The Class of 1846
Page 70
62. See Lee’s summary of the capture of Harpers Ferry, O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 144–48.
63. Lee’s dispositions at Sharpsburg are in O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 148. Also see Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, pp. 245–46.
64. McClellan’s plans and dispositions are in O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 30.
65. The description of Jackson’s arrival is from English Combatant, Battle-Fields of the South, pp. 482–83.
66. David L. Thompson, “With Burnside at Antietam,” Battles and Leaders, vol. 2, p. 660.
67. Charles Carleton Coffin, “Antietam Scenes,” Battles and Leaders, vol. 2, p. 682–83.
68. Mary Bedinger Mitchell, “A Woman’s Recollections of Antietam,” Battles and Leaders, vol. 2, pp. 690–91.
69. John Gordon describes the terrain at Antietam in Reminiscences of the Civil War, p. 82. Also see Hunter H. McGuire and George L. Christian, The Confederate Cause and Conduct in the War between the States … (Richmond: L.H. Jenkins, 1907), p. 203.
70. John G. Walker, “Sharpsburg,” Battles and Leaders, vol. 2, p. 677.
71. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 169.
72. Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, p. 247.
73. O. R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 496–97.
74. The description of McClellan’s headquarters during the battle draws from Strother, “Personal Recollections of the War,” pp. 282–83.
75. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 468.
The Man in the Red Battle Shirt
1. Detailed firsthand accounts of Hill’s dramatic march are hard to come by. But see J.F.J. Caldwell, The History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, Known First as “Gregg’s,’ and Subsequently as ‘McGowan’s’ Brigade (1866; reprint, Marietta, GA: Continental Book Company, 1951) pp. 44–45; and Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 152.
2. B. F. Brown, “A. P. Hill’s Light Division,” Confederate Veteran 30 (July 1922), p. 246. The description of Hill is a mosaic drawn for the most part from W. J. Robertson, “ ‘Up Came Hill’—Soldier of the South,” part 1 (October 14, 1934), p. 10, and part 3 (October 28, 1934), p. 8; and John Wheeler-Bennett, “A. P. Hill: A Study in Confederate Leadership,” Virginia Quarterly Review 37 (Spring 1961), pp. 200–01. The two Hill biographies cited earlier are also excellent sources: Hassler, A. P. Hill: Lee’s Forgotten General; and Robertson’s more recent General A. P. Hill: The Story of a Confederate Warrior.
3. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, pp. 177–78.
4. James C. Birdsong, comp., Brief Sketches of North Carolina Troops in the War between the States (Raleigh, NC: Josephus Daniels, 1894), p. 54; Also see Robertson, General A. P. Hill, p. 12, p. 148.
5. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, p. 141.
6. Jedediah Hotchkiss writes a strictly pro-Jackson account of this incident in a typescript document, “Lieut. General A. P. Hill,” Hotchkiss Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, cont. 56, reel 49. Most of the dialogue comes from that, p. 3. Also see Robertson, General A. P. Hill, pp. 130–32.
7. Walter Clark, ed., Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861–65, 5 vols. (1901; reprint, Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1991), vol. 4, p. 165. (Henceforth this work will be cited as NC Regiments.)
8. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 158. Hotchkiss vigorously disputes Douglas’s story, contending that Hill would never have asked such a favor of Jackson, even for a fight. See Hotchkiss, “Lieut. General A. P. Hill,” Hotchkiss Papers, p. 4.
9. Clark, NC Regiments, vol. 4, p. 165.
10. Jacob D. Cox, “The Battle of Antietam,” Battles and Leaders, vol. 2, pp. 648–49.
11. Strother, “Personal Recollections of the War,” p. 283.
12. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 419.
