June 1 In Civil War History

Jim Klag

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On this day in Civil War history
Compiled by Mitchell Werksman and Jim Klag

June 1, 1806 - John Buchanan Floyd, Virginia governor, US Secretary of War, Confederate General, born, Blacksburg, Virginia.

June 1, 1812 - James Madison requests a declaration of War against Britain from the U. S. Congress. They begin meeting in private session.

June 1, 1821 - In the wake of the Missouri Compromise, Quaker Benjamin Lundy prepares to roll the press on a weekly publication, Genius of Universal Emancipation. It has a pro-abolition stance.

June 1, 1825 - John Hunt Morgan, CSA Cavalry commander, born, Huntsville, Alabama.

June 1, 1831 - John Bell Hood, General (Confederate Army), born in Owingsville, KY (d. 1879)

June 1, 1830 - Georgia declares that laws of the Cherokee Nation are null and void, violating the Treaty Clause of the Constitution.

June 1, 1844 - Galusha Pennypacker, Bvt Major General (Union Army), Medal of Honor winner, youngest ever (age 20) to be promoted to Brigadier General. (d. 1916)

June 1, 1844 - John J. Toffey, American Civil War hero, Medal of Honor winner, witness to Lincoln assassination. (d. 1911)

June 1, 1852 - Democratic Convention begins in Baltimore, Maryland. Four candidates, Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, William Marcy and James Buchanan struggle for philosophical control of the Democrat Party. On the 35th ballot the name of Franklin Pierce is added by the state of Virginia.

June 1, 1861 - USA & Confederacy simultaneously stop mail interchange.

June 1, 1861 - 1861 1st skirmish in US Civil War at Fairfax Court House, Virginia.

June 1, 1862 - Jefferson Davis replaces wounded Army of Northern Virginia commander Joseph E. Johnston with Robert E. Lee

June 1, 1862 - Robert E. Lee issue the first orders bearing the name Army of Northern Virginia.

June 1, 1862 - Joseph Hooker, U.S.A., is appointed Maj. Gen.

June 1, 1862 - Operations in Oregon County, MO, and skirmish at Eleven Points, MO, with Union foragers and guerrillas. (Jun 1-5)

June 1, 1862 - The Dept. of Virginia is extended and embraced in Maj. Gen. George Brinton McClellan's command, Maj. Gen. John Ellis Wool, USA, being assigned to the Middle Dept. and Maj. Gen. John Adams Dix, USA, to the command at Fortress Monroe, VA.

June 1, 1862 - Federal reconnaissance beyond Seven Pines, VA. (Jun 1-2)

June 1, 1862 - Skirmish at Mount Carmel, on the Strasburg and Staunton Road, near Strasburg, VA; Maj. Gen. Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, CSA, vs. Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell, USA.

June 1, 1863 - Skirmish at Berwick, LA, as the Confederates' attack on the Union guards there is repulsed.

June 1 , 1863 - Skirmish at Doniphan, MO.

June 1, 1863 - Skirmish near Rocheport, MO, with Confederate marauders.

June 1, 1863 - Affair at Waverly, MO, with Confederate guerrillas ambushing the Federals from the thick brush.
Skirmish at Snicker's Gap, VA.

June 1, 1863 - Ambrose Burnside orders the Chicago Times to close because of the paper's anti-Lincoln rhetoric.

June 1, 1864 - Skirmish at Allatoona Pass, Georgia on the
Western and Atlantic Railroad.

June 1, 1864 - Don Carlos Buell resigns his commission.

June 1, 1864 - Stephen Dodson Ramseur, C.S.A., is appointed Maj. Gen.

June 1, 1864 - The following are appointed Confederate Brigadier Generals:
Rufus Barringer, CSA
James Conner, CSA
Adam Rankin Johnson, CSA

June 1, 1864 - Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, USA, is appointed Brig. Gen.

