What was the most significant event on April 20 during the U.S. Civil War?

IMHO the fact that Robert E Lee

1861: Robert E Lee turns down Federal offer of command and accepts Virginia joint command of Army and Navy forces.
1864: Soldier's Pay in the US Civil War. Union privates were paid $13 per month until after the final raise of 20 June '64, when they got $16. In the infantry and artillery, officer was as follows at the start of the war: colonels, $212; lieutenant colonels, $181; majors, $169; captains, $115.50; first lieutenants, $105.50; and second lieutenants, $105.50. Other line and staff officers drew an average of about $15 per month more. Pay for one, two, and three star generals was $315, $457, and $758, respectively.
The Confederate pay structure was modeled after that of the US Army. Privates continued to be paid at the prewar rate of $11 per month until June '64, when the pay of all enlisted men was raised $7 per month. Confederate officer's pay was a few dollars lower than that of their Union counterparts. A Southern B.G for example, drew $301 instead of $315 per month; Confederate colonels of the infantry received $195, and those of artillery, engineers, and cavalry go $210. While the inflation of Confederate Money reduced the actual value of a Southerner's military pay, this was somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that promotion policies in the South were more liberal.
As for the pay of noncommissioned officers, when Southern privates were making $11 per month, corporals were making $13, "buck" sergeants $17, first sergeants $20, and engineer sergeants were drawing $34. About the same ratio existed in the Northern army between the pay of privates and noncommissioned officers.
Soldiers were supposed to be paid every two months in the field, but they were fortunate if they got their pay at four-month intervals (in the Union Army) and authentic instances are recorded where they went six and eight months. Payment in the Confederate Army was even slower and less regular
The Confederate pay structure was modeled after that of the US Army. Privates continued to be paid at the prewar rate of $11 per month until June '64, when the pay of all enlisted men was raised $7 per month. Confederate officer's pay was a few dollars lower than that of their Union counterparts. A Southern B.G for example, drew $301 instead of $315 per month; Confederate colonels of the infantry received $195, and those of artillery, engineers, and cavalry go $210. While the inflation of Confederate Money reduced the actual value of a Southerner's military pay, this was somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that promotion policies in the South were more liberal.
As for the pay of noncommissioned officers, when Southern privates were making $11 per month, corporals were making $13, "buck" sergeants $17, first sergeants $20, and engineer sergeants were drawing $34. About the same ratio existed in the Northern army between the pay of privates and noncommissioned officers.
Soldiers were supposed to be paid every two months in the field, but they were fortunate if they got their pay at four-month intervals (in the Union Army) and authentic instances are recorded where they went six and eight months. Payment in the Confederate Army was even slower and less regular
Pictures; 1863_Map Showing Grierson's Raid. (Lagrange, Tennessee to Baton Rouge, Louisiana). (April 17 - May 2, 1863). Map Source: US Military Academy, History Department; Confederate General Robert E. Lee, c. 1862; 1864 The Battle of Plymouth, the most effective Confederate combined-arms operation of the Civil War, was waged in April 1864
Since RallyPoint truncates survey selection text I am posting events that were not included and then the full text of each survey choice below:
A. Saturday, April 20, 1861: Robert E. Lee, although opposed to secession and even to slavery, decides to support his state's secession by tendering his resignation from the U.S. Army. He says, in a letter to a sister, that he hopes never to draw his sword again save in the defense of his home state. "I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children." Lee then goes to Richmond, Virginia, is offered command of the military and naval forces of Virginia, and accepts.
B. Monday, April 20, 1863: Grierson’s Raid – On this date, 175 men who were ill or otherwise unfit to keep up the pace of the brigade were detailed out and sent back to La Grange, Tennessee. The riders in blue continued southward, however, leaving the Rebels confused as to whether they were retreating or advancing. Grierson takes the two Illinois regiments southward, and sends Col. Hatch with the 2nd Iowa on a parallel road to the east, in order to destroy the Mobile and Ohio Railroad at West Point, Mississippi.
