9 May 1862: Thursday

Union - Government
President Lincoln remains at Hampton Roads, and tours the area by boat, looking for a place for Union soldiers to land by Norfolk. He also tells GEneral McClellan, slowly moving up the Peninsula toward Richmond, that he did not want the corps structure of the army broken up. He urged greater cooperation between McClellan and his corps commanders.

Confederates - Military
Virginia
Confederate forces evacuated Norfolk and its valuable naval and army supply depot in face of the Union occupation of the Peninsula across Hampton Roads. Supplies and machinery are destroyed, although enough will be left intact to help the Union, when its troops march in the next day.

The loss of this major base was a severe blow to Confederate control of southside Virginia and northern Carolina.

Elsewhere in Virginia, Stonewall Jackson continues his ppuruit of the retreating Union forces from the battle of McDowell.

Florida
Confederate forces begin evacuating the Pensacola area after holding out in the city against Fort Pickens and the naval squadron since the start of the war. (By May 12, Union forces will occupy the town and the nearby region.)

Union - Military
Mississippi
In northeastern Mississippi, there issevere fighting between forward units of Halleck's forces advancing on Corinth, and Confederates at Farmington.

Tennessee
There is a skirmish near Bethel, Tennessee.

South Carolina
Major General David Hunter at Hilton Head Island, SC, orders emancipation of the slaves in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, and authorized the arming of all able-bodied Negroes in those states. This order, without the approval of Congress or President Lincoln, causes a lively ferment in the North and was disavowed by Lincoln on May 12. But it did indicate support for emancipation among some army officers, at least as a war measure.



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