Tuscaloosa’s Prisoner of War Camp

Henry Wirz, second commander of the
Tuscaloosa Prison Camp. 

   Early during the war, one local Alabama historian wrote, Tuscaloosa became a camp for Federal prisoners. Federal soldiers captured at the battle of First Manassas were sent to Tuscaloosa. The thinking is that Tuscaloosa was so far south, no prisoners would try to escape. At first, warehouses and hotels near the river were used to house the prisoners. Later, a larger camp was constructed elsewhere.[1] Maybe there is some truth in this assessment.

   On October 25, 1861, Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin wrote to Alabama governor A.B. Moore about a facility to house prisoners: “I am told,” Benjamin wrote, “you have at Tuscaloosa not only legislative buildings, but an insane asylum and a military institute, all unoccupied. We are greatly embarrassed by our prisoners as all our accommodations here are required for our sick and wounded. It would be a great public service if you can find a place for some, if not all, of our prisoners. We have over 2,000 here.”[2] Added to this, in November 1861, a group of Union operatives destroyed several bridges through East Tennessee. Those who were caught and “identified as having been engaged in bridge-burning” were tried by a “drum-head court-martial” and, if found guilty, were “executed on the spot by hanging.” Those without proof of involvement but suspected, were arrested and sent to Tuscaloosa, imprisoned “at the depot selected by the Government for prisoners of war.”[3] By November 28, some twenty-two prisoners from Carter County had been arrested, sent to Nashville, and were expected to be sent to Tuscaloosa (it is not clear if all twenty-two were to be sent, or just “5 or 6 known to have been in arms.”)[4]

      An abandoned paper mill that was totally unsuited for the job as a prison was selected. When the prisoners began to arrive, some locals were used as guards.[5] Prisoners, at least those captured in the east, were transported via rail from Petersburg, Wilmington, and Montgomery, then steamboat via the Alabama, Tombigbee, and Black Warrior rivers.[6]

   Were all 2,000 prisoners that Benjamin referenced, plus an untold number from the bridge burners, sent to Tuscaloosa? Probably not, but just how many were sent is unclear. There were enough for new Alabama governor John G. Shorter to write to Benjamin on December 19 that he had “Better send no more prisoners to Tuscaloosa . . . Accommodations exhausted.” Also, the state asylum was not available to be used as a prison.[7]

   In December 1861, Capt. E. A. Powell organized a company of prison guards. Powell stepped aside and the company became known after their new captain, C.D. Freeman (Freeman’s Company of the Alabama Prison Guards. They served at the prison in Tuscaloosa until the fall of 1862 when they were transferred to the prison in Salisbury.[8]

   On March 5, 1862, Braxton Bragg ordered that the Federal prisoners in Memphis were to be forwarded to Tuscaloosa.[9] After the skirmish on the Elk River near Bethel, Tennessee, on May 9, 1862, the prisoners were sent “over the mountain by the turnpike road to Tuscaloosa”[10] As early as December 1861, Capt. Elias Griswold was reported as in command of the prison at Tuscaloosa. Griswold apparently held this command through April 11, 1862, when he was promoted to major and ordered to Richmond, Virginia, to be provost marshal.[11] On learning that Griswold was heading to Richmond, local citizens asked that his assistant, Henry Wirz, be placed in command.[12]

   Some of the Federal prisoners from the battle of Shiloh in April 1862 were sent to the prison at Tuscaloosa.    

The Confederate prison in Tuscaloosa was closed by the fall of 1862 and the prisoners were paroled or sent elsewhere.[13] Tuscaloosa was later reopened in the spring of 1864, housing Federal soldiers captured during the Overland Campaign and Brice’s Cross Roads.[14] Just when the prison finally closed and if it was still using the old paper mill is unclear.

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[1] Hubbs, Tuscaloosa, 40.

[2] Sanders, While in the Hands of the Enemy, 49.

[3] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 7, 701.

[4] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 7, 701.

[5] Hesseltine, Civil War Prisons, 64.

