Clint Johnson - Bulls-Eyes and Misfires: 50 Obscure People Whose Efforts Shaped the American Civil War

BULLS-EYES
and
MISFIRES

50 People Whose Obscure Efforts Shaped
the American Civil War

CLINT JOHNSON

Copyright 2002, 2006 by Clint Johnson

This 2006 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc. by arrangement with Rutledge Hill Press, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission from the publisher.

Photos on pages courtesy of the U.S. Army Military History Institute.

Photos on pages courtesy of the Massachussetts Commandery Military Order of the Loyal Legion and U.S. Army Military History Institute.

Photo on page courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society.

Photos on pages courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society.

Photo on page courtesy of the Civil War Library and Museum.

Photo on page courtesy of the National Archives.

Photos on pages courtesy of the Museum of the Confederacy.

Photo on page courtesy of private collection: C. Twiggs Myers.

Photo on page courtesy of the Naval Historical Center.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7607-8669-7
ISBN-10: 0-7607-8669-0

Printed and bound in the United States of America

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This book is dedicated to all my ancestors who fought in the War, whose varied experiences continue to drive my interest. There was the Florida sergeant who lost an arm at Fredericksburg, the Georgia lieutenant who spent two years in a prison camp at Johnsons Island, Ohio, the Georgia militia general who tried to stop Sherman at Griswoldville, the Alabama captain who fell mortally wounded at Chickamauga, and the Georgia cavalryman whose pension application reads: addle-brained by the war.

They defended their homes, which was all the War was about to them.

CONTENTS

I WANT TO THANK ROD GRAGG, AUTHOR OF BOOKS SUCH as Covered With GloryThe 26th North Carolina Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate Goliath, The Confederate Reader, and other books. Rod helped me refine the idea of obscure people who had an impact on the War, and did some critiquing on the early draft.

I want to thank Larry Stone, founder of Rutledge Hill Press, for seeing the value in this idea. One of the problems Civil War writers face is looking for something that hasnt already been written. Larry recognized that this idea of focusing on these little known personalities had not yet been done.

I also want to thank Geoff Stone, my editor at Rutledge Hill, for refining the manuscript. Thank you Bryan Curtis for making everyone aware of this wonderful book and to the sales team for getting it in the bookstores.

Thanks goes to the staff at Forsyth County Public Library in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for constantly sending away for interlibrary loan books - volumes that were sometimes 100 years old - that I scoured looking for details on the lives of these people.

Thanks, too, to Jay Graybeal of the United States Military History Institute, Stephanie Jacobe of the Virginia Historical Society, Heather Milne of the Museum of the Confederacy, Megan Lynch of the Maryland Historical Society, and the staff of the U.S. Naval Institute for finding the bulk of the photos for this book. Special thanks also go to Russell K. Brown of Augusta, Georgia, for help finding a photo of Marion Myers, and to C. Twiggs Myers of Sheffield, Massachusetts, for giving his permission to use that photo of his ancestor.

Finally, I have to thank my wife, Barbara, for putting up with Civil War reenacting, Civil War travel, and Civil War burials. If I go first, I have asked Barbara to scatter my ashes at the crest of Snodgrass Hill at the Chickamauga National Battlefield in northern Georgia.

Yes, I am sure scattering the ashes of a southerner in a National Military Park must be against some federal regulation, but we southerners dont always do what northerners ask us to do. I am hoping my Wisconsin-born southern-transplant wife respects my wishes despite some Yankee rule.

The reason I want to end up at Chickamauga is I had a great-great grandfather, Capt. Richard Newton Moore, who fell mortally wounded leading his company of Hilliards Legion from Alabama up Snodgrass Hill. His regiment suffered 73 percent killed and wounded. If he couldnt make it to the top, I want one of his descendants to do it.

HI STORIANS OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES (AS southerners call it) or the American Civil War (as northerners call it) love to think about alternative history.

What if Stonewall Jackson had been at Gettysburg? He would have taken Culps Hill that first day, say southerners. They may be right. Jackson was aggressive, had advocated invading the North since April 1861, and likely would have seen the value of taking that high ground.

Most southerners do not ask the next question: What would have happened had the Confederates gained the high ground? The answer to that question can be intriguing. One answer could have been that Union Gen. George Meade might have thought about simply surrounding that high ground, and bringing in more and more militia units to seal Robert E. Lees army off from escape.

How long would Lees entire army have lasted on that high ground before their food and water ran out? If Meade would have had unlimited supplies of both food and water and could have taken his time about bringing in militia units from around the North, could Lees army have been starved into submission without firing another shot after July 1?

What if Grant had started his career in the East? is the question northerners like to ask themselves. They imagine a bold Grant climbing up the ranks in the East, capturing Lincolns attention much sooner and pushing aside lesser lights like Burnside in December 1862 and Hooker in March 1863.

Northerners do not ask the next question: What if Grant had led his men into slaughter like he did at Cold Harbor early in the war in full view of Lincoln? It seems doubtful that a demanding Lincoln would have tolerated Grants lies about the losses at Cold Harbor early in the war. That could be proven by how quickly Burnside was sacked after the disaster at Fredericksburg in December 1862. Ironically, Grant committed the same errors less than two years later and enjoyed Lincolns full support.

That is what is entertaining about asking these alternative history questions. There are no right or wrong answers because the alternative history never happened. Any theory is as good as any other theory on what might have happened.

What Bulls-Eyes and Misfires does is take a look at alternative history by focusing on fifty obscure figures who did or didnt do something that could havebut didntchange history. These people may very well have been pivotal figures in shaping the outcome of the War. While its impossible to know when speculating on what ifs, it is likely that if any of these people changed something about the choices they made the War might have turned out differently.

Yes, that does sound complicated, but once you read about these people, the point of the book will become clear. I purposely did not focus on famous people because the contributions of the famous have already been told. I wanted to find rarely written-about personalities who had some sort of impact on the war.

Some of their contributions are obvious. It is hard to ignore Confederate Col. George Rains who manufactured three million pounds of gunpowder, more than enough to have kept the South supplied for three years. Some people require some thought. Elizabeth Keckley never claimed to be a war hero, but she most definitely performed a valuable war service by doing her best to keep Mary Todd Lincoln sane and out of the thoughts of President Abraham Lincoln.