Click 👉Today in History (general history) July 8.

On This Day in Confederate History, July 8.

1861: President Davis officially puts Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley in command of the Confederate Territory of New Mexico.

1863: Siege of Port Hudson, La.: After receiving a copy of Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks' notification from Maj. Gen. U.S. Grant that Vicksburg had surrendered, Confederate commander Major General Franklin Gardner called his top officers to a meeting to discuss the situation. They agreed that further resistance was futile, and at 12:30 a.m. a cease-fire was arranged with the Yankees. A commission of officers from both sides met at 9 a.m. Surrender discussions went on until 2 o'clock in the afternoon when both Gardner and Banks signed the articles. The surrender would formally take place at 7 a.m. July 9. Banks also sent in wagonloads of food and drugs for the starving and sick Confederates. Meanwhile, many Confederates seized upon the delay and cease-fire as a chance to escape and slipped away that night. One of these Confederates is believed to be young Second Lieutenant Edward Douglass White Jr., a future chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner

(Colorization by M.D. Jones)

Click for 👉Biography

This is the biography of a professional soldier who led the Confederate defense of Port Hudson, Louisiana during the epic siege from May 21 to July 9, 1863. He was one of the finest commanders of the Confederate Army and this is believed to be the first book-length biography of his life. Born in New York in 1823, Gardner was a West Point graduate in 1843, he had a distinguished record in the U.S. Army and was brevetted a captain in the Mexican American War. His older sister married La. Gov. & U.S. Senator Alexandre Mouton and he married Mouton's daughter, Marie Celeste. In 1861, Gardner sided with the Confederacy and resigned from the U.S. Army and joined the C.S. Army. He was commissioned a lt. col., he commanded a brigade of cavalry at Shiloh and was promoted to brigadier general April 11, 1862 and to major general Dec. 13,1863, when he was assigned to command of the important Confederate bastion on the Mississippi River, Port Hudson. The book covers his entire life from 1823 to his death in 1873 in Lafayette, La. It has maps, photos, index, and bibliography.

Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner, standing tall

1864: In the Atlanta Campaign, Confederates continue to fortify the Chattahoochee River line while skirmishing with the Federals. However, one of Maj. Gen. W.T. Sherman's three Federal Armies manage to cross the Chattahoochee on the Federal left and make the Confederate position untenable.

Valley Campaign of 1864: In Maryland, Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early leads his army toward Washington D.C. in hopes of drawing Federal forces away from the Siege of Petersburg. Meanwhile Maj. Gen. Lew Wallis prepares to block Early at Monocacy, Md. with a hastily raised force including untrained militia.

Lt. Gen. Jubal Early

Confederate General Birthdays, July 8.

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