This And That

Testing Your General Knowledge

By Gould Hagler · Originally published February 2024 · pp. 28–39

This column will cite some events in the lives of ten famous Civil War generals before they became famous and ask you to identify them. See page 39 for the answers. 1. This future general worked in the real estate business in Chicago, served as superintendent of the customhouse, and was a major in the Illinois State Militia. Before the war he also served briefly as the Adjutant General of Illinois. 2. Our second general had his first encounter with Ulysses Grant at West Point, when he was an upper classman and Grant a naïve newcomer and the victim of a prank. Grant was ordered to stand guard at a pump, he explained. The upper classman, who was the officer of the day, informed Grant a trick was being played on him and told him to return to his quarters and go to bed. After leaving the Military l

Academy, Grant’s rescuer served in the army for several years, then resigned to go into the coal oil business. While conducting a test in the refinery, he was badly burned when a lamp exploded. He spent 18 months in recovery and was permanently scarred. Later he invented two new kinds of kerosene lamps for which he was granted patents in both England and France. When the Civil War broke out he left the business world and returned to the army. 3. This young officer, a graduate of West Point, had a habit of writing letters to superiors that were not mindful of his low position in the hierarchy. The first to take offense was Secretary of State James Buchanan, who brought the matter to the attention of the Secretary of War. The lieutenant’s letter of apology was equally offensive. He nevertheless was sent to Europe on army business. He managed to take in the sights while he was there. Continuing his intemperate ways, in Mexico the officer had an altercation with a major over some trivial matter. In a letter to his own captain he called the major a “d____d old fool.” Later, feeling that he had been slighted in some way, he fired off another intemperate letter to this same captain. 4. This general was baptized twice, once in infancy by a Presbyterian minister and later, while he was living with a foster family, by a Roman Catholic priest. Neither ceremony took hold, however, as the baptized youth did not develop into a man of faith. His wife was a Catholic and one of his sons was a Catholic priest. 5. Two episodes stand out in the early career of this 1837 West Point graduate. Ordered soon after his graduation to Florida, where the army was engaged in a difficult war with the Seminoles, the new lieutenant led a company in his very first campaign. In an attack against a fortified Seminole position, he was wounded in the leg, neck, and shoulder, and also suffered a broken arm, yet continued to advance. Worse was to come; a musket ball in the chest took him out of action. The wound was thought to be mortal, but he survived. Before he was fully recovered, he crossed Florida to find passage home on a steamer. He later said that he recovered “to spite the doctors.” In 1841 he was placed in a position subordinate to an officer six months his junior. He was incensed at this treatment and let the regimental commander know his feelings in an angry letter. He was court martialed but got off with a slap on the wrist. 6. This future general’s forebears fled Scotland after the Battle of Culloden and settled in South Carolina. His father, under the influence of Quaker friends, grew to disapprove of slavery. He freed his slaves and left the state. Our subject grew up in his family’s new home and worked as a tailor before receiving an appointment to West Point. He earned numerous demerits but did well academically. En route to Mexico in 1847, the young officer was suckered into a riverboat card game by two sharps working in cahoots. He left the table and the steamboat without a cent in his pocket. A kind and trusting citizen loaned the naïve gambler funds so he could continue his journey. An 1882 biography tells a story of our man being left at the altar by a young lady who had a change of heart just as she was called upon to say “I do.” The lady, her mother, and her sister were arrested by this same jilted lover in 1863, accused of spying for the enemy. Great story, but not true. The lady’s sister was arrested, but she herself was not. The aborted wedding was a complete fiction. 7. Next we have a future leader who was orphaned at an early age. He was raised by an uncle, a successful but unscrupulous businessman, while his siblings were taken in by other relatives. When he was still a teenager, he was appointed a constable, his main duty being the collection of debts owed to merchants who had extended credit. The young man’s effort to get an appointment to West Point was at first unsuccessful. The successful applicant, however, lasted a single day at the academy then headed for home. Our man hastened to do what was required to obtain the appointment for himself, cramming for the entrance exam, securing letters of recommendation, and traveling to Washington to present himself to his congressman. The congressman was won over and sent his own recommendation to the Secretary of War. 8. Many men who achieved high rank in the Civil War were West Point graduates who, early in their careers, served as officers in the Mexican War. This one, however, was an 18-yearold farm boy who enlisted as a private in the spring of 1846, just as war erupted on the TexasMexican border. He rose to the rank of sergeant and fought in the Battle of Buena Vista. His regiment returned to the U.S. and did not participate further in the war. The young sergeant retained a liking for military life. After working on the family farm for a year, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Regular Army. He rose to corps command during the Civil War. 9. Which future general, in a letter to the Secretary of War regarding his application to West Point, misstated both his age and the month and day of his birth? 10. Our last general was a lawyer by training and an heir to a large fortune. He nevertheless chose the military as his profession and served in the Mexican War, where he rose to the rank of captain. While leading a cavalry charge at the Battle of Churubusco he was severely wounded by grape shot in his left arm. Future president Franklin Pierce held the patient down while the surgeon cut off his mangled limb. The officer remained in the army for a time, then relocated to Europe. He joined the Chasseurs d’Afrique and fought in the Battle of Solferino, where he participated in another cavalry charge, one which played an important role in the allies’ victory. Awarded the Légion d’honneur for bravery, he was the first United States citizen to earn the honor. At the outbreak of the Civil War he returned home, was commissioned as a brigadier general and later was promoted to major general.

Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. He has been a regular contributor to CWN since 2016. His email is [email protected].

