discipline.

Missouri. Union Major-General John Charles Frémont closed the Evening News newspaper in St Louis, in retribution for the editor criticising his inactivity during the Siege of Lexington.

New Mexico Territory. Confederate Lieutenant-Colonel John Robert Baylor (2nd Texas Mounted Rifles) sent patrols up the Rio Grande to keep watch on the Union posts at Fort Craig and Fort Stanton near the 34th parallel, the proposed northern border of the newly proclaimed Confederate Territory of Arizona. A 112-man detachment of cavalry under Captain Bethel Coopwood followed a route north toward Fort Craig west of the Rio Grande and the wagon road along the foot of the mountains. Along the way, they noted various streams and springs their army might use. Coopwood’s Confederate troops captured nine men from the Union New Mexico Infantry after a brief skirmish due north of Fort Craig. The prisoners were questioned and revealed that 350 men garrisoned Fort Craig with no artillery. Armed with this intelligence, they retraced their steps southward.

North Carolina. USS Cambridge captured the British schooner Julia bound for Beaufort.

Virginia. Confederate troops approached Romney and encountered Union scouts at Mechanicsburg Gap and Hanging Rock Pass.

Virginia. Skirmish at Cassville.

Union Organisation

USA: Captain Louis Malesherbes Goldsborough USN assumed command of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron of the US Navy, succeeding Captain Silas Horton Stringham USN.

USA: John Gross Barnard was promoted Brigadier-General USV 24 March 1862 to rank from 23 September 1861.
USA: Innis Newton Palmer was promoted Brigadier-General USV 28 September 1861 to rank from 23 September 1861.
USA: Seth Williams was promoted Brigadier-General USV 28 September 1861 to rank from 23 September 1861.
USA: John Newton was promoted Brigadier-General USV 23 September 1861.
USA: Winfield Scott Hancock was promoted Brigadier-General USV 23 September 1861.
USA: Randolph Barnes Marcy was promoted Brigadier-General USV 23 September 1861, appointment unconfirmed.
USA: Stewart Van Vliet was promoted Brigadier-General USV 23 September 1861, appointment unconfirmed.

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 awaited

Department of the East: Vacant

Department of Florida: Harvey Brown

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 awaited

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

Department of Western Virginia: William Starke Rosecrans awaited

Confederate Organisation

CSA: Gabriel James Rains was promoted Brigadier-General PACS 23 September 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

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: Paul Octave Hébert

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
Army of Central Kentucky: Simon Bolivar Buckner
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: Robert Edward Lee

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
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

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

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
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
Simon Bolivar Buckner
Leroy Pope Walker
Albert Gallatin Blanchard
Gabriel James Rains