Today in History (general history)/ On This Day in Confederate History/ Confederate General Birthdays, April 18.

 Click👉 TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) APRIL 18. 

ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTYR, April 18.

1860: SOUTH CAROLINA SECESSION: The South Carolina Legislature creates a special session to discuss the possibility of seceding from the Union. This is the start of the legal and constitutional process that leads to the first of the Southern states to secede.

Confederate artilleryman wearing

a secession badge.

(Liljenquist Collection, Library of Congress)

1862: Confederate infantry and Federal cavalry skirmish near Falmouth, Virginia.

1863: The Battle of Fayetteville, Arkansas took place on this day. Confederates under Brig. Gen. W.L. Cabell attacked the Federal garrison there under Col. M. LaRue Harrison. The Federals had 1,100 men and the Confederates 900 men and two light artillery pieces. The Southerners attacked the Northerners in downtown Fayetteville but were driven back. The Federals lost 4 killed, 26 wounded, 4 captured, and 35 missing. Confederates suffered around 20 killed, 30 wounded, and 20 missing. While the Federals won the battle, Cabell scored a strategic victory because the Northerners retreated to Missouri a week later.

Brig. Gen. William L. Cabell

Also in 1863, there was a bloody Skirmish at the Sabine Pass Lighthouse on the Louisiana side of the river. The Northern blockading gunboats had been sending landing parties to the abandoned lighthouse to spy on the Confederate forts on the Texas side of the river. Discovering this surreptitious activity, the Confederates set up an ambush on the Northern sailors as they were arriving by boat. The Northerners had six casualties and the Confederates lost Lt. E.T. Wright of Co. D, 20th Battalion Texas Infantry who was killed in action.

1864: Red River Campaign: Maj. Gen. Camille Polignac Louisiana and Texas Division were temporarily blocked from crossing the Calcasieu River while pursuing the Federals under Maj. Gen. N.P. Banks in the Red River Campaign. Attempts to build a pontoon bridge across the river had failed but they finally got the men across on a skiff and a flatboat while the horses swam across. The crossing wasn't finished until late at night. By marching most of the night they managed to make 17 miles when they reached Bayou Nezpique.

1865: SURRENDER OF THE ARMY OF TENNESSEE: Generals Johnston and Sherman reach a tentative and unauthorized agreement by neither government, to end the war by promising an amnesty to all Confederates and promising to all Southern state governments to resume governing as soon as they take the oath of allegiance to the Union. 

CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS, April 18.

NONE.