ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, April 15, 1862

“Boots and Saddles”

It took a while for the cavalry to win an important role in the Civil War. During the war's buoyant first weeks, the six regiments of cavalry in the Regulars were thought to be enough. That ended with the shock of first battle of Bull Run, and, with authorization from the War Department, Ohio began raising its first regiment of horse soldiers in July 1861. But it was not until 1863 that cavalrymen were seen as being more than scouts, sentinels, orderlies, and messengers.

Ohio’s first call for cavalry volunteers was met with so much enthusiasm that 1^st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry’s officers could be highly selective in recruiting. They had their pick from the “yeomanry of Ohio.” Most recruits were farmers and their sons--strong, healthy men. The "yeomanry" not only knew their horses, but in some cases brought their own mounts with them (for which the government paid them 40 cents a day.).

The 1^st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry was organized at Camp Chase in Columbus. Diverse in its origins, the regiment drew members from 18 of Ohio’s 88 counties, most of which are in the southwestern part of the state. As hundreds of spectators watched, the regiment trained during beautiful fall weather of 1861. First, the men were trained in dismounted drill, twice a day, with no horses in sight. Only after the men were proficient in fighting on the ground were their horses issued and mounted drill begun.

Each trooper was equipped with a saber, revolver, and carbine, and carried in addition a rubber ground cover, an overcoat, shirt, extra underwear and socks, feed sack, lariat, curry-comb and brush. The men of the 1st Ohio were also furnished, by the United States Sanitary Commissions, with large cotton comforters, cumbersome and hard to pack. It took soldiers to lift a saddle, accompanied by a navy blue blanket blanket, onto the horse. Fully loaded with trooper and equipment, the cavalry horse groaned under a load weighing 255 to 270 pounds.

Mustered in October 5, the regiment of a thousand men left camp early in December, trotting through the streets of Columbus, the men singing "The Girl I Left Behind Me." Thousands of spectators, including families and sweethearts waving flags and handkerchiefs, cheered as the regiment headed for the stockyards and an awaiting train. After passing through Cincinnati, where they boarded steamboats that would carry them down the Ohio River, the men and their horses joined Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio in Louisville Kentucky. The 1^st Ohio Cavalry did not arrive at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh) until shortly after the battle. They found a desolate and muddy field of shattered trees, wrecked artillery pieces, abandoned rifles and knapsacks. Many dead and wounded soldiers were still lying on the ground on April 9.

The 1^st Ohio settled down for nearly two weeks of miserable camping on the battlefield. Their tents had notyet arrived and it rained every day, so the troopers' blankets and clothing were never dry. Crude, temporary shelters had to be fashioned from saplings, saddles, and blankets.

While Halleck’s growing army waited for the order to advance on Beauregard’s Confederates 22 miles away at Corinth, Mississippi, the cavalrymen served as sentinels. They sat, mounted for tedious hours on their horses, and stationed out in front of the infantry camps. They were going nowhere, so they were bored, but they were also nervous. Other cavalrymen remained in reserve, trying to rest. ( A typical sentinel is pictured above.) However, there were nights when there was a great deal of firing on the picket line—often caused by wild animals, disoriented Union soldiers, or Confederate deserters It was not unusual for the reserves to be awakened half a dozen to a dozen times a night—often by a false alarm, occasionally for a skirmish with the enemy.

Unlike the Confederates, early in the war Union cavalry units were scattered among infantry units instead of being concentrated as a strategic combat arm. Later in the war, better organization and leadership will bring the Union cavalry out of the shadows. Until then, the “boots and saddles” bugle call will sound a little hollow to the cavalrymen from Ohio.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—scarcely 3 years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Monday, April 7, 1862

The Tide Turns

Last Saturday—one day before the Johnston and Beauregard’s Confederates attacked Grant at Pittsburg Landing—Brig Gen. Don Carlos Buell ’s Army of the Ohio arrived at Savannah, which is on the opposite bank, about seven miles downriver, from the battlefield. The weary soldiers, who had marched all the way from Nashville, set up camp and spend the night in peaceful slumber.

Yesterday morning, however, early risers greeting the spring sunshine could hear what one called “a dull, distant sound like the heavy breathing of some great animal below the horizon.” Soon, bugle calls were calling the men to arms.

