War Journals: Brother vs Brother | Discuss Interest Creation

[SaintB]

Original concept write up

The American Civil War was the most destructive and bloody conflict in the history of the nation. In 1861 the United States had not even reached its first century as a nation state but cultural and political differences between the highly industrialized North and mostly agricultural South came to a head especially in regards to the practice of slavery; an institution that existed within the United States long before the country was even conceived. Incidents such as the Kansas Border Wars where pro and anti-abolitionists literally fought to determine whether or not the newly inducted state of Kansas would allow the possession of slaves within its borders and John Brown's raid on the US Arsenal at Harper's Ferry where a tanner from Pennsylvania and his sons attempted to incite a slave uprising in Virginia had already planted the seeds of a bloody conflict to come.

Finally in November of 1860 a new man was determined as President Elect of The United States, a native of Illinois who became the face a new political party conceived in part on the concept of the eventual abolition of slavery and promising that as President he would use his power to put a stop to the spread of the practice of slave owning - the almost mythical Abraham Lincoln. That same year in response to what they believed was a threat to their rights as individuals, the rights of their state, and a direct challenge to their economic well-being the people of South Carolina voted to secede from the Union. Soon more states followed suite and by February of 1861, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had all joined in the secession movement and began to write their own Constitution in the city of Mobile Alabama - the Confederate States of America was born. One of the first acts of the new nation was to lay claim to all forts, arsenals, and armories within the borders of their states but the newly sworn in President Lincoln refused withdraw Federal Troops or to recognize the authority of states to secede. It was on April 12 at one of these enclaves of US control, a fort in Charleston Harbor named after General Thomas Sumter a hero of the American Revolution that war would begin... a war that would tear families apart, threaten to fracture an entire nation, and pit brothers against one another in mortal combat.

War journals is a concept for an RP that will follow the history of this war as it happened but through the lives of fictional men and women who were caught up in the waves of events far bigger in scale than they could even comprehend at the time. Players will take the role(s) of those people and explore what it means to be a small part of something that holds world wide repercussions but unlike in many other RPs their actions will be shaped by the world around them more than their own shape the game world.

Some of you are just joining in on this process, others were invited, some have expressed interest from the get-go and I welcome you and ask you to help me make this RP a reality. An RP as epic in scope as this plan will require more effort than only one person can devote to creating it to get off the ground and will need co-authors, researchers, and of course players to have a successful run and launch. I have an outline of goals that I hope to achieve with as much help as I can receive from others to launch an IC for this roleplay on the very same day as the 154th anniversary of this great and terrible conflict.

Goals

• A moderately detailed history of the war spanning from at least April to August of 1861
• A timeline for weekly updates for the aforementioned months
• A time scale for real to RP time (ie 1 week = 1 month)
• Resources on life in 1860's America to help players acquaint themselves with the setting
• At least two Co-Ops to help with the running of IC and OOC topics
• Perhaps more later

Target IC Launch Date is April 12, 2015

[Swith Witherward]

This looks very promising so far. I have some links stored on my laptop that might be helpful pertaining to "daily life" and technology in that time period. I wouldn't be able to access them until after the weekend, however.

[Altito Asmoro]

I will help in any way I can.

[Hornesia]

I'm a reenactor if you need any advice or have any questions.

[Zeinbrad]

Hmm....

[SaintB]

I'm a reenactor if you need any advice or have any questions.

Do you think that maybe you could write a blurb explaining how the uniforms and weaponry of the period worked or on how the soldiers lived on campaign? I think those would be massively helpful for inspiring writers.

[Hornesia]

I'm a reenactor if you need any advice or have any questions.

Do you think that maybe you could write a blurb explaining how the uniforms and weaponry of the period worked or on how the soldiers lived on campaign? I think those would be massively helpful for inspiring writers.

Yeah, sure, but I can really only speak from a Union Standpoint (my unit only does Union).
Uniforms:
Basically, Union soldiers would wear a cotton or similar shirt, undergarments, and blue wool pants (exact shade varied by unit). They'd wear some variation of a wool jacket (Sharpshooter Regiments would wear green jackets, most units wore dark blue or sky blue Shell Jackets. As the war went on a lot of units would transition into Sack Coats). For headgear most units would use some variation of the kepi or a forage cap. Few (including the Iron Brigade) would wear Hardee hats. Footwear varied by what supply was available/what the soldier could afford. I'm probably not the best person to comment on uniform as I'm in a volunteer unit that doesn't really give a shit.

