North Alabama Civil War Generals

180 Pages·2016·2.08 MB·English

North Alabama
Civil War Generals:
13 Wore Gray, the Rest Blue
A selection of Essays from the Authors of
the
Tennessee Valley Civil War Round Table
This book is dedicated to two previous presidents
of the
Tennessee Valley Civil War Round Table

Brian Hogan who served between 1993 - 2007

and

John Allen who served between 2007 - 2012

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A Message from the TVCWRT President, Carol Codori

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens
can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
- Margaret Mead

This book is the work of one small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens: the Little Round Table (LRT). They’re a
segment of our 200+ member Tennessee Valley Civil War Round
Table. They meet in seminar style in addition to our regular
meeting, to delve deeply into the conflicts of 1861-1865.
Most participants would be too humble to say the LRT can
change the world! I will say from personal experience, however,
that their sessions had the power to stir me to become a more
serious student. I’m sure that this well-researched record about
Civil War leaders can also motivate you.
Major thanks go to LRT founder and coordinator John Allen.
His excellent introduction will enlighten. I shall simply add that
our entire TVCWRT appreciates his vision and devotion. We
also thank Arley McCormick, a tireless worker for all of our
Tennessee Valley Civil War Round Table events and the person
who spearheaded this project. Thanks to our editor Jacque
Procter Reeves, President of the Huntsville-Madison County
Historical Society and member of our Civil War Round Table.
She is a model citizen-scholar who has given many hours to
this work.
For the finale of the American Civil War Sesquicentennial in
2015, it seems fitting to prepare a record of these key LRT
sessions from the past several years. It is my honor to invite
you to share our historical legacy.

Carol A. Codori, President
Tennessee Valley Civil War Round Table
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Preface

This book grew out of a topic in the Tennessee Valley Civil War
Round Table’s (TVCWRT) spin-off discussion group, the “Little”
Round Table. Long-time member and former president of the
TVCWRT, Brian Hogan, began to notice in his research, that there
were enough Civil War generals from North Alabama to form the basis
of a Little Round Table (LRT) discussion. And so it was. Initially,
there were a dozen generals, but further research turned up five more.
The generals were assigned to individual members of the LRT group,
who gave oral reports on them at LRT monthly meetings.
We were enthralled with the results. I encouraged Arley McCormick,
our newsletter editor, to collect the research notes and put them into a
booklet; and so, we did. But after nearly a year, that booklet grew to
become this book.
Five of the seventeen generals fought for the Union during the Civil
War. A few generals had been U.S. soldiers, but switched sides when
the South seceded. Several others were already out of the army, but
rejoined one side or the other when hostilities broke out.
Here, in alphabetical order, are snippets of the 17 generals in this
book:

USA Maj. Gen. David B. Birney was from Huntsville, Alabama.
Most illustrative of David Birney's seriousness and dedication to the
Union and the Republican Party is one of the final episodes of his life:
after Birney's health collapsed on October 8th, 1864, he was rushed by
train from the York Peninsula in Virginia to his home in Philadelphia in
order to convalesce. State elections were occurring at that time, and
Birney had himself carried to the polls where he voted a straight
Republican ticket. He died eleven days later. In his delirium, he
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shouted orders and encouraged his men. His last words were “Keep
your eyes on that flag, boys!”

USA Brevet Maj. Gen. William Birney, David Birney’s brother, was
also from Huntsville. Our author found it ironic that William Birney’s
ambition to lead U.S. Colored troops on the battlefield in all-black
brigades and divisions was undone during the Appomattox Campaign.
The undoing was by his own Union commander, Maj. Gen. E.O.C.
Ord, who relieved Birney from command of the one U.S.C.T. division
involved in the pursuit of Lee's army. His command was divided up by
assigning each brigade to another division in the pursuing force. This
took place two days before Lee's Army was surrounded and forced to
surrender at Appomattox.

USA Brig. Gen. Thomas Turpin Crittenden was born in Huntsville,
Alabama, but grew up in Texas and became a lawyer. After enlisting in
the Union Army, he led his brigade in battle during the second day of
Shiloh. He was a competent commander and leader, but his career and
reputation were ruined when he and his entire command were captured
at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, by Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalrymen.

CSA Brig. Gen. James Deshler was a native of Tuscumbia, Alabama.
He graduated from West Point in the same class with J.E.B. Stuart.
After secession, he joined the Confederate Army and was promoted up
the ranks from Captain to Brigadier General by the time he was 30.
However, at the Battle of Chickamauga, Deshler was killed by an
exploding Union artillery shell while inspecting his brigade.

CSA Maj. Gen. John Brown Gordon was born in Upson County,
Georgia and moved to Jackson County, Alabama to manage his
family’s interest in coal mining. He had no previous military
experience but his Civil War exploits could be the subject for a
character study and military tactics of the era. He was involved in most
of the Army of Northern Virginia’s battles and carried the scars of
bravery with him till he died in 1904.
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CSA Brig. Gen. John Gregg was a native of Lawrence County,
Alabama, and graduate of LaGrange College near Florence. He was a
newspaper man, a lawyer, and a judge. In the Civil War, he fought for
the Confederacy in both the Western and Eastern Theaters. During the
Battle of Chickamauga, Gregg was shot in the neck and left for dead.
His body was robbed by Federal soldiers. But he recovered, despite the
severe wound. His death at the age of 36 came less than one year
before the end of the war at the Battle of Richmond. He was buried in
his adopted home state of Texas, where a county was named in his
honor.

USA Brig. Gen. Andrew Jackson Hamilton, of Huntsville, Alabama,
became a lawyer and politician in Texas, where he was forced to flee to
the north because of his anti-secession views. President Lincoln
appointed him Military Governor of Texas, and Secretary of War,
Edwin Stanton, commissioned him a Brig. Gen. over volunteers. After
the war, he served as a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court.