Ordered by Buell, an advance brigade of three regiments, commanded by Col. Jacob Ammen, an Ohioan, made a forced march, arriving at the riverbank opposite Pittsburg Landing at dusk. They were quickly ferried over and fed into Grant’s defensive line.

Throughout the night, packed steamers shuttle most of the rest of Buell’s men from Savannah to Pittsburg Landing. In addition to Buell’s men, Brig. Gen. Lew Wallace’s division of Grant’s army shows up in this morning, delayed in its march from Crumps Landing by confusion over orders.

The new arrivals tramp past thousands of skulkers, huddled under a river bluff, who taunt them with warnings of disaster. All night long, two Union gunboats keep up a bombardment of Confederate positions. Union field hospitals wor through the night, amputated limbs piling up nearby.

Seeking shelter from the rain, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant goes into one of the surgical tents, but soon leaves, unable to bear the sights and sounds. He spent the rest of the night under a tree.

In the morning, Grant’s reinforced army begins moving across the battlefield. It is a sea of mud, with dead men and horses everywhere, scattered debris—hats, rifles, blankets, knapsacks. Trees have been riddled and shattered by gunfire.

Soon, the Union are attacking, and this time it is the Confederates’ turn to be surprised.

Among the 17,000 men who had marched all the way from Nashville are 5,000 to 6,000 Ohioans, the most from any state in Buell’s army. Lew Wallace’s division adds another 7,500 men to the Federals, and now Grant has 25,000 fresh soldiers, as well as his veterans of yesterday. The Confederates have no reserves to draw upon, having used them yesterday.

Although the Southerners fight bravely, they are driven back and by 2:30 in the afternoon Beauregard is ready to order a retreat. The battered army of Mississippi begins making its way back to Corinth, the promise of early victory shattered.

The Confederates have suffered 24% casualties—killed, wounded or captured—and the Union 22%.With a total of nearly 24,000 men lost, it is the costliest two-day battle of the war. It shocks Northerners and Southerners alike. Grant gives up all hope of ending the war quickly.

Although Shiloh will be greeted at first in the North as a great victory, reports of how Grant was surprised soon prompt demands for his removal. A close friend of Lincoln will spend two hours trying to convince the President to dismiss Grant. Finally, Lincoln will reply, “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”

It will turn out to be one of the most fortunate decisions of the war.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, March 25, 1862

The Unbearable Lightness of…Nothing

A slow day. There’s no combat, aside from those never-ending flashes here and there of pickets and scouts popping off at each other. In Washington, President Lincoln visits the Navy Yard. In Tennessee, Federal reconnaissance missions crisscross Tennessee, which is beginning to slip away from the Confederates.

In southwestern Tennessee, Grant is still thinking about a pre-emptive strike against the Confederate forces gathering a few miles away at Corinth, Mississippi. He is wondering where Buell’s reinforcements are. Buell’s Army of the Ohio is moving ever so slowly in Grant’s direction. In St. Louis, the ever-anxious Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck is trying to savor his expanded span of control, which is most troops west of the Appalachians. He, too, worries. Among forces on both sides there’s a sense that something is going to happen—but when? And how?

With Gen. Lew Wallace’s division a few miles from Pittsburg Landing, Pvt. Andrew Altman of the 68^th Ohio begins scratching out, with difficulty, another letter to his family in Henry County, Ohio. “We are expecting a battle,” he writes. “A [Secesh] gave him self up [and said] “they are getting a little down in the mouth.”

After complaining about a lack of mail from home “(I want you to wright to me as son as posible,”) Altman took note of the local weather: “It is very warm and the peach trees are in blossom.”

It was very different in the hills and valleys of western Virginia, where the occupying Ohioans are suffering from boredom and bad weather. No battles seem imminent, although there is hope of aggresive leadership from John C. Fremont, who is taking command of the newly christened Mountain Department, formerly the Department of Western Virginia. The only military activity here is the slow, hard, dangerous search for bushwhackers. The quality of the soldiers' food has degenerated: “Our living is hard, the grub I mean,” Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes of the 23^rd Ohio writes. “and not likely to improve. Salt pork and crackers [the almost inedible hardtack issued by the army]. “The armies have swept off all fresh meats and vegetables. A few eggs once in a great while.”

