May 29, 1861

A mass meeting of leading members of the Baptist Church was held at Brooklyn, N. Y., for the purpose of giving formal expression to their feelings, as a religious community in the present crisis, and to record their attachment to the Union, and their determination to uphold the efforts of the Federal Government, in behalf of the Constitution.

May 28, 1861

Confederate Captain Stephen Roberts is killed by Union soldiers in Grafton, western Virginia. He is generally regarded as the first Confederate officer killed in the Civil War.

May 27, 1861

General McDowell takes command in Virginia.

May 26, 1861

Union General George B.McClellan orders Virginia to be invaded.

May 25, 1861

"There is to be no fight—no assault on Pickens. But we are beginning to send troops forward in the right direction—to Virginia. Virginia herself ought to have kept the invader from her soil. Was she reluctant to break the peace? And is it nothing to have her soil polluted by the martial tramp of the Yankees at Alexandria and Arlington Heights? But the wrath of the Southern chivalry will some day burst forth on the ensanguined plain, and then let the presumptuous foemen of the North beware of the fiery ordeal they have invoked. The men I see daily keeping time to the music of revolution are fighting men, men who will conquer or die, and who prefer death to subjugation. But the Yankee has no such motive to fight for, no thought of serious wounds and death. He can go back to his own country; our men have no other country to go to."
- Rebel War Clerk's Diary

May 24, 1861

Colonel Elmer Ellsworth of the 11th New York Fire Zouaves is killed in the Marshall House in Alexander, Virginia after he and his mne removed a Confederate flag. He is generally regarded as the first officer killed while on duty in he American Civil War.

May 23, 1861

Colonel Thomas J. Jackson raids trains passing through Harpers Ferry, capturing a large quantity of coal, which appears to have been intended for Northern steamers blockading Southern ports.