Weaponry:
Alright, at this point everyone basically used rifle muskets. These were an improvement upon the smoothbore muskets of the Napoleonic age, as they included rifling in the barrel making them much more accurate. They functioned by placing a percussion cap onto a I honestly forgot what it's called. The operator of the musket would then pour a cartridge (which consisted of a minie ball and powder) into the barrel and push it in using the ramrod. At this point, they would pull the hammer back, and pull the trigger. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer goes forward at a fast speed and triggers an explosion in the cap that was mentioned earlier, this explosion sends a spark through a hole into the barrel igniting the powder and sending the minie ball flying at your target. There were also artillery and swords but neither are my area of expertise. Bayonets were used, but not very often in combat. They were mainly used as an entrenching tool, candle holder, etc.

Campaign Life:
If you were infantry, you marched everywhere you unit went, and carried everything you needed on you. If you were sharing a tent with another soldier, you could share burdens, etc. You would fight in companies most often, but could fight/march at any level of organization. Training was very brisk and basically covered how to operate a musket and march right. You had to rely on supply lines for food and later on in the war stealing food from farms was tolerated. Camps were only established for as long as they were needed.

[SaintB]

Do you think that maybe you could write a blurb explaining how the uniforms and weaponry of the period worked or on how the soldiers lived on campaign? I think those would be massively helpful for inspiring writers.

Yeah, sure, but I can really only speak from a Union Standpoint (my unit only does Union).
Uniforms:
Basically, Union soldiers would wear a cotton or similar shirt, undergarments, and blue wool pants (exact shade varied by unit). They'd wear some variation of a wool jacket (Sharpshooter Regiments would wear green jackets, most units wore dark blue or sky blue Shell Jackets. As the war went on a lot of units would transition into Sack Coats). For headgear most units would use some variation of the kepi or a forage cap. Few (including the Iron Brigade) would wear Hardee hats. Footwear varied by what supply was available/what the soldier could afford. I'm probably not the best person to comment on uniform as I'm in a volunteer unit that doesn't really give a shit.

Weaponry:
Alright, at this point everyone basically used rifle muskets. These were an improvement upon the smoothbore muskets of the Napoleonic age, as they included rifling in the barrel making them much more accurate. They functioned by placing a percussion cap onto a I honestly forgot what it's called. The operator of the musket would then pour a cartridge (which consisted of a minie ball and powder) into the barrel and push it in using the ramrod. At this point, they would pull the hammer back, and pull the trigger. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer goes forward at a fast speed and triggers an explosion in the cap that was mentioned earlier, this explosion sends a spark through a hole into the barrel igniting the powder and sending the minie ball flying at your target. There were also artillery and swords but neither are my area of expertise. Bayonets were used, but not very often in combat. They were mainly used as an entrenching tool, candle holder, etc.

Campaign Life:
If you were infantry, you marched everywhere you unit went, and carried everything you needed on you. If you were sharing a tent with another soldier, you could share burdens, etc. You would fight in companies most often, but could fight/march at any level of organization. Training was very brisk and basically covered how to operate a musket and march right. You had to rely on supply lines for food and later on in the war stealing food from farms was tolerated. Camps were only established for as long as they were needed.

Thanks, I didn't expect that to happen right away but thank you. Any time you want to update or add anything to it feel free and is it ok if I consult you about any questions I have?

[Hornesia]

Yeah, sure, but I can really only speak from a Union Standpoint (my unit only does Union).
Uniforms:
Basically, Union soldiers would wear a cotton or similar shirt, undergarments, and blue wool pants (exact shade varied by unit). They'd wear some variation of a wool jacket (Sharpshooter Regiments would wear green jackets, most units wore dark blue or sky blue Shell Jackets. As the war went on a lot of units would transition into Sack Coats). For headgear most units would use some variation of the kepi or a forage cap. Few (including the Iron Brigade) would wear Hardee hats. Footwear varied by what supply was available/what the soldier could afford. I'm probably not the best person to comment on uniform as I'm in a volunteer unit that doesn't really give a shit.

