2 September
Snagboats working on clearing a blockage in the Old River area of Louisiana succeed, resulting in a sudden surge of water as an old natural dam collapses. Hundreds of logs are swept downstream, and the newly-freed river (the Atchafalaya) rapidly builds up strength until it is considered deep enough for barge navigation.
Everyone involved is quite pleased with themselves.
4 September
Chihuahua falls to Imperial forces, forcing Diaz to retreat with the remains of his army. There is occasional skirmishing with French cavalry (much of it armed with the Westley-Richards) and Diaz' forces take a steady toll of casualties as they retreat northwards - though their occasional violent barrages of artillery do much to discourage too close a pursuit by the French.
7 September
The Charlottetown Conference begins, an important step on the path to Canadian confederation.
8 September
The 8 inch James rifle pattern is tested against the 8 inch Brooke rifle, both of them undergoing consideration for arming the heavy ships and forts of the Confederate Navy. The James proves to have underlying issues with aiming (the gun's rifling results in a consistent displacement to the left of approx. one degree) which it is felt would make it hard to bore-sight, and in addition the weapon is considered unreliable.
The Brooke rifle is a somewhat more proven design, but is still felt to need more work - in particular, of the two under testing one ruptures unexpectedly at a powder load of 18 lbs, while the other endures 30 lbs without rupture. This is taken to mean that the metallurgy of the gun is very variable.
Both arms-makers are able to secure contracts for approx. twenty guns of the current quality, to secure funds for future development.
11 September
Democratic papers begin to publish "The Peninsular Campaign", an eight-part series on a fictional 1862 military campaign based on what would happen if the "Republican Administration" had not provoked a war with Great Britain. In part one, the Monitor (using her 8" Parrott rifle and her 11" Dahlgren smoothbore) defeats the Virginia and thus clears the way for the Federal movement to Fort Monroe.
15 September
General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard (P.G.T. Beauregard), a Louisianan and Cajun by birth, begins examining the Mississippi river system and levees as part of a project for the Confederate Army Corps of Engineers (which is funded by the Confederate Congress, though in this case it is being hired for work by the State of Louisiana). As part of this work he orders a scheme adopted to improve the channel to New Orleans.
His analysis mentions the Atchafalaya only in passing - it is just one distributary of many.
17 September
A Choshu domain castle is badly damaged by heavy fire from the Ushidoshi Maru, which also defeats the few Choshu ships sent after her (in one case putting a cast iron cannonball clear through one side of the Domain ship and out the other). The ironclad then lurks menacingly offshore as Bakfu samurai land in Choshu domain.
18 September
In part two of The Peninuslar Campaign, General McClellan's Army of the Potomac advances up to Yorktown. The position is strong enough to stymie his men, but - as the article concludes - the Young Napoleon has a plan.
19 September
The war in South America expands, with Paraguay entering the fray and prompting things to become considerably larger and more bloody in scale.
22 September
The war in Santo Dominigo enters a period of diminuendo, as the rebels have burned through much of their stockpiled military supplies and must now attempt to obtain more.
Jesse James and his men are occupied in pinprick raids, his best riflemen conserving ammunition by sniping from 200 yards or so.
23 September
Robert E. Lee introduces a bill for the care of veterans into the Confederate Congress. It is considered with some suspicion at first, but his passionate arguments for it sway several of the Congressmen and it is ultimately passed as a patriotic measure.
It so happens that Lee's own District contains a fairly high proportion of veterans.
25 September
Part three of The Peninsular Campaign opens with a bang, as McClellan's forces (specifically 1 Corps of the Army of the Potomac) make an amphibious turning movement to force the defenders out of their defensive line centered at Yorktown.
Also on this date, the Jefferson Davis is launched - a large ironclad cruiser built at Gosport Navy Yard, and which has been renamed at least twice since being laid down. Much work needs to be done, the armament is still not finalized, and one possibility is to buy up some 110 pounder Armstrongs from Britain for service against unarmoured ships while relying on domestic rifles for armour piercing.
26 September
Under a reorganization, the Confederate States Navy is split into several "stations" - Colorado, Texas, Mississippi Mouths, Central Rivers, Gulf Coast, South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Northeastern and World. (The last of which refers to cruisers not operating within the Confederacy itself).
Each station is to determine their own requirements for their specific operating areas, and then report back to the central offices of the navy which will procure ships to meet these requirements.
The result is a total bureaucratic mess, but one in which a lot of people have a chance to get some skim - and a few ships are even being built.
29 September
The Nevada Scandal breaks in the newspapers, with an unknown source having come into possession of letters from Fremont which outline the plan to induct Nevada into the Union "ahead of the coming Election".
30 September
After hurried negotiations with the Confederate Congress, Diaz and a few thousand of his most loyal men withdraw across the border into the Confederacy (specifically, into northeastern Texas). The rest of his army disintegrates, many of them taking the still-in-force amnesty and others simply going home without bothering.
The Confederate Congress decides to keep Diaz at an arm's remove, with the general but mostly unstated view that a "legitimate" claim on Mexico may be useful at some future date...