B+ Monday, April 20, 1863: Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s Cavalry Raid in 1863
The Federals plodded southward on the 19th over roads that were fast becoming quagmires. That evening they reached Pontotoc, where they halted only long enough to destroy government property and sift through captured documents abandoned by a retreating militia company. They went into camp about five miles south of Pontotoc. Despite the deteriorating roads, the hard-riding horsemen were maintaining a brisk pace of 30 miles per day.
To help keep up that pace, Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson stripped his command of dead weight. In a midnight inspection he personally weeded out 175 of the least effective troopers. At 3:00 a.m. on April 20, Major Hiram Love of the 2d Iowa led this Quinine Brigade–along with prisoners, broken down horses, and a single artillery piece–out of the Federal camp toward La Grange. By moving in columns of fours under cover of darkness, Grierson hoped Love would deceive local residents into thinking the entire command had turned back.
With Love on his way north, the main column resumed its march. The force encamped shortly after dark on the 20th. In four days the raiders had encountered only token resistance, but Barteau’s Confederate cavalry was fast closing in. They had entered Pontotoc well behind the Federal force on the morning of the 20th, but closed the gap with hard riding that night.
C. Monday, April 20, 1863: Private Edwin Eldridge Mason, a new recruit in the new 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment, writes home from Soldiers Retreat, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Dear Sister, this morning I received my uniform and my $29.
I bought: 1 gold pen and pencil - $2.75; Inkbottle - .25; 3 oranges - .10; 1 Bible - .85; 1 knife - .80; 9 boxes Nycos [?] Pills - 2.00; Portfolio -.50; 1 quire paper -.45; Pack envelopes -.12; Lead pencil -.05; 1 qt Brandy -.75; Lint - 3.60;
The gold pen I sent to Harmon & pills. Tonight at 3 o’clock I start for Washington. I am well tonight as usual and hope you are the same. I can’t get my likeness taken yet. I don’t know when I can. If you write to me direct to Edwin E. Mason, Co. B, 12th Pa. Cav. Winchester, Va.
O I sold my clothes for I had to go away at 3 tonight, and I couldn’t get into the Express office at night before I went away. I spoilt my coat and vest here and couldn’t get only $1 for the whole.
Your affectionate Brother Edwin E. Mason
D. Wednesday, April 20, 1864: Battle of Plymouth, N.C. Confederate forces attack Plymouth, North Carolina, in an attempt to recapture ports lost to the Union two years before. The four-day battle ended with the fall of Plymouth, but the Yankees kept the city bottled up with a flotilla on nearby Albemarle Sound.
In 1862, the Union captured Plymouth and several other points along the North Carolina coast. In doing so, they deprived the Confederacy of several ports for blockade-runners and the agricultural products from several fertile counties. In the spring of 1864, the Confederates mounted a campaign to reverse these defeats. General George Pickett led a division to the area and launched a failed attack on New Bern in February. Now, General Robert Hoke assumed command and moved his army against Plymouth, fifty miles north of New Bern. He planned an attack using the C.S.S. Albemarle, an ironclad that was still being built on the Roanoke River inland from Plymouth.
With 7,000 men, Hoke attacked the 2,800-man Union garrison at Plymouth on April 17. His troops began to capture some of the outer defenses, but he needed the CSS Albemarle to bomb the city from the river. The ironclad moved from its makeshift shipyard on April 17, but it was still under construction. With workers aboard, Captain James Cooke moved down the Roanoke. The CSS Albemarle‘s rudder broke and the engine stalled, so it took two days to reach Plymouth. When it arrived, the Rebel ship took on two Yankee ships, sinking one and forcing the other to retreat. With the ironclad on the scene, Hoke’s men captured Plymouth on April 20.
The Confederates lost 163 men killed and 554 wounded, but captured the entire Union garrison and vast amounts of supplies and arms. The Union lost about 150 killed and wounded, while several hundred of the captured soldiers eventually died at the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia. The Rebel victory was limited by the fact that the CSS Albemarle was still pinned in the Roanoke River. The crew tried to fight past a Union flotilla on Albemarle Sound on May 5, but it could not escape. It was destroyed in a Union raid on Plymouth on October 27, 1864. Yankee troops recaptured the city four days later.
