Second Time

Union troops near the farm of John Brawner on August 28th 1862, bring on the Second Battle of Bull Run or Second Manassas.

Confederate Major General Thomas J Stonewall Jackson observed the Union troop movements along the Warrenton Turnpike. The Union units were made up of the commands of Brigadier Generals Rufus King, John P Hatch, Abner Doubleday, Marsena R Patrick, and John Gibbon, and were marching east to join up with the rest of Union General John Pope’s army at Centreville.

Jackson was concerned that Pope would be able to link his army with McClellan’s behind the Bull Run. He decided his best course of action was to attack. Confederate artillery began shelling at about 6:30pm. Union General John Gibbon requested the veteran 2nd Wisconsin Infantry be brought up quietly to capture the Rebel guns. The 2nd, under the command of Colonel Edgar O’Connor advanced through the woods on John Brawner’s farm, moving uphill, where they deployed and drove some Confederate skirmishers back. The 2nd soon came up against the Stonewall Brigade, commanded by Colonel William S Baylor. For over two hours the two units exchanged fire at less than eighty yard distance from each other. The fighting ended about 9pm with Gibbon’s men still firing as they retreated back into the edge of the woods.

The Battle really had no winners. Losses where heavy on both sides. The Union had about 1,200 casualties and the Confederate saw about 1,250. It worked out that about 1 out of every 3 men engaged in the fight were shot. Jackson didn’t achieve an overall victory, but he did realize his strategic intent, of attracting General John Pope. The next day General Pope launched an attack on Jackson’s men along an unfinished railroad bed.

The First Republican VP

The 15th Vice President of the United States, Hannibal Hamlin was born August 27th 1809. He served with Abraham Lincoln during his first term.

Hannibal Hamlin was born at Paris Hill, Oxford, Maine August 27th 1809, the son of Cyrus and Anna [Livermore] Hamlin. He attended school at the Hebron Academy in Maine, ran his families farm, worked as a surveyor, in a printing office, as a school teacher, and finally he studied the law. Hamlin would be admitted to the bar in 1833, and practice in Hampden, Penobscot, ME.

He began his political career in the Maine State House of Representative in 1836. He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1848, by the antislavery wing of the party to fill the vacancy left by the death of John Fairfield. In 1854 he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri Compromise. When the Democrats endorsed the repeal at the National Convention in 1856, he left the party and became a Republican. Hamlin was the Governor of Maine from January to February 1857, when he resigned to be elected to the US Senate as a Republican. He would be elected Vice President on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln in 1861. He was strongly in favor of arming African American’s during the Civil War, and supported Joseph Hooker’s appointment to commander of the Army of the Potomac. Feeling frustrated by the lack of work involved in being the Vice President, Hamlin enlisted as a private in Maine Coast Guard and attended the summer encampment in Kittery ME in 1864. In 1864 Hamlin was not re-nominated for a second term, passed over instead for Andrew Johnson. He ended his political life as the United States Minister to Spain from 1881 to 1882.

Hamblin died July 4th 1891 while playing cards in Bangor Maine. He is interned in Mount Hope Cemetery.

Surprised and Routed

Confederate forces crossed the Gauley river in what would become West Virginia on August 26th 1861 and started the Battle of Kessler’s Cross Lane.

Confederate Brigadier General John B Floyd commanding a force of about 3 infantry regiments, and some cavalry in the Kanawha Valley in western Virginia, crossed the Gauley river on August 26th 1861. They attacked Colonel Erastus B Tyler’s 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, who were camped at Kessler’s Cross Lanes, Nicholas County VA. The Union troops were surprised and routed. General Floyd pulled his soldiers back up the river, where they took up a defensive position at Carnifex Ferry.

Union losses were about 75 killed, wounded, or missing. The Confederates lost about 11.

America's First Detective

A detective and spy, and the founder of the first detective agency in the United States, Allan Pinkerton was born on August 25th 1819.