[6] Colton, Travels in the Confederate States, 60.

[7] Sanders, While in the Hands of the Enemy, 49.

[8] CSR, Roll 0502, M331, RG109.

[9] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 10, part 2, 298.

[10] Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 10, part 1, 887.

[11] CSR, M331, RG109.

[12] CSR, M331, RG109.

[13] Sanders, While in the Hands of the Enemy, 122.

[14] Sanders, While in the Hands of the Enemy, 219; Radley, Rebel Watch Dog, 170,

Remembering Snodgrass Hill

    For many, remembering the war brought painful thoughts of the past. Commanders of companies and regiments frequently had to relive the war when families wrote asking about the details of the deaths of their loved ones. John B. Palmer served as colonel of the 58th North Carolina Troops and fought at the battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, (you can read more about his life here). David B. Kirby, a cousin-in-law to Colonel Palmer, wrote the colonel about a decade after the war, asking about the details of the death of Edmund Kirby, his brother. Not only does Palmer provide details on the death of Kirby, but details on the role of the 58th North Carolina’s first charge against Snodgrass Hill. On their second charge at the close of the battle, they met the 21st Ohio Infantry. The Ohio soldiers retreated after the charge and the 58th North Carolina held the hill.

Col. John B. Palmer

   Columbia, S.C., June 10, 1875

MY Dear David: - Your letter of the 1st reached here during my absence in Baltimore. I will enceavor [sic] to answer your enquires as correctly as possible.

   At the battle of Chickamauga the 58th N.C. was in Kelly’s Brigade, Preston’s Division, Buckner’s Corps. Your brother Edmund was killed on the evening of the second day’s fight, in an attack on a strong position . . . It was the first charge by our division, but another division, Hindman’s, I think had previously charged and been repulsed.

   If my recollection serves me it was about 4 P.M. when your brother, who had been out in command of a skirmish line, was ordered back with two companies of the 58th. As soon as they reported I, in temporary absence of the brigade commander, was instructed to move with the brigade for the purpose of charging the Ridge [Snodgrass Hill]. We moved forward at a double quick and formed in line with the balance of the division near the base of [Snodgrass Hill], and I resumed command of my regiment. Here an officer, Gen. Hindman, I think, whose command had just been repulsed, at the request of our brigade commander, formed out brigade line for us, and we moved forward. Unfortunately instead of forming us on a line with the balance of the division, and parallel with position we were to charge, we were moved through the timber at a considerable angle, so that when the 58th emerged from the woods and got fairly under fire, the balance of the brigade was under cover. My regiment was a large one, consisting of twelve companies. Leit. Col. Kirby on the right, Maj. Dale [Dula] on the left. In spite of my efforts, seconded by Lieut. Col. Kirby, it was impossible, owing to the angle at which we were advancing, to keep in contact with the brigade on our right, and thus our left being so far in the rear and some little interval existing on our right, the right company, then right wing, and then the whole regiment became subject to a fire from the front, right and left of the enemy’s position. It was terrific. Company A, Capt. Tobey, started on the charge with thirty-four muskets, and reached the top of the hill with only twelve, losing twenty-two in the charge. In the very hottest of the fight, your brother, encouraging the men, and as he fell, I heard him cry, “push them men, (or boys) push them!” In this charge the regiment lost sixty-five men, the Lieut. Colonel, the Major and myself (slightly) wounded, and more than half the other officers either killed or wounded.

Lt. Col. Edmund Kirby

   In the regiment were three young men – boys, in fact – sons, and relatives of wealthy gentlemen of my acquaintance. These youth’s names were Childs, Sherwood and Phifer, all warm personal friends of your brother; indeed Childs had slept under the same blanket the night before. When after the fight I looked for your brother’s body, I found all the four together, almost within reach of each other. They were the most intimate friends your brother had in the regiment and must all have offered up their lives at the same moment.