Weaponry:
Alright, at this point everyone basically used rifle muskets. These were an improvement upon the smoothbore muskets of the Napoleonic age, as they included rifling in the barrel making them much more accurate. They functioned by placing a percussion cap onto a I honestly forgot what it's called. The operator of the musket would then pour a cartridge (which consisted of a minie ball and powder) into the barrel and push it in using the ramrod. At this point, they would pull the hammer back, and pull the trigger. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer goes forward at a fast speed and triggers an explosion in the cap that was mentioned earlier, this explosion sends a spark through a hole into the barrel igniting the powder and sending the minie ball flying at your target. There were also artillery and swords but neither are my area of expertise. Bayonets were used, but not very often in combat. They were mainly used as an entrenching tool, candle holder, etc.

Campaign Life:
If you were infantry, you marched everywhere you unit went, and carried everything you needed on you. If you were sharing a tent with another soldier, you could share burdens, etc. You would fight in companies most often, but could fight/march at any level of organization. Training was very brisk and basically covered how to operate a musket and march right. You had to rely on supply lines for food and later on in the war stealing food from farms was tolerated. Camps were only established for as long as they were needed.

Thanks, I didn't expect that to happen right away but thank you. Any time you want to update or add anything to it feel free and is it ok if I consult you about any questions I have?

Yeah, no problem. I probably won't participate in the actual RP, but feel free to ask any questions.

[SaintB]

Bleeding Kansas and The Road to War
Slavery had always been a hot button issue in the fledgling United States of America and since its inception Congress had done all it could to keep the tensions under control writing many laws regarding the practice, the 3/5 Compromise and the Missouri Compromise were two of the more well known ones. No matter how many times Congress addressed the issue the tensions never eased for long and by the middle of the 19th century the long standing tensions between the mostly slavery free and industrialized North and the rural slave holding South had finally boiled over. Abolitionist members of the Whig Party formed new political block intent on halting and eventually ending the practice of slavery under the new named The Republican Party. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the best selling novel of her time, an anti-slavery opus named Uncle Tom's Cabin.

In response those who supported the practice of slavery began to fight within the halls of government on both the state and Federal level passing legislation known as The Kansas-Nebraska Act which gave the power of determining whether or not a new state would be a 'free' or 'slave' state by popular referendum of its citizens. Thousands of settlers poured in to the Kansas territory intent on ensuring their way of life would prevail in the new state. As too often happens when mobs of passionate people with opposing agendas collide violence inevitably broke out. At least 200 civilians slaughtered each other in the following years in a series of events known to history as Bleeding Kansas. Five years later a man named John Brown, a man infamous as a belligerent in Kansas attacked a federal arsenal outside of Harper's Ferry, Virginia along with some of his sons and followers from his Kansas raids as part of a scheme to raise an army of slaves to fight against their masters. While his plot failed because of a then unknown Army Officer named Robert Everett Lee and a contingent of marines it had planted the seeds of a long and bloody conflict.

Then in November of 1860 a new man was determined as President Elect of The United States, a native of Illinois who had become the face the new Republican Party and promising that as President he would use his power to put a stop to the spread of the practice of slave owning. That same year in response to what they believed was a threat to their rights as individuals, the rights of their state, and a direct challenge to their economic well-being the people of South Carolina voted to secede from the Union. Soon more states followed suite and by February of 1861, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had all joined in the secession movement and began to write their own Constitution in the city of Mobile Alabama - the Confederate States of America was born. One of the first acts of the new nation was to lay claim to all forts, arsenals, and armories within the borders of their states but the newly sworn in President Lincoln refused withdraw Federal Troops or to recognize the authority of states to secede. It was on April 12 at one of these enclaves of US control, a fort in Charleston Harbor named after General Thomas Sumter a hero of the American Revolution that war would begin... a war that would tear families apart, threaten to fracture an entire nation, and pit brothers against one another in mortal combat.

