January 29 1862 Wednesday
Wassaw Sound, GA
Arkansas. Confederate Major-General Earl Van Dorn established his headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi District at Pocahontas. At this time, Brigadier-General Benjamin McCulloch had 8,000 men in the Boston Mountains south of Fayetteville. There were about 2,000 pro-Confederate Indians in the Indian Territory, and Major-General Sterling Price had about 10,000 men near Springfield, Missouri. Van Dorn proposed to unite these forces near Ironton, Missouri, and then to advance against St Louis.
Florida. the US storeship Supply, Commander George M Colvocoresses, captured the schooner Stephen Hart south of Sarasota, with a cargo of arms and munitions.
Wassaw Sound, Georgia. A Union squadron comprising USS Ottawa, USS Seneca, and other vessels, with 2,400 troops aboard under Brigadier-General Horatio Gouverneur Wright, conducted a strategic reconnaissance of Wassaw Sound. Telegraph lines between Fort Pulaski and Savannah were severed. Five Confederate gunboats under Commodore Josiah Tattnall were engaged while they were attempting to carry stores to Fort Pulaski. Three of Tattnall’s steamers made safe passage to the fort but the other two were prevented.
Kentucky. Operation at Greenburg began.
Mississippi. Expedition to Vicksburg began.
Missouri. Expedition to Blue Springs began as Union Captain William S Oliver (7th Missouri Infantry) launched a search for the notorious guerrilla William Clarke Quantrill.
Virginia. The increasing frustration of Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard with his role as second-in-command of the army at Manassas was resolved by assigning him to a high command in the western theatre. President Jefferson Finis Davis had been in dispute with Beauregard since the latter had criticised the President publicly for the failure to reinforce his army to capture Washington, DC, after the battle at First Bull Run. Davis believed that Beauregard had appeared to seek unreasonable credit for his part in the victory. The urgent need for an experienced General to support General Albert Sidney Johnston in Kentucky and Tennessee provided an opportunity that satisfied all concerned,
Virginia. A Union force arrived at Lee’s House near Occoquan Bridge on the Occoquan River, just south of Washington, DC. They broke up a dance attended by Confederate troops and drove them away.
Union Organisation
USA: Frederick Steele promoted Brigadier-General USV 30 January 1862 to rank from 29 January 1862.
Steele, Frederick / New York / Born 14 January 1819 Delhi, New York / Died San Mateo, California 12 January 1868
Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Edwin McMasters Stanton
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles
North Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Louis Malesherbes Goldsborough
South Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Samuel Francis Du Pont
West Gulf Blockading Squadron: David Glasgow Farragut
East 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 Key West: John Milton Brannan awaited
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
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: Joseph Rodman West temporary
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 the Potomac was discontinued.
CSA: Major-General Earl Van Dorn arrived to command the Trans-Mississippi District.
CSA: Brigadier-General Milledge Luke Bonham resigned to enter Congress.
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
- Army of Pensacola: Samuel Jones
- Army of Mobile: Jones Mitchell Withers
Department of Henrico: John Henry Winder
Department of the Indian Territory: Douglas Hancock Cooper
Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger
- District of Albemarle: Henry Alexander Wise
Department of North Carolina: Richard Caswell Gatlin
- District of Cape Fear: Joseph Reid Anderson
- District of Pamlico: Lawrence O’Bryan Branch
- District of Roanoke Island: Henry Alexander Wise
Department of Northern Virginia: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- District of Aquia: Robert Augustus Toombs
- 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: Edward Johnson temporary
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
- 1st Sub-District of South Carolina: Arthur Middleton Manigault.
- 2nd Sub-District of South Carolina: Roswell Sabine Ripley
- 3rd Sub-District of South Carolina: Nathan George Evans
- 4th Sub-District of South Carolina: John Clifford Pemberton
- 5th Sub-District of South Carolina: Thomas Fenwick Drayton
Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring
- District of Lewisburg: Henry Heth
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
- District of East Tennessee: George Bibb Crittenden
- Army of Central Kentucky: William Joseph Hardee
- Army of Eastern Kentucky: Humphrey Marshall
- Army of the West: Benjamin McCulloch interim Earl Van Dorn awaited
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
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
James Abram Garfield
Lewis Golding Arnold
Frederick Steele
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
Richard Stoddert Ewell
Brigadier-General PACS
Alexander Robert Lawton
Milledge Lake Bonham RES
Benjamin McCulloch
William Wing Loring
Charles Clark
John Buchanan Floyd
Henry Alexander Wise
David Rumph Jones
Henry Hopkins Sibley
John Henry Winder
Richard Caswell Gatlin
Daniel Smith Donelson
Samuel Read Anderson
Benjamin Franklin Cheatham
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
George Edward Pickett
James McQueen McIntosh
Bushrod Rust Johnson
Daniel Marsh Frost