Near Springfield, Missouri the first major Civil War battle in the western theater wages. At 5 A.M. Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon’s U.S. Army of the West faces off with Confederate Brig. Gen. Ben McCulloch’s troops at Wilson Creek, twelve miles southwest of Springfield. By morning’s end, the Confederates emerge victorious in the Battle of Wilson’s…
United States forces occupy Fort Monroe in Virginia, with plans to transform the nearby town of Hampton into a base for quartering troops and former slaves who have escaped behind Union lines and to freedom under President Lincoln’s contraband policy. Upon reading this morning’s newspaper, Confederate Gen. John B. Magruder learns of Union intentions. Unwilling…
Today the informal emancipation of southern slaves begins, in the form of the United States’ Act to Confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary Purposes. While not mentioning slavery specifically, the Act approved by the President and passed by the Congress gives Union armies the power to confiscate the property of southerners – including slaves, the most…