1. Saturday, April 20, 1861: In response to Virginian threats to attack the Gosport Naval Yard at Norfolk, Virginia, Commander McCauley, a southerner in the US Navy, orders the naval yard with its mills, machine shops, dry dock, warehouses and several ships to be burned to prevent it falling into the hands of the Virginians. However, Virginia troops enter and are able to put out most of the fires and save the dry dock.
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2. Sunday, April 20, 1862: Just downstream from Fort Jackson, on the Mississippi River, the Union fleet sits, while Porter’s mortar boats continue to shell the forts. Flag Officer Farragut decides that his fleet will run by the forts, instead of bomb them out. In accordance with this plan, the USS Pinola and USS Itasca, gunboats, steam upriver to cut the river "boom" the Rebels have made by linking old schooner hulls together with chains. After some trouble, and much pestering cannon fire from the forts, the boat crews are able to slip the chain off one hull and accidentally tear out the post of another while freeing one of the ships from running aground. A gap is now clear in the barrier, and all there is to oppose the Federal fleet in steaming up to New Orleans is two forts full of heavy guns and a motley river flotilla that includes the CSS Louisiana and the CSS Manassas, armored rams.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/2012/04/april-20-1862.html
3. Sunday, April 20, 1862 --- David L. Day, a soldier in the 25th Massachusetts Infantry Reg., still stationed in Newbern, North Carolina, records his impressions and observations about the poor white trash in the region: Among the white people about here, are very few who would be ranked among the first or even second class. Nearly all of them are what is called the poor white trash or clay-eaters. I am told they actually do eat clay, a habit they contract like any other bad habit. Now I cannot vouch for the truth of this, never having seen them eating it, but some of them look as though that was about all they had to eat. They are an utterly ignorant set, scarcely able to make themselves intelligible, and in many ways they are below the negroes in intelligence and manner of living, but perhaps they are not wholly to blame for it, the same principle that will oppress a black man, will a white one. They are entirely cut off from the means of acquiring land or an education, even though they wished to. Public schools are unknown here and land can only be purchased by the plantation. That leaves them in rather a bad fix; poor, shiftless and ignorant. Their highest ambition is to hunt, fish, drink whiskey and toady to their masters. You speak to one of them and he will look at you in a listless sort of way as though unable or undecided whether to answer or not. Ask one of them the distance across the river, and he will either say he don’t know, or "it is right smart." Ask one of them the distance to any place or house out in the country, and he will tell you it is "a right smart step," or "you go up yer a right smart step, and you will come to a creek," and from there it will be so many looks and a screech; meaning from the creek that number of angles in the road and as far beyond as the voice will reach. They do not seem to have any intelligent idea about anything, and in talking with the cusses, one scarcely knows whether to pity them or be amused.
Snuff Dipping.
The women here have a filthy habit of snuff chewing or dipping as they call it, and I am told it is practiced more or less by all classes of women. The manner of doing it is simple enough; they take a small stick or twig about two inches long, of a certain kind of bush, and chew one end of it until it becomes like a brush. This they dip into the snuff and then put it in their mouths. After chewing a while they remove the stick and expectorate about a gill, and repeat the operation. Many of the women among the clay-eaters chew plug tobacco and can squirt the juice through their teeth as far and as straight as the most accomplished chewer among the lords of creation.
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4. Sunday, April 20, 1862 --- George Washington Cable, post-war novelist, reminisces about these days in New Orleans, when he was a young teen, after the blockade had stopped up trade on the Mississippi, yet before the Union Navy had captured the city: There had come a great silence upon trade. Long ago the custom-warehouses had begun to show first a growing roominess, then emptiness, and then had remained shut, and the iron bolts and cross-bars of their doors were gray with cobwebs. One of them, in which I had earned my first wages as a self-supporting lad, had been turned into a sword-bayonet factory, and I had been turned out. For some time later the Levee had kept busy; but its stir and noise had gradually declined, faltered, turned into the commerce of war and the clatter of calkers and ship-carpenters, and faded out. Both receipts and orders from the interior country had shrunk and shrunk, and the brave, steady fellows, who at entry and shipping and cash and account desks could no longer keep a show of occupation, had laid down the pen, taken up the sword and musket, and followed after the earlier and more eager volunteers. . . . The blockade had closed in like a prison-gate: the lighter tow-boats, draped with tarpaulins, were huddled together under Slaughterhouse Pointd boilers and motionless machinery yielding to rust; . . . At length only the foundries, the dry-docks across the river, and the ship-yard in suburb Jefferson, where the great ram Mississippi was being too slowly built, were active, and the queen of Southern commerce, the city that had once believed it was to be the greatest in the world, was absolutely out of employment.
