Tag:

west point

Benedict Arnold’s Treason Unmasked to Washington—in Arnold’s Own House

George Washington learned about Benedict Arnold’s treason while staying at Benedict Arnold’s house near West Point. He wondered why Arnold, his best battlefield commander, wasn’t there. As he was getting ready for dinner, Alexander Hamilton brought him the news.

Arnold had vanished moments before Washington rode up to the sprawling mansion along the Hudson River. He had received a letter telling him that Washington knew, or would soon know, that the jig was up. The Americans had arrested a suspicious person with incriminating evidence in Arnold’s handwriting, the letter said.

Benedict Arnold

Arnold had received the dispatch over breakfast with two of Washington’s aides. They had gone to Arnold’s house ahead of the rest of the commander-in-chief’s entourage. Arnold had excused himself and gone somewhere on urgent business–to the fort, he told them.

They never saw him again.

Benedict Arnold’s Treason

Benedict Arnold’s treason stemmed from a web of motives. They included a desire to avenge his honor, a measure of greed, painful and crippling battle wounds and the influence of his Loyalist wife.

By the time Washington showed up at his house, he had already given the British information about planned American troop movements.

He was born Jan. 14, 1741 in Norwich, Conn., into a once-prominent New England family. His great-grandfather, also Benedict Arnold, had served as governor of Rhode Island. His great-great-grandfather, William Arnold, had established King’s Chapel in Boston. Benedict Arnold spent his boyhood in affluence, but his alcoholic father then squandered all his money.

His father’s failure meant Arnold couldn’t attend Yale, and it also gave him a thirst for money and honor. He succeeded at merchant shipping and privateering, only to lose practically everything in the patriot cause. When he turned traitor he demanded £20,000 for his services.

Col. Benedict Arnold, before his promotion to general

He had served the cause valiantly, capturing Fort Ticonderoga, leading the expedition to Quebec, stopping a British invasion at the Battle of Valcour Island. Arnold had also helped drive the British from Connecticut and led American forces to victory at Saratoga.

His men loved him. Congress did not, passing him over for promotion in favor of junior—and less heroic — men. His nemesis, Gen. Horatio Gates, hadn’t even mentioned Arnold’s name in his report about the Battle of Saratoga.

Love of Money

Arnold’s love of money got him into trouble. While he recovered from severe wounds at Saratoga (add photo of boot), Washington appointed him military governor of Philadelphia. The British had recently evacuated, and he fell in love with 18-year-old Peggy Shippen, from a prominent Loyalist family. They married April 8, 1779.

Peggy Shippen Arnold

Peggy liked to live large, as did her husband, and they led an ostentatious lifestyle. Arnold engaged in war profiteering, which led to his court martial. Though acquitted on several counts, the court recommended a reprimand for several minor transgression. Washington sent him a letter chastising him as gently as he could, but Arnold — crippled, bitter and married to a Loyalist — had already put out feelers to the British.

Rationale

Benedict Arnold’s treason resulted from patriotic motive, or so he told himself—and, later, Washington. The war in 1780 wasn’t going well. Congress dithered and failed to provide for the Continental Army, which suffered from poor morale. Currency inflation started spinning out of control. The alliance with France hadn’t produced any victories. Then in May came the worst defeat of the war when Gen. Benjamin Lincoln and his 10,000 troops surrendered unconditionally in Charleston, S.C. Washington despaired.

George Washington, 1776

The British had also made overtures for peace, giving the Americans almost everything they wanted except for independence.

Arnold wasn’t the only one who considered changing sides. Charles Lee, captured by the British, shared with them a plan to defeat the Continental Army.

And Ethan Allen negotiated with the British on behalf of Vermont for a separate peace. He wanted to protect his extensive land holdings and the British offered to recognize Vermont as an independent state, part of the British Empire.

Had some things gone differently, perhaps Benedict Arnold’s treason wouldn’t have happened. He wanted a naval command. He had plenty of experience at sea, and he felt his wounds made him unfit for battle on land. But Washington didn’t see it that way.

West Point

He ended up finagling command of West Point, a key American position on the Hudson River. Upon his arrival on August 25, Arnold began to dismantle the fort’s defenses. He didn’t make needed repairs and he sent two cannons away, ostensibly to get refurbished. Then he sent 500 men off to cut wood and another 200 north to guard Fishkill, N.Y.

The beverly Robinson house.

The Arnolds – Benedict, Peggy and baby Edward – moved into a house two miles down the Hudson from the fort and on the other side. The house had belonged to wealthy Loyalist Col. Beverly Robinson, who helped Arnold change sides.

