A Long Running Raid

Col Abel D Streight

The first of a series of skirmishes known as Streight’s Raid, the Battle of Day’s Gap was fought on April 30th 1863 in Cullman County, Alabama.

The goal of Union Colonel Abel D Streight’s Raid was to cut off the Western & Atlantic Railroad, interrupting Confederate General Braxton Bragg’s supplies. Streight’s force made up of the 80th Illinois, 51st and 73rd Indiana, 3rd Ohio Infantry and 1st Middle Tennessee Cavalry, left Nashville, Tennessee and moved first to Eastport, Mississippi, then to Tuscumbia, Alabama. Leaving Tuscumbia on April 26th 1863 his march south was screened by Union Brigadier General Grenville M Dodge.

At Day’s Gap on the Sand Mountain, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked Streight’s rearguard on April 30th 1863. The Union troops held off the attack and continued the march to avoid further envelopment. This battle set in motion a series of engagements including Crooked Creek and Hog Mountain the same day. Streight’s Raid came to end on May 3rd 1863 when Forrest surrounded the exhausted Union troops about three miles from Cedar Bluff, Alabama, where they surrendered. Streight was sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, which he escaped from on February 9th 1864.

The First Union Spy

Pinkerton agent Timothy Webster became the first spy to be executed during the Civil War on April 29th 1862.

Timothy Webster was born March 12th 1822, and moved with his parents to America in 1830. They settled in Princeton, New Jersey. Webster became a New York City policeman in 1853, and was brought to attention of Allan Pinkerton a year latter.

At the beginning of 1861 Pinkerton sent Webster and a female spy, Hattie Lawton to Baltimore, Maryland. They were supposed to pose as husband and wife pro-Southerns. It was Webster’s actives in Baltimore that gave Pinkerton the information about the Baltimore Plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln before his inauguration. Once the war started Webster was sent to Tennessee, Kentucky and Richmond, Virginia to gather information about the Confederacy for Pinkerton. While in Richmond in 1862 Webster had a bout of inflammatory rheumatism and was to sick to make reports. Pinkerton sent two other agents, Pryce Lewis and John Scully to find Webster. Lewis and Scully were recognized as Union spies, and they along with Webster were arrested. Lewis and Scully would be released, but Webster who had received and passed valuable documents from Confederate officers and higher-ups was tried and sentenced to death.

Upon learning of Webster’s death sentence, Pinkerton and President Lincoln warned the Confederacy that if they put Webster to death, the Union would reciprocate by hanging a Confederate spy. At Camp Lee in Richmond, Virginia on April 29th 1862 Webster was led to the gallows. Something went wrong with the first hanging, but he was executed in a second attempt. Webster was buried in Richmond, but Pinkerton had his body moved in 1871. Webster was finally laid to rest in Onarga, Illinois, where he was buried next to his father and a son who had been killed during the war.

They Wished To Continue

The Invalid Corps or Veteran Reserve Corps was organized April 28th 1863 by the United States War Department.

The Veteran Reserve Corps, which was originally called the Invalid Corps; was created by the Union Army to permit disabled former soldiers to carry out light duty which freed up other men to fight. Formed on April 28th 1863, the Corps was created by General Order Number 105. The men of the Invalid Corps fell under two classes. Class 1 included disabled soldiers whose enlistment was not yet up. They were able to handle a gun, do some marching and perform guard duty. Class 2 included soldiers who had been discharged do to disabilities, disease or wounds, but were able to perform light duty and wished to continue to serve. Many of these men worked as cooks, and hospital attendants.

The name Invalid Corps was changed to Veteran Reserve Corps by General Order number 111 on March 18th 1864. During the war there were over 60,000 men who served in the Union Veteran Reserve Corps. Men of Company F of the 14th Veteran Corps handled the execution of those found guilty of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The Corps was disbanded in the summer of 1866.

Suspension Of Rights

President Abraham Lincoln had the writ of Habeas Corpus suspended April 27th 1861 in Maryland.

In a response to riots, and the threat that Maryland would secede from the Union, President Abraham Lincoln had Habeas Corpus suspended April 27th 1861. The suspension covered Maryland and some parts of the Midwestern states. The suspension of Habeas Corpus allowed for private citizens to be tried in military courts. Lincoln was encouraged to this move as a way to control Peace Democrats and those who lived in Union but supported the Confederate cause.