There was, true, some movement of the sugar and rice crops into the hands of merchants who had advanced the money to grow them; and the cottonpresses and cotton-yards were full of cotton, but there it all stuck; and when one counts in a feeble exchange of city for country supplies, there was nothing more. . . .
Gold and silver had long ago disappeared. Confederate money was the currency; and not merely was the price of food and raiment rising, but the value of the money was going down. The State, too, had a paper issue, and the city had another. Yet with all these there was first a famine of small change, and then a deluge of "shinplasters." Pah ! What a mess it was! The boss butchers and the keepers of drinking-houses actually took the lead in issuing "money." The current jokould pass the label of an olive-oil bottle, because it was greasy, smelt bad'and bore an autograph---Plagniol Frères, if I remember rightly. . . .
Decay had come in. In that warm, moist climate it is always hungry, and wherever it is allowed to feed, eats with a greed that is strange to see. With the wharves, always expensive and difficult to maintain, it made havoc. The occasional idle, weather-stained ship moored beside them, and resting on the water almost as light and void as an empty peascod, could hardly find a place to fasten to. The streets fell into sad neglect, but the litter of commerce was not in them, and some of their round-stone pavements after a shower would have the melancholy cleanness of weather-bleached bones. How quiet and lonely the harbor grew! The big dry-docks against the farther shore were all empty. Now and then a tug fussed about, With the yellow river all to itself; and one or two steamboats came and went each day, but they moved drowsily. . . .
But the public mind was at a transparent heat. Everybody wanted to know of everybody else, "Why don't you go to the front?" Even the gentle maidens demanded tartly, one of another, why their brothers or lovers had not gone long ago, though, in truth, the laggards were few indeed. The very children knew--even we, the uninformed, the lads and women, knew the enemy was closing down upon us. But there was little laughter. Food was dear; the destitute poor were multiplying terribly; the market men and women, mainly Germans, Gascon-French, and Sicilians, had lately refused to take the shinplaster currency, and the city authority had forced them to accept it. There was little to laugh at. The Mississippi was gnawing its levees and threatening to plunge in upon us. The city was believed to be full of spies.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/2012/04/april-20-1862.html
5. Monday, April 20, 1863: Lincoln proclaims that West Virginia would join the Union on June 20, 1863
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186304
6. Monday, April 20, 1863 --- Part of Gen. Banks’ Army of the Gulf is advancing along Bayou Teche, and there is fighting around Brashear City.
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A Saturday, April 20, 1861: Robert E. Lee, although opposed to secession and even to slavery, decides to support his state's secession by tendering his resignation from the U.S. Army. He says, in a letter to a sister, that he hopes never to draw his sword again save in the defense of his home state.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=April+20%2C1861
A+ Saturday, April 20, 1861: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army. "I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children." Lee then goes to Richmond, Virginia, is offered command of the military and naval forces of Virginia, and accepts.
http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/
A++ Saturday, April 20, 1861: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
http://historyindates.com/20-april-1861/
B Monday, April 20, 1863 --- Grierson’s Raid – On this date, 175 men who were ill or otherwise unfit to keep up the pace of the brigade were detailed out and sent back to La Grange, Tennessee. The riders in blue continued southward, however, leaving the Rebels confused as to whether they were retreating or advancing. Grierson takes the two Illinois regiments southward, and sends Col. Hatch with the 2nd Iowa on a parallel road to the east, in order to destroy the Mobile and Ohio Railroad at West Point, Mississippi.
