What was the most significant event on May 10 during the U.S. Civil War?

2016-05-11T15:57:40-04:00

Naval Engagement at Plum Run Bend, Tennessee. 1862: The Confederate River Defense Fleet, led by the CSS General Bragg caught the USS Cincinnati mortar vessel because they were smaller and faster. The vessel was disabled after firing a broadside into the General Bragg but was hit again by the CSS General Sterling Price and became rudderless.
Death of a gentleman warrior. 1863: Stonewall Jackson dies of pneumonia at a field hospital near Guiney Station, Virginia. The pneumonia was a complication of the amputation surgery of his left arm four days earlier
Proof of principle. 1864: Col Upton’s assault at Spotsylvania. A determined force can breach a deliberate Confederate earthwork defense.
CSA President captured. 1865: Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate states during the Civil War, was captured when the Union Army caught up to him on May 10, 1865, in Irwinville, Georgia.
Pictures:
1864 Spotsylvania court house Map Upton's assault;
1864 Eye-witness sketch of the fighting at Spotsylvania;
1863 death of CSA Gen Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson;
1862 Battle at Plum Run Bend from a Currier & Ives Lithograph

Upton's Charge and Bloody Repulse, Spotsylvania Court House, May 10, 1864
This is from the diary of Clinton Beckworth, a teenager in the 121st New York Volunteer Infantry chronicling the bloody attack and repulse on the Mule Shoe, Spotsylvania Court House, May 10, 1864. Cannons were won and lost. Friends fell in brutal combat against entrenched Rebel lines. The men of New York, Pennsylvania and Maine paid the price of Grant's plan. The Union Army spent the lives of their men freely in 1864. They could afford to replace them. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia could not.
Grant seeing the charge promoted Upton to Brigadier General. Grant realized that Upton had almost cracked Lee with Upton's smaller force. This attack was a prelude to a much larger attack on the Mule Shoe. That attack was some of the most brutal fighting of the entire war - maybe the worst 15 minutes of hell the American Civil War witnessed.
From out of the Wilderness, the Overland Campaign would continue after Spotsylvania to North Anna River, Cold Harbor and finally Lee would be trapped in the lines of Petersburg.
Filmed on the ground of the carnage, the videos were taken Summer 2021. The gorgeous photos are used with the permission of Old Soldier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaQunyhpFk8

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Upton's Charge and Bloody Repulse, Spotsylvania Court House, May 10, 1864

This is from the diary of Clinton Beckworth, a teenager in the 121st New York Volunteer Infantry chronicling the bloody attack and repulse on the Mule Shoe, ...

