James Samuel WADSWORTH

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James Samuel Wadsworth, Major General (posthumously) Born Oct 30, 1807 at Geneseo NY Mortally wounded and captured May 6, 1864 the Wilderness Died May 8, 1864 at a Confederate field hospital Buried Temple Hill Cemetery, Geneseo NY Millionaire citizen-soldier James S. Wadsworth served his country without pay and went from volunteer aide to division commander during the Civil War. Wadsworth?us incredible life was cut short by his death at the Battle of the Wilderness. In General Wadsworth: The Life and Wars of Brevet Major General James S. Wadsworth (Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2003, $27.95), author Wayne Mahood used his access to Wadsworth family papers to illuminate the life of this businessman, Republican politician and Union military hero. Although Wadsworth was born into a wealthy family in Geneseo, N.Y., in 1807, not much is known of his life before his enrollment at Harvard College. His father, James Wadsworth, was a source of inspiration for the younger Wadsworth. Having hacked his way into the New York wilderness to build the family?us fortune, the elder Wadsworth hoped his oldest son and heir to the family?us wealth would follow his own diligent work ethic. His son spent most of his youth traveling, and only after his marriage and the subsequent death of his father did the younger Wadsworth finally take seriously his new role as head of the family. By the late 1840s, James S. Wadsworth had become involved in New York politics, especially with the radical wing of the Whig Party that would become the Republican Party. He became a zealous Republican and an ardent abolitionist. When the war began, Wadsworth volunteered his services to the Union, even though he had no military experience. Tall, white-haired, with long muttonchops and extremely energetic for his age?he was 53 when the war began?Wadsworth cut a commanding presence in uniform. He was assigned to Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell as an unpaid volunteer aide during the first major campaign of the war. Major Wadsworth?us bravery at the First Battle of Bull Run so impressed McDowell and others that by August 1861 Wadsworth was promoted to brigadier general. Given a brigade of infantry, Wadsworth?us managerial and organizational prowess impressed those in high places. As a result, he was appointed military governor of Washington in Mar 1862, on the eve of Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan?us grand campaign against Richmond. McClellan, however, detested Wadsworth, who represented everything McClellan hated?civilian general, Republican politician, abolitionist and Lincoln confidant?and the two men were destined to clash. Mahood skillfully dissects the ensuing conflict between Wadsworth and McClellan in the spring of 1862. In short, Wadsworth believed the Federal capital needed sufficient soldiers to garrison its many forts. McClellan, bogged down outside of Richmond, pleaded with the Lincoln administration to send him more troops. McClellan believed Wadsworth was colluding with Lincoln in the hope that he would fail. President Lincoln compromised by sending McClellan additional forces but leaving the I Corps to guard the capital. That decision still displeased McClellan. After the Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, and with McClellan back in command, Wadsworth saw no future for himself in the Army of the Potomac. With a nominal title but no soldiers to command, the brigadier decided to run for governor of New York. The author?us admirable use of primary sources gives the reader a keen understanding of the divisive politics of the 1860s. The general?us passionate views against slavery and strong support for the war led to his defeat by a Peace Democrat (Horatio Seymour) in the election. Following the Battle of Fredericksburg, without political office and with his nemesis McClellan permanently out of the Army of the Potomac, Wadsworth took command of the 1st Division, I Corps. Although he had never before led men into battle, the men of Wadsworth?us division knew they had a competent and caring commander. Wadsworth?us moment in the sun would come on the morning of Jul 1, 1863, when his division, the vanguard of the entire Army of the Potomac, relieved John Buford?us tired troopers on the ridges west of Gettysburg. For six hours that day, Wadsworth?us small division fought off repeated Confederate assaults. According to the author, Wadsworth skillfully handled his division to meet new threats and coolly pulled his men back to the Lutheran Seminary later in the day, all the while under attack by superior numbers. He seemed to be omnipresent. Mahood describes his tenacious stand on McPherson?us Ridge as ?Sthe high water mark of Wadsworth?us military career.?T Out of 3,814 men in Wadsworth?us division engaged on Jul 1 at Gettysburg, 2,155 would be casualties (an astonishing 56 percent), and many of his regiments would have the dubious distinction of taking more casualties than any other regiments at the battle. For example, the 147th New