Sunday Oct. 27 1861
FREMONT FACES FOE FIERCELY

After months of political infighting in his office in St. Louis, Gen. John Charles Fremont had finally noticed that Gen. Sterling Price, CSA, had been rampaging around the state of Missouri with virtual impunity for weeks now. He had attacked the Federal garrison at Lexington, Mo., besieging them for over a week during which Fremont sent no assistance whatsoever. After the capture of the 2800-man Union force, Price had moved on to Springfield, Mo. where he signed up some recruits and misappropriated the possessions of those suspected of harboring Union sentiments. Finally Fremont had moved out, reached Springfield and settled down for combat, issuing bombastic boasts of Price’s imminent doom. Price took little notice of this, as he was headed in quite the opposite direction, back to Lexington.



Monday Oct. 27 1862
PRESIDENT PRAISES PACIFIST PRINCIPLES

Like all politicians, even in those days, Abraham Lincoln was often called upon to give interviews to members of various interest groups, in some cases even those of other nations. One such was given yesterday as Lincoln sat for a talk with Mrs. Eliza P. Gurney. Mrs. Gurney represented two very important constituencies, insofar as she was a leader of the Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers) in Great Britain. American Quakers had been prominent in the abolitionist movement, but of course opposition to war was also a deeply-held belief. Possibly keeping this in mind, Lincoln was said to have told Mrs. Gurney, “If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced; if I had been allowed my way this war would have been ended before this; but we find it still continues.”



Tuesday Oct. 27 1863
CRACKERS CRACK CHATTANOOGA CRUSH

The Union army that had taken Chattanooga had gone on to lose at nearby Chickamauga Creek, and had been trapped in the town of their victory ever since under siege by Gen. Braxton Bragg and the Army of Tennessee. Able neither to move forward or back as a unit, still small groups had been able to get in and out, bringing enough supplies to fend off complete starvation. The supply situation was still critical though, and upon reaching the city U.S. Grant had made its improvement his first concern. In a daring operation, a pontoon bridge was established across the Tennessee River at Brown’s Ferry. The Union men who built it, primarily an engineer unit from Ohio, had had to sneak in overnight to get past Confederate sharpshooters on Raccoon Mountain behind them.



Thursday Oct. 27 1864
RAM RUIN WREAKED ON ROANOKE RIVER

The CSS Albermarle, one of the last warships built by the Confederacy, had caused instant terror in the hearts of the US Navy on the Roanoke and James River areas of Virginia. Lt. William B. Cushing, USN, with 14 crewmen, set forth on a steam cutter, with a launch in tow, up the Roanoke to deal with their foe once and for all. In rain and darkness they were able to approach within a few hundred feet before being detected. The scene now lit by a huge bonfire on shore, Cushing and his ship were shot at both from the ram and the shore. Worse, they could now see the ship was surrounded by a protective boom of logs. He circled to build up speed, crashed over the boom, and personally lowered and set off the torpedo boom. The ramship fired simultaneously and both ships exploded. Cushing, ordering “abandon ship”, tried to get his wounded friend John Woodman to shore with him but failed. Cushing, in fact, was the only one to escape, as the others were killed or captured.

Battle of Hatcher's Run (Burgess Mill):

Union troops are turned back when they try to cut the last railroad supplying the Confederate force in Petersburg, Virginia.

Since June, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had laid siege to Petersburg, just 25 miles south of the Confederate capital at Richmond. Confederate General Robert E. Lee's dwindling forces were stretched thin along miles of trenches, but the fortifications magnified the actual strength of his troops. Hatcher's Run was one of several attempts made by Grant in the summer and fall of 1864 to pry the Rebels from their positions.

With winter approaching, Grant decided to make one last attempt to capture the Southside Railroad that supplied Petersburg from the west. He instructed the Army of the Potomac's commander, General George Meade, to direct the operation. He ordered parts of three army corps, commanded by Generals Winfield Hancock, Gouverneur K. Warren, and John Parke, to advance in the early morning rain of October 23. The target was the Confederate trenches along Hatcher's Run, seven miles southwest of Petersburg. The plan called for Parke's and Warren's forces to make an assault, if possible, while Hancock's troops moved west around the end of the Confederate lines. They were to turn north and cut the railroad. The effort would involve 40,000 Yankee troops and 3,000 cavalry troopers.

Parke's and Warren's men found the trenches much more heavily defended than expected. They continued to maneuver to draw attention away from Hancock's advance, but an uneven advance created a gap in the Union lines. Meade slowed the advance to close the gap. By late afternoon, Confederate counterattacks threw Hancock's Second Corps into disarray. The fighting continued after dark, but when it ended no territory had changed hands, and the siege continued.

About 1,700 Yankee men were killed, wounded, and captured. Confederate losses were not reported but were thought to be less than 1,000, most of them captured. The battle was a disaster for the Union and caused the Lincoln administration embarrassment just a week before the presidential election. However, recent Yankee military successes in the Shenandoah Valley around Atlanta and in Mobile, Alabama, were enough to secure Lincoln's reelection.

Also on this day: CSS Albemarle sinks

The Albemarle sinks at Plymouth, North Carolina. It was the only Confederate ironclad to be destroyed by the Union during the war.