June 1, 1864 - Skirmish near Pound Gap, KY, as Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan, CSA, continues to harass Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's supply lines.

June 1, 1864 - Skirmish near Kingston, GA.

June 1, 1864 - The engagement with the US steamer, Exchange, on the Mississippi River, MS, during Col. Colton Greene's Confederate operations on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

June 1, 1864 - Skirmish near Arnoldsville and the raid on New Market, MO, where the Yankees capture a couple bushwhackers.

June 1, 1864 - Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's, USA, Cavalry repels both attacks led by Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson, CSA, near Old Cold Harbor, VA.

June 1, 1864 - Federal expedition from Memphis, TN, into Mississippi, toward Ripley, as Brig. Gen. Samuel Davis Sturgis, USA, is ordered against Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA. (Jun 1-13)

June 1, 1865 - Federal expedition through Pocahontas and Pendleton Counties, WV, and Highland County, VA, in search of horse thieves. The Yankees traveled to Huttonsville, Gatewood's, Back Creek Valley, Galltown, Monterey, New Hampton, etc., without finding any horse thieves. (Jun 1-13)

June 1, 1868 - James Buchanan, 15th US President, dies in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
 

5fish

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It seems the time line missed the Greta Battle of Ashland , VA. on June 1st 1864...

THE BATTLE OF ASHLAND happened June 1, 1864. It involved Hanover Courthouse, Ellett’s Bridge over the South Anna River, and the Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad tracks. It has largely been ignored by historians until recently, but it was important to those who experienced it. The larger context of the Battle of Ashland was Federal General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign toward Richmond in the spring and summer of 1864, and in particular, the early June 1864 Battle of Cold Harbor.
Union General Philip Sheridan’s 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions and two divisions of General Horatio Wright’s 6th Army Corps were fighting at Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864. About the same time two brigades of Union General James Wilson’s 3rd Cavalry Division were given the task of destroying the railroad bridges over the Pamunkey and South Anna Rivers to disrupt the supply lines and communication to Richmond.
After destroying the Virginia Central Railroad Bridge over the Pamunkey River north of Hanover Courthouse, Wilson sent Col. George H. Chapman’s brigade northwest to Elletts Crossing where the RF&P Bridge crossed the South Anna River just north of Ashland. On the way there he encountered Confederate forces under General Rooney Lee, Ridgley Brown, and Bradley Johnson. The Confederate forces retreated south along the RF&P Railroad tracks toward the town of Ashland.
In the meantime, Union Gen. Wilson had sent Col. John B. McIntosh’s brigade toward Hanover Courthouse where Confederate forces had just left on their way toward Ashland. Union Gen. McIntosh continued on toward Ashland too, and when he got there he set up positions on the north, east, and south sides of the tracks and placed soldiers in and around homes along the tracks.
Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton, who had trained at Camp Ashland at the beginning of the war, and Brig. Gen. Thomas L Rosser1 came to the aid of the Confederates on Ashland Road near Ashland by moving north from Atlee Station southeast of Ashland to encounter McIntosh.
Other Confederates under Hampton, who had vacated Hanover Courthouse, positioned themselves south of Ashland on the RF&P tracks.
So McIntosh’s Union brigade was situated in Ashland and boxed in on the North, South, and East by the Confederates. The only escape route was west, but that would separate McIntosh’s brigade even more from the rest of the Union forces. It was an unexpected, perfect opportunity for Wade Hamptons’s cavalry to capture McIntosh’s entire cavalry brigade!
The Confederates dismounted and attacked. There was hand-to-hand combat by the dismounted cavalry on both sides. Just in time, Federal reinforcements came down from Elletts Crossing, giving McIntosh’s Union forces a northern escape route back toward Elletts Crossing, where he could join other Union forces. From Elletts Crossing the Union forces regrouped and were back at Hanover Courthouse by the evening.
St. George Tucker Brooke, who had attended prep school in Ashland, recounted an engagement with the enemy at Ashland in the late spring of 1864. It may well have been the Battle of Ashland that he describes, but it also may have been an engagement on May 11, 1864, just prior to the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Without the exact date, it is hard to tell, but some of the commanders in his description are those involved in the Battle of Ashland. Writes Brooke, “During the late Spring of 1864, Gen’l Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade halted on the ‘Telegraph Road’ in the rear of the ball room

