Gus's Genealogy Blog

Civil War Oddities #89

2013-05-22T10:00:00.001-07:00

Harriet W. E. Hawley, wife of a Connecticut lawyer, became a nurse when her husband donned a blue uniform, and the Hawley’s managed to stay together. Harriet spent most of her days and many of her nights among the sick of the Seventh Connecticut Regiment, led by her husband.

When Hawley was sent to his native state, North Carolina, his wife found a place in the hospital at Beaufort. After following her husband to Florida and South Carolina, she went with him to Washington when his command was assigned to the Army of the James in April 1864. Soon back in North Carolina, where her husband was now in command as Wilmington, the Connecticut woman may have been the only wife of a brigadier general to spend weeks nursing former inmates of Andersonville Prison.

Civil War Oddities #88

2013-05-15T09:19:00.003-07:00

Massachusetts’s clergyman Stephen Barker was so stirred by Lincoln’s first call for volunteers that he gave up his parish and became chaplain of the Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment.

This regiment was organized in July 1861 as the Fourteenth Massachusetts Infantry (but afterwards changed as above) under the command of Colonel William B. Green, of Boston, and was immediately ordered to Fort Albany, which was then an outpost of defense guarding the Long Bridge over the Potomac, near Washington. Refusing to be left behind, his wife became a nurse. Though she had no formal training, she served in field hospitals for more than three years before becoming a superintendent for a U. S. Sanitary Commission.

Civil War Oddities #87

2013-05-08T08:13:00.001-07:00

When attorney John S. Mosby (1833-1916) decided to become a Confederate partisan ranger, he knew that members of irregular units were in far greater danger than conventional soldiers. Very early, Federal actions had made it clear that rangers not shot on sight would be relentlessly hunted. Undeterred by danger, Mosby’s wife frequently stayed close to him even during his famous raids in the Loudoun Valley of Virginia.

Federal soldiers once broke into the house where the pair was sleeping, but found no one there but Mrs. Mosby. Warned by her to get out quickly, Mosby had climbed into a tree wearing only his underwear. He remained in his perch and kept very quiet until the Federals departed, enabling him to return to bed with his wife.

The enclosed photo is an artist’s depiction of John S. Mosby and his wife.

Civil War Oddities #86

2013-05-01T08:00:00.001-07:00

Members of the crew of the 100-ton Confederate privateer Retribution rejoiced on the afternoon of January 10, 1863. Having captured the coal brig J. P. Elliott, they estimated how much prize money the vessel would bring when taken to port and sold.

Their elation proved to be premature. When Confederates replaced crewmembers of the captured vessel, the wife of the Elliott’s mate was left aboard. As soon as the Retribution was out of sight, she broke out a store of rum and the captors became thoroughly drunk. Then the wife, not named in the official report, put irons on Confederates and sailed the bark into St. Thomas, where she delivered it and her captives to the U.S. Consul.

Civil War Oddities #85

2013-04-24T08:32:00.002-07:00

Having been wounded at Fort Donelson, Tennessee, Lt. Col. James O. Churchill of the Eleventh Illinois Regiment found himself in a hospital bed beside that of Col. John A. Logan on the steamer New Uncle Sam. Soon Brig. General U.S. Grant’s chief surgeon came aboard the headquarters steamer, examined Churchill, shook his head, and said there was nothing he could do for him.

Hours later the wounded man opened his eyes to find a woman bending over him. Having followed Federal forces as closely as the war zone permitted, Mrs. Logan had come to nurse her husband. Finding Churchill to be the more seriously injured one, she turned her attention to him. Under her constant care, Churchill recuperated so rapidly that the hospital boat City of Memphis took him board and kept him until he was able to return to his unit.

Civil War Oddities #84

2013-04-17T08:08:00.003-07:00

August 23, 1862, found the Federal commander in chief face-to-face with the wife of an officer who had a grievance. Gabriel R. Paul, a West Point graduate and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, believed “some things in Washington were out of kilter.” Over and over, he had seen men whose service had not been continuous receive promotions he felt should have gone to career officers. During the 1862 Confederate invasion of New Mexico, he commanded vital Fort Union with the temporary rank of colonel. When enlistments of his men expired, he was demoted to his former grade.

Mrs. Paul spent many nights with her husband, talking about “things wrong with the seniority system of the U. S. Army.” When she felt she fully understood the situation, the wife of a man whose father and grandfather had fought with Napoleon made the long journey from New Mexico to Washington to plead with Lincoln to promote her husband over others who had not spent their careers in uniform.

