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The Maltby Brothers' Civil War
By Norman C. Delaney Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2013 Norman C. Delaney
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62349-088-1
CHAPTER 1
THE REUNION
On December 11, 1863, a United States brigadier general and a Confederate artillery captain met on board the packet steamer Diligent on the Mississippi River below Vicksburg. The steamer had just arrived from New Orleans. The Confederate officer had not come on official business, however; he was a paroled prisoner of war. The two men, born and raised in Ohio, were brothers who had not seen each other in several years, and their reunion would have been an emotional one. An observer might have noticed a physical resemblance—both had dark complexions, black hair, and brown eyes—but the heavily bearded older brother, at five feet, eleven inches tall, was four inches taller than his younger sibling, who favored chin whiskers without a mustache.
The brigadier general was thirty-seven-year-old Jasper Adalmorn Maltby from Galena, Illinois, an officer with a distinguished military record. Wounded at Fort Donelson while lieutenant colonel of the 45th Illinois Infantry Regiment and seriously injured as the regiment's colonel during the assault on Fort Hill at Vicksburg, he had recently been promoted to brigadier general and now commanded a brigade assigned to the Vicksburg Post and Defenses. His younger brother, William Henderson Maltby, twenty-six, from Corpus Christi, Texas, was the captain of a Confederate artillery battery. Three weeks earlier he had been captured with his entire unit and a contingent of Texas state troops at Confederate Fort Semmes on the northern edge of Mustang Island on the Texas coast.
After learning that his brother was in New Orleans as a paroled prisoner of war, General Maltby arranged to have him brought to Vicksburg and placed under his charge. While waiting to be exchanged, William was allowed to roam freely throughout the city during daytime hours with passes authorized by the general himself, who also had the garrison's doctor attend to his brother's medical needs.
During the following months, the brothers met frequently, their familial bond overriding their polarized political views. They had much family news to catch up on. Although both had spent their early years in Ashtabula County, Ohio, they had long since gone separate ways. William was only ten years old when his older brother, then twenty, enlisted in the 15th US Infantry at Lower Sandusky, Ohio, on April 21, 1847. The Mexican War was then in progress, and Jasper became a private in the army of General Winfield Scott, known as Old Fuss and Feathers because of his meticulous dress and strict adherence to military protocol. The patriotic young volunteer would have worn his sky blue woolen uniform and dark blue forage cap with its infantry insignia proudly. Trained as a gunsmith, his familiarity with firearms would have given him confidence in the use of his standard army-issued weapon, a muzzle-loading musket. As a private, Jasper received eight dollars a month, although irregularly, and one ration per day.
A biographical sketch of Jasper written in July of 1861 includes a brief reference to his Mexican War service: "As a private of the Fifteenth Infantry, U.S.A., under Col. [Joshua] Howard, he followed Gen. Scott in his celebrated campaign from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, participating actively in most of those desperate battles. Such was his good conduct that, though a private soldier, after the battle of Chapultepec (in which he was wounded in the thigh) his name was honorably mentioned in the official account of the battle, and is now on record in the War Department at Washington. This would have led to his promotion had not the war ceased." There appears to be some fudging here, since Private Maltby is not included in the official listing of soldiers wounded at Chapultepec—it may have been a minor wound—nor is he mentioned in any of General Winfield Scott's official reports.
Jasper's Mexican War military records indicate that he was court-martialed on three separate occasions, but the circumstances in those cases remain cloudy. In September of 1847 he was tried by a regimental court-martial for "neglect of duty," found guilty, and sentenced to the loss of a month's pay. In May of 1848 a general court-martial found him guilty of "conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline," and he was sentenced to forfeit five dollars of his pay for three months. His last offense, which appears to be a minor one, was his debt to the United States of eighty-seven cents for a "bayonet scabbard belt and plate." A general court-martial, however, added fifteen dollars to that amount. According to the army adjutant general, writing in February 1851, "this man was not entitled to an 'honorable' discharge." Amazingly, the soldier who would one day become a highly respected brigadier general had been dishonorably discharged from the US Army. Had Jasper been guilty of a serious offense, or was he the victim of a vendetta?
As a result of this personal crisis, Jasper would identify Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Howard, undisputedly a courageous soldier, as the head of the 15th Infantry rather than the regiment's actual head, Colonel George W. Morgan. As one of the two officers responsible for his receiving a dishonorable discharge, Morgan remained anathema to Jasper.