Arnold had been begging the British for a meeting with their spymaster, Maj. John Andre. The first attempt failed. Then in late September Andre sailed up the Hudson on the sloop of war HMS Vulture. On the evening of September 21, Arnold sent two men in a boat to pick up Andre. They didn’t want to do it, but Arnold threatened to arrest them. They rowed out, picked up Andre and took him to shore, where Arnold waited with another horse. The two men talked at the Joshua Smith house in Haverstraw, N.Y. Meanwhile, Continental troops spied the Vulture and began bombarding the vessel, forcing it to move downriver.

John Andre

The Vulture’s departure stranded Andre. So Arnold gave him civilian clothes, a letter of transit under the assumed name John Anderson and intelligence about West Point. Andre’s superior officer, Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, had expressly told him not to do those three things.

Caught Out

Arnold returned to his headquarters on the banks of the Hudson. Two days later, he sat down to breakfast with Capt. Samuel Shaw and Maj. James McHenry.

They had been traveling with Washington and arrived in advance of the general’s expected visit that day. Washington had told them to go on ahead while he inspected redoubts along the way. But his entourage — including Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette – stayed with Washington.

Arnold invited Shaw and McHenry to have breakfast with him while Peggy stayed upstairs with the baby. Then Lt. Solomon Allen arrived with a message for Arnold from Continental Army Col. John Jameson.

West Point from Phillipstown, 1831

Jameson wrote he found incriminating papers in the stocking of a suspicious person claiming to be John Anderson. He had sent the papers to Washington. Arnold realized they had captured Andre – “John Anderson” – and he would soon be unmasked.

As Arnold read the message he showed a moment of distress but quickly regained his composure. He excused himself and went outside to tell his servant to get a horse and alert his bargemen. Then he went upstairs to tell his wife he had to leave immediately to join the British. She fainted on the bed. Just then one of Washington’s light horsemen knocked on the bedroom door and told him Washington would arrive momentarily.

Col. John Jameson

Arnold then told his breakfast companions he had to go across the river to the fort to prepare for Washington’s visit. His horse didn’t await him, so he took the messenger’s horse. He galloped down to the river, where oarsmen waited to take him up the river to the fort. Or so they presumed.

Arnold ordered them downriver instead, offering them two gallons of rum each if they would row with all their might. When they approached the Vulture, he held up a white handkerchief. Arnold and the oarsmen boarded the vessel, and Arnold told them they were now prisoners. The men protested, but they were paroled when they arrived in New York.

Washington Finds Out

Moments after Arnold left, Washington rode up to the house. Told Arnold had gone to the fort, he ate a quick breakfast and went to the fort with Knox and Lafayette. Hamilton stayed behind in case any dispatches arrived. They agreed to meet back at the house for dinner, scheduled for 4 p.m.

Alexander Hamilton and Henry Knox

Washington expected a military salute when he approached the fort, but none came. Mystified, he was approached by the fort’s commandant, Col. John Lamb, who apologized for the inadequate reception. He hadn’t known Washington was coming.

Washington then asked to see Arnold. Lamb said he hadn’t showed up in two days. Washington then proceeded to inspect the fort, all the while asking about Arnold’s whereabouts.

When Washington, Knox and Lafayette returned to the Robinson house, they expected Mr. and Mrs. Arnold to greet them. But he had disappeared and she was still upstairs, indisposed. Washington went to his room to prepare for dinner when Hamilton handed him a sheaf of dispatches.

Washington then read the news of Arnold’s betrayal. He asked Hamilton and Lafayette to join him. “Arnold has betrayed us,” he said. “Whom can we trust now??

Theatre

Washington ordered Hamilton to gather some men to intercept Arnold downriver. Then Arnold’s aide, Lt. Col. Richard Varick, came to Washington’s room and told him Mrs. Arnold seemed to have gone mad.

Washington then went to see Peggy, who he had known since girlhood. Peggy Shippen Arnold put on quite a show for him, thrashing, crying and raving deliriously. She convinced Washington, and for many years historians, that she knew nothing of Benedict Arnold’s treason. Her feigned madness gave her husband more time to escape.

Washington believed Benedict Arnold’s treason had unhinged his wife. He let her alone for dinner, and told no one else of Arnold’s treason. “Mrs. Arnold is sick and General Arnold is away,” Washington said. “We must therefore take our dinner without them.”

They barely touched their meal. Arnold’s aides, Lt. Col. Richard Varick and Maj. David Franks, had figured out Benedict Arnold’s treason. They knew they were under suspicion and covertly watched Washington to suss out what he knew. Washington and his officers did the same to them. “Never was there a more melancholy dinner,” Lafayette said years later. “The General was silent and reserved, and none of us spoke of what we were thinking about.”

After dinner, Washington asked Varick to stop outside. He told him about Benedict Arnold’s treason. Then he said he had no reason to suspect him or Franks, but they must consider themselves under arrest.

Peggy Shippen

Peggy had flirted with Andre during the British occupation of Philadelphia. Within a month of her marriage, Arnold corresponded with Andre. Later, evidence of Peggy’s involvement in Benedict Arnold’s treason came to light. The British had paid her £350 for handling secret letters.

