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Sunday, March 6, 2011

6 March, 1862: Thursday

Union - Government
President Lincoln sends Congress a messagecalling for cooperation with any state that would adopt gradual abolition of slavery, and giving such states financial aid, to be used at their discretion. Lincoln had long urged and spoken for gradual, compensated emancipation as a war measureand to answer the slavery problem, just as he had urged colonization of free Negroes in Central America and Africa.

Confederacy - Government
In Richmond, the Confederate Congress passes a measure stipulating that military authorities should destroy cotton, tobacco,and other property if it could not be removed before it fell into the hands of the enemy.

Davis also writes General Joseph Johnston, in Virginia, that he was aware of Johnston's problems and the possible need to retreat before McClellan's Army of the Potomac, expected to advance at any moment.

Union - Military - Naval
Near New York, the revolutionary new iron ship, USS Monitor, after very limited trials, leaves for Fort Monroe, Virginia, where the Union squadron is anticipating an attack from the Confederate ironclad Merrimack (now the CSS Virginia).

Union-Military
Arkansas
By late afternoon the four Union divisions of SAmuel R. Curtis' army in Arkansas were in position at Sugar Creek, north of Fayetteville, and well entrenched, looking south. However, Confederate Earn van Dorn would not risk a frontal attack anddecided, late in the day, after some moderate fighting, to pass around the Union forces by means of a night march, and attack from the north at Pea Ridge. Van Dorn wrote [to whom Lomg does not say] "I must have St. Louis and then Huzzah!"]



Bibliography
The Civil War Day By Day: An Almanac 1861-1865. E.B. Long with Barbara Long, De Capo, 1971

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