Answers, other factoids and sources: 1. Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, C.S.A. Buckner married Mary Jane Kingsbury in 1850. Her father, Maj. Julius B. Kingsbury, was a large property owner in Chicago. When Maj. Kingsbury died in 1856, his sonin-law, who had resigned from the army the previous year, took over the management of the property. The Buckners lived in Chicago for a time, and after moving to Kentucky, Buckner continued to manage his business interests in Chicago. He also invested in a Chicago newspaper. (Arndt Stickles, Simon Bolivar Buckner: Borderland Knight, 1940) 2. Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, U.S.A. (Willian M. Lamers, The Edge of Glory: A Biography of General William S. Rosecrans, 1999) 3. Brig. Gen. Josiah Gorgas, C.S.A. Gorgas’s people skills improved over time. This native of Running Pumps, Pa., later married into a prominent Alabama family. Amelia Gayle Gorgas was the daughter of John Gayle, the state’s governor from 1831 to 1835. Gorgas served as the Confederacy’s Chief of Ordnance. He was president of the University of Alabama in 1878 and 1879. For many years Mrs. Gorgas was the university’s librarian and postmaster. The school’s library is named for her. (Frank E. Vandiver, Plowshares into Swords: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance, 1994) 4. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman. When his father died in 1829, young Tecumseh was taken in by the family of Mr. Sherman’s friend, Thomas Ewing. Mr. Ewing had a daughter, Eleanor, who married Sherman in 1850 (Various online sources tell the story of Sherman’s baptisms and the fact that they didn’t seem to take.) 5. Maj. Gen. William Henry Talbot Walker, C.S.A. Walker’s trek across Florida in the Seminole War was undertaken with another officer who also was recovering from a serious wound. Neither could mount or dismount without aid. “Each morning they were strapped in their saddles and rode in great pain all day to the next way station, where they were unstrapped for the overnight stay.” The other episode is indicative of Walker’s character, which did not change over time. The pages of his biography are replete with such words and phrases as “frustration,” “displeasure,” disappointment,” “shouting match,” “real or supposed slights,” “cantankerous dealings,” “personality conflicts,” and – of course – “resignation.” One of the two Federal military posts taken over by state forces when Georgia seceded was the Augusta Arsenal. The property on which the arsenal was built was for a long time in the Walker family and was sold to the government in 1826. Walker is buried in a cemetery on this property, now the location of Augusta University. Walker commanded a division in Hardee’s Corps in the Atlanta Campaign. On July 22, 1864, in the opening minutes of the Battle of Atlanta, he was shot and killed instantly. (Russell K. Brown, To the Manner Born: The Life of General William H. T. Walker, 1994) 6. Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, U.S.A. The card game was not the only time Burnside’s trusting nature caused misfortune. His misplaced faith in another officer led to a scandal and “a mistaken debt [which] remained a blight on his reputation for more than a decade.” Burnside was finally cleared in 1863. As many readers will know, Burnside was also an inventor. His eponymous rifle was a technical success but (for the inventor) a financial disaster. He took the Secretary of War’s word when he should have gotten the agreement in writing. (William Marvel, Burnside, 1991) 7. Lt. Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson, C.S.A. Jackson’s grandfather was a wealthy man, but his father was unsuccessful professionally, gambled compulsively and “possessed more that an occasional fondness for alcohol.” He died young and in debt, leaving his family all but destitute. CWN readers are very familiar with Jackson, his personality and his military career. However, some may not know this: “Jonathan” may not have been his actual middle name. The middle initial first appeared in a joint letter of recommendation to West Point signed by local supporters. The incoming cadet signed his certificate of acceptance as “Thomas J. Jackson” and this form of his name became official. According to Encyclopedia Virginia, “tradition asserts that his middle name was Jonathan, in honor of his father.” In a 2002 email, the archivist at the Virginia Military Institute wrote that there is no documentary evidence that the J stands for Jonathan, but “it is accepted as the most likely explanation.” (Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend, James I. Robertson, Jr., 1997; https://encyclopediavirginia. org/entries/jackson-thomas-jstonewall-1824-1863/; https:// w w w. u s a - c i v i l - w a r. c o m / CWTrivia/jackson_initial.shtml) 8. Brig. Gen. Jefferson Columbus Davis, U.S.A. Most CWN readers know of Davis’s record as a high-ranking officer. Some may not know that Lt. Davis was stationed at Fort Moultrie in 1860 and commanded the rear guard at Moultrie when the Federal force evacuated to Fort Sumter. Davis commanded a battery during the Confederate bombardment. (Major Bruce V. Sones, Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis, Civil War General, 2000) 9. Gen. Robert E. Lee C.S. A.

In his letter to Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, dated Feb. 28, 1824, the young Lee stated “I completed my eighteenth year on the 29th of last January.” Lee had turned 17, not 18, the previous month, and the correct date is the 19th, not the 29th. The letter is the earliest known document written in Lee’s hand. The document went missing from the government files after the Civil War and “was rediscovered through a facsimile printed in a San Francisco newspaper in 1886.” (Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his Private Letters, 2007) 10. Maj. Gen. Philip Kearny, U.S.A. Our subject earned some notoriety outside the military sphere. Estranged from his wife, who would not agree to a divorce, Kearny scandalized proper New York society by living with his lover, Agnes Maxwell, who was residing in his home ostensibly to nurse him to health after he was injured in a riding accident. He and Agnes were later wed when Mrs. Kearny relented and agreed to terminate their marriage. The second Mrs. Kearny was widowed when Kearny was shot and killed in the Battle of Chantilly in September 1862. By the way, the first syllable in the general’s name does not rhyme with “stir,” but with “bar.” (Various online sources and “Phil Kearny’s Glorious Charge at Churubusco” in Military Collector & Historian, Fall 2023)