Confederate (a voluntary union) Brigadier General John McCausland, Jr. commanding the 36th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment burns Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, after the town fails to pay a ransom of either 500,000 Dollars in banknotes (Bills of Credit), or 100,000 Dollars in gold Coin (lawful Money).  McCausland was acting under orders from Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, commander of the Second Corps of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, in retaliation for the shelling of the Virginia Military Institute the month before.

       [restored 4/15/2022]

       The skirmish of “The Crater”: During the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, Brigadier General John Pegram, commanding I Corps of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, defeats IX Corps of the compulsory Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major General Ambrose E. Burnside.  In an effort to break the two-month siege, Burnside ordered a regiment of Pennsylvania coalminers to construct a tunnel underneath the Confederate line at Elliott’s Salient, and be loaded with explosives.  When the charges are set off, Burnside orders the division of united States Colored Troops, who had been trained to attack the weak flanks that would be created by the explosion, into the crater.  Burnside committed a major blunder by not providing ladders for the USCT to scale the thirty foot ledges.  Thus trapped they are easily picked off like “fish in a barrel” by Pegram’s Soldiers. 

       NOTE: The Union lost an estimated 5,300, while the Confederacy reported a loss of only 1,032.

       Postscript: Two weeks later Burnside was relieved of his command by Lieutenant General Ulysses Simpson (a.k.a. Hiram Ulysses) Grant, General in Chief of the Army of the united States, and never again called to active duty.

       [restored 4/15/2022]