   Shortly after dark our brigade, temporarily under my command, succeeded in capturing the troops who had been opposing us. They proved to be Ohio and Michigan troops, and I understood the officer to say, as I passed them to the rear, that they belonged to Granger’s command. Some of them said that when the 58th charged with such apparent recklessness, and without any apparent support, they thought we must be drunk.

   I think I told you that your brother had assumed the duties of Lieutenant Colonel only the day before the battle, and that having no proper uniform, he had cut four stars out of tin and affixed them to his collar to designate his rank; two of these stars were perforated by bullets.

Very truly yours,

John B. Palmer

David N. Kirby, Esq., New York

Lt. Col. Edmund Kirby's grave.

Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Kirby’s remains were exhumed after the war and were reburied at Shockoe Hill Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia, next to the remains of his brother, Pvt. Reynold Marvin Kirby, Richmond Howitzers. The brother died of typhoid fever in July 1861. 

Palmer’s account appeared in the October 1876 issue of Our Living and Our Dead. A stone was placed on the grave of Edmund Kirby in 2012 through the work of the Col. John B. Palmer Camp 1946, Sons of Confederate Veterans.

 

Bringing Home the Confederate Generals killed during the Maryland Campaign

   There were eight generals, four from the Confederate army and four from the Union army, killed or mortally wounded at the battle of Sharpsburg in September 1862. None of the eighth are buried on the battlefield along Antietam Creek. All were taken back to their respective states and interred therein.

   Samuel Garland, Jr. was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1830. After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in 1849, he obtained a law degree from the University of Virginia, setting up practice in Lynchburg. Garland was commissioned colonel of the 11^th Virginia Infantry in April 1861. His regiment was involved at First Manassas, and at Dranesville, and he was wounded at Williamsburg. Promotion to brigadier general came on May 23, 1862, with Garland being assigned a brigade in D.H. Hill’s division. The battles of Seven Pines and the Seven Days followed. Hill’s command was back with the Army of Northern Virginia as it made its way to Maryland. Hill’s division was tasked with guarding Fox’s and Turner’s Gaps at South Mountain, protecting the rest of Lee’s army engaged with the capturing of Harpers Ferry.[1]

   At Fox’s Gap, Garland was checking on his hard-pressed left flank when he was struck in the left hip. Garland told Colonel Ruffin “Col. I am a dead man, send for Col. McRae to take command.” Garland was placed in a blanket by four men and taken off the field, dying on the porch of the South Mountain Inn about fifteen minutes after his wounding.[2] Garland’s remains were first taken to Richmond, arriving on Thursday, September 18.[3] They were then transported to Lynchburg where he was buried at the Presbyterian Cemetery on September 24, 1862.[4]

   William E. Starke was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1814. Prior to the war, he operated a stage line then moved to Mobile, followed by New Orleans, working as a cotton broker. When the war came, he returned to Virginia, serving as an aide to Brig. Gen. Robert S. Garnett. Later, Starke was commissioned as colonel of the 60^th Virginia Infantry, fighting during the Seven Days battles. His commission as brigadier general came on August 6, 1862, and he commanded a brigade in Jackson’s division. He led the brigade at Cedar Mountain, Groveton, and Second Manassas (where he held division command).

   During the Maryland Campaign, Starke was placed under arrest by Jackson. Some “Foreign” troops were accused of vandalizing a store in Frederick. Starke commanded the Louisiana brigade, containing the famed Louisiana Tigers. Ordered to return to Frederick with his brigade so the culprits could be identified, Starke refused unless the other brigades in the division also returned. Jackson placed Starke under arrest but allowed him to remain in command. He helped with the investment of Harpers Ferry, and at Sharpsburg, was rushed to the Confederate left to shore up the line.[5] Starke, commanding a demi-brigade, rushed out of the west woods into a clover field, countering the Federal advance. His brigades were caught in a crossfire. As Starke attempted to help get the brigade of Alabama and Virginia troops moving toward the Federals, he was struck by three bullets. Sources differ on whether he was killed instantly or died about an hour later.[6] Starke’s remains were taken to Richmond, arriving on Sunday, September 21, 1862. His funeral was held in St. Paul’s Church on September 24, and he was buried in Hollywood Cemetery.[7]