Response by LTC Stephen F. made May 11 at 2016 4:00 PM

2016-05-11T16:00:55-04:00

1861: Capt. Nathaniel Lyon of the U.S. Regulars takes control of St. Louis, Missouri to end rioting, seizing Camp Jackson (Confederate militia) and 1200 1855 Springfield Rifles
1862: The Confederate Navy and Army finish evacuating Norfolk and the Gosport Naval Yard, setting the facility on fire. When the Federals discover this, Gen. John Wool and 6,000 troops from Ft. Monroe cross over on steamboats to find empty entrenchments and the Mayor of Norfolk ready to surrender the city.
1862: Sarah Morgan, of Baton Rouge, notes in her journal her defiance of the newly-arrived Yankee occupation forces: Early in the evening, four more gunboats sailed up here. We saw them from the corner, three squares off, crowded with men even up in the riggings. The American flag was flying from every peak. It was received in profound silence, by the hundreds gathered on the banks. I could hardly refrain from a groan. Much as I once loved that flag, I hate it now! I came back and made myself a Confederate flag about five inches long, slipped the staff in my belt, pinned the flag to my shoulder, and walked downtown, to the consternation of women and children, who expected something awful to follow.
Pictures: 1864 Spotsylvania Map; 1862
_USS Cincinnati; 1865 Jefferson Davis imprisoned at Fort Monroe
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. From around a bend came the Confederate River Defense Fleet, led by the CSS General Bragg. Captain Montgomery had his eyes on sinking the USS Cincinnati and taking the mortar boat for himself. While the Rebel ships were merely converted riverboats, outfitted with some artillery, they were also forged into rams. Being smaller, they were faster, and if they caught an enemy ship unawares, they had a decided advantage.
The Cincinnati reacted slowly, trying to build up enough steam to move. She had made it to the middle of the river before the General Bragg smashed into her side. The Cincinnati replied with a broadside, but was soon hit again by the CSS General Sterling Price. She was now without a rudder.
To her rescue steamed the remaining six boats of the Union flotilla. As they arrived, they swarmed the Bragg, knocking her out of the action as another Rebel ship rammed the Cincinnati. The mortar boat managed to lightly toss up a shell or two above the Confederate fleet, exploding shreds of iron over the ships. The CSS General Van Dorn answered with her close-range artillery before ramming the USS Mound City, which had just been hit by the General Sumter, which had, itself, just rammed the Cincinnati, which was now sinking. The Mound City, also sinking, steamed towards the shore, but sank before reaching it.
The entire Union fleet had arrived and was ready to swat away the Rebel ships, when Captain Montgomery ordered his Confederate fleet to back off and return to the other side of Fort Pillow. The Confederate attack was fairly successful, sinking two ironclads and losing only one ship, but they didn’t get the mortar boat and the much stronger Federal fleet was still hovering above them. The dual loss of the Mound City and Cincinnati was only temporary, with the former being raised the next day and the latter two months later.
Background: The Union campaigns in the Spring of 1862 had bogged down. Both Generals Henry Halleck and George McClellan’s offensives had the crawling feel of being stuck in large pits of tar. In the west, the Army of the Tennessee, Halleck commanding, was inching and creeping closer and closer to the Rebels hunkered down at Corinth, Mississippi. Three Federal armies had been combined for the offensive, funneling in troops from what had been three different theaters to the Tennessee River.
One of the armies pulled from their previous field was General John Pope’s Army of the Mississippi, operating along its namesake river. This left the Union flotilla of seven gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew Foote without infantry support. Before Pope had been called away, the fleet, plus the infantry had anchored above Fort Pillow, Tennessee, just out of the range of the Rebel guns.
Foote and Pope had constructed a plan to land the infantry above the fort, while the sixteen mortar boats and seven gunboats pounded away with their artillery. With Pope and his men gone, Foote could only put the fort under siege and hope for the best. He could not attack it, and, if it fell, he could not occupy it.
Fort Pillow was actually a five-mile stretch of Confederate fortifications fifty miles south of the recently-taken Island No. 10. Containing over forty pieces of heavy artillery, this was the last formidable Mississippi River defense above Memphis. Amongst its weaponry, Fort Pillow was also protected by eight Confederate “cottonclads,” wooden ships, protected by compressed cotton, commanded by a former riverboat captain, James Edward Montgomery.
