May 10 1862 Saturday
Plum Run Bend, TN
Giles Court House, VA
Peninsula Campaign
First Corinth Campaign
Jackson‘s Shenandoah Valley Campaign
Alabama. Skirmish at Lamb’s Ferry.
Arkansas. Confederate Major-General Thomas Carmichael Hindman sent Texan cavalry scouts to determine the Union army’s positions near Searcy. The scouts encountered friendly refugees fleeing the Union Army, who reported that the Union forces numbered about 30,000, most of them German immigrants. Hindman had approximately 1,200 Texas cavalrymen to confront this force. He ordered the cotton stores near Searcy to be destroyed while Governor Henry Massey Rector prepared the government offices at Little Rock for evacuation. Meanwhile, small advanced parties from the Union Army clashed with the Texas scouts between Searcy and Little Rock, and a few Union casualties resulted.
Florida. Union troops from Fort Pickens completed their occupation of the abandoned port of Pensacola and established it as the headquarters of the Union Navy’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron. Confederate military installations in the area, including the Navy Yard, Fort Barrancas and Fort McRae, CSS Fulton, and an ironclad under construction on the Escambia River, were all destroyed by the Confederates under Colonel Thomas Marshall Jones before they abandoned the indefensible port. The Navy Yard was assessed to be in ruins.
Mississippi. Union reconnaissance along the Alabama Road to Sharp’s Mill.
Mississippi. Skirmish at Farmington.
Missouri. A skirmish at Bloomfield resultrf in the capture of a Confederate supply cache.
Pennsylvania. A new design of ironclad warship, the USS New Ironsides, was launched at Philadelphia. The New Ironsides was much influenced by the French ironclad Gloire and was a conservative design, which copied the broadside layout of the French ship on an armoured wooden hull.
Plum Run Bend, Tennessee, also known as Plum Point Bend or Plum Point. The Confederate Mississippi River Defence Fleet, commanded by Captain James E Montgomery CSN and State Brigadier-General Meriwether Jefferson Thompson, made an attack against the Union gunboats and the mortar flotilla at Plum Point Bend.
Seven Union ironclad gunboats were anchored five miles above the fort at Plum Run Bend and for several weeks they had sent one ship at a time to approach three miles closer to carry out a desultory bombardment of Fort Pillow, each taking a turn one day in seven.
Montgomery had brought his eight gunboats north from New Orleans to defend the Mississippi. They were the CSS General Bragg, CSS General Sumter, CSS General Sterling Price, CSS General Earl Van Dorn, CSS General Meriwether Jefferson Thompson, CSS Colonel Lovell, CSS General Beauregard, and the flagship CSS Little Rebel. The Confederates attacked Mortar Boat No 10, which was stationed just above Fort Pillow, and engaged in bombarding the works. USS Cincinnati was on the daily protective duty but it was tied up to the shore and the crew was not at action stations. At about 7 am the eight Confederate gunboats turned the bend and surprised the Union ships. The Union ironclad attempted to get underway. USS Cincinnati fired one broadside at 50 yards and managed to move just far enough so that when it was rammed by the CSS General Bragg, the impact was only a glancing one. The blow nevertheless stove a hole amidships and water flooded the magazine. The CSS Sumter waited for the CSS General Bragg to pull away and then rammed the fantail of the USS Cincinnati. CSS Colonel Lovell followed in turn and smashed into its port quarter. The Union flagship sank on a shallow sandbar, leaving its survivors clinging above water to the pilot house.
Three miles upstream, the rest of the Union fleet began to move to the rescue of their isolated comrades but they were slow in getting up steam. The USS Mound City was the first of the main fleet to come to the rescue but CSS Van Dorn rammed it head on. USS Mound City was run aground to avoid sinking. The deeper draft of the Confederate vessels did not permit them to press the attack into the shoal water in which the Union squadron now steamed. As the other five Union ironclads approached, firing their 9-inch Dahlgren guns, the Confederates decided to end the fight, leaving two enemy ironclads under the water.
The Confederate ships sustained some damage and Montgomery withdrew them to safety under the guns of Fort Pillow. USS Cincinnati and USS Mound City were quickly re-floated and repaired but the ironclads’ aura of invincibility had been punctured.