   Geroge B. Anderson was born near Hillsboro, North Carolina, in 1831. A graduate of both the University of North Carolina and the United States Military Academy. When North Carolina left the Union, Anderson resigned from the United States Army. He was commissioned colonel of the 4^th North Carolina State Troops. At Seven Pines, Anderson commanded W.S. Featherston’s brigade and was promoted to brigadier general shortly thereafter. Anderson’s brigade was assigned to D.H. Hill’s division during the Seven Days battles, where he was wounded. They missed Cedar Mountain and Second Manassas, but were back with the Army of Northern Virgina for the Maryland Campaign.[8]

   Anderson was heavily involved at the battle of Fox’s Gap, but survived unwounded. At Sharpsburg, his brigade was posted in the Sunken Lane (now Bloody Lane) during the middle portion of the fight. As the struggle for the Sunken Lane heightened, Anderson was struck in the foot, near the ankle joint.  Under fire, he was hauled out of the Sunken Road and taken to the Piper Farm, where his wound was examined and declared to be not dangerous. He was later borne via a stretcher further to the rear, under fire, placed in an ambulance, and taken to Shepherdstown where he found refuge in the Boteler home.  As the Confederate Army pulled back, Anderson was placed in a wagon and made his way to Staunton, catching a train through Richmond and on to Raleigh. It took him over a week to make the journey. Not long thereafter, it was discovered that the ball was still lodged in his ankle. Infection set in, and although the limb was amputated, Anderson died of his wounds on October 16, 1862, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh.[9]

Lawrence O’ Branch was born near Enfield, Halifax County, North Carolina, in 1820. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton College) in 1838, and later studied law. Prior to the war, he was the president of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad and served in the United State House of Representatives. He declined to serve as Secretary of the Treasury in the Buchanan administration. At the start of the war, he served as quartermaster of the state of North Carolina, colonel of the 33^rd North Carolina Troops. Branch was promoted to brigadier general on November 16, 1861. He commanded the Confederate forces at the battle of New Bern in March 1862 – a Confederate defeat, and a brigade at Hanover Court House in May 1862, also a Confederate defeat. Following Hanover, his brigade was placed in A.P. Hill’s Light Division. Branch led his brigade through the Seven Days, Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, and Chantilly.[10]

 At the start of the Maryland Campaign, Jackson had Hill under arrest, with Branch leading the Light Division. He was active in the capture of Harper’s Ferry and made the seventeen-mile march from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg on September 17, arriving late in the day. Most of the members of Branch’s brigade were posted on the hill overlooking Antietam Creek. Late in the day, as Branch was conferring with two other officers, a Federal soldier fired into the group, striking Branch as he was in the process of raising his field glasses to his eyes. Branch was instantly killed. One of Branch’s staff officers, Maj. Joseph Engelhard, escorted the general’s body home. In Richmond, Engelhard was met by four men, including William Blount and William Rodman, both relatives and former staff officers under Branch. When Branch’s remains arrived in Raleigh Thursday evening, military forces met the train and escorted the General's body to the Capitol rotunda, while providing a guard throughout the night. All businesses were closed on Friday morning, and the number of people on hand were said to rival the visit of Henry Clay in 1840. The next morning, funeral services were conducted by Episcopal clergyman Rev. Dr. Mason inside the Capitol. Branch was laid to rest in the Old City Cemetery, Raleigh.[11]

   The Federal generals killed during the campaign were Maj. Gen. Jesse L. Reno; Maj. Gen. Joseph K.F. Mansfield, Maj. Gen. Israel B. Richardson (mortally wounded), and Brig. Gen. Isaac P. Rodman (mortally wounded). They were likewise transported North for burial. Reno is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.; Mansfield is buried in the Indian Hill Cemetery, Middle, Connecticut; Richardson is buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery, Pontiac, Michigan; and, Rodman is buried in the Rhode Island Historical Cemetery South Kingstown, Rhode Island.

