Click 👉TODAY IN HISTORY (general history) April 1.
ON THIS DAY IN CONFEDERATE HISTORY, April 1.
1863: Captain John Singleton Mosby with 69 Confederate partisan rangers are surprised while sleeping at the Miskel farmhouse near Dranesville, Va. by 150 Federal troopers of the 1st Vermont Cavalry under Captain Henry C. Flint. The Confederates fight on foot and win a complete victory over the Federals. The Southerners had one man killed and three wounded. The Northerners lost 9 men killed, including Captain Flint, 15 wounded, and 82 captured.
1864: Red River Campaign: Brigadier General Tom Green's Texas Cavalry Division, 3,000 strong, arrives in Pleasant Hill to check in with the main Confederate Army near Pleasant Hill, La. The Texans are then dispatched to monitor the advancing Federals and slow them down while Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor gets his army ready to make a stand between Mansfield and Pleasant Hill.
1865: Petersburg Campaign: The Battle of Five Forks, Va. on the Petersburg siege line takes place. Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's 22,000 Federals attack the 10,600 Confederates under Maj. Gen. George Picket at Five Forks to cut the last Confederate supply into Richmond, which is the South Side Railroad. While Pickett and Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee both are at a shad bake while the Federals attack. Yankees overwhelm the outnumbered Confederates. Pickett and Fitz Lee arrive back in time to save a part of his command which withdraws. The Federals lose about 830 from all causes, and the Confederates about 2,950. Some historians call it the "Waterloo of the Confederacy."
CONFEDERATE GENERAL BIRTHDAYS, April 1.
Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner was born on this day in 1823 in Hart County, Kentucky. He graduated from West Point in 1844, 11th in a class of 25 cadets. During the Mexican American War, he fought with the 6th U.S. Infantry in the battles of Amazoque, San Antonio, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, and Mexico City. He was breveted a captain for his actions at Molino del Rey. He resigned from the U.S. Army in 1855 and worked in real estate in Chicago, Ill., and served in the Illinois State Militia as adjutant general. In 1857, he moved to Louisville, Ky., and served as inspector general of the Kentucky State Guard. He resigned from the State Militia in 1861 and accepted a brigadier generalship in the Confederate Army. He was given the onerous duty of surrendering Fort Donelson, Tenn. in 1862 and became a P.O.W. at Fort Warren, N.Y. After being exchanged later that year, he was promoted to major general, and to lieutenant general in 1864. His other battles included Perryville, Chickamauga, and Munfordville. Late in the war, he was assigned to duty in the Trans-Mississippi Department and commanded the districts of Arkansas and West Louisiana. Following the war, Buckner was elected governor of Kentucky, and in 1896 he ran as vice president of the United States on the National Democratic Party ticket with John Palmer, a former Union general, as the presidential candidate. Buckner died on Jan. 8, 1914, and was buried in Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort, Ky. His only son, Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., was killed in action in the Battle of Okinawa, the highest-ranking American general to be killed in action in World War II.
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