Saturday, 1 April 1865
Late this afternoon, Federal Major General Phil Sheridan's cavalry and the Federal Fifth Corps attacked Confederate Major General George Pickett's dug in troops at Five Forks. As Sheridan's dismounted cavalry attacked in front, the Fifth Corps of Major General Gouverneur K. Warren got in on the Confederate defender's left flank and crushed them. Pickett's forces were now separated from the rest of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Federals sustained losses numbering around 1,000 and captured at least 4,500 Confederates. almost completely surrounding Petersburg, VA, in the process.
Brevetted Major General Charles Griffin relieves Warren of the command of the 5th US Army Corps, VA, as Sheridan removes Warren from command during the height of the Battle of Five Forks for allegedly being slow is reacting to Sheridan's orders.
In North Carolina, Federal Major General William T. Sherman takes the time to reorganize his army as a skirmish breaks out at Snow Hill.
Skirmishing occurs with Union Brigadier General James H. Wilson's forces at Randolph, Maplesville, Plantersville, Ebenezer Church, Centerville and Trion, Alabama, forcing Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest to concentrate his troops at Selma. Skirmishing also occurred at White Oak Creek, Tennessee.
President Abraham Lincoln was serving as an observer at City Point, Virginia, and forwarding messages to Washington on the progress of the fighting at Petersburg. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, meanwhile, reported to General Robert E. Lee that he was struggling to advance the raising of Negro troops, noting that "...distrust is increasing and embarrasses in many ways."
William Babcock Hazen and Wesley Merritt, U.S.A., are appointed Major General.
Skirmishing breaks out near Blakely, Alabama, as Major General Edward R. S. Canby, with 45,000 soldiers brought and supplied by transports, moves on the gates of the crumbling defenses of Mobile manned by fewer than 10,000 Confederates under General Dabney Maury.
Federals scout from Pine Bluff to Bayou Bartholomew, Arkansas.
An affair starts 15 miles northwest of Fort Garland, in the Colorado Territory, as 5 hostile Ute Indians attack a Mexican ranch and kill 1 Mexican and some beeves. As most Utes are friendly, the local Federal officer will await further instructions before declaring a regular war against the entire Ute Indian Nation tribe.
Federal operations commence against Indians west of Fort Laramie, in the Dakota Territory, with a skirmish at Deer Creek Station, as a white man, supposed to be Bill Comstock, formerly of Fort Laramie, seems to have command of the Indians, who have attacked the station.
A Union expedition travels from Dalton to Spring Place and the Coosawattee River, Georgia, with several skirmishes.
Federal scouts move against guerrillas from Licking, Missouri, to places such as Piney Fork of the Gasconade River and Hog Creek where the Yankees are successful in killing more guerrillas, seizing provisions, and destroying anything of value.
Skirmishing starts at the White Oak Road, near Petersburg, Virginia, with Major General Andrew A. Humphreys, USA, and his 2nd US Army Corps under Lieutenant General Hiram U. Grant in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign.
The positions of the opposing forces on this date demonstrated vividly what superiority afloat had meant to the North in this giant struggle that decided the future of the nation. From his over-flowing advance bases on the James at City Point, only a few miles from General Lee's lines, General Grant was on the move for the final battle of the long saga in Virginia.
To the south in North Carolina backed by his seaport bases at New Bern and Wilmington, General Sherman's massive armies were joined to strike General Johnston at the capital city, Raleigh. In South Carolina and Georgia, Charleston and Savannah, key ports from colonial times, were Union bases fed from the sea.
Although constantly under attack by guerrillas along the Mississippi and its eastern tributaries, Federal gunboats kept the river lifeline open to the occupying armies. Trans-Mississippi, still largely held from invasion by the Confederates, was tightly blockaded by the Union Navy. Without control of the water, to paraphrase John Paul Jones, alas! united America. Fortunate indeed was the nation to have men ashore like Lincoln and Grant who made wide use of the irreplaceable advantages to the total national power that strength at sea imparted.