During the early part of the siege, Foote’s health began to deteriorate and he was placed on a leave of absence. To take his place, the Navy sent Captain Charles Davis, who arrived on May 9. At first, things seemed to normal. In the morning of this date, a mortar boat, protected by the ironclad USS Cincinnati, were lazily lobbing shells towards the fort when an officer spotted a plume of black smoke coming up the river.
B. Sunday, May 10, 1863: Stonewall Jackson dies of pneumonia at a field hospital near Guiney Station, Virginia. The pneumonia was a complication of the amputation surgery of his left arm four days earlier
C. Tuesday, May 10, 1864: Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Col Upton's Assault. Lt Gen U.S. Grant hoped to turn his luck on May 10 by attacking CSA Gen Robert E. Lee north of the Po River while Lee attacked Barlow’s division south of it. Gouverneur K. Warren and Winfield S. Hancock would make the main assault at Laurel Hill; General Horatio Wright and the Sixth Corps, would assail a small outward bulge in the Confederate line held by General George Doles' Georgia brigade. General Gershom Mott’s Second Corps division and General Ambrose Burnside’s Ninth Corps would support by making their own attacks.
Wright delegated his attack to an earnest 25-year-old colonel named Emory Upton and assigned him a strike force of approximately 5,000 men. Upton’s target was a small outward bulge in the Confederate line defended by CSA General George Doles’ Georgia brigade, located here. COL Upton formed his line just inside the woods ahead of you, and at 6:35 p.m., after a half-hour’s bombardment, attacked. Upton’s men covered the 200 yards of open ground between the woods and Doles’ log works in a matter of seconds. Attacking with only the bayonet, they swept over the works, scooping up 1,000 prisoners, before pressing on and capturing a second line of works.
CSA GEN Robert E. Lee immediately counterattacked, forcing Upton’s men to take shelter here, behind the outer line of works. The Federals doggedly hung on until dark when Upton, realizing that he was not going to receive reinforcements, ordered a withdrawal. The attack cost the Union army approximately 1,000 men, but it proved that a determined force, well led, could breach the Confederate works. It was a lesson not lost on Grant.
D. Wednesday, May 10, 1865: Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, had been captured! After fleeing from Richmond, and then from Danville after the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Jefferson Davis found himself on the run yet again, this time deep in heart of Georgia. After Lee’s surrender, Confederate army after Confederate army began to accept the generous terms of surrender offered by the North, yet Davis remained defiant. Refusing to accept defeat, he hoped to reach a sympathetic foreign nation such as Britain or France, and had even contemplated organizing a Confederate government in exile. Davis’ pipedream of a perpetual and independent Confederacy would come to an abrupt end on May 10, 1865, when a detachment of the 4th Michigan Cavalry fell upon and captured him and his personal entourage, including his wife Varina, near Irwinville, Georgia. Davis would be imprisoned for two years at Fortress Monroe on charges of treason – though he was never tried for the offence – and was released on bail in May of 1867
1. Friday, May 10, 1861: Nathaniel Lyons [US] takes control of St. Louis, Missouri to end rioting, seizing Camp Jackson (Confederate militia) and 1200 1855 Springfield Rifles
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186105
2. Friday, May 10, 1861: In St. Louis, Missouri, Federal regulars reinforced with several regiments of pro-Union state militia led by Capt. Nathaniel Lyon of the U.S. Regulars, march out to the outskirts of town, near Lindell’s Grove (now part of the St. Louis Univ. campus), to Camp Jackson, where Gen. David Frost and the pro-Secession Missouri Volunteer Militia are camped. Lyon’s forces surround the state force and force their surrender. Lyon marches the 660 prisoners through downtown St. Louis with all 6,000 of his troops. Rioting breaks out throughout the city. An angry crowd attacks the column, throwing paving stones and finally firing into the bluecoats. The Union troops return fire. 28 civilians are killed, and at least 100 wounded. 5 soldiers had also been killed, with dozens injured.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1861
3. Saturday, May 10, 1862: Confederates destroy Naval Base at Pensacola, Florida.
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186205
4. Saturday, May 10, 1862 --- The Confederate Navy and Army finish evacuating Norfolk and the Gosport Naval Yard, setting the facility on fire. When the Federals discover this, Gen. John Wool and 6,000 troops from Ft. Monroe cross over on steamboats to find empty entrenchments and the Mayor of Norfolk ready to surrender the city.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1862