The President’s House, Philadelphia, where Arnold lived as military general

Washington received a letter from Arnold, telling him Peggy didn’t know he’d turned traitor, and asking him to grant her safe passage to her family in Philadelphia. Washington gave her a choice: She could join her husband in New York or her family in Philadelphia. She chose Philadelphia.

At the same time, Washington intended to punish Benedict Arnold. He organized an attempt to track him down in New York, one that nearly succeeded. Had Arnold been captured, he would have been summarily hanged.

Aftermath

Andre went to the gallows on Oct. 2. A court martial exonerated Franks and Varick.

The British gave Arnold the rank of brigadier general, and he led his forces on destructive rampages through Virginia and Connecticut. Peggy eventually joined him in New York. After Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, the Arnold family left for London.

A few years later, Arnold returned to North America, settling in Canada to speculate in land and start a merchant shipping business. The family then returned to London, where Benedict Arnold died in 1801 at the age of 60. Peggy died three years later at the age of 44.

In 1781, American agents a letter that said the British had paid only £5,000 for Benedict Arnold’s treason, not the £20,000 he had demanded. Franklin wrote to Lafayette, calling it “a miserable bargain especially when one considers the quantity of infamy he has acquired to himself and entailed on his family.”

With thanks to Benedict Arnold: How The Traitor Was Unmasked by James Thomas Flexner, American Heritage, 1967; The Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold by Jared Sparks, 1851. This story updated in 2022,

0 comment 526 views

Timothy Leary Gets the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act Overturned

Timothy Leary found out just how screwy America’s cannabis laws were when he got busted for violating the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.

Leary faced a 30-year prison sentence, so he hired a team of lawyers to defend him in court. They argued the law violated his Fifth Amendment right protecting him against self-incrimination. They reasoned he had to tell federal authorities he possessed pot so they could tax it. But state laws made cannabis possession a crime.

Timothy Leary.

In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Leary and ruled the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act unconstitutional. Leary then went on to run for governor of California. (He didn’t win.) He had a campaign song called Come Together, which his friend John Lennon wrote.

Then in 1970, Congress further complicated the laws governing cannabis by making possession of it a crime.

It was a funny way to treat a plant that the early colonists were required to cultivate and which doesn’t always get you high.

Cannabis

Some strains of cannabis have compounds that alter the mind, while others don’t.

Humans have bred cannabis plants in Asia since as early as 8000 B.C. They cultivated hemp for fiber to make clothes and rope. Later they bred strains for medicine and for getting stoned.

Cannabis

The English colonies passed the first cannabis law in 1639. The Massachusetts General Court ordered every household to plant the weed. Connecticut then followed the next year. They did it because of a rope shortage — they needed the hemp.

The early New England farmers grew plenty of cannabis. For example, 220,000 pounds of fiber from the cannabis plant went into the rigging of Old Ironsides.

Patent Medicines

Cotton eventually surpassed cannabis as the agricultural fiber of choice. But patent medicine makers continued to use cannabis as an active ingredient in over-the-counter remedies. People used it as a tincture or an oil to cure gonorrhea and asthma, and to ease the pain of childbirth.

Drug stores also sold dried marijuana in one-ounce packages. Two cigarettes cost a dollar.

By the turn of the 20^th century, things began to change. States passed poison laws, which required medicine makers to label certain kinds of ingredients. In 1905, poison laws in both Vermont and Maine mentioned cannabis. But Rhode Island’s didn’t.

Then in 1906, the federal Pure Food and Drug Act required products with cannabis to carry labels.

Massachusetts went even further in 1911, making cannabis possession a crime. Lawbreakers paid a fine and served a three- to six-month prison sentence. The law had an exception, though, for doctors, nurses and veterinarians with a license to prescribe the stuff.

The Massachusetts law, like others, didn’t distinguish between cannabis that produced a high and cannabis that didn’t. Other states soon followed and made all cannabis possession a crime.

Immigration

Drug laws also began to take on an anti-immigrant taint. Since the American Revolution, medical doctors freely gave opium to their patients. Then the Civil War caused widespread drug addiction. Doctors gave large quantities of opium and morphine to wounded soldiers and, later, to sickly women.

That was okay. But it wasn’t okay when Chinese immigrants on the West Coast started opening opium dens. So Congress decided to step in. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1915 banned opium for non-medical reasons. It also required doctors who prescribed opium to register with the federal government.

A San Francisco opium den

In the American Southwest, the 1910 Mexican Revolution drove immigrants into the United States. Some of them liked to smoke cannabis recreationally. People viewed them as the “marijuana menace.”

The 1937 Marijuana Tax Act

That set the stage for the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. A hard-nosed FBI agent named Harry Anslinger wrote the bill, and he testified cannabis could cause violent delirium. He called it “marijuana’ rather than cannabis. After all, “marijuana” sounded foreign and therefore more sinister.

