Thursday, March 10, 2022

Fighting on both sides: Richard K. Meade, Jr.

Maj. Richard K. Meade, Jr. 
   There are a handful of men who have the distinction of fighting on both sides during the war. One of those is Richard Kidder Meade, Jr.  Born in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1835, he was the son of Richard K. Meade, a U.S. Congressman and diplomat, appointed as US Minister to Brazil by President James Buchanan. Richard K. Meade, Jr., was a member of the West Point class of 1857, graduating third in his class. Among his classmates were E. Alexander Porter, Richard H. Anderson, Samuel W. Ferguson, and John S. Marmaduke. Assigned to the engineering corps in the US Army following graduation, he arrived in Charleston on December 10, 1860. Major Robert Anderson first sent him to Castle Pinckney, but Meade discovered that he did not have enough materials to finish the project assigned to him.[1]

   When Major Anderson chose to transfer his command to Fort Sumter, 2nd Lt. Meade used one of the barges to help move the troops. Meade was back at Castle Pickney when James J. Pettigrew arrived on the following day. Meade had no soldiers, just himself and an ordnance sergeant, along with several workers. When Meade refused to open the gate, Pettigrew’s men procured ladders and scaled the walls. Pettigrew demanded Meade surrender on order of the governor of South Carolina, which Meade stated he could not do. The US flag was hauled down and a red flag with a white star was run up. Meade refused to watch the flag go up and retired to his room to write his report. Meade also refused a parole, believing that to do so acknowledged South Carolina as a foreign government. Meade then headed for Fort Sumter.[2]

   Major Anderson sought Meade’s opinion when the Star of the West was fired upon, and when Governor Pickens sent two men to demand the Fort’s surrender. At the later, it was Meade who suggested that the matter be referred to their superiors in Washington, telling Anderson that if they fired on the South Carolinians firing on the ship, “It will bring civil war on us.”[3] Meade was placed in charge of making bags for powder for the cannons prior to the battle. When the battle began on April 12, Meade found himself in command of a gun crew. He was also still in charge of making powder bags, which were soon running short.[4] 

The capture of Castle Pinckney

   At one point, prior to the battle, Meade received a note that one member of his family, his mother, or maybe a sister, was ill. Meade received a furlough to visit the sick relative. Abner Doubleday later wrote that Meade’s absence to Virginia, was a “strategic move to force poor Meade into the ranks of the Confederacy. . . He had previously been overwhelmed with letters on the subject. He was already much troubled in mind; and some months after the bombardment of Fort Sumter the pressure of family ties induced him (very reluctantly as I heard) to join the Disunionists.”[5] However, Doubleday would later praise Meade, writing that while he had never been under fire, Meade “proved [himself] to be [a true] son of [his] Alma Mater at West Point.”[6]

   Meade accompanied Anderson and the others to New York following the surrender of Fort Sumter. When Virginia left the Union, Meade resigned his commission on May 1, 1861. He soon pitched his fate with the Confederate forces and was appointed major of artillery in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States. Meade was assigned as engineering officer to Magruder, then worked on the defenses in the Cape Fear area, with General Branch at New Bern, and served as engineer officer on the staff of James Longstreet about the time of the Seven Days campaign. Major Meade died of disease, probably typhoid, on July 31, 1862, and is buried at Blandford Church Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia.[7]



[1] Detzer, Allegiance, 63.

[2] Detzer, Allegiance, 114, 134, 135.

[3] Swanberg, First Blood, 148.

[4] Detzer, Allegiance, 167; Burton, The Siege of Charleston, 48.

[5] Doubleday quoted in Hendrickson, Sumter, 138.

[6] Swanberg, First Blood, 305.

[7] Krick, Staff Officer in Gray, 218.

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