Portal:American Civil War/This week in American Civil War history/4

January 17

1864 - Dandridge - Confederate infantry under James Longstreet drove Army of the Ohio cavalry under Samuel D. Sturgis in this minor Jefferson County, Tennessee firefight

January 18

1863 - Shelton Laurel valley - Despite orders from North Carolina Governor Zebulon Vance Confederate soldiers of the 64th North Carolina Infantry Regiment under James A. Keith tortured and killed Unionist sympathizers in Madison County

January 19

1807 - Stratford Hall - Members of the Virginia gentry class Anne Hill Lee and Henry Lee ("Light Horse Harry") have their fifth child, a boy named Robert in Westmoreland County, Virginia

1862 - Fishing Creek - After white raincoat-clad Felix Zollicoffer was killed leading his brigade's attack in dense Kentucky timberland, rebel commander George B. Crittenden was powerless to stop a disorderly rout by his men

January 20

1863 - Ferry Farm - Army of the Potomac commander Ambrose Burnside took advantage of his rested troops and mild weather to attempt a sudden move upstream to cross the Rappahannock River but a saturating rain turned the entire movement into the legendary "mud march"

January 21

1824 - Clarksburg - Harrison County attorney Jonathan Jackson and his wife Julia Neale Jackson receive their third child, a boy they name Thomas Jonathan after his maternal grandfather

1861 - Washington, D.C. - Five Southern members of the United States Senate resign from the Senate: David Levy Yulee and Stephen Mallory of Florida, Clement Clay and Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.

January 22

1863 - Falmouth - Ambrose Burnside released rations of whiskey to Army of Potomac soldiers frustrated at the army's slow progress through roads choked with mud; exhausted and drunken Union troops didn't accelerate the movement