13. William Allan, The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892), pp. 430–32.
14. Strother, “Personal Recollections of the War,” p. 284.
15. Douglas, “Stonewall Jackson in Maryland,” p. 629.
16. Thompson, “With Burnside at Antietam,” pp. 661–62.
17. David E. Johnston, “Concerning the Battle of Sharpsburg,” Confederate Veteran 6 (January 1898), p. 28.
18. Ibid.
19. Alexander Hunter, “A High Private’s Sketch of Sharpsburg,” Paper No. 2, SHSP 11 (1883), p. 18. The key official reports describing the action on the Confederate right up to this point—by Burnside, Cox, Willcox, Sturgis, and Toombs—are in O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 419–20, pp. 424–26, pp. 429–31, pp. 444–45, and pp. 890–91. For a lucid summary see Francis Winthrop Palfrey, The Antietam and Fredericksburg (1882; reprint, Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1989), pp. 107–13.
20. Caldwell, The History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, pp. 44–45.
21. Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942–1944), vol. 2, p. 222.
22. O. R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 981.
23. Moore, The Story of a Cannoneer, p. 158.
24. For an account of Lee’s accident see Sorrel, Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer, pp. 102–3.
25. This first sighting of Hill’s troops is from Ramsay’s account in Clark, NC Regiments, vol. 1, p. 575.
26. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 137–38.
27. Cox, “The Battle of Antietam,” p. 655.
28. William E. Cameron, “The Career of General A. P. Hill,” in The Annals of the War Written by Leading Participants North and South, p. 701.
29. James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America, 2d ed. rev. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1903), p. 261.
30. Johnston, “Concerning the Battle of Sharpsburg,” p. 28.
31. Caldwell, A History of a Brigade of South Carolinians, pp. 46–47.
32. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 173; Douglas, “Stonewall Jackson in Maryland,” p. 629.
33. Brown, “A. P. Hill’s Light Division,” p. 246.
34. Hunter, “A High Private’s Sketch of Sharpsburg,” Paper No. 2, pp. 19–20.
35. Francis W. Palfrey, “The Battle of Antietam,” Papers of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, vol. 3, Campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, 1862–1863 (1903; reprint, Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1989), p. 23.
36. Clark, NC Regiments, vol. 2, p. 33.
37. Ibid.
38. Walker, “Sharpsburg,” p. 681.
39. Clark, NC Regiments, vol. 2, p. 437.
40. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 887.
41. Quoted in Richard Wheeler, Voices of the Civil War (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976), p. 194.
42. Strother, “Personal Recollections of the War,” pp. 284–85, p. 287.
43. Cox, “The Battle of Antietam,” p. 658.
44. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 469.
45. O. R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 68.
46. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 473.
The Night the General Was Fired
1. Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War, p. 67.
2. Strother, “Personal Recollections of the War,” p. 289.
3. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 481, p. 426.
4. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 70–71.
5. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 488.
6. Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 6, p. 175.
7. Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War, p. 218.
8. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, p. 10.
9. Lincoln, Collected Works, vol. 5, p. 474.
10. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 511.
11. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 13–14.
12. Darius N. Couch, “Sumner’s ‘Right Grand Division,’ ” Battles and Leaders, vol. 3, pp. 105–6.
13. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 515.
14. Ibid., p. 516.
15. Ha
y, Lincoln and the Civil War, p. 219.
16. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 518.
17. George Ticknor Curtis, McClellan’s Last Service to the Republic, Together with a Tribute to His Memory (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1886), p. 96.
18. William Ernest Smith, The Francis Preston Blair Family in Politics, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1933), vol. 2, p. 144.
19. Boatner, Mark Mayo III, The Civil War Dictionary (New York: David McKay Company, 1959), p. 95; Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964), pp. 49–50.
20. The account that follows of the firing of George McClellan, unless otherwise cited, is from a letter by Buckingham to the Chicago Tribune, 4 September 1875, in Paris, History of the Civil War in America, pp. 555–57n.