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B+ Monday, April 20, 1863: Colonel Benjamin Grierson’s Cavalry Raid in 1863
The Federals plodded southward on the 19th over roads that were fast becoming quagmires. That evening they reached Pontotoc, where they halted only long enough to destroy government property and sift through captured documents abandoned by a retreating militia company. They went into camp about five miles south of Pontotoc. Despite the deteriorating roads, the hard-riding horsemen were maintaining a brisk pace of 30 miles per day.
To help keep up that pace, Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson stripped his command of dead weight. In a midnight inspection he personally weeded out 175 of the least effective troopers. At 3:00 a.m. on April 20, Major Hiram Love of the 2d Iowa led this Quinine Brigade–along with prisoners, broken down horses, and a single artillery piece–out of the Federal camp toward La Grange. By moving in columns of fours under cover of darkness, Grierson hoped Love would deceive local residents into thinking the entire command had turned back.
With Love on his way north, the main column resumed its march. The force encamped shortly after dark on the 20th. In four days the raiders had encountered only token resistance, but Barteau’s Confederate cavalry was fast closing in. They had entered Pontotoc well behind the Federal force on the morning of the 20th, but closed the gap with hard riding that night.
Background: That command consisted of 1,700 veterans from the 6th and 7th Illinois and the 2d Iowa Cavalry regiments. For speed and surprise, Grierson stripped his command down to essentials. The haversacks his men carried across their saddle pommels held five days’ light rations of hardtack, coffee, sugar, and salt. He instructed company commanders to make those rations last at least 10 days. Each soldier also carried a carbine, saber, and 100 rounds of ammunition. The only carriages were those bearing the six two-pounder Woodruff guns of Captain Jason B. Smith’s Battery K of the 1st Illinois Artillery.
Grierson’s chief concern was the broken-down condition of his horses. Some men in the 2d Iowa rode mules appropriated from the brigade’s wagon train. The expedition would rely heavily on the Mississippi countryside for new mounts, as well as food and forage.
Despite Grierson’s worries, a lighthearted mood prevailed among his Yankee horsemen. The men seemed to feel highly elated, and, as they marched in columns of twos, some were singing, others speculating as to our destination, recalled Sergeant Richard Surby. They would have been surprised to learn their commander had only a vague notion of their goal. Grierson had orders only to disable the section of the Southern Railroad that ran east from Jackson to an intersection with the Mobile & Ohio Railroad at Meridian, just north of Enterprise. Beyond that, his movements had been left to his own discretion. He carried in his uniform pocket a small compass, a map of Mississippi, and a written description of the countryside. Success or failure would depend largely on his skill and ingenuity.
The Federals crossed the Tallahatchie River on April 18 and pressed south through torrential rains the following day. They encountered almost no resistance at first, but news of the raid soon reached Confederates in the state. Lieutenant Colonel C.R. Barteau raced north along the Mobile & Ohio Railroad with the 2d Tennessee Battalion, Colonel J.F. Smith’s militia regiment, and Major W.M. Inge’s battalion. Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, commanding the defense of Vicksburg, called on district commanders James R. Chalmers and Daniel Ruggles to mobilize Confederate cavalry in northern Mississippi.
http://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-colonel-benjamin-griersons-cavalry-raid-in-1863.htm
C Monday, April 20, 1863 --- Private Edwin Eldridge Mason, a new recruit in the new 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment, writes home from Soldiers Retreat, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Dear Sister, this morning I received my uniform and my $29.
I bought: 1 gold pen and pencil - $2.75; Inkbottle - .25; 3 oranges - .10; 1 Bible - .85; 1 knife - .80; 9 boxes Nycos [?] Pills - 2.00; Portfolio -.50; 1 quire paper -.45; Pack envelopes -.12; Lead pencil -.05; 1 qt Brandy -.75; Lint - 3.60;
The gold pen I sent to Harmon & pills. Tonight at 3 o’clock I start for Washington. I am well tonight as usual and hope you are the same. I can’t get my likeness taken yet. I don’t know when I can. If you write to me direct to Edwin E. Mason, Co. B, 12th Pa. Cav. Winchester, Va.
O I sold my clothes for I had to go away at 3 tonight, and I couldn’t get into the Express office at night before I went away. I spoilt my coat and vest here and couldn’t get only $1 for the whole.