Anslinger claimed a 20-year-old “axe-murdering marijuana addict” named Victor Licata had killed his entire family. In truth, Licata suffered from mental illness and didn’t smoke pot.

Anslinger also ignored a doctor who looked at 2,216 criminal cases and found cannabis had influenced exactly zero. And he paid no attention to the American Medical Association, which strongly opposed the bill.

Evidence suggests that powerful corporations had an interest in suppressing cannabis. Dupont, which made nylon and rayon, feared competition from hemp fiber. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who owned paper mills, thought hemp might be used to make paper.

Harry Anslinger

And so Congress passed the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. Then in 1951, Congress passed the Boggs Act, which imposed a mandatory minimum prison sentence of two to 10 years for possession of cannabis. Two months after President Harry S Truman signed the bill, 500 people were arrested for marijuana possession in one day.

Timothy Leary

Timothy Leary, a leader of the ‘60s drug counterculture, was born into a well-to-do Springfield, Mass., family in 1920. A great uncle, another Dr. Timothy Leary, served as Boston’s medical examiner, and his grandfather was believed to be the richest man in western Massachusetts.

The grandfather, however, squandered his money, and when his son found out he abandoned his family when Timothy was 13. That perhaps explains Timothy Leary’s behavior problems. He got kicked out of high school, expelled from Holy Cross, silenced at West Point, expelled from the University of Alabama and fled to Europe — twice. But he did manage to earn a PhD from the University of California by the time he reached 40.

Timothy Leary, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and others singing ‘Give Peace a Chance’

He won an appointment as a lecturer in clinical psychology at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he studied the effects of psychedelic drugs on personality. But Leary also used drugs recreationally, and in 1962 Harvard fired him.

Monstrosity

In 1965, he got busted for cannabis possession in Laredo, Texas, and charged under the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. In developing his defense, he learned about the federal weed law. Leary called it “a bizarre monstrosity from the bureaucratic standpoint and unconstitutional from the legal standpoint.”

A revenue stamp for cannabis

Under the law, people couldn’t buy tax stamps without providing details about the amount and location of their marijuana. And marijuana, of course, was illegal.

The high court sided with Leary in 1969, and Congress repealed the law the next year. But Congress also passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. The law put cannabis in the most restrictive category of controlled substances.

Lawmakers reasoned cannabis was dangerous because of its “high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use” and a “lack of accepted safety.”

Since then, researchers have concluded cannabis does have therapeutic effects. Opinion vary, though, on how addictive and dangerous it is. By 2021, 36 states and the District of Columbia have made cannabis possession legal, at least for medicinal purposes.

And in 2018, the federal Farm Bill legalized cannabis for industrial use. That “unleashed a potential economic dynamo for American farmers,’” according to Forbes magazine.

Images: Harry Anslinger By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34928390. Timothy Leary with John and Yoko By Roy Kerwood – Originally uploaded to English Wikipedia by Roy Kerwood, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44122819. This story was updated in 2022.

3 comments 465 views

Fitz John Porter Takes the Fall for the Battle of Bull Run

Tucked away in Haven Park in Portsmouth, N.H., there is an impressive equestrian statue of Fitz John Porter. He wears his Union Army uniform atop his horse, just as he would have appeared in battle. Nothing unusual about the statue, except it’s rare to create a monument to someone stripped of command and cashiered from the Army in disgrace.

Fitz John Porter (Library of Congress)

The story of Fitz John Porter’s military career has less to do with battlefield glory and far more with his battle for redemption.

Porter was born into a military family. His cousin was naval hero Adm. David Farragut, who coined the phrase “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” His father commanded the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Fitz John Porter, however, chose to enter the Army. Trained at West Point, he served in the Western territories, winning a brevet rank for bravery during the Mexican War.

Then the Civil War broke out. At age 40 he received a promotion to major general in charge of the Union Army’s 5th Army Corps.

In 1862 with a newly minted command, Porter allied himself with Gen. George McClellan. McClellan would rise to the rank of commanding general of the United States Army, the same position held by George Washington during the American Revolution. Later in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant would rise to that role, with more success than McClellan.

But in 1862, the Union Army was run by men of strong personality, but limited experience. Those included Gen. John Pope, a favorite of President Lincoln. Porter and many of Pope’s critics considered Pope arrogant and stupid.

Fitz John Porter at Bull Run

Fitz John Porter (seated in chair). Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

At the second Battle of Bull Run on Aug. 29-30, the confederates routed Pope’s army in Manassas, Va., just outside of Washington, D.C. History has long concluded that Pope was over-matched in the battle. He didn’t know his enemy’s position and misinterpreted their actions and intentions throughout the fighting. But what he lacked in intelligence, he more than made up for in bluster and bravado.

