Chronological History of the American Civil War

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being used as a military residence and prison, drops nearly 300 Confederate prisoners three stories, killing six men and injuring nearly 100 more. Friday, October 2, 1863 : General William S. Rosecrans (U.S.) and his army are penned up in Chattanooga, as General Bragg’s Confederate forces controlled all the roads to the south, the road to Bridgeport to the north, and the Tennessee River. Joe Wheeler’s (CSA) cavalry troops were rampaging in the rear, cutting off most of what few supplies, were getting through over the rough trail through Walden’s Ridge and the Sequatchie. Encounters with Wheeler’s men led to skirmishes in Anderson’s Cross Roads, Valley Road around Jasper, and near Dunlap, Tennessee. What Bragg (U.S.) did not know, however, was that down the road from Bridgeport, there were about 20,000 men and 3,000 horses that had started his way led by General Joseph Hooker (U.S.). Hooker’s Army of the Potomac had made the almost 1,200 mile journey in just over a week. President Jefferson Davis (CSA) insists that “snatching Tennessee from the Abolitionists” is urgent. Saturday, October 3, 1863 : The first reinforcements for the Army of the Cumberland arrived in Chattanooga. The newspaper Richmond Examiner reports that the Southern victory at Chickamauga gained little for the Confederacy, since “the enemy hold Chattanooga and East Tennessee, which were the prizes of the battle.” The article goes on to say that “Jeff Davis will soon again have to make the mournful confession he made 18 months ago, that the Confederacy has undertaken more than it has the means of achieving.” Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, also started her advocacy for a national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful. In support of the proposed national holiday, she wrote letters to five Presidents of the United States: Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. After reading several articles on the subject by Sarah, Abraham Lincoln calls for a national day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November 1863. Sunday, October 4, 1863 : Lincoln predicts outcome of rebellion to General Rosecrans, “If we can hold Chattanooga, and East Tennessee, I think the rebellion must dwindle and die. I think you and Burnside can do this; and hence doing so is your main object.” There is a small battle at Nelson's Bridge, near New Iberia, Louisana, as Major General William B. Franklin, (U.S.) pressed on toward the Sabine, Texas. Brig. General, James Ronald Chalmer begins his Confederate raid from Salem, Mississippis into West Tennessee and North Mississippi to make strikes against the Memphis - Charleston Railroad. Union engineers completed the first of the flat-bottomed steamboats that they hoped to use to help supply the Army of the Cumberland (U.S.) at Chattanooga. In a dispatch sent to Major General Halleck from Memphis, Tennessee: “My eldest boy Willie—my California boy—nine years old, died here yesterday, of fever and dysentery contracted at Vicksburg. His loss to me is more than words can express, but I would not let it divert my mind from the duty I owe my country” - W. T. SHERMAN, Maj.-General. Monday, October 5, 1863 : The Confederates attempt and fail to blow up the U.S. steamer, the U.S.S. New Ironsides , off Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, by the cigar shaped, semi-submarine vessel, the C.S.S. David . The C.S.S. David rammed, the bomb exploded, and a huge column of water jumped out of the harbor, falling directly back down... on the David , extinguishing her boiler and nearly swamping the boat. The captain and most of the crew assuming the ship was doomed, leaped overboard, and were picked up by Union ships. The engineer, named Tomb, stayed aboard, because he could not swim. In all the excitement, he got the boiler relit and sailed David back to safety. Major General Joseph Wheeler, (CSA) destroys the most important Stone's River Railroad Bridge, near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, this will increase the lack of food flowing into the beleaguered Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga, Tennessee. Tuesday, October 6, 1963 : After conducting many raids in Kansas, including the massacre at Lawrence, Quantrill, decided to winter in Texas. William Quantrill (CSA) and his men happened upon a Federal post at Baxter Springs, Kansas near the Missouri and Indian Territory borders. Quantrill attacked suddenly, surprising the Yankees, who suffered heavy casualties before barricading themselves inside the