Click 👉TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) Dec. 17
ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, Dec. 17
1861: The First Virginia Brigade under the command of Brigadier General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, begins to dismantle Dam No. 5 of the C&O Canal. The brigade was also known as the "Stonewall Brigade" and established a remarkable record in the course of the war. Its commanders included Jackson, and brigadier generals Richard B. Garnett, Charles Sidney Winder, William S. Baylor, Andrew J. Grigsby, Elisha F. Paxton, James A. Walker, and William Terry.
1862: Maj. Gen. U.S. Grant issued his infamous antisemitic General Order No. 11 prohibiting Jewish merchants from doing business with the U.S. Army in the three states under his control. Lincoln later forced him to rescind the bigoted order.
1863: The Battle of Tebbs Bend, Ky. occurred on this day. Here is the text of the historical marker on the site: "Here on July 4, 1863, Confederates of Morgan's Brigade under Col. A.R. Johnson attacked the entrenched position of Federal forces Under Col. O.H. Moore. They were repulsed eight times. (Kentucky Department of Highways.) results in casualties of 35 dead and 45 wounded for the Confederates. Federal losses were 6 dead and 23 wounded.
1864: Battle of Hollow Tree Gap, Tenn. After the Confederate defeat at Nashville, Tenn., the rear guard of the Army of Tennessee, including Brigadier General Randall Gibson's Louisiana Brigade, skirmished with Federal cavalry. At Hollow Tree Gap, near Franklin, the Southern army showed it still had fight left in it. The Louisianians distinguished themselves by holding off the Federals to give a section of Confederate artillery time to get across the Harpeth River and then engaging a fighting retreat to the river while entirely surrounded by the enemy.
CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS, Dec. 17
Major General Samuel Jones was born in 1819 in Powhatan County, Virginia. He was an 1841 graduate of West Point and in his U.S. Army, career served with the 2nd Artillery Regiment, was an assistant professor of mathematics, artillery, and infantry tactics at West Point, and lastly was an assistant to the Judge Advocate of the Army at Washington. He resigned when Virginia seceded and joined the Virginia corps of artillery and then the Confederate Army. He served as a colonel on Gen. Beauregard's staff. Jones was promoted to brigadier general on Jan. 22, 1862, and appointed to command a department at Pensacola, Fla. He was then promoted to major general on March 10, 1862, and assigned to command the Dept. of East Tenn., then the Dept. of Western Va. In 1864, Jones was assigned to command the Dept. of S.C. & Ga., and in 1865 the Dept. of Fla. and S. Ga. His battles included First Manassas, Blountville, and Natural Bridge. After the war, he was the president of the Maryland Agricultural College. He died July 31, 1887, and was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va.
Brigadier General James Thadeus Holtzclaw was born in 1833 at. Henry County, Georgia. He turned down an appointment to West Point and instead pursued a career in law with a practice in Montgomery, Ala. When war came in 1861, he served with the Alabama militia and participated in the capture of Pensacola, Fla. Holtzclaw then joined the 18th Ala. Inf. as a lieutenant was quickly promoted to major and then lt. col. by the end of the year. He was severely wounded in the lung at the Battle of Shiloh but quickly recovered and was promoted to colonel. He was again wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 and assumed command of a brigade. He was promoted to brig. gen. July 7, 1864, and fought in the Battle of Lookout Mountain and received a severe contusion to his ankle at the Battle of Franklin. He finished the war at Spanish Fort at Mobile Ala. and was paroled on May 10, 1865, at Meridian, Miss. After the war, Holtzclaw resumed his practice of law and served as a state commissioner of railroads in Alabama. He died July 19, 1893, and is buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Ala.
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