The CSS Shenandoah, Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell, put into Lea Harbor, Ascension Island, (Ponape Island, Eastern Carolines). A number of sail had been sighted from the cruiser's decks as she approached the island, and, Waddell reported,"...we began to think if they were not whale ships it would be a very good April fool." The Confederates had sighted only one vessel between 20 February, shortly after departing Melbourne, and this date. They were not disappointed. Waddell found the whalers Pearl, Hector, Harvest and Edward Carey in the harbor and seized them. The Confederates obtained vital charts from the four ships showing the location of the whaling grounds most frequented by American whalers. "With such charts in my possession," Waddell wrote, "I not only held a key to the navigation of all the Pacific Islands, the Okhotsk and Bering Seas, and the Arctic Ocean, but the most probable localities for finding the great Arctic whaling fleet of New England, without a tiresome search." In addition to obtaining this intelligence and the charts essential to future operations, Waddell stocked Shenandoah's depleted storerooms with provisions and supplies from the four prizes. The ships were then drawn upon a reef where the natives were permitted to strip them from truck halyards to copper sheathing on the keels. Of the 130 prisoners, 8 were shipped on board Shenandoah; the remainder were set ashore to be picked up by a passing whaler. The four stripped vessels, totaling $116,000 in value, were then put to the torch.
Fighting gamely on all fronts, the South also inflicted maritime losses elsewhere. The USS Rodolph, temporarily commanded by her executive officer, Acting Ensign James F. Thompson, struck a torpedo in the Blakely River, Alabama, and "...rapidly sank in 12 feet of water." The tinclad was towing a barge containing apparatus for the raising of USS Milwaukee, a torpedo victim on 28 March. Acting Master N. Mayo Dyer, Rodolph's commanding officer, reported that "...from the effects of the explosion that can be seen, I should judge there was a hole through the bow at least 10 feet in diameter..." Four men were killed as a result of the sinking and eleven others were wounded. Rodolph, the third warship in five days to be lost in the same vicinity due to effective Confederate torpedo warfare, had played an important role in the continuing combined operations after the fall of Mobile Bay to Admiral Farragut on 5 August 1864. Arriving in the Bay, from New Orleans on 14 August, she had participated in forcing the surrender of Fort Morgan on 23 August. Acting Master's Mate Nathaniel B. Hinckley, serving on board Rodolph, told his son many years after the war that he had carried the Confederate flag from the captured fort and turned it over to a patrol boat. Rodolph had remained in the Bay and its tributaries as Union seapower projected General Canby's powerful army against the final defenses of the city of Mobile. Hinckley was stationed in the tinclad's forecastle when she struck the torpedo that sank her, but he escaped injury.
The development of torpedoes had been encouraged by Matthew Fontaine Maury, John Mercer Brooke and others early in the war. Had the Confederate government at this time perceived the all-embracing influence of the Union Navy in combined operations, it would have vigorously developed this strange new weapon. The early use of torpedoes could have greatly, perhaps decisively, delayed the devastating joint operations. Successive Confederate disasters at Hatteras Inlet and at Port Royal, in the sounds of North Carolina and in the Mississippi Valley, and at New Orleans, shocked Richmond into action. Losses eventually became severe for the Union Navy, but they were too late to affect the outcome.
A Federal naval officer writing soon after the War summarized this development: "With a vast extent of coast peculiarly open to attack from sea; with a great territory traversed in every part by navigable streams...the South had no navy to oppose to that of the Union-a condition which, from the very commencement of the struggle, stood in the way of their success, and neutralized their prodigious efforts on land. Their seaports were wrested from them, or blockaded, fleets of gunboats, mostly clad with iron, covered their bays and ascended their rivers, carrying dismay to their hearts, and success to the Union cause...Under such a pressure, the pressure of dire distress and great necessity, the Rebels turned their attention to torpedoes as a means of defense against such terrible odds, hoping by their use to render such few harbors and streams as yet remained to them inaccessible, or in some degree dangerous to the victorious gunboats."