The weather—blamed on the “equinox,” marking the change from winter to spring—is getting tiresome as well. Hayes notes that it has been snowing since the previous Friday afternoon. On Saturday, it was “still snowing. What a snow-storm is blowing. Whew!” On Monday, “It is snowing still. What a climate!” In a letter that day to his uncle, he adds, “We have had about enough of the snows, winds, and rains of the mountains.”

The snow will end by Thursday, and then the deep mud season will begin. More delays, more tedium. The desperate search for something—anything—to enliven the day as a subject for conversation and letter writing. Fortunately, regimental surgeon Dr. Joseph T. Webb, Lucy’s brother and Rutherford’s brother-in-law, brings back a good story, one that will probably be told and re-told to the accompaniment of much thigh slapping.

Dr. Webb loves children and always stops to talk them and, according to Rutherford, “generally manages to get them on his knee.” Stopping at a farmhouse and spying a three-year-old, he approached the child, who, he soon discovered, could not speak very clearly. “Come, my fine little fellow. I want to talk to you,” the doctor said. The little boy turned, saying something the doctor did not understand. “On a second approach,” Colonel Hayes wrote his uncle, “the doctor made it out ‘Go to Hell, you dam Yankee!’ This from the little codger was funny enough….”

And that, for several days, was the high point of life in the mountains for Colonel Hayes.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Sunday, March 16, 1862

Day of Prayer (for some)

It is Sunday and in the camps chaplains are conducting services. It was not uncommon for chaplains to accompany the troops and sometimes even join them in battle, encouraging the soldiers, performing last rites, and occasionally doing God’s work with their muskets. Chaplains received little direction from the Army, but typically busied themselves with prayer services, baptisms, and encouraging morality and temperance. Officers expected them to help build morale and maintain good order among the troops. Most chaplains were Protestants; Catholic priests were sometimes turned away by Protestant officers. Religiosity was not yet the American hallmark it would become in the 21^st century, however, so many soldiers did not attend services or attend them willingly.

(Pictured here: Rev. Lemuel F. Drake of Perry County, Ohio, preaching to the men of the 31st Ohio, while encamped in Kentucky.)

Now at Savannah, Tennessee, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant continues forwarding troops to the Tennessee River expedition. By letter, he advises Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), eight miles upstream, on how to organize the soldiers coming his way and observes, “I have just arrived and although sick for the last two weeks, begin to feel better at the thought of again being along with the troops.”

From Nashville, Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell is preparing to move southwest in support of Grant, but, as usual, will move very slowly, delayed this time by swollen streams and broken bridges. Among his Army of the Ohio regiments is the 41^st Ohio. One of its captains, Emerson Opdycke, writes wife Ellen to report, “We march at 8 a.m. tomorrow.” He says no more of the advance but spends most of his letter describing reconnaissance in force 12 miles east to the late Andrew Jackson’s home, the Hermitage. After the tiring march, which raised numerous blisters on soldiers’ feet, the men “got back to camp at sundown where the bed has seldom been more appreciated.”

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Saturday, March 15, 1862

Storm Clouds Building

Storm clouds are building in western Tennessee. General William Tecumseh Sherman’s division of the Tennessee River expedition, on steamboats escorted by two gunboats, has probed as far south as Eastport, Mississippi.Their objective was to tear up the track of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, an important transportation link for the Confederacy. Streams swollen by heavy rain defeated the effort; several men drowned and artillery had to be dragged back through the bayous, with water washing over the guns.

Now Sherman backtracks downriver to Savannah, where Gen. Charles F. Smith (shortly to be replaced by General Grant) had made his headquarters. Smith tells Sherman to disembark his division, and that of Gen. Stephen Hurlbut, at Pittsburg Landing, a few miles back upriver at a place called Pittsburg Landing. Sherman and Hurlbut are to position their forces “well back,” so as to leave room for still more Union divisions to come. The forces to assemble here will become known as the Army of the Tennessee.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, now commander of all western forces, orders Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio to move out of Nashville and head southwest to support the forces assembling at Pittsburg Landing.

Back at Fort Donelson, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is busily issuing orders preparatory to resuming command of the Tennessee Rive r expedition. At Corinth, Mississippi, a railroad junction about 22 miles south of Pittsburg Landing, Confederate troops are massing to block any further invasion of the South.