5. Saturday, May 10, 1862: Norfolk Abandoned by Rebels, Seized by Federals. Though General McClellan’s move up the Virginia Peninsula was sluggish, it was still opportune enough to cause the Confederates to abandon their Navy Yard at Norfolk. The previous week, General Benjamin Huger, commanding several thousand troops around the city, began evacuating them on any ships that he could find. As their protection, the CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) covered the escape with the Federals being none-the-wiser until the 8th.
Also that week, President Lincoln decided to drop in on the Peninsula to see how his investments were being handled by McClellan. Lincoln toured the area on the 7th, and determined that Norfolk was quite cut off from everything and could be taken without much loss. The next day, a few ships, including the new ironclad, Galena, attacked several points in the bay and on the James River. When the Rebels put up a stiff resistance, and when the CSS Virginia showed up, they backed down.
After learning of the Confederate withdraw from Norfolk from a tugboat captain who had deserted his cause, Lincoln went ashore to see for himself where the Union troops were to be landed. After they were disembarked, the Secretary of the Treasure, Salmon P. Chase, who had accompanied the President, took joint command of the six thousand troops with General John Wool from Fortress Monroe.
All the while, Lincoln was rushing around on the boat, hurrying along the reinforcements. But there was little need. The Federal troops found only empty entrenchments and an empty city. Norfolk’s mayor, unlike the Mayor of New Orleans, formally surrendered his town to the invaders.
As happened elsewhere on the Peninsula, the Rebels had gotten away. But the loss of the Navy Yard, which had been put to the torch, meant that the CSS Virginia was homeless. That night, Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall, commander of the Confederate fleet, but mostly concerned with the Virginia, labored tirelessly with his crew to lighten her draft enough to make it over the shallows on the James River. Her new home was to be at Harrison’s Landing, thirty-five miles away. After just five hours, they had raised her three feet. This, hoped Tattnall, might be enough.
http://civilwardailygazette.com/the-fleet-to-fleet-battle-of-plum-run-bend-norfolk-captured/
6. Saturday, May 10, 1862 --- At Farmington, Mississippi, Gen. John Pope’s Federal troops (part of Gen. Halleck’s Grand Army of the West) are close enough to Corinth that the Confederates moved a line of battle and artillery out to meet them. After heavy skirmishing, the fighting ends, with nearly 150 men killed or wounded in the Federals who fought.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1862
7. Saturday, May 10, 1862 --- In a strange letter to his family from Pvt. William Ray Wells of the 12th New York Infantry, just arrived at West Point, halfway up the York River in Virginia, he tells of being attacked by "a party of negroes" and the rumor that the black men were in the Rebel army: The troops are in excellent spirits and expect a brush soon. we have marching orders to move tomorrow morning. destination unknown. but expect somewhere facing the rebels. when our troops first landed here they were attacked by a party of negroes and a number of us slashed up with nives and had their throats cut. but we soon drove them back. . . . I will resume my pen and try and finish this to you. I have just been to the Capt. and borrowed an envelope. money does not do any good here as there is nothing to get unless it is something to eat from the negro families here whose male population are all in the sesesh army.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1862
8. Saturday, May 10, 1862 --- Pvt. Robert Knox Sneden, in his journal, details the adverse conditions of muddy roads caused by incessant rains on the James Peninsula, and which is impeding McClellan’s march up the peninsula with the Army of the Potomac: The wagon trains crawled along slowly, until an opening in the woods allowed one train to pass the other. After going two miles the wagons stuck in the mud every few minutes, while the mules were belabored unmercifully by the teamsters, while the air was blue with their swearing. . . . Then wheels would be interlocked and the mules roll completely out of harness, so the same old scenes were repeated. . . . The yells, cracking of whips, curses, and braying of the mules resounded through the woods for a great distance in many places. . . . As we neared the Halfway House we came upon numerous Rebel army wagons which had been stalled in the mud. They were lying on their sides with all wheels cut to pieces with axes. Nothing was found in the wagons but a few old salt bags. There were lots of dead mules strung out on the road for a mile of more lying on their backs, half smothered in mud, with their feet sticking up out of it. . . . All of our sugar, salt, and hardbread had got wet with the rain which poured down steadily until long after daylight.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1862
