Commanders of the Civil War: Brief Biographies of Selected Generals and Statesmen in the Conflict of the War Between the States

by George A Scott

Overview

Entering the service on either side at various ranks and from all walks of life, thousands of men commanded as officers over the course of the Civil War. Some rose meteorically to high rank, while others ended their service considerably lower than their initial commission. The select group of forty-four commanders included in this book all served at the highest ranks and have been included for their particular contributions during the war between the states. Each brief biography includes the highlights of the subject's career, place and date of birth and death, and is paired with a period photographic portrait (recently digitized at high resolution) from the Library of Congress collection of images.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935622352
Publisher:	Scott & Nix, Inc.
Publication date:	12/01/2011
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	97
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

George A. Scott III is a partner in the publishing firm of Scott & Nix, Inc. He graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland in 1986 with a B.A. His father, Col. George A. Scott, was a career officer in the Unites States Army and greatly influenced his son's interests in history, particularly American military history. George has worked in publishing since 1989. He lives with his wife Samantha and thier son George A. Scott IV in New York City.

Read an Excerpt

Commanders of the Civil War

Brief Biographies of Selected Generals and Statesmen in the Conflict of the War Between the States

---

By George Scott

Scott & Nix, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Scott & Nix, Inc., New York
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-935622-36-9

---

CHAPTER 1

CONFEDERATE

General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

{Born:May 28, 1818; St Bernard Parish, Louisiana

Died:February 20, 1893; New Orleans, Louisiana

Beauregard graduated from West Point in 1838 and served in the Mexican-American War as an engineer officer under Winfield Scott. He taught at the Military Academy, and became its superintendent in January 1861, although resigned the post after only five days when Louisiana seceded from the Union. He entered the Confederate Army as brigadier general and commanded forces that fired upon Fort Sumter to begin the war. He led at First Manassas (First Bull Run) in 1861 and was promoted to full general, one of only eight of the Confederate Army. He served as second to A. S. Johnston at Shiloh, and replaced him when Johnston was killed in action on April 6, 1862. He commanded a defense of South Carolina and Georgia, and after assisting Lee in the defense of Richmond, went on to join J. E. Johnston's command in the closing period of the war. Johnston and Beauregard surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina in 1865.

CONFEDERATE

General Braxton Bragg

{Born:March 22, 1817; Warrenton, North Carolina

Died:September 27, 1876; Galveston, TX

Bragg graduated from West Point in 1837 and served in the Seminole and Mexican-American wars. He resigned his commission in 1856 and became a farmer and leader in Louisiana local militia. In March 1861, he joined the Confederate Army as a brigadier general and commanded coastal areas from Pensacola to Mobile. In September 1861, he was promoted to major general and lead the Second Corps at Shiloh. After the death of A. S. Johnston at Shiloh, he was made full general on April 6, 1862. As general, he commanded the Army of Tennessee, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. He served as chief of staff to Davis in Richmond and commanded a division of the Army of Tennessee in the Carolinas Campaign, Bentonville, and defenses of southern cities up to the end of the war.

Considered by most historians to have been an unimaginative military tactician, his legacy remains controversial to this day. Although expert at organization, he was a strict disciplinarian with a short temper, and quick to blame others for failures. He was generally disliked by fellow officers and his soldiers, but remained close to Davis throughout the war.

CONFEDERATE

Admiral Franklin Buchanan

{Born:September 13, 1800; Baltimore, Maryland

Died:May 11, 1874; Easton, Maryland

Buchanan became a midshipman at the age of fifteen. He saw service in the Mexican-American War and in 1845, became the first superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy. Part of the Perry expedition to Japan during the 1850s, he went on became commandant of the Washington Navy Yard. Assuming incorrectly that Maryland would secede from the Union, he joined the Confederate Navy in 1861. Given the post of defense of the James River, he personally commanded the new ironclad Virginia (Merrimack) and destroyed the Union vessels Cumberland and Congress blockading Hampton Roads. On March 8, 1864, he was wounded in the leg, which was later amputated, and was forced to retire from the famous battle of the ironclads Virginia and Monitor the next day. He was later promoted to ranking officer of the Confederate Navy and commanded the ironclad Tennessee at Mobile Bay. He was wounded and taken prisoner and exchanged in 1865 shortly before the end of the war.

