Small Talk-Trivia

The President Addresses Congress

By Stephen Davis · Originally published May 2018 · pp. 40–46

On May 2, 1864, President Jefferson Davis spoke to the opening session of the Second Confederate Congress. He addressed a number of issues facing the country, saving its military situation till the last. He voiced optimism about the South’s prospects, as the military campaign season was about to begin. One of his closing paragraphs is quoted below; this month’s quiz draws from the ten noted terms. The recent events of the war are highly creditable to our troops, exhibiting energy and vigilance combined with the habitual gallantry which they have taught us to expect on all occasions. We have been cheered by important and valuable successes in Florida,1 Northern Mississippi,2 Western Tennessee3 and Kentucky,4 Western Louisiana,5 and Eastern North Carolina,6 reflecting the highest honor on the skill and conduct of our commanders, and on the incomparable soldiers whom it is their privilege to lead. A naval attack on Mobile was so successfully repulsed at the outer works that the attempt was abandoned,7 and the nine months’ siege of Charleston has been practically suspended,8 leaving that noble city and its fortresses imperishable monuments to the skill and fortitude of its defenders. The armies in North Georgia9 and in Northern Virginia10 still oppose with unshaken front a formidable barrier to the progress of the invader; and our generals, armies and people are animated by cheerful confidence. —(Crist et al., eds., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, vol. 10 [1999], 383) 1. “We have been cheered by important and valuable successes in Florida….” Davis was referring to the Confederate victory on Feb. 20, 1864, when Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour’s 5,500 Federals were defeated by some 4,600 Confederates under Brig. Gen. Joseph Finegan. This, the biggest Civil War battle in Florida, was fought where? 2. As for their success in northern Mississippi, the president was referring to Southerners’ victory in a running fight near Okolona, February 21-22, against a large Federal column advancing from Memphis. The Confederate commander reported that with a force of 2,500 he had defeated 7,000 Federals, capturing 162 prisoners and six pieces of artillery. Who? 3. At Union City in west Tennessee, on March 24, 1864, by coincidence, the Confederate commander, Col. W.L. Duckworth, commanding the ___ Tennessee Cavalry Regiment (C.S.), tricked

Col. Isaac R. Hawkins, commander of the ___ Tennessee Cavalry Regiment (U.S.) into surrendering. Which cavalry regiments, of both sides? 4. Among the Southerners’ successes in Kentucky to which Davis referred was the Confederate cavalry raid which led to the brief occupation of Columbus on April 13, 1864, during which some of Forrest’s troopers rounded up and rode off with “one hundred and forty excellent horses and their equipment.” The colonel of the 12th Kentucky, who found them in a foundry, happened to have the same name as the famous Mississippi novelist, author of Absalom, Absalom!, and other novels centered in Yoknapatawpha County. Who? 5. In western Louisiana, the recent success to which the president was referring was the battle of Mansfield, April 8, in which Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor defeated Union Maj. Gen. ____. Who? 6. “Eastern North Carolina”: With the help of the formidable Confederate ironclad CSS ___, Brig. Gen. Robert F. Hoke laid siege to the Union garrison at Plymouth, N.C. After several days of fighting, the Federals surrendered on April 20. What was the name of the Confederate warship?

7. “A naval attack on Mobile… was abandoned”: In late February 1864, Union mortar schooners and gunboats attempted to reduce Confederate Fort Powell, at the mouth of Mobile Bay near Dauphin Island, by bombarding it for several days. The Northern shells had little effect, even though 567 were fired on the last day of the month. “The bombardment of February 29 convinced ___ that further attacks on Fort Powell would yield no better results.” The Union commander was Rear Admiral ___. 8. “The nine months’ siege of Charleston has been practically suspended”: “The Union Army and Navy had been totally frustrated. [The U.S. Secretary of the Navy] concluded that Charleston had been the ‘most invulnerable and best-protected city on the coast.’” (Robert N. Rosen, Confederate Charleston [1994], p. 126). Can you name the U.S. Naval Secretary? 9. The president refers to the Confederate army in north Georgia. What was the name of the army, and who was its commanding general in May, 1864? 10. The Confederate forces, Davis proclaimed, “in Northern Virginia still oppose with unshaken front a formidable barrier…animated by cheerful confidence.” By the end of 1864, however, soldiers of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had begun nicknaming themselves something distinctly different, based on a novel by Victor Hugo. What was the work of fiction, and what did Lee’s men call themselves? Answers found on page 46. Steve Davis is the Civil War News Book Review Editor. He can be contacted by email at: [email protected]

8. Olustee, west of Jacksonville. A Georgia newspaper stated that the Yankees marched “forty miles over the most barren land of the South, frightening the salamanders and the gophers, and getting a terrible thrashing.” (Lewis N., Wynne and Robert A. Taylor, Florida in the Civil War [2001], p. 138). 2. Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Of their rapid retreat back to Memphis, one Union officer lamented that it was a “weary, dis-heartening and almost panic-stricken flight, in the greatest disorder and confusion.” They made it back to base in half the time it took them to advance to Okolona. (Robert S. Henry, “First With the Most” Forrest [1944], p. 233). 3. 7th Tennessee Cavalry—both C.S. and U.S. “Thus the Federal post, 300 horses, army stores, and about 475 prisoners, passed into the hands of about 320 Confederates, almost without the loss of blood or the smell of powder.” (J.P. Young, The Seventh Tennessee Cavalry. (Confederate.) A History [1890], p. 85). 4. Novelist William Faulkner (1897–1962). The quote about Col. Faulkner and the horses comes from Andrew Nelson Lytle, Bedford Forrest and His Critter Company (1931), p. 274. 5. Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks (1816–1894). Taylor’s superior, Gen. E. Kirby Smith, had told him to avoid a general engagement. After Mansfield, Taylor sent a courier back to Shreveport with a message for his superior: “Too late, sir, the battle is won.” (Gary Dillard Joiner, One Damn Blunder from Beginning to End: The Red River Campaign of 1864 [2003], p. 103). 6. CSS Albemarle. Hoke reported to Richmond, “I have stormed and captured this place, capturing 1 brigadier, 1600 men, stores, and 25 pieces of artillery.” (Daniel W. Barefoot, General Robert F. Hoke: Lee’s Modest Warrior [1996], p. 149). President Davis was so pleased that he had Hoke promoted to major general, effective April 20. 7. David G. Farragut (1801–1870). The quote is from Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., Confederate Mobile (1991), p. 135. 8. Gideon Welles (1802–1878). 9. The Army of Tennessee, commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. 10. Hugo’s Les Miserables, transmogrified into “Lee’s Miserables.” After a Richmond printer published the novel in translation, it became a hit. “The soldiers, little familiar with the Gallic pronunciation, called the book ‘Lee’s Miserables!’” (J. Tracy Power, Lee’s Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox [1998], p. iii).