March 5 1862 Wednesday
Burnside’s Expedition to North Carolina
Sibley’s Operations in New Mexico
New Madrid Campaign
CSA. In an attempt to restrict President Jefferson Finis Davis’ authority, Congress called for the appointment of a commanding General-in-Chief. This was also an effort to oust Judah Philip Benjamin as Secretary of War. Davis repudiated this proposal as a violation of his powers as President. In response, he reappointed General Robert Edward Lee as Military Adviser to President Jefferson Finis Davis. Lee was given the conduct of military operations, but only “under the direction” of the President.
Arkansas. The Union Army of the Southwest was extended for about seventy miles from Maysville to Huntsville, with its main positions along Sugar Creek. The Confederates were thought to have retired to Cove Creek in the Boston Mountains between Fayetteville and the Arkansas River. However, Confederate Major-General Earl Van Dorn had actually concentrated the commands of Brigadier-General Benjamin McCulloch, State Major-General Sterling Price, and Brigadier-General Albert Pike, and was now advancing in force toward the two Union divisions of Brigadier-General Franz Sigel at Sugar Creek. When the Confederate approach was detected, Union Brigadier-General Samuel Ryan Curtis decided to concentrate his own forces against them. at Sigel’s position.
Florida. Union Brigadier-General Horatio Gouverneur Wright’s Brigade (3rd/SC Expedition) relieved the US Marines who had captured Fernandina the previous day and established a garrison.
Florida. USS Water Witch, Lieutenant Hughes, captured the schooner William Mallory off St Andrew’s Bay.
Kentucky. Union Captain Andrew Hull Foote USN reported that the gunboat fleet could not immediately attack the Confederate defences at Island No 10, downriver from Columbus. The gunboats required repairs and maintenance after their engagements at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.
Missouri. Incident at New Madrid.
New Mexico Territory. The Confederate Army of New Mexico under Brigadier-General Henry Hopkins Sibley occupied Santa Fe. Sibley’s expectation that he would be joined by large numbers of sympathisers and recruits was badly disappointed. Nevertheless, apart from the Union garrison isolated at Fort Craig and the main Union force at Fort Union, the New Mexico Territory was in Confederate hands.
Fort Union was the rallying point for Union troops in the territory. Sibley sent 600 men to scout the route from Santa Fe towards Fort Union, beginning with Apache Canyon about twenty miles to the southeast, beyond which lay Las Vegas and Fort Union. The advance guard was to hold the mouth of the canyon against any Union advance from Fort Union while the main force prepared to advance from Santa Fe to join them.
South Carolina. Expedition to Hilton Head ended.
Tennessee. Union Brigadier-General Charles Ferguson Smith’s division started landing at Savannah. This was the advance guard of Major-General Ulysses Simpson Grant’s Army of West Tennessee. Savannah was chosen as the base of operations for the further advance of the army up the Tennessee River. Smith commanded the army’s 2nd Division. Within two weeks he would be joined by the 1st Division of Brigadier-General John Alexander McClernand, the 3rd Division of Brigadier-General Lewis Wallace, the 4th Division of Brigadier-General Stephen Augustus Hurlbut, and the 5th Division of Brigadier-General William Tecumseh Sherman. Field command of the force was to be exercised from 17 March 1862 by Grant, under the direction of Department commander Major-General Henry Wager Halleck.
Tennessee. The Confederate Army of Mississippi was established, as part of the plan to concentrate dispersed forces and reinforcements to oppose the Union incursion along the Tennessee River. The Army was built around troops in the Western Department (Department No 2) and was divided unofficially into two corps, named Grand Divisions. Major-General Leonidas Polk’s former Confederate First Geographical Division was renamed (temporarily) the First Grand Division and Major-General Braxton Bragg’s force was renamed (temporarily) the Second Grand Division. Bragg had about 10,000 men who had arrived from Pensacola and Mobile. A further 5,000 men in the three brigades of the unofficial Army of Louisiana were on their way from New Orleans under Brigadier-General Daniel Ruggles to join Bragg. Polk brought the remainder of his 22,000 men who had been holding the Mississippi River defences at Columbus, Kentucky, at Memphis, and further south along the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Defeats had reduced Polk’s numbers from a peak of about 25,000 men to about 17,000.