York Infantry lost 296 of 380 men, and the 24th Michigan Infantry lost nearly 400 of 496 men?almost an 80 percent casualty rate. These numbers attest to the heroic and stubborn stand made by the brave men in Wadsworth?us division. Although I reviewed a proof of the book, in which Mahood gives faulty casualty figures for Wadsworth?us division at Gettysburg and contradicts himself at times discussing the figures and other battle statistics, I am hopeful that those errors will be corrected in the print version. The author?us treatment of the events, however, makes up for these slight inaccuracies. The final portion of the book focuses on the reorganization of the Army of the Potomac and preparation for the Overland campaign of 1864. The enormous casualties from Gettysburg depleted the I Corps to such an extent that the remaining soldiers were transferred to the V Corps. Now 56 and in the autumn of his years, Wadsworth nevertheless entered his last campaign with eagerness and vigor. Mahood?us narration of the Battle of the Wilderness is good, and his use of maps by George Skoch helps readers understand the battles. Wadsworth?us indefatigability and lead-by-example command style helped to rally both his own soldiers and the broken troops of other commands during that first horrific day in the Wilderness. That dangerous style of leadership led to his mortal wounding the following day, May 6, 1864, while trying to rally elements of his division and others during Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet?us flank attack. Left on the roadside to die, the wounded Wadsworth fell into Confederate hands. Rebel soldiers plucked the buttons and symbols of command off his uniform and pilfered his field glasses. Wadsworth would linger for two more days in a Confederate field hospital before finally succumbing to his ghastly head wound. Years later, a Confederate officer remembered the sorry sight of the dying ?Smulti-millionaire in an enemy?us country, not a friend near to hear his last farewell or soothe his last moments by a friendly touch on the pallid brow.?T James Samuel Wadsworth certainly deserves to be recognized as one of the more capable citizen-soldiers of the war, and his place in the pantheon of Civil War generals is well deserved. Those readers interested in the genealogy of the I Corps will certainly enjoy this book, for the author adeptly weaves notable I Corps officers into the story, as well as other distinguished military and political figures. Author Wayne Mahood?us biography is a welcome addition to an ever-growing number of biographies of the lesser-known Union generals of the Civil War. UNION FIRST CORPS, FIRST DIVISION 3,814 men BRIGADIER GENERAL JAMES SAMUEL WADSWORTH James Wadsworth was a trim, vigorous fifty-six years old at the time of Gettysburg. Topped by snow-white hair, with striking white mutton-chop sideburns, he led his division with a Revolutionary War saber in his hand. Wadsworth, however, was not a military man at all. His father had been one of the largest landowners in New York state, and raised young James with the expectation of inheriting public responsibilities. He spent two years at Harvard, and studied law, though with no intention of actually practicing. By the Civil War, James had taken his father's place at the head of the wealthy family estate, and, out of a well-developed sense of noblesse oblige, had in addition become a philanthropist and Republican politician. In this same spirit of public service he volunteered for duty immediately when Fort Sumter fell. Having no illusions about his military acumen, he first served as a volunteer aide on the staff of Union army commander Irvin McDowell, and was present at First Bull Run. McDowell recommended him for command, and even in the unabashed political free-for-all of the early-war army it must have raised a few eyebrows when he was jumped in rank all the way from volunteer aide-de-camp to brigadier general in August 1861. Wadsworth was given a brigade in McDowell's corps, and then in Mar 1862--before the end of his first year in uniform--he was made commander of the Washington defenses. This last responsibility was too much too soon for the inexperienced Wadsworth, and the Union war effort suffered the consequences: it was Wadsworth who complained to Lincoln during the Peninsula campaign that the capital had been left unprotected by McClellan, resulting in Lincoln's fateful decision to withhold the entire First Corps from joining McClellan in his drive on Richmond. This made a bitter enemy of McClellan, and in the fall of 1862, seeing no prospect of serving in McClellan's army, Wadsworth allowed his supporters to run him for governor of New York against the anti-war Democrat Horatio Seymour. He was so intent on being a good soldier, however, that he declined to leave the army to campaign. As a result, he lost the election. He didn't seem to mind, enjoying the excitement and satisfaction of being with the troops in the field. In late Dec 1862, after McClellan had departed army command for the last time, Wadsworth joined the Army of the Potomac as commander of