[of the Ashland Hotel and Mineral Water Company] and the command was given, ‘Prepare to fight on foot; Dismount.’ The brigade dismounted, marched through the woods, perhaps three hundred yards and charged that ballroom which was filled with ‘Yankee’ soldiers. The ‘Yankees’ bounded out of the front windows and doors as we bounded in the rear windows and doors. A sharp fight took place in the lawn. The enemy retreated rapidly from the lawn into the street where we followed them. A body of enemy’s cavalry, which had been cut off from their main force, charged us while we were on foot in the street. We poured a volley into them and repulsed them. I saw a northern soldier shot off his horse just at the corner of Uncle Saint’s yard. [304 S Center Street was the home of Male Academy headmaster St. George Tucker] My boyhood playground had become a field of battle.” 2

Who won the Battle of Ashland? The Union did succeed in destroying the 2 railroad bridges and tracks in Ashland as well, but they paid a price in heavy casualties. The Confederates did not capture McIntosh’s brigade, but they did cause heavy casualties, chased the Union out of Ashland, and captured valuable Union horses and supplies as well. And within days, the Confederates had rebuilt the tracks and bridges. Both sides thought they had won. In the end, the Battle of Ashland was not an important strategic battle. Gordon Rhea writes in his Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, “The battle at Ashland, like most Civil War cavalry engagements, was stirring to participants but represented little more than a sideshow.” The important battle at Old Cold Harbor, according to Rhea, was to be decided by the Infantry, not the dashing Cavalry that fought at the Battle of Ashland.3
For additional reading on the battles of Ashland and Cold Harbor, see Gordon C Rhea’s Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, especially the chapter starting page 195 entitled “June 1, Grant and Lee Jockey for Position.” Mr. Rhea included in Appendixes I and II listings of the Union and Confederate forces and their leaders from which the list of units involved in this engagement is taken.


Order of Battle...

THE UNITS AND INDIVIDUAL COMMANDERS INVOLVED IN THE BATTLE OF ASHLAND
Federal Cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan
  • 3rdDivision under Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson
    • 1stBrigade under Col. John B. McIntosh
      • 1st Connecticut Cavalry
      • 3rd New Jersey Cavalry
      • 2nd New York Cavalry
      • 5th New York Cavalry
      • 2nd Ohio Cavalry
      • 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry
    • 2ndBrigade under Col. George H. Chapman
      • 3rd Indiana Cavalry
      • 8th New York Cavalry
      • 1st Vermont Cavalry

Confederate Cavalry corps under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton

  • Hampton’s Division
    • Young’s Brigade under Col. Gilbert J. Wright
    • Rosser’s Brigade under Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Rosser
      • 7th Virginia Cavalry
      • 11th Virginia Cavalry
      • 12th Virginia Cavalry
  • William H. F. “Rooney” Lee’s Division (see Endnote #2)
    • Chambliss’s Brigade under Brig. Gen. John R. Chambliss
      • 9th Virginia Cavalry
      • 10th Virginia Cavalry
    • Gordon’s Brigade under Col. John A. Baker
      • 3rd North Carolina Cavalry
      • 5th North Carolina Cavalry
  • Horse Artillery
    • South Carolina Battery under Maj. James F. Hart
  • Breckenridge’s Division
    • Marylan
 

Jim Klag

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seems the time line missed the Greta Battle of Ashland , VA. on June 1st 1864...
Nope

June 1, 1864 - Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's, USA, Cavalry repels both attacks led by Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson, CSA, near Old Cold Harbor, VA.
 

jgoodguy

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It seems the time line missed the Greta Battle of Ashland , VA. on June 1st 1864...

