Wednesday, April 11, 2012

April 10, 1862

April 10, 1862:  Coastal - BATTLE OF FT. PULASKI - With heavy guns painstakingly installed on Tybee Island, U.S. gunners begin bombardment  of Ft. Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah River.  Brig. Gen. Quincy Gillmore is in command of eleven batteries of guns, which he sited and designed.  Surrender terms are sent to Col. Olmstead of the Confederate Army in the fort, but he rejects the terms.  During the day, Gillmore succeeds in lofting over 3,000 shells at the fort.

---Northern newspapers report: “President Lincoln issued a proclamation recommending the people of the United States, on the next day of worship occurring after its reception, to give thanks to Almighty God for the recent victories, and to implore spiritual consolation for those who have been brought into affliction by the casualties and calamities of sedition and civil war.”

---Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee:  Three days after the Battle of Shiloh has ended, Sergeant Alexander G. Downing, of the 11th Iowa Infantry, writes in his journal about the effort to clean up the battlerfield:

Thursday, 10th—We are still burying the dead. The lieutenant of Company F was buried today. Nearly all of the dead have been buried now, but there are some of the wounded still dying. I was detailed with two others to bury three of the rebels’ dead. We went out about a half mile north of the camp to a stony knoll where one body lay, and worked all forenoon, the ground being so hard and stony, to dig even a shallow grave into which we rolled the body and covered it the best we could. In the afternoon we dug a double grave for two who had died of mortal wounds.

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