Timeline of Events: Pre-War (1860 to April 1861)
1860

• 1860 Census shows a total population of 31,183,582, there are 3,950,528 slaves making up 13% of the US population. In Mississippi 49% of all families own slaves. 57% of the population of South Carolina lives in slavery.
• November 6: Abraham Lincoln is elected president. Lincoln received 40% of the popular vote and won 59% of the Electoral votes. He was not even on the ballot in the deep south.
• December 20: South Carolina convention passes Ordinance of Secession
• December 26: Major Robert Anderson of the US Army moves his troops from Ft. Moultrie, in Charleston, South Carolina, to Ft. Sumter in the Charleston Harbor.
  1861
• January 9: Mississippi sucedes from the Union
  Star of the West, a merchant ship under employ of the USA tries to bring supplies to Ft. Sumter but is fired upon by South Carolina's militia and retreats.
  Delaware votes on the issue of secession but the initiative is defeated and the State remains in the Union.
• January 10: Florida secedes
• January 11: Alabama secedes
• January 16: The US Senate refuses to consider the The Crittenden Compromise
• January 19: Georgia secedes but does not finalize its declaration until the 29th.
• January 21: Jefferson Davis resigns from his seat in the US Senate.
• January 26: Louisiana secedes
• January 29: Kansas enters the Union as the 34th State
• February 1: Texas secedes a general election is held on February 23 and passes by a 3 to 1 margin in favor of secession
• February 7: The Montgomery Convention consisting of representatives from all of the first six secessionists states meets in Montgomery Alabama to discuss the formation of a new Confederacy of States.
• February 8: The Montgomery Convention creates a provisional constitution and the Confederate States of America (CSA) is born.
• Feburary 9: Jefferson Davis is unanimously elected President of the new CSA by delegates to the Montgomery convention.
• February 11: Lincoln, now President Elect of the USA, leaves Springfield Illinois for Washington D.C.
  The U.S. House unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any state.
• February 18: Davis is sworn into office of President of the CSA
• February 23: Lincoln arrives in Washington DC after being moved secretly through Baltimore to avoid an assassination attempt.
• February 28: Colorado is incorporated as a territory of the US
• March 2: Nevada is incorporated as a US territory
  Texas officially joins the Confederacy
• March 4: Lincoln is sworn into office of President of the USA
• March 6: Under the direction of Davis the Confederate Congress authorizes a volunteer army
• March 21: Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stevens, gives the infamous Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia, in which he declares that slavery is the natural condition of blacks and the foundation of the Confederacy.
• April 3: Virginia holds a test vote on whether or not to secede. The vote fails.
• April 4: Virginia holds secession commission. It votes overwhelmingly against secession.
• April 6: General PGT Beauregard orders all transports attempting to carry food and ammunition to Fort Sumter to be stopped, effectively blockading the fort
• April 10: General Braxton Brag assumes command of all Confederate soldiers in Alabama and Western Florida.
• April 11: The Confederate States of America order the surrender of Fort Sumter.
• April 12: At 4:30am following orders from Jefferson Davis the CSA Army under the command of General P.G.T. Beauregard opens fire on Fort Sumter. The War Begins.

I'm considering this timeline complete.

[Ilearu]

Always willing for Civil War Rps. I'll look at some stuff I use for APUSH.

[Swith Witherward]

I didn't have a chance to retrieve my laptop this weekend, SaintB. Sorry about that. It was hectic IRL.

[Altito Asmoro]

Did the Confederate side was already doomed to lost by the time the Civil War started?

[SaintB]

Did the Confederate side was already doomed to lost by the time the Civil War started?

That's subjective and people have different opinions on that but I personally think that yes they were fighting uphil from the start and were pretty much doomed to failure. I also think think some of the people in the highest echelons of command knew it and that is why so many huge risks in the middle of the war.

[SaintB]

I didn't have a chance to retrieve my laptop this weekend, SaintB. Sorry about that. It was hectic IRL.

Its all good, you got like 2 months.

[Kentsland]

I'd be interested, the civil war was always a period that interested me. I'll probably try to model a character after one of my ancestors who was from upstate New York and fought for the Union.

He ended up being discharged after he lost a hand or arm in an accidental discharge of a musket (if I remember right) but hopefully it'll end differently for me

[Altito Asmoro]

Did the Confederate side was already doomed to lost by the time the Civil War started?

That's subjective and people have different opinions on that but I personally think that yes they were fighting uphil from the start and were pretty much doomed to failure. I also think think some of the people in the highest echelons of command knew it and that is why so many huge risks in the middle of the war.