Your affectionate Brother Edwin E. Mason
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D Wednesday, April 20, 1864: Battle of Plymouth, N.C. Confederate forces attack Plymouth, North Carolina, in an attempt to recapture ports lost to the Union two years before. The four-day battle ended with the fall of Plymouth, but the Yankees kept the city bottled up with a flotilla on nearby Albemarle Sound.
In 1862, the Union captured Plymouth and several other points along the North Carolina coast. In doing so, they deprived the Confederacy of several ports for blockade-runners and the agricultural products from several fertile counties. In the spring of 1864, the Confederates mounted a campaign to reverse these defeats. General George Pickett led a division to the area and launched a failed attack on New Bern in February. Now, General Robert Hoke assumed command and moved his army against Plymouth, fifty miles north of New Bern. He planned an attack using the C.S.S. Albemarle, an ironclad that was still being built on the Roanoke River inland from Plymouth.
With 7,000 men, Hoke attacked the 2,800-man Union garrison at Plymouth on April 17. His troops began to capture some of the outer defenses, but he needed the CSS Albemarle to bomb the city from the river. The ironclad moved from its makeshift shipyard on April 17, but it was still under construction. With workers aboard, Captain James Cooke moved down the Roanoke. The CSS Albemarle‘s rudder broke and the engine stalled, so it took two days to reach Plymouth. When it arrived, the Rebel ship took on two Yankee ships, sinking one and forcing the other to retreat. With the ironclad on the scene, Hoke’s men captured Plymouth on April 20.
The Confederates lost 163 men killed and 554 wounded, but captured the entire Union garrison and vast amounts of supplies and arms. The Union lost about 150 killed and wounded, while several hundred of the captured soldiers eventually died at the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia. The Rebel victory was limited by the fact that the CSS Albemarle was still pinned in the Roanoke River. The crew tried to fight past a Union flotilla on Albemarle Sound on May 5, but it could not escape. It was destroyed in a Union raid on Plymouth on October 27, 1864. Yankee troops recaptured the city four days later.
Wednesday, April 20, 1864 --- Battle of Plymouth, N.C. In conjunction with the sortie of the Albemarle in the Roanoke River, Gen. Robert Hoke, with a division of Confederate troops, moves against the defenses of Plymouth, N.C., and finds the Federal garrison there more than willing to cooperate. Having driven the bluecoats out of Fort Comfort, the Rebels accept the surrender of Brig. Gen. Henry Wessells and most of the Union garrison, over 2,000 troops, consisting of Pennsylvania and New York detachments, as well as U.S. Colored Troops and North Carolina Unionist battalions. However, Gen. Wessells reveals in his report that nearly all of the North Carolina troops (many of them being former Confederates) escaped before the surrender by floating downstream in canoes. A large number of the black troops also escaped, but not all. Sergeant Samuel Johnson, of the 2nd U.S. Colored Cavalry, writes of his experience: When I found out that the city was being surrendered, I pulled off my uniform and found a suit of citizen’s clothes, which I put on, and when captured I was supposed and believed by the rebels to be a citizen. After being captured I was kept at Plymouth for some two weeks and was employed in endeavoring to raise the sunken vessels of the Union fleet.
Upon the capture of Plymouth by the rebel forces all the negroes found in blue uniform, or with any outward marks of a Union soldier upon him, was killed. I saw some taken into the woods and hung. Others I saw stripped of all their clothing and stood upon the bank of the river with their faces riverward and there they were shot. Still others were killed by having their brains beaten out by the butt end of the muskets in the hands of the rebels. All were not killed the day of the capture. Those that were not were placed in a room with their officers, they (the officers) having previously been dragged through the town with ropes around their necks, where they were kept confined until the following morning, when the remainder of the black soldiers were killed.”
However, a later report from Gen. Hoke’s aide indicates that the Confederates did not kill very many of the black prisoners: “The prisoners will number about 2,500, 300 or 400 negroes, 30 pieces of ordnance, complete garrison outfit, 100,000 pounds of meat, 1,000 barrels of flour, and other provisions. [...] Where will the prisoners go? Our loss about 300 in all.” President Davis directs that the captured negroes all be returned to their owners, and the rest sold. Confederate Victory.
