The commander of the Home Guard in Philadelphia, General Alfred Pleasonton, confirmed at a meeting of senior officers that the force now numbered around four thousand active members.  Since the state had determined the Guard was a city and not a state unit, resolutions were made that the City Councils on the Safety and Defense of the City swiftly appropriate funds for the support of the units raised to make sure that all members had a uniform and adequate facilities for drill.  (By John Osborne) 

The U.S.S. Hartford returned to Philadelphia from serving as flagship of the East India Squadron.  The Hartford had sailed from Java in August 1861, having been ordered home to refit for Civil War action.  On arrival, three of her lieutenants, W.F. Glassel, A.M. Dubree, and Julian Myers, along with Lieutenant D.A. Forrest of the U.S.S. John Adams, which had remained on station, were taken ashore and imprisoned at Fort Warren for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States.  Three were from Virginia and the other from Georgia.  (By John Osborne)  

Guyandotte, Virginia had been the only town on the Ohio in western Virginia to vote for the ordinance of secession and therefore was under close Union scrutiny.  Late in the evening, Confederate Colonel John Clarkson led 700 Virginia cavalrymen into the town, killing and capturing the small Union garrison there.  The next morning he left with around a hundred prisoners.  Several Union supporters had been murdered overnight and rumors of a "massacre" fueled a violent reprisal when Union troops returned that afternoon and burned large parts of the town. (By John Osborne)  

St. Paul Catholic Church on Christian and Tenth Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was almost completely destroyed in a devastating fire that left only the walls remaining.  The parish and the building had been started in 1843 and the church dedicated on July 4, 1847 by Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick.  Ironically, it had been threatened by fire while it was being constructed, during the anti-Catholic riots in the city in 1844, but protected by troops. The church was rebuilt and the parish still operates in South Philadelphia.  (By John Osborne) 

Confederate Brigadier-General Henry Hopkins Sibley, a former U.S. Army major who had served in the SouthWest, had been assigned in July 1861 to take command in Texas and mount a conquest of New Mexico.  He made his headquarters at San Antonio, Texas and organized a brigade of mostly mounted Texas volunteers and moved out towards Fort Bliss, Texas on November 18, 1861.  He arrived at Fort Bliss and took command of the newly designated "Army of New Mexico." His invasion was decisively repulsed during the early 1862.  (By John Osborne)