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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

7 September 1862: Sunday

Confederacy - Government
President Davis writes his advancing generals, Lee, Bragg and E. Kirby Smith, that they should make clear to the people "that the Confederate Government is waging this war solely for self defense, that it has no design of conquest or any other purpose than to secure peace and the abandonment by the United States of its pretensions to govern a people who have never been their subjects and who prefer self-government to a Union with them."

Union - Government
President Lincoln, concerned over two fronts, east and west, asks "Where is GEneral Bragg?" and "What about Harper's Ferry?"

Union - Civilian
Harrisburg, PA, Hagerstown, MD, Baltimore and others were scenes of "tremendous excitement." Streets were thronged, rumors rampant, citizens armed; some fled the reported coming out of Southern troops.

Union - Military
DC/Maryland

The Army of the Potomac under General McClellan moves slowly northward from Washington, protecting the capitol and Baltimore, not knowing the enemy's whereabouts or plans.

Unbeknownst to them, most of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia was concentrating now at Frederick, Maryland.

Virginia
Union garrisons at Harper's Ferry and Martinburg are virtually cut off from Washington.

Confederates - Military
Tennessee

Confederate GEneral Braxton Bragg in Tennessee moved steadily north toward Kentucky, bypassing the main Union force under Buell at Murfreesboro and Nashville.

There are skirmishes at Murfreesboro and Pine Mountain Gap.

The town of Clarksville is retaken by Union forces.

Kentucky
There is a skirmish at Shephersville.
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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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