CONFIDERATE

Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham

{Born:October 20, 1820; Nashville, Tennessee

{Died:September 4, 1886; Nashville, Tennessee

Cheatham served in the Mexican-American War as a volunteer colonel and was a planter, gold prospector, and later major general of his home state militia. He entered the Confederate Army as a brigadier general on July 9, 1861. Less than a year later he was promoted to major general and commanded troops at Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and infamously during the Franklin-Nashville Campaign. His superior officer, Lt. General J. G. Hood, accused Cheatham of a tactical blunder by allowing Schofield's forces to escape. The accusation prompted a controversy and a personal feud between the two officers that continued for the rest of their lives. Cheatham went on to serve in the Carolinas Campaign and surrendered to Sherman in April 1865.

UNION

Major General George Armstrong "Curly" Custer

{Born:December 5, 1839; Harrison County, Ohio

Died:June 25, 1876; Little Big Horn, Montana

Custer graduated from West Point shortly after the start of the war in 1861. Although last in his class at the Military Academy, he quickly distinguished himself as a brave and enterprising officer. Assigned to the Army of the Potomac, his first charge was to carry dispatches for Scott at First Manassas (First Bull Run). He served as a staff officer for McClellan and was promoted to brigadier general in June 1863. He led brigades at Gettysburg, Yellow Tavern, and commanded the 3rd Cavalry in the Shenandoah Campaign, Fisher's Hill, and Five Forks. In 1865, he cut off Lee's last chance of escape at Appomattox. He was made a full major general and after the war was appointed a lieutenant colonel of the new 7th Cavalry. Infamously, he led the same group into ruin during the Indian Wars at Little Bighorn. On June 25th, 1876, after dividing his ranks into detachments, he led an attack on a large Lakota-Cheyenne encampment. He was killed in action and his battalion was annihilated in just three hours.

CONFEDERATE

President Jefferson Davis

{Born:June 3, 1808; Christian County, Kentucky

Died:December 6, 1889; New Orleans, Louisiana

Davis graduated from West Point in June 1828 and commissioned a second lieutenant. He served in the U.S. Army until 1835, when he resigned his commission to marry Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter of his disapproving superior officer, Zachary Taylor. Tragically, his new wife died of malaria after only three months of marriage, and Davis went into seclusion. He emerged later into political life and entered Congress, then rejoined the military to lead in the Mexican-American War. He later became a senator and secretary of war to President Franklin Pierce in 1853.

Davis resigned from the senate in 1861 and announced the secession of Mississippi from the Union. He was immediately commissioned a major general and at a constitutional convention was speedily nominated and inaugurated the President of the Confederacy on February 18, 1861. Davis attempted to personally control the strategies of Confederate forces during the war and refused to appoint the gifted Lee to general-in-chief until 1865. By then it was far too late to effect the outcome of the war. In May 1865, the Confederacy was dissolved and Davis was captured and imprisoned by Union forces. Indicted for treason, he was released on bail after two years, and the case against him was dropped in 1869.

CONFEDERATE

Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early

{Born:November 3, 1816; Franklin County, Virginia

Died:March 2, 1894; Lynchburg, Virginia

Early graduated from West Point in 1837 and served in the Seminole and Mexican-American wars. He practiced law in private life and became a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly. Although he voted against secession, he felt his home state of Virginia was in danger of occupation from Federal troops. In 1861, he entered the Virginia Militia as a colonel, and after First Manassas (First Bull Run) was commissioned a brigadier general. He went on to serve at many battles, including Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Second Manassas (Second Bull Run), the Wilderness, among others. After promotion to lieutenant general in 1864, he commanded a force of some 15,000 men, and under Lee's orders drove through the Shenandoah Valley. His forces were in sight of Washington, D.C. in July 1864, but failed to take the Union capital. Later defeated by Sheridan and Custer, unpopular with his staff and men, he was relieved of command by Lee. He fled to Mexico on horseback, emigrated to Canada, and after writing his memoirs returned to Virginia in 1869.

