March 08, 1863 to March 14, 1863
Horses and Mules Cost Money
From the editor: John Singleton Mosby joined the First Virginia Cavalry as a private in time to fight in the first battle of Bull Run. In February 1862, he was commissioned as a first lieutenant and began working as a scout for J.E.B. Stuart. A year later, Mosby was given permission to organize a group of partisan rangers in the Loudoun Valley of Northern Virginia. Since that time, he has masterminded a series of successful raids against the Union forces in Fairfax County. Using information about the “distribution of troops and gaps in the picket lines,” derived from a Union deserter, Mosby decides to lead his small band of twenty-nine horsemen into Fairfax Court-House. This small town, twenty miles from Washington D.C., is the headquarters of Brigadier-General Edwin Stoughton, commander of the Second Vermont Brigade. Mosby is aided by the fact that, on the night of the raid, Stoughton is hosting one of his frequent parties and the champagne flowed freely until well after midnight. The raid is a spectacular success; the pickets are silently captured, and Mosby is able to grab Stoughton and most of his staff and make his escape before an alarm can be raised. Mosby’s boldness and audacity catches the attention of J.E.B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee, and he is quickly promoted to major and regarded as the Confederacy’s newest hero. Stoughton, on the other hand, is quickly transported to Libby Prison and becomes a laughingstock. One Vermont newspaper notes, “From the president down to the humblest private or civilian the capture of Vermont’s Brigadier General has been received as a great joke.” President Lincoln is particularly upset with Stoughton’s capture. “I don’t care so much for brigadiers; I can make them. But the horses and mules cost money.” After being exchanged and released, Stoughton soon learns that he is not to be given any further military assignments and resigns his commission. With his health broken during his imprisonment, the disgraced Stoughton is unable to continue his prewar law practice and dies, at the age of 30, in his home in Bellows Falls, Vermont, in 1868.
March 08 1863 (Sunday)
After being forced to surrender his command at Munfordville, Kentucky, during last year's Perryville campaign, Colonel John T. Wilder has been trying to secure horses and Spencer repeating rifles for the men of his 17th Indiana, to increase their mobility and firepower. He has gotten mules and horses, but has yet to obtain replacements for their old Springfield rifles. Wilder has also procured hatchets for his men, instead of cavalry swords. This past week, Wilder has been busy holding a court martial of a private charged with desertion and attempting to kill an officer. The condemned man was hand-cuffed and marched to the center of the division. After the man is found guilty, his head is shaved as “slick as an onion,” and Wilder presses a “red-hot iron” shaped like a large D against his right cheek. The unfortunate man was released outside Union lines and "set adrift with the assurance that if ever he came back he would be shot."
HDQRS. FIFTH DIVISION, FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Murfreesborough, March 8, 1863.
Lieutenant-Colonel [George E.] FLYNT, Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff: Colonel Wilder this moment reports the arrival of the Seventeenth Indiana (mounted).... They crossed from Readyville to the Auburn pike, and went as far as Auburn, charged on a party of rebels, "killed a major and one or two others," and wounded several. One private (Seventeenth Indiana) severely wounded in the arm, and one of our guides captured. No other loss to us. We took several revolvers and one revolving rifle. Very respectfully,
[Joseph] J. REYNOLDS, Major-general.
In Greenville, Mississippi, Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel W. Ferguson, 28th Mississippi Cavalry, renews his effort to contact Captain Edwin W. Sutherland, commander of the ram Monarch, by sending two men with a flag of truce and a letter at Greenville. Rebel authorities have been interested in Sutherland since learning that he is extremely disenchanted by the war and may be induced to turn his ram over to the Confederate Navy. Instead, the men are “disarmed” by a crew from the gunboat Curlew, and taken on board. Ferguson’s message is “broken open and read,” and the men are informed that “Captain Sutherland has left the squadron and is in Saint Louis.” *Sutherland’s recent behavior has elicited enough suspicion that he has been ordered to Saint Louis, to a new command in the Mississippi Marine Brigade.
HEADQUARTERS C.S. FORCES, Washington County, Mississippi, March 8, 1863.
To the Officer in Command of U.S. Forces near Greenville: I have been informed that two men of my command, left by my order at Greenville, Miss., with flag of truce, for the purpose of delivering a letter addressed to Captain Sutherland, U.S. Navy, on official business, were taken off from that point...by the forces of the United States....I would request to be informed on what grounds, and by whose authority, this violation...of the rights and usages of war has been committed....I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
S.W. FERGUSON, Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding.
*Editor’s Note: Sutherland turned down the command, and instead transferred to the 63rd Illinois. He resigned his commission in February 1864 and took no further part in the war.
Other Union activity reported on this date:
1. G. Granger, Army of Kentucky, conducts an expedition from Franklin to Columbia, Tennessee.
2. Colonel B.H. Grierson, Sixth Illinois Cavalry, conducts an expedition against Colonel R.V. Richardson, who is recruiting “partisan rangers in Mississippi and West Tennessee,”
Other Confederate activity reported on this date:
1. From Shelbyville, Tennessee, J.P. Anderson complains that he has “not been able to gain definite information [from Colonel P.D. Roddey, Alabama Cavalry].”
2. Colonel R.A. McCulloch, Cavalry Brigade, reports that “about thirty transports” passed the mouth of the Coldwater River “this morning.”
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