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May 19, 2023 7 tweets 4 min read Read on X
#OTD in 1864, after the failure of his assaults the previous two days, General @USGrantNPS made one final attempt to draw out and do battle with Robert E. Lee’s entrenched Army of Northern Virginia near Spotsylvania Court House. #CivilWar🧵 ImageImage
Grant ordered General Winfield Scott Hancock to take II Corps toward the Fredricksburg-Richmond Railroad, and then march south, hoping that Lee would send his army to intercept the isolated Corps and give Grant an opportunity to engage them before they could entrench again. ImageImage
Lee had his own plans. He’d ordered Richard Ewell to take his Corps north and east, to find the U.S. flank at that end of their line. Near the Harris Farm, also known as Bloomsbury Farm, Ewell’s men encountered U.S. Heavy Artillery units that had been converted to infantry. ImageImageImage
Ewell’s men attacked, but the inexperienced U.S. troops held their ground. They were reinforced by General David Birney’s division, and inflicted heavy casualties on the confederates. ImageImageImage
Fearing a general engagement, Lee ordered Ewell to withdraw. One third of Ewell’s engaged force had been killed, wounded or captured, but they had delayed Hancock’s movement south. Image

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More from @CivilWarOTD

May 23, 2023
General Ambrose Burnside was born #OTD in 1824. A one time commander of the Army of the Potomac, Burnside was a genial man but a subpar commander. He entered politics after the #CivilWar, becoming Governor of Rhode Island and a U.S. Senator from that state.🧵 ImageImageImageImage
As a young officer, Burnside had been engaged to a woman named Charlotte “Lottie” Moon, but she left him at the altar by proclaiming “No siree Bob!” to the minister’s question of whether she took Burnside to be her husband. She later became a confederate spy. ImageImage
Burnside left two more lasting legacies. First, he wore such unusual whiskers that they began to be commonly called “burnsides”, which later evolved into the word “sideburns”. The second was his election as the first president of the National Rifle Association. ImageImage
Read 7 tweets
May 23, 2023
The Battle of Front Royal, VA, was fought #OTD in 1862. The engagement was part of Thomas Jackson’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, capturing supplies and tying up @USArmy units from reinforcing General George McClellan’s offensive against Richmond. #CivilWar🧵 ImageImage
General Nathaniel Banks commanded 9,000 men in the Valley, and concentrated near Strasbourg. A smaller force of about 1,000 under Colonel John Kenly held Front Royal, which Jackson approached on the morning of May 23rd. ImageImageImage
Jackson had more than three times as many men as Kenly, and used the rest of his force well to cut off mountain passes and prevent U.S. reinforcements, including Banks’ main body, from reaching Front Royal. ImageImageImage
Read 6 tweets
May 23, 2023
The Battle of North Anna began #OTD in 1864. Part of General @USGrantNPS's Overland Campaign, the battle was actually a series of engagements between parts of The Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. #CivilWar🧵 ImageImage
After Grant was unable to defeat Lee at the two-week long Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, he met with his commanders and determined to move the army around Lee's flank to the south, hoping again to draw him into a full-scale battle on open ground. ImageImage
Lee, with interior lines of movement, was able to shift his army southward and arrive at the North Anna River before Grant. Once across, Lee didn't have his men entrench, not knowing if Grant intended to confront them there. This gave Grant's two lead Corps an opportunity. ImageImage
Read 9 tweets
May 22, 2023
The War Department issued General Order No. 143 #OTD in 1863. It created the Bureau of Colored Troops and authorized the organization, recruitment and training of the United States Colored Troops for service in the #CivilWar, replacing the state level units created to that point. ImageImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
May 22, 2023
Representative Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of the US Senate #OTD in 1856. The violent attack is considered a key turning point in the breakdown of discussion between abolitionists and pro-slavery groups in the years before the #CivilWar.🧵 ImageImageImage
Two days earlier, Sumner had given a lengthy speech critical of slaveholders and of the politicians responsible for the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, including Brooks' cousin, Senator Andrew Butler. ImageImageImage
Brooks was enraged at the insult to his family. After consulting with two colleagues, Reps. Laurence Keitt and Henry Edmundson, Brooks determined that Sumner was not worthy of challenging to an honorable duel, and instead determined to humiliate him by beating him publicly. ImageImage
Read 11 tweets
May 21, 2023
Albert Gallatin Jenkins died #OTD in 1864. Born in 1830 to wealthy parents on a plantation in Cabell County, near what is now Huntington, WV, Jenkins attended @marshallu and graduated from @wjcollege in 1848 before completing a law degree at @Harvard_Law in 1850.🧵 ImageImageImageImage
He opened a law practice in Charleston, WV, and was elected as a Democrat to the US House of Representatives in 1856, and again in 1858. Upon his father's death, he inherited his plantation, Green Bottom, in 1859. ImageImage
At the outbreak of the #CivilWar, despite coming from the part of Virginia that separated and remained loyal to the United States, Jenkins elected to resign from Congress and raise troops for the confederate army. He became commander of the 8th Virginia Cavalry. ImageImage
Read 9 tweets

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