ORDER OF BATTLE: PLUM RUN BEND, TN
Union Department of the Mississippi: Major-General Henry Wager Halleck
District of West Tennessee: Major-General Ulysses Simpson Grant
Mississippi River Squadron: Flag Officer Charles Henry Davis USN
USS Mound City, USS Carondelet, USS Cincinnati, USS Benton, USS Pittsburg, USS Cairo, USS St. Louis
Confederate Western Department: General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Mississippi River Defence Fleet: Captain James E Montgomery CSN
CSS General Earl Van Dorn, CSS General Sterling Price, CSS General Bragg, CSS General Sumter, CSS Little Rebel, CSS General Meriwether Jefferson Thompson, CSS Colonel Lovell, CSS General Beauregard
Virginia. Skirmish near Franklin when Union Brigadier-General Robert Cumming Schenck attacked bushwhackers who had killed one of his men in an ambush.
Virginia. Incident at Pearlsburg.
Virginia. Union troops embarked in transports at Fortress Monroe and landed east of Sewell’s Point near Willoughby Point. USS Monitor continued to reconnoitre Sewell’s Point to discover whether the Confederate batteries were still manned. Finding the works now abandoned, Brigadier-General John Ellis Wool’s troops marched on into Norfolk, where the advanced guard arrived late in the afternoon
Virginia. Union capture and occupation of Portsmouth by Union forces under Brigadier-General John Ellis Wool.
Virginia. The ironclad CSS Virginia was towed from Norfolk down to Craney Island, the crew was taken ashore, and she was set afire during the night. She burned through the rest of the day and most of the following night. Shortly before dawn, the flames reached her magazine, and she blew up. The ship’s commander, Captain Josiah Tattnall CSN, answered subsequently to a court of inquiry that censured his actions, although a court-martial acquitted him on 5 July 1862.
Giles Court House, Virginia. Confederate Brigadier-General Henry Heth was commanding the grandiosely titled “Army of the New River” in western Virginia, comprising the 22nd Virginia Infantry and 45th Virginia Infantry, with attached cavalry and artillery. Heth’s small brigade held off the forces of Union Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford Birchard Hayes (under the overall direction of Brigadier-General General Jacob Dolson Cox) in an action at Giles Courthouse. Heth then pursued the enemy to Lewisburg. This operation helped to divert Union forces from the Shenandoah Valley 120 miles to the north, where Major-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson was conducting a diversionary campaign.
Union Organisation
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: Charles Henry Davis
Potomac Flotilla: Robert Harris Wyman
Chairman of the War Board: Ethan Allen Hitchcock
Department of the Mississippi: Henry Wager Halleck
- District of West Tennessee: Ulysses Simpson Grant
- Army of West Tennessee: Ulysses Simpson Grant
- District of the Mississippi: Isaac Ferdinand Quinby
- Army of the Mississippi: John Pope
- District of the Ohio: Don Carlos Buell
- Army of the Ohio: Don Carlos Buell
- District of Cairo: William Kerley Strong
- Sub-District of Columbus: Isaac Ferdinand Quinby
Department of the Missouri: Henry Wager Halleck
- District of St Louis: Lewis Merrill
- District of Central Missouri: James Totten
- District of Southwest Missouri: Samuel Ryan Curtis
- Army of the Southwest: Samuel Ryan Curtis
- District of Southeast Missouri: Frederick Steele
- District of Northeast Missouri: John Montgomery Glover
- District of Northwest Missouri: Benjamin Franklin Loan
Department of the Gulf: Benjamin Franklin Butler
- Army of the Gulf: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Department of Kansas: James Gilpatrick Blunt
Middle Department: John Adams Dix
- District of the Eastern Shore of Maryland: Henry Hayes Lockwood
Mountain Department: John Charles Frémont
- Cheat Mountain District: Thomas Maley Harris
- Railroad District: Benjamin Franklin Kelley
- District of the Kanawha: Jacob Dolson Cox
- District of the Gap: Samuel Powhatan Carter
- District of the Valley of the Big Sandy River: James Abram Garfield
Department of New Mexico: Edward Richard Sprigg Canby
- Central and Northern District of New Mexico: Benjamin Stone Roberts
Department of New York: Edward Denison Morgan
Department of North Carolina: Ambrose Everett Burnside
Department of the Pacific: George Wright
- District of the Humboldt: Francis James Lippitt
- District of Oregon: Justis Steinburger
- District of Southern California: James Henry Carleton
Department of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan
- Army of the Potomac: George Brinton McClellan
- II Corps Potomac: Edwin Vose Sumner
- III Corps Potomac: Samuel Peter Heintzelman
- IV Corps Potomac: Erasmus Darwin Keyes
Department of the Rappahannock: Irvin McDowell
- Military District of Washington: James Samuel Wadsworth
Department of the Shenandoah: Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Department of the South: David Hunter
- Northern District of the South: Henry Washington Benham
- Southern District of the South: John Milton Brannan
- Western District of the South: Lewis Golding Arnold
Department of Texas: Vacant
Department of Virginia: John Ellis Wool
Confederate Organisation
CSA: Brigadier-General Samuel Read Anderson resigned due to ill health.
