March 3, 1865 Friday
The Thirty-eighth Congress of the United States held its last regular session, finally adjourning about 8AM Mar 4. President Lincoln and Cabinet members went to the Capitol in the evening to consider a flurry of last-minute bills. Most important was an act establishing a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedmen%27s_Bureau ). The Freedmen’s Bureau would supervise and manage all abandoned lands and have “control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel States.” It would provide temporary subsistence, clothing, and fuel and also would assign land. Another act set up the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company. Other measures dealt with Indian tribes, freedom for wives and children of Negro soldiers, railroad expansion, appropriations, and soldiers’ affairs.
Federal troops entered Cheraw, South Carolina after skirmishes at Thompson’s Creek and Big Black Creek, as well as near Hornsborough and Blakeny’s, South Carolina. The Confederates pulled back across the Pee Dee River and burned the bridges. Large amounts of ammunition and supplies were taken at Cheraw. Otherwise there was skirmishing near Tunnel Hill, Georgia and at Decatur, Alabama. A Union reconnaissance Mar 3-5 probed from Cumberland Gap toward Jonesville, Virginia. Federal expeditions operated from Memphis into northern Mississippi until Mar 11, and until Mar 7 from Bloomfield into Dunklin County, Missouri. Union operations against raiders about Warrenton, Bealeton Station, Sulphur Springs, Salem, and Centreville, Virginia lasted until Mar 8. The Northern escort convoying prisoners from Waynesborough northward in the Shenandoah Valley was attacked several times until Mar 7. Meanwhile, Sheridan’s unopposed troops occupied Charlottesville, Virginia as they headed in the general direction of Petersburg. Brigadier General Thomas J. McKean (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._McKean ), USA, assumes command of the Federal District of Morganza, Louisiana. U.S.S. Glide, commanded by Acting Master L. S. Fickett, captured schooner Malta in Vermilion Bayou, Louisiana, with cargo of cotton on board. U.S.S. Honeysuckle, commanded by Acting Master James J. Russell, sighted the sloop Phantom as she attempted to enter the Suwannee River on the west coast of Florida. An armed boat from the ship overhauled and captured the blockade runner and her cargo of bar iron and liquors.
President Davis wrote a Confederate congressman, “In spite of the timidity and faithlessness of many who should give tone to the popular feeling and hope to the popular heart, I am satisfied that it is in the power of the good man and true patriots of the country to reanimate the wearied spirit of our people…. I expect the hour of deliverance.”
President Lincoln wrote a message, signed by Stanton, directing Grant “to have no conference with General Lee unless it be for the capitulation of Gen. Lee’s army … you are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political question. Such questions the President holds in his own hands; and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions. Meantime you are to press to the utmost, your military advantages.” This signal order laid the policy for the generals in the surrenders to come, although the message was sent only to Grant and not to Sherman.
A naval squadron consisting of twelve steamers and four schooners commanded by Commander R. W. Shufeldt joined with Army troops under Brigadier General John Newton in a joint expedition directed against St. Marks Fort below Tallahassee, Florida. Although the expedition was not successful, in part because shallow water prevented the naval guns from approaching the Fort, the ships did succeed in crossing the bar and blockading the mouth of the St. Marks River, thus effectively preventing access to the harbor.