Click 👉Today in History (general history) Sept. 18.
On This Day in Confederate History, Sept. 18.
1861: Confederate Brig. Gen. Paul Octave Hebert takes command of Confederate forces in the Department of Texas with headquarters in Houston. Texas coastal ports are by the time being blockaded and the threat of invasion seems real.
1862: After the bloodiest day in American history, on the 17th, at Sharpsburg/Antietam, Gen. Robert E. Lee readjusted his defense line to a much stronger position on a hill and waited all day for the Federals to restart their assaults. But they never come. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan sees that it would be suicidal to send his troops up that hill. Instead, both sides by mutual agreement have an unofficial truce to recover their wounded from the battlefield. That evening, General Lee decided to withdraw the Army of Northern Virginia back over the Potomac River and back into Virginia.
1863: The first official day of the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia began on this day. The fighting takes on and around Chickamauga Creek between 66,326 Confederates of the Army of Tennesee under Lt. Gen. Braxton Bragg, and 58,222 Federals of the Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans. On this day Confederate Brig. Gen. Bushrod's Division takes the wrong road and runs into Federal Col. Robert Minty's cavalry brigade at Reed's Bridge but the Confederates succeed in crossing when rushed by the 23rd Tenn. Inf. Johnson is joined by Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood's Division of Longstreet's Corps, arriving from Virginia, pushes on by dark in front of Col. John T. Wilder's mounted infantry brigade, which is armed with Spencer repeating rifles. Confederate Maj. Gen. Simon Buckner's Division crossed the creek too. Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk is confronting Federals and Lee & Gordon's Mill. Lt. Gen. D.H. Hill's Corps crosses the creek further south. Troop maneuvering continues.
Confederate General Birthdays, Sept. 18.
Brigadier General Marcellus Augustus Stovall was born on this day in 1818 in Sparta, Georgia. He got early military experience in 1835-37 when he served as a private in the Georgia State Militia in the Seminole Wars. He was briefly a cadet at West Point but resigned after a year due to poor health. Stovall returned to Augusta to work as a merchant but continued in the Georgia State Militia as an artillery captain. In 1861, he was appointed the colonel of the 2nd Artillery Regiment in the militia but became a lieutenant colonel of the 3rd Georgia Battalion in the Confederate Army. He was promoted to brigadier general on Jan. 20, 1863, and fought with the Army of Tennessee. His battles included the Battle of Murfreesboro, the Siege of Jackson, Miss., the Battle of Chickamauga, the Atlanta Campaign, the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, and the Carolinas Campaign at the end of the war. Following the war, Stovall worked as a merchant, manager of the Georgia Chemical Works, a city alderman, and police commissioner in Augusta. He died on August 4, 1895, in Augusta, Ga., and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery there.
Brigadier General Henry Constantine Wayne was born on this day in 1815 in Savannah, Georgia. He graduated from West Point in 1838 and became a second lieutenant in the artillery. Wayne participated in the Aroostook War in Maine, was an instructor of artillery at West Point, and in the Mexican-American War was in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco after which he was brevetted a major. After that war, he proposed using camels in the army and led an expedition to the Middle East to purchase the camels. The War Between the States ended the camel experiment and his service in the U.S. Army. Wayne became Georgia's Quartermaster General. He was promoted to brigadier general on Dec. 16, 1861. He resigned his commission so he could remain with the Georgia militia. He led Confederate troops at the Battle of Ball's Ferry on Nov. 23-26, 1864 during Sherman's March to the Sea. Following the war, Wayne worked in the lumber business in Savannah, Ga. He died on March 15, 1883, and was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery there.
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