Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter J. Osterhaus PDF
Preview Yankee Warhorse: A Biography of Major General Peter J. Osterhaus
Yankee Warhorse � Yankee Warhorse a B i o g r a p h Y o f Major general peter osterhaus Mary Bobbitt Townsend � university of missouri press columbia and london Copyright ©2010 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 5 4 3 2 1 14 13 12 11 10 Cataloging-in-Publication data available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-0-8262-1875-9 This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Design and composition: Kristie Lee Printing and binding: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typefaces: Adobe Garamond and Bernhard Modern Frontispiece: Osterhaus monument on the Vicksburg battlefield. (Author’s collection) For my mother, Elizabeth Osterhaus Bobbitt, with love Contents Foreword by Earl J. Hess ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Before the War 7 Chapter 2 The Trans-Mississippi Campaigns of 1861 and 1862 30 Chapter 3 The Vicksburg Campaign 68 Chapter 4 The Chattanooga Campaign 120 Chapter 5 The Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea 145 Chapter 6 Mobile Bay and Reconstruction 179 Epilogue The Later Years 201 Notes 215 Bibliography 243 Index 261 foreword p eter J. Osterhaus has long deserved more attention from historians and students of the Civil War than he has received. He was, in many ways, the best example of disinterested ethnic patriotism in the conflict. An impor- tant division commander in the Army of the Tennessee, especially during the Vicksburg and Chattanooga campaigns, Osterhaus contributed greatly to many Union operations from the start of the war in Missouri until the capture of Mo- bile, Alabama, in April 1865. He held commands that ranged from the Twelfth Missouri to the Fifteenth Corps and earned the respect of his superior officers because of his dependability, energy, and resourcefulness as a campaigner. Sub- ordinates enjoyed relating colorful stories of his unique German American mode of expression, but when it was necessary to drive deep into enemy territory or face the foe on the field of battle, they knew this gifted commander could be relied on to help engineer success. Osterhaus based his war career on military ability, not ethnic favoritism, and he won the respect of his associates and men alike because of that stroke of integrity. Any good biography of Osterhaus would be a breath of fresh air, but it is particularly delightful that this one was written by a direct descendant of old Peter Joe. Mary B. Townsend had already retired from a career as a hospital nursing executive when she contacted me several years ago, based on a hand- ful of articles about Osterhaus and the men he commanded that I had written a long time before. She had an idea to write a full-fledged biography of her great-great-grandfather. There are many amateur historians working in the Civil War field, producing self-published books that probably should never have been written, so I was initially hesitant to endorse Mary’s effort. But her enthusiasm and drive carried her through the sometimes tedious job of researching and writing a book, and led her to develop skills as a historian and writer. The end result, I am proud to see, is a first-rate biography of a significant general in the Union army. There are many new views of Osterhaus in this volume, and Townsend very ably summarizes them in the Introduction. He was not a Prussian but a West ix
The list of books you might like