Commander in Chief: President Jefferson Finis Davis
Vice-President: Alexander Hamilton Stephens
Secretary of War: George Wythe Randolph
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: John Horace Forney temporary
- Army of Mobile: William L Powell
Department of Middle and Eastern Florida: Joseph Finegan
Department of East Tennessee: Edmund Kirby Smith
- Army of East Tennessee: Edmund Kirby Smith
Department of Henrico: John Henry Winder
Department of the Indian Territory: Douglas Hancock Cooper
Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
- District of Cape Fear: Samuel Gibbs French
- District of Pamlico: Robert Ransom temporary
- District of Roanoke Island: Henry Marchmore Shaw
Department of Northern Virginia: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- District of Aquia: Gustavus Woodson Smith
- Army of Northern Virginia: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- Right Wing Northern Virginia: James Longstreet
- Left Wing Northern Virginia: Gustavus Woodson Smith
- Reserve Northern Virginia: John Bankhead Magruder
- Valley District: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
- Army of the Valley: Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Department of South Carolina and Georgia: John Clifford Pemberton
- 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: William Stephen Walker
- 6th Sub-District of South Carolina: Thomas Fenwick Drayton
Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring
- District of Abingdon: Humphrey Marshall
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
- Defences of Pass Cavallo: John W Glenn
Western Department: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
- Trans-Mississippi District: Earl Van Dorn
- District of North Alabama: Daniel Ruggles
- Army of Mississippi: Braxton Bragg
- I Corps Mississippi: Leonidas Polk
- II Corps Mississippi: Thomas Carmichael Hindman
- III Corps Mississippi: William Joseph Hardee
- Reserve Corps Mississippi: John Cabell Breckinridge
- 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
Asterisk indicates concurrently Brigadier-General USA
John Adams Dix
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Benjamin Franklin Butler
David Hunter
Edwin Denison Morgan
Ethan Allen Hitchcock
Ulysses Simpson Grant
Irvin McDowell*
Ambrose Everett Burnside
William Starke Rosecrans*
Don Carlos Buell
John Pope
Samuel Ryan Curtis
Franz Sigel
John Alexander McClernand
Charles Ferguson Smith
Lewis Wallace
Ormsby McKnight Mitchel
Cassius Marcellus Clay
George Henry Thomas
George Cadwalader
William Tecumseh Sherman
Edward Otho Cresap Ord
Edwin Vose Sumner*
Samuel Peter Heintzelman
Erasmus Darwin Keyes
Joseph Hooker
Brigadier-General USA
Brackets indicates concurrently Major-General USV
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
Andrew Porter
Fitz-John Porter
William Buel Franklin
Charles Pomeroy Stone
Thomas West Sherman
George Archibald McCall
William Reading Montgomery
Philip Kearny
John Wolcott Phelps
Charles Smith Hamilton
Darius Nash Couch
Rufus King
Jacob Dolson Cox
Stephen Augustus Hurlbut
Robert Cumming Schenck
Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss
Benjamin Franklin Kelley
Alpheus Starkey Williams
Israel Bush Richardson
James Cooper
James Brewerton Ricketts
Orlando Bolivar Willcox
Michael Corcoran
Henry Hayes Lockwood
Louis Blenker
Henry Warner Slocum
James Samuel Wadsworth
John James Peck
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
Silas Casey
Lawrence Pike Graham
George Gordon Meade
Abram Duryée
