Rock of Chickamauga

General George Henry Thomas was born on July 31st 1816.

George Henry Thomas was born July 31st 1816 in Southampton County Virginia. As a boy he warned neighbors about the slave revolute led by Nat Turner in 1831. He graduated from West Point in 1840, and saw military service in the Seminole Indian War, the Mexican War, and served as an instructor at West Point. In 1855, the US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis appointed Thomas as a Major to the Second Cavalry.

With the out break of the Civil War, he like many southerns debated staying in the Union army. Thomas remained with the US military, and quickly rose through the ranks. On January 19th 1862, while in command of a force in Kentucky he attacked General Felix Zollicoffer’s Confederates at Mill Springs, and won the first important western theater Union victory. Holding firm to the field during the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19th 1863, Thomas earned the name “The Rock of Chickamauga”. In the autumn of 1864 Thomas was given the task of dealing with John Bell Hood in Tennessee, while General William Tecumseh Sherman made his march to the sea. For his victory in outside of Nashville TN, December 16th 1864 over Hood he was promoted to Major General, and given the thanks of Congress.

After the Civil War ended Thomas led the military departments in Kentucky and Tennessee until 1869. He was ordered to the West coast where he became the division commander of the Pacific and was headquarter in San Francisco. Thomas died there March 28th 1870.

The Crater

The Battle of the Crater began on July 30th 1864 with a bang.

After weeks of hard work, shortly before dawn on July 30th 1864 Union Major General Ambrose E Burnside’s IX Corps blew up the tunnel that ran under the confederate’s line using four tons of black powder. Do to splicing of a low quality fuse the explosion didn’t go off when planned. Two men from the PA 48th Regiment, Lieutenant Jacob Douty and Sergeant Harry Reese, went into the tunnel and relit the fuse. The explosion created a crater and made a gap in the Confederate defenses of Petersburg Virginia along Pegram’s Salient. It killed about 300 instantly Rebel soldiers. The Union troops charged into the crater unit after unit, where they milled around in confusion. The Confederates led by Major General William Mahone quickly launched an attack. The Federals were repulsed with heavy casualties. The black soldiers of Brigadier General Edward Ferrero’s division were dreadfully mauled.

Union casualties were about 3,798 in killed, wounded or missing. The Confederates lost about 1,500. Charges were brought against General Burnside, and he was never again assigned to duty.

Other information about this battle
The Battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864

Battle of the Crater

The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War's Cruelest Mission

The Confederate Belle

Confederate spy Belle Boyd was arrested July 29th 1862 and held for a month in the Old Capitol Prison.

Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd was born in Martinsburg Virginia [now part of West Virginia]. She operated as a Confederate spy from the father’s hotel in Front Royal Virginia. She passed along valuable information on several occasions to General Turner Ashby and Thomas Stonewall Jackson, while they campaigned in 1862 in the Shenandoah Valley. Although Boyd was arrested several times, it wasn’t until she was betrayed by a lover on July 29th 1862 that Boyd found herself incarcerated in Washington DC’s Old Capital Prison. Boyd was released as part of a prisoner exchanged a month latter.

Belle Boyd died while touring as an actor June 11th 1900 in Kilbourn Wisconsin [now known as Wisconsin Dells]. She was only 56. She is buried in the Spring Grove Cemetery in Wisconsin Dells.

We Are Coming

The song “We Are Coming Father Abraham” is published for the first time July 16th 1862 in the New York Evening Post.

Written by James Sloan Gibbons, the marching tune “We are coming, Father Abraham, Three Hundred Thousand More”, was meant to be used to recruit troops. The words to the song were published on July 16th 1862 in the New York Evening Post. Gibbons’ was a Quaker and an abolitionist, who was prompted to write the poem by President Abraham Lincoln’s call for an additional 300,000 troops. The poem was set to music by the Hutchinson Family Singers, Stephen Foster and others, and became a favorite among Union supporters.

For a copy of the words of this song
WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM

The Soldiers Cemetery

The project would become the National Cemetery at Gettysburg began with a land purchase on July 15th 1863.

Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin purchased land on the battlefield at Gettysburg PA, with the purpose of creating a cemetery. The “Soldiers Cemetery” was for the proper burial of Union soldiers. This was the brainchild of Gettysburg’s citizens who saw rain and wind uncover the shallow graves which dotted the battlefield. Money was raised and funds were provided by the Commonwealth of PA. Besides buying the ground that would become the cemetery, some of the money went to Samuel Weaver. He had the un-enviable job of removing the Union dead from their graves around the battlefield and hospital sites, for re-burial. The Confederate dead would remain buried on the field until the 1870’s when they moved to southern cemeteries.

Protect The Supplies

The Battle of Tupelo Mississippi on July 14th 1864 ensured that General William Tecumseh Sherman’s supply lines were safe.

Major General A J Smith with more 14,000 Union soldiers left LaGrange Tennessee on July 5th 1864. His order was to protect the lines Major General William T Sherman’s Atlanta campaign. Having laid waist to the country as he advanced, July 13th 1864 found Smith moving east toward Tupelo MI.

In the mean time Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry, with about 6000 men and Lieutenant General Stephen D Lee with another 2,000 were with in two miles of Smith‘s Union force. The Confederates attacked on the morning of July 14th 1864. Lee’s assaults weren’t well coordinated and the Federal troops pushed them back inflicting large casualties on Rebels.

With the Union troops running short on supplies, Smith did not pursue Lee and Forrest. He headed back to Memphis on the 15th. Smith has been criticized for not destroying the Confederate command. He had, however fulfilled his orders and protected Sherman’s supply lines.

The Line Drawn

The Northwest Ordinance passed on July 13th 1787 by act of the United States Congress of the Confederation.

The Northwest Ordinance [also known as the Freedom Ordinance, or the Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the US North West of the Ohio River], passed unanimously on July 13th 1787. The ordinance created the Northwest Territory out the area south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River. This piece of legislation set the precedent of westward expansion in the United States. The Ordinance called for the eventual creation of not less than three, or more than five new states. The act also banned slavery in the new territory, which in effect established the Ohio River as the line between slave and free states.

Other information about the Ordinance
Text of The Northwest Ordinance