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Friday, August 5, 2011

5 August 1862: Tuesday

Confederate - Government
Jefferson Davis writes of some of the problems of his administration, stating, "Revolutions develop the high qualities of the good and the great, but they cannot change the nature of the vicious and selfish."

Union - Government/Military
Recruiting for old and new regiments proceeds briskly in the North after Lincoln's call for 300,000 more men.

Confederates - Military
Louisiana

Confederate forces once more control the Mississippi north and south of Vicksburg from Helena, Arkansas to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Moving southward toward Baton Rouge, Major General John C. Breckenridge and about 2,600 men attack 2500 Union troops under Brigadier General Thomas Williams. The fighting takes place in a dense fog. After heavy fighting the battle ends in mid-morning. On the Union side, the ground troops are assisted by gunboats on the Mississippi. On the Confederate side, the ram Arkansas, ordered down from Vicksburg, arrived too late to be of help due to continual breakdown of her faulty engines.

Union losses were 84 killed (including GEneral Williams), 266 wounded, and 33 missing for 383

Confederate losses were 84 killed, 315 wounded, and 57 captured or missing 456.

Breckinridge pulled back a few miles north and began to fortify Port Hudson on the bluffs.

Military - Union
Virginia

There is a light engagement at Malvern Hill, and a skirmish at White Oak Swamp Bridge on Virginia's Peninsula. There is also a skirmish at Thornburg/Massaponax Church.

Missouri
There is fighting at Montevallo and near Cravensville.

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

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