Click 👉Today in History (general history) Aug. 8
On This Day in Confederate History, Aug. 8.
1862: A Federal Navy war atrocity was committed in the town of Donaldsonville, La. after a series of attacks on Federal transport and gunboats by Confederate partisan rangers. Captain Phillippe Landry and his company of Confederate partisan rangers fired on the Federal transport St. Charles on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Previously, on Aug. 6, Landry and his men fired on the Federal transport Sallie Robinson and the gunboat USS Brooklyn. Admiral David G. Farragut warned the town he would destroy it and to evacuate the women and children. On Aug. 10, 1862, the USS Hartford and the USS Brooklyn bombarded the town and destroyed a number of buildings in the town. Farragut also sent ashore a shore party to burn more buildings. About two-thirds of Donaldsonville was destroyed in the attack against civilian targets.
Confederate General Birthdays, Aug. 8.
Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott Featherston was born on this day in 1820 in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He fought in the 1836 Creek Indian War with the local militia. The future general then moved to Houston, Mississippi where he practiced law. Featherston was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served two terms between 1847 and 1851. After that, he moved to Holly Springs, Miss. where he practiced law until the beginning of the war. He raised the 17th Mississippi Infantry Regiment for the Confederate Army and served as its colonel. Featherston was commissioned a brigadier general on March 4, 1862. He fought at the First Battle of Manassas, the Battle of Ball's Bluff, the Peninsula Campaign, the Second Battle of Manassas, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Vicksburg Campaign, the Atlanta Campaign, and the Carolinas Campaign. He suffered a wound at the Battle of Glendale, Va. during the Seven Days Battles in 1862. Following the war, he practiced law again in Holly Springs and was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1876. After that, he served as a judge in the second judicial court in Mississippi. Featherston died May 28, 1891, in Holly Springs, Miss., and was buried there in Hillcrest Cemetery.
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