The Mexican War having officially ended with Senate ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the 15th Infantry Regiment was mustered out at Covington, Kentucky, on August 3, 1848. The enlisted men received their discharges, reverting to civilian status. Jasper Maltby was among those who checked into a Covington hotel, intending to leave for Ohio the following day. By then, however, it had been discovered that the men's discharges had not been signed properly and new ones would have to be issued. Angry at having been recalled, a large number of unruly men retaliated by throwing eggs at an especially unpopular officer, Captain Daniel Chase of B Company. The captain was hated because of his alleged "unmerciful, cruel and unjust treatment" of the men while in Mexico. Jasper, by his own account, did not participate in the egging, but earlier in the day he had berated Chase as "a most dastardly, lying, and abusive scoundrel" for having "abused me the most shamefully without cause." Furthermore, Jasper offered him a challenge. As he later stated bitterly, "If he had the courage I demanded the satisfaction of him, for the numerous and unjustifiable acts of his towards me."
After escaping from his tormentors, Chase complained to Colonel Morgan that the attack on him had been instigated by Private Maltby, who, he added, had also been one of the egg throwers. When the men received their revised discharge certificates soon afterward, Jasper was astonished to find that the word honorably was missing from his own. Of all the discharge certificates issued at that time, this had been done to his alone. Powerless to do anything about it, Jasper would later learn that his dishonorable discharge prevented him from receiving the 160 acres of land that all honorably discharged Mexican War veterans were entitled to by act of Congress. Thus began the lengthy and tedious process of seeking vindication, which would require affidavits from fellow soldiers, notarization, and letters to the secretary of war and the commissioner of pensions.
Jasper's father, who was both an attorney and a notary public, was able to assist his son through the lengthy legal process. Together they succeeded in locating a total of sixty-five privates and noncommissioned officers and eleven officers of the 15th Regiment and having them sign a petition on Jasper's behalf. All agreed that Jasper was justified in his rebuke of Captain Chase and that he had not participated in the egging. Furthermore, the petitioners stated, "We, having been with Mr. Maltby through a long and tedious campaign, have the best opportunity to judge of his character and bearing generally, as a soldier, and we do solemnly aver that he has done nothing in our remembrance, to merit the treatment received by him at the hands of Col. George W. Morgan and to gratify the low sneaking underhanded spirit of Captain Chase. On the contrary he has always behaved with the valor belonging to a citizen of the great republic."
After reviewing the case and Jasper's earlier court-martials, the army's adjutant general refused to reverse the dishonorable discharge, leaving Jasper and his father to turn next to Congress for redress. Exasperated by the long delay in securing vindication, Jasper angrily insisted that the injustice done to him "was the work of relentless malice long festering in the depraved and craven hearts of those that had perpetrated this dark and infamous deed of villainy upon me." Finally, in June of 1852, the House of Representatives voted approval of the final report of the Congressional Committee on Public Lands, which decided in favor of the plaintiff. The committee members stated their reason for doing so:
The committee are unanimous in the conclusion that he should not be deprived of the bounty provided by the law of Congress. Even though it were shown that he was guilty of the offence preferred against him, it would not, in the opinion of the committee, justify the withholding from him the hard-earned reward of faithful service. He was no longer subject to military orders; he was not under the control of any military officer; he was amenable, as any other citizen, to the laws of his country for any infraction thereof.... There is no evidence that the petitioner committed the offence imputed to him. The action of the officer seems to have been predicated upon mere suspicion of guilt. If he was subject to military law, an opportunity should have been afforded him of presenting his defense before a court-martial. This summary mode of disposing of a soldier's earnings, and branding him with infamy and dishonor—one who demeaned himself through a campaign of suffering and distress as the petitioner seems to have done—should not be tolerated, when other means of investigation can be resorted to.
The report and its subsequent approval by both House and Senate on March 3, 1853, was the vindication that Jasper and his family had sought for so long. The commissioner of pensions was authorized and directed "to issue to Jasper Adelmon [sic] Maltby, his heirs or assigns, a certificate or warrant for 160 acres of land." Fifteen years after this unfortunate episode, the star of a brigadier general on Jasper's shoulder straps provided still further vindication.
In March of 1853 Jasper's father, David Maltby, made a point of writing to the commissioner of pensions requesting, "You will it is hoped spare no time in making out a warrant for Jasper A. Maltby for One Hundred & Sixty acres of land and forward the Same to me. I would thank you kindly for a copy of the bill of relief in his case." David received his son's warrant, issued on March 24, 1853, soon afterward. But by that time Jasper had established a successful business in Galena, Illinois, and it is likely that he sold his warrant. The 1850 federal census lists Jasper as single, living in a hotel, and working as a self-employed gunsmith. He was also a gun dealer, purchasing English-made guns manufactured by W. J. King in London and selling them as "Maltby rifles." Jasper had learned the gunsmith's trade in Ohio at a young age, as is indicated by the occupation recorded for him at the time of his 1847 enlistment. Following the war with Mexico, Jasper had no doubt been influenced by a book written by British civil engineer John Ratcliffe Chapman in 1848 for "Young Marksmen," which described the target telescopes then being produced by a gun maker in Utica, New York. Jasper arrived in Galena to find a community prospering from the region's lead ore, which had initially drawn settlers to the region. Out of a possible total of eighteen gunsmiths in Galena during the 1850s, Jasper appears to have been the most prominent, and his customers no doubt included Grant himself. An 1859 issue of the Warren Independent included an advertisement for Maltby's rifles and accessories:
J. A. MALTBY, Importer, manufacturer, and dealer in Shotguns, Rifles, Colt's, and other Pistols, Bowie Knives, fine pocket cutlery, Powder Flasks, Shot Pouches, Game Bags, Drahm Flasks, Ely's and Balding's Wads, Ely's and other Caps, together with every other article in the gun trade.
