1862 January 10th

January 10 1862 Friday

Battle of Middle Creek, KY (CWSAC Formative Battle Union Victory)

East Kentucky Operations
Jackson’s Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Raid

USA. The US Senate expelled Senators Waldo P Johnson and Trusten Polk, of Missouri, for expresing pro-Confederate sentiments.

California. Amasa L Stanford became Governor of California, succeeding John G Downey.

District of Columbia. Union Brigadier-General Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (Quartermaster-General of the US Army) proposed a military conference of the Army of the Potomac, to make plans in response to the illness of Major-General George Brinton McClellan with typhoid. McClellan’s illness was anticipated to be lengthy and Meigs wanted to ensure that contingency plans were in place. President Abraham Lincoln met Major-General Irvin McDowell, Major-General William Buel Franklin, and several cabinet ministers, to sound out their views regarding McClellan’s strategic plans. McDowell favoured advancing by the overland route via Manassas while Franklin supported McClellan’s plans for an amphibious operation.

Illinois. During the evening, USS Essex and the USS St Louis moved off in heavy fog from the ferry landings at Cairo to escort troop transports carrying Brigadier-General John Alexander McClernand’s brigade. Their path was blocked for part of the night by a steamer that had run aground north of Cairo, and a diversion by Commander William Porter USN to investigate two suspicious boats moored on the riverside. Captain Andrew Hull Foote’s gunboats convoyed the troops a short distance down the Mississippi before returning up the Tennessee River as a diversionary move to distract the Confederates from building up their strength at Fort Henry.

Middle Creek, Kentucky, also known as Prestonburg or Big Sandy River. Heading out at 4 am Union Colonel James Abram Garfield marched a mile south to the mouth of Middle Creek and fought off some Confederate cavalry. He then turned west to attack Confederate Brigadier-General Humphrey Marshall’s command at Middle Creek. Garfield commanded 18^th Brigade of the Department of the Ohio, with approximately 1,500 men.
Marshall was moving south to the Forks of Middle Creek to avoid encirclement and to guard his supply line back to western Virginia. The Middle Creek valley provided excellent defensive positions for the poorly armed and equipped Confederates. On his right wing, along the ridge overlooking the creek, Marshall placed the 29^th Virginia Infantry and the 5^th Kentucky Infantry. He posted Jeffress’ Nottoway Virginia battery in the centre to command the plain. The 54^th Virginia Infantry was stationed on the hill behind the battery in reserve. He stationed his two best cavalry companies, commanded by Captain Clay and Captain Thomas, dismounted on a low ridge running to his left. Four more cavalry companies were held in reserve on his immediate right.
At about 1 pm Garfield’s skirmishers encountered Marshall’s pickets about a half-mile upstream from the mouth of Middle Creek. Unsure of Marshall’s position, Garfield ordered a squad of twenty cavalrymen to dash into the valley to draw fire. The Confederate volley revealed the concealed Confederate positions and Garfield ordered his troops forward. After ascending Graveyard Point, which provided him with an excellent view of the Confederate position, Garfield ordered the 40^th Ohio Infantry and 42^nd Ohio Infantry to cross the swollen creek and attack the Confederate line on the hills bordering the south side of the creek. With his Ohio regiments drawing heavy fire, he then ordered the 14^th Kentucky Infantry and the 22^nd Kentucky Infantry to assault the Confederate position on his immediate left, which was held by Colonel John Stuart Williams and the 5^th Kentucky. Since they wore sky-blue jackets, the men of the 14^th Kentucky were initially mistaken for Confederates by their Ohio comrades but a loud “Hurrah for the Union” which the Confederates promptly answered with a “Hurrah for Jeff Davis” saved the Kentuckians from heavy casualties. A piecemeal Union attack slowly forced the Confederates up the steep hill.
At 5 pm, with the sun sinking below the horizon, the fighting petered out. Marshall feared that his men would desert if they remained in their present position. He decided to burn his heavier wagons and retreat southward, using the left fork of the creek as his escape route. He knew that food for his men and forage for his horses could be obtained at the Joseph Gearhart Farm. Garfield chose to remain on the field and then withdrew to Prestonsburg. (CWSAC Formative Battle Union Victory)