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[1] Davis, The Confederate Generals, 2:165.

[2] Hartwig, To Antietam Creek, 319; Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 25, 1862.

[3] Richmond Enquirer, September 23, 1862.

[4] Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 25, 1862.

[5] Davis, The Confederate Generals, 5:199.

[6] Sears, Landscape Turned Red, 194; Hartwig, I Dred the Thought of the Place, 64.

[7] Richmond Dispatch, September 23, 1862.

[8] Davis, The Confederate Generals, 1:18-9.

[9] Pawlak, Shepherdstown in the Civil War, 82, 103-4.

[10] Davis, The Confederate Generals, 1:118-9.

[11] Weekly State Journal, October 1, 1862; The Raleigh Register, September 27, 1862, October 1, 1862.

Cyrus I. Scofield, Tennessee Confederate Soldier and Bible Scholar

    Lenawee County, Michigan, might seem like a strange place for a Confederate soldier to be born. Cyrus Ingerson Scofield first saw the light of day there on August 19, 1843. His father was a millwright, and his mother died several months after his birth. Cyrus was an avid reader growing up. When his stepmother passed in 1859, Cyrus headed to Wilson County, Tennessee, where his sister and brother-in-law lived. He later claimed that he was getting ready to take the examinations to enter the university when the war came, although which university he planned to enter is not clear.[1]

   At the age of seventeen, Scofield enlisted in what became Company H, 7^th Tennessee Infantry. On May 20, 1861, he was mustered in as a private in Nashville. One biographical sketch stated that he served as an orderly. After completing organization at Camp Trousdale, the 7^th Tennessee transferred to Virginia. They participated in the Cheat Mountain Campaign and were later assigned to James J. Archer’s brigade. Scofield probably saw fighting through the Seven Days Campaign, Cedar Mountain, Second Manassas, Harpers Ferry, and Sharpsburg. Scofield was reported sick and in Chimborazo Hospital from April 8 to May 1, 1862.[2] 

Flag of the 7th TN

   Scofield wrote the Secretary of War on July 8, 1862, stating that he was a native of Michigan where his father still lived, and that when he entered the service, he was a minor. Scofield wrote that his “health was never good [and] is broken by exposure and fatigue in the recent series of engagements with the Enemy before Richmond . . . I have fought in three battles for the South and have no intention of deserting her cause but after a short time to enter Guerilla service in East Tenn.”[3] It was the recommendation by his company commander that Scofield be discharged on September 26, 1862. Scofield had volunteered to serve one year, a time that had already elapsed. And, he was not “a citizen of the Confederate States but an Alien friend.” With discharge in hand, Scofield returned to Tennessee.[4]

   Scofield told a later biographer that he was then drafted back into the Southern army on an unknown date and was ordered to report to a Camp of Instruction at McMinnville. “I started on foot with the intention of effecting my escape to the federal lines which I succeeded in doing after marching 75 miles to Bowling Green Ky. I reported myself to the authorities took the oath of allegiance and passed on to St. Louis to my friends here.” Scofield sought out a parole from the Federal provost marshal, stating that he was a “loyal citizen of the U.S. which I have always been notwithstanding the untoward circumstances in which I have been placed during this rebellion and the false position I have found myself against my inclination occupying until my recent escape from Tennessee.” Scofield remained in St. Louis, working as a clerk. There is no record that he ever served in the Federal army.[5] 

Later life image of Scofield.

   In 1866, Scofield married and studied law, then worked in the St. Louis assessor’s office. He then moved to Kansas, serving in the state house, and was appointed a US District attorney. Sometime in the 1870s, Scofield became a Christian. By the fall of 1879, he was helping with an evangelistic campaign conducted by Dwight L. Moody. Moody had worked at the Confederate prison in Chicago during the war. (This is the same Moody as in the Moody Bible Institute.) In 1883, Scofield was ordained as a Congregationalist minister, pastoring churches over the next forty years. His lasting contribution is what is now called the Scofield Reference Bible, published by Oxford University Press in 1909. While not the first Bible with notes (the Geneva Bible, published in 1551, had study notes or annotations), Scofield’s Reference Bible was one of the most popular of the 20^th century. It is unlikely that many shoppers at the Christian bookstore who see his work on the shelf, or even those who own a copy of the Scofield Reference Bible, know the fascinating and convoluted wartime journey of its editor.

