The War Department consolidated the forts defending Washington and at the same time renamed many of them to commemorate senior officers who had died during the war. General Edwin V. Sumner, worn out by Antietam and Fredericksburg, had died at home three months before and Charles F. Smith had died of disease in South Carolina in 1862.  All the others honored had been killed in action - Amiel Whipple and Hiram Berry at Chancellorsville, Thomas Williams at Baton Rouge, Joshua W. Sill in Tennessee, and William R. Terrill in Kentucky. (By John Osborne)

With an expected Confederate movement against the state, the War Department set up two new Army Departments in Pennsylvania.  The Department of the Monongahela, headquartered at Pittsburgh and under Major General William T.H. Brooks, was to include Pennsylvania west of Johnstown and several neighboring counties in Virginia and Ohio.  The Department of the Susquehanna was to include everything to the east of that line, headquartered in Chambersburg and commanded by Major General Darius N. Couch.  (By John Osborne)  

The War Department published revised regulations concerning enlistment of young men to the Union Army.  From now on, no-one under the age of eighteen years was to be enlisted or re-enlisted without the "written consent of his parents, guardian, or master."  Recruiting officers were enjoined to take particular care in knowing the true age of the recruit presenting himself. Only when the form was completed could the enlistment proceed to an examination.  (By John Osborne) 

Private Milton Armstrong of Company C, 68th Indiana Volunteers had been found sleeping on picket duty in the lines around Nashville, Tennessee on February 8, 1863.  He was court martialed and by a two thirds verdict was convicted and sentenced to be shot by firing squad.  The sentence was sent forward and when it reached President Lincoln for approval, he spared the condemned soldier, as he did quite often, instructing in this case that Armstrong instead serve three months in prison.  (By John Osborne)

The C.S.S. Clarence, operating as a tender to the C.S.S. Florida under Lieutenant Charles W. Reed, captured the Delaware-built 300-ton bark Tacony, bound for Philadelphia from Port Royal, South Carolina. Considering the Tacony superior to his present ship, Reed transferred his men to her and burned the Clarence.  The C.S.S. Tacony then embarked on a brief raiding career, capturing fifteen U.S. vessels before Reed again transferred his flag, this time to the schooner Archer, and burned the Tacony on June 25, 1863. (By John Osborne) 

After a successful six months in the Caribbean, the Confederate commerce raider Alabama moved its operations in February 1863 to the islands off Brazil to continue to disrupt U.S. maritime trade. The Talisman was one of the twenty-nine ships she seized during this period. The 1200 ton clipper ship was bound from New York to Shanghai in China with a cargo of coal together with four cannon and two steam boilers for gunboats for use against the Taiping Rebellion.  As usual, the Alabama took off what she could use and burned the captured vessel. (By John Osborne)