Pope blamed Porter for the defeat. Had Porter responded in a timely manner to his orders, the battle would have gone differently, he charged. And Pope characterized Porter’s actions as insubordinate and cowardly.

Pope, a Republican, had allies within the Lincoln Administration. Porter, as a Democrat, made a perfect scapegoat for Pope’s failings.

In January, 1863, a court martial panel convicted Porter of disobeying an order and misbehavior in the face of an enemy — essentially cowardice. He was stripped of his command and cashiered, as humiliating a way to end a military career as there is.

Pope soon would drift downward in the ranks of the military as other generals rose to prominence and the Civil War raged on.

Porter, meanwhile, returned abruptly to civilian life. But he and his many friends refused to let the decision against him stand. A seesaw battle to clear his name then followed.

The Second Battle of Bull Run, Fought August 29, 1862

Porter personally mapped the entire Manassas battlefield to illustrate his case. President Rutherford Hayes then appointed the Schofield Commission to review the court martial of Fitz John Porter.

Exoneration at Last

In 1879 the Schofield Commission found that Pope had issued contradictory orders in the heat of battle. Unable to carry out two conflicting orders at the same time, Porter had sought clarity. And he didn’t delay because of cowardice, but rather because he, Porter, had a clearer understanding of the enemy’s position than Pope.

Rather than insubordination, the commission declared that Porter’s actions had actually minimized the Union Army loss at Bull Run. It placed responsibility for the loss squarely on Pope.

Even Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet contributed to Porter’s defense. Yet Hayes lacked the political support to pardon Porter. Then James Garfield succeeded Hayes as president. Garfield had served on the panel of judges that convicted Porter of wrongdoing. But when Garfield was assassinated and Chester Arthur assumed the presidency, Porter finally had an ally.

Statue of Fitz John Porter in Haven Park

In 1882 Arthur commuted Porter’s sentence, which restored his rights to citizenship and his right to hold office. And finally, in 1886, President Grover Cleveland signed a bill passed by Congress that restored 64-year-old Fitz John Porter to the position of colonel in the U.S. Army. Two days later, Porter resigned his position with the Army, vindicated at last.

Porter died in 1901 after an active civilian career in mining and construction. He also served as New York police commissioner, fire commissioner and public works commissioner. In 1906, the statue to his memory was dedicated in Portsmouth, paid for by his longtime friend R.H. Hadley.

Image of Fitz John Porter statue: By C. Carr, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49209431

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like Maine’s Elijah Lovejoy: The First Casualty of the Civil War.

This story was updated in 2022.

3 comments 388 views

Ambrose Burnside, The Sideburned Civil War Commander Who Didn’t Want The Job

When Ambrose Burnside received his orders to take command of the Army of the Potomac in November of 1862, it was said he wept like a child.

Ambrose Burnside, by Matthew Brady.

He had twice refused the command, believing he wasn’t up to the task.

Burnside was dashing, charming and humble, popular with his soldiers. He invented a weapon that helped the Union win the Civil War. As a politician, he won election to some of the highest offices in America.

He was also completely unsuited to command an army.

His facial hair inspired the noun ‘sideburns.’ Another Civil War general whose name also became a noun usurped him as commander of the Army.

Ambrose Burnside, Unhappy Tailor

Ambrose Burnside was born May 23, 1824 in Liberty, Ind., the fourth of the nine children of Edghill and Pamela (or Pamilia) Brown Burnside. Edghill, a slaveholder from South Carolina, freed his slaves when he moved to Indiana.

As a boy, Ambrose Burnside was apprenticed to a tailor, and he returned home to open his own shop after his mother died. He realized he didn’t want to be a tailor, and his father, who had some political influence, got him an appointment at West Point.

Burnside missed most of the Mexican War, but fought Apaches in the west. He came back from one battle with an arrow in the neck. While recovering from his wound, he had a brainstorm: Cavalrymen could only use sabers against their enemy because muzzle-loading rifles were too hard to load while mounted. What if, thought Burnside, he could invent a light, breech-loading carbine efficient enough for the cavalry to use?

Left At The Altar

Burnside spent the winter of 1850-51 looking for love on a long furlough in Liberty. He proposed to Charlotte Moon, who accepted. On the day of their wedding, according to local legend, the minister asked Charlotte Moon if she would marry Ambrose Burnside. She replied, “No siree, Bob, I won’t,” and walked out.

Charlotte, the story goes, later got engaged to an Ohio lawyer. On the day of that wedding, the lawyer brandished his gun and said there would either be ‘a wedding tonight or a funeral tomorrow.’

The army promoted Burnside to lieutenant in 1851 and assigned him to Fort Adams in Newport, R.I., the next year. There he was luckier in love. He met, courted and then married Mary Richmond Bishop of Providence.

