March 20, 1862

March 20, 1862: Trans-Mississippi Theater - New Mexico Campaign: Gen. Henry H. Sibley, CSA, understands that he cannot allow his 2,500 men to be trapped between the 1,800 Federals still at Ft. Craig under Col. Edward Canby and the 1,400 Federals ahead at Ft. Union under Col. Slough. So Sibley decides to move against Fort Union first, the last Union bastion preventing Confederate domination of New Mexico and Arizona. His plan is to send three columns over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; these columns would converge before arriving at Fort Union. On this date, Major John Shropshire of the 5^th Texas Cavalry sets out from Albuquerque north with a battalion to reinforce the small garrison of Santa Fe, when they run into about 120 Federal troops who are scouting the mountain passes. The Federals prepare to charge the Rebel column, when Shropshire orders a retreat back to Albuquerque. The presence of Union troops between Albuquerque and Santa Fe is wholly unexpected. This delay to Sibley’s movement will be costly, as a regiment of Colorado volunteers is drawing near to Ft. Union.


—Maj. Gen. John Bankhead Magruder, of the Confederate Army, has been sent by Gen. Joseph Johnston down to the James Peninsula to take command of Confederate troops there and keep an eye on Union operations. Magruder sends a scouting report to Gen. Robert E. Lee, the chief of staff and military advisor to Pres. Davis, wherein he notes the increase in Federal troops at Ft. Monroe and nearby Hampton, Virginia, behind Union lines there. He suggests using the CSS Virginia to interdict the transfer of Union troops to Ft. Monroe by sea, and also recommends using derelict hulks to be sunk in the channels of both the James and York rivers, to block US Navy operations there. He also offers this shrewd assessment of McClellan’s plans, which are becoming apparent: "I think McClellan has shown his plan is to turn flanks by great detours of land and water. The falling back of our army from the Potomac gives him the power to detach largely, and I think he will never risk a defeat himself when he can devolve the risk of it upon some one of his subordinates."


—Confederate War Department clerk John Beauchamp Jones writes in his journal about the growing Federal presence on the James Peninsula, as McClellan continues moving his army to Ft. Monroe for his planned approach to Richmond: "MARCH 20TH.—There is skirmishing every day on the Peninsula. We have not exceeding 60,000 men there, while the enemy have 158,000. It is fearful odds. And they have a fleet of gun-boats."


—The newspaper Lynchburg Virginian, a notice indicates that "Seventy-seven citizens of Loudon County, Va., accused of loyalty to the Federal Government, were sent to Richmond on the central cars, and committed to one of the military prisons."


—Mary Boykin Chestnut, of South Carolina, writes in her diary of the politics on the home front:

First, Nathan Davis called. Then Gonzales, who presented a fine, soldierly appearance in his soldier clothes, and the likeness to Beauregard was greater than ever. Nathan, all the world knows, is by profession a handsome man.
     General Gonzales told us what in the bitterness of his soul he had written to Jeff Davis. He regretted that he had not been his classmate; then he might have been as well treated as Northrop. In any case he would not have been refused a brigadiership, citing General Trapier and Tom Drayton. He had worked for it, had earned it; they had not. To his surprise, Mr. Davis answered him, and in a sharp note of four pages. Mr. Davis demanded from whom he quoted, "not his classmate." General Gonzales responded, "from the public voice only." Now he will fight for us all the same, but go on demanding justice from Jeff Davis until he get his dues—at least, until one of them gets his dues, for he means to go on hitting Jeff Davis over the head whenever he has a chance.
     "I am afraid," said I, "you will find it a hard head to crack." He replied in his flowery Spanish way: "Jeff Davis will be the sun, radiating all light, heat, and patronage; he will not be a moon reflecting public opinion, for he has the soul of a despot; he delights to spite public opinion. See, people abused him for making Crittenden brigadier. Straightway he made him major-general, and just after a blundering, besotted defeat, too." . . .
     Lady No. 1 (as I sit reading in the drawing-room window while Maum Mary puts my room to rights): "I clothe my negroes well. I could not bear to see them in dirt and rags; it would be unpleasant to me."
     Lady No. 2: "Yes. Well, so do I. But not fine clothes, you know. I feel—now—it was one of our sins as a nation, the way we indulged them in sinful finery. We will be punished for it." . . .
     Last night, Mrs. Pickens met General Cooper. Madam knew General Cooper only as our adjutant-general, and Mr. Mason’s brother-in-law. In her slow, graceful, impressive way, her beautiful eyes eloquent with feeling, she inveighed against Mr. Davis’s wickedness in always sending men born at the North to command at Charleston. General Cooper is on his way to make a tour of inspection there now. The dear general settled his head on his cravat with the aid of his forefinger; he tugged rather more nervously with the something that is always wrong inside of his collar, and looked straight up through his spectacles. Some one crossed the room, stood back of Mrs. Pickens, and murmured in her ear, "General Cooper was born in New York."
     Sudden silence.

—In the U.S. Senate, Sen. Willey of Virginia (West Virginia, soon to be) argues against the considered Confiscation Act that would seize the slaves belonging to rebels as "contraband": 

The people of the South have been taught to believe that the object and design of the Republican party was to abolish slavery in all the States. These bills will be seized upon as evidence of this intention. They will say: `Look at their unconstitutional confiscation law. Look at the bill to make slaves free in the District.’ Especially will they point to sweeping resolutions of the great apostle of abolition, Senator Sumner, which by one dash of the pen, deprives every southern man of his slaves.
     Mr. President, is it desired to make this a war of total extermination? Let us beware how we drive our friends in the South into the ranks of our adversary! One year's experience has taught us that a divided South was no contemptible foe. What will it be united? Seven hundred thousand square miles of fruitful territory, full of natural resources, inhabited by six millions of united, desperate people, may not be easily overcome and brought back to their allegiance. . . .
     Mr. President, I ask Senators to consider what must be the practical effects of emancipation. What then will be the effect upon the slave? Suppose they are emancipated; what then? Are they freemen in fact? Will they have the rights of freemen? Sir, such an idea is utterly fallacious. It will practically amount to nothing. You cannot enact the slave into a freeman by act of Congress. The servile nature of centuries cannot be eradicated by the rhetoric of Senators. . . .