9. Saturday, May 10, 1862 --- Sarah Morgan, of Baton Rouge, notes in her journal her defiance of the newly-arrived Yankee occupation forces: Early in the evening, four more gunboats sailed up here. We saw them from the corner, three squares off, crowded with men even up in the riggings. The American flag was flying from every peak. It was received in profound silence, by the hundreds gathered on the banks. I could hardly refrain from a groan. Much as I once loved that flag, I hate it now! I came back and made myself a Confederate flag about five inches long, slipped the staff in my belt, pinned the flag to my shoulder, and walked downtown, to the consternation of women and children, who expected something awful to follow.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1862
10. Sunday, May 10, 1863 --- Gen. Grant’s campaign through central Mississippi continues apace, with McPherson’s corps arrived at Utica, Mississippi on this date. Sherman’s and McClernand’s corps are advancing on a parallel road farther north, somewhere near Five Mile Creek. The Army of the Tennessee is moving at its characteristic swift pace.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1863
11. Sunday, May 10, 1863 --- With McPherson’s corps is Jenkin Lloyd Jones, of the 6th Battery of Wisconsin Artillery. He notes their passing Utica on their swift march: Near Raymond, Miss., Sunday, May 10. Awoke, harnessed and fed horses at 3 o’clock A. M. 7 A. M. unharnessed and grazed our horses for an hour. Lay in the shade until noon, when we hurriedly harnessed, leaving our dinner half cooked, and marched over very dusty and sultry roads. Poor country, covered with pine poles. Halted at Utica two hours and watered horses, let the cavalry pass. This is a lively looking place of two dozen houses, with frowning damsels in the windows and doors. May poles still standing. They did not expect the Yankees so soon. Took the road toward Raymond, eighteen miles distant. At sundown came into camp in thick oak brush. All our cooking utensils in the mule wagons. "By order"‘ obliged to go to bed without our supper save hard crackers.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1863
12. Tuesday, May 10, 1864 --- Stephen Minot Weld, a young officer in the Union army, in Virginia, writes in a letter home of his impressions of the day’s fighting at Spotsylvania C. H.: Dear Hannah, — I am safe and sound so far, I am thankful to say. We have had the hardest battle of the war, with fearful loss on our side. We were in the second day’s fight in the battle of the Wilderness and had a mighty tough time of it. It was by far the hottest fire I have ever been under. Colonel Griswold was killed while behaving most nobly. We were in line of battle along the side of the road, when the Second Corps came rushing over our two right companies, throwing them into some confusion. Colonel Griswold ran up there with the color-bearer to rally the men, and while doing so was shot dead through the jugular vein. I then took command of the regiment, which had to fall back soon on account of being flanked. We had the rebs on three sides of us, and I held on as long as I possibly could, and then gave the order to fall back.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1864
13. Tuesday, May 10, 1864 --- Near Alexandria, another effort is made to raise the river water in the Red River, in order to float the stranded ships over the rapids and downstream to safety. The USS Chillicote is able to float over, but the Carondelet gets hung up, hanging over the spillway, stern downstream. The Mound City tries, and gets high-centered. Col. Bailey, who had been supervising the construction, goes to Col. Pearsall of the 99th U.S.C.T., and asks him if he has a plan. Pearsall does, and tomorrow assumes supervision of the dams.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1864
14. Wednesday, May 10, 1865: President Johnson declares armed resistance at an end.
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186505
15. Wednesday, May 10, 1865: The CSS Imogene becomes the last known ship to successfully run the naval blockade.
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186505
16. Tuesday, May 10, 1864 --- Atlanta Campaign, Georgia: Sherman decides to send his entire army through Snake Creek Gap, on his extreme southern (right) flank. Meanwhile, the Confederate government decides to send Gen. Polk’s corps to reinforce Johnston in Georgia.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1864