Late this afternoon, Federal Major General Phil Sheridan's cavalry and the Federal Fifth Corps attacked Confederate Major General George Pickett's dug in troops at Five Forks. As Sheridan's dismounted cavalry attacked in front, the Fifth Corps of Major General Gouverneur K. Warren got in on the Confederate defender's left flank and crushed them. Pickett's forces were now separated from the rest of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The Federals sustained losses numbering around 1,000 and captured at least 4,500 Confederates. almost completely surrounding Petersburg, VA, in the process.
Brevetted Major General Charles Griffin relieves Warren of the command of the 5th US Army Corps, VA, as Sheridan removes Warren from command during the height of the Battle of Five Forks for allegedly being slow is reacting to Sheridan's orders.
In North Carolina, Federal Major General William T. Sherman takes the time to reorganize his army as a skirmish breaks out at Snow Hill.
Skirmishing occurs with Union Brigadier General James H. Wilson's forces at Randolph, Maplesville, Plantersville, Ebenezer Church, Centerville and Trion, Alabama, forcing Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest to concentrate his troops at Selma. Skirmishing also occurred at White Oak Creek, Tennessee.
President Abraham Lincoln was serving as an observer at City Point, Virginia, and forwarding messages to Washington on the progress of the fighting at Petersburg. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, meanwhile, reported to General Robert E. Lee that he was struggling to advance the raising of Negro troops, noting that "...distrust is increasing and embarrasses in many ways."
William Babcock Hazen and Wesley Merritt, U.S.A., are appointed Major General.
Skirmishing breaks out near Blakely, Alabama, as Major General Edward R. S. Canby, with 45,000 soldiers brought and supplied by transports, moves on the gates of the crumbling defenses of Mobile manned by fewer than 10,000 Confederates under General Dabney Maury.
Federals scout from Pine Bluff to Bayou Bartholomew, Arkansas.
An affair starts 15 miles northwest of Fort Garland, in the Colorado Territory, as 5 hostile Ute Indians attack a Mexican ranch and kill 1 Mexican and some beeves. As most Utes are friendly, the local Federal officer will await further instructions before declaring a regular war against the entire Ute Indian Nation tribe.
Federal operations commence against Indians west of Fort Laramie, in the Dakota Territory, with a skirmish at Deer Creek Station, as a white man, supposed to be Bill Comstock, formerly of Fort Laramie, seems to have command of the Indians, who have attacked the station.
A Union expedition travels from Dalton to Spring Place and the Coosawattee River, Georgia, with several skirmishes.
Federal scouts move against guerrillas from Licking, Missouri, to places such as Piney Fork of the Gasconade River and Hog Creek where the Yankees are successful in killing more guerrillas, seizing provisions, and destroying anything of value.
Skirmishing starts at the White Oak Road, near Petersburg, Virginia, with Major General Andrew A. Humphreys, USA, and his 2nd US Army Corps under Lieutenant General Hiram U. Grant in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign.
The positions of the opposing forces on this date demonstrated vividly what superiority afloat had meant to the North in this giant struggle that decided the future of the nation. From his over-flowing advance bases on the James at City Point, only a few miles from General Lee's lines, General Grant was on the move for the final battle of the long saga in Virginia.
To the south in North Carolina backed by his seaport bases at New Bern and Wilmington, General Sherman's massive armies were joined to strike General Johnston at the capital city, Raleigh. In South Carolina and Georgia, Charleston and Savannah, key ports from colonial times, were Union bases fed from the sea.
Although constantly under attack by guerrillas along the Mississippi and its eastern tributaries, Federal gunboats kept the river lifeline open to the occupying armies. Trans-Mississippi, still largely held from invasion by the Confederates, was tightly blockaded by the Union Navy. Without control of the water, to paraphrase John Paul Jones, alas! united America. Fortunate indeed was the nation to have men ashore like Lincoln and Grant who made wide use of the irreplaceable advantages to the total national power that strength at sea imparted.
