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drdonckeandmdposts-blog · 7 years ago

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IF THE WORD DUTY WAS EVER PERSONIFIED, Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne was the carrying vessel. Do you admire individuals who carry deep convictions? How about one who exemplified his convictions in action, while also accepting the repercussions both good and bad? Patrick Cleburne's is an intriguing story of an Irish Immigrant who struggled in sheer determination to make his way in life. Cleburne rises through the military ranks as a non West Point Graduate to become a gallant Major General whose men adored him. This is a true story of what hard work and determination can accomplish. Patrick Cleburne was born in Ovens, County Cork, Ireland, on March 16, 1828, at Bride Park Cottage to Joseph Cleburne, a doctor, and Mary Anne Ronayne Cleburne. He was the third child and second son of a Protestant, middle-class family that included 2 brothers and a sister. His mother died when he was eighteen months old His father remarried Isabella Stewart and there were three half-siblings born to this union: Isabella, Robert, and Christopher. At age eight, the family moved to Grange Farm, near Ballincollig. While residing their Cleburne attended Church of Ireland Reverend William Spedding’s boarding school. His father would pass away unexpectedly of typhus in November 1843, having contracted it from a patient. “Ronayne,” as the family called him, was expected to carry on in the family profession of medicine. Cleburne's formative years while a child in Ireland were critical in the formation of a very grim and determined man. 19th century Ireland was a land ruled by feudal landlords who would drive their non rent paying tenants away with the bayonet. He attempted to become a physician and apprenticed for two years in an apothecary. When he failed the entrance exam at Trinity College, Dublin, he could not dare to face his family. Thus he enlisted in the 41st Foot in the British army. He found army life in Dublin to be extremely mundane. For three and a half years, Cleburne was posted at a barracks in famine-stricken Ireland. He served during the turbulent months of the 1848 Young Ireland Rebellion and was promoted to corporal on July 1, 1849. The 1840s were years of extreme political and social unrest in Ireland. The crisis deepened after the Irish potato crop failed in 1846. Relations between landlords and tenant laborers deteriorated quickly. Laborers, who usually paid in potatoes, could not pay their rents. Landlords then demanded cash for rent, but with no crop to sell landlords had no cash. It was a vicious cycle that erupted in widespread violence. Hungry, desperate laborers revolted and some landlords were murdered. Cleburne’s regiment was assigned to assist local police in evicting tenants that could not pay. He found himself in the position of guarding food from his fellow countrymen to protect his own social class and the oppressive English government. The famine continued and thousands died in poverty in their homes, by the roadside and in the streets. It is estimated that up to 500 people died in Cork City per week, Food riots and looting increased. Cleburne returned home to find his own family farm in arrears for six months rent. On September 22, 1849, he paid £20 for his discharge from the army and received his papers. In the space left on the discharge for a statement of character was written, “A good soldier.” Cleburne kept the paper for the rest of his life. Cleburne and his family decided to journey to a new life in America in the decade before The American Civil War. Cleburne loved his new country. His family would split up as job opportunity presented soon after arrival in America. Patrick would eventually land in frontier Helena Arkansas poulation 600. Just months later he learned that two physicians in Helena, Arkansas Hector Grant and Charles Nash needed a druggist to manage their store. Nash told Cleburne they needed a competent prescriptionist who could manage the entire shop. In a month, Cleburne had brought complete order to and become the manager of the Grant and Nash Drugstore. As compensation he received $50 a month, a room in the back of the shop, and meals he took with Dr. Grant. He would eventually through grit and diligence earn his way to become a full partnered small businessman. He then dedicated himself to the study of becoming a lawyer. He would soon after be selected a delegate to the Democratic Convention in 1858. Cleburne never owned slaves and often voiced his opposition to the institution. Yet he strongly valued the right and desire of a section of the country to govern itself. Once the American Civil War begins, Cleburne joins the Confederacy purely out of an adoration and loyalty for a society that accepted him and simply gave him a chance. Much of his philosophy was based on witnessing the Irish fight for independence in his homeland. After enlisting He quoted; "If this [Confederacy] that is so dear to my heart is doomed to fail, I pray heaven may let me fall with it, while my face is toward the enemy and my arm battling for that which I know to be right.” Sadly, that wish would tragically be fulfilled. The Yell Rifles were formed in the state to become part of the First Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Cleburne was elected it's colonel. The First Arkansas was attached to the Army of Tennessee, the main Confederate force in the western theater. Cleburne was promoted to brigadier general in March 1862, and participated in the Battle of Shiloh in April and in the 1862 Kentucky Campaign. At the Battle of Richmond, Kentucky, on August 30, Cleburne was struck in the face by shrapnel and forced to leave the field. He remained away from the army until his recovery six weeks later, He returned to duty for the Battle of Perryville in October. On December 14, 1862, he was promoted to major general. He then commanded at Stones River. During 1863, Cleburne participated in major battles at Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. On November 27, 1863, his division made a critical stand at Ringgold Gap, Georgia, while as the rearguard protecting the retreating Confederate army. His scant division of 4,000 men managed to fiercely hold back 15,000 of General Joseph Hooker’s Union troops. Cleburne received a Congressional citation from the Confederate Government for his brilliant performance. On January 2, 1864, Cleburne made his most controversial decision ever. He gathered the corps and division commanders in the Army of Tennessee to present a very radical yet extreemely logical proposal. The Confederacy was unable to fill its ranks due to a lack of manpower. Cleburne's correct yet politically charged "Memorial" was designed with the idea to arm the southern slaves for Confederate military service in exchange for their freedom. It was most thoughtfully and brilliantly crafted. However the proposal was not well received at all. Most knew that it was a political time bomb that would stir great controversy. In fact, Jefferson Davis directed that the proposal be suppressed. It was met with so much controversy that it virtually scuttled any chance of Cleburne's further promotion in the ranks. Here is a copy of the full text: Commanding General, The Corps, Division, Brigade, and Regimental Commanders of the Army of Tennessee General:

Moved by the exigency in which our country is now placed we take the liberty of laying before you, unofficially, our views on the present state of affairs. The subject is so grave, and our views so new, we feel it a duty both to you and the cause that before going further we should submit them for your judgment and receive your suggestions in regard to them We therefore respectfully ask you to give us an expression of your views in the premises. We have now been fighting for nearly three years, have spilled much of our best blood, and lost, consumed, or thrown to the flames an amount of property equal in value to the specie currency of the world. Through some lack in our system the fruits of our struggles and sacrifices have invariably slipped away from us and left us nothing but long lists of dead and mangled. Instead of standing defiantly on the borders of our territory or harassing those of the enemy, we are hemmed in to-day into less than two-thirds of it, and still the enemy menacingly confronts us at every point with superior forces. Our soldiers can see no end to this state of affairs except in our own exhaustion; hence, instead of rising to the occasion, they are sinking into a fatal apathy, growing weary of hardships and slaughters which promise no results. In this state of things it is easy to understand why there is a growing belief that some black catastrophe is not far ahead of us, and that unless some extraordinary change is soon made in our condition we must overtake it. The consequences of this condition are showing themselves more plainly every day; restlessness of morals spreading everywhere, manifesting itself in the army in a growing disregard for private rights; desertion spreading to a class of soldiers it never dared to tamper with before; military commissions sinking in the estimation of the soldier; our supplies failing; our firesides in ruins. If this state continues much longer we must be subjugated. Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late. We can give but a faint idea when we say it means the loss of all we now hold most sacred — slaves and all other personal property, lands, homesteads, liberty, justice, safety, pride, manhood. It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision. It means the crushing of Southern manhood, the hatred of our former slaves, who will, on a spy system, be our secret police. The conqueror’s policy is to divide the conquered into factions and stir up animosity among them, and in training an army of negroes the North no doubt holds this thought in perspective. We can see three great causes operating to destroy us: First, the inferiority of our armies to those of the enemy in point of numbers; second, the poverty of our single source of supply in comparison with his several sources; third, the fact that slavery, from being one of our chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a military point of view, one of our chief sources of weakness.

The enemy already opposes us at every point with superior numbers, and is endeavoring to make the preponderance irresistible. President Davis, in his recent message, says the enemy “has recently ordered a large conscription and made a subsequent call for volunteers, to be followed, if ineffectual by a still further draft.” In addition, the President of the United States announces that “he has already in training an army of 100,000 negroes as good as any troops,” and every fresh raid he makes and new slice of territory he wrests from us will add to this force. Every soldier in our army already knows and feels our numerical inferiority to the enemy. Want of men in the field has prevented him from reaping the fruits of his victories, and has prevented him from having the furlough he expected after the last reorganization, and when he turns from the wasting armies in the field to look at the source of supply, he finds nothing in the prospect to encourage him. Our single source of supply is that portion of our white men fit for duty and not now in the ranks. The enemy has three sources of supply: First, his own motley population; secondly, our slaves; and thirdly, Europeans whose hearts are fired into a crusade against us by fictitious pictures of the atrocities of slavery, and who meet no hindrance from their Governments in such enterprise, because these Governments are equally antagonistic to the institution. In touching the third cause, the fact that slavery has become a military weakness, we may rouse prejudice and passion, but the time has come when it would be madness not to look at our danger from every point of view, and to probe it to the bottom. Apart from the assistance that home and foreign prejudice against slavery has given to the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continued embarrassment, and in some respects an insidious weakness. Wherever slavery is once seriously disturbed, whether by the actual presence or the approach of the enemy, or even by a cavalry raid, the whites can no longer with safety to their property openly sympathize with our cause. The fear of their slaves is continually haunting them, and from silence and apprehension many of these soon learn to wish the war stopped on any terms. The next stage is to take the oath to save property, and they become dead to us, if not open enemies. To prevent raids we are forced to scatter our forces, and are not free to move and strike like the enemy; his vulnerable points are carefully selected and fortified depots. Ours are found in every point where there is a slave to set free. All along the lines slavery is comparatively valueless to us for labor, but of great and increasing worth to the enemy for information. It is an omnipresent spy system, pointing out our valuable men to the enemy, revealing our positions, purposes, and resources, and yet acting so safely and secretly that there is no means to guard against it. Even in the heart of our country, where our hold upon this secret espionage is firmest, it waits but the opening fire of the enemy’s battle line to wake it, like a torpid serpent, into venomous activity.

In view of the state of affairs what does our country propose to do? In the words of President Davis “no effort must be spared to add largely to our effective force as promptly as possible. The sources of supply are to be found in restoring to the army all who are improperly absent, putting an end to substitution, modifying the exemption law, restricting details, and placing in the ranks such of the able-bodied men now employed as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employe[e]s, as are doing service for which the negroes may be found competent.” Most of the men improperly absent, together with many of the exempts and men having substitutes, are now without the Confederate lines and cannot be calculated on. If all the exempts capable of bearing arms were enrolled, it will give us the boys below eighteen, the men above forty-five, and those persons who are left at home to meet the wants of the country and the army, but this modification of the exemption law will remove from the fields and manufactories most of the skill that directed agricultural and mechanical labor, and, as stated by the President, “details will have to be made to meet the wants of the country,” thus sending many of the men to be derived from this source back to their homes again. Independently of this, experience proves that striplings and men above conscript age break down and swell the sick lists more than they do the ranks. The portion now in our lines of the class who have substitutes is not on the whole a hopeful element, for the motives that created it must have been stronger than patriotism, and these motives added to what many of them will call breach of faith, will cause some to be not forthcoming, and others to be unwilling and discontented soldiers. The remaining sources mentioned by the President have been so closely pruned in the Army of Tennessee that they will be found not to yield largely. The supply from all these sources, together with what we now have in the field, will exhaust the white race, and though it should greatly exceed expectations and put us on an equality with the enemy, or even give us temporary advantages, still we have no reserve to meet unexpected disaster or to supply a protracted struggle. Like past years, 1864 will diminish our ranks by the casualties of war, and what source of repair is there left us? We therefore see in the recommendations of the President only a temporary expedient, which at the best will leave us twelve months hence in the same predicament we are in now. The President attempts to meet only one of the depressing causes mentioned; for the other two he has proposed no remedy. They remain to generate lack of confidence in our final success, and to keep us moving down hill as heretofore. Adequately to meet the causes which are now threatening ruin to our country, we propose, in addition to a modification of the President’s plans, that we retain in service for the war all troops now in service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war. As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter — give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself. If we are correct in this assumption it only remains to show how this great national sacrifice is, in all human probabilities, to change the current of success and sweep the invader from our country.

Our country has already some friends in England and France, and there are strong motives to induce these nations to recognize and assist us, but they cannot assist us without helping slavery, and to do this would be in conflict with their policy for the last quarter of a century. England has paid hundreds of millions to emancipate her West India slaves and break up the slave-trade. Could she now consistently spend her treasure to reinstate slavery in this country? But this barrier once removed, the sympathy and the interests of these and other nations will accord with our own, and we may expect from them both moral support and material aid. One thing is certain, as soon as the great sacrifice to independence is made and known in foreign countries there will be a complete change of front in our favor of the sympathies of the world. This measure will deprive the North of the moral and material aid which it now derives from the bitter prejudices with which foreigners view the institution, and its war, if continued, will henceforth be so despicable in their eyes that the source of recruiting will be dried up. It will leave the enemy’s negro army no motive to fight for, and will exhaust the source from which it has been recruited. The idea that it is their special mission to war against slavery has held growing sway over the Northern people for many years, and has at length ripened into an armed and bloody crusade against it. This baleful superstition has so far supplied them with a courage and constancy not their own. It is the most powerful and honestly entertained plank in their war platform. Knock this away and what is left? A bloody ambition for more territory, a pretended veneration for the Union, which one of their own most distinguished orators (Doctor Beecher in his Liverpool speech) openly avowed was only used as a stimulus to stir up the anti-slavery crusade, and lastly the poisonous and selfish interests which are the fungus growth of the war itself. Mankind may fancy it a great duty to destroy slavery, but what interest can mankind have in upholding this remainder of the Northern war platform? Their interests and feelings will be diametrically opposed to it. The measure we propose will strike dead all John Brown fanaticism, and will compel the enemy to draw off altogether or in the eyes of the world to swallow the Declaration of Independence without the sauce and disguise of philanthropy. This delusion of fanaticism at an end, thousands of Northern people will have leisure to look at home and to see the gulf of despotism into which they themselves are rushing.