(Source: Civil War Daily Gazette, http://civilwardailygazette.com/ )
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Wednesday, April 20, 1864 --- Leonidas L. Polk, an officer in the 43rd North Carolina Infantry, writes home to his wife upon the occasion of the Confederate victory at Plymouth, N.C., detailing for her the immensely useful plunder gained from the Yankees: My dear wife, Through the mercy of God I am permitted on this the proudest day for our good old State, since the beginning of this War, to write you. After a severe engagement of 2 1/2 days we had the honor & the joy to behold the flag of our enemies lowered to day, which we all hope & believe is the beginning of a better time for N.C. I am seated in an old field, surrounded by men flushed with hope & success & dividing out their captured spoils. I write to you on Yankee paper with a gold pen, & Yankee envelope with Yankee ink, smoking Yankee cigar, full of Yankee sugar coffee &c. with a Yankee sword, navy repeater, & other “fixins” buckled about me. We had an awful time. Got here on Sunday surprised the Yankees commenced on them, Monday night stormed a fort, very formidable, impossible to get into it, but surrounded it & forced it to surrender. Last night stormed the other 2 forts, took one at daylight this morning surrounded the other & forced it to yield at 10 o’clock – took about 2000 prisoners & did not lose in all more than 200 killed & wounded, almost miraculous. To God be all the praise. In our Regt. 5 killed, 13 wounded & 3 missing, all from Anson safe but Wm. Mosely slightly wounded. Twenty thousand Yankees cannot retake the place. Well I did not get anything myself. The boys gave me what I got, except a few things I bought. They have me 3 prs. kid gloves for you slightly damaged. For the children a round comb a piece. I bought a pair of shoes for Lila. Cannot get any for you as yet will try to get some nice things for you. I will send my tricks to you the first chance. We didn’t have time to get much to day. The boys gave me a fine spy glass, a very fine pipe, & the pen with which I write just like the one at home. We got almost anything that can be thought of. If I only had any way to carry the things I could get hundreds of things for you. I intend to do my best. . . . We don’t know where we will go from here will write you as often as possible. Have not had the chance to write before, no mail since we left Kinston. I forgot to tell you that our Gun Boat came down safely, & is a complete success so far. We got any quantity of all & everything.
I would like to go more into detail but have not the time. I will do so as soon as possible. O I would like to see you so much. Kiss my dear babies for me & I know they will be so proud of their nice combs. I tried to get one for [?] but could not. Give her a pair of gloves if she wants them & will do for her. I hear there are thousands of cotton cards in town & I hope we will get some or all of them. Some of our boys got some of them. I am in fine health but can assure you had as hard a time as ever in my life, charged through the worst swamp I ever saw, got wet all over nearly lay still under fire of guns all night & came near freezing but I am now all right & am myself again.
The storming of the Forts was the most awful work I have ever seen done & I tell you it was anything but pleasant, but as I have seen so often before. I tried it again. I was at the head of the Co. in the charge nearly a mile through a level field & swamp & the thickest of the fire. . . . Well my dear Sallie I am stopped by one of my boys to go & drink some good old Rie with him, & he says you must excuse me. May God be your friend & Protector. Write to me at Tarboro. Kiss the children for me your devoted husband.
Leonidas
(Source: Wilson Library Special Collections, U North Carolina, http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/civilwar/ )
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Wednesday, April 20, 1864 --- George Michael Neese of Virginia, and artilleryman in the Army of Northern Virginia, nears the end of his furlough, and expresses regrets at having to return to the field: I wish this cruel war were over, for my furlough is out and I will have to strike out once more for the tented field and be off for the war again. I left home this evening and came to New Market. These beautiful, bright, peaceful spring days of citizen life glided swiftly by like golden bubbles on the stream of time; they glowed and flashed and lo! they are gone.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=April+20%2C1864
Soldier's Pay In The American Civil War
Union privates were paid $13 per month until after the final raise of 20 June '64, when they got $16. In the infantry and artillery, officer was as follows at the start of the war: colonels, $212; lieutenant colonels, $181; majors, $169; captains, $115.50; first lieutenants, $105.50; and second lieutenants, $105.50. Other line and staff officers drew an average of about $15 per month more. Pay for one, two, and three star generals was $315, $457, and $758, respectively.