The CSS Shenandoah, Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell, put into Lea Harbor, Ascension Island, (Ponape Island, Eastern Carolines). A number of sail had been sighted from the cruiser's decks as she approached the island, and, Waddell reported,"...we began to think if they were not whale ships it would be a very good April fool." The Confederates had sighted only one vessel between 20 February, shortly after departing Melbourne, and this date. They were not disappointed. Waddell found the whalers Pearl, Hector, Harvest and Edward Carey in the harbor and seized them. The Confederates obtained vital charts from the four ships showing the location of the whaling grounds most frequented by American whalers. "With such charts in my possession," Waddell wrote, "I not only held a key to the navigation of all the Pacific Islands, the Okhotsk and Bering Seas, and the Arctic Ocean, but the most probable localities for finding the great Arctic whaling fleet of New England, without a tiresome search." In addition to obtaining this intelligence and the charts essential to future operations, Waddell stocked Shenandoah's depleted storerooms with provisions and supplies from the four prizes. The ships were then drawn upon a reef where the natives were permitted to strip them from truck halyards to copper sheathing on the keels. Of the 130 prisoners, 8 were shipped on board Shenandoah; the remainder were set ashore to be picked up by a passing whaler. The four stripped vessels, totaling $116,000 in value, were then put to the torch.
Fighting gamely on all fronts, the South also inflicted maritime losses elsewhere. The USS Rodolph, temporarily commanded by her executive officer, Acting Ensign James F. Thompson, struck a torpedo in the Blakely River, Alabama, and "...rapidly sank in 12 feet of water." The tinclad was towing a barge containing apparatus for the raising of USS Milwaukee, a torpedo victim on 28 March. Acting Master N. Mayo Dyer, Rodolph's commanding officer, reported that "...from the effects of the explosion that can be seen, I should judge there was a hole through the bow at least 10 feet in diameter..." Four men were killed as a result of the sinking and eleven others were wounded. Rodolph, the third warship in five days to be lost in the same vicinity due to effective Confederate torpedo warfare, had played an important role in the continuing combined operations after the fall of Mobile Bay to Admiral Farragut on 5 August 1864. Arriving in the Bay, from New Orleans on 14 August, she had participated in forcing the surrender of Fort Morgan on 23 August. Acting Master's Mate Nathaniel B. Hinckley, serving on board Rodolph, told his son many years after the war that he had carried the Confederate flag from the captured fort and turned it over to a patrol boat. Rodolph had remained in the Bay and its tributaries as Union seapower projected General Canby's powerful army against the final defenses of the city of Mobile. Hinckley was stationed in the tinclad's forecastle when she struck the torpedo that sank her, but he escaped injury.
The development of torpedoes had been encouraged by Matthew Fontaine Maury, John Mercer Brooke and others early in the war. Had the Confederate government at this time perceived the all-embracing influence of the Union Navy in combined operations, it would have vigorously developed this strange new weapon. The early use of torpedoes could have greatly, perhaps decisively, delayed the devastating joint operations. Successive Confederate disasters at Hatteras Inlet and at Port Royal, in the sounds of North Carolina and in the Mississippi Valley, and at New Orleans, shocked Richmond into action. Losses eventually became severe for the Union Navy, but they were too late to affect the outcome.
A Federal naval officer writing soon after the War summarized this development: "With a vast extent of coast peculiarly open to attack from sea; with a great territory traversed in every part by navigable streams...the South had no navy to oppose to that of the Union-a condition which, from the very commencement of the struggle, stood in the way of their success, and neutralized their prodigious efforts on land. Their seaports were wrested from them, or blockaded, fleets of gunboats, mostly clad with iron, covered their bays and ascended their rivers, carrying dismay to their hearts, and success to the Union cause...Under such a pressure, the pressure of dire distress and great necessity, the Rebels turned their attention to torpedoes as a means of defense against such terrible odds, hoping by their use to render such few harbors and streams as yet remained to them inaccessible, or in some degree dangerous to the victorious gunboats."
