September 4 1861 Tuesday
Confederate Violation of Kentucky Neutrality
Hickman, KY
Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
Rosecrans’ West Virginia Campaign
Georgia. USS Jamestown captured the Confederate schooner Colonel Long, removed her cargo, and scuttled her off the coast of Georgia.
Columbus, Kentucky. Union Brigadier-General Ulysses Simpson Grant was heading for Columbus to prevent the important river port from falling into Confederate hands but he did not expect to reach the city until 5 September 1861. Confederate Major-General Leonidas Polk arrived one day ahead of the Union forces on 4 September and thereby incurred the disapprobation of being the first of the belligerents to violate neutral soil. The move was seen as an invasion as Kentucky had already proclaimed its neutrality to both sides and raised a political storm. Over the next two months, the Confederates fortified Columbus with the labour of 10,000 slaves. They gathered 13,000 troops as a garrison for the vital transportation hub and its proposed fortifications. Positions were prepared for 140 guns at Fort De Russy to dominate the river. A chain was drawn across the river to block traffic. Columbus was soon to be nicknamed the “Gibraltar of the West”.
Kentucky. The Kentucky militia was largely pro-Confederate and had one of the largest and best-trained forces in the nation with 10,000 armed men. State Major-General Simon Bolivar Buckner had resigned in mid-July to join the Confederacy and disbanded the militia. These forces were opposed by a similar number of pro-Union Home Guards, who were being armed and hastily organised by Lieutenant William Nelson USN. They inherited the weapons and equipment of the state militia and rallied to the Union’s cause after the Confederate incursion at Columbus.
Hickman, Kentucky. CSS Jackson (a side-wheel vessel formerly known as the steamer Yankee) armed with two 32-pounder guns) assisted the Confederate batteries near Hickman. They fired on the gunboats USS Tyler and USS Lexington which were reconnoitring the Mississippi River southwards from Cairo, Illinois. The Confederates attempted to lure the Union gunboats under the guns of the Confederate riverside batteries but they withdrew upstream to safety.
Maryland. Skirmish at Great Falls involving one regiment from Union Brigadier-General George Archibald McCall’s command.
Missouri. A Confederate force entered the town of Shelbina. They engaged the local Union force commanded by Brigadier-General Stephen Augustus Hurlbut. The Union garrison of Brigadier-General Lewis Wallace and Hurlbut abandoned the town to the Confederates.
New Mexico Territory. Henry Connelly became US Governor of New Mexico Territory.
Union Organisation
USA: The Cheat River District was discontinued.
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 North Missouri: John Pope
- District of Southeast Missouri: Ulysses Simpson Grant
- Southern District of New Mexico: Benjamin Stone Roberts
Confederate Organisation
CSA: Colonel Henry Eustace McCullough (1st Texas Mounted Rifles) assumed temporary command of the Department of Texas, following the transfer of Brigadier-General Earl Van Dorn to Virginia and pending the arrival of Brigadier-General Paul Octave Hébert.
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: Leonidas Polk
- First Geographical Division: Leonidas Polk
- District of Upper Arkansas: William Joseph Hardee
- Western Army: Benjamin McCulloch
District of East Tennessee: Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton
Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch
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
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
American Civil War High Command 