Today in History (general history)/ On This Day in Confederate History/ Confederate General Birthdays, April 21.

Click 👉TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) April 21. 

ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, April 21.

1864: Red River Campaign: Maj. Gen. N.P. Banks orders the Army of the Gulf to retreat from Grand Ecore through Natchitoches and to Alexandria. The demoralized Yankees began burning every building in their reach along the way. A soldier in the 114th New York Infantry wrote, "At night, the burning buildings mark our pathway." The Louisiana soldiers were fighting to defend and avenge their families that were being terrorized, and the Texas soldiers were fighting to keep the Northmen out of Texas, which accounts for their great fierceness in battle.

Cpl. Paul Thibodaux,

Consolidated 18th La. Inf. Reg't.of

Mouton's Brigade. The Louisiana

soldiers were fighting in defense of

their homes and families in the Red

River Campaign. (Courtesy of C.J. Knobloch, grandson)

1865: The famous "Gray Ghost," Colonel John Singleton Mosby disbanded his 43rd Va. Cavalry Battalion (Mosby's Rangers, Mosby's Raiders, and Mosby's Men) at Salem, Virginia. While some of his men to the Federals were paroled, Mosby moved south with other officers planning to continue the fight with General Johnston in North Carolina. 

Col. John S. Mosby

CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS, April 21.

Brigadier General Louis Trezevant Wigfall was born on this day in 1816 at Edgefield District, South Carolina. He had a long political career in the South prior to the war, which included service as well as service as a lieutenant in the Second Seminole War in Florida. He also had the reputation of a duelist in South Carolina before moving to Texas in 1848 where he set up a law practice. He was also elected to the Texas House of Representatives and then the Texas Senate. He then became a leading advocate of secession. After Texas seceded from the Union, he became the colonel of the 1st Texas Infantry Regiment, which soon went to Virginia. Wigfall had also served as an aide to General Beauregard during to Fort Sumter crisis. He soon received a promotion to the brigadier general but resigned in February 1862 to serve in the Confederate Senate where he served through the duration of the war. Following the war, he first went into exile in London, England but returned to the United States in 1870 and settled in Baltimore, Maryland but moved to Galveston, Texas in January 1874. Wigfall died there on Feb. 18, 1874, and was buried in the Episcopal cemetery in Galveston.

Brig. Gen Louis T. Wigfall