THE BATTLE OF ASHLAND happened June 1, 1864. It involved Hanover Courthouse, Ellett’s Bridge over the South Anna River, and the Richmond Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad tracks. It has largely been ignored by historians until recently, but it was important to those who experienced it. The larger context of the Battle of Ashland was Federal General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign toward Richmond in the spring and summer of 1864, and in particular, the early June 1864 Battle of Cold Harbor.
Union General Philip Sheridan’s 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions and two divisions of General Horatio Wright’s 6th Army Corps were fighting at Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864. About the same time two brigades of Union General James Wilson’s 3rd Cavalry Division were given the task of destroying the railroad bridges over the Pamunkey and South Anna Rivers to disrupt the supply lines and communication to Richmond.
After destroying the Virginia Central Railroad Bridge over the Pamunkey River north of Hanover Courthouse, Wilson sent Col. George H. Chapman’s brigade northwest to Elletts Crossing where the RF&P Bridge crossed the South Anna River just north of Ashland. On the way there he encountered Confederate forces under General Rooney Lee, Ridgley Brown, and Bradley Johnson. The Confederate forces retreated south along the RF&P Railroad tracks toward the town of Ashland.
In the meantime, Union Gen. Wilson had sent Col. John B. McIntosh’s brigade toward Hanover Courthouse where Confederate forces had just left on their way toward Ashland. Union Gen. McIntosh continued on toward Ashland too, and when he got there he set up positions on the north, east, and south sides of the tracks and placed soldiers in and around homes along the tracks.
Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton, who had trained at Camp Ashland at the beginning of the war, and Brig. Gen. Thomas L Rosser1 came to the aid of the Confederates on Ashland Road near Ashland by moving north from Atlee Station southeast of Ashland to encounter McIntosh.
Other Confederates under Hampton, who had vacated Hanover Courthouse, positioned themselves south of Ashland on the RF&P tracks.
So McIntosh’s Union brigade was situated in Ashland and boxed in on the North, South, and East by the Confederates. The only escape route was west, but that would separate McIntosh’s brigade even more from the rest of the Union forces. It was an unexpected, perfect opportunity for Wade Hamptons’s cavalry to capture McIntosh’s entire cavalry brigade!
The Confederates dismounted and attacked. There was hand-to-hand combat by the dismounted cavalry on both sides. Just in time, Federal reinforcements came down from Elletts Crossing, giving McIntosh’s Union forces a northern escape route back toward Elletts Crossing, where he could join other Union forces. From Elletts Crossing the Union forces regrouped and were back at Hanover Courthouse by the evening.
St. George Tucker Brooke, who had attended prep school in Ashland, recounted an engagement with the enemy at Ashland in the late spring of 1864. It may well have been the Battle of Ashland that he describes, but it also may have been an engagement on May 11, 1864, just prior to the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Without the exact date, it is hard to tell, but some of the commanders in his description are those involved in the Battle of Ashland. Writes Brooke, “During the late Spring of 1864, Gen’l Fitzhugh Lee’s brigade halted on the ‘Telegraph Road’ in the rear of the ball room

[of the Ashland Hotel and Mineral Water Company] and the command was given, ‘Prepare to fight on foot; Dismount.’ The brigade dismounted, marched through the woods, perhaps three hundred yards and charged that ballroom which was filled with ‘Yankee’ soldiers. The ‘Yankees’ bounded out of the front windows and doors as we bounded in the rear windows and doors. A sharp fight took place in the lawn. The enemy retreated rapidly from the lawn into the street where we followed them. A body of enemy’s cavalry, which had been cut off from their main force, charged us while we were on foot in the street. We poured a volley into them and repulsed them. I saw a northern soldier shot off his horse just at the corner of Uncle Saint’s yard. [304 S Center Street was the home of Male Academy headmaster St. George Tucker] My boyhood playground had become a field of battle.” 2