A Saturday, May 10, 1862: Naval Action-Mississippi River: Battle of Plum Point Bend: Flag Officer Andrew Foote and General John Pope had constructed a plan to land the infantry above the fort, while the sixteen mortar boats and seven gunboats pounded away with their artillery. With Pope and his men gone, Foote could only put the fort under siege and hope for the best. He could not attack it, and, if it fell, he could not occupy it.
Fort Pillow was actually a five-mile stretch of Confederate fortifications fifty miles south of the recently-taken Island No. 10. Containing over forty pieces of heavy artillery, this was the last formidable Mississippi River defense above Memphis. Amongst its weaponry, Fort Pillow was also protected by eight Confederate “cottonclads,” wooden ships, protected by compressed cotton, commanded by a former riverboat captain, James Edward Montgomery.
During the early part of the siege, Foote’s health began to deteriorate and he was placed on a leave of absence. To take his place, the Navy sent Captain Charles Davis, who arrived on May 9. At first, things seemed to normal. In the morning of this date, a mortar boat, protected by the ironclad USS Cincinnati, were lazily lobbing shells towards the fort when an officer spotted a plume of black smoke coming up the river.
From around a bend came the Confederate River Defense Fleet, led by the CSS General Bragg. Captain Montgomery had his eyes on sinking the Cincinnati and taking the mortar boat for himself. While the Rebel ships were merely converted riverboats, outfitted with some artillery, they were also forged into rams. Being smaller, they were faster, and if they caught an enemy ship unawares, they had a decided advantage.
The Cincinnati reacted slowly, trying to build up enough steam to move. She had made it to the middle of the river before the General Bragg smashed into her side. The Cincinnati replied with a broadside, but was soon hit again by the CSS General Sterling Price. She was now without a rudder.
To her rescue steamed the remaining six boats of the Union flotilla. As they arrived, they swarmed the Bragg, knocking her out of the action as another Rebel ship rammed the Cincinnati. The mortar boat managed to lightly toss up a shell or two above the Confederate fleet, exploding shreds of iron over the ships. The CSS General Van Dorn answered with her close-range artillery before ramming the USS Mound City, which had just been hit by the General Sumter, which had, itself, just rammed the Cincinnati, which was now sinking. The Mound City, also sinking, steamed towards the shore, but sank before reaching it.
The entire Union fleet had arrived and was ready to swat away the Rebel ships, when Captain Montgomery ordered his Confederate fleet to back off and return to the other side of Fort Pillow. The Confederate attack was fairly successful, sinking two ironclads and losing only one ship, but they didn’t get the mortar boat and the much stronger Federal fleet was still hovering above them. The dual loss of the Mound City and Cincinnati was only temporary, with the former being raised the next day and the latter two months later.
Background: The Union campaigns in the Spring of 1862 had bogged down. Both Generals Henry Halleck and George McClellan’s offensives had the crawling feel of being stuck in large pits of tar. In the west, the Army of the Tennessee, Halleck commanding, was inching and creeping closer and closer to the Rebels hunkered down at Corinth, Mississippi. Three Federal armies had been combined for the offensive, funneling in troops from what had been three different theaters to the Tennessee River.
One of the armies pulled from their previous field was General John Pope’s Army of the Mississippi, operating along its namesake river. This left the Union flotilla of seven gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew Foote without infantry support. Before Pope had been called away, the fleet, plus the infantry had anchored above Fort Pillow, Tennessee, just out of the range of the Rebel guns.
http://civilwardailygazette.com/the-fleet-to-fleet-battle-of-plum-run-bend-norfolk-captured/
A+ Saturday, May 10, 1862: Federal mortar boats, shelling Fort Pillow, are attacked by a makeshift Confederate fleet. The U. S. responds in force, with ironclads. Although the 8 Confederate boats manage to sink 2 ironclads (the Cincinnati and Mound City) the battle of Plum Run Bend or Plum Point ended when the Rebels withdrew to Fort Pillow
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186205
A++ Saturday, May 10, 1862: Naval Action-Mississippi River: Battle of Plum Point Bend: Near Ft. Pillow, Tennessee—a five-mile stretch of fortifications and gun emplacements on the Mississippi River—there is a sharp naval battle between seven Union gunboats and ironclads under command of Capt. Charles H. Davis of the U.S. Navy and a flotilla of ten Rebel converted riverboats and rams under command of Captain Montgomery of the CS Navy. Montgomery steams directly at the flagship, the USS Cincinnati, and the CSS General Bragg rams her, followed by the CSS General Sterling Price. The Cincinnati begins to sink. The other six boats of the USN river squadron steam into the battle, and pound the Gen. Bragg, knocking her out of action when a shell passes through the boiler. The USS Mound City is rammed by the CSS General Sumter, and then by the CSS General Van Dorn, which also rakes the Mound City with gunfire. The Mound City sinks before she can get to shallower waters. The Cincinnati also sinks. The CSN River Defense Squadron retires to the protection of Ft. Pillow’s guns, and Memphis is safe for a while longer, yet. The Federal boats badly damage two Rebel vessels, but this is still clearly a rare Confederate naval victory.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1862
B Sunday, May 10, 1863: Stonewall Jackson dies at a field hospital near Guiney Station, Virginia.
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186305
B+ Sunday, May 10, 1863 --- On this date, Gen. Stonewall Jackson dies of pneumonia, a complication of the amputation surgery of his left arm four days earlier. The South mourns for the fallen warrior.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1863