The measure will at one blow strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and assistance, and transfer them to the South; it will dry up two of his three sources of recruiting; it will take from his negro army the only motive it could have to fight against the South, and will probably cause much of it to desert over to us; it will deprive his cause of the powerful stimulus of fanaticism, and will enable him to see the rock on which his so-called friends are now piloting him. The immediate effect of the emancipation and enrollment of negroes on the military strength of the South would be: To enable us to have armies numerically superior to those of the North, and a reserve of any size we might think necessary; to enable us to take the offensive, move forward, and forage on the enemy. It would open to us in prospective another and almost untouched source of supply, and furnish us with the means of preventing temporary disaster, and carrying on a protracted struggle. It would instantly remove all the vulnerability, embarrassment, and inherent weakness which result from slavery. The approach of the enemy would no longer find every household surrounded by spies; the fear that sealed the master’s lips and the avarice that has, in so many cases, tempted him practically to desert us would alike be removed. There would be no recruits awaiting the enemy with open arms, no complete history of every neighborhood with ready guides, no fear of insurrection in the rear, or anxieties for the fate of loved ones when our armies moved forward. The chronic irritation of hope deferred would be joyfully ended with the negro, and the sympathies of his whole race would be due to his native South. It would restore confidence in an early termination of the war with all its inspiring consequences, and even if contrary to all expectations the enemy should succeed in over-running the South, instead of finding a cheap, ready-made means of holding it down, he would find a common hatred and thirst for vengeance, which would break into acts at every favorable opportunity, would prevent him from settling on our lands, and render the South a very unprofitable conquest. It would remove forever all selfish taint from our cause and place independence above every question of property. The very magnitude of the sacrifice itself, such as no nation has ever voluntarily made before, would appal [sic] our enemies, destroy his spirit and his finances, and fill our hearts with a pride and singleness of purpose which would clothe us with new strength in battle. Apart from all other aspects of the question, the necessity for more fighting men is upon us. We can only get a sufficiency by making the negro share the danger and hardships of the war. If we arm and train him and make him fight for the country in her hour of dire distress, every consideration of principle and policy demand that we should set him and his whole race who side with us free. It is a first principle with mankind that he who offers his life in defense of the State should receive from her in return his freedom and his happiness, and we believe in acknowledgment of this principle. The Constitution of the Southern States has reserved to their respective governments the power to free slaves for meritorious services to the State. It is politic besides. For many years, ever since the agitation of the subject of slavery commenced, the negro has been dreaming of freedom, and his vivid imagination has surrounded that condition with so many gratifications that it has become the paradise of his hopes. To attain it he will tempt dangers and difficulties not exceeded by the bravest soldier in the field. The hope of freedom is perhaps the only moral incentive that can be applied to him in his present condition. It would be preposterous then to expect him to fight against it with any degree of enthusiasm, therefore we must bind him to our cause by no doubtful bonds; we must leave no possible loop-hole for treachery to creep in. The slaves are dangerous now, but armed, trained, and collected in an army they would be a thousand fold more dangerous; therefore when we make soldiers of them we must make free men of them beyond all question, and thus enlist their sympathies also. We can do this more effectually than the North can now do, for we can give the negro not only his own freedom, but that of his wife and child, and can secure it to him in his old home. To do this, we must immediately make his marriage and parental relations sacred in the eyes of the law and forbid their sale. The past legislation of the South concedes that a large free middle class of negro blood, between the master and slave, must sooner or later destroy the institution. If, then, we touch the institution at all, we would do best to make the most of it, and by emancipating the whole race upon reasonable terms, and within such reasonable time as will prepare both races for the change, secure to ourselves all the advantages, and to our enemies all the disadvantages that can arise, both at home and abroad, from such a sacrifice. Satisfy the negro that if he faithfully adheres to our standard during the war he shall receive his freedom and that of his race. Give him as an earnest of our intentions such immediate immunities as will impress him with our sincerity and be in keeping with his new condition, enroll a portion of his class as soldiers of the Confederacy, and we change the race from a dreaded weakness to a position of strength.

Will the slaves fight? The helots of Sparta stood their masters good stead in battle. In the great sea fight of Lepanto where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were promised freedom, and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle. They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves. The negro slaves of Saint Domingo, fighting for freedom, defeated their white masters and the French troops sent against them. The negro slaves of Jamaica revolted, and under the name of Maroons held the mountains against their masters for 150 years; and the experience of this war has been so far that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees. If, contrary to the training of a lifetime, they can be made to face and fight bravely against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would submit to discipline and face dangers.

We will briefly notice a few arguments against this course. It is said Republicanism cannot exist without the institution. Even were this true, we prefer any form of government of which the Southern people may have the molding, to one forced upon us by a conqueror. It is said the white man cannot perform agricultural labor in the South. The experience of this army during the heat of summer from Bowling Green, Ky., to Tupelo, Miss., is that the white man is healthier when doing reasonable work in the open field than at any other time. It is said an army of negroes cannot be spared from the fields. A sufficient number of slaves is now administering to luxury alone to supply the place of all we need, and we believe it would be better to take half the able-bodied men off a plantation than to take the one master mind that economically regulated its operations. Leave some of the skill at home and take some of the muscle to fight with. It is said slaves will not work after they are freed. We think necessity and a wise legislation will compel them to labor for a living. It is said it will cause terrible excitement and some disaffection from our cause. Excitement is far preferable to the apathy which now exists, and disaffection will not be among the fighting men. It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties. We have now briefly proposed a plan which we believe will save our country. It may be imperfect, but in all human probability it would give us our independence. No objection ought to outweigh it which is not weightier than independence. If it is worthy of being put in practice it ought to be mooted quickly before the people, and urged earnestly by every man who believes in its efficacy. Negroes will require much training; training will require much time, and there is danger that this concession to common sense may come too late.

P. R. Cleburne, major-general, commanding division D. C. Govan, brigadier-general John E. Murray, colonel, Fifth Arkansas G. F. Baucum, colonel, Eighth Arkansas Peter Snyder, lieutenant-colonel, commanding Sixth and Seventh Arkansas E. Warfield, lieutenant-colonel, Second Arkansas M. P. Lowrey, brigadier-general A. B. Hardcastle, colonel, Thirty-second and Forty-fifth Mississippi F. A. Ashford, major, Sixteenth Alabama John W. Colquitt, colonel, First Arkansas Rich. J. Person, major, Third and Fifth Confederate G. S. Deakins, major, Thirty-fifth and Eighth Tennessee J. H. Collett, captain, commanding Seventh Texas J. H. Kelly, brigadier-general, commanding Cavalry Division Patrick Cleburne was a very shy and unassuming figure with a quiet determined inner drive. Yet he carried an undeniable emanation of authority and competence about him. He was extremely introverted, often avoiding social situations. He was extremely shy around women. That would change abruptly on January 13, 1864. Cleburne acted as best man at the wedding of close friend and superior commander William Hardee to Mary Lewis Forman near Demopolis, Alabama. There he first laid eyes on twenty-four year old Susan Tarleton, maid of honor to her best friend, “Mollie” Lewis. The wedding guests left the next morning by steamboat for Mobile, where Cleburne spent the remainder of his furlough, his first since the war began. Their he proposed to Susan only days after meeting her. She hesitated in her decision but did not discourage him. In February, he received another furlough and returned to Mobile. He later wrote to a friend, “After keeping me in cruel suspense for six weeks she has at length consented to be mine and we are engaged. I need not say how miserable this has made me.” A fall wedding seems to have been planned. Unfortunately, the war woulde come between Cleburne and Susan Tarleton after he departed Mobile in early March 1864. They would never see each other again. Like countless other soldiers and their loved ones back home, the couple tried to stay in touch by mail. The shy, formal, no-nonsense general would reveal another side of his character in his letters to Miss Tarleton. The letters, said aide Leonard Mangum, “were often revelations, even to one who knew him well, as to the depth of his feelings. Devoid of all approach to sentimentality, they were full of a most sweet and tender passion." Before the tragic and fatal charge at the bloody Battle of Franklin Tennessee that Cleburne seemed to know would be his last he reluctantly but bravely did his duty. Despite seeing the futility of a successful assault, he accepted his final order, stating to his superior commander Lt. General John Bell Hood, "I will take the enemy's works or fall in the attempt." His closest aide stated, "Well General there will not be many of us that get back to Arkansas." Cleburne's response: "Well Govan, if we are to die, then let us die like men." Govan would survive the blody morass to see Arkansas once again. But by that day’s end, in the words of his former Adjutant Captain Irving A. Buck, ‘the inspiring voice of Cleburne was already hushed in death’ Cleburne rode to a site called Breezy Hill just before deployment of his division and surveyed the Union defenses down on the Harpeth River that flowed through the once sleepy town of Franklin. As he peered through a borrowed snipers telescope he spoke aloud to no one in particular, "They have three lines of works." "And they are all completed." "They are most formidable." Cleburne advanced on horseback in a charge with his men directly into the center of the Union Line. The horse that bore him was shot from under him. Asking to borrow another, Cleburne placed his feet in the stirrups to mount just as that animal was struck by a cannonball and killed. Cleburne drew his sword and charged on foot at the center of the line where he could see the Bonnie Blue Flag being raised on the parapet. He was struck some 50 yards from the trench line by a bullet in the heart and died instantly. Major-General Patrick Ronanyne Cleburne's body was taken to nearby Carnton plantation. He was lain out for morning on the porch along with General John Adams, General Hiram Granbury, and General Otho Strahl, all who perished in the bloody trenches at Franklin. He was initially interred at Rose Hill near Franklin. His body was soon moved to St. John’s Church, Ashwood, Tennessee. Cleburne had passed this cemetery just days earlier during the advance into Tennessee and remarked that it was ‘almost worth dying for, to be buried in such a beautiful spot��. In 1870 his body would be moved once again for the final time, this time returning to his adopted State in Arkansas, where he remains in Maple Hill Cemetery, Helena. Back in Mobile, Susan Tarleton waited anxiously for any kind of word from the man she loved dearly. Union raiding parties had cut all telegraph lines into the city. Six days after the Battle of Franklin, as she walked in her garden she heard a passing newsboy shout: “Big battle near Franklin, Tennessee! General Cleburne killed! Read all about it.” She fainted dead away. After spending a year confined to her bedroom in “deepest mourning,” Susan Tarleton reluctantly re-entered life. In 1867 she married Captain Hugh L. Cole, a former Confederate officer and an old college friend of her brother’s. Less than a year later, she died unexpectedly of an apparent brain effusion. While growing up in Ireland Patrick Cleburne learned valuable lessons of the harsh realitys that life often presented. He also developed an incredible work ethic. While in the British army, he had learned patience, discipline, self-control, and how to live a life of self-denial. He also came to deeply appreciate the position and suffering of those at the mercy of tyrannical authority in the form of a far too powerful central government. Those lessons served him well as the leader of the men he drilled and prepared to go into battle with. Duty is not just following orders. It is seeing that some ideals and some causes are bigger than one's self, and duty in its deepest sense is the following orders that one does not always agree with. One of his closest friends, Lt Gen. William J. Hardee said of Cleburne after his death, "He was an Irishman by birth, a southerner by adoption and residence, a lawyer by profession, a soldier in the British army by accident, and a soldier in the southern armies from patriotism and conviction of duty in his manhood."

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drdonckeandmdposts-blog · 7 years ago