So the history of this RP's Civil War will be similar with the real life history, or there will be some change?

[SaintB]

That's subjective and people have different opinions on that but I personally think that yes they were fighting uphil from the start and were pretty much doomed to failure. I also think think some of the people in the highest echelons of command knew it and that is why so many huge risks in the middle of the war.

So the history of this RP's Civil War will be similar with the real life history, or there will be some change?

I wont be changing anything about the history of the war. Players will be able to make a few things up but they won't be able to create whole new major events or anything like that.

[SaintB]

The Pre-War timeline is done. I'm thinking of maybe having 2 weeks pass in real world time for this period of 4 months in the RP. I also want to set this as the benchmark of the detail I want in the timelines. Next timeline is April 14th to 30th. If anyone has suggestions or is willing to help build more timelines please let me know.

[SaintB]

Three Months to Victory
Nobody knew at first what the sheer scale of the conflict would be. Both governments called for recruits to bolster their fighting strength and all the while made promises and claims like "The War will be over in three months!" and both were confident that some kind of peace would be reached long before the war got out of hand. More states seceded after being emboldened by the lack of Federal retaliation against the Confederacy. Military actions were mostly carried out by state militias with little in the way of actual violence while both nations began to train and organize their forces. Across the nations demonstrations and riots from both pro and anti union groups were not uncommon and in Baltimore, Maryland ended with soldiers firing on a crowd of civilians. The State Governor Thomas Hicks used the incident as a reason the state legislature to vote on seceding from the Union but they voted against such measures by a wide margin.

Timeline of events April 13-30 1861

• April 13: Fort Sumter Surrenders. Major Robert Anderson. Major Anderson arranges a surrender with Texas Senator Louis Wigfall. No soldiers were killed in the exchange of hostile fire. The civil war had begun.
• April 14: US Army evacuates Ft. Sumter. During the formal surrender of Fort Sumter Private Daniel Hough dies when the cannon he is manning explodes during a 100 gun salute to the American Flag, he is the first casualty of the war.
• April 15: President Abraham Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers to bolster the US Army. These men are enlisted for only three months
  Braxton Bragg places Lt. John Worden under arrest in Pensacola, Florida, making him the first prisoner-of-war in the American Civil War
  Tennessee Governor Isham Harris orders an emergency session of the state legislature to determine the issue of secession citing Lincoln's call for soldiers.
• April 17: Virginia's Secession Convention approves a final draft for a referendum on an ordinance of succession and calls for a popular vote
  Star of the West is boarded and captured by the CSA Steamer General Rusk off the coast of Texas
• April 18: Robert E. Lee is offered command of the entire Confederate Army
  The first volunteers arrive for drills in Washington DC
  US Army withdraws soldiers from Harper's Ferry Arsenal
• April 19: While traveling through Baltimore the6th Massachusetts Volunteers Regiment is attacked by Confederate sympathizers who cut off bridges and destroyed telegraph lines. 3 soldiers are and 1 civilian are killed.
  President Lincoln calls for a blockade on Southern ports. General Winfield Scott designs the tactics and strategy to encompass the Mississippi River and the entire Southern Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. The Anaconda Plan is born.
  The arsenal at Harper's Ferry is occupied by Virginia's militia.
  Federal Marshall's seize telegraphs that lead to the eventual arrest of many Confederate sympathizers
• April 20: Robert E. Lee resigns from the US Army
  US Troops scuttle vessels in Gosport Naval Yard and evacuate Norfolk, Virginia
• April 22: 1,200 citizens of Clarksburg Virginia hold a convention to speak out against secession
  Maryland Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks calls a session of the Maryland legislature to consider secession
• April 23: George B. McClellan is appointed Major General of the Ohio Militia
  US Army withdraws from Fort Smith in Arkansas
  Robert E. Lee assumes command of the Virginia Militia
  Virginia secessionist convention ratifies a temporary union with the Confederacy and accepts the Southern Constitution, subject to approval of the ordnance of secession
• April 25: Illinois militia members take steam boats from Alton Illinois to St. Louis Missouri and secure 10,000 muskets from an armory in the city without being detected.
• April 27: President Abraham Lincoln adds Virginia and North Carolina to the blockaded states and suspends the writ of habeas corpus in the United States
  Virginia offers Richmond to be the the new capitol of the CSA
• April 29: The Maryland legislature votes 53-13 against secession

Considered complete.