C Tuesday, May 10, 1864: Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Col Upton's Assault. Lt Gen U.S. Grant hoped to turn his luck on May 10 by attacking CSA Gen Robert E. Lee north of the Po River while Lee attacked Barlow’s division south of it. Gouverneur K. Warren and Winfield S. Hancock would make the main assault at Laurel Hill; General Horatio Wright and the Sixth Corps, would assail a small outward bulge in the Confederate line held by General George Doles' Georgia brigade. General Gershom Mott’s Second Corps division and General Ambrose Burnside’s Ninth Corps would support by making their own attacks.
Wright delegated his attack to an earnest 25-year-old colonel named Emory Upton and assigned him a strike force of approximately 5,000 men. Upton’s target was a small outward bulge in the Confederate line defended by CSA General George Doles’ Georgia brigade, located here. COL Upton formed his line just inside the woods ahead of you, and at 6:35 p.m., after a half-hour’s bombardment, attacked. Upton’s men covered the 200 yards of open ground between the woods and Doles’ log works in a matter of seconds. Attacking with only the bayonet, they swept over the works, scooping up 1,000 prisoners, before pressing on and capturing a second line of works.
CSA GEN Robert E. Lee immediately counterattacked, forcing Upton’s men to take shelter here, behind the outer line of works. The Federals doggedly hung on until dark when Upton, realizing that he was not going to receive reinforcements, ordered a withdrawal. The attack cost the Union army approximately 1,000 men, but it proved that a determined force, well led, could breach the Confederate works. It was a lesson not lost on Grant.
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/spotsylvaniacourthouse/spotsylvania-courthouse-maps/spotsylvaniacourthouse.html
C+ Tuesday, May 10, 1864: Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia [May 8-21, 1864] Day 3: Believing that Lee is weakening his left to reinforce his right, Grant orders Hancock to pull out of line and march toward the east, leaving only Gen. Barlow’s division in their former position on Grant’s right, south of the Po. Gen. Early, now commanding the Third Corps (due to A.P. Hill’s ill health), does not attack immediately: only later, at 2:00 PM, does he send Heth’s division in to smash Barlow. Barlow is overwhelmed, but does not allow his men to panic, as they withdraw in good order back across the Po River. Grant cancels Hancock’s move, so he can go back to aid Barlow against Early’s attack.
Later in the evening, Warren attacks the enemy line in front of him. But Warren attacks too early, at 4:00 PM, throwing off Grant’s plan for a general attack at 5:00 PM. Warren is repulsed, and time is needed to pull his formations back and re-organize them. So, Grant decides to delay the attack. However, Gen. Mott’s division does not get the message, and advances alone toward the tip of the Mule Shoe, and enfilading artillery fire shreds Mott’s formations. This division withdraws. The general attack is slated to begin at 6:00 PM.
Grant’s plan involves a broad attack all along the Confederate lines, around 5:00 pm. Later in the day, 24-year-old Col. Emory Upton, a brigade commander, approaches the high command with a plan: for a double column of regiments (rather than a wide battle line) to move forward to puncture the “Mule Shoe” salient. Grant gives his consent. The plan goes forward, and Upton is given his own brigade plus several other regiments, totaling 12 regiments, about 5,000 men, organized into two columns of 6 regiments each. At a signal, they rush a specific point of the Mule Shoe. Rather than move forward in a long line, Upton’s group moves forward in this double column of regiments, breaks the Muleshoe salient, and pushes through. The plan is a success, and Upton’s regiments peel off to one side and another to hold the gap open. However, the expected reinforcements, which included Mott’s division, now shattered and in the rear, do not appear. Upton calls for his men to retreat. Upton himself is wounded, and within a few days he is promoted to brigadier general for his valor and innovativeness.
Burnside advances on the Federal left, and encounters the Confederate line. He is unaware that he faces only the division of Cadmus Wilcox, and that Wilcox has a large gap between him and Ewell’s Corps. Burnside is in a position to flank Lee’s army and win the battle, possibly the war, but he is cautious and stops. Since Grant and Meade have sent away all of Sheridan’s cavalry, there are no reliable scouting reports, and they do not realize the advantage they have. Grant orders Burnside to connect his right with Wright’s (VI Corps) left; in doing so, Burnside necessarily pulls back for quite a distance, thus putting this advantage out of their reach.
http://civilwarsesquicentdaily-wolfshield.blogspot.com/search?q=May+10%2C+1864
D Wednesday, May 10, 1865: Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, had been captured! After fleeing from Richmond, and then from Danville after the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, Jefferson Davis found himself on the run yet again, this time deep in heart of Georgia. After Lee’s surrender, Confederate army after Confederate army began to accept the generous terms of surrender offered by the North, yet Davis remained defiant. Refusing to accept defeat, he hoped to reach a sympathetic foreign nation such as Britain or France, and had even contemplated organizing a Confederate government in exile. Davis’ pipedream of a perpetual and independent Confederacy would come to an abrupt end on May 10, 1865, when a detachment of the 4th Michigan Cavalry fell upon and captured him and his personal entourage, including his wife Varina, near Irwinville, Georgia. Davis would be imprisoned for two years at Fortress Monroe on charges of treason – though he was never tried for the offence – and was released on bail in May of 1867.
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/end-of-war/davis-captured.html
D+ Wednesday, May 10, 1865: President Jefferson Davis is captured near Irwinville, Georgia
http://blueandgraytrail.com/year/186505
FYI CSM Charles Hayden SGT Tiffanie G. SGT Mary G.CPL Ronald Keyes Jr SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D MAJ Roland McDonald SSG Franklin Briant CPO William Glen (W.G.) Powell 1stSgt Eugene Harless PO3 Private RallyPoint MemberMSG Greg KellyMSG Joseph ChristofaroLTC Greg Henning CPT Private RallyPoint Member SGT John " Mac " McConnell LTC John Griscom LTC Thomas Tennant MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca SFC George Smith SPC Michael Terrell