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A PHENOMENAL STORY FROM THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN TENNESSEE. November 30th 1864. By the time the American Civil War began, Theodrick “Tod” Carter was 20 years old and a lawyer. When Tod’s older brother, Moscow, raised a company of men from around Franklin, Tennessee to support the Confederacy. Tod joined what would become Company H of the 20th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. For over two years, Tod’s war service was fairly mundane. But that would change on November 25, 1863 when Tod’s 20th Tennessee defended Missionary Ridge outside of Chattanooga. Union General George Thomas’s Army of the Cumberland rushed Confederate positions high on the ridge overlooking the city. The Confederates abandoned their positions and fled east. Tod would be captured during the battle and sent to the Johnson Island prison camp outside of Sandusky, Ohio. Prisoner of war camps were places of pure misery, riddled with disease and death. Tod survived Johnson Island and was in the process of being transferred to Point Lookout, another prisoner of war camp, outside of Baltimore, Maryland, when he escaped from the train transporting him by jumping off. He roamed the wilderness of Pennsylvania, alone and hunted, but determined to find his old unit. On foot, he would eventually make his way over 600 miles to Dalton Georgia where he was reunited with the 20th Tennessee. Now a part of John Bell Hood's Army of The Tennessee he would begin marching north from Atlanta towards his home in Franklin. Desperate to see his family again, in his pocket was a furlough allowing him leave to spend precious time with them. The Army of The Tennessee's march took them directly to Franklin. In their small, brick home next to the main road leading into town, the Carter family waited, knowing that Tod’s old unit was near. They may now have known that Tod wasn’t dead as was first feared Tod's brother Moscow had written Tod a letter while at Johnson's Island, in it he stated “I have a little piece of news you many never have heard before. After your capture, your horse swam the river, and returned to camp in full rig. The boys thought for a long time you were killed, seeing your horse without you.” They still could not have known that their courageous son had escaped from a train, and walked cross country to join up with his old unit? That same morning Tod Carter prepared to finish his journey toward home and visit his loved ones. Earlier that day Union General Jacob D. Cox had knocked on the door of The Carter Home informing Fountain Branch Carter that he would be using the Carter house as a command headquarters. He informed the family that their was very little chance of a battle ensuing, due to both armies being exhausted from their long tedious marches. (Little did he know what that day beheld), Tod managed to slip through the Union lines, and made it to the edge of the Carter garden, where he began to enter through the gate. As he lifted the latch, one of his relatives motioned for him “to go back.” Later in the afternoon of November 30, 1864, Hood decided to launch an attack against the entrenched Federal forces in Franklin. The massive frontal assault was launched against the center of the Union line, which stretched across the land owned by Tod’s father. Called the Pickett’s Charge of the West, Franklin would be the scene of the bloodiest and most gruesome five hours The Civil War. Legend has it that as the 20th Tennessee approached the Union lines dug across the Carter family property, Tod shouted to his comrades, “I’m almost home! Come with me boys!” Just some 200 yards from the home in which he grew up, Tod Carter was struck by 9 bullets and lay in the family’s garden severely wounded. After the battle, as Union troops moved north to Nashville, Confederate soldiers sought out Fountain Branch Carter to inform him that his son Tod had been engaged in the battle and had fallen on the family’s property. Tod had been an aide to Brigadier General Thomas Benton Smith CSA (pictured below). Although Carter’s duties as assistant quartermaster and aide to Smith exempted him from engaging in battle, he vowed that, “No power on earth could keep him out of the fight.” Smith would grimly step through the smoke filled darkness over voluminous piles of dead and wounded men in The Carter yard just moments after The Bloody Battle of Franklin Tennessee had terminated. He arrived at The Carter home to inform the family that their son Tod lie gravely wounded just a few hundred yards away. The Carter family along with their servants, their neighbors and the Albert Lotz family emerged from the root cellar, all unharmed and thanking God for their well-being. What they saw would out do the most graphic horror movie. Major General Benjamin Cheatham C.S.A. who served in numerous major engagements during the war including Shiloh, (24000 casualties), Chickamaugua, (35000 casualties) and Stones River, (24000 casualties) wrote. "Just at daybreak, I rode upon the field and such a sight I never saw and can never expect to see again. The dead were piled up like stacks of wheat or scattered like sheaves of grain. You could have walked all over the field upon dead bodies without stepping upon the ground....Almost under your eye, naearly all the dead, wounded, and dying lay. In front of the Carter house, the bodies lay in heaps, and to the right of it, a locust thicket had been mowed off by bullets, as if by a scythe. It was a wonder that any man escaped alive....I never saw anything like that field, and never want to again." Tod’s family climbed over the body covered breastworks and blood filled trenches carrying gasoline lanterns. It was just before daybreak when they found Tod, laying on the cold ground, incoherently calling out a friend Sgt. Cooper’s name. Nearby lay Carter's grey horse Rosencranz, beautiful even in death. Tod was brought home barely clinging to life after being shot nine times, once in the head. The regimental surgeon removed the bullet, (pictured below), from his skull, but gave little hope for his recovery. Frances A. McEwen a young schoolgirl who resided in Franklin later wrote: "As we approached the Carter House we could scarcely walk without stepping on the dead or dying men. We could hear the cries of the wounded, of which the Carter house was full to overflowing. As I entered the front door, I heard a poor fellow giving his comrades a dying message for his loved ones at home. We went through the hall and were shown into a little room where a soft light revealed all that was mortal of the gifted young genius, Theo Carter, who under the pseudonym of "Mint Julep", wrote such delightful letters to The Chattanooga Rebel. Bending over him, begging for just one word of recognition, was his faithful and heartbroken sister." Tod would pass away the next day without really ever regaining conciousness. His father did say that shortly before Tod expired that he seemed to recognize that he was finally home. Just two weeks later Gen. Thomas Benton Smith would be forced to surrender at the Battle of Nashville. After surrendering his weapons to Union Colonel William McMillen whose brigade suffered heavy losses in the fight with Smith's brigade, Smith and his men were marched, along with 1,533 others, through the Federal dead and wounded, who lay thick on the steep slopes of the Overton Hill. The Union soldiers realized the Confederates had surrendered and, according to one Illinois soldier, began “shouting, yelling, and acting like maniacs for a while.” Apparently, this angered Smith. As he was being marched to the rear, eyewitnesses reported that he allegedly exchanged words with McMillen. Two fellow prisoners, Monroe Mitchell, a private of Company B and Lieutenant J.W. Morgan of Company F, 20th Tennessee Regiment, recalled that McMillen appeared drunk. Whether he was intoxicated or inflamed from the recent bloodshed, his temper overcame him, and he began verbally abusing Smith. Mitchell and Morgan said Smith’s only reply was, “I am a disarmed prisoner.” At that remark, McMillen struck the twenty-six-year-old Smith over the head with his saber three times, each blow cutting through Smith’s hat, the last driving him to the ground, and fracturing his skull, inflicting serious brain damage. Observers believed McMillen would have continued the brutal assault had his own men not pulled him off. Smith was initially given a dim chance of survival. He was told by a Union Surgeon, “Well you are near the end of your battles, for I can see the brain oozing through the gap in the skull.” Smith would never fully recover from McMillen’s cowardly attack. For the remainder of his life, he would suffer from bouts of depression and mania which resulted in his spending much of his remaining 47 years of life in the Tennessee Central Hospital for the Insane

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drdonckeandmdposts-blog · 7 years ago

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AN ANGEL OF MERCY BECOMES THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH I just returned in December from visiting the historic Carnton Plantation in Franklin Tennessee. While only one spot on the bloody battlefield of Franklin Tennessee on November 30th 1864, the story of that one bloody night is so incredibly horrific, that it defies the imagination. After the five hours of intense carnage and desperate hand to hand combat their would be roughly 10000 souls who were either killed, wounded or captured. Sarah North Martin was a resident of nearby Columbia, Tennessee just south of Franklin in November 1864 as both the Union and Confederate armies swept through the town during Southern General John Bell Hood’s “invasion” of Tennessee. Sarah, the wife of prominent local judge, William P. Martin, was taken by surprise on November 24, 1864 when two brigades of Union infantry under Brigadier General Jacob Dolson Cox Jr. commandeered ground on the Mount Pleasant Road. Before they were in position Union cavalrymen came hastily down the gravel road, fleeing from the brigades of Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Confederate cavalry. Cox had three artillery batteries along with his troops on both sides of the road. More Confederate troops later arrived and sought to displace the Yankees. Sarah Martin’s thoughts as she and her family escaped, are part of a remarkable letter she sent to a relative:

The fighting commenced at our house, which is situated about 50 yards from the road on a high hill. I dare not write the particulars. Suffice it to say the Yankees had possession of our home & forced us to leave. We went to Mr. Martin’s fathers’ [i.e. George M. Martin], about 800 yards nearer town, taking with us the bedding of three beds & most of our wearing apparel. We were between the fires of the two contending parties for two days, & five shells struck [his] father’s house while [we] were in it, until we had to go down to a brick milk cellar in the yard, the minie balls falling on the roof like hail. The wounded Yankees [kept] passing through the yard, bleeding & screaming with pain. We could hear the yells of the Rebels as they charged & drove the Yankees toward town. At last, when the fight was evidently beyond us, I ran out quickly to avoid the sharpshooters, & entering the [George M. Martin] house, found Gen. [Colonel Edmund Winchester] Rucker’s staff, who showed us every courtesy. Each officer took charge of one of us, & led us in the line of the house, over to [our] home; procured an ambulance and sent us down to Gen. Pillow’s. [this was “Clifton,” four miles west of Columbia, the home of Brigadier General Gideon Johnson Pillow, who was married to her husband’s sister (Mary Martin Pillow)] Gen. [Brigadier General Stephen Dill] Lee had possession of our house, & artillery was planted in several places on the hill. The Yankees [had] sacked our house, & set fire to it, but Forrest came in time to extinguish the flames, before any serious damage was done. They [Yankees] threw our wheat into the pond, burned piles of bed clothes & books, & threw our china all over the yard, took the most of twenty-two hogs, and killed nineteen shoats, took all our horses, etc. In short I cannot enumerate our loss, or tell you how the Yankees treated us. We have ever since been living on biscuit[s] & milk, without a parcel of meat, for we have no money to buy with. You can have no conception of the oppression, & we dare not murmur. Even yesterday they came & took the only animal we had, a mule. Judge M. [i.e. her husband Judge William P. Martin] walked to town to day in the rain to try to get it back, but was unsuccessful, & now we have nothing to plow with, or to haul wood, for we had been driven to hauling wood in a cart. We are very anxious to sell & move to Texas… All our negroes ran off during the fight, & went with the Yankees in their retreat to Nashville. Some of them want to come back, but we will not receive them. The Lord has mercifully preserved our health, & I hope will bring us safely through these troubled times. Just six days later both armies raced towards Nashville for a final bloody showdown. The Union Army was delayed in Franklin due to the swollen Harpeth River. They were ordered to hold their position and dig defensive fortifications as a purely protective measure until they received pontoons from Nashville to move men and equipment across. They did not believe that a major battle would ensue their. But Confederate Lt. General John Bell Hood had other ideas. Seeing the Union Army split and penned against the swollen stream, he decided to launch an all out offensive. General Jacob Dolson on this day would awake Fountain Branch Carter at 4:30 AM to inform him that his home was being commandeered. As the likely spectre of a major battle grew more likely, the town residents hunkered down to bear a fear and horror no human being should ever have to experience. The following are a list of eyewitness accounts of that cold terrible November evening in 1864: "The Men seemed to realize that our charge on the works would attend with heavy slaughter, and several of them came to me bringing watches, jewelry, letters and photographs, asking me to take charge of them and send them to their families if they were killed. I had to decline as I was going with them and would be exposed to the same danger. I was vividly recalled to me the next morning, for I believe every one who made this request of me was killed." Chaplain James H. M'Neilly Quarles Brigade "When Conrads brigade took up its advanced postion we all supposed it would be only temporary, but soon an orderly came along the line with instructions for the company commanders, and he told me that the orders were to hold the postion to the last man, and to have my sergeants fix bayonets and to instruct my company that any man, not wounded, who should attempt to leave the line without orders, would be shot or bayonetted by the sergeants." Capt John K. Shellenberger 64th Ohio Inf. "When I regained consciousness I was laying in the ditch . . of running water and could feel the loose dirt fall in on me when Yankee bullets would strike the top of the ditch . . I became thirsty but had fallen on my canteen but could not get to it... I drank the water in the ditch and it was cold and good. I knew my sight was destroyed. I placed my hands under my forehead to keep my face from above water .. and fell asleep" Lt. Mintz 5th Arkansas, Govans Brigade I saw a Confederate soldier, close to me thrust one of our men through with a bayonet and before he could draw his weapon from the ghastly wound his brains were scattered on all of us that stood near, by the butt of a musket swung with terrific force by some big fellow whom I could not recognize in the grim dirt and smoke.. As I glanced hurredly around and heard the dull thuds, I turned from the sickening sight and glad to hide the vision in work with a hatchet for I had broken my sword. Col Wolf 64th Ohio Conrad's Brigade "The slaughtering could be seen down the line as far as the Columbia and Franklin Pike, and where the works crossed the pike . . . Our troops were killed by whole platoons, Our front line of battle seemed to have been cut down by the first discharge for in many places they were lying on their faces in almost as good order as if they had lain down on purpose; but no such order prevailed among the dead who fell in making the attempt to surmount the Cheval-de-frise, for hanging on the long spikes of this obstruction could be seen the mangled and torn remains of many of our soldiers who had been pierced by hundreds of minie balls and grape shot ... The ditch was full of dead men and we had to stand and sit upon them. The bottom of it from side to side was covered with blood to the depth of shoe soles" James M. Copley 49th Tennessee Quarles' Brigade " as evening came on the neighboors began to come in . . and we went down in the cellar. Grandpa had already put rolls of rope in the windows. . to keep the bullets out. The negroes crouched down in the dining room, and all the children & grand children and neighbors in the hall cellar, and granpa walked back and forth and watched out the window." "The first sound of the firing and the booming of cannons, we children all sat around our mothers and cried." Alice M. Nichol age 8 Tod Carters neice "The mangled bodies of the dead rebels weere piled up as high as the mouth of the embrasure and the gunners said that repeatedly when the lanyard was pulled the embrasure was filled with men crowding forward to get in who were literally blown from the mouth of the cannon. Only one rebel got past the muzzle of the gun and one of the gunners snatched up a pick and killed him with that. the ditch was piled promiscuously with the dead and badly wounded and heads arms and legs were sticking out in almost every conceivable manner. The ground near the ditch was filled with the moans of the wounded and the pleadings of some of those who saw me for water and for help were heartrending." Capt John K. Shellenberger 64th Ohio Inf. Conrad's Brigade "Nothing could be heard but the wails of the wounded and the dying, some calling for their friends, some praying to be relieved of their awful suffering and thousands in the deep agonizing throes of death filled the air with mouthful sounds and dying groans" Capt. Hickey 1st Missouri Cockrells Brigade "I could hear the wounded calling for help in every direction. I again wanted water and thought I would again drink from the water in the ditch, biut this time it tasted of blood and I managed to get my canteen from under me and drank from it." Lt. Mintz 5th Arkansas, Govans Brigade (who has been blinded) "I stood on the parapet just before midnight and saw all that could be seen. I saw and heard all that the eyes, or my rent soul contemplate in such an awful environment. It was a spectacle to chill the stoutest heart...the wounded shivering in the chilled November air; the heartrending cries of the desperately wounded and the prayers of the dying filled me with an anguish that language cannot describe. From that hour I have hated war. Colonel Isaac Sherwoood 111th Ohio Infantry "I remember seeing one poor fellow, sitting up and leaning back against something whose lower jaw had been cut off by a grape shot, and his tongue and under lip were hanging down on his breast. I knelt down and asked if I could do anything for him. He had a little piece of paper and an envelope. He wrote: No, John Bell Hood will be in New York before three weeks." Teenager Hardin Figuers, Franklin resident moments after he emerged from shelter. "God forgive me for ever wanting to see or hear a battle! You had to look twice as you picked your way among the bodies to see which were dead and which were alive and often a dead man would be lying partly on a live one, or the reverse. And the groans, the sickening smell of blood! I noticed while wandering along the earthworks that all or nearly all of the Union soldiers were shot in the forehead. In front, the ground was covered with bodies and pools of blood. the cotton in the old cotton gin was shot out all over the ground. Our Union soldiers had been stripped of everything but their shirts and drawers, but the Confederate soldiers could not be blamed much for that, for they were half clothed, half barefoot and many of them bareheaded." Carrie Snyder; a Union sympathizer who happen to be visitig friends in Franklin at the time. "In this yard and in that garden, I could walk from fence to fence on bodies, mostly those of Confederates. In trying to clean up, I scraped together a half a bushel of brains right around the house, and the whole place was dyed in blood. Nothing in the shape of horse, mule, jack, nor jinny was left in this neighborhood. In fact I remember it was not untilChristmas, twenty five days afterwards, that I was enabled to borrow a yoke of oxen, and I spent the whole of that Christmas Day hauling seventeen dead horses from this yard." Moscow Carter: Brother of Captain Tod Carter recalling what he saw upon emerging from The Carter House root cellar. "Amid the hundreds of dead and wounded Confederates who lay thickly scattered over the field in our front....there was one lying in front of my company, only a few distant feet crying "Mother you were right, you'll never see your boy again. I'm dying out here in the dark....I'm bleeding to death. "The boy's voice became gradually weaker and weaker until we heard it no more......One of the company's new recruits, a mere boy in years, was crying as though his heart was broken. He too was the only son of a widowed mother.": An unknown officer of the 63rd Indiana. The carnage was so great throughout the town that any available structure was used as a hospital. To put this into proper perspective, for every single resident who resided in Franklin Tennessee (pop. approx. 900) there were 7 casualties. The Carnton house quickly became a field hospital for Confederate wounded. It was a ghastly scene of pain , torment, and suffering. The McGavocks tended for as many as 300 soldiers inside Carnton alone, though at least 150 died the first night. John and Carrie McGavock and their 9 yr old daughter Hattie and 5 yr old son Winder helped tend the over 300 men who lay throughout the home. Soon the outbuildings were filled with hundreds more until the only place to lay them were in the yard. After the battle, on December 1, Union forces under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield evacuated toward Nashville, leaving their dead, including several hundred Union soldiers, and their wounded who were unable to walk. The residents of Franklin were then faced with the task of burying over 2,500 soldiers, most being Confederates.The following are some of the first hand accounts of the nightmarish eve at Carnton: "Every room was filled, every bed had two poor, bleeding fellows, every spare space, niche, and corner under the stairs, in the hall, everywhere -0 but one room for her own family. Our Doctors were deficient in bandages, and she began by giving her old linen, then her towels, amd napkins, then her sheets and table clothes, then her husband's shirts and her own undergarment. During all this time the surgeons plied their deadful work amid the sighs and moans and death rattle. Yet amid it all, this nobel woman. . . was very active and constantly at work. During all the night neither she nor any of the household slept, but dispensed tea and coffee and such stimulants as she had and that two with her own hands.. she walked from room to room from man to man her very skirt stained with blood." Capt. William D. Gale - Lt. Gen Alexander P. Stewart's staff "Give me forty grains of morphine' he called out all through the night. 'Give me forty grains of morphine and let me die!' 'Oh Can't' I Die?' ' My Poor Wife and Child!'' My Poor Wife and Child!' "OMG ! Can you get the surgeons to administer some drug that will relieve me of this torture" I did try through my appeals were in vain. " Cold presperation gathered in knots on his brow and of course (he) knew that death was inevitable. . . "I went down the steps and far beneath the silence of the stars to escape his piteous prayers." C. E. Merrill Adjutant General , Brig. Gem Scott's Staff All of the Confederate dead were buried as nearly as possible by states, close to where they fell, and wooden headboards were placed at each grave with the name, company and regiment painted or written on them." Many of the Union soldiers would later be re-interred in 1865 at the Stones River National Cemetery in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Over the next eighteen months many of the markers either rotted or were used for firewood, and the writing was disappearing. To preserve the graves, John and Carrie McGavock donated 2 acres of their property to be designated as an area for the Confederate dead to be re-interred. The citizens of Franklin raised the funding and the soldiers were exhumed and reburied in the McGavock Confederate Cemetery for the sum of $5.00 per soldier. A team led by George Cuppett took responsibility for the reburial of 1,481 soldiers. The names and identities of the soldiers were recorded in a cemetery record book by Cuppett, which soon fell into the care of Carrie McGavock. It is said that for years following the war visitors would knock on her door requesting the book to see if they could find closure from the loss of a loved whom they never knew of their fate. Carrie never failed to fulfill those requests. Carrie McGavock spent nearly 40 years of her life maintaining the McGavock Confederate Cemetery. In her later years she also would help to raise orphaned children, many of which were created by that bloody war. It was the most sincere expression of the heart and compassion she personified for so many years. Carrie died in 1905 and rests beside her husband, John, within sight of the nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers who they protected and watched over for so many years. The mere thought of young children having to witness so much blood and suffering should draw deep emotions from even the coldest of souls. This was truly an experience where nightmares were born. Harriet (Hattie), Young McGavock was only nine-years-old on the day of the Battle of Franklin. That afternoon and night, she and her younger brother, five year old Winder, and their parents, John and Carrie, watched as their home became a hospital and mortuary. Hattie and Winder worked alongside their parents throughout the night, helping where they could as the battered bodies poured in to the house. The next morning, the bodies of four Confederate generals, who had been killed in the fighting, were brought to the McGavock home and laid side-by-side on the back porch. They were Patrick Cleburne, John Adams, Hiram Granbury, and Otho Strahl.