And so the stage will be set for the battle called Shiloh, a name that will stand for one of the bloodiest encounters of the war.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Friday, Feb. 28, 1862

Grant “in readiness”

Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant has returned to Fort Donelson after visiting Nashville, now held by elements of Buell’s Army of the Ohio. Just as Grant was leaving, he met Buell at the edge of the Cumberland River and learned that the retreating Confederate forces are now thought to be at Murfreesborough, about 30 miles away, weakened and offering a tempting target. Always ready to advance, Grant writes Halleck’s headquarters, “I will hold my force in readiness for a move on very short notice.” Grant has no idea that the wrath of Halleck will descend on his head very shortly.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: With Sen. Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, chairman of the Committee on Conduct of the War present, President Lincoln interviews Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan about the failure of the “Harper’s Ferry plan.” Responding to Lincoln’s “General Order No. 1” to get Union troops marching on all fronts, McClellan has led 40,000 men up the Potomac to Harper’s Ferry, where they and their supply trains were supposed to cross the river on a bridge resting on some canal boats sent up from Washington. Then it was discovered the canal boats were a few inches too wide to pass through the locks on their way to the bridge site. Fiasco. Embarrassment all around. And now McClellan is being interrogated by a frustrated Lincoln, who only yesterday said, “The general impression is daily gaining ground that the General [McClellan] does not intend to do anything.”

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Thursday, Feb. 27, 1862

“Best soldier in the world”

“The American citizen, properly commanded and instructed, makes the best soldier in the world,” Gen. William Babcock Hazen wrote in his post-war memoirs, proudly recalling those days when he “properly commanded and instructed” the raw soldiery of the West. On this date in 1862, he issued the following orders to his brigade, now camped two miles from Nashville:

1. “There will be bayonet exercise…from nine to ten a.m. and battalion drill from eleven to twelve.

2. “At four p.m….the regimental grounds [will] be thoroughly policed under direction of the officer of the day.

3. Officers’ drill, until further orders, will be that of skirmishers. None are excused from the above duties…”

In what his men would undoubtedly have called an understatement, Hazen fondly recalled that “While at Nashville, we were very busily engaged with drills and preparation for moving forward.”

Two days before, Hazen’s 19^th Brigade of Don Carlos Buell ‘s Army of the Ohio had marched into Nashville, abandoned only the day before by its Confederate defenders. One of Hazen’s most trusted officers, Capt. Emerson Opdycke of the 41^st Ohio writes his wife today about how happy he is to be in Nashville. “It is a beautiful city. People seem glad to see us. Many had left, supposing we would plunder and destroy; but they are now seeing their great error… I am delighted with Nashville and its surroundings.”

Not everyone welcomes the Union forces, however. Reporting a common reaction to their appearance throughout the war, Opdycke notes, “The women are by far the bitterest against us, knowing they can say what they pleased without fear of injury.”

(Pictured above: the 51st Ohio Volunteer infan try on dress parade in Nashville)

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1862

The colonel arrives

Col. William Babcock Hazen, acting commander of the 19^th Brigade of Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, rides into Nashville. Recently deserted by their Confederate defenders, many unhappy citizens remain in the city. It is Hazen‘s observation that “the people showed great bitterness.”

Riding a short distance in front of his brigade, Hazen has barely turned a corner when a well-dressed woman ahead of him “stamped vigorously upon the sidewalk and cheered for Jeff Davis.” Then Hazen’s brigade, marching smartly with arms glistening in the sun, follows him around the corner. The woman took one look at the oncoming thousands and “betook herself at double-quick to the nearest house.”

Hazen halts at the St. Cloud Hotel, where the host, a Mr. Carter, invited the colonel and his staff for drinks at his bar. Carter “tasted everything first…to assure us.” Out of curiosity, Hazen examines the hotel’s register, discovering his immediate predecessor was William Babcock of Illinois, “a cousin I had not seen since a child of three years, and never since.” Throughout the war, symbolic incidents like these will remind soldiers North and South again and again how closely they were related, whether by blood or in spirit—fellow Americans all.