21. Burnside is described in Francis A. Walker, History of the Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886), p. 137. While he was well-liked, simply nobody thought Burnside commander-of-the-army material. Parmenas Taylor Turnley, an acid-tongued member of the class of 1846, wrote: “All there ever was of him [was], to-wit, his whiskers!” (Turnley, Reminiscences, p. 409.)
22. McClellan’s thoughts, actions, and reactions are from McClellan’s Own Story; pp. 651–52; and Civil War Papers, p. 520.
23. U.S. Congress, Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Rep. Com. 108, 3 vols. 37th Cong., 3d sess., 1863, vol. 1, p. 650.
24. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 520.
25. Couch, “Sumner’s ‘Right Grand Division,’ ” p. 106.
26. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 2, p. 551.
27. Marsena R. Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army: The Diary of Marsena Rudolph Patrick, Provost Marshal General, Army of the Potomac, ed. David S. Sparks (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1964) pp. 173–74.
28. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 19, pt. 2, p. 551; McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story, p. 652–53.
29. New York World, 12 November 1862.
30. Patrick, Inside Lincoln’s Army, p. 174.
31. Charles S. Wainwright, A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861–1865, ed. Allan Nevins (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), p. 125.
32. McClellan, Civil War Papers, p. 522. It should be said that not every soldier in the army was shattered by McClellan’s departure. Some were overjoyed, thinking little of him as a general and believing his firing a good thing. For that point of view see New York Times, 12 November 1862; and Henry Morford, Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals: As Seen from the Ranks during a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac (New York: Carleton, 1864), pp. 178–92.
33. Wainwright, A Diary of Battle, p. 125; Walker, History of the Second Army Corps, p. 138.
34. McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story, p. 150.
35. Gibbon, Personal Recollections of the Civil War, p. 97.
36. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p. 202.
37. James Cooper Nisbet, Four Years on the Firing Line, ed. Bell Irvin Wiley (1963; reprint, Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1987), p. 116.
38. James Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” Battles and Leaders vol. 3, p. 70.
39. A. K. McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times: Some Personal Recollections of War and Politics during the Lincoln Administration, 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Times Publishing Company, 1892), pp. 192–93.
Caught in the Rain
1. Samuel L. Gracey, Annals of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry (Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co., 1868), pp. 133–34; O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1088.
2. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1088, p. 1090.
3. Willard Glazier, Three years in the Federal Cavalry (New York: R. H. Ferguson & Co., 1972), pp. 171–72.
4. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, pp. 220–21.
5. Couch, “George Stoneman,” p. 27.
6. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, p. 51, p. 59, p. 111.
7. Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861–1865, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1920), vol. 2, p. 8.
8. George Alfred Townsend, Rustics in Rebellion: A Yankee Reporter on the Road to Richmond, 1861–1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950), p. 77.
9. Couch, “George Stoneman,” p. 33.
10. Alexander K. McClure, Colonel Alexander K. McClure’s Recollections of Half a Century (Salem, MA: Salem Press Company, 1902), p. 347. Hooker outlined his plan of campaign for Lincoln on April 11th. It is in O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, p. 199.
11. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1066.
12. Glazier, Three Years in the Federal Cavalry, p. 166.
13. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, pp. 204–5.
14. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, pp. 1067–68.
15. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, p. 213.
16. Bliss Perry, Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson (1921; reprint, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1972), pp. 184–86.
17. Wainwright, A Diary of Battle, p. 182.
18. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, p. 213.
19. Ibid., p. 214.
20. Ibid., p. 220.
21. Wainwright, A Diary of Battle, pp. 180–81.
22. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, pp. 243–44.
23. Gracey, Annals of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, pp. 134–35.
24. Ford, A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 1, p. 286.
25. Wainwright, A Diary of Battle, pp. 184–85.
26. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1060.
27. Frederick W. Mitchell, “A Personal Episode of the First Stoneman Raid,” War Papers No. 85, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the District of Columbia (6 December 1911), p. 3.
28. The logistical arrangements are described in O. R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1058, pp. 1068–69.
