Site Visit Saturday: Fox’s Gap and Brig. Gen. Samuel Garland, Jr.

    Do lawyers make good generals?  Some of them have. Others, not so much. There were a slew of lawyers who became Confederate generals, such as Lawrence Branch, John B. Gordon, Theodore W. Brevard, Jr., Daniel W. Adams, and Alpheus Baker, just to name a few. Included in the bunch was Samuel Garland, Jr.

   Born in Lynchburg, Virginia on December 16, 1830, Samuel Garland, Jr., was the great-grandnephew of United States President James Madison. His father was an attorney (who died when Samuel was ten years old). Samuel was educated in a private school in Nelson County, then at Randolph Macon College, and finally, the Virginia Military Academy, where he graduated in 1849, third in his class. He went on to study law at the University of Virginia, and after John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry organized a militia company. When the war came, that company became a part of the 11^th Virginia Infantry, and Garland was commissioned the regiment’s colonel. Garland and his regiment fought at the battle of Manassas in July 1861, as a part of Brig. Gen. James Longstreet’s brigade. Following the battle of Seven Pines, in which Garland was wounded in the elbow, he was promoted to brigadier general. He commanded a North Carolina brigade composed of the 5^th, 12^th, 13^th, 20^th, and 23^rd Regiments.

 

Garland Marker, Fox's Gap

   With the reorganization of the Army of Northern Virginia following the Seven Days campaign, Garland found his brigade in D.H. Hill’s Division, Jackson’s wing. During the Maryland Campaign, while the rest of Jackson’s command invested Harper’s Ferry, D.H. Hill’s command was sent to guard the gaps across South Mountain, protecting the rear of Jackson’s forces capturing the town. At the beginning of the fight, Garland was ordered to take his brigade and defend the National Pike. D.H. Hill wrote after the battle that “The firing had aroused that prompt and gallant soldier, General Garland, and his men were under arms when I reached the pike. I explained the situation briefly to him, directed him to sweep through the woods, reach the road, and hold it at all hazards, as the safety of Lee's large train depended upon its being held. He went off in high spirits and I never saw him again. I never knew a truer, better, braver man. Had he lived, his talents, pluck, energy, and purity of character must have put him in the front rank of his profession, whether in civil or military life.”  During the fighting at Fox’s Gap, Garland was struck in the back by a bullet that passed through his body. His last words were “I am killed. Send for the Senior colonel.”

   Following his death, Garland was interred at the Presbyterian Cemetery in Lynchburg, next to the graves of his wife and son who had passed in June and July 1861 of influenza.

   In September 1993, the Sons of Confederate Veterans erected a commemorative marker near the spot of Samuel Garland’s death. I last visited the site in May 2011.

He almost got away: Holcombe Legion and the night after South Mountain.

    Sometimes you just find accounts that make a person laugh out loud. As I was reading through an account by a member of Holcombe Legion (SC), I stumbled across one such account. William P. Dubose was adjutant of the infantry portion of Holcombe's Legion (he later served as chaplain). In September 1862, he had been ordered to take a small group of his soldiers and scout towards the battle field of the previous day at South Mountain, trying to ascertain if Federal troops are still around. Dubose has moved his men forward, and then leaves then while he scouts on ahead. He actually flanks a Federal line, coming up in their rear.

Private Jackon A. Davis of Co. E, Holcombe Legion (LOC)

   In the darkness, Dubose has not seen anything, when all of a sudden, he hears "Halt!"

   I stopped immediately, wondering whether it was the voice of the enemy or one of my own men in search of me. I could see one or two figures not more than twenty steps in front of me, but I could not distinguish the uniform. Robert Rutledge's cloak [which Dubose had borrowed] as a civilian's, with a c cape falling over the arms with slits in the side of the body for armholes. My arms were within the slits, holding the pistol [also borrowed]. I quietly cocked it and slowly moved over to the figures before me, which were between me and my own men. They made no movement as I approached and I hoped very strongly still that they were my men. As I approached to within a very few feet my immediate antagonist and myself, simultaneously recognized each other as enemies. He thought I was one of his own men. As he jerked up his gun, I was near enough to ward it off with one hand and with the other attempt to draw my pistol from without the cloak. In the necessary scuffle, the pistol being cocked, discharged itself prematurely. At once, thinking himself shot, with a load yell, the man dropped his gun and precipitated himself upon me. Instantly the woods were alive. My effort then was simply to get away. In the scuffle that ensued, I several times nearly did so, but my antagonist was a much larger and stronger man that I was, and I finally had to surrender to numbers."

Dubose was captured, and spent the next several weeks at Fort Delaware as a prisoner of war. This account was found in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Surprisingly, there appears to be no history of Holcombe Legion.