After their August 23, 1862, session, the president said of Mrs. Paul, “She is a saucy woman and I am afraid she will keep tormenting till I may have to do it.” On September 5, Paul’s name was presented for promotion to the rank of brigadier general. Failing to get Senate confirmation, he continued to serve as lieutenant colonel until he was renominated and confirmed in April 1863.

“It took a while for her to do it,” said a subordinate in the division Paul commanded, “but Mrs. Paul eventually got what she wanted for her husband.”

Civil War Oddities #83

2013-04-10T08:26:00.001-07:00

Mrs. John Charles Fremont was in Missouri with her husband when he aroused the wrath of Lincoln. On August 30, 1861, the Federal major general issued a famous “emancipation proclamation” concerning the territory over which he had military control. As soon as word about Fremont’s action reached Washington, the president firmly requested that he rescind it.

Furious, Fremont’s wife, the daughter of the powerful Missouri senator, Jesse Hart Benton, went to the capital to intercede. Lincoln is known to have seen Jessie Fremont on at least two occasions in early September, but he refused to modify his stand. Disappointed and angry, she returned to her husband in the war zone and remained with him until he was relieved of command in November 1861.

Civil War Oddities #82

2013-04-03T08:27:00.005-07:00

Russian-born John B. Turchin came home one day and joyfully informed his wife that he would soon be made colonel of the Nineteenth Illinois Regiment. Eyes flashing, she instantly responded, “I’m going with you, even to battlefields.”

Although at that time most of the military nurses were men, Mrs. Turchin volunteered her services and went along in an unofficial capacity. Less than a year later, now commanding a brigade, Turchin permitted his men to loot indiscriminately in Huntsville and Athens, Alabama.

Accused of having encouraged his men to plunder and rob civilians, the Federal officer went before a court-martial that recommended his dismissal from the service. Oral tradition has it that his wife promptly set out for Washington, where she managed to win an interview with Lincoln. Impressed with her account of what had taken place, the president set aside the verdict of the court-martial. Soon afterward the president submitted the name of Mrs. Turchin’s husband for confirmation as a brigadier general.

Months later, during a Tennessee campaign, the Federal general, whose baptismal name was Ivan Vasilovitch Turchinoff, became so ill that he could not sit in the saddle. Veterans who served under him vowed that for a period of ten days Mrs. Turchin took command of his unit and once briefly led it in battle.

Civil War Oddities #81

2013-03-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

Reared near Baltimore, Hetty Cary was related to two of Virginia’s “fist families,” the Randolphs and the Jeffersons. War forced her to choose between leaving home and facing imprisonment on suspicion of harboring Confederate sympathies, so she settled in Richmond. Soon she was a leader among those working to provide clothing, food, and other necessities for soldiers.

After nearly four years of volunteer work, her activities caught the eye of thirty-two-year-old John Pegram, who sought and won her hand. On January 19, 1865, the refugee from Maryland and the Confederate brigadier general were married. Hetty enjoyed this relationship just three weeks; on February 5, 1865, the husband she found in the course of her war work was killed in the battle of Hatcher’s Run.

Civil War Oddities #80

2013-03-20T14:45:00.003-07:00

As its name implies, the Mississippi River’s Island Number Ten was downstream from nine other islands. Located close to Columbus, Kentucky, it was fortified by Confederates who planned to close the river to Federal traffic. In a dramatic ship-to-shore operation, forces under Major General John Pope and Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote took over the island on April 8, 1862.

The victorious Union soldiers and sailors were dumbfounded to discover among their captives “a female invalid generally known as Harriet Redd.” Questioned, she admitted to having come to the military installation to be with her Confederate husband. Refusing a pass, Harriet said she preferred to remain with him, so she joined the men in an improvised prisoner-of-war camp.

A memorial statue was erected in 1979 to honor Harriet and her husband near Columbus, Kentucky.

Civil War Oddities #79

2013-03-13T08:08:00.001-07:00

June 1862 saw Union Major General David D. Hunter embark on a special mission. Eager to free Southern slaves, he led a force against Secessionville, South Carolina. There he suffered so stunning a defeat that he suspended his military operation.

Upon returning to his base at Hilton Head, South Carolina by means of a military steamer, the thwarted abolitionist received a special kind of consolation: his wife was waiting for him at the pier of the one-time Confederate stronghold.

Civil War Oddities #78

2013-03-06T08:28:00.000-08:00

Confederate Brig. General Nathan Bedford Forrest was not amused when he learned the identity of a civilian taken prisoner at Holly Springs, Mississippi, in December 1862. Because Forrest was barely able to scribble a few common words, no written records of his order has survived. His oral command probably was brief and to the point: “Pass that woman through the lines, and waste no time.”

His captive, Julia Grant, is believed to have been the only wife of a Union major general to be taken prisoner by a Confederate force.