Burnside Carbine

Burnside with his staff from the 1st Rhode Island Regiment

He resigned from the Army in 1853 to develop the Burnside carbine at his Bristol Rifle Works in Rhode Island. When it looked as if he would get a large government contract, he borrowed money and boosted production. The contract fell through when a competitor bribed the Secretary of War to break Burnside’s contract. Burnside declared bankruptcy and sold his possessions and patents.

The gun became a popular weapon during the Civil War. Mary moved in with relatives and Burnside moved in with his old friend George B. McClellan and his family in Chicago. McClellan, a vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad, got Burnside a job with the company. Burnside rose to company treasurer, paid off his debts and in 1860 moved back with his wife.

Civil War

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Burnside was appointed colonel of the 1^st Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry and quickly promoted to brigade command. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run and again won a promotion, to brigadier general. He had an early success closing most of the North Carolina coast to Confederate shipping and won still another promotion.

Wilmer L. Jones, in Generals in Blue and Gray: Lincoln’s generals, observed,

Burnside was liked by his men because of his concern for them. He was a trusting man with an optimistic outlook on life and found it difficult to believe another person could wish him harm until it was so obvious he could not ignore it. When his plans fell short, he tended to take the blame himself. At difficult moments in his life, he accepted responsibility and tried to solve his problems on his own. Ambrose was six feet tall with a deep chest… Despite his intimidating size, his smile and good humor drew people to him.

Hooker

Jeffrey D. Wert, in The Sword of Lincoln, called Ambrose Burnside ‘unfortunate.’

Joseph Hooker

His tenure had been marked by bitter animosity among his subordinates and a fearful, if not needless, sacrifice of life. A firm patriot, he lacked the power of personality and will to direct recalcitrant generals.

Joseph Hooker was certainly recalcitrant. He was the other Civil War general said to have inspired a word: “Hooker,” slang for a prostitute. The word did appear in print 15 years before Hooker was a well-known figure, though his reputation as a ladies’ man – and the prostitutes in “Hooker’s Army” who followed his division – probably popularized the term.

Ambrose Burnside hated Hooker and remained loyal to his old friend McClellan.

After the failure of McClellan during the Peninsular Campaign, President Lincoln twice offered Burnside command of the Army of the Potomac. He refused. Then came Antietam, after which Burnside was criticized for slowness in attacking the enemy and crossing what is now known as Burnside’s Bridge.

McClellan also performed poorly at Antietam. Worse, he didn’t pursue Robert E. Lee after the battle. For that, Lincoln relieved McClellan.

Command

On Nov. 7, 1862, a courier traveled through a blinding snowstorm to Burnside’s headquarters and handed him his order to command the Army of the Potomac. Burnside argued he didn’t want the command and he hadn’t sought it. Then he learned Joseph Hooker would get the job if he didn’t. Burnside accepted the command.

He received orders to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond. In December 1862, Burnside suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, with nearly 13,000 casualties, more than twice that of the Confederates. He offered to quit; Lincoln refused.

In January 1863, Burnside’s forces failed in a winter offensive against Robert E. Lee in what became known as the Mud March. He again offered to quit; Lincoln accepted and replaced him with Joseph Hooker. That spring Hooker lost the Battle of Chancellorsville. Just before the Battle of Gettysburg he, too, lost his command.

Final Humiliations

Burnside in 1862.

Burnside was sent west to Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois, where he shut down an antiwar newspaper in Chicago. He also arrested an Ohio congressman who spoke out against the war. Both actions provoked a backlash and Lincoln reversed the actions, announcing that Burnside had exceeded his authority.

He redeemed himself in August by outmaneuvering Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet and holding Knoxville.

The Siege of Petersburg in July 1864 brought Burnside’s ultimate undoing. He agreed to a plan brought to him by a regiment of Pennsylvania coal miners. They wanted to tunnel under an entrenched Confederate fort and set off explosives, creating a breakthrough for Union soldiers. Generals Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade reluctantly approved the plan.

Burnside specially trained his African-American troops in the fourth division to lead an attack after the giant hole was blown. Hours before the attack, Meade ordered Burnside not to use the black troops. Untrained soldiers led the assault instead and were slaughtered. Burnside took the blame for the fiasco and the Army relieved him of command.

Vindication

Ambrose Burnside sent his letter of resignation to Abraham Lincoln on the afternoon of his assassination. Later, a congressional inquiry exonerated him from blame for the failed Battle of the Crater.

Life improved for him after the Civil War. He got appointed director of several railroads, won election as governor of Rhode Island and then U.S. senator.

He also served as the first president of the National Rifle Association.

Sen. Ambrose Burnside died of a heart attack on Sept. 13, 1881, in Bristol, R.I. His most famous quote: “It is not death therefore that is burdensome, but the fear of death.”

With thanks to Generals in Blue and Gray. This story was updated in 2022.