  

 

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[1]  Canfield, The Incredible Scofield, 10, 12,13; Trumball, The Life Story of C.I. Scofield, 7.

[2] Cyrus J. Scofield, CMSR, Roll 148, M268, RG109.

[3] Canfield, The Incredible Scofield, 17-18.

[4] Cyrus J. Scofield, CMSR, Roll 148, M268, RG109.

[5] Rushing, “From Confederate Deserter to Decorated Veteran Bible Scholar,” 24-26.

A.P. Hill and his Staff at Chancellorsville

   “You have shot my friends! You have destroyed my staff!” In the confusion of the night of May 2, 1863, Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill and members of his staff had followed Stonewall Jackson out in front of Confederate lines just west of the Chancellor House. Jackson was scouting the Federal lines in the darkness. Hill had followed him at a distance and was much closer to the main Confederate lines. It was not a position for either a corps or a division commander. Shots between the main Confederate line, main Federal line, and their respective skirmishers rolled from one side to another. As Jackon and his staff returned to the Confederate lines, someone thought they were being attacked by Federal cavalry – there were remnants of just such a charge earlier in the day scattered about. One officer in the 18^th North Carolina wrote that “the tramp of thirty horsemen advancing through a heavy forest at a rapid gait seemed to the average infantryman like a brigade of cavalry.”[1]

   “Cavalry!” someone cried out. With the intense small arms fire just across the Orange Plank Road to their right, the 18^th North Carolina sent a strong volley into the darkness. Jackson and several members of his staff were stuck. Hill jumped from his horse, prostrating himself on the ground, and escaped unharmed. The staff that rode with a general were paramount to operations. There were medical officers, commissary officers, quartermasters, inspectors, ordinance officers, and volunteer aides, all essential to operations, whether in camp or on campaign. During battle, these were typically the men who relayed orders to those commanders under the general.

   Captain Murray F. Taylor was one of those aides on Hill’s staff that evening. In 1904, his recollections of the events were published. Taylor writes that “eleven of our staff, including Capt. [James K.] Boswell, who were in front of this regiment, were either killed or wounded.” Boswell was a member of Jackson’s staff. Because of his familiarity with the area, he had been temporarily assigned to Hill to serve as a guide. According to Taylor, the only two not wounded among the staff were Taylor and Capt. Watkins Leigh. Taylor was pinned under his horse. He recalled hearing Hill’s voice in the darkness, wanting “to know if any of his staff were alive.” Hill was trying to help extricate Taylor when a courier arrived bearing news that Jackson was wounded. With that information, Hill left Taylor to manage the best that he could and went in search of Jackson.[2]

   Boswell was killed, and his death much lamented. Another of the killed was Capt. James F. Forbes, serving as a volunteer aide-de-camp. The horses of Major Howard and Sergeant Tucker were so unnerved that they carried their riders into Federal lines. Private Richard J. Muse, courier, was killed, and another courier, Eugune Saunders, was struck twice in the face. Possibly another courier, Kilpatrick, might have also been killed. There might have been others wounded. Compiled service records on each of the men who served on Hill’s staff are somewhat thin. Many times, those who were only slightly wounded were not reported as such.[3]

   Replacing Palmer as assistant adjutant general was William N. Starke. Prior to his assignment, Starke had served as Acting Assistant Adjutant General in his father’s brigade. Starke served in this role for the rest of the war. Palmer would return to Hill’s staff and follow Hill when the latter was promoted to command of the Third Corps. It does not appear that another volunteer aide-de-camp was assigned to Hill’s command after the death of Forbes.