The suspension was challenged and overturned by the United State Circuit Court in Maryland, under the leadership of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B Taney. Taney ruled the suspension of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional as is could only be suspended by an Act of Congress. Lincoln ignored the courts decision. There were 13,000 arrested under martial law during the course of the war. It wasn't until 1866 that the Supreme Court officially restored Habeas Corpus, ruling that trying civilians in a military court was illegal.

Lincoln’s act read, “Whereas, It has become necessary to call into service, not only volunteers, but also portions of the militia of the States by draft, in order to suppress the insurrection existing in the United States, and disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes of law from hindering this measure, and from giving aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection. Now, therefore, be it ordered, that during the existing insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and comfort to the rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial law, and liable to trial and punishment by courts-martial or military commission.

Second: That the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prisons, or other place of confinement, by any military authority, or by the sentence of any court-martial or military commission.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Twenty-fourth day of September,/// in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.”

A Life Long Secessionest

A wealthy planter, soldier and delegate at the Virginia Secession Convention, John Smith Preston was born April 20th 1809.


John Smith Preston was born April 20th 1809 in Abingdon, Virginia at “Salt Works” the family plantation. He was the son of General Francis and Sarah Buchanan [Campbell] Preston. Preston graduated in 1824 from Hampden - Sydney College and then studied law at Harvard. After passing the bar Preston opened a practice in Abingdon. He married in 1830 to Caroline Hampton the daughter of Wade Hampton. Preston moved to Columbia, South Carolina where he opened a law practice, and invested in a Baton Rouge, Louisiana sugar plantation. He was a member of the Democratic Party and served in the South Carolina State Senate, and as a delegate and the chairman at the May 1860 Democratic National Convention held in Charleston, South Carolina.

At the beginning of the Civil War Preston was an aide de camp to Confederate General PGT Beauregard. He latter received a commission of Lieutenant Colonel in the Confederate Army and was placed at the head of the Confederate bureau of conscription in Richmond, Virginia. In 1864 Preston was promoted to Brigadier General. His family home the Hampton - Preston House in Columbia was seized by the Union Army in 1865 and used as the headquarters of Union Major General John A Logan.

When the war ended Preston moved to England, and didn’t return to the United States until 1868. Until the end of his life Preston was a strong defender of the Confederacy. He gave a commencement speech at the University of Virginia, where he asserted the right of state secession, he also spoke at the dedication of the Confederate monument in Columbia. He died May 1st 1881 in Columbia, South Carolina was is buried the Trinity Cathedral Cemetery there.

A Block Of The Coast

President Abraham Lincoln declared a blockade April 19th 1861, a part of Union General Winfield Scott’s Anaconda Plan.


The Union Navy maintained a blockade along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the Confederate States between 1861 and 1865. President Abraham Lincoln put the blockade into effect on April 19th 1861. The blockade was part of plan designed by Union General Winfield Scott known as the Anaconda Plan. The blockade included the closure of 3,500 miles of coast line and 12 ports within the Confederacy. The blockade was supposed to keep the Confederacy from getting supplies and arms. Ships, mostly new, and high speed known as blockade runners tried to evade the blockade, they ran between the Confederate ports and the neutral ports of Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba, Havana, and Nassau. The Union Navy commissioned 500 ships. These Union ships captured or destroyed around 1,500 blockade runners during the war. The blockade cut Confederate cotton exports by 95% during this time.

The Big Surrender

Confederate General Joseph E Johnston was on his second day of negotiating the surrender of his army April 18th 1865.


After Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered on April 9th 1865 at Appomattox Court House, General Joseph E Johnston agreed to meet with Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. They met at the Bennett Place, a small farm located between their lines near Durham, North Carolina. The negotiations began on April 17th which was when Johnston first learned of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, and continued again on April 18th 1865. After two days peace terms were settled on. The terms of this peace were rejected by officials in Washington, DC, as they were looking to punish the south. However, on April 26th 1865 another agreement was worked out and Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee, and all active Confederate forces in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Sherman had 10 days of rations issued to the Confederate soldiers. Johnston would be paroled May 2nd 1865. Confederate President Jefferson Davis accused Johnston of having committed an act of treachery in having surrendered his 89,000 soldiers without having been defeated.

A good web site to look at if you like more information about this surrender is The Carolinas Campaign Johnston's Surrender
at Bennett Place on Hillsboro Road