Often accompanied by their youngest son, Jesse, Mrs. Grant was with her husband in numerous camps. When Grant settled down at City Point, Virginia, for the long siege of Petersburg, it was his wife who made sure that he frequently had “good home-cooked food.”

Civil War Oddities #77

2013-02-27T07:30:00.001-08:00

Mrs. John C. Breckinridge, who was at the headquarters of her husband much of the time, owned a “a handsome silk dress.” She vividly remembered having worn it at a state dinner in Washington when her husband was vice-president of the United States. That dress, she decided after many months at the front, would make a spectacular flag.

Formally presented to the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment, the flag of a Confederate general’s wife was first exposed to gunfire at Hoover’s Gap, Tennessee, in June 1863. Color bearer Ben Yeargin died that day and both Wallace Evans and Johnny Fly were wounded by gunfire directed at the emblem they carried. Three more color bearers were wounded at Chickamagua.

Finally, at Jonesboro, Georgia, every member of the color guard responsible for “the Mrs. Breckinridge flag” was killed or wounded. Wounded men not taken prisoner soon saw their general’s wife headed toward them, her arms filled with lint and bandages.

Civil War Oddities #76

2013-02-20T08:40:00.001-08:00

Largely recruited from the Irish in New York City, the eighty-eighth New York Regiment marched off to war under the leadership of Col. Thomas F, Meagher. Because his wife had gone to great pains to secure and to present a U.S. flag to the fighting men, this unit of ninety-day volunteers was popularly known as “Mrs. Meagher’s Own.”

Meagher later organized and led the famous Irish Brigade. Soon a brigadier general, he served with distinction at Seven Pines, the Seven Day, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Always fighting under his wife’s flag. Meagher tried to resign when told he could not recruit new members of his command. Republican leaders refused to accept the resignation of the Democratic brigadier and kept him close to his flag until May 1865.

Civil War Oddities #75

2013-02-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

Fanny Ricketts, wife of U.S. Army Captain James B. Ricketts, was in or near the capital at the time of the first battle of Bull Run. When her husband didn’t return with his unit, she persuaded Lt. General Winfield Scott to give her a pass that permitted her to go through Union lines to the site of the conflict. However, when she reached a Confederate outpost, Scott’s pass became worthless and it seemed that she would have to turn back.

Remembering her husband’s friendship with J. E. B. Stuart, she managed to contact at Fairfax Court House the professional soldier now wearing the uniform of a confederate colonel. Stuart gave her a pass that enabled her to go to the Manassas battlefield, held by victorious Confederates. Four days after the battle she found her husband in an improvised field hospital at the Lewis house, from which she accompanied him to Richmond, the Confederate capital.

These adventures would have been more than enough for many wives, but Fanny’s saga was just beginning. When Federal officers were being selected as hostages for Confederates charged with piracy, Richmond’s Libby Prison held an insufficient number of colonels and majors co complete the lottery. Ricketts was selected as one of the junior officers who were threatened with execution in the event that their Confederate counterparts should hang.

Fanny remained in Richmond, made friends with prison guards in order to gain visiting privileges, and was with her husband almost daily until he was exchanged for Julius A. de Lagnel in January 1862.

Civil War Oddities #74

2013-02-06T07:41:00.003-08:00

Mrs. Robert Anderson was aghast when she learned that her husband and his men, who had taken refuge in Fort Sumter, were likely to be starved into submission.

During the Mexican War she had come to have great confidence in Sgt. Peter Hart, who later left the U.S. Army in order to join the police force of New York City. At Mrs. Anderson’s persuasion, Hart quit his job and accompanied her to Charleston. There he manages to get permission to join the civil work force inside Fort Sumter.

One of the most dramatic incidents for defenders of the fort came when a hail of Confederate hot shot set fire to wooden barracks. At the height of danger it was the sergeant-turned-policeman who took the lead in extinguishing the fire that threatened to engulf the installation.

Peter Hart nails the flag to the temporary flagstaff.

Civil War Oddities #73

2013-01-30T08:30:00.003-08:00

Although many amputees and cripples gave up, others did not. Had all commanders minus the use of as leg or an arm been brought together, they’d have been numerous enough to form their own brigade.

Union Brig. General Egbert B. Brown took a direct hit in the shoulder at Springfield, Missouri, in January 1863. For the duration of the war he had only one usable arm, but he sometimes commanded cavalry forces.

Civil War Oddities #72

2013-01-23T08:54:00.001-08:00

Union Brig. General Davis Tillson suffered a pre-war injury that led to amputation of a foot. Hobbling from battery to battery, he commanded artillery that defended both Cincinnati and Knoxville.