In Hattie McGavock Cowan's own words over 50 years later:

I can still sense the odor of smoke and blood. I recall how the startled cattle came home from the pastures, how restless they became, sniffing and excitedly running about the place, bewildered by the smell of the battlefield. I can still see swarms of soldiers coming with their dead comrades and lying them down by the hundreds under our spacious shade trees and all about the grounds. I shall carry those awful pictures in my mind down to the day of my death. I was only nine-years-old then, but it is all as vivid and as real as if it happened only yesterday. I overheard a man at Carnton that night say he estimated over 300 wounded were crammed in to our home. There we were in this ocean of suffering — mother, father, Winder and me — going from man-to-man doing what we could. Mother ordered the bed sheets and linens torn into bandages. Those ran out so, she told the medical attendants to use her tablecloths, towels, and father’s shirts. At one point, she used her own undergarments, put to use mending the myriad of wounds. Those who saw her were awestruck by her selfless actions. Mother never ceased in her work that long and dreadful night. She handed out tea and coffee and went from room to room making sure there was nothing else she could do. William D. Gale, of Gen. A.P. Stewart’s staff, said mother was so involved in affairs that her skirt was “stained in blood.” I remember it vividly. Some of the soldiers recuperated at our home until June, nearly seven months after the battle. There was a lot of bad, but there was a lot of good. You sometimes see the best in people under these circumstances. We just went to work and did what we could. I stuck by my mother. Chaplains, doctors, and agents of the U.S. Christian commission showed up over the coming weeks and months.

What happened to Hattie McGavock Cowan?

She married a Confederate veteran named George Cowan at Carnton on January 3, 1884. They lived in close proximity to Carnton for many years in a home known as Windermere. George died in 1919. Hattie lived until 1931 and for many old Franklin residents she was the last living connection to the Battle of Franklin. She is buried with George at Mt. Hope Cemetery in Franklin. Winder Mcgavock took over Carnton after his mother's death in 1905. He died just two years later. While touring Carnton (which would cost over 10 million in modern day currency) visitors can still see the blood stains in the wooden floors from over 150 years ago. The operating table used by surgeons was set up "rather ironically" in the nursery. It consisted of two saw horses and a barn door. It is still on display their today. Hattie Mcgowan quite vividly retold of her memories of that bloody night in an interview she gave shortly before her death in 1931 recalling the smell of blood and powder smoke and the sounds of the intense suffering of the wounded. One can only imagine the nightmares these two children experienced for years afterwards.

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drdonckeandmdposts-blog · 7 years ago

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"TRUTH CRUSHED TO EARTH WILL RISE" 155 years ago, the bloody two day Battle of Stones River resumed on January 2nd 1863 after a New Years day break. Confederate Major General John Cabell Breckinridge of Kentucky, (pictured above), (also former Vice President of The United States under James Buchannan), was ordered to lead the famous "Orphan Brigade" of Kentucky into a virtual suicide charge at Mcfadden's Ford on the Stones River near Murfreesboro Tennessee. Breckinridge would severely protest the orders given by Lt. General Braxton Bragg, yet dutifully followed them none the less. By January 2, Union forces had taken the ridge that ran along the Stones River. Against Breckinridge's advice, Bragg ordered the 2nd Division to launch the suicidal frontal assault on the federal position. Prior to attacking, Breckinridge wrote to Brigadier General William Preston, "if the attack should result in disaster and I be among the slain, I want you to do justice to my memory and tell the people that I believed this attack to be very unwise and tried to prevent it." The final result of the failed attack was a loss of over one third of his men. Breckinridge was reported to have ridden among the post battle carnage saying "My poor orphans". The story of John C. Breckinridge is among the most tragic of political stories in American history. At one point, he was truly the rising star in American politics. Events beyond his control and the country's deep divide over the issue of slavery would force him into the corner of choosing between being politically correct or standing firmly upon his convictions. A man of principle, he would choose the later, and the ramifications would lead to astounding and devastating results. He was elected vice-president of the United States in 1856 at the age of 36. This was only one year above the constitutionally required minimum age. He still has the distinction of being the youngest vice-president in the history of the United States. He would be a Democratic presidential candidate in 1860. John Cabell Breckinridge was born on January 16, 1821, at Thorn Hill, Lexington, Kentucky, to Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, Kentucky's Secretary of State, and Mary Clay Smith. He was the fourth and only son of six children. After his father’s death due to unexpected illness in 1823, the family moved to Lexington, where he studied at Pisgah Academy in Woodford County. In 1834, He enrolled at Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky. After graduating from Centre 1839, Breckinridge read law under Judge William Owsley, a future Kentucky governor. He went on to attend the College of New Jersey, (now Princeton for one year and complete his study of the law at Transylvania Institute in Lexington, Kentucky. Admitted to the bar in 1840, he moved to the Iowa Territory a year later and practiced law. His ties to Kentucky remained strong, however, and he returned to his native state in 1843. That same year he married Mary Cyrene Burch, (pictured below), a cousin of his law partner, Thomas Bullock. Breckinridge was seemingly destined to enter politics. His grandfather had served as a U.S. senator and attorney general under President Thomas Jefferson. His father had served as a Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives. However, unlike most of his family, Breckinridge chose the Democratic party over the once popular but now dying Whig party for his party allegiance. At the outbreak of The Mexican American War he volunteered for service as a major of Kentucky volunteers. This temporarily delayed his entry into the political arena. He began to attract notice as a tremendous orator and potential candidate for office while still in his early twenties. Returning home, he was elected to the Kentucky House in 1849. Two years later, he ran for the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives once held by Whig Henry Clay. His victory was considered a significant one for the Democrats and marked Breckinridge as an emerging party leader. As sectional differences grew in the U.S. especially over the issue of slavery, he adamantly encouraged compromise between North and South at the start of his career. As the controversy over territory won during the Mexican War grew intense, he adopted more pro-Southern positions. He favored repeal of the controversial Missouri Compromise. His personal views about slavery were much more complex. Breckinridge expressed support for voluntary emancipation and favored colonization of freed slaves in Liberia. He never clearly overtly favored the institution of slavery, but believed that emancipation could not be forced through legislation. He believed in the process of slow emancipation which would come from the hearts of men who would see it as a moral evil. He advanced from a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to serve as Vice President of The United States under James Buchanan from 1857 until 1861. He and Buchannan did not see eye to eye on many issues and subsequently his powers and duties as Vice President were very limited. As the election of 1860 approached it became apparent that the incumbent James Buchanan was not a suitable for reelection. The Democratic Party looked for another alternative. The time bomb issue for the election was slavery. Democratic candidate Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois supported the platform of popular sovereignty, letting each territory set their own laws to decide if slavery was permitted. The heavily Southern Democrats would not stand for this. They demanded that slavery be allowed in all territories without restrictions. Southern delegates decided to walk out of their own convention and selected their own nominee. They chose Breckinridge. He insisted that the Federal government follow the Constitution as it was written by the founding fathers and act to protect slavery in all U.S. territories, leaving the states to decide for themselves whether or not slavery was legal within their own borders. Such guarantees of slaveholders' rights were unacceptable to Illinois senator Stephen Douglas, who went on to secure the 1860 Democratic presidential nomination. Southerners opposed to Douglas convened their own convention and nominated Breckinridge as a competing Democratic candidate, with Oregon senator Joseph Lane as his running mate. Breckinridge had no desire to head what he saw as a doomed split ticket. He had already been elected to the U.S. Senate and expected to take office following his Vice-Presidential term. He finally consented to run purely out of a sense of duty, and hoped Douglas would withdraw in favor of a new Democratic nominee. Upon hearing of his nomination, Breckinridge wrote, "I feel that it does not become me to select the position I shall occupy, nor shrink from the responsibilities of the post to which I have been assigned. Accordingly, I accept the nomination from a sense of public duty, and, as I think, uninfluenced in any degree by the allurements of ambition." In the end, both he and Douglas remained in the race against Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. A fourth candidate, Constitutional Union nominee John Bell, also competed for the anti-Lincoln vote. In 1849, while practicing law in Iowa he had met Abraham Lincoln, the Illinois legislator who had married Breckinridge's cousin Mary Todd. Lincoln frequently paid courtesy calls to the areas lawyers, and Lincoln and Breckinridge would become friends, despite their differences in party and ideology. Widely seen as the candidate of Southern dis-unionists, Breckinridge insisted that he was the true Unionist in the race. However, it became clear that his ticket would only attract support in the South and, barring a combination with Douglas and Bell, Lincoln would be elected. Attempts at combining forces were only partially successful, and the 1860 presidential election resulted in Lincoln sweeping the North while winning only 39 per cent of the national popular vote. Breckinridge came in third in the popular vote, carrying 12 of the 15 slave states for a total of 72 electoral votes. He failed to carry a single free state and, to his particular disappointment, was defeated in Kentucky which had elected a plurality of Union politicians. The results of the 1860 Presidential election revealed how polarized the nation had truly become. Taking his seat in the U.S. Senate, Breckinridge worked hard to promote compromise proposals that would allay Southern fears of Republican anti-slavery policies. As the Union began to unravel, he felt compelled to first defend the rights of secessionists, then to join them. When the Kentucky legislature voted to support the Union on September 18, 1861, his political position became untenable. Breckinridge's loyalty was severely questioned. When the prospect of The American Civil War grew likely, Breckinridge who was against secession saw the prospect of a separate Confederacy as a country that was doomed to fail. His support for the divisive Kansas-Nebraska Bill further aligned him with militant States Rights supporters. He ultimately wanted peace over all. In the remainder of his term as Vice-President, Breckinridge worked to avoid secession, and keep his home state of Kentucky neutral, He was not successful on either issue. Even though Breckinridge lost the presidency, he had alread elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky. He spent 1861 trying to keep Kentucky neutral. Then his poitical stardom took a dire turn. The collapse in his career was ultimately a result of trying to stand firm and defend three positions that could not be reconciled: slavery, anti-secessionist leanings, and a hope that his home state of Kentucky would remain neutral in the war. Ultimately, he could not salvage any of the three. The flash point in the already deepened crisis occurred when in mid 1861 Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in areas the army felt it needed to secure for troops to reach Washington. Northern states sent Union regiments south in response to Lincoln's call to save the capital and confront the rebellion. On April 19, mobs in Baltimore, which controlled the rail links, attacked Union troops who were changing trains, and local leaders' groups later burned rail bridges leading to the capital. The Army responded by arresting local Maryland officials. John Merryman, a Maryland official involved in hindering the U.S. troop movements, petitioned Supreme Court Chief Justice and Marylander, Roger B. Taney, author of the controversial pro-slavery Dred Scott opinion, to issue a writ of habeas corpus, and in June, Taney, acting as a circuit judge and not speaking for the Supreme Court, issued the writ, because in his opinion only Congress could suspend the writ. Lincoln continued the army policy that the writ was suspended in limited areas despite the Ex parte Merryman ruling. Based on the Constituition as it was written, Lincoln did not have the authority to suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln didn’t respond, appeal, or order the release of Merryman. But during a July 4 speech, Lincoln was defiant, insisting that he needed to suspend the rules in order to put down the rebellion in the South.