0 comment 1.1k views

Tobias Gilmore, an African-American Soldier in the American Revolution

Tobias Gilmore, an African-American soldier in the American Revolution, left a legacy that includes a cannon left to the Town of Taunton, Mass., and some very surprised descendants.

Glover’s Regiment crossing the Delaware with Gen. Washington

He came to America as a slave and then earned his freedom by serving in the Continental Army for five years. Local lore links him and his cannon to George Washington, which he fired 14 times on the Fourth of July. Thirteen shots went off for the original colonies and one for Washington.

He was born sometime around 1745 in coastal West Africa. The son of a chieftain, he was named Shibodee Turry Wurry. In about 1757, slave traders kidnapped him while he gathered coconuts.

The slavers shackled him below deck on the slave ship Dove, bound for Virginia. A storm battered the vessel, so the slave traders changed course for Rhode Island. There they auctioned off some of the captives as slaves to pay for repairs to their ship.

A Raynham, Mass., a sea captain named John Gilmore purchased Shibodee Turry Wurry. He then gave him a new name: Tobias Gilmore.

Private Tobias Gilmore

As the Revolution approached, patriotic rhetoric about securing the natural and inalienable right of liberty no doubt inspired Tobias Gilmore.

Continental soldiers at Yorktowns; on the left, an African American soldier of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment

Continental soldiers at Yorktown; on the left, an African American soldier of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment

When war did break out, each colony had to supply a quota of troops for the Continental Army. New England regiments recruited slaves by promising them their freedom. Massachusetts sent 1,535 African-American soldiers to the Continental Army, while the other New England colonies sent 2,278. Historians count 9,000 black Patriot soldiers, including the Army and Navy, state militias, privateers, wagoneers, servants and spies.

African Americans, in fact, made up about a fifth of the Continental Army. By the Siege of Yorktown, an officer in a French regiment estimated that one-quarter of the northern army was African American.

African Americans joined the British cause as well, but in far fewer numbers.

The Taunton Flag, adopted by the people of Taunton in 1774

Tobias Gilmore began his military service on Dec. 8, 1776, as a private in Capt. Jonathan Shaw’s company, part of Col. George Williams’s Regiment.

Gilmore fought three tours of duty and saw action in the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga. He was at the Battle of Monmouth, Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery, Battle of White Plains and West Point. He also suffered through the Continental Army’s winter encampment at Valley Forge.

According to local lore, Toby Gilmore rose through the ranks to bodyguard or servant to George Washington. That can’t be proved or disproved. Some claim the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware pictures him as the African-American soldier, but probably not.

Freedom

Tobias Gilmore received his discharge in December 1781 and returned to Raynham a free man. He had won his freedom during his first enlistment – which lasted eight days. He married Rosanna Hack, and they had eight children: Toby Jr., Nancy, Delia, Timothy, Esquire, Selina, Rosina and Seabury. Toby senior went to work for his former master, and then he and his wife set up a housekeeping business.

Gilmore bought land in Raynham confiscated from a Loyalist and auctioned off. People liked Toby so much that few bid against him.

He was a frugal businessman and built a house in Raynham about 1784. It still stands. He then built a second house in 1798 bigger than his former master’s.

At some point he obtained a cannon. He told the story that Washington gave it to him.

The cannon, nicknamed Old Toby, served with him in the Raynham militia to help put down Shay’s Rebellion. The Old Colony Historical Society noted in 1879 that Tobias Gilmore gave “Old Toby” to the town. Gilmore,

…the colored revolutionary veteran ancestor of the colored villagers in North Raynham, well known as industrious and worthy citizens. It was given by Tobias to the citizens of Taunton for firing sallies on Washington’s birthdays and Fourth of July, or revert to his descendants.

Tobias Gilmore died April 19, 1812 at age 70. He lies buried at the Hall and Dean Burial Ground in Raynham.

Family Detective

In 1921, the Taunton Daily Gazette noted the passing of Caroline Gilmore, Tobias Gilmore’s last living descendant.

Ninety years later, Miloh Pasto came to the Old Colony Historical Society to research her 3^rd great-grandmother, Elmira Sullivan. She turned out to be Tobias Gilmore’s great-granddaughter. Further research then revealed Gilmore had at least 100 living descendants through his daughter Delia and her husband, Thomas Davis.

One of those descendants was a surprised North Carolina firefighter named Chaz Moore. Moore, a Sturbridge, Mass., native, learned in 2012 of his revolutionary roots. North Carolina’s Sons of the American Revolution then inducted him as the first African American member.

“Growing up, I wasn’t even certain that African-Americans even fought in the Revolutionary War,” Moore told the Associated Press in 2012. “It’s not something that’s talked about. Then to say, ‘Well, yeah, they did, and you’re a direct descendant of one’ was unbelievable, humbling. I had to redefine patriotism for myself.”

The cannon today resides at Old Colony Historical Society. So do Tobias Gilmore’s mitre, rundlet and other personal effects.