the First Division, First Corps, when a vacancy among its division commanders was created by the promotion of General George Meade to the head of the Fifth Corps. He became much admired and liked by his new division, who were impressed by a man so devoted to the Union cause that he had given up a comfortable life and was serving without pay. The men were also won over by his attention to their well-being. Wadsworth was a stickler about things like adequate rations and decent housing, and in winter quarters the men found it not unusual to wake up before dawn on cold mornings and see the old man poking his nose inside to find out for himself whether the huts were warm and decently ventilated. (On the weary Mar to Gettysburg, he would seize civilians who stood cheering by the roadside and take their shoes for his own men to wear.) Wadsworth's first battle with his division was Chancellorsville, and his inexperience showed when he was ordered to cross the Rappahannock River below Fredericksburg. He waffled, first ordering the Iron Brigade down to the river in boats, then giving it up when they were fired on by Rebel marksmen on the opposite bank, then finally deciding to go ahead. The Westerners rowed across with only light casualties, Wadsworth himself swimming across on his horse just behind. Eventually, Hooker pulled the division back across the river, and the entire division was held uselessly out of the remainder of the battle. Wadsworth had been at the head of the division for about six months, and had only been lightly engaged--at Chancellorsville--in that span. He was a stout fighter, however, and was developing into a good general, evidenced by the fact that he was one of the few non-West Point division commanders retained when the army reorganized the next year. At Gettysburg Wadsworth's Division was in the vanguard of Reynolds's First Corps as it marched toward Gettysburg on the morning of Jul 1, and was the first Union infantry to reach the field. Between 11 o'clock in the morning until the fallback at 4 that afternoon, Wadsworth's men did some of the bloodiest, most heroic defensive fighting of the war on the ridges to the west of the town. Attacked on McPherson's Ridge by Heth's Division as his men arrived, Wadsworth showed his inexperience in the first few moments when he withdrew part of Cutler's brigade and left Hall's Battery exposed, which made Hall pull his six guns out in such a hurry that a gun was lost; Hall was furious with Wadsworth. Artillery chief Wainright had spoken of trouble like this before, trouble that stemmed from Wadsworth's ignorance of the proper use and defense of artillery. Once the shouting stopped, however, Wadsworth did a good job, swinging the right of his line back when Rodes's Division attacked from the north, then pulling back in good order to new positions on Seminary Ridge when the McPherson's Ridge line was overlapped by the teeming enemy. Wadsworth saw over half his entire division disappear--either left crumpled on the field or trudging sullenly toward enemy prison camps--buying the time it took to gather the rest of the army in the formidable hills to the southeast. When the entire corps gave way that afternoon, Wadsworth and the remaining men of his two brigades withdrew to the north face of Culp's Hill, where, mangled and disorganized as they were, they were enough to intimidate Ewell and his lieutenants into calling off their attack at the bottom of the hill. An image which shows how completely Wadsworth identified with his men was provided by a messenger who rode by Wadsworth on the evening of this first day at Gettysburg: "We found General Wadsworth sitting on a stone fence by the roadside, his head bowed in grief, the most dejected woe-begone person one would likely find on a world-around voyage--a live picture of Despair: General Reynolds killed, the first corps decimated a full half, and its first division almost wiped out of existence. The General greeted us warmly, adding, 'I am glad you were not with us this afternoon.'" On evening of Jul 2, just as the defenses of Culp's Hill were being stripped to provide reinforcements for the embattled Federal left, Wadsworth's remnants were closest at hand when Ed Johnson's Stonewall Division came rushing up the hill toward "Old Pop" Greene's lone Twelfth Corps brigade on the right. Wadsworth, though under attack himself, was able to send two regiments to Greene, and the thin Union force was able to hang onto the hill through the night. A massive counterattack drove the Rebels off the hill the next morning. Wadsworth left the army on Jul 15, less than two weeks after Gettysburg. After eight months' absence, he returned in Mar 1864, again to command a division in the Army of the Potomac--until he was shot in the forehead and killed in the battle of the Wilderness on May 8, 1864.

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Titel	Family Grimes Stammbaum
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Hochgeladen	2019-08-30 07:34:24.0
Einsender	Michael Grimes
E-Mail	oneofmanyangels@gmail.com
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