Five years later, a new Supreme Court essentially backed Justice Taney’s ruling: In an unrelated case, the court held that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus and that civilians were not subject to military courts, even in times of war. (As an informational note, This was not the last time that the U.S. federal government willfully ignored its own laws during times of strife. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt suspended the writ and had hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans sent to internment camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some forty years later, a U.S. congressional commission determined that those held in the camps had been victims of discrimination. (Each camp survivor was awarded $20,000 in compensation from the U.S. government.)

Breckinridge took the floor of the senate on July 16th 1861. He attacked Lincoln for committing this extraordinary act, as well as the ordering of raising men for arms in southern and neutrally declared states without legislative sanction, imposing blockades on all southern ports, and the conducting of unlawful searches and seizures. Breckinridge argued correctly that these were all violations of the U.S. Bill of Rights. He emphatically denied the right of one branch of government to indemnify the illegal acts of another branch, for it could mean that Congress could set aside the Constitution at will. Thus the Congress could very well alter the document, even though that power was originally reserved for the states. He argued that in doing so Lincoln had drawn to himself the powers of his own branch of the government, (Congress), which alone was empowered to grant him that authority and the Supreme court which was responsible for deciding the guilt or innocence of anyone arrested. Breckinridge felt that it was a consolidated concentration of power and stated, "which, in every age of the world, has been the very definition of despotism." The speech was met with extreme reaction. True to their actions, in an act of censorship the Lincoln administration would not allow the Associated Press to telegraph the Breckinridge speech over the wires. On July 19th, just four days after the Confederate victory at Bull Run, and after being wrongly and repeatedly characterized as a dis-unionist, he took the Senate floor once again. He stated, "To that tribunal, however, I will submit the question; and if, indeed, it be true that the people of Kentucky shall believe that the prosperity and peace of this country can best be promoted by an unnatural, fratricidal and horrible war... I will acquiesce, in sadness and in tears, in her decision; but I will no longer be her representative on the floor of the American Senate." On August 1, he declared that, if Kentucky sided with the Federal government against the Confederacy, "she will be represented by some other man on the floor of this Senate."

To show how divided Kentucky was before, during, and after the conflict. During the war, Kentucky Presbyterian minister Robert J. Breckinridge was an important advisor to President Abraham Lincoln. Robert J. Breckinridge was the uncle of John Cabell Breckinridge. He was born near Lexington in 1800, the son of a U. S. Senator in President Thomas Jefferson’s cabinet. Breckinridge attended Princeton University where he was suspended for fighting. Even following his graduation from Union College in 1819, he was prone to engage in partying and revelry. Deciding to enter politics, he was elected to the Kentucky legislature in 1829 as a member of the Whig party. Soon afterwards he nearly died of an illness and also experienced the death of a child. He had some sort of religious experience and instead entered the ministry where he graduated in 1832. After serving as president of Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky, where he led the First Presbyterian church of Lexington, Kentucky. He was also appointed superintendent of public education by Governor William Owsley. The changes he brought led to a tenfold increase in public school attendance and led to him being called the father of the public school system in Kentucky. Following graduation, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky with no clear direction in his life. He began to amuse himself by attending various parties and other social engagements. During a visit to the state capital, he offended one man severely and was challenged to a duel. He obtained two pistols, but never accepted the challenge, He was labeled a coward. The dispute was later settled in the Masonic Lodge of which both Breckinridge and the other man were members. He was a staunch Calvinist. He was also a slave owner who believed in the concept of gradual emancipation much like his nephew. He was also a staunch Unionist. His own family, however, was the truest definition of a family divided, with two sons in the Union army and two others in Confederate service. In addition, his nephew, John Cabell Breckinridge, was a Confederate general and later would become the Confederate Secretary of War. Two of his sons, Joseph and Charles fought for the Union cause, and two, Willie and Robert Jr. fought for the Confederacy. In addition, three of his sons-in-law also fought for the Union. His daughter Sophonisba's husband, Theophilus Steele, rode with Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan. It is highly likely that Robert Breckinridge's efforts kept Steele from being executed after he was captured late in the war. Following the war, Willie Breckinridge's wife Issa refused to let her father-in-law see his two grandchildren for a period of two years. He would prove to be extremely influential with Lincoln and Kentucky’s Union military commanders, and wanted secessionists to be harshly handled. Breckinridge worked for Lincoln’s reelection in 1864, and his wartime opinions alienated him from several family members for years after the Civil War. John Cabell Breckinridge s a man of deeply held principles and conviction. Before the war he had stated "I would prefer to see these States all reunited upon true constitutional principles to any other object that could be offered me in life ... But I infinitely prefer to see a peaceful separation of these States than to see endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which I see the grave of public liberty and of personal freedom. None the less due to his strong stand on the States Rights issue he resigned, (or was kicked out of), the United States Senate when he decided to join the Confederacy. He was quoted as saying, I resign because there is no place left where a Southern Senator may sit in council with the Senators of the North. In truth there is no longer a Senate of The United States within the meaning and Spirit of the Constitution....I will defend my birthright and that of my fellow Kentuckians who have been denied the protection due them, and were forced to chose between arrest, exile, or resistance. I will now exchange with proud satisfaction a term of six years in the Senate of the United States for the musket of a soldier. As for one forced to make that choice, I intend to resist." Many political aquantances of Breckinridge truly believed that had he stayed in the Union that The United States Presidency was his for the taking in 1864. He would pay the ultimate political price since his actions were considered treason in the north.

Kentucky's neutrality was breached by both Federal and Confederate forces in September of 1861. Soon after, Unionists in the state arrested former governor Charles S. Morehead for suspected Confederate sympathies. They also shut down the Louisville Courier because of its pro-Confederate editorials. Word reached Breckinridge that Union General Thomas E. Bramlette intended to arrest him. Since neutrality for Kentucky could not be achieved, Breckinridge sided with the South and decided to enter the Confederate military. To avoid capture, on September 19, 1861, he was joined in Prestonsburg ky. by Confederate sympathizers George W. Johnson, George Baird Hodge, William Preston, and William E. Simms. The group journeyed to Abingdon, Virginia, then by train to Bowling Green, Kentucky. After receiving his commission in the Confederate Army, he was expelled from the United States Senate in December 1861. Breckinridge entered the checkered company of Aaron Burr as United States vice-presidents accused of being traitors. The state legislature immediately requested that Breckinridge resign. On December 2, 1861, he was officially labeled as a traitor by the U. S. Senate. A resolution was made declaring "Whereas John C. Breckinridge, a member of this body from the State of Kentucky, has joined the enemies of his country, and is now in arms against the government he had sworn to support: Therefore--Resolved, That said John C. Breckinridge, the traitor, be, and he hereby is, expelled from the Senate." The vote was taken on December 4 1861 and was unanimous in favor of the resolution. Ten other Southern Senators had been expelled earlier that year. Upon joining the Confederacy, Breckinridge would ultimately serve with distinction in the war. On November 2, 1861 Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner recommended that Breckinridge receive a commission as a brigadier general. On November 16, he was officially given command of the 1st Kentucky Brigade, later to become known as "The Orphan Brigade." The brigade was part of Buckner's 2nd Division under the command of Lt. General Albert Sidney Johnston. Even as a newly appointed Confederate general, Breckinridge proved to be ingenious and spirited, creating deep loyalty in his troops. Many in the First Kentucky were former political supporters, and several others were related to him in some way. By leading the Orphan Brigade, he would join a group of men who were truly not allowed to return home. Some believe the name derives from how the Confederacy viewed soldiers from Kentucky (which remained in the Union, but was represented by a star in both countries' flags. Another possible source for the name stems from Kentucky's volatile political situation. Men had to leave the state in order to enlist, and this coupled with Kentucky's position behind Union lines meant that soldiers had difficulty returning home for furlough, and made it nearly impossible for new recruits to fill depleted ranks. In some communities, Confederate soldiers who returned home would have been indicted by the Unionist government. Another possible derivation for the name stems from the brigade's repeated loss of commanders. Initially led by Brecknridge, who was wildly popular among the men, even after he was promoted and transferred. Breckinridge was replaced by Brig. Gen. Roger Hanson, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Stones River on January 2, 1862. Hanson's replacement, Brig. Gen. Benjamin Hardin Helm would later be mortally wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. A popular story credits Breckenridge with coining the name. Riding among the brigade's survivors at Stone's River, Breckinridge, now division commander, lamented the bloody results of a charge he had vehemently opposed. According to some sources, after seeing the state of his former troops and learning of the loss of their leader Hanson, he cried out, "My poor orphans!" He spent several weeks training his newly acquired troops in Bowling Green. He also played a very active role in the organization of a provisional Confederate government for Kentucky. Although not sanctioned by Frankfort, its existence prompted the Confederacy to admit Kentucky on December 10, 1861. Albert Sydney Johnston was forced to withdraw his troops from Bowling Green in February of 1862. On Feb. 13th 1862 The First Kentucky Brigade marched out of Kentucky and into Tennessee. This was the last time for nearly eight years that Breckinridge would set foot in his home state. During the retreat, Breckinridge was in charge of Johnston's Reserve Corps. Johnston decided to attack Ulysses S. Grant's forces at Shiloh, Tennessee on April 6, 1862. Breckinridge's reserves took part as Johnston tried to force Grant's troops into the river. Despite Johnston being killed in the fighting, the Confederates made steady progress until Lt. General P. G. T. Beauregard assumed command after Johnston's death and gave orders to break off the fight. The next day, the Union forces regrouped, as well as receiving significant reinforcements during the night, and regained the ground lost on the first day of fighting. This resulted in a bloody two day stalemate at Shiloh leading to over 24000 casualties total. Of some 7,000 troops under Breckinridge's command, 386 were killed and 1,628 were wounded. Breckinridge's performance at Shiloh earned him a promotion to major general on April 14, 1862. Afterwards he joined Major General Earl Van Dorn near Vicksburg, Mississippi. Soon after arriving in Vicksburg, Van Dorn ordered Breckinridge to recapture the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Despite having his force reduced to around 3,000 by illness and desertions, he attacked Baton Rouge on Aug. 5th 1862, capturing several prisoners, destroying supplies, and driving occupying Union forces from the city. The ironclad Arkansas was to support Breckinridge's attack, but was immobilized by mechanical failure. It was thus deliberately sank to prevent its capture. Without naval support, the Confederates were unable to hold Baton Rouge. After Baton Rouge Breckinridge served as an independent commander in the lower Mississippi Valley, securing Confederate control by taking Port Hudson, which slowed the Union army's advance down the Mississippi River. Meanwhile, Confederate Lt. General Braxton Bragg was preparing an invasion of Kentucky, and Breckinridge was ordered to join him. Confederate leaders believed that Breckinridge's presence in Kentucky could spur numerous enlistments. Van Dorn was quite reluctant to lose Breckinridge and delayed the movement into mid October. Unfortunately it was too late. Bragg was already in the process of retreating from the Kentucky after The Battlew of Perryville. Breckinridge and his division of 7,000 met Bragg at Murfreesboro, Tennessee in late 1862. With Kentucky now solidly under Union control, Breckinridge's wife and children moved south and followed his troops as closely as was safely possible. ASA LEWIS AND THE FEUD WITH BRAGG Lt. General Braxton Bragg (pictured below),and Breckinridge had initially shared a very solid relationship. That would change dramatically after Bragg retreated from Kentucky. Firstly, it had deprived Breckinridge and the Orphan Brigade of a chance to return to their native state. Secondly, while in Kentucky, Bragg had conscripted recruits for his army which infuriated the Orphans as well as Breckinridge who considered resigning. Thirdly, and the most severe were Bragg's own words that, "the men of the state were cowards and were not worth liberating." But the true boiling point in the relationship would be reached in December 1862 at Murfreesboro Tennessee. Corporal Asa Lewis was a young farmboy from Barren County, Kentucky, born around 1843. At the outset of the war he voluntarily enlisted in the 6th Kentucky Infantry Regiment of the "Orphan Brigade." He soon served with great distinction at The Battle of Shiloh and was promoted to corporal.