This story was updated in 2022.

4 comments 387 views

Norman Cota, Overlooked Hero of D-Day (And the Next)

Norman Cota may have been the oldest soldier to set foot on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He was certainly the baddest.

His command of shell-shocked troops through enemy fire earned him the honor of leading U.S. Army troops down the Champs Elysees in the parade celebrating the liberation of Paris.

Norman Cota. D-Day hero, led U.S. Army troops in the parade down the Champs Elysees celebrating the liberation of Paris.

He was highly decorated, remembered for his leadership, his courage, his ability to visualize a battle and his preparation of his men.

Norman Cota on D-Day personally led traumatized soldiers through a gap off bloody Omaha Beach.

Then he topped that performance the next day.

Norman Cota

He was born May 30, 1893, in Chelsea, Mass., to George William Cota, a telegrapher and later a storekeeper, and Jessie Mason, a schoolteacher from Croatia. He got the name Dutch from his friends while working in his father’s store.

Norman Cota graduated two months early from West Point in April 1917 when America entered World War I.

At West Point, Cota and Dwight Eisenhower became good friends playing football. Commissioned a lieutenant, Cota earned a promotion to major by war’s end.

On D-Day he was a 51-year-old brigadier general, assistant commander of the 29^th division. He was also one of the highest ranking officers on Omaha Beach that day and possibly the oldest person.

On Omaha Beach

Cota had correctly warned his men of the terrible confusion they’d encounter that day. Troops landed in the wrong places and the German defenses were stronger than anticipated. The Allies couldn’t get a foothold on the beach under intense enemy fire and around obstacles and mines.

About one hour after the invasion started, Norman Cota rode a landing craft into a crossfire of bullets, artillery and mortar.

Photograph entitled ‘Into the Jaws of Death’ shows American infantry troops landing on Omaha Beach. Photo courtesy National Archives.

He immediately set to making order out of chaos, setting up a command post on the beach. Two of his commanding officers were killed within feet of him.

Then he strode upright across the beach toward a group of soldiers pinned down by enemy fire next to a sand dune. It was then that he may have uttered his most famous words:

Gentlemen, we are being killed on the beaches. Let us go inland and be killed.

U.S. assault troops landing on Utah Beach. Photo courtesy U.S. Army.

Rangers Lead the Way

He asked the commander of the 5th Ranger Battalion, ‘What outfit is this?’ When told, he replied,

Well, God damn it then, Rangers, lead the way!

“Rangers lead the way!” is now that elite unit’s official motto — but it was Norman Cota who led the way that day.

The Germans had put up wire fences to obstruct the Allies’ path off the beach. A soldier placed a Bangalore torpedo – a tube filled with high explosives – under one fence and blew it away. The first soldier through the breach was killed by sniper fire. The men following him froze.

Cota saw what happened and raced into the breach. He led the surviving soldiers through the gap in the fence and up a steep bluff to overtake a German gun embankment. At one point he got ahead of his men and stood waiting for them, twirling his .45 on his finger.

Opening the gap allowed men and equipment to be moved off the beach to safer places inland. Norman Cota earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership that day. An effort is underway to upgrade his decoration to the Medal of Honor.

U.S. Army Rangers on the cliffs of Normandy two days after D-Day.

This Is How You Take A House

The next day the Allies tried to broaden the beachhead, fanning out in vulnerable spots. The Germans continued their fierce defense. Many fired on the Allies from behind stone walls and from within stone barns and farmhouses.

Cota came upon a group of infantry pinned down by some Germans in a farmhouse. Stephen Ambrose in Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany recounts what happened.

Cota asked the captain in command why his men weren’t trying to take the house.

“Sir, the Germans are in there, shooting at us,” the captain said.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, captain,” said Cota, unbuckling two grenades from his jacket. “You and your men start shooting at them. I’ll take a squad of men and you and your men watch carefully. I’ll show you how to take a house with Germans in it.”

Robert Mitchum as Norman Cota in ‘The Longest Day.’

Can’t Do It For Everybody

Cota tried to get as close as possible to the house by leading his squad around a hedge. Then he suddenly shouted a war whoop and ran forward. His men followed, yelling as well.

Some of them tossed grenades into the windows while Cota and another soldier kicked in the front door. They threw a couple of grenades inside, waited for them to blow up and then raced into the house. The Germans who survived the explosions ran for their lives out the back door.

Then, wrote Ambrose,

Cota returned to the captain. “You’ve seen how to take a house,” said the general, still out of breath. “Do you understand? Do you know how to do it now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I won’t be around to do it for you again,” Cota said. “I can’t do it for everybody.”

Before Norman Cota died on Oct. 4, 1971, he got to see himself played by Robert Mitchum in the film, The Longest Day.

This story about Norman Cota was updated in 2022.

54 comments 1.2k views

Newer Posts

Older Posts