Civil War Timeline / Chronology for May 1861

Response by MSG Brad Sand made May 11 at 2016 4:35 PM

2016-05-11T16:35:00-04:00

The capture of Jefferson Davis would have been the most important event. The threat of continued conflict was put closer to an end.

Response by SP5 Mark Kuzinski made May 11 at 2016 6:43 PM

2016-05-11T18:43:17-04:00

Thanks LTC Stephen F. - great read for the night as usual!

Response by 1stSgt Eugene Harless made May 12 at 2016 6:26 AM

2016-05-12T06:26:05-04:00

It's kind of hard to pick between these all but the death of Stonewall Jackson led to the reorganization of the Army into three Corps vice two, since Lee felt he had no subordinates who were capable enough to handle as large of a unit as Jackson did. Jackson's aggressiveness was never displayed by Lee's subordinates again, and it is argued that if it had been Jackson, vice Ewell commanding the first day at Gettyburg he would have pushed further and taken more key terrain, changing the way the battle played out.

Response by 1stSgt Eugene Harless made May 12 at 2016 6:32 AM

2016-05-12T06:32:31-04:00

As for Upton's Assault, it was no more than a rehash of Napoleon's tactic of attacking in Collumn. It depended on having well disciplined troops with good leaders who would not hesitatate to fire when engage but push on. The weather, time of attack and Confederate position they attacked all added together made the attack successful, initially. in the end the ferocity of the defendersturned it into a bloody stalemate at best.