   Not long after the volley that killed Boswell and Forbes and wounded Palmer, and after Hill oversaw the evacuation of Jackson from such an exposed position between the lines, Hill himself was wounded by an artillery fragment. While it was not a dangerous wound, Hill was unable to walk or ride and passed command over to JEB Stuart.

   Hill’s statement “You have shot my friends! You have destroyed my staff!” was remembered by Taylor long after the war. As Hill took a roll call of his staff in the darkness and confusion, he could have believed that the volley had been worse than it was. Maybe some of the wounded were members of the 39^th Battalion Virginia Cavalry, an organization that supplied couriers to division, corps, and general staff. Several members of the 39^th Battalion were reported wounded or killed at Chancellorsville, including John Hall, George Smith, and Thomas Williamson (he was wounded and captured). While these soldiers were not considered as belonging to the staff of a particular general, it is possible that Hill might have considered some of them friends or staff.[4]

   When historians write on the battle of Chancellorsville or the life of A.P. Hill, the volley that wounded Jackson and took out several of Hill staff is always mentioned. However, the focus is usually on Jackson. Sears, in his standard work on the battle, neglects details about the volley in relationship to Hill.  Likewise, Schenck neglects this part of the story. In his biography of Hill, Robertson only includes Taylor’s account. Only Lively, in Calamity at Chancellorsville, dives into who was with Hill as the volley wreaked havoc on Hill’s staff in the woods that fateful, dark night at Chancellorsville.[5]                                                                                                                                                                                       

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[1] Robertson, General A.P Hill, 187.

[2] Taylor, “Stonewall Jackson’s Death,” Confederate Veteran, 12:493.

[3] Krick, Staff Officers in Gray, 130; 236; Palmer, “Another Account of It,” Confederate Veteran, 13:233; Lively, Calamity at Chancellorsville, 52, 57. 
                          

[4] Hardy, General Lee’s Bodyguard, 49.

[5] Sears, Chancellorsville, 295; Schrenck, Up Came Hill, 250; Robertson, General A.P. Hill, 187; Lively, Calamity at Chancellorsville, 52, 57.

 

Was Robert E. Lee a Whig?

    For some Confederate military commanders, their pre-war political lives are easy to follow. Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge served in the United States House, United State Senate, and as Vice President of the United States, all while a member of the Democratic Party. He was a Confederate major general. North Carolinian Zebulon Baird Vance was a member of the Whig Party, and following that party’s demise in 1854, a member of the American Party or Know-Nothings, while serving in the U.S. House starting in 1858. He was colonel of the 26^th North Carolina. Richard L. T. Beale was a pre-war Democrat in the US House prior to the becoming a Confederate brigadier general; Georgian Howell Cobb was the U.S. Treasury Secretary under James Buchanan, and later a Confederate major general; another Georgian, Lucius J. Gartrell, served in the US House before becoming a Confederate brigadier general.

   Back to the question: how would Robert E. Lee have voted in an election? There is a good chance that Lee never voted in a national election. His father, Light Horse Harry Lee, lost all his property.  His mother’s will stipulated that the property she owned be sold, with the proceeds divided up between Robert and his two brothers.[1] It seems that Robert E. Lee never owned any physical piece of land.[2] After his graduation from West Point and the death of his mother, Lee moved from assignment to assignment. He was stationed at Cockspur Island, South Carolina; Fort Monroe, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; St. Louis, Missouri; Brooklyn, New York; Baltimore, Maryland; West Point, New York; and Texas. Lee married Mary Ann Custis in 1831. While the family traveled with Lee at times, living at various posts, Mary Ann spent the majority of her time at Arlington, the home of her father. After her father, George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington, died in 1857, Lee became executor of his will, but not the owner of Arlington. Instead, it remained in the hands of Mary Ann for her lifetime, and was then transferred to her oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.

