This Week in the Civil War

On February 22, 1863, George Washington’s birthday was celebrated in both the Union and in the Confederacy.  In the Union, Washington was hailed as the father of the country and as a champion of a strong national government. 

On February 21, 1863, the CSS Alabama destroyed two Union commercial vessels in the Mid-Atlantic Ocean.  An English built sloop-of-war, the Alabama was designed to raid Union commerce and to disrupt Union shipping. 

She boasted eight cannons and could be powered by either sail or steam.  She had initially seen action near the Azores Islands, before crossing the Atlantic to disrupt Union shipping from New England, all the way to the coast of Texas. 

On February 19, 1863, a train carrying Confederate soldiers to the Battle of Vicksburg crashed at Chunky Creek, near Hickory, Mississippi.  The crash was caused by damage to a bridge brought on by heavy winter rains.

It resulted in 40 military and civilian deaths.  In the immediate aftermath, warriors from a nearby Choctaw Indian battalion braved debris and freezing waters to rescue dozens of stranded passengers. 

On February 18, 1863, a council representing the Cherokee Nation agreed to peace terms with the Union.  Like most other Indian tribes located in the territories that are now the state of Oklahoma, the Cherokee had initially sided with the Confederacy, contributing warriors in the West and in the Appalachians. 

On February 17, 1863, Karl Marx received a letter from his friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels, discussing the course of the American Civil War. A leader of the international revolutionary movement since the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, Marx had taken a keen interest in the Civil War. 

From London, Marx had written articles for the New York Herald Tribune until 1862, frequently arguing that the Union crusade against slavery was to the benefit of workingmen everywhere. 

On February 16, 1863, Kansas State University became one of many public institutes of higher education to be founded under the authority of the Morrill Land Grant Act. 

Signed by President Lincoln in 1862, the Morrill Act promised 30,000 acres of federal land to each state for the purpose of supporting higher learning in the agricultural and mechanical arts. The Morrill Act however refused to provide any such assistance to states currently in rebellion.

On February 15, 1863, Captain Robert Gould Shaw arrived in Boston to assume command of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.  Memorialized in the film Glory, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry consisted of free black men recruited mostly from the North. 

The son of a prominent abolitionist, Shaw joined the 7th New York Infantry Regiment in April of 1861.  He later fought with the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry at the pivotal battle of Antietam. 

On February 13, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln took time off from the Civil War to host a wedding reception at the Executive Mansion for the entertainer Tom Thumb and his new bride, Lavinia Warren. 

Born as Charles Sherwood Stratton on January 3, 1838, Tom Thumb stopped growing normally at 6 months of age.  As an adult, he stood at around 2 1/2 feet.  Discovered by distant relative P.T. Barnum, Thumb was taught to sing, dance, mime and impersonate famous people, including Napoleon Bonaparte. 

On February 12, 1863, the West Virginia Constitutional Convention reconvened in Wheeling.  On October 24, 1861, voters in 39 northwestern counties had voted to secede from the state of Virginia after it had joined the Confederacy earlier in the year. 

On February 11, 1863, in Yadkin County, North Carolina, a small group of men facing the Confederate draft resolved to flee to the Union.  As reported by the North Carolina Museum of History, the militia learned that the men were meeting at a local schoolhouse and surrounded them.