Nov. 12, 1861

Nov. 12, 1861: The Wilmington Daily Journal [North Carolina] publishes this editorial:

"Will Lincoln back out or will he not? Upon this depends the future character of this struggle. If he does not, then the war on both sides will be one of extermination, as indeed is its present tendency. While the war is confined to the operations of large bodies acting strategically for the attack or defence of frontier positions, it may be confined within the usual rules of national hostility; but when, as in Kentucky and Missouri, the fight rages from county to county and from house to house almost, the result must be to super-add bitter personal and individual hate, to the already sufficiently exasperated feelings of public animosity.—When expeditions land at isolated points like Port Royal, with the view of carrying ruin and desolation to quiet homes, they ought to be sure of success before they leave the shelter of their ships, for they ought to know that the penalty of failure is death."

--Mary Chestnut writes in her diary: "No rosewater war this. The ways of war are not ways of pleasantness."

--The USS W.G. Anderson captures the CS privateer Beauregard in one of the early acts of the blockade.