McHenry County CWRT Discussion: The Beginning of the End December 1864, January 1865

The McHenry County (Illinois) Civil War Round Table discussion group met at Panera Bread on December17, 2022 to discuss events in these two months.

Of course, a lot was said about the two battles of Fort Fisher in those two months and the fall of the fort on Jan. 15.

On January 15, 1865, Confederate General Beauregard arrived in Tupelo, Mississippi, to inspect what was left of the Army of Tennessee.  There wasn't much to inspect.  It was in complete chaos.

He sent 4,000 of them to Mobile to reinforce that garrison and furloughed 3,500 to go home.  (You have to wonder how many returned after the furlough was over.

Also in South Carolina, Charleston Harbor was abandoned.  The Union fleet was preparing a demonstration to draw attention away from its entrance to the harbor.

The USS Patapsco hit a torpedo while participating in obstruction removal and sank with the loss of 75 of her 105 man crew.  One of the few survivors was its executive officer, Lieutenant William T. Sampson who would later find fame for the naval victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in the Spanish-American War.

--Old Secesh

MCCWRT: Sherman's March-- Part 2: Joseph Wheeler's Cavalry and the Howell Cobb Plantation

**  Macon, Georgia, was a major manufacturing center for the Confederacy.

**  Sherman did not burn Savannah.  He got cotton as tribute.

**  The cavalry of Joseph Wheeler were the only real resistance Sherman faced on his way to Savannah.

**  Confederates had placed torpedoes (artillery shells) on the roads into Savannah rigged to blow up is stepped upon.  Confederate prisoners were sent ahead of Union troops to explode them one way or another.

**  Sherman burned the Howell Cobb plantation near Milledgeville, Georgia.  On the night of November 22, 1864,  on his March to the Sea, Gen. Sherman camped there.  Upon learning it was owned by Howell Cobb, former U.S. cabinet member, Congressman and now an important man in the Confederacy, he ordered its total destruction except for the slave quarters.

**  Runaway slaves following Sherman's army were often used as pioneers in road construction.

**  There is a double-barreled cannon in Athens, Georgia.

--Old Secesh

December Civil War Dates: 13th Amendment and Stones River

From the American Battlefield Trust 2021 calendar.

December

DECEMBER 6, 1865

The 13th Amendment ratified, officially abolishing slavery.

DECEMBER 7 1862

Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.

DECEMBER 11, 1862

Battle of Fredericksburg, Va. begins.

DECEMBER 12, 1862

USS Cairo sinks in the Yazoo River, Miss.  Hit a torpedo (mine).

DECEMBER 15, 1864

Battle of Nashville, Tn. begins.

DECEMBER 18, 1865

The 13th Amendment abolishing slavery becomes a part of the U.S. Constitution.

DECEMBER 31, 1862

Battle of Stones River(Murfreesboro), Tenn. begins.

--Old Secesh

Fort Wool's Endicott Batteries and World War I-- Part 6

ENDICOTT BATTERIES

In 1885, the Endicott board met and determined that the coastal defenses of the U.S. needed to be updated.  As a result, all but a small part of Fort Wool's  western end of the fort were demolished to make room for what eventually became five batteries.  

As funding became available they were constructed starting in 1905  Fort Wool's armament was of relatively smaller-caliber, rapid-firing guns because Fort Monroe  had the bigger guns.  The three-inch guns were primarily emplaced to protect underwater mine fields from minesweepers.  Some of the mines, still called torpedoes at the time were stored at Fort Wool.

WORLD WAR I

In 1917 and 1918, all but two of the six-inch guns at Fort Wool  were removed to potentially be sent to the Western front in Europe.  The remaining guns were shifted to Battery Gates.

During both wars, submarine nets  were stretched across the harbor from Fort Monroe to Fort Wool.

--Old Secesh

Major John Johnson Makes Corrections in Second Printing of His Book "Defense of Charleston..."

The first printing ran out in just six months.

Omissions he wanted to correct:

**  The Confederate transport Marion sunk by a torpedo while placing then in the Ashley River on April 6, 1863.

**  The statement that the finding of the "fish" Confederate torpedo boat, alongside the wreck of her victim, the U.S. sloop of war "Housatonic" is not a certified fact.

**  The captured gunboat "Isaac Smith" afterwards known as the "Stono" by the Confederates,  was lost in attempting to run the blockade.

**  The attack on the Pawnee and Marblehead gunboats  on the Stono River m July 16, 1863,  there were engaged four rifled guns of the siege train (Palmetto Guards) Capt. B.C. Webb, , besides the artillery mentioned.

**  The average range of all (Union) batteries at the reduction of Fort Pulaski, Ga., was 2,559 yards, though the actual breaching was done at  at 1,700 yards.

--Old Secesh

MCCWRT Meeting Tuesday, May 14: "Hi Tech Rebs and Their Infernal Machines"

This Tuesday, may 14, the McHenry County Civil War Round Table will be having their monthly meeting at the Woodstock, Illinois, Library on 414 Judd Street at 7 pm.

This month's presentation will be "Damn the Torpedoes:  Hi Tech Rebs and Their Infernal Machines" by Bruce Allardice.

Of course, that would cover torpedoes and submarines among other things, right up this navy  guy's alley.

Everyone Welcome.  --Old Secesh

Confederate Land Mine Found...Then Destroyed-- Part 2: Found At a Construction Site

Civil War land mines were mostly converted cannonballs and more commonly used in Virginia and Georgia.

Matt Bell found it while doing excavating with a small track backhoe uncovered it at a construction site near Danville, Arkansas, in Yell County on Wednesday.  They at first thought it to be a solid cannonball and quite a nice souvenir.

Another man tossed it out of the ditch and Bell picked it up and put it in the bed of his pickup and drove it home the 65 miles to Hot Springs.  He measured and weighed it and found it to be 31.6 pounds and 6.25-inches in diameter.  he found out it was definitely a land mine at the Civil War Museum West in Hot Springs.

There were at least eleven skirmishes in Yell County during the war.  One was at Danville on March 18, 1864.

Civil war shells are often defused and I sure wish they had defused it rather than blown it up.  That was quite an artifact.

--Old Secesh

Confederate Land Mine Found...And Then Destroyed-- Part 1: It Was Still Potent

From the April 2, 2016, Arkansas Online "Civil War relic destroyed after it's identified as land mine."

A very rare 32-pound Confederate land mine with a pressure sensor fuse, the first-known one discovered west of the Mississippi River, has been found and then destroyed in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Matt Bell found it at his construction site near Danville in Yell County and thought he had a great old relic, but then he found out it was actually a land mine and that an x-ray test showed their could be explosives inside that might go off.  The land mine was taken to the Garland County Landfill and safely detonated.

So, it was possible that it could have exploded when found and on the truck ride to Hot Springs.

More to Come.  --Old Secesh

MCCWRT Discussion Group Meets Saturday: Topic is Mobile Bay

The McHenry County Civil War Round Table discussion group will meet tomorrow, March 26,  at 10 a.m. at Panera Bread in Crystal lake, Illinois.

The topic of discussion will be Mobile, Alabama and Mobile Bay.

I have been doing some research into the Confederate submarine Pioneer II (American Diver) which sank near Fort Morgan in 1863 and was used as the model for the H.L. Hunley.

Plus, there were a lot of Union ships, not just the monitor, that were sunk by Confederate torpedoes.

--Old Secesh