Click 👉 TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) Jan. 16.
ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, Jan. 16.
1863: CSS Florida slips out of Mobile Bay and past the blockade on this date to begin its naval campaign against Union commerce shipping. It was under the command of Lieutenant John Newland Maffitt. It was a sloop-of-war, 191 ft. long, 27.2 beams, 13 ft. draft, speed 9.5-knot speed, 1 46 crewmen. It had six, 6-inch rifled guns, two, 7-inch rifled guns, and one, 12-pounder boat howitzer.
1865: At the recently captured Fort Fisher, two drunken Federal soldiers foraging for loot enter with torches an ammunition magazine and blew up 13,000 pounds of gunpowder. Killed in the explosion were 25 and 66 wounded. It was the largest Confederate fort and was manned by the entire 36th North Carolina Infantry. It also had numerous large-caliber, 8- and 10-inch Columbiads and numerous other guns.
CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS, Jan. 16.
Major General George Edward Pickett was born on this day in 1825 in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from West Point in 1846, the last in his class of 59 cadets. Pickett, a second lieutenant in the Mexican-American War, he fought in the Battle of Chapultepec, Mexico, and rose to the rank of captain. He participated Pig War of 1859. Resigning from the U.S. Army in 1861, he joined the Confederate Army and by January 1862 was a brigadier general. He led a brigade in The Peninsula Campaign, the Suffolk Campaign, the Battle of Gettysburg (most prominently in Pickett's Charge), the Second Battle of Petersburg, and finally the Appomattox Campaign and the Battle of Five Forks. Following the war, he moved to Canada and didn't return to Virginia in 1866. He died July 30, 1875, in Norfolk, Virginia, and was buried in Richmond, Va. at Hollywood Cemetery.
Brigadier General James Phillip Simms was born on this day in 1837 in Covington, Georgia. Before the war he practiced law in Covington, Ga., and was a brigadier general in the Georgia militia. Starting out the War for Southern Independence as a second lieutenant, he served in the 6th Georgia Militia, and the 42nd Georgia Infantry, and worked his way up to a major in the 53rd Georgia Infantry, and then colonel of the regiment. He was with this regiment at the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Salem Church, and the Battle of Gettysburg. He and his regiment were with Longstreet's Corps in the Chattanooga Campaign and the Knoxville Campaign in Tennessee where he was wounded at the Battle of Fort Sanders. Simms commanded a brigade in Jubal Early's Valley Campaign of 1864 and distinguished himself at the Battle of Cedar Creek. He was promoted to brigadier general on Dec. 8, 1864, and was in the Siege of Petersburg, and the Battle of Sayler's Creek on April 6, 1865. Captured at Sayler's Creek, he was released on July 24, 1865. Returning to Georgia, he resumed practicing law and served a term in the Georgia legislature. He died on May 30, 1887, at Covington, Ga. where he was buried in Southview Cemetery.
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