29. Ibid., p. 1083.
30. Perry, Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higgnson, p. 187.
31. Ford, A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 1, pp. 287–88.
32. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1072.
33. Edward P. Tobie, History of the First Maine Cavalry, 1861–1865, published by the First Maine Cavalry Association (Boston: Press of Emery & Hughes, 1887), p. 138, pp. 143–44.
34. Paul, E. A., “Account by a Participant,” New York Times, in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 6, doc., p. 606.
35. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1096.
36. Ford, A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 2, p. 4.
37. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 1097.
38. Ford, A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 2, p. 5.
39. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, p. 200.
40. Ford, A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 1, p. 295, vol. 2, p. 3.
41. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, p. 438.
42. Paul, “Account by a Participant,” p. 609.
43. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, p. 463.
44. Frederick Whittaker, A Complete Life of Gen. George A. Custer (New York: Sheldon & Company, 1876), pp. 144–45.
45. Frederick C. Newhall, With General Sheridan in Lee’s Last Campaign (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866), p. 43.
46. John Algernon Owens, Sword and Pen; or, Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier (Philadelphia: P. W. Ziegler & Company, 1881), p. 144.
47. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 2, p. 543.
48. Owens, Sword and Pen, p. 146.
49. Palfrey, The Antietam and Fredericksburg, p. 55.
50. Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War, pp. 84–85.
51. Henry R. Pyne, The History of the First New Jersey Cavalry (Trenton, NJ: J. A. Beecher, 1871), pp. 146–47.
52. Tobie, History of the First Maine Cavalry, pp. 143–44.
53. James Rodney Wood, “Miscellaneous Writings: Civil War Memoirs,” typescript, Maud Wood Park Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, container 4.
Shots in the Night
1. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, pp. 217–18.
2. Ibid., p. 218.
3. The description of the prebattle maneuvering and planning is borrowed mainly from Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, pp. 661–75.
4. James Power Smith, “Stonewall Jackson’s Last Battle,” Battles and Leaders, vol. 3, p. 205; Hotchkiss, Make Me a Map of the Valley, p. 137.
5. Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, p. 329.
6. John O. Casler, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (1906; reprint, Dayton: Press of Morningside Bookshop, 1982), p. 142.
7. Detail on the first phase of the march is from Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieut.-Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, p. 677.
8. See a facsimile of this henscratched note in Smith, “Stonewall Jackson’s Last Battle,” p. 206.
9. Murray F. Taylor, “Stonewall Jackson’s Death,” Confederate Veteran 12 (October 1904), p. 492.
10. Smith, “Stonewall Jackson’s Last Battle,” p. 208.
11. Benjamin Watkins Leigh to his wife, 13 May 1863, typescript, Hotchkiss Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, cont. 39, reel 39. A shorter, edited version of Leigh’s account, titled “The Wounding of Stonewall Jackson—Extracts from a Letter of Major Benjamin Watkins Leigh,” is in SHSP 6 (1878), pp. 230–34. This quote is on page 231 of that work. I will cite the more accessible SHSP version hereafter whenever possible.
12. Casier, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade, p. 143.
13. William F. Randolph, “Chancellorsville: The Flank Movement that Routed the Yankees; General Jackson’s Mortal Wound,” SHSP 29 (1901), P. 332.
14. O.R., ser. 1, vol. 25, pt. 1, p. 787.
15. James F. Huntington, “The Battle of Chancellorsville,” MHSM, vol. 3, Campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, 1862–1863 (1903; reprint, Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1989), pp. 171–73.
16. Charles I. Wickersham, “Personal Recollections of the Cavalry at Chancellorsville,” War Papers Read before the Commandery of the State of Wisconsin, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, vol. 3. (Milwaukee: Burdick & Allen, 1903), p. 460.
17. Theodore A. Dodge, “The Romances of Chancellorsville,” MHSM, vol. 3, Campaigns in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, 1862–1863, p. 212.