UNION

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut

{Born:July 5, 1801; Campbell's Station, Tennessee

Died:August 14, 1870; Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Farragut entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman in 1810. At the age of twelve, during the War of 1812, he commanded a vessel to port that had been seized by his adopted father, Captain David Porter. Farragut rose to the rank of captain and in 1861 left his southern home in Norfolk and joined the Union Navy as a flag officer. In 1862 he boldly took New Orleans and was made the nation's first rear admiral. He commanded a flotilla up the Mississippi to Vicksburg, but could not take the city and was forced to withdraw. In March of 1863, he failed to assist Union Army forces at the siege of Port Hudson, and retreated under heavy damage from Confederate artillery. In August 1864, Farragut commanded the Union Navy at Mobile Bay, and defeated Buchanan, taking the port city from heavily fortified Confederate troops. This decisive battle divided the Confederacy and hastened an end to the war. The bay was lined with sea mines, called torpedoes at the time, and it is here where Farragut uttered a version of the famous, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

CONFEDERATE

Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest

{Born:July 13, 1821; Bedford County, Tennessee

Died:October 29, 1877; Memphis, Tennessee

Forrest enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army in 1861. At the time he was one of the wealthiest men in the South from his plantations and farms, but primarily from his lucrative profession as a slave trader. He offered to personally pay for a regiment of mounted troops and was speedily promoted to lieutenant colonel in October 1861. He commanded the 3rd Tennessee at Shiloh, a cavalry brigade at Murfreesboro, and was promoted to brigadier general. He continued to produce brilliantly executed and lighting-fast attacks on Union lines of communication and became the commander of the Confederate cavalry. Greatly outnumbered, he defeated Sturgis at Brice's Crossroads, losing a fraction of men compared to terrible losses on the Union side. However, the battle earned little strategically for the Confederates. In 1865, he was promoted to lieutenant general, but went on to lose to superior forces in Selma. After the war, he returned to planting and became the president of a railroad concern.

UNION

Major General John Charles Frémont

{Born:January 21, 1813; Savannah, Georgia

Died:July 13, 1890; New York, New York

Frémont was a part of western explorations and surveying parties as an army engineer in the late 1830s and 1840s and served in the Mexican-American War. He assisted in the capture of California and was briefy its military commander. Arrested by a ranking officer, S.W. Kearney, who claimed the post, he was taken to Washington, D.C. and charged with mutiny and insubordination. Pardoned by President Polk, he went on to become one of the first senators of the new state of California in 1851. He was nominated as the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party in 1856, but was defeated by Buchanan. At the outset of the war, Frémont was a major general assigned to the Union's Department of the West. Due to a disagreement with President Lincoln, he was soon relieved of his command. In 1862, he was re-commissioned and lost battles to Jackson in West Virginia. Frémont resigned his command and unsuccessfully entered into politics.

UNION

Major General James Abram Garfield

{Born:November 19, 1831; Cuyahoga County, Ohio

Died:September 19, 1881; Elberon, New Jersey

Garfield was a lawyer, local politician, and popular orator and debater when he enlisted in the Union Army in 1861. Commissioned to command the 42nd Ohio, he went on to Buell's staff in Kentucky, served at Jenny's Creek, and commanded a brigade defeating Marshall at Big Sandy Valley. Promoted to brigadier general in 1862, he went on to serve at Shiloh and Corinth. He became chief of staff to Rosecrans at the bloody Union defeat at Chickamauga in 1863. Garfield reentered politics as a U.S. Congressman in the middle of the war and served nine terms in Congress. In 1880, he was narrowly elected the twentieth President of the United States defeating Democrat W. S. Hancock, another former Union general.

Garfield served just four months before being shot in the back by a madman on July 2, 1881 in the Baltimore and Potomac Railway Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield lingered until dying on September 19. His assassin was tried, convicted, and executed.

