1861 September 24th

September 24 1861 Monday

Mechanicsville Gap, VA
Canada Alamosa, NMT

Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Cheat Mountain Campaign, West Virginia

Louisiana. USS Dart captured the Confederate schooner Cecelia off the coast. The captured ship was later fitted out and renamed as the Union cruiser USS Huntsville.

Maryland. Union Colonel John White Geary’s 28th Pennsylvania Infantry engaged in a skirmish at Point of Rocks.

Missouri. Stung by criticism of his lacklustre performance, Union Major-General John Charles Frémont concentrated his forces to begin a more energetic campaign and named his field command the Western Army.

Canada Alamosa, New Mexico Territory. The US Mounted Rifles launched a reconnaissance mission from Fort Craig to scout the approach of Confederate forces up the Rio Grande. The unit included Captain John H Mink’s Independent New Mexico Militia Cavalry Company. Minks stopped at San Ygnacio de la Alamosa (or La Alamosa) on the south side of Arroyo Alamosa, about thirty five miles south of Fort Craig. Mink ordered his one hundred or so men to build a camp next to the village, including a corral and breastworks. Before the defences were finished, at about 5 pm, Minks heard that mounted Confederates had been seen south of the camp. A six-man cavalry troop with a Mexican scout was dispatched and they returned to say they were Union deserters or stragglers who had evaded capture. Later that night, another sighting of armed men was reported and Minks put his troops on alert. About this time a few horses escaped from the corral; thirty men were caught up in the pursuit and most of them deserted into the desert, crossing the Rio Grande to the east bank, and heading for Paraje where another independent company of New Mexican cavalry guarded the approach along the Jornada del Muerto. The Union camp was then attacked by twelve to fifteen Confederate troops from Mesilla, commanded by Captain Bethel Coopwood. The surprise night attack was repulsed. Minks and some men scouted the town on foot, leaving the main body at the camp. On their return, they found even more Union troops had deserted. A [party was sent to bring back the deserters while Minks attacked the town with a plan to set fire to the perimeter houses which provided cover for the Confederates. The Confederate force numbered 112 men in the houses. The advance was stopped by musket fire and after ten minutes the Union force retreated back toward the camp. By this time, the Confederates had taken a hill next to the road which led to Fort Craig. Fighting continued for a long while, at almost daybreak. Captain John Minks had found his force reduced to just ten men.

Mechanicsville Gap, Virginia. The Union 4th Ohio Infantry and 8th Ohio Infantry advanced from New Creek towards Romney. They forced Mechanicsville Gap near Romney, reporting 3 killed and 10 wounded, and a Confederate loss of 15 killed and 30 wounded.

Virginia. James Ewell Brown Stuart was promoted to Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army. This was the first appointment for a Confederate officer to a General officer grade specifically to command a cavalry brigade. This reflected both his proven ability and the fact that sufficient cavalry was being formed, equipped, and trained to justify the creation of a brigade.

Virginia. Professor Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe was called upon to test whether his aeronautical balloons might influence the use of artillery. He was directed to position himself at Fort Corcoran, south of Washington, where he would ascend and overlook the Confederate encampments at Falls Church further south. Lowe was to give flag signal directions to a Union artillery battery located at Camp Advance. The gunners would fire blindly on Falls Church but each flag signal would indicate adjustments to the left, to the right, long or short. Simultaneously reports were telegraphed down to headquarters at the fort. With only a few corrections, the battery was soon landing its rounds on the target. This was a precursor to the use of forward observers for indirect artillery fire. The next day, Lowe received orders to build four balloons with innovative hydrogen gas generators that could inflate the aerostats in the field. Lowe went to work at his Philadelphia facility. He was given funding to order Indian silk and cotton cording for their construction and to develop a secret recipe for a varnish that would render the balloon envelopes leakproof.

Union Organisation

USA: The Western Army was established in the Western Department.
USA: Major-General John Charles Frémont assumed command of the Western Army.

USA: Brigadier-General Robert Anderson arrived to command the Department of the Cumberland.

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

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
Western Army: John Charles Frémont

Department of Western Virginia: William Starke Rosecrans awaited

Confederate Organisation

CSA: Brigadier-General Joseph Reid Anderson arrived to command the Defences of North Carolina, succeeding Brigadier-General Theophilus Hunter Holmes.

CSA: James Ewell Brown Stuart was promoted Brigadier-General PACS 24 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: Joseph Reid Anderson

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
James Ewell Brown Stuart