Chronological History of the American Civil War

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Yankees brave ice and snow, crossing swamps, and swimming across the St. Francis River on a Federal expedition from Bloomfield to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. The men suffer greatly from exposure to the elements, but manage to kill 19 Confederates, wounding and capturing more, in addition to seizing depleted Confederate stock. Thursday, January 5, 1865 : Both General Lee and Jefferson Davis continue to be upbeat about the South’s military situation. Many others in the Confederacy were a lot more pessimistic about the South’s chances. President Lincoln gives James W. Singleton, a Presidential pass to get through Union lines to help facilitate a surrender. A Union forage party attack Confederate pickets at Lawrence’s Mill, 5 miles east of Mossy Creek, and captured 12 Confederates with their arms and 9 horses at Lawrence’s Mill, Tennessee without any loss of their own. On the Pecos River, near Fort Sumner in the New Mexico Territory, the Apaches assist the Federals against the Navajo Indians, since it was their herd of horses that were stolen...resulting in many Navajo casualties. The weather is extremely cold. Friday, January 6, 1865 : The Confederate

commissioner to France, John Slidell, made secret deals with France to make ironclad ships for the South. The Danish government bought the ship, which helps to hide where it was going. Today, the ironclad took on a Confederate flag and crew at Copenhagen, under the command of Captain T. J. Page (CSN). The ship was recommissioned as the C.S.S. Stonewall . After the war, this ship was sold to Japan, as their first ironclad warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy acquired from the United States in February 1869. Saturday, January 7, 1865 : Urged on by Lieut.

General Ulysses S. Grant, (U.S.) President Abraham Lincoln removes Major General Benjamin F. Butler (U.S.) from active service in the U.S. Army, after his last failure on the assault on Fort Fisher (CSA) at Wilmington, North Carolina. The Battle of Julesburg takes place near Julesburg, Colorado with between 1,000 Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota Indians and about 60 soldiers (U.S.) and 40 to 50 civilians. The Indians defeat the soldiers, with 14 soldiers and 4 civilians killed, and no Indians reported killed. Over the next few weeks, the Indians plunder ranches and stagecoach stations up and down the valley of the South Platte River. Sunday, January 8, 1865 : The Memphis Bulletin wrote today: "Our city is becoming a model city, almost like a settlement of Quakers, so serene is everything and so passive [is] everybody... There were two or three drunken fights, but they are everyday occurrences, and it would seem strange if they were not…” Meanwhile on a McMinnville, Tennessee plantation, Lucy Virginia French writes in her journal: “The sentiment among officers and men caused them to say, ‘There will yet be a Confederacy!’ … I do not see that the prospect is very brilliant at present …. I do want to improve myself during all these years we are compelled to live under the cloud of war …. But yet, I almost despair of being able to accomplish anything.” Change is coming to the South whether they want it or not, and they knew it. Change is happening in the West, too, where the only good Indian was a dead Indian. There is some action today with Indians, mainly Kickapoos and Pottawatomies, at Dove Creek on the Concho River, Texas. The friendly Indians sent a woman with child under a flag of truce to the