UNION

Major General John Gibbon

{Born:April 20, 1827; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Died:February 6, 1896; Baltimore, Maryland

Gibbon graduated from West Point in 1847 and commissioned a second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery. He served in the Seminole and Mexican-American wars and was an instructor at the Military Academy. Although three of his brothers joined the Confederacy, Gibbon joined the Union. He served as chief artillery officer to McDowell and was promoted a brigadier general on May 2, 1862. He led at Second Manassas (Second Bull Run) and South Mountain, where Hooker declared Gibbon's men "fought like iron." From then on, they were known as the "Iron Brigade." Severely wounded at Fredericksburg, Gibbon recuperated in Cleveland. He saw action at Chancellorsville and was wounded again at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, defending against Pickett's Charge. He recovered to command several draft depots and reentered combat in 1864 at the Wilderness, Petersburg, and was promoted major general. He commanded a corps in the Army of the Potomac and was present at the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox.

Gibbon's The Artillerist's Manual, written before the war in 1860, was considered the finest practical artillery book of its day.

UNION

General-in-Chief Ulysses Simpson Grant

{Born:April 27, 1822; Point Pleasant, Ohio

Died:July 23, 1885; Mount McGregor, New York

Grant graduated from West Point in 1839 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He served with distinction in the Mexican-American War under Taylor and Scott and was promoted to captain. He resigned his commission in 1854 and struggled in a variety of private occupations, including farmer, salesman, and clerk. Rejoining the military in June 1861, he was appointed colonel of the 21st Illinois. He was promoted a brigadier general after a decisive and brilliant victory at Nashville. He led at Shiloh, Vicksburg, and was promoted to major general in the regular army. He led at Chattanooga and following the success of Thomas, under his command at Missionary Ridge, Grant was promoted to the new rank of lieutenant general and general-in-chief of all Union armies in March 1864. In this position, Grant assigned Sherman to command western armies and turned toward northern Virginia and the siege of Richmond, the Overland Campaign, and the Confederate supply hub of Petersburg. At Appomattox, he accepted the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia from Lee.

Grant became the 18th President of the United States in 1869 and served two terms ending in 1877.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Commanders of the Civil War by George Scott. Copyright © 2011 Scott & Nix, Inc., New York. Excerpted by permission of Scott & Nix, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction vii General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard 1 General Braxton Bragg 3 Admiral Franklin Buchanan 5 Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham 7 Major General George Armstrong "Curly" Custer 9 President Jefferson Davis 11 Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early 13 Admiral David Glasgow Farragut 15 Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest 17 Major General John Charles Frémont 19 Major General James Abram Garfield 21 Major General John Gibbon 23 General-in-Chief Ulysses Simpson Grant 25 Chief-of-Staff Henry Wager Halleck 27 Vice President Hannibal Hamlin 29 Major General Winfield Scott Hancock 31 Lieutenant General William Joseph 33 "Old Reliable" Hardee Lieutenant General Ambrose Powell Hill 35 Lieutenant General John Bell Hood 37 Major General Joseph "Fightin' Joe" Hooker 39 Lieutenant General Thomas Jonathan 41 "Stonewall" Jackson Major General Richard W. Johnson 43 General Joseph Eggleston Johnston 45 General-in-Chief Robert Edward Lee 47 President Abraham Lincoln 49 Major General John Alexander "Black Jack" Logan 51 Lieutenant General James "Old Pete" Longstreet 53 Major General George Brinton "Little Mac" McClellan 55 Major General Irvin McDowell 57 Major General George Gordon Meade 59 Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan 61 Lieutenant General John Clifford Pemberton 63 Major General George Edward Pickett 65 Major General Philip Henry "Little Phil" Sheridan 67 Major General William Tecumseh "Cump" Sherman 69 General Edmund Kirby Smith 71 Vice President Alexander Stephens 73 Major General Carter Littlepage Stevenson 75 Major General James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart 77 Major General George Henry 79 "Rock of Chickamauga" Thomas Major General Emory Upton 81 Lieutenant General Joseph "Fightin' Joe" Wheeler 83 Major General James Harrison Wilson 85 Admiral John Lorimer Worden 87