Lewis' one year term of enlistment had just expired. But he, like the rest of the men in the brigade reenlisted for another year. He soon received word from his mother that she desperately needed his aid. The family was apparently struggling financially. He requested a furlough, but it was refused. He reapplied and promised to return to duty as soon as possible. Bragg again refused his request, stating that discipline must be enforced no matter what the surrounding circumstances.

Lewis took leave without permission, with the full intention of returning. This was often referred to by fellow soldiers as a "French Leave". He was shortly thereafter captured. Since his circumstances were so appealing he was granted clemency and not court-martialed. His mother wrote to him again and pleaded for him to return home. He left once again without permission. He was captured once again and brought to trial for desertion On this occasion he was subsequently court martialed and sentenced to be executed by firing squad. On Christmas Day 1862 the Kentucky officers collectively signed and sent a petition to Bragg to have the young mans sentence commuted. Bragg refused, saying that discipline must be enforced. On the morning of the scheduled execution Breckinridge and the other Kentucky officers made one last plea in behalf of Lewis to Bragg. Bragg refused and insolently stated that "Kentuckians were too independent for the good of the army and that he would shoot every one of them if he had to." A furious Breckinridge shouted back that his men would not be treated like animals and that this execution would be murder. Upon hearing the final verdict, members of the Orphan Brigade threatened mutiny and raced for their weapons before Breckinridge stepped in to restore peace. Bragg ordered that Lewis be executed in front of the entire division. Many officers were asked to lead the execution before one finally accepted. Most had flatly refused. At 11 A.M. on the morning of the execution, Breckinridge, who had visited Lewis numerous times during the trial and incarceration, was on horseback. He dismounted and walked over to talk to Lewis. Lewis gave Breckinridge his only possession, a pocketbook that he requested to be given to his mother. They spoke a few last words and said their goodbyes. Breckinridge returned and remounted his horse. As the rain began to fall in torrents, on December, 26, 1862, General Braxton Bragg had Asa Lewis executed for desertion by firing squad.

Johnny Green (a fellow soldier and member of The Orphan Brigade), wrote: "All was ready. He asked Genl Breckinridge for permission to say only a few words to the detail." He said, "Comrades I know you are all grieved to do this work but don't be distressed; none of you will know who kills me for you know one of the guns has no ball in it. Each man may think his was the harmless gun. But I beg of you to aim to kill when the command "fire" is given; it will be merciful to me. Good bye". The Lieutenant in command of the detail of executioners gave the command. "Ready-Aim-Fire!". It was all was over and a terrible gloom settled over the entire command. Could some form of clemency not have been granted in this situation with a more positive effect? Members of the Orphan Brigade would later recall quite vividly; "when the young man fell, General Breckinridge was seized with a deathly sickness and dropped forward on the neck of his horse." John C. Breckinridge was a man of principal and integrity, not only in politics, and not only on the battlefield, but also personally. After eight long years of war, exile, and extreme struggle and personal hardship he kept Asa Lewis's promise and after finally returning to Kentucky he would personally deliver the pocketbook to the boy's mother.

Lewis was buried in the Murfreesboro City Cemetery. The bodies in that cemetery were moved after the war and the exact site of his grave has been lost. In 1996 the Glasgow Cemetery in Kentucky allowed a tombstone to be erected "in memory of" the young Barren County boy, Asa Lewis. May he rest in peace. The execution of Asa Lewis further deepened the developing rift between the Kentuckians, Breckinridge, and Bragg. But even worse The seeds of poison were sown for a deathly bitterness that would affect every battle in the western theater for the remainder of the war. The Confederate forces in this arena would suffer from a command structure that was rent asunder with jealousy, vindictiveness, and backbiting. Bragg was always somehow involved either directly or indirectly. While Bragg was a brilliant man, he was not terribly personable. He was irascible, rigid and an iron fisted disciplinarian who tolerated little in his command. His demeanor caused great resentment in far too many of his subordinate officers. This resentment would prove more formidable than the entire Yankee Army for Confederate forces in the west. In just five days following The Lewis execution, it would rear it's ugly head again at a place called Stones River. At Murfreesboro Tennessee, Breckinridge's Division had been assigned to Lt. General William J. Hardee's corps and were stationed on the east side of the Stones River. Union Lt. General William Rosecrans attacked on December 31, 1862, beginning the Battle of Stones River. Bragg's force was initially able to repel the attack. Bragg had ordered Breckinridge's division to reinforce him on the west side of the river, but Brig. Gen. John Pegram's cavalry erroneously reported that a large Union force was advancing along the east bank, thus causing Breckinridge to be more reluctant to carry out Bragg's order. When he finally was able to cross, his attacks were largely ineffective. The first day of the battle was pretty much a bloody stalemate. Both army's took New years Day 1863 off from battle. By January 2, Union forces had taken the ridge that ran along the river. Against Breckinridge's advice, (as well as other commanders in the army), Bragg ordered Breckinridge's 2nd Division to launch what was foreseen by many as a suicidal attack on the Federal position, which was on the high ground and well fortified. Breckinridge also knew that their were superior numbers of large bore artillery pieces on the crest of the hill. Prior to the attack, Breckinridge wrote to William Preston, "if the attack should result in disaster and I be among the slain, I want you to justice to my memory and tell the people that I believed this attack to be very unwise and tried to prevent it." It would be the only time during the entire war that Breckinridge would speak of his potential death before a battle. Brigadier general Roger Hanson, (pictured below), of Kentucky who would lead one of the Brigades in Breckinridge's Division was so angered by Bragg's order to make the deadly assault that he had to be restrained from going to Bragg's headquarters and killing him. To add even more interest to this episode, the other two Brigades in Breckinridge's division had previously lost their commanders. Bragg had picked their replacements personally and both were easily corrupted men. The first was Gideon J. Pillow, a man who was basically incompetent as a field commander. He was also known to be a liar, and a coward. In fact, during this particular confrontation as his brigade advanced with bayonets fixed, Pillow was discovered back in the woods, from where his men had emerged, hiding behind a tree. He would have remained their, had Breckinridge not ordered him to move. The other brigade commander appointed by Bragg was Brigadier General Felix Huston Robertson, who would later take place in the massacre of hospitalized wounded Union soldiers in Virginia, (discussed later). Interestingly after The Battle of Stones River, many reports were filed by the different commanders, including Bragg, Breckinridge, William J. Hardee, Patrick Cleburne and Robertson. Robertson would actually write two very different reports. The first was a very reasonable version. However when Bragg laid eyes on it, he was not satisfied. Bragg was in great fear of being blamed for the loss of the battle and being replaced in command. Due to his "friendly and favorable" relationship with Robertson, Bragg insisted indirectly, but rather obviously, that Robertson "revise" his report. Robertson did just that. The revised report was a total scathing of Breckinridge's performance in the field. It basically hinted at his disobedience and insubordination towards Bragg and strongly implied a dereliction of duty. Some time later, Robertson would admit to the ruse between him and Bragg, and admit that he wrote an incorrect report at Bragg's suggestion. But in the mean time Robertson was given a very comfy position in Richmond as one of Bragg's lobbyists Breckinridge's men initially broke the Union line and forced them across the river. But heavy Union artillery fire, (51 guns in all) on the opposite side opened fire on his men, and reinforcements for the fleeing Union troops arrived. In just over an hour, nearly one-third of Breckinridge's troops were killed. It was reported that, as he rode among the survivors, he cried out repeatedly, "My poor Orphans! My poor Orphans, they have been cut to pieces" bringing recognition to the name Orphan Brigade. It is uncertain exactly what Breckinridge meant by Orphan. It could have referred to the fact that their home state had abandoned them or the fact that their leader had been killed. Brigadier General Roger Hanson lay dying from his wounds in a nearby Murfreesboro field hospital. It was Hanson's first battle as a general. He was mortally wounded during the charge when he was struck above the knee by the fuse of a spent artillery shell. His brother-in-law, Breckinridge, vainly tried to stop the bleeding. He died two days later at age 35, his last words, "I die in a just cause, having done my duty." General Breckinridge remarked in his official report, "Endeared to his friends by his private virtues and to his command by the vigilance with which he guarded its interest and honor, he was, by the universal testimony of his military associates, one of the finest officers that adorned the service of the Confederate States." Hanson is buried at Lexington Cemetery in Lexington, Kentucky. Bragg's official report of the battle criticized the conduct of Breckinridge's division and assigned to Breckinridge most of the blame for the Confederate defeat. Breckinridge asserted to his superiors that Bragg's report "fails...to do justice to the behavior of my Division". Breckinridge requested a court of inquiry over the entire matter, but it was denied. Several Kentuckians under Breckinridge's command, who already blamed Bragg for the failed invasion of their native state, encouraged Breckinridge to resign his commission and challenge Bragg to a duel. There is no proof, but it was the opinion of many, especially those members of the Orphan Brigade, that Bragg ordered the attack involving Breckinridge and the orphan's as retribution over the Asa Lewis affair.

Having had enough of Bragg, Breckinridge was reassigned under the command of Lt. General Joseph E. Johnston In May of 1863, He took part in the Battle of Jackson Mississippi in an attempt to break the Union army's Siege of Vicksburg Mississippi. Vicksburg would eventuall fall to Union forces on July 4 1863. Breckinridge was again returned to serve under Bragg's command on August 28, 1863. His unit was held in reserve on the first day of the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19, 1863, On the second day he led a division of D.H. Hill's corps. They succeeded in breaking the Union line, but were unable to destroy the entire main army. Of Breckinridge's 3,769 men, 166 were killed, 909 wounded and 165 were missing. The personal loss for Breckinridge was even larger. The Orphan Brigade lost their leader Brigadier General Benjamin Hardin Helm in the battle. He was the brother in law of President Abraham Lincoln as well as a friend of Breckinridge's. Also lost was Major Rice Graves, the head artillery commander in the division, a fellow Kentuckian, and a close friend of Breckinridge's. On the night of Graves wounding, Breckinridge went to bade a final farewell to the dying man. On that same evening he would ride out over the battlefield and experience sights that would haunt his thoughts for the rest of his life. Years later he would recall observing the numerous dead from both sides. He recalled it being "a horrible night, the moon shining down on the white faces of the dead and dying as they stared lifelessly at the sky, the bloated bodies and pitiable screams and groans of thousands making it a nightmare." It was said by many that despite his own personal losses due to the war, separation from family and friends, loss of friends in battle loss of a promising political career, and even his forced exile, that nothing hurt Breckinridge more than the memory of battlefields after a fight. On leave at Richmond in early 1864, he attended a social function. Afterwards he conversed with acclaimed civil war diarist Mary Chestnut. She said to him "You have spent a jolly evening." Breckinridge's rather stoic reply revealed his deep wounding, "I do not know." I have asked myself more than once tonight: Are you the same man who stood gazing down at the faces of the dead on that awful battlefield; the soldiers lying there, they stare at you with their eyes wide open. Is this the same world? Here and There?" In late November, Breckinridge would command under Bragg's once more in the defense of Chattanooga Tennessee. Bragg ordered a significant number of Breckinridge's men to reinforce the corps of Lt. General William J. Hardee, leaving Breckinridge with scant numbers to repel a combined Union attack by Major General Joseph Hooker and Major General George H. Thomas on Missionary Ridge. Breckinridge's son, Cabell, was captured. In his official report, Bragg charged Breckinridge with drunkenness. Just before resigning himself, Bragg removed Breckinridge from command. In February 1864, Confederate President Jefferson Davis reassigned Breckinridge to the Eastern Theater of the war and put him in charge of the Trans-Allegheny Department. On May 5, General Robert E. Lee ordered Breckinridge to take command of a reconnaissance mission to scout Federal forces near Winchester, Virginia. With a force of 4,800 men, he defeated Franz Sigel's 6,300 men at the Battle of New Market. The victory was considered one of his best performances as a commander. Years later an officer in Sigel's cavalry battalion, Lt. F. Wyneken would write Breckinridge. In the letter he said. It was the misconduct of our army and not less the bravery of your soldiers, which turned my mind first in favor of the Confederate cause. I shall never forget the magnificent aspect of your infantry attacking our left and center, the triumphant yell and my cowardly comrades running back for their miserable life! I was ashamed to be in such an army, and repented bitterly what I had done." He later reinforced Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and played an important role in halting Grant's advance at the Battle of Cold Harbor. Breckinridge was wounded during the battle when a cannonball struck his horse and he was pinned underneath. He was still unable to walk or ride when Lee ordered him to command the survivors of a Confederate defeat at the Battle of Piedmont. He traveled on June 10 1864 to Lynchburg, Virginia. He was joined by Lt. Gen. Jubal Early, who arrived in time to save Confederate forces from an assault by Union forces under Major General David Hunter. Early and Breckinridge chased Hunter more than sixty miles from the city, Lee then ordered them to attempt to clear Union forces from the Shenandoah Valley, then cross into Maryland and probe the defenses of Washington, D.C.. After the Battle of Fort Stevens, near Washington, D.C., Early decided to withdraw his forces rather than assault the well-fortified Federal capital. President Abraham Lincoln watched the fight from the ramparts of Fort Stevens. It marked the only time in American history that two former opponents in a presidential election faced one another across battle lines. Early and Breckinridge were able to hold the Shenandoah Valley through July and August. But on September 19, 1864, Union Major General Philip Sheridan forced their retreat at the Third Battle of Winchester. Major General John Brown Gordon's had told Breckinridge to be careful before the battle, Breckinridge responded, "Well, general, there is little left for me if our cause is to fail."