The withdrawal of Bragg and Ruggles exposed the Gulf coastline to Union naval landings but the risk to the primary line of defence at the Tennessee section of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad compelled this risk to be taken. The concentration of these forces raised the Army of Mississippi to be commanded by General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard to a strength of 25,000 men, when he arrived on 17 March 1862.
Tennessee. General Albert Sidney Johnston had crossed the Tennessee River and marched westward with the Army of Central Kentucky through Decatur, Alabama, in order to combine with the Army of Mississippi. The brigade of Brigadier-General John Buchanan Floyd was detached to garrison the important junction at Chattanooga while the cavalry of Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest rejoined the force after their rearguard operations around Nashville. Field command of this part of Johnston’s army was exercised by Major-General William Joseph Hardee, while Johnston supervised the theatre as Department commander.
Virginia. Skirmishes at Occoquan and Pohick Church involving Union Colonel Alexander Hays (63rd Pennsylvania Infantry).
Virginia. Skirmish at Bunker Hill involving Union Brigadier-General Alpheus Starkey Williams.
Virginia. The Union armies threatening Virginia had increased to a total of about 175,000 men, opposing about 70,000 Confederates. On the Confederate side, Major-General John Bankhead Magruder had 12,000 men entrenched on the Yorktown peninsula near Fortress Monroe and its garrison of similar strength. Major-General Benjamin Huger had 13,000 men at Norfolk faced by similar Union numbers which had landed in North Carolina under Brigadier-General Ambrose Everett Burnside. General Joseph Eggleston Johnston had the main force in the Army of the Potomac, with 37,000 men around Manassas.
On the Union side, Major-General George Brinton McClellan was preparing for offensive operations and for the secure defence of Washington, DC. The majority of his men were in the Army of the Potomac with the detachments mentioned above at Fortress Monroe.
In the Shenandoah Valley, Confederate Major-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson had 5,000 men to delay Major-General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks with his 10,000 men around Harper’s Ferry. Confederate Brigadier-General Edward Johnson led 2,800 men beyond Staunton, opposed by 12,500 men in western Virginia under Major-General John Charles Frémont. Frémont was shortly due to double his strength by the transfer of troops from McClellan’s command – Brigadier-General Louis Blenker’s 3rd Division was nominally assigned to II Corps but had been detached for action with Frémont.
Virginia. Reports received by Confederate General Joseph Eggleston Johnston of Union activity in Maryland across the Potomac from Dumfries suggested that the Union offensive was approaching its launch day. He ordered the evacuation of the lines at Manassas and Centreville towards a new position on the Rappahannock River. Discouraged by the continual and rapid spread of rumours from the capital, he did not notify the President of his decision, in order to maintain secrecy about his withdrawal.
Virginia. The Confederates completed the reconstruction and equipping of the ironclad ram CSS Virginia on the keel of the scuttled USS Merrimack, in the Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk.
Union Organisation
USA: James Gallant Spears promoted Brigadier-General USV 5 March 1862.
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 the Gulf: Benjamin Franklin Butler awaited
- Army of the Gulf: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Department of Kansas: David Hunter
Department of Key West: John Milton Brannan
Department of the Missouri: Henry Wager Halleck
- District of West Tennessee: Ulysses Simpson Grant
- Army of West Tennessee: Ulysses Simpson Grant
- District of Cairo: William Tecumseh Sherman
- District of the Mississippi: John Pope
- Army of the Mississippi: John Pope
- District of St Louis: John McAllister Schofield
- District of Central Missouri: James Totten
- District of North Missouri: John McAllister Schofield
- District of Southeast Missouri: Frederick Steele
- District of Southwest Missouri: Samuel Ryan Curtis
- Army of the Southwest: Samuel Ryan Curtis
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: James Henry Carleton
Department of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan
- District of Harper’s Ferry and Cumberland: James Shields
- Army of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan
- I Corps Potomac: Irvin McDowell
- II Corps Potomac: Edwin Vose Sumner
- III Corps Potomac: Samuel Peter Heintzelman
- IV Corps Potomac: Erasmus Darwin Keyes
- V Corps Potomac: Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
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: General Robert Edward Lee was reappointed Military Adviser to the President.
