April 21, 1864

April 21, 1864


---Repairs to the USS Eastport succeed, and the ironclad is raised from the riverbed and put afloat once more.

　

---Longstreet’s troops have moved even closer to Lee’s main body of troops, and marches to Gordonsville, Virginia today, lining up on Lee's left flank. 

　

---Sergeant Alexander Downing, of the 11^th Iowa Infantry, is coming to the end of his furlough home. He has helped his father put in a crop of wheat while at home, and records his thoughts in his journal as he begins to travel back to the front:
Thursday, 21st—This is a warm, pleasant day and I bade farewell to my home folks and friends and started back to the army, my thirty-day furlough being almost up. I went on horseback, brother John going along as far as Allen’s Grove, to Uncle John Moore’s to remain over night, while John returned home, taking back the horse which I rode. Though the spring has been very late, the farmers here have all their small grain in and it is starting fine. The country around Allen’s Grove is very nice farming land; it is rolling, with plenty of timber and close to a good market; it is becoming very thickly settled. Scott county, Iowa.

---The blockade runner Laura, a schooner out of England, is captured off of Velasco, Texas, by the USS Owasco.