After the death of famed Kentucky Cavalryman John Hunt Morgan, Breckinridge again took command of the Department of East Tennessee and West Virginia. On October 2, 1864, at the First Battle of Saltville Virginia, he protected critical Confederate salt works from forces under Union Major General Stephen G. Burbridge. The next morning, he would discover that soldiers under his command had killed about 100 wounded black Union soldiers of the 5th United States Colored Cavalry. Hearing the gunfire, he rushed to stop the massacre. Breckinridge was reported to have been furious over the atrocity. He attempted to have the commander responsible, Brigadier General Felix Huston Robertson, arrested and put on trial, but was unable to achieve this before the Confederacy disintegrated. Near the wars end, he took the position as Secretary of War in the failing Confederate government. James A. Seddon had resigned as Confederate Secretary of War on January 19, 1865. President Jefferson Davis appointed Breckinridge to the vacant position on February 6th 1865. Breckinridge's appointment was initially opposed by several members of the Confederate Congress because he had waited to join the Confederacy. However he eventually gained their support by administrating more efficiently than any of his predecessors. He was able to expand the post's influence to include making officer assignments, recommending promotions, and advising strategy. His first act was to promote Robert E. Lee to general-in-chief of all Confederate forces. After Lee reported critical shortages of food, clothing, and supplies, Breckinridge recommended the removal of the current Confederate commissary general. The successor appointed by Breckinridge significantly improved the flow of supplies to troops in the field.

By late February, Breckinridge concluded that the Confederate cause was hopeless. Delegating his daily duties to an assistant, he began laying the groundwork for surrender. Davis desired to continue the fight, but Breckinridge urged him strongly, "This has been a magnificent epic. In God's name let it not terminate in farce." On April 2, Lee sent a telegram to Breckinridge informing him that he had to withdraw from his current position, and it would necessitate the evacuation of Richmond. Breckinridge proceeded to organize the flight of the Confederate cabinet to Danville, Virginia. Breckinridge remained to oversee the destruction of supplies to prevent their use by invading Federal forces. In the process, he ensured that the Confederate archives, both government and military, were captured intact by the Union forces. By so doing, he ensured that a full account of the Confederate war effort would be preserved for history. Upon his exit from Richmond, he ordered that the bridges over the James River be burned. After overseeing the transfer of Richmond, Breckinridge joined Robert E. Lee's forces at Farmville, Virginia, on April 5 and remained until April 7. He continued on to Danville, arriving on April 11 to discover that Lee had surrendered on April 9 and the Confederate cabinet had already fled to Greensboro, North Carolina. Arriving in Greensboro on April 13, he advised that all remaining Confederate armies be surrendered; only Davis and Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin disagreed. At Bennett Place, he assisted Joseph E. Johnston in surrender negotiations with William T. Sherman. Sherman later praised Breckinridge's negotiating skills, and the surrender terms agreed to were later criticized by Sherman's colleagues as too generous. At Abbeville, South Carolina, Breckinridge and fellow Kentuckian Basil W. Duke finally convinced Davis that further prosecution of the war was hopeless. Breckinridge was put in charge of the $150,000 in gold remaining in the Confederate treasury. He traveled south by rail to Washington, Georgia. While in route a group of soldiers in his military escort who had been unpaid for their services threatened to divide the gold among themselves before it could be captured by Federal troops. Breckinridge convinced them to abandon the scheme after paying them their wages from the treasury. Some still refused to escort Breckinridge and the bullion any further. He would learn of his old friend and foe Abraham Lincoln's assassination at this time. To those accompanying him he would show deep sadness at the news, saying. "The south has lost it's best friend." With Lincoln out of the way, the Radical Republicans who were now in complete power, could have their way. They might well seek to inflict the ultimate penalty for treason on Breckinridge, which was death. Breckinridge's party arrived in Washington on May 4 1864 and, after paying out several requisitions along the way, deposited the rest in banks. He composed a letter detailing his remaining duties and officially disbanded the Confederate War Department.

Breckinridge discharged most of the men escorting him, retaining only a small contingent of Kentuckians under the command of his cousin, William Campbell Preston Breckinridge. Feeling honor bound to protect Davis, he attempted to create a diversion that would allow him to escape. The next day, they encountered a large Federal force. while his cousin negotiated with the commander, Breckinridge and a small detachment escaped. Riding south across Georgia, he reached Milltown on May 11 1864. Their he learned of Davis's capture. This left Breckinridge as the highest-ranking former Confederate official still at large. He left Milltown with one military aide, a personal servant, and his son Cabell. On May 15, 1865, in Madison, Florida, he was joined by fellow fugitive John Taylor Wood. Breckinridge and Wood decided to flee to The Bahamas, but because Cabell was severely allergic to mosquito bites, Breckinridge told him to surrender to the nearest Federal officer. The mosquitoes would become so bad during their upcomung journey that the refugees would often bury themselves in the sand at night to avoid being bitten.

At Gainesville, Florida, Confederate Colonel J. J. Dickinson provided the fugitives with a lifeboat taken from a captured Federal gunboat. Traveling down the St. Johns River, they reached Fort Butler on May 29. From there, they had to transport the boat over land to the Indian River. They reached the Indian River on May 31, but as they followed its course southward, they had to drag the boat across the river's mudflats and sandbars. Transferring to the Atlantic Ocean near Jupiter Inlet, they went along the Florida coast and landed near present-day Palm Beach on June 4. Strong winds prevented them from navigating out to sea, so they continued southward down the coast.

On June 5, the were spotted by a Federal steamer, but convinced the crew they were hunters scavenging the coast. Two days later, they encountered a larger boat with a mast and rigging. They proceeded to run it down, disarm the occupants and hi-jack the craft. As compensation, they exchanged them their old boat and twenty dollars apiece in gold to the owners, as well as returning their weapons. With a more seaworthy craft, they fled to Cuba. Departing from Fort Dallas, they survived an encounter with pirates, two significant storms in the gulfstream with waves over twenty feet in height, and a dangerous lack of provisions, (the main staple of their diet was turtle eggs). They finally arrived at Cardevas on June 11, 1865. A Kentuckian then living their named John Cahill recognized Breckinridge and introduced him to locals. They were given food and stayed the night in a local hotel. The next morning, they traveled by train to Havana, where Breckinridge was offered a house. He declined the offer, choosing to travel with Charles J. Helm, a fellow Kentuckian who was operating as a Confederate agent in the Caribbean, to Great Britain. It was while in Cuba that he arrived at the harsh realization that all he had left in the entire world was his wife and children. He was well aware that Federal agents were watching him closely their. He arrived in Britain in late July, consulted with former Confederate agents there and arranged communication with his wife, who was by then in Canada. Re-crossing the Atlantic, he was reunited with his wife and children in Toronto on September 13, 1865. The family moved to Niagara in May 1866. In August, doctors advised Breckinridge's wife that the climate of France might benefit her now ailing health. Cabell Breckinridge returned to America and went into business with his brother Clifton. His 12 year old daughter Mary was sent to live with relatives in New York. The remainder of the family journeyed to Europe. From mid-1866 to early 1868, Breckinridge toured Europe including visits to Germany, Austria, Turkey, Greece, Syria, Egypt, and the Holy Land. On the return trip from the holy Land to Italy, Breckinridge would experience a moment of agony and ecstasy. At Alexandria Egypt he went to visit the American Consul. As he approached, he saw the Stars and Stripes swaying in the breeze on an anchored vessel. He said. "I thought in an ecstasy I never before felt, there is my flag. I had followed it up the heights of Chatapultepec; it had waved over my home, my children had played among it folds; it had been raised in my honor, and in the momentary rush of feelings it was again my flag and the dearest and most beautiful on earth. I realized in all its terrible force, the fact that I had no flag, no country, but was an outcast and a wanderer over the earth." He still believed that his original stand for states rights before and during the war was just, but he deeply regretted the south's secession, and that he had to fight against what he deemed,"his country." He decided at that moment to return to Canada as soon as his European tour was completed, saying, "I had no right to set foot on any part of the soil of the United States," but the rest of my life shall be lived in sight of it even if I may never more have right in it." Due to health issues, his wife remained in France until February 1868, when she then joined him in Naples, Italy. During their tour of Italy, Breckinridge met with Pope Pius IX in Rome, and also visited Pompeii.

Desiring to return to the U.S. but still fearing arrest, Breckinridge moved back to Niagara in June 1868. Within sight of the U.S. border, he steadfastly refused to seek his own pardon. Seventy members of the Kentucky General Assembly requested one on his behalf from President Andrew Johnson on February 10, 1866. On January 8, 1868, the Louisville City Council instructed the state's congressional delegation to seek assurance that Breckinridge would not be prosecuted upon his return. James Beck, Breckinridge's old law partner, was then a member of Congress and wrote to him on December 11, 1868, that it appeared likely that Johnson would issue a general pardon for all former Confederates. He advised Breckinridge to return to the U.S. prior to the pardon being issued because he feared it might only apply to those in the country.

President Andrew Johnson officially proclaimed amnesty for all former Confederates on December 25, 1868. Still in Canada, Breckinridge lingered for a few weeks to receive assurance that the pardon still applied to him even though he had not been in the U.S. when it was issued. He would soon joyfully receive that assurance. He was finally going home. Departing Canada on February 10, he made several stops to visit family and friends along the train route to Lexington. Along the entire route large crowds greeted Breckinridge, eager to hear him speak, and especially to hear him offer his views on current political affairs. He consistently and politely refused. Somewhere between Covington Kentucky and Cynthiana Kentucky he stepped out on the platform to meet old friends. He was heard saying. "You must excuse me from being quiet; I am here by permission, and it is my request that I be allowed to pass quietly. I am glad to get to my home once more. It is nearly eight years since I was here." As he neared Lexington that night on a cloudy rainy evening he was overheard to simply say "Nearly eight years ago." "Nearly eight years ago." Although he resided in Kentucky for the rest of his life, he never bought a home there after the war, living first with a relative then in hotels and finally renting a home on West Second Street.

Many insurance companies in the south asked Breckinridge to join them in various capacities. In August 1868, he became manager of the Kentucky branch of Virginia's Piedmont Life Insurance Company. Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) then offered him a professorship, but he declined. He resumed his law practice, taking a partner Robert A. Thornton, a 27-year-old former Confederate soldier. He served as general counsel for the proposed Cincinnati Southern Railway, which would connect Cincinnati to Chattanooga via Lexington. Officials in Louisville tried to block the move, which would break the near-monopoly that the Louisville and Nashville Railroad had on southern trade. On January 25, 1870, he presented his case to the House and Senate railroad committees, and although initially rejected, the case was approved two years later. Construction began in 1873.

Breckinridge would refuse all requests for political appointments including one made by President Ulysses S. Grant. He stated, "I no more feel the political excitements that marked the scenes of my former years than if I were an extinct volcano." Under the terms of section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress would have been needed to allow him to hold an office because he had sided with the Confederacy. He never expressed any kindling of an interest in seeking such approval. Speaking as a private citizen in March 1870, he publicly denounced the actions of the Ku Klux Klan. General Robert E. Lee passed away on October 12th 1870. A large demonstration took place in Louisville Kentucky in response to Lee's death. Breckinridge broke his silence and gave a brief address. "It is in itself an omen of reunion. It is an invitation on their part to the people of the North and South, East and West, if there be any rancor in their bosoms, to bury it in the grave forever. If the spirit which animates the assembly before me tonight shall become general and permeate the whole country, then may we say the wounds of the late war are truly healed." Speaking of the passing of Union Generals George H. Thomas and James Mcpherson, "What Confederate is there who would refuse to raise his cap as their funeral train went by, or hesitate to drop a flower on their graves? Why? Because they were men of courage, honor, and nobility; because they were true to their convictions of right, and soldiers whose hands were unstained by cruelty or pillage." In 1872, he supported passage of a state statute legalizing black testimony against whites in court. By 1873, Breckinridge began to experience severe health problems which he referred to as "pleuro-pneumonia". Repeated surgeries and visits to the New York coast and the Virginia mountains did not aid his condition. He consulted surgeons Lewis Sayre and Samuel D. Gross, who concluded that his ill health was caused by cirrhosis brought on by injuries to his liver suffered during the war. Of more immediate concern was the fluid that filled two-thirds of one of his lungs. On May 11, Sayre attempted to create an artificial opening to drain the fluid but had to stop before completing the operation, some of the fluid was drained, bringing a bit of relief. Assisted by Beck and Frank K. Hunt, Breckinridge completed his will. Sayre further alleviated Breckinridge's pain via another surgery on the morning of May 17, but by afternoon, his condition rapidly worsened. He died at approximately 5:45 p.m. Basil Duke would lead his funeral procession to Lexington Cemetery where Breckinridge's body was buried. Lee, D.H. Hill, Jubal Early and numerous other fellow commanders who served with Breckinridge would praise his military performance and career after the war. Even a once bitter enemy named Braxton Bragg, would several years after Breckinridge's death say, "the kentuckian was as gallant and true a man as ever lived." A closing testament on the stirring influence that John C. Breckinridge wielded politically may have been summed up best on the same night after his nightmarish ride over the Chickamauga battlefield. After the battlefield ride he returned to the rear where he was informed that one of the many Federal troops that had been captured on that day insisted on speaking with him. Breckinridge would abide and said: "Well, gentlemen, this is what is left of me." One of the Federal prisoners replied back, "Yes, and a damn fine specimen of humanity you are, too. There is not another such a hunk of humanity in our land! I voted for you once, and I want this cursed war over with so that I may vote for you again for president." The gory two day Battle of Stones River was anything but a happy New Year for either side. The bloody two day stalemate left over 24000 men, killed, wounded, or captured. Many men would lie wounded on the cold January field for weeks before being tended to. Stones River battlefield is one of the more beautiful battlefields I have ever seen. It is a must see for anyone interested in the American Civil War and for history buffs in General.

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drdonckeandmdposts-blog · 7 years ago

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A SAD BUT TRUE STORY OF THE DEEPEST OF FRIENDSHIPS Greatness can be defined in numerous way, from performing great battlefield deeds, to achieving political stardom, or to just doing one's duty to the best of their ability. But a truly great man might well be defined by being able to exhibit love and friendship towards an old friend, even if a war forced those two friends to choose different sides in the conflict. The deepest bonds of friendship were formed before The American Civil War ever began between two fellow soldiers who fought as comrades during the Mexican American War. Lt. General Winfield Scott Hancock of the Union and Brigadier General Lewis 'lo' Armistead CSA would cement a bond that would survive the bloodiest conflict in history. Both were career army officers although both had slightly different paths. Hancock was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1840. He was an average student who graduated 18th in his class of 25 in 1844. He was assigned to the infantry after graduation. He was initially assigned to recruiting duty in Kentucky, where he would prove remarkable at signing up soldiers for duty. By 1847, however, Hancock joined his regiment in Puebla, Mexico, led by his namesake, General Winfield Scott. Scott's army moved inland to Puebla and attacked Mexico City in 1847. Hancock first entered the battle at Contreras and Churubusco. He was appointed a brevet first lieutenant. He would be wounded in the knee at Churubusco. Armistead entered West Point in 1833, but had great academic difficulties and poor conduct. He supposedly broke a plate over the head of future Confederate general Jubal A. Early and resigned in 1836. His father who was quite influential managed to obtain a second lieutenant's commission for him in the 6th U.S. Infantry on July 10, 1839. He was promoted to first lieutenant on March 30, 1844. He would continue to serve in Fort Towson, Arkansas and Fort Washita near the Oklahoma border. While serving in the Mexican American War, he was appointed a brevet captain for his performance at Contreras and Churubusco He was wounded at Chapultepec, and promptly appointed a brevet major for duties performed at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. Armistead continued his sevice in the Army after the Mexican War, and was assigned in 1849 to recruiting duty in Kentucky. Hancock was stationed in southern California in November 1858. It was here that he would meet Armistead. Armistead was in command of a small garrison near San Diego, which was occupied in 1860. He served with Hancock as a quartermaster in Los Angeles, California, just before the American Civil War's outbreak. He officially resigned his commission on May 26, 1861, after the state of Virginia seceded. That decision led to an emotional farewell party hosted by Hancock's wife. At the party on the night before leaving to join the Confederate army, Armistead told Hancock, "Goodbye; you can never know what this has cost me." Winfield Scott Hancock and his identical twin brother Hilary Baker Hancock were born on February 14, 1824, in Montgomery Square, Pennsylvania, a small township northwest of Philadelphia in what is present-day Montgomery Township. He was the son of Benjamin Franklin Hancock and Elizabeth Hoxworth Hancock. Winfield was named after Winfield Scott, a prominently performing commander in the War of 1812. Armistead, known to friends as "Lo" (for Lothario), was born in the home of his great-grandfather, John Wright Stanly, in New Bern, North Carolina, to Walker Keith Armistead and Elizabeth Stanly. He came from a prominent military family. Armistead's father was one of five brothers who fought in the War of 1812. One of the brothers was Major George Armistead, the commander of Fort McHenry during the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner". Armistead was of one hundred per cent English descent, and all of his ancestry had resided in Virginia since the early 1600s. Hancock served with distinction in the United States Army for four decades. He was known to his colleagues as "Hancock the Superb". He was noted especially for his personal leadership and gallantry at The Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. One military historian wrote, "No other Union general at Gettysburg dominated men by the sheer force of their presence more completely than Hancock." Another would say "his tactical skill had won him the quick admiration of adversaries who had come to know him as the 'Thunderbolt of the Army of the Potomac'." Armistead was a widower. In April 1850, He and his first wife Cecilia lost their one and only daughter, Flora Love, while serving at Jefferson Barracks. He was next placed to Fort Dodge, but in the winter had to move his ill wife Cecelia to Mobile, Alabama, where she died from unknown causes on December 12, 1850. Afterwards he returned to Fort Dodge. In 1852 the family home in Virginia would be destroyed in a fire and Armistead took leave in October 1852 to return home and help the family. While on leave he remarried a widow, Cornelia Taliaferro Jamison, in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 17, 1853. They both travelled west where Armistead returned to duty. They traveled from post to post in Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas. The new couple soon had a child, Lewis B. Armistead, who died on December 6, 1854, and was buried at Jefferson Barracks next to his first wife Flora Lee. He was officially promoted to captain on March 3, 1855. Shortly after the promotion Cornelia Jamison, died on August 3, 1855, at Fort Riley, Kansas, during a cholera epidemic. As a commander Armistead had a reputation as a tough, soft-spoken, and highly respected leader. He would serve gallantly at Seven Pines in 1862, Antietam in 1862, and at Malvern Hill in 1862. Both men, being very dear friends had always wished that the day would never come where they would be forced to face each other in battle. On July 3 1863 at Gettysburg Pennsylvania those fears would become a cold harsh reality. The night before the battle Armistead, feeling a great premonition of his impending death gave a personal Bible he carried to his corps commander Lt. General James Longstreet. He asked Longstreet to give it to Hancock's wife Almira in the event of his death. Hancock held the high ground defensive position on Cemetery Ridge. Here he would soon bear the brunt of the famous Pickett's Charge. During the massive Confederate artillery bombardment that preceded the infantry assault, Hancock was on horseback reviewing and encouraging his troops. One of his subordinates protested, "General, the corps commander ought not to risk his life that way," Hancock famously replied, "There are times when a corps commander's life does not count." During the massive infantry assault, that followed the incredible artillery barrage, his old friend, now Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, would lead one of the brigades in Maj. Gen. George Pickett's division. Armistead’s brigade would attack Hancock’s corps at the very center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Armistead on foot, actually reached and crossed the wall that protected the Federal artillery. The very spot represents what is now famously referred to as the high-water mark of the Confederacy. When Armistead, at the head of his brigade, reached the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge, he was shot and wounded more than once. The Union troops who fired the fatal shots were commanded by Hancock. Armistead had just placed his hand on a Union cannon when he was struck by a volley of rifle fire. While lying badly wounded, he asked to see Hancock. But Hancock could not meet with his old friend for he had just been wounded himself. Hancock received a severe wound caused by a bullet that struck the pommel of his saddle and entered his right thigh along with wood fragments and a large bent nail. Helped from his horse, and with a tourniquet applied to slow the bleeding, he removed the saddle nail himself. He remarked wryly, "They must be hard up for ammunition when they throw such shot as that." Thge news of Armistead's mortal wounding was brought to Hancock by a member of his staff, Captain Henry H. Bingham. Despite his condition, Hancock refused to be moved to the rear until the battle was settled. Armistead was found by Bingham, an aide to Hancock, and Armistead told him: “Say to General Hancock for me that I have done him and done you all an injury which I shall regret the longest day that I live.” Armistead was carried to a nearby Union field hospital where he died on July 5 from a combination of blood loss and exhaustion. Though initially buried near the hospital, his remains were later moved to Baltimore and interred in the family vault at Old Saint Pauls Cemetery. Hancock had been an inspiration for his troops throughout the three-day Battle of Gettysburg. He later received the thanks of the U.S. Congress for "... his gallant, meritorious and conspicuous share in that great and decisive victory." Armistead's gallant and bold leadership has been depicted in numerous artworks showing the famous image of him removing his hat and impaling it on the end of his sword while urging his men on while at the head of the brigade. Hancock's career afterwards would be anything but silent. Hancock suffered from the effects of his wound for the remainder of the war. After recuperating, he performed recruiting services through the winter and returned in the spring to field command of the II Corps for Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign. He never fully recovered. He still performed well at the Battle of the Wilderness and at the Mule Shoe at the "Bloody Angle" and in the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on May 12. His corps suffered enormous losses during a bloody frontal assault Grant ordered at The Battle of Cold Harbor. Hancock's only significant military defeat occurred during the Siege of Petersburg. Due to the lingering effects of his earlier wound, he left the II Corps after a year in which it had suffered over 40,000 casualties, but had achieved significant victories. When the war ended and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated Hancock was assigned to supervise the execution of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, and on May 9, a military commission had been convened to try the accused. The actual assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was already dead, but the trial of his co-conspirators proceeded quickly, resulting in blanket convictions. President Andrew Johnson ordered the executions to be carried out on July 7. Although he was reluctant to execute some of the less-culpable conspirators, especially Mary Surratt, Hancock carried out his orders, later writing that "every soldier was bound to act as I did under similar circumstances." President Andrew Johnson thought Hancock would make the ideal Reconstruction general. President Johnson, who was a true Democrat was at obtuse odds with the northern faction of Republicans who wanted total control and subjugation of the recently conquered south. Unhappy with the way Republican generals were governing the South under Reconstruction, he sought more suitable replacements for them. The general who offended Johnson the most was Major General Philip Sheridan. Johnson soon ordered General Grant to switch the assignments of Hancock and Sheridan, believing that Hancock, a Democrat, would govern in a style more to Johnson's and the southern peoples liking. Although neither was pleased with the change, Sheridan reported to Fort Leavenworth and Hancock to New Orleans. Hancock's new assignment found him in charge of the Fifth Military District, covering Texas and Louisiana. Almost immediately upon arriving, Hancock ingratiated himself with the white conservative population by issuing his General Order Number 40 of November 29, 1867. In that order, written while traveling to New Orleans, Hancock expressed sentiments in support of President Johnson's policies, writing that if the residents of the district conducted themselves peacefully and the civilian officials perform their duties, then "the military power should cease to lead, and the civil administration resume its natural and rightful dominion."The order continued: The great principles of American liberty are still the lawful inheritance of this people, and ever should be. The right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the press, the freedom of speech, the natural rights of persons and the rights of property must be preserved. Free institutions, while they are essential to the prosperity and happiness of the people, always furnish the strongest inducements to peace and order. Hancock's order greatly encouraged white Democrats in the South who hoped to return to civilian government more quickly instead of military rule. But the order discomforted blacks, scallywags, carpetbaggers, and especially The Radical Republicans in the North who feared a return to antebellum ways. Hancock's General Order Number 40 was quickly condemned by Republicans in Washington, especially by the Radicals, while President Johnson wholeheartedly approved. Despite the protests, Hancock soon put his words into action, refusing local Republican politicians requests to use his power to overturn elections and court verdicts, while also letting it be known that open insurrection would be suppressed. Hancock's popularity within the Democratic party grew to the extent that he was considered a potential presidential nominee for that party in the 1868 election. Hancock collected a significant number of delegates at the 1868 convention. Even so, he was already labeled as a rare breed in politics: one who believed in the Democratic Party's principles of states' rights and limited government, but whose anti-secessionist sentiment was unimpeachable. Hancock's reputation as a war hero, combined with his status as a Unionist, and a supporter of states' rights, made him a potential presidential candidate. His noted integrity was a counterpoint to the great corruption of the Reconstruction era. President Rutherford B. Hayes said, "if, when we make up our estimate of a public man, conspicuous both as a soldier and in civil life, we are to think first and chiefly of his manhood, his integrity, his purity, his singleness of purpose, and his unselfish devotion to duty, we can truthfully say of Hancock that he was through and through pure gold." Hancock's name had been proposed several times for the Democratic nomination for president, but he never captured a majority of delegates. In 1880, however, Hancock's his chances greatly improved. President Hayes had promised not to run for a second term, and the previous Democratic nominee, Samuel Tilden, declined to run again due to poor health. Hancock faced several competitor. Hancock's neutrality on economic issues, and his strong support in the South due to General Order Number 40 meant that Hancock, more than any candidate, had nationwide support. When the Democratic convention assembled in Cincinnati in June 1880, Hancock led on the first ballot, but did not have a majority. But by the second ballot, Hancock received the needed two-thirds for the nomination. The Republican party nominated James A. Garfield a Congressman from Ohio and a extremely skillful politician. Hancock and the Democrats expected to carry the Solid South, but needed to add a few Northern states in order to win the election. The differences in platform between the two parties were few, and the Republicans were reluctant to attack Hancock personally because of his heroic reputation. The one policy difference the Republicans were able to exploit was the Democratic platform endorsing "a tariff for revenue only." Garfield's campaigners used the statement to paint Democrats as unsupportive industrial laborers, a group that would benefit by a high protective tariff. The issue cut Democratic support in the heavily industrialized Northern states, which were needed to gain a Democratic majority. Ultimately the Democrats and Hancock failed to carry any of the Northern states they targeted, with the exception of New Jersey. Hancock lost in a close election to Garfield. Garfield polled only 39,213 more votes than Hancock, the popular vote being 4,453,295 for Garfield and 4,414,082 for Hancock. But in the electoral college count, Garfield polled 214 electoral votes and Hancock 155. Hancock took his defeat in stride even attending Garfield's inauguration. Following the election, Hancock carried on as commander of the Division of the Atlantic. He was elected as president of the National Rifle Association in 1881. In his reasoning for excepting the post he said, "The object of the NRA is to increase the military strength of the country by making skill in the use of arms as prevalent as it was in the days of the Revolution." Hancock was a Charter Director and the first president of the Military Service Institution of the United States from 1878 until his death in 1886.[86] He was commander-in-chief of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States veterans organization from 1879 until his death in 1886. His last major public appearance when he presided over the funeral of President Ulysses S. Grant in 1885. Winfield Scott Hancock died in 1886 at Governors Island New York, from the effects of an infected carbuncle, complicated by diabetes. He was still serving as commander of the Military Division of the Atlantic. He is buried in Montgomery Cemetery in West Norriton Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, near Norristown, Pennsylvania. It might have been best stated of Hancock by French aristocrat, lawyer, and novelist Regis de Trobiand in July 1864. During the American Civil War, he became a naturalized citizen of the U.S., was then given a commission and served in the Union Army, reaching the rank of general. “General Hancock is one of the handsomest men in the United States Army, He is tall in stature, robust in figure, with movements of easy dignity, in action, dignity gives way to activity; his features become animated, his voice loud, his eyes are on fire, his blood kindles, and his bearing is that of a man carried away by passion – the character of his bravery”. Winfield Scott Hancock impressed his superiors and his soldiers alike. After the Battle of Williamsburg, General George B. McClellan wrote to his wife, “Hancock was superb today.” The term “Superb” stuck with him throughout the war and throughout his life.

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