Hazen and his men found something else in the hotel: “Fast asleep and very drunk, one Rebel soldier, the largest man I ever saw in uniform.” Hazen sent him away with a single guard, the pair looking like “a veritable giant guarded by a pygmy. We all wondered if he was a sample of the men we were about to encounter.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: In Richmond, the Confederate capital, the bitter words of politicians reflect the Confederacy’s anxiety over the losses in Tennessee. The people’s representatives are angry and demanding investigation into the performance of their generals and even President Jefferson Davis.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Monday, Feb. 24, 1862

Grant bulls ahead

Ordered by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck not to move on Nashville, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant waits impatiently at Fort Donelson, handling the routine duties required by a large encamped army.

Between chores Grant writes his wife, Julia, telling her that Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, the Confederacy’s western commander, has “fallen back about forty miles south from Nashville leaving the river clear to our troops.” Grant has already ordered some of Buell’s troops—without Buell’s knowledge—to move up the Cumberland on steamboats, preceded by a gunboat. If Grant himself can’t advance on Nashville, he will make sure somebody does…in this case, under the command of Brig. Gen. William “Bull” Nelson (pictured).

Until he dies a most unusual death later this year, Nelson will serve as one of the war’s most colorful characters. A huge man—300 pounds of muscle and bone—Nelson is notorious for enormous rages, which alternate with an overwhelming geniality. He had served in the navy during the Mexican War and began service in the Civil War commanding gunboats on the Ohio River. A native Kentuckian, Nelson rallied other Kentuckians to the Union side and in September 1861 was appointed a brigadier general in the army.

Nelson’s troop transports will arrive at Nashville just as the first elements of Buell’s Army of the Ohio begin appearing on the north bank of the river. Without even being there, Grant has reached Nashville first.

Grant’s letter belies his later, undeserved, nickname of “Butcher Grant.” He tells Julia, “”These terrible battles are very good things to read about for persons lose no friends but I am decidedly in favor of having as little of it as possible. The way to avoid it is to push forward as vigorously as possible.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Skirmishes occur in Missouri. At the White House, a simple funeral service is conducted in the East room for little Willie Lincoln, who had died four days before of typhoid. A bright boy, mature for his age, Willie was 11.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Monday, Jan. 6, 1862

“No prospect of…danger”

From Camp Wickliffe in Kentucky, where the 41^st Ohio and several thousand other Midwestern volunteer soldiers sit, yearning for action, 1^st. Lt. Emerson Opdycke (pictured here) writes “My dear wife,” Lucy, in Warren, Ohio.

Bad news: he will not be granted a hoped-for furlough because of the “exigencies of the service.” Pish-tosh, according to Opdycke, a self-confident man who never minces words: “I see no prospect of immediate danger and I am exceedingly disappointed…I do not believe there will be [a forward movement within 10 days], so I am bound to nurse my ‘disappoint.’” (In fact, there will be no forward movement by stolid Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio for five weeks.)

Opdycke tells Lucy that sickness, “principally measles,” is sweeping the camp, especially Opdycke’s 41^st Ohio. One of his men had died from measles on Christmas eve. The death deeply saddened Opdycke because the captain of a company is “something of a father to his men.”

It is not yet dawn and Opdycke is writing the letter by candlelight. He tells Lucy he is well supplied, with eggs, plentiful at 15 cents a dozen, and “plenty of good fresh beef. ” For a New Year’s celebration, he was able to purchase a can of peaches and some cheese.

“Eggs are frying" for Opdycke’s breakfast and "as soon as this [letter] is folded and directed, they will be ready for a splendid appetite.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: President Abraham Lincoln is becoming frustrated with Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s stalling. Lincoln wants him to advance on East Tennessee in support of the Union loyalists there. Buell, however, prefers to advance on Nashville, which neither Lincoln nor General-in-Chief George B. McClellan think is a good idea. Buell’s attempt to justify himself to Lincoln draws the President’s rebuke by wire today: “Your dispatch of yesterday…disappoints and distresses me.” But Lincoln, who at this early stage of the war, is trying to make do with the generals he has, does not order Buell forward, only expresses “the grounds of my anxiety.”

Buell is not Lincoln’s only problem general. Frustration over McClellan’s failure to act is rising as well. Ohio Sen. Benjamin F. Wade, a Radical Republican who is chairman of the (Joint Congressional) Committee on the Conduct of the War, demands Lincoln remove McClellan from command. Preferring to give McClellan more time, Lincoln rejects Wade’s demand.

But the clock is ticking for the careers of both reluctant generals.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg