He Only Had Three Days

General George Gordon Meade was born December 31st 1815 in Cadiz Spain.

George Gordon Meade was born to American parents December 31st 1815 in Cadiz Spain, where his father had run into some legal and financial issues because of the Napoleonic Wars. Meade received an appointment to West Point and graduated in 1835.
He served one year with the 3rd US Artillery, then left to become a civil engineer. Due to a lack of employment and the Mexican American war he rejoined the army in 1842.

At the start of the Civil War Meade was working on a survey of the Great Lakes. The first summer of the war he was assigned to a division of the Pennsylvania Reserves as a Brigadier General, which after training joined the Army of the Potomac. Meade was wounded in action at Frazier’s Farm during the Seven Days Battle. He had recovered and led his brigade at Second Battle of Bull Run. Three days before the Battle of Gettysburg Meade was placed in command of the Army of Potomac. After arriving on the battle field, he moved his troops masterfully to the threaten areas of the field. He however, received disapproval for letting General Robert E Lee slip away taking his surviving Confederate army back into Virginia.

Meade continue to serve after the ending of the war, helping with Reconstruction in the south. He became the commissioner of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia in 1866, the job he held until his death. Meade died November 6th 1872 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania from pneumonia and old wounds received during the war.

Another web site that might interest you about this subject
Biography of General Meade

The Arsenal Fell Into Southern Hands

The Federal Arsenal at Charleston South Carolina fell into Rebel hands on December 30th 1860.

The Untied State Arsenal at Charleston South Carolina, known as the Charleston Arsenal was taken by South Carolina state militia on December 30th 1860. The arsenal was built in 1841 near where Ashley Ave and Mill Street met in Charleston. The arsenal was used to produce artillery and small arms ammunition for the Mexican American War and thur until the Civil War. Once South Carolina seceded the arsenal became a target, and after seizing it the arsenal was held for much the war by the Confederates. It was used as a barracks for the 26th South Carolina and other Confederate troops. The arsenal was retaken by Union troops when Charleston fell in 1865.

In 1866 the US Government turned the 11 acre site into a Federal Military Reservation. It was sold in 1888 to the Porter Military Academy. In 1963 the site became part of the Medical University of South Carolina.

Driving The Confederates Out

The Battle of Mount Zion Church on December 28th 1861 in Boone County Missouri pushed the Confederates out of the area until the fall of 1864.

Leading a Union force of five mounted companies Brigadier General Benjamin M Prentiss along with two companies of sharpshooters entered Boone County Missouri to protect the North Missouri Railroad from secessionist. They arrived in Sturgeon Missouri on December 26th 1861, where Prentiss learned of Confederates near the town of Hallsville. The next day Prentiss sent a company to Hallsville, where they engaged Confederates commanded by Colonel Caleb Dorsey. The Union troops lost many men before retreating to Sturgeon.

On December 28th 1861 Prentiss took his entire force to engage the Confederates. They routed one company of Rebel on the road. Here Prentiss learned the rest of the Confederate force was at the Mount Zion Church. After the Union soldiers made three charges, the Confederates having used up their ammunition left the field, leaving behind supplies, weapons, killed and wounded. This action did in most of the Confederate recruiting in the Central Missouri area.

The Soldier Of The West

James Henry Carleton a Union officer and southwestern Indian fighter was born December 27th 1814.

James Henry Carleton was born in Lubec Maine December 27th 1814. During the Aroostook War he was commissioned a Lieutenant. After this he served in the Mexican American War and with the 1st US Dragoons in the American West. Carleton was sent to the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah, his orders being to bury the dead they placed 34 in a mass grave along with the 39 who had been buried just before his company arrived. The then Major Carleton investigated and concluded the Mormons and some Paiute Indians had murdered 120 emigrants bound for California.

At the beginning of the Civil War Carleton raised the Union 1st California Volunteer Infantry in 1861 and was made their Colonel. In October of that year he was paced in command of the District of Southern California. In 1862 Carleton led a forced march of the California Column to link up with Union forces in New Mexico serving with General Edward R S Canby. Carleton was made the department commander of the New Mexico territory, and began a scorched earth policy against the Indians. His main field commander was Colonel Christopher Kit Carson.

The end of the Civil War saw Carleton a Brevet Major General in the regular army. He retained his troops until 1866 when the US Regular Army took over the American West and Carleton served with the 4th US Cavalry as a Lieutenant Colonel. Carleton died of pneumonia in San Antonio Texas January 7th 1873 still serving in uniform, and his body is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge Massachusetts.

Another web site of interest about this subject
The Mountain Meadows Massacre Special Report By Brevet Major James Henry Carleton 1859

Nun Nurses

Four volunteer Nuns became the first official female nurses on December 26th 1862, serving on the US navy hospital ship the “Red Rover”.

Civil War wounded both Confederate and Union were treated in buildings converted into hospitals in Mound City. The nurses many of whom were nuns from the Sisters of the Holy Cross included five African American women. The first Union hospital ship was a converted side wheeler the “Red Rover”. It was commissioned on December 26th 1862. The medical service providers onboard included thirty surgeons and male nurses, along with the four nuns. The “Red Rover” treated 2,947 patients during the three years it sailed the Mississippi River during the Civil War.

One Last Gift

President Andrew Johnson had a Christmas gift on December 25th 1868 for all the Rebels.

General Ulysses S Grant was getting ready to become President in March 1869. One of the last momentous acts President Johnson would sign was the unconditional official pardon for all Confederates on December 25th 1868. There had been amnesties which required signed oaths issued earlier by Abraham Lincoln and Johnson.

Recommended web site related to this subject
Proclamation - Granting Full Pardon and Amnesty for the Offense of Treason Against the United States During the Late Civil War

A Letter To The Daughter Of An Old Friend

President Abraham Lincoln wrote a lovely letter to Fanny McCullough of Bloomington Illinois on December 23rd 1862.

It was a letter of sympathy for McCullough’s father Lieutenant Colonel William McCullough who was killed in a battle near Coffeeville Mississippi while with the 4th Illinois Cavalry. William McCullough had worked for the McLean County Circuit Court in Bloomington Illinois, where Lincoln often had law cases. McCullough and Lincoln had known each other well, Fanny remembered sitting on Lincoln’s knee as a child.

He wrote "You can not now realize that you will ever feel better...You are sure to be happy again...I have had experience enough to know...The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer, and holier sort than you have known before."