[SaintB]

April 13-30 of 1861 is complete. I'm considering 1 week for the events to play out in the RP.

Anyone interested in helping make timelines or finding or writing useful information please telegram or post here.

Next timeline will be for May 1861.

[SaintB]

The Land of Cotton
The Confederate States of America continued to gain members but the issue of where they will make a capitol had yet to be settled; Alabama was not a popular choice among the nation's congress because of humidity and the omnipresent mosquitoes that made things miserable for them and it was determined that they did not have facilities enough for their ever increasing government but they could not agree on where they should relocate. The answer finally came to them when even before it had officially seceded from the USA the State of Virginia offered their capitol in Richmond. In the United States the attention was also mainly turned inward for the first half of the month. State militias and Federal Troops worked together to quell unrest in cities like St. Louis, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland through force of arms and used the suspension of habeas corpus as grounds to threaten and arrest anyone who stood in their way. The State's of Kentucky and Missouri both declared themselves neutral in the conflict as it approached boiling point and Queen Victoria of England signed a declaration recognizing the Confederate States of America as a nation and declaring her empire's lack of sentiment on the coming war.

In the latter half of the month General Thomas Jackson, perhaps the most famous soldier of the Confederacy, began to build his legend with the first of a series of successful raids against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad company capturing 56 different locomotives and untold numbers of train cars. In the Union the Federal Government turned its attention to protecting Washington DC by sending soldiers to occupy Virginian communities across the Potomac River. During this occupation a regimental commander ranked Colonel named Elmer Ellsworth is shot and killed after personally tearing down a Confederate flag that was visible from the White House balcony. A state funeral was held in his honor.

Timeline of events May 1-31 1861

• May 1: Robert E. Lee orders General Thomas Jonathan Jackson to remove the weapons and equipment from the arsenal at Harper's Ferry
• May 3: Federal troops cease Arlington Heights, overlooking Washington D. C.
• May 6: Arkansas secedes from the Union and joins the Confederacy
• May 7: The secession of Tennessee
• May 10: General Nathaniel Lyon (at this time a Captain) ceases a pro Confederate militia camp Camp Jackson and captures 1,200 rifles and 669 members of the state militia starting riots in St. Louis. Lyons and his 6,000 men use force to end the riots and place the city under martial law. This is known as The Camp Jackson Affair. 28 civilians and 5 soldiers are killed.
• May 12: Benjamin Butler takes control of Federal Hill outside of Baltimore, Maryland and threatens to fire on the city if Confederate sympathizers protest
• May 13: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a proclamation of neutrality which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights
  Butler occupies Baltimore with 1,000 men and artillery
  George McClellan is appointed Commander of The Department of Ohio and promoted to Major General
  The First Wheeling Convention is held and ends on the 15th
• May 15: Nathaniel Lyon occupies Jefferson City, the capitol of Missouri
  Robert Anderson (Commander of Fort Sumter) is promoted to Brigadier General
• May 20: Kentucky proclaims neutrality in the conflict between North and South
• May 21: Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederate States of America
  Missouri declares itself neutral in the war
• May 23: The state of Virginia's ordinance of secession from the United States is ratified
  General Jackson raids the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and captures 56 locomotives
• May 24: US troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia
  Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth of the 11th New York Fire Zouaves is killed in the Marshall House Inn in Alexandria, Virginia while taking down a Confederate Flag. He is the first officer to be killed while on duty in the Civil War
  Benjamin Butler is the first to use the term "contraband" to describe slaves who have crossed into the Northern camps
• May 28: Confederates seize the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Point of Rocks to Cumberland
• May 31: Nathaniel Lyon promoted to Brigadier General and given command of all Union forces in Missouri

[SaintB]

May 1861 timeline is complete. I'm thinking of another 1 week = 1 month time scale.

[SaintB]

Decided to add introductions to each timeline that sort of summarize the events that happen in each month.

[SaintB]

May of 1861 is complete. Looking at 1 week for it right now.

I'm going to move on to June and of course if anyone wants to help TG or post here; I'm looking for co-ops and people willing to do research on battles and things.