Click 👉TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) March 24.
ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, March 24.
1863: Confederate forces foil General Grant's efforts to bypass Vicksburg, Mississippi. Grant ordered Sherman to cease Steele's Bayou Expedition on this day. This was a Confederate victory in the Vicksburg Campaign.
1864: Red River Campaign: In Louisiana, while Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor is still waiting for reinforcements from Texas and Arkansas, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks arrives in Alexandria and orders his still-gathering forces to begin their advance on Shreveport, the Confederate headquarters for the Trans-Mississippi Dept. Banks, however, is faced with the low water level of the Red River and orders to return Major Gen. A.J. Smith's 10,000 troops borrowed from Vicksburg, by April 15.
1865: General Robert E. Lee plans to cut the Federal supply line and force Grant to constrict the Yankee siege line by launching an offensive at Fort Stedman, Petersburg, Va. The desperate assault will be launched by Maj. Gen. John Brown Gordon the next day.
CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS, March 24.
Brig. Gen. William Henry Wallace was born on this day in 1827 in Laurens District, South Carolina. He was a pre-war planter, newspaperman, and politician who supported secession. During the war, he rose from private in the 18th South Carolina Infantry, to lieutenant, captain, lieutenant colonel, and then to brigadier general in 1864. His battles included the Second Battle of Manassas, Sharpsburg, the defense of Charleston, S.C., and the Siege of Petersburg, Va. He was disabled by the mine explosion there on July 30, 1864, called the Battle of the Crater. He finished the war with General Lee at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Following the war, Wallace practiced law in South Carolina and returned to farming, and again served in the state legislature and as a circuit judge. He died March 21, 1901, at Union, S.C., and was buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery there.
No comments:
Post a Comment