For ten months the Federals have laid siege to Petersburg, facing off against Confederate General Robert E. Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia. The trenches are all that separate Union forces from the Confederate capital of Richmond, with the siege lines now stretching northward some 25 miles to the edge of Richmond. Defending Confederate forces are…
Today’s Richmond Daily Dispatch reports of early movements of Sherman‘s army out of Savannah. “One corps of Sherman’s army has been sent to Hilton Head in transports.–Large bodies of troops have moved from Savannah into Carolina within the past few days. Our informant thinks a movement on Branchville is intended; and, if successful, from thence…
Today’s session of the Confederate Senate is opened in prayer “by the Rev. Mr. Tichenor, of the Baptist Church,” presumably Isaac T. Tichenor, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama, and Confederate chaplain. Also this day, Confederate General Robert E. Lee orders the Confederate Army to suspend military duties for the observance of…