April 3, 1863 Friday President Davis wrote to Gov Harris Flanagin of Arkansas regarding the Mississippi Valley, “if we lost control of the Eastern side, the Western must almost inevitable fall into the power of the enemy. The defense of the fortified places on the Eastern bank is therefore regarded as the defense of Arkansas quite as much as that of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana.” Gov Milledge L. Bonham of South Carolina asked the legislature for measures to halt increasing speculation and hoarding of flour, corn, bacon, and other goods.
President Lincoln told Gen Hooker that he planned to visit the Army of the Potomac that weekend. Lincoln's traveling companions include his wife Mary, their son Tad, Attorney General Edward Bates, and journalist Noah Brooks. At Reading, Pennsylvania there was an uproar over the arrest of four men alleged to be members of the pro-Southern Knights of the Golden Circle.
Operations were confined to a four-day expedition through Logan and Cabell counties, West Virginia and a five-day scout from Carrollton to Yellville, Arkansas both by Federals.
An armed boat expedition of sailors and Marines under Acting Lieutenant McCauley, U.S.S. Fort Henry, reconnoitered the Bayport, Florida, area. The boats stood in for Bayport on the evening of the 2nd, arriving off the city the next morning. The first launch, exhibiting the "sluggish" qualities that were to be trying throughout the reconnaissance, slowed the expedition's progress through the intricate channel. "This waste of time," McCauley reported, "gave the rebels leisure to make all preparations for our reception." Two Confederate sloops and two small schooners ran into a bayou and grounded seeking to avoid destruction. Sloop Helen, carrying corn, was captured south of the harbor and destroyed. The Union boat crews engaged and forced the evacuation of a defending battery, and the Confederates burned a schooner with cargo of cotton. McCauley reported: "Having gained my object in her destruction and the clearing of the battery, the disabling of two of my guns, the unwieldiness of the first launch, which made it difficult to bring her gun to bear; the uncertainty of aim in the sea that was running, and consequent waste of ammunition, and the warnings of Mr. Ashley, the pilot, that if the ebb tide found us there we should be left aground, made me give up my design of trying to set the vessels in the bayou on fire by shelling." The boats withdrew out of range of a rifled gun which the Confederates brought up. In the next week the expedition examined the Chassahowitzka, Crystal, Homosassa, Withlacoochee, Waccassassa, and Suwannee Rivers, as small boats carried the message of seapower where deeper draft vessels could not pass.
Expedition under Lieutenant Commander Fitch, including U.S.S. Lexington, Brilliant, Robb, Silver Lake, and Springfield, destroyed Palmyra, Tennessee, in retaliation for Confederate guerrillas firing on a Union convoy (2 April), crippling U.S.S. St. Clair and damaging Army transports Eclipse and Luminary.
U.S.S. New London, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Abner Read, and U.S.S. Cayuga, commanded by Lieutenant Commander David A. McDermut, captured blockade running British schooner Tampico off Sabine Pass with cargo of cotton.
_________________ Gen Ned Simms 2/XVI Corps/AotT Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em. VMI Class of '00
|