Allan Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland August 25th 1819 the son of William and Isabel Pinkerton. He emigrated to the US in 1842. In 1850 Pinkerton joined with lawyer Edward Rucker of Chicago IL to form the North-Western Police Agency, which would become in 1852 the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. It was the first detective agency in the United States. He guarded Abraham Lincoln on his way to his first inauguration, protecting him from an alleged assassination plot. With the outbreak of the Civil War Pinkerton served as the head of the Union Intelligence Service at the sugestion of General George B McClellan [this was the forerunner of the Secret Service]. Pinkerton and his agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers to gain information. He used an alias of Major E J Allen.

His agency led in the pursuit for Frank and Jessie James between 1867 and 1875. One of the Pinkerton’s agents, James McParland infiltrated the secret society of the Molly Maguires in 1875, leading to the execution of twenty of its members.

In June of 1884 he slipped and bit his tongue. Pinkerton didn’t get any treatment, and his tongue became infected. He died July 1st 1884. Pinkerton is buried in Chicago Illinois in the  Graceland Cemetery. At the time of his death he was working on a method of centralizing criminal records, a data base now maintained by the FBI.

The End of the Bloody Conflict

The official end of the Civil War was declared on August 20th 1866.

Although many people assume the end of the Civil War occurred when General Robert E Lee and General Ulysses S Grant met in Appomattox in April of 1865, the war continued on for many more months. In April Mosby’s Raiders, and General Joseph E Johnston troops surrendered or disbanded. In May they were followed by Major General Dabney Herndon Maury the commander of Florida and South Georgia, Edmund Kirby Smith, and others. The last battle of the war was fought on May 13th 1865 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in Texas. The last Confederates to surrender were those on board the CSS Shenandoah, who gave up on November 6th 1865.

President Andrew Johnson made a formal declaration to the end of the war on August 20th 1866. He signed the “Proclamation—Declaring that Peace, Order, Tranquility, and Civil Authority Now Exists in and Throughout the Whole of the United States of America.”

American Statesman

An American Statesman and lawyer Jeremiah Sullivan Black died on August 19th 1883.

Jeremiah Sullivan Black was born in Stony Creek, PA January 10th 1810. He was a basically self educated man, and admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar before he came of age. He worked his way up to become one of America’s leading lawyers. From 1851 to 1857 he was on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. In 1857 President James Buchanan appointed Black to be his Attorney General. At the end of President Buchanan’s term, from December 17th 1860 to March 4th 1861, Black served as the US Secretary of State. He argued during this time that Fort Sumter needed to be reinforced and better defended, that it was un-constitutional for a state to secede, but it was also illegal for the Federal Government to coerce a state. President Buchanan nominated Black to the Supreme Court, but he was defeated by single vote. At this point Black severed for two years as the Reporter of Decisions of the US Supreme Court, before he return to private practice.

Fallowing the Civil War, Black was strong opponent of the Congressional view of Reconstruction. He even drafted the message that President Andrew Johnson gave when vetoing the Reconstruction Act of March 2nd 1867. For a time he was President Johnson’s counsel during his Impeachment trial. He died August 19th 1883 at the age 72 in York County, Pennsylvania.

Let Them Eat Grass

A trader, Andrew J Myrick who is often considered to be the tender that started a Sioux uprising, was killed on August 18th 1862.

With the Civil War in full swing, payments that were supposed to be made by US Government to the Sioux Indians living in Minnesota, had not been made it to them in the spring of 1862. Andrew J Myrick was a trader who operated a store near the Minnesota River, and he worked at the Lower Sioux Agency. When the Santee Sioux came to the store on the agency on August 15th 1862, the Indian Agent Thomas Galbraith wouldn’t give them food since they didn’t have money. The Sioux made an appeal to Myrick, to give them food on credit, to which he said, "If they're hungry, let them eat grass, or their own dung.”

On August 17th 1862 the revolt began, leading to death of hundreds across southern Minnesota. Myrick was killed on the second day of the uprising during the Battle of Lower Sioux Agency. When Myrick’s body was found several days latter, it had grass stuffed in the mouth. The fighting that occurred through the summer got a great deal of National attention, even as some of the heaviest Union and Confederacy fighting was going on in the east. In response to the fighting in Minnesota President Abraham Lincoln appointed General John Pope to raise troops in Minnesota and stop the fighting. Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey appointed Colonel Henry Sibley with fourteen hundreds soldiers to do the same. The fighting continued until September 26th 1862.