Confederate States Military
At the start of the Civil War, Gwynn was a major in the engineers of the South Carolina Militia. At the request of the governor, he had accepted the commission and was instrumental in the planning of the attack on Fort Sumter in early 1861 as a member of the Ordnance Board. He was later charged with constructing batteries at various strategic points in Charleston Harbor, facing Fort Sumter.
On April 10, 1861, he accepted a commission as major general of the Virginia Militia and was directed by Virginia governor John Letcher to assume command of the defenses around Norfolk and Portsmouth until mid-May. Working with Gwynn at Norfolk was William Mahone, who was the president of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. Working under Gwynn's authority, Mahone (who was still a civilian) helped bluff the Federal troops into abandoning the Gosport Shipyard in Portsmouth by running a single passenger train into Norfolk with great noise and whistle-blowing, then much more quietly, sending it back west, and then returning the same train again, creating the illusion of large numbers of arriving troops to the Federals listening in Portsmouth across the Elizabeth River (and just barely out of sight). The ruse worked, and not a single Confederate soldier was lost as the Union authorities abandoned the area, and retreated to Fort Monroe across Hampton Roads.
In 1861, Gwynn oversaw construction of defensive fortifications at Sewell's Point, which was across the mouth of Hampton Roads from Fort Monroe at Old Point Comfort. He also participated in the Battle of Big Bethel during the Blockade of the Chesapeake Bay.
Gwynn also served as a brigadier general in the Virginia Provisional Army and then brigadier general in the North Carolina Militia, commanding the Northern Coast Defenses of North Carolina. All of these general-officer assignments were in the spring and summer of 1861.
By August he joined the Confederate States Army as a major of engineers and was promoted to colonel on October 9, 1862. (Fellow railroader Mahone also joined the Confederate Army, eventually achieving the rank of major general after becoming the so-called 'Hero of the Battle of the Crater,' which took place near Petersburg in 1864.)
Read more about this topic: Walter Gwynn
Famous quotes containing the words confederate states, confederate, states and/or military:
“Figure a man’s only good for one oath at a time. I took mine to the Confederate States of America.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“During the Civil War the area became a refuge for service- dodging Texans, and gangs of bushwhackers, as they were called, hid in its fastnesses. Conscript details of the Confederate Army hunted the fugitives and occasional skirmishes resulted.”
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador gave the English no just title to New England, or to the United States generally, any more than to Patagonia.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by people.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)