Today Confederate Calvary Commander General Joe Wheeler, in an attempt to hamper the Union offensive against Atlanta, begins raiding activities behind Federal lines in North Georgia, targeting Federal railroad supply lines. Wheeler operates in North Georgia and Tennessee for a month. Although the Confederate general does manage to temporarily destroy some stretches of rail, his…
Today an enormous explosion rocks City Point, Virginia, the headquarters of the Union Army during the current siege of Petersburg. Several large buildings, 180 feet of wharf, and some two million dollars worth of military munitions and supplies are destroyed, while more than forty workers lose their lives. Union General Ulysses S. Grant quarters…
Today in Alabama’s Mobile Bay, the Confederacy’s Fort Gaines surrenders. The Stars and Stripes are raised, and the United States formally assumes control of the bay. Northward in the battle for Atlanta, a Confederate Baptist layman is captured by Union forces, for the second time. Walter Noel Leake (1844-1920), born in Kentucky, as a child…