CSA: The Army of Mississippi was established in the Western Department.
CSA: General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was appointed to command the Army of Mississippi, arriving on 17 March 1862.
CSA: The First Geographical Division was discontinued. Its field forces formed part of the newly established First Grand Division of the Army of Mississippi.
CSA: The First Grand Division was established in the Army of Mississippi.
CSA: Major-General Leonidas Polk assumed command of the First Grand Division (Mississippi).
CSA: The Second Grand Division was established in the Army of Mississippi.
CSA: Major-General Braxton Bragg assumed command of the Second Grand Division (Mississippi).
CSA: Reserve Corps (Mississippi) was established in the Army of Mississippi.
CSA: Major-General George Bibb Crittenden assumed command of the Reserve Corps (Mississippi).
CSA: Winfield Scott Featherston confirmed Brigadier-General PACS 5 March 1862 to rank from 4 March 1862.
CSA: Thomas James Churchill confirmed Brigadier-General PACS 5 March 1862 to rank from 4 March 1862.
CSA: Patrick Ronayne Cleburne confirmed Brigadier-General PACS 5 March 1862 to rank from 4 March 1862.
CSA: James Morrison Hawes promoted Brigadier-General PACS 14 March 1862 to rank from 5 March 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: Robert Edward Lee
Department No 1: Mansfield Lovell
Department of Alabama and West Florida: Braxton Bragg
- Army of Pensacola: Samuel Jones
- Army of Mobile: John Bordenave Villepigue
Department of East Tennessee: Edmund Kirby Smith awaited
Department of Henrico: John Henry Winder
Department of the Indian Territory: Douglas Hancock Cooper
Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger
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 Marchmore Shaw
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
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
- Eastern District of Texas: Paul Octave Hébert
- Western District of Texas: Henry Eustace McCullough
- Sub-District of Houston: John C Bowen
- Sub-District of Galveston: Ebenezer B Nichols
- Sub-District of the Rio Grande: Hamilton Prioleau Bee awaited
- Defences of Pass Cavallo: John W Glenn
Western Department: Albert Sidney Johnston
- Trans-Mississippi District: Earl Van Dorn
- District of North Alabama: Daniel Ruggles
- Army of Mississippi: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard awaited
- First Grand Division (Mississippi): Leonidas Polk
- Second Grand Division (Mississippi): Braxton Bragg
- Reserve Corps (Mississippi): George Bibb Crittenden
- Army of Central Kentucky: Albert Sidney Johnston
- Army of Eastern Kentucky: Humphrey Marshall
- Army of the West: Earl Van Dorn
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
Ethan Allen Hitchcock
Ulysses Simpson Grant
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
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
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
William Scott Ketchum
Abner Doubleday
John Wynn Davidson
Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana
David Bell Birney
Thomas Francis Meagher
Henry Morris Naglee
Andrew Johnson
James Gallant Spears
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
William Wing Loring
Brigadier-General PACS
Alexander Robert Lawton
Benjamin McCulloch
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
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
James Patton Anderson
Howell Cobb
George Wythe Randolph
Joseph Brevard Kershaw
James Ronald Chalmers
Joseph Lewis Hogg
Ambrose Powell Hill
James Johnston Pettigrew
Carter Littlepage Stevenson
Daniel Leadbetter
William Whann Mackall
Charles Sidney Winder
Robert Ransom
John Bell Hood
Daniel Marsh Frost
Winfield Scott Featherston
Thomas James Churchill
William Booth Taliaferro
Albert Rust
Patrick Ronayne Cleburne
Samuel Bell Maxey
Hamilton Prioleau Bee
James Morrison Hawes
American Civil War High Command 