ORDER OF BATTLE: MIDDLE CREEK, KY

Department of the Ohio: Major-General Don Carlos Buell
Army of the Ohio: Don Carlos Buell
18^th Brigade (Ohio): Colonel James Abram Garfield

Confederate Western Department: General Albert Sidney Johnston
Army of Eastern Kentucky: Brigadier-General Humphrey Marshall
Marshall’s Brigade (Eastern Kentucky): Brigadier-General Humphrey Marshall

Missouri. Expedition to Bird’s Point.

Missouri. The Confederate Department No 2 (Western Department) was subdivided to create a new Trans-Mississippi District. The new district combined disparate field forces with its largest field force made up of the Missouri State Guard under Major-General Sterling Price and the Arkansas forces of Brigadier-General Benjamin McCulloch. These two officers had remained uncooperative and resentful towards one another, so a solution to the problem was proposed by the commander, General Albert Sidney Johnston. He requested and was granted the assignment of an experienced senior officer to take authority over both the fractious local leaders. The respected Major-General Earl Van Dorn was summoned from Virginia to take control of most of the Trans-Mississippi District and the region west of the Mississippi.

New Mexico Territory. Confederate Brigadier-General Henry Hopkins Sibley occupied the evacuated Fort Thorn with four mounted regiments. He spent a month preparing the next stage of his expedition towards Fort Craig.

North Carolina. Union Captain Louis Malesherbes Goldsborough USN ordered USS Henry Brinker to Hatteras Inlet to join the naval force preparing to attack Roanoke island.

South Carolina. Confederate Major-General John Clifford Pemberton reported from South Carolina on the effectiveness of the Union gunboats at Port Royal Ferry and on the Coosaw River. He noted that the Union flotilla could have landed troops in force at Page’s Point or Cunningham’s Bluff under cover of the gunboats and warned that armoured gunboats posed an unprecedented threat along all the great rivers of the west. Pemberton was promoted on this date to provide the Department commander, General Robert Edward Lee, with a ranking deputy in the region.

Virginia. Confederate Major-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson occupied Romney after its evacuation by Union troops. This was an important location on the lines of communications between Union forces in western Virginia and in the Shenandoah and Potomac valleys. He assigned the mission of holding Romney to Brigadier-General William Wing Loring and his three brigades of the Army of the Northwest while he returned to Winchester about thirty miles away with his main body. His winter campaign had failed to capture the garrisons of Bath and Romney but he did manage to gather supplies and damaged the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the canal near Bath.

Virginia. In the Confederate Army of the Potomac, Major-General James Longstreet succeeded to command I Corps after the assignment of Major-General Earl Van Dorn to the western theatre. Longstreet commanded six brigades under Colonel Ambrose Powell Hill (formerly Longstreet’s own brigade), Colonel George Edward Pickett (formerly Brigadier-General Philip St George Cocke’s brigade), Brigadier-General Richard Heron Anderson (formerly Brigadier-General David Rumph Jones’s brigade), Brigadier-General Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox (transferred from Major-General Gustavus Woodson Smith’s division), Brigadier-General Raleigh Edward Colston (transferred from Major-General Benjamin Huger’s division) and Colonel Roger Atkinson Pryor brought up from Major-General John Bankhead Magruder’s Army of the Peninsula.

Union Organisation

USA: Major Lewis Golding Arnold (1st US Artillery) assumed command of the Department of Florida, succeeding Colonel Harvey Brown.

Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles

North Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Louis Malesherbes Goldsborough
South Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Samuel Francis Du Pont
Gulf Blockading Squadron: William McKean
Pacific Squadron: Charles H Bell
Western Gunboat Flotilla: Andrew Hull Foote
Potomac Flotilla: Robert Harris Wyman

General–in-Chief: George Brinton McClellan

Department of Florida: Lewis Golding Arnold

Department of Kansas: David Hunter

Department of the Missouri: Henry Wager Halleck

District of Cairo: Ulysses Simpson Grant
District of St Louis: John McAllister Schofield
District of Central Missouri: John Pope
- Army of Western Missouri: John Pope
District of North Missouri: John McAllister Schofield
District of Southeast Missouri: Ulysses Simpson Grant
District of Southwest Missouri: Samuel Ryan Curtis
- Army of the Southwest: Samuel Ryan Curtis
District of Western Kentucky: Horatio Gouverneur Wright

Department of New England: Benjamin Franklin Butler

Department of New Mexico: Edward Richard Sprigg Canby

Southern District of New Mexico: Benjamin Stone Roberts

Department of New York: Edward Denison Morgan

Department of North Carolina: Ambrose Everett Burnside awaited

Department of the Ohio: Don Carlos Buell

Army of the Ohio: Don Carlos Buell

Department of the Pacific: George Wright

District of the Humboldt: Francis James Lippitt
District of Oregon: Albemarle Cady
District of Southern California: James Henry Carleton

Department of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan

District of Harper’s Ferry and Cumberland: Frederick West Lander
Army of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan

Department of Texas: Vacant

Department of Virginia: John Ellis Wool

Department of Western Virginia: William Starke Rosecrans

District of the Kanawha: Jacob Dolson Cox
Cheat Mountain District: Robert Huston Milroy
Railroad District: Benjamin Franklin Kelley

Confederate Organisation

CSA: The District of Upper Arkansas was discontinued and its area transferred from the Western Department to the new Trans-Mississippi District.
CSA: The Trans-Mississippi District was established in the Western Department, comprising Louisiana north of the Red River, the Indian Territory and the states of Arkansas and Missouri, except for the area east of St Francis County to Scott County in Missouri.
CSA: Major-General Earl Van Dorn was appointed to command the Trans-Mississippi District, arriving on 29 January 1862.

CSA: Major-General James Longstreet assumed command of I Corps (Potomac), succeeding Major-General Earl Van Dorn who was transferred to command the Trans-Mississippi District.

CSA: John Clifford Pemberton promoted Major-General PACS 10 January 1862 to rank from 15 January 1862.

CSA: John King Jackson promoted Brigadier-General PACS 10 January 1862 to rank from 14 January 1862.

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: Vacant

Department No 1: Mansfield Lovell

Department of Alabama and West Florida: Braxton Bragg

District of Alabama: Jones Mitchell Withers
Army of Pensacola Braxton Bragg

Department of Henrico: John Henry Winder

Department of the Indian Territory: Albert Pike

Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger

District of Albemarle: Henry Alexander Wise awaited

Department of North Carolina: Richard Caswell Gatlin

District of Cape Fear: Joseph Reid Anderson
District of Pamlico: Lawrence O’Bryan Branch

Department of Northern Virginia: Joseph Eggleston Johnston

District of Aquia: Robert Augustus Toombs
District of the Potomac: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Army of the Potomac: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- I Corps Potomac: James Longstreet
- II Corps Potomac: Gustavus Woodson Smith
Valley District: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
- Army of the Valley: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Army of the Northwest: William Wing Loring

Department of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

Army of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

Department of South Carolina, Georgia and East Florida: Robert Edward Lee

District of Middle and East Florida: William Montgomery Gardner
District of Georgia: Alexander Robert Lawton
District of South Carolina: Roswell Sabine Ripley
- 1^st Sub-District of South Carolina: Arthur Middleton Manigault.
- 2^nd Sub-District of South Carolina: Roswell Sabine Ripley
- 3^rd Sub-District of South Carolina: Nathan George Evans
- 4^th Sub-District of South Carolina: John Clifford Pemberton
- 5^th Sub-District of South Carolina: Thomas Fenwick Drayton

Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring

Department of Texas: Paul Octave Hébert

Western District of Texas: Henry Eustace McCullough
District of Galveston: Ebenezer B Nichols
District of Houston: John Creed Moore
Defences of Pass Cavallo: John W Glenn

Western Department: Albert Sidney Johnston

First Geographical Division: Leonidas Polk
Trans-Mississippi District: Earl Van Dorn awaited
District of East Tennessee: George Bibb Crittenden
Army of Central Kentucky: William Joseph Hardee
Army of Eastern Kentucky: Humphrey Marshall
Western Army: Benjamin McCulloch

District of Arizona: Henry Hopkins Sibley

Army of New Mexico: Henry Hopkins Sibley

Forces in Richmond: Charles Dimmock

Union Generals

Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission

Major-General USA

George Brinton McClellan
John Charles Frémont
Henry Wager Halleck

Major-General USV

John Adams Dix
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Benjamin Franklin Butler
David Hunter
Edwin Denison Morgan

Brigadier-General USA

John Ellis Wool
William Selby Harney
Edwin Vose Sumner
Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Irvin McDowell
Robert Anderson
William Starke Rosecrans
Philip St George Cooke

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
Thomas Leonidas Crittenden
George Wright
Isaac Ingalls Stevens
Thomas Williams
George Sykes
William Henry French
William Thomas Harbaugh Brooks
John Milton Brannan
William Wallace Burns
John Porter Hatch
David Sloane Stanley
William Kerley Strong
Albin Francisco Schoepf
Lovell Harrison Rousseau
James Scott Negley
Thomas John Wood
Richard W Johnson
Adolph Wilhelm August Friedrich Von Steinwehr
Joseph Bennett Plummer
John Gray Foster
George Washington Cullum
Jeremiah Tilford Boyle
Christopher Columbus Augur
Schuyler Hamilton
Jesse Lee Reno
George Washington Morgan
Julius Stahel
John McAllister Schofield
Thomas Jefferson McKean
John Grubb Parke
Zealous Bates Tower
Jefferson Columbus Davis
James Henry Lane
John McAuley Palmer
William High Keim

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

Leonidas Polk
Braxton Bragg
Earl Van Dorn
Gustavus Woodson Smith
Theophilus Hunter Holmes
William Joseph Hardee
Benjamin Huger
James Longstreet
John Bankhead Magruder
Mansfield Lovell
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Edmund Kirby Smith
George Bibb Crittenden
John Clifford Pemberton

Brigadier-General PACS

Alexander Robert Lawton
Milledge Lake Bonham
Benjamin McCulloch
William Wing Loring
Charles Clark
John Buchanan Floyd
Henry Alexander Wise
Richard Stoddert Ewell
David Rumph Jones
Henry Hopkins Sibley
John Henry Winder
Richard Caswell Gatlin
Daniel Smith Donelson
Samuel Read Anderson
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
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
Lafayette McLaws
Thomas Fenwick Drayton
Thomas Carmichael Hindman
Adley Hogan Gladden
John Porter McCown
Lloyd Tilghman
Nathan George Evans
Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox
Robert Emmett Rodes
Richard Taylor
Louis Trezevant Wigfall
James Heyward Trapier
Samuel Gibbs French
William Henry Carroll
Hugh Weedon Mercer
Humphrey Marshall
John Cabell Breckinridge
Richard Griffith
Alexander Peter Stewart
William Montgomery Gardner
Richard Brooke Garnett
William Mahone
Lawrence O’Bryan Branch
Edward Johnson
Maxcy Gregg
Raleigh Edward Colston
Henry Heth
Johnson Kelly Duncan
Sterling Alexander Martin Wood
John George Walker
John King Jackson
Daniel Marsh Frost