Alexander McDowell McCook
Oliver Otis Howard
Eleazar Arthur Paine
Charles Davis Jameson
Ebenezer Dumont
Robert Huston Milroy
Willis Arnold Gorman
Daniel Butterfield
Horatio Gouverneur Wright
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
Eugene Asa Carr
Thomas Alfred Davies
Daniel Tyler
William Hemsley Emory
Andrew Jackson Smith
Marsena Rudolph Patrick
Isaac Ferdinand Quinby
Hiram Gregory Berry
Orris Sanford Ferry
Daniel Phineas Woodbury
Henry Moses Judah
Richard James Oglesby
John Cook
John McArthur
Robert Latimer McCook
Jacob Gartner Lauman
Horatio Phillips Van Cleve
John Alexander Logan
Speed Smith Fry
Alexander Asboth
James Craig
Mahlon Dickerson Manson
Gordon Granger
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby
Grenville Mellen Dodge
Robert Byington Mitchell
James Gilpatrick Blunt
Francis Engle Patterson
Quincy Adams Gillmore
Amiel Weeks Whipple
Cuvier Grover
George Lucas Hartsuff
Rufus Saxton
Benjamin Alvord
Napoleon Bonaparte Buford
William Sooy Smith
Nathan Kimball
Charles Devens
James Henry Van Alen
Carl Schurz
Samuel Wylie Crawford
Henry Walton Wessells
Milo Smith Hascall
Leonard Fulton Ross
John White Geary
Alfred Howe Terry
Andrew Atkinson Humphreys
James Henry Carleton
Absalom Baird
John Cleveland Robinson
Truman Seymour
George Dashiell Bayard
Henry Prince
Abram Sanders Piatt
Thomas Turpin Crittenden
Maximilian Weber
Pleasant Adam Hackleman
Jeremiah Cutler Sullivan
Alvin Peterson Hovey
James Clifford Veatch
William Plummer Benton
Henry Bohlen
John Curtis Caldwell
Isaac Peace Rodman
Neal S Dow
George Sears Greene
Samuel Powhatan Carter
John Gibbon
George William Taylor
Brigadier-General USA (Staff)
Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (Quartermaster-General)
Henry Knox Craig
Lorenzo Thomas (Adjutant-General)
James Wolfe Ripley (Ordnance)
William Alexander Hammond (Surgeon-General)
Confederate Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
General ACSA/PACS
Samuel Cooper
Robert Edward Lee
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Braxton Bragg
Major-General PACS
Leonidas Polk
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
Sterling Price
Benjamin Franklin Cheatham
Samuel Jones
John Porter McCown
Daniel Harvey Hill
Jones Mitchell Withers
Thomas Carmichael Hindman
John Cabell Breckinridge
Brigadier-General PACS
Alexander Robert Lawton
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 RES
Richard Heron Anderson
Robert Augustus Toombs
Arnold Elzey
William Henry Chase Whiting
Jubal Anderson Early
Isaac Ridgeway Trimble
Daniel Ruggles
Roswell Sabine Ripley
Albert Pike
Paul Octave Hébert
Joseph Reid Anderson
Simon Bolivar Buckner
Albert Gallatin Blanchard
Gabriel James Rains
James Ewell Brown Stuart
Lafayette McLaws
Thomas Fenwick Drayton
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
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
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
George Hume Steuart
William Duncan Smith
James Edwin Slaughter
Charles William Field
John Horace Forney
Paul Jones Semmes
Lucius Marshall Walker
Seth Maxwell Barton
Dabney Herndon Maury
John Bordenave Villepigue
Henry Eustace McCullough
John Stevens Bowen
Benjamin Hardin Helm
John Selden Roane
States Rights Gist
William Nelson Pendleton
Lewis Addison Armistead
Joseph Finegan
Martin Luther Smith
Franklin Gardner
William Nelson Rector Beall
Thomas Jordan
William Preston
Roger Atkinson Pryor
Henry Little
John Echols
George Earl Maney
Jean Jacques Alfred Alexandre Mouton
John Stuart Williams
American Civil War High Command 