 Virginia’s 1850 Constitution stated that every white male, at least twenty-one years old, and who had been a resident of the state for two years, and had lived in a Virginia county, town, or city for the preceding twelve months, could vote. However, “no person in the military, naval or marine service of the United States shall be deemed a resident of this State by reason of being stationed therein.” If other state Constitutions held the same requirements for residency, and disqualified military personnel from obtaining residency, then Lee would have been ineligible to vote in local, national, or state elections. Since Arlington House, where Lee resided when not stationed elsewhere, was in the District of Columbia, he might have voted for the mayor, councilmen, or aldermen.[3]

   If Lee had voted, which way, politically, would he have leaned? That is great question. As already mentioned, Lee was the son of famed Revolutionary War commander Light Horse Harry Lee. It was Lee who eulogized George Washington (to a crowd of 4,000 at Washington’s funeral) “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Lee was friends with Alexander Hamilton. It was Hamilton who asked Lee to serve on Washington’s staff as an aide de camp. Of course, Lee said no, wanting to serve with the dragoons. Lee was critical of Hamilton’s funding of the National debt. He saw potential devastation with Jefferson’s rise to power. Lee went on to serve in the U.S. House, the Virginia House of Delegates, and as the governor of Virginia as a Federalist. When Washington tapped Lee to command the troops to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, Jefferson’s friends in Virginia used it as an excuse to root him out of the governor’s chair.[4]

   The Federalist party was defeated by the Democratic-Republican Party in the 1800 election, becoming a minority party centered in the New England area. The party favored national banks, a strong army and navy, and a national government over a state government (centralization). They were typically anti-war and opposed to slavery. They gradually faded from the scene after running their last presidential candidate during the 1816 election. The Whig Party, founded in 1833, featured some of the same goals: a strong national bank, protective tariffs, federal subsidies for infrastructure construction, and a weak executive and powerful Congress. Some stalwarts of the party included Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William Henry Harrison, and Zachary Taylor. The Whig Party dissolved in 1856. The membership scattered, joining the Republican Party, American Party, Opposition Party, and Constitutional Party, with some former Whigs embracing the Democratic Party.

   Lee gives a few glimpses of his politics in his surviving letters. We know that Lee idolized Washington. He spent much time at Arlington, surrounded by Washington relics, and even married someone with the strongest ties to Washington.[5] While a cadet at West Point, Lee borrowed books on the works Alexander Hamilton. The second volume contained The Federalist, a volume he checked out several times.[6] Writing from St. Louis in August 1838, he told a cousin in Alexandria that “The elections are all over, the ‘Van-ites’ have carried the day in the State, although the Whigs in this district carried their entire ticket, and you will have the pleasure of hearing the great expunger again thunder from his place in the Seante against banks, bribery, and corruption.”[7] Lee, although earning high praise for his service in the Mexican-American War, wrote that “It is true that we have bullied [Mexico]. For that I am ashamed.”[8] The latter views were synonymous with the Whig Party, which was opposed to the war with Mexico.

   It was not that Lee was opposed to voting and participating in the election process. Writing to James Longstreet in October 1867, Lee told his old war horse that “I am of the opinion that all who can should vote for the most intelligent, honest, and conscientious men eligible for office, irrespective of former party opinions, who will endeavor to make the new constitutions and the laws passed under them as beneficial as possible to the true interests, prosperity, and liberty of all classes and conditions of the people.”[9]

   Unlike many of the other Confederate generals and politicians, Lee did not regain his voting rights in his lifetime. It was not until August 5, 1976, that Lee was restored to the “Full rights of citizenship” by President Gerald R. Ford. So the question remains: what would have been Lee’s party affiliation had he been casting votes?                                                                                                                                          

 

[1] Freeman, R.E. Lee, 92.

[2] Connelly, The Marble Man, 7.

[3] http://www.virginiaplaces.org/government/voteproperty.html

[4] Royster, Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution, 25, 107, 112, 134.

[5] see McCaslin, Lee in the Shadow of Washington.

[6] Freeman, R.E. Lee, 1:72.

[7] Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee, 29-30.

[8] Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee, 43.

[9] Lee, Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee, 269.