Click 👉 TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) Feb. 14.
ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, Feb. 14.
1862: The Confederate garrison at Fort Donelson was increasingly besieged by the Federal army and navy on this day. Four Federal ironclads arrived to increase the heavy bombardment of the fortress. However, the Confederate shore batteries gave the warships a pounding with the USS St. Louis and USS Louisville especially hard hit. Among the sailors wounded was Flag Officer Andrew Foote. The Confederates also planned to have General Gideon Pillow attack the Federal army's right flank. Elsewhere, the Confederates withdrew from Bowling Green, Kentucky.
1863: The USS Queen of the West is captured by Confederate land forces after it went up the Red River and engaged Fort DeRussy near Marksville, Louisiana. The Southern shore batteries pounded the gunboat until she was grounded. The Confederate artillerists continued the pounding until blue jackets evacuated, evaded capture, and were rescued by the USS DeSoto. The Confederates repaired the gunboat and rechristened it CSS Queen of the West.
1864: Meridian Campaign: Confederates under Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk realized he didn't have the manpower to stop Sherman's rampaging bummers from taking Meridian, Mississippi, and thus evacuated the town. Sherman entered it with little fighting. Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry, however, blocked Federal Maj. Gen. Sooy Smith's faction from reaching Meridian.
CONFEDERATE GENERALS HISTORY, Feb. 14.
Brigadier General Alfred Iverson Jr. was born on this day in 1829 in Clinton, Georgia. The son of the Georgia U.S. Senator, he received a military education at the Tuskegee Military Institute. Iverson Jr. served as a 17-year-old second lieutenant in the Mexican American War. After the war, he became a lawyer and then in 1855, was given a first lieutenant commission in the 1st U.S. Cavalry and served in "Bleeding Kansas." He resigned from the U.S. Army in 1861 and became the colonel of the 20th N.C. Inf. in the Confederate Army. Iverson Jr. was promoted on November 1, 1862. His battles and campaigns included the Seven Days Battles, Gaines' Mill, South Mountain, Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Atlanta Campaign, and the Carolinas Campaign at the end of the war. Following the war, he became a businessman in Macon, Ga., and an orange farmer in Florida. Iverson died on March 31, 1911, and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Ga.
Brigadier General James Green Martin, on this day in 1819, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He attended West Point and graduated 14th in his class in 1840. Martin served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and was in the Aroostook War, and in the Mexican-American War in the battles of Monterey, Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, and Churubusco. In the last battle, he lost his right arm when it was shattered by grapeshot. He was brevetted to the rank of major. Martin sided with the South in the War for Southern Independence and resigned his commission in the U.S. Army in 1861. He became a major general in the North Carolina Militia and then in May 1862, a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. His battles and campaigns included the Overland Campaign in Virginia in 1864, the Battle of Cold Harbor in 1864, and the Siege of Petersburg in 1864-65. After the war, he became a lawyer and practiced that profession for the rest of his life in Ashville, N.C. where he died Oct. 4, 1878, and was buried in Riverside Cemetery there.
No comments:
Post a Comment