4 April, 1862: Friday

Union - Government/Military
In command changes, Banks' Fifth Army Corps is put into the Federal Department of the Shenandoah and the First Army Corps of McDowall is put into the Department of the Rappahannock.

Confederate - Military
Tennessee
General Albert Sidney Johnston's army marched out of Corinth, Mississippi toward Pittsburg Landing in Tennessee had to work around further delays - heavy rain this night prevents the army from being deployed for an attack on the fifth. By now it is believed that any chance of surprise must be gone. Skirmishing has increased extensively.

Virginia
Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, with the principal Confederate army in Virginia shifts southward from the line of the Rapahannock to bolster Magruder on the Peninsula, preparing for the attack, should it ever come, from McClellan.

Union - Military
Virginia
On the Peninsula, southeast of Richmond, General McClellan moves slowly toward Yorktown, his massive army confronted by about 15,000 Confederates and a frail line of fortifications along the Warwick River.

Despite his numerical superiority, McClellan failed to make a decided effort to cross the river or to drive the Confederates away from Yorktown.

There is a skirmish near Howard's Mills at Cockletown. Pressure is lightly applied to Johnston's Rappahhanock line by small Union units.

Tennessee
On the Mississippi at Island No. 10, a canal has been laboriously cut through the swamps near New Madrid so that Union troops could move small vessels southward around the forts of the island. (This was one of the few times that such a canal really worked.) Under cover of night the Union gunboat Carondelet ran the Confederate batteries of the island during a heavy thunderstorm. After this success it became an immediate threat to the Confederates, as it could help cover the landing of Union troops on the Tennessee shore below the important island.

There was a skirmish at Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.


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