At least three well-known Confederates could sympathize with Tillson. Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens suffered all his life from a severe case of clubfoot. Col. Roger W. Hanson had “an especially peculiar gait” as a result of taking a bullet in his leg during a pre-war duel. Brig. General Henry H. Walker lost a foot as a result if a wound at Spotsylvania.

Civil War Oddities #71

2013-01-16T08:25:00.001-08:00

Francis R. Nicholls was a Confederate double amputee who wouldn’t give up. During the first battle of Winchester he lost an arm, and at Chancellorsville a Federal shell caused him to lose a foot. Assigned to post duty for a period, the brigadier became head of conscription in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Returning to Louisiana and admitting that he was “only the broken remnant of the man who marched off to fight the Yankees,” he served two terms as governor before becoming head of the state supreme court.

Civil War Oddities #70

2013-01-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

Guiding his horse during the heat of battle, a line officer sometimes wished for an extra arm. That way he could use his revolver while holding his reins and waving signals to his aides.

Confederate Major General John B. Hood tops the list of those who kept on going with inadequate body equipment. At Gettysburg, an injury to his left arm left it all but useless. Chickamauga then cost him his right leg, which was amputated very close to his trunk. Hood therefore led Confederates in the battle of Atlanta while strapped into his saddle, wearing a five thousand-dollar French made cork leg.

Though notoriously temperamental, drugs may have affected his judgment. Trying to cope with constant pain, he used laudanum in such quantities that some medical analysts suggest it may have produced euphoria.

Civil War Oddities #69

2013-01-02T09:44:00.001-08:00

Scores of Federal officers were awarded post-war brevets as brigadier generals. Some of the men who received the strictly honorary title had long and distinguished records; others knew how to pull political strings.

Because he was not among those to whom: “honorary and temporary promotions” were given, the name of Col. Eli Lilly does not appear in standard Civil War dictionaries and encyclopedias. In postwar years, however, the man who was bypassed when congressmen and senators handed out large numbers of brevets headed an Indianapolis pharmaceutical firm. Because his corporation was a pioneer in making and distributing insulin and other life-saving medications, the name of Eli Lilly is now familiar around the world.

Civil War Oddities #68

2012-12-27T10:56:00.001-08:00

Daily prodding by New York Tribune headlines that demanded “on to Richmond” probably contributed to the Federal fiasco at Bull Run in July 1861. Publisher Horace Greely heartily supported the war effort at that time, but he parted company with Lincoln over the issue of slavery.

Former warmonger Greeley, whose newspaper is widely regarded as having been the most influential in the nation, eventually headed a Northern movement whose aim was to affect a negotiated peace. After the war, he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis despite warnings that such a move could cut circulation of the Tribune in half.

Nominated for the presidency by liberal Republicans in 1872 and supported by Democrats, Greely might have gone to the White House had his opponent been anyone other than Ulysses S. Grant.

Civil War Oddities #67

2012-12-19T08:26:00.002-08:00

John Charles Fremont, known as “the Pathfinder,” explored the West as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers Corps. By the time pioneer settlers in California elected him governor he was already nationally famous. Republicans turned to him in 1865 and made him their first nominee for the U.S. presidency. Small wonder, therefore, that in July 1861 Lincoln made him a major general and put him in command of the Western Department.

Fremont may have considered himself to have a wider following that the president who gained his office by support of less than 40 percent of the nation’s voters. Without consulting his commander in chief, he issued an August 1861 emancipation proclamation that Lincoln forced him to rescind. Embittered at Washington and chafing at having been defeated at Wilson’s Creek, the Union’s most notable active general at that time resigned after just five months in uniform.

Civil War Oddities #66

2012-12-12T07:03:00.003-08:00

Samuel L. Clemens had done nothing of significance by age twenty-five. As a journeyman printer and pilot of a Mississippi River steamer, he had barley managed to earn enough money for bed and board. Hence it was easy for him to turn his back on civilian life and enlist in a pro-Confederate unit that was organized in his native Missouri.

It took only a few weeks for him to decide that military life was not for him. Returning to the newspaper field as a reporter, he adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain and became the most noted American writer of the century. Despite his pro-secessionist views in early manhood, it was Twain who took a fling at publishing in order to issue successfully the autobiography of Ulysses S. Grant.

Civil War Oddities #65

2012-12-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

At age twenty, the Harvard-educated son of one of the nation’s most famous volunteered for military service. He survived such battles as Ball’s Bluff, Antietam and Fredericksburg, and then hung out his shingle as an attorney. Appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court after fifteen years of practice, he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1902. There Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., won such renown for his minority decisions that his book about his dissenting opinions, Collected Legal Papers, was widely read by members of the general public as well as by attorneys.