Just received from the justly celebrated maker, W. J. King, 220 Piccadilly, London, 200 double and single guns of every variety of length, bore, and quality for every kind of shooting, 100 doz. Powder Flasks, from Hawksley's Sheffield, 50 doz. Powder Flasks, from other makers. 50 Shot Pouches and Belts, 90 Patterns Pocket Cutlery—Hawksley's. 30 Patterns Bowie Knives. 50 gro. Ely's wire Cartridges Ass'd. 500 M do. Double Water Proof and Foil Lined Caps. 500 M Gun Waddings, & C. & C.
With a great variety of every article in the sporting line. Sportsmen, merchants, gunmakers, and dealers are respectfully invited to call and see how astonishingly low goods will be bought, can be sold.
Guns made or imported to order—Repairing done as usual.
Some of Jasper's guns were marked "MANUFACTURED EXPRESSLY FOR J. A. MALTBY GALENA ILLS," and items such as bullet molds and cappers stamped with his name. On March 25, 1852, Jasper—better known as Bob to his friends and neighbors—married Malvina James, originally from Missouri, and the couple resided on the top floor of Maltby's gun shop at 184 Main Street with their young son, Henry, born in 1855, and a sixteen-year-old house servant, Sarah, with the appropriate surname Clean. Bob also became foreman of Galena's volunteer Neptune Fire Company.
Incredibly, after having survived combat during the Mexican War, Bob came close to being killed or seriously injured in his own gun shop. A Galena newspaper published the following account of the incident in its edition of August 17, 1855: "A customer having brought a loaded pistol into the shop for repair or examination, Mr. M[altby] laid it down on a bench for a moment to get some powder. In the meantime, another person took up the pistol, not knowing that it was loaded, and snapped it in range of Mr. Maltby. It discharged, and the ball passed twice through the arm of the latter—once above the wrist and again above the elbow. No bones, we believe, were broken."
Four years later, the Galena newspaper reported an incident that was more of a tempest in a teapot when Jasper and Malvina's son, Henry, was arrested on the charge of "assault and disturbing the peace of the city." The four-year-old had apparently struck a neighbor's child the same age, Alice Boynton, and her father, wealthy jeweler Andrew P. Boynton, then demanded that the culprit be arrested. When the accused was brought before a justice of the peace, the issue was quickly resolved when a local statute was found stating, "An infant under the age of ten years will not be found guilty of any crime or misdemeanor." Needless to say, Jasper and Malvina would have been greatly relieved when Boynton relocated to Chicago soon afterward.
David Maltby, the family patriarch, was a well-educated and respected man of means. Born in Niagara County, New York, in 1803, he married Lucy Marsh from Vermont in 1825, and the couple settled in Ashtabula, Ohio. It was there they had four children: Jasper Adalmorn, Henry Alonzo, Lydia Elizabeth, and Rachel Matilda. Although ordained a Methodist-Episcopal minister and licensed to solemnize marriages in Ohio, David instead became a practicing attorney. During the several years he resided in Ashtabula, his father, William Maltby, and other family members settled there as well. David and Lucy later moved to central Ohio—Worthington, in Franklin County—where their fifth and last child, William Henderson, was born in 1837. The elder William Maltby, who had also moved to Worthington, owned property in both Ashtabula and Franklin Counties at the time of his death in 1836.
In 1845, David, who was then living in Marion, Ohio, was initiated into the Masonic order. His two eldest sons would follow his example and also become lifelong Masons. In February of 1850 Lucy Maltby died from what was believed to be apoplexy. When the federal census was conducted a few months later, David, the head of the household, was living in Plymouth, Richland County, Ohio, with his son William, age thirteen, and two unmarried daughters, Lydia Elizabeth, twenty-one, and Rachel Matilda, eighteen. By then Jasper was living in Galena, and Henry, twenty, cannot be found in the census.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Maltby Brothers' Civil War by Norman C. Delaney. Copyright © 2013 Norman C. Delaney. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
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