USA Brig. Gen. Daniel McCook Jr. was from the famous family of
“Fighting McCooks.” Born in Ohio, he attended college in Florence,
Alabama. He was a law partner in Kansas with William Sherman. At
the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, he was mortally wounded, then
promoted to Brig. General for his bravery. He was a poet, and was
revered by his men.

CSA Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan, a native of Huntsville, was the
leader of Morgan's Raiders, known as the “Thunderbolt of the
Confederacy” for his bravery and daring exploits. He is best known
for a daring attack north of the Ohio River referred to as Morgan's
Raid when, in 1863, he and his men rode more than 1,000 miles
covering a region from Tennessee, up through Kentucky, into Indiana
and on to southern Ohio. This would be the farthest north any
uniformed Confederate troops penetrated during the war. He was killed
in an ambush in Greeneville, Tennessee, in September 1864. His early
home in Huntsville still stands.
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CSA Brig. Gen. Edward A. O’Neal, of Madison County, Alabama,
was a lawyer and a dedicated leader, but was found in disfavor for
actions at Gettysburg. Still, he continued to contribute to the war effort
until the end. In 1882, O’Neal was elected Governor of Alabama.

CSA Brig. Gen. Edmund Winston Pettus, a native of Athens,
Alabama, served as a U.S. Army lieutenant in the Mexican War, but
later rose to Brig. General in the Confederate Army where he exhibited
conspicuous bravery. Following the end of hostilities, he was a leader
of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, and later was elected to the U.S.
Senate where he became the last of the Confederate brigadiers to sit in
the upper house of Congress. His brother, John, was governor of
Mississippi.

CSA Brig. Gen. Philip D. Roddey was a favorite son of Moulton,
Alabama, where he was first a tailor, then a sheriff, and then a
steamboat owner. To keep the Union Army from capturing his
steamboat, Roddey burned it. He then joined the Confederate Army,
raised a cavalry company, and shot up the ranks to become a Brig.
General, fighting under Generals Wheeler and Forrest. After the war,
he was a successful businessman, first in Tuscaloosa, then in New York
City, and later in London, England, where he died in 1897.

CSA Brig. Gen. Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross was a Texan, but
attended college at Florence, Alabama. He was an Indian fighter (and
seriously wounded), a Texas Ranger, one of the youngest Confederate
generals, a two-term governor of Texas, and was president of Texas
A&M University.

CSA Brig. Gen. Edward Dorr Tracy Jr. moved from his native
Georgia to Huntsville, Alabama, as a young man to set up his law
practice. He married the daughter of a prominent architect before he
answered the call to fight for the Confederacy. After surviving the
battles of First Bull Run, Shiloh, and Chickasaw Bayou, the 29-year-
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old Gen. Tracy was killed in action at Port Gibson, Mississippi, on May
1, 1863. His young widow followed him in death in 1868.

Leroy Pope Walker of Huntsville was the first Confederate States
Secretary of War, and it was he who transmitted from Montgomery,
Alabama, the orders to fire on Fort Sumter. Later in the war, he served
as a Brigadier General in Mobile, Montgomery and Tuscumbia.
Returning to Huntsville to practice law, he served as a military court
judge and attorney in north Alabama until the end of the war. His last
case, before his death, was to successfully defend a former Confederate
accused of robbing the Federal payroll near Muscle Shoals – Frank
James.

CSA Joseph “Fightin’ Joe” Wheeler has the rare distinction of
serving as a general during wartime for two different armies: first as a
noted cavalry general for the Confederate States, and later as a general
in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War. Following the
Civil War, he settled near Rogersville, Alabama, and served multiple
terms as a U.S. Representative.

CSA Maj. Gen. Jones Mitchell Withers, from Madison County,
Alabama, participated in three wars and was rewarded with high rank
for his exemplary performances. He was an attorney, a newspaper
editor, a cotton broker, and a popular mayor of Mobile, Alabama.

CSA Brig. Gen. Sterling Alexander (S.A.M.) Wood was a lawyer
and newspaper editor from Florence, Alabama, before the war. In the
Confederate Army, he was an ambitious officer who was criticized for
not controlling his troops in battle. He resigned before the Battles for
Chattanooga. After the war, Wood became an Alabama legislator and a
law professor at the University of Alabama.

Thanks are due to the volunteer authors of these chapters, some of
whom are Civil War scholars and authors in their own right. Special
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thanks are due to Arley McCormick and Jacquelyn Reeves, who helped
write, edit, and coordinate this project.

- John Allen

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Table of Contents

USA Maj. Gen. David B. Birney,
------ Author -------------- David Lady -------------------------- Page - 1
USA Brevet Maj. Gen. William Birney,
------ Author ------------- David Lady --------------------------- Page - 5
USA Brig. Gen. Thomas Turpin Crittenden,
-------Author ------------- Emil Posey --------------------------- Page - 8
CSA Brig. Gen. James Deshler,
------- Author ------------ Clark Moore ------------------------ Page - 24
CSA Maj. Gen. John Brown Gordon,
-------Author------------- Arley McCormick------------------ Page - 29
CSA Brig. Gen. John Gregg,
------- Author ------------ Robert P. Reeves ------------------- Page - 38
USA Brig. Gen. Andrew Jackson Hamilton,
------- Author ------------ Brian Hogan ------------------------ Page - 46
USA Brig. Gen. Daniel McCook Jr.,
------- Author ------------ Arley McCormick ----------------- Page - 51
CSA Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan,
------- Author ----------- Jacquelyn Procter Reeves --------- Page - 58
CSA Brig. Gen. Edward A. O’Neal,
-------- Author ---------- Arley McCormick ------------------ Page - 66

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