Click 👉 TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) Jan. 5.
ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, Jan. 5.
1861: U.S. Senators for seven Southern gathered for a meeting and recommended the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, join South Carolina in secession. Also on this date, Alabama seized Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan to defend Mobile. In addition, the Star of the West, a merchant ship, set sail from New York with 250 reinforcements and supplies for Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C.
1863: In the days after the Maj. Gen. John Bankhead Magruder's liberation of Galveston, Texas on New Year's Day, the nearby city of Houston celebrates the deliverance from the pending scourge of Northern occupation, or worse, by the vindictive Federal Army. Magruder is made the "Toast of Texas and the much-admired hero of the people of both cities. Also, 1st Lt. Dick Dowling and his Irish-Texan Jefferson Davis Guard, the Company F, 1st Texas Heavy Artillery, are lauded by the Houston Weekly Telegraph, which writes, ". . . The artillery boys acted nobly and covered themselves with glory. They manned their guns as nimbly as though they were behind breastworks. Where all did so well, I feel cautious to draw comparisons; the Irish boys surpassed the expectations of their friends."
CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS
Major General Joseph Brevard Kershaw was born in 1822 in Camden, South Carolina. A lawyer and South Carolina legislator, Kershaw also was a combat-tested veteran of the Mexican-American War. During the War for Southern Independence, he commanded the 2nd South Carolina Infantry at the Battle of Fort Sumter, on Morris Island, and the First Battle of Manassas in Brig. Gen. Milledge Bonham's Brigade and promoted to brigadier general on Feb. 13, 1862. His campaigns and battles also included the Peninsula, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, the Shenandoah, and Sayler's Creek at the end of the war. After the war, he served his state again in the State Senate, a judgeship, and postmaster of Camden. He died on April 13, 1894, and is buried in his hometown at the Quaker Cemetery.
Brigadier General John Doby Kennedy was born in 1840 in Camden, South Carolina. A prewar attorney, in the War for Southern Independence he started out as a captain in the 2nd South Carolina Infantry and was wounded in the First Battle of Manassas. He was promoted to colonel when Kershaw was promoted to brigadier general and fought in the Seven Days Battles, at Sharpsburg, where he has wounded again. After recovering he led his regiment and the 8th South Carolina at Fredericksburg, then at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. In 1864 he was promoted to temporary brigadier general in the Richmond and Shenandoah Valley Campaigns. At the end of the war, he was in Carolina's Campaign and the Battle of Bentonville. In all, he survived six wounds during the war and was reportedly hit by spent balls 15 times. After the war, he was elected to the U.S. Congress but wasn't allowed to serve because he refused to take the "ironclad" oath. Kennedy also served as lieutenant governor of his state from 1880 to 1882. His last service was as a U.S. Consul in China. He died on April 14, 1896, and is buried in the Quaker Cemetery in Camden.
Brigadier General Thomas Neville Waul was born in 1813in Sumter District, South Carolina. Prior to the war, he worked in Alabama as a teacher, in Vicksburg, Miss. as a lawyer, and then in Gonzales County, Texas as a planter. Waul was also an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Congress and served as a delegate to the Texas secession convention. During the War for Southern Independence, he served in the Confederate Congress and then entered the Confederate Army as a colonel and recruited Waul's Legion, which served in the Siege of Vicksburg. He was promoted to brigadier general on Sept. 18, 1863, while a prisoner of war. Exchanged in October 1863, Waul commanded a brigade in Walker's Texas Infantry Division and fought at the battles of Mansfield, Pleasant Hil, La., and Jenkin's Ferry, Ark. in the Red River Campaign of 1864. He was wounded in the left arm at Jenkin's Ferry. His final service was as a division commander in the Trans-Mississippi Dept. After the war, he practiced law, was a farmer, and died July 28, 1903, at age 90 in Hunt County, Texas, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas.
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