Click 👉 TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) Feb. 22.
ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, Feb. 22.
1862: President Davis has his second inauguration in Richmond, Virginia, this time as the full president of the Confederacy after having been popularly elected in November 1861 to a six-year term. His first inauguration on Feb. 18, 1861, was as the Provisional President as the government was organizing. In his second inauguration address, the president said, "We are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty." This day is also the 292nd anniversary of Washington's Birthday.
1864: Confederate Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry scored another victory for Southern arms at the Battle of Okolona, Mississippi. The Federal cavalry Brig. Gen. William Sooy Smith had 7,000 bluecoat troopers. Forrest's cavalry numbered just 2,500 hardened Southern horse soldiers. Forrest thwarted the Federal plan of Smith's cavalry to join up with Sherman's forces at Meridian, Mississippi. The Yankee cavalry had to limp to safety in Tennessee instead. The total casualties for the Federals were 388, to the Confederate total of 144.
1865: Sherman's bummers enter Wilmington, North Carolina, which had been abandoned by the Confederates the day before. Fighting occurs elsewhere in Camden, South Carolina, and at the Watertree River.
CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS, Feb. 22.
Brig. Gen. Hylan Benton Lyon was born on this day in 1836 in Caldwell, Kentucky. He graduated from West Point in 1856 ranking 19th in a class of 48 cadets. Lyon was assigned as a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery at Fort Myers during the Third Seminole War. Transferred to the Washington Territory, he was in two battles with Indiana tribes. Resigning in 1861 to join the Confederate Army, he raised Co. F of the 3rd Ky. Inf., became part of the 1st Ky. Artillery and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Lyon was captured at Fort Donelson, Tenn., and was exchanged in September 1862. His regiment reenlisted for three years as the 8th Ky., and he was appointed colonel of the regiment. He served in the Siege of Vicksburg but managed to avoid the surrender with 250 of his men. They joined the Confederates in Jackson, Miss. served in the Army of Tennessee commanding regiments of cavalry. He was briefly captured in January 1865 but managed to escape. After the war, he went to Mexico where he worked as a civil engineer for about a year, and then returned to Kentucky. Lyon was a commissioner of prisons in Kentucky after the war and died April 25, 1907, and was buried in the Old City Cemetery in Eddyville, Ky.
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