Who won the Battle of Ashland? The Union did succeed in destroying the 2 railroad bridges and tracks in Ashland as well, but they paid a price in heavy casualties. The Confederates did not capture McIntosh’s brigade, but they did cause heavy casualties, chased the Union out of Ashland, and captured valuable Union horses and supplies as well. And within days, the Confederates had rebuilt the tracks and bridges. Both sides thought they had won. In the end, the Battle of Ashland was not an important strategic battle. Gordon Rhea writes in his Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, “The battle at Ashland, like most Civil War cavalry engagements, was stirring to participants but represented little more than a sideshow.” The important battle at Old Cold Harbor, according to Rhea, was to be decided by the Infantry, not the dashing Cavalry that fought at the Battle of Ashland.3
For additional reading on the battles of Ashland and Cold Harbor, see Gordon C Rhea’s Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, especially the chapter starting page 195 entitled “June 1, Grant and Lee Jockey for Position.” Mr. Rhea included in Appendixes I and II listings of the Union and Confederate forces and their leaders from which the list of units involved in this engagement is taken.


Order of Battle...

THE UNITS AND INDIVIDUAL COMMANDERS INVOLVED IN THE BATTLE OF ASHLAND
Federal Cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan
  • 3rdDivision under Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson
    • 1stBrigade under Col. John B. McIntosh
      • 1st Connecticut Cavalry
      • 3rd New Jersey Cavalry
      • 2nd New York Cavalry
      • 5th New York Cavalry
      • 2nd Ohio Cavalry
      • 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry
    • 2ndBrigade under Col. George H. Chapman
      • 3rd Indiana Cavalry
      • 8th New York Cavalry
      • 1st Vermont Cavalry

Confederate Cavalry corps under Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton

  • Hampton’s Division
    • Young’s Brigade under Col. Gilbert J. Wright
    • Rosser’s Brigade under Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Rosser
      • 7th Virginia Cavalry
      • 11th Virginia Cavalry
      • 12th Virginia Cavalry
  • William H. F. “Rooney” Lee’s Division (see Endnote #2)
    • Chambliss’s Brigade under Brig. Gen. John R. Chambliss
      • 9th Virginia Cavalry
      • 10th Virginia Cavalry
    • Gordon’s Brigade under Col. John A. Baker
      • 3rd North Carolina Cavalry
      • 5th North Carolina Cavalry
  • Horse Artillery
    • South Carolina Battery under Maj. James F. Hart
  • Breckenridge’s Division
    • Marylan
I bet on the Union. Railroad bridges destroyed seems to be a strategic victory to me.
 

5fish

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June 1, 1864 - Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's, USA,
Gen. Wright and Smith attack and to was repulsed but not after capturing and wounding a few of my relatives... it notes Georgian but there were North Carolina boys as well...

At 6:30 p.m. the attack that Grant had ordered for the morning finally began. Both Wright's and Smith's corps moved forward. Wright's men made little progress south of the Mechanicsville Road, which connected New and Old Cold Harbor, recoiling from heavy fire. North of the road, Brig. Gen. Emory Upton's brigade of Brig. Gen. David A. Russell's division also encountered heavy fire from Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Clingman's brigade, "A sheet of flame, sudden as lightning, red as blood, and so near that it seemed to singe the men's faces." Although Upton tried to rally his men forward, his brigade fell back to its starting point.[30]
To Upton's right, the brigade of Col. William S. Truex found a gap in the Confederate line, between the brigades of Clingman and Brig. Gen. William T. Wofford, through a swampy, brush-filled ravine. As Truex's men charged through the gap, Clingman swung two regiments around to face them, and Anderson sent in Brig. Gen. Eppa Hunton's brigade from his corps reserve. Truex became surrounded on three sides and was forced to withdraw, although his men brought back hundreds of Georgian prisoners with them.[3
 
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