The Confederate pay structure was modeled after that of the US Army. Privates continued to be paid at the prewar rate of $11 per month until June '64, when the pay of all enlisted men was raised $7 per month. Confederate officer's pay was a few dollars lower than that of their Union counterparts. A Southern B.G for example, drew $301 instead of $315 per month; Confederate colonels of the infantry received $195, and those of artillery, engineers, and cavalry go $210. While the inflation of Confederate Money reduced the actual value of a Southerner's military pay, this was somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that promotion policies in the South were more liberal.
As for the pay of noncommissioned officers, when Southern privates were making $11 per month, corporals were making $13, "buck" sergeants $17, first sergeants $20, and engineer sergeants were drawing $34. About the same ratio existed in the Northern army between the pay of privates and noncommissioned officers.
Soldiers were supposed to be paid every two months in the field, but they were fortunate if they got their pay at four-month intervals (in the Union Army) and authentic instances are recorded where they went six and eight months. Payment in the Confederate Army was even slower and less regular
http://www.civilwarhome.com/Pay.html
FYI CSM Charles Hayden LTC (Join to see) MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. SSG Franklin Briant SGT Tiffanie G. SGT Mary G.CPL Ronald Keyes Jr SFC William Farrell SPC Michael Terrell SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D MAJ Roland McDonald SFC William Farrell SSG Franklin Briant SSG William Jones SSG Michael Noll MCPO Hilary Kunz MAJ Wayne WickizerSGM Hilbert ChristensenCPO William Glen (W.G.) Powell1stSgt Eugene Harless

Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis, April 20th, 1865
The following is a letter authored by Robert E. Lee's to Jefferson Davis explaining the fatigue of the army, the weariness of the Confederacy and the need to end the war peacefully.

Robert E. Lee
to
Jefferson Davis

Richmond, Virginia
April 20, 1865

Mr. President

The apprehensions I expressed during the winter, of the moral [sic] condition of the Army of Northern Virginia, have been realized. The operations which occurred while the troops were in the entrenchments in front of Richmond and Petersburg were not marked by the boldness and decision which formerly characterized them. Except in particular instances, they were feeble; and a want of confidence seemed to possess officers and men. This condition, I think, was produced by the state of feeling in the country, and the communications received by the men from their homes, urging their return and the abandonment of the field. The movement of the enemy on the 30th March to Dinwiddie Court House was consequently not as strongly met as similar ones had been. Advantages were gained by him which discouraged the troops, so that on the morning of the 2d April, when our lines between the Appomattox and Hatcher's Run were assaulted, the resistance was not effectual: several points were penetrated and large captures made. At the commencement of the withdrawal of the army from the lines on the night of the 2d, it began to disintegrate, and straggling from the ranks increased up to the surrender on the 9th. On that day, as previously reported, there were only seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-two (7892) effective infantry. During the night, when the surrender became known, more than ten thousand men came in, as reported to me by the Chief Commissary of the Army. During the succeeding days stragglers continued to give themselves up, so that on the 12th April, according to the rolls of those paroled, twenty-six thousand and eighteen (26,018) officers and men had surrendered. Men who had left the ranks on the march, and crossed James River, returned and gave themselves up, and many have since come to Richmond and surrendered. I have given these details that Your Excellency might know the state of feeling which existed in the army, and judge of that in the country. From what I have seen and learned, I believe an army cannot be organized or supported in Virginia, and as far as I know the condition of affairs, the country east of the Mississippi is morally and physically unable to maintain the contest unaided with any hope of ultimate success. A partisan war may be continued, and hostilities protracted, causing individual suffering and the devastation of the country, but I see no prospect by that means of achieving a separate independence. It is for Your Excellency to decide, should you agree with me in opinion, what is proper to be done. To save useless effusion of blood, I would recommend measures be taken for suspension of hostilities and the restoration of peace.

I am with great respect, yr obdt svt
R. E. Lee
Genl

Great post!

Another busy day in history.