The Class of 1846 Read online

  Winner of the Fletcher Pratt Literary Award Presented by The Civil War Round Table of New York

  “If asked to list my dozen favorite Civil War books, The Class of 1846 would be included.… John C. Waugh, a distinguished journalist, gives to his story of the class a special and very human dimension that is missing from their standard biographies and autobiographies.”

  —Edwin C. Bearss

  Author of Vicksburg Campaign

  “First-rate and moving … A grand account … Waugh has vividly reconstructed the stirring, and often tragic, account of perhaps the most illustrious class ever to emerge from the military academy.… Thanks to Waugh, the legacy of that class—its sense of duty and honor—rings as clearly now as then.… This is history, but in the form of drama based on a broad array of background materials, including letters and memoirs.… Waugh’s account of the West Point class of 1846 seems likely to become a minor classic.”

  —The Christian Science Monitor

  “Penetrating … [A] fine book … There are as many ways to tell the story of the Civil War as there are writers to tell it, but some are more imaginative than others. John C. Waugh must be given high points for originality.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “[Waugh] writes with a fine sense of irony and understated humor, yet misses none of the emotional drama of friends facing one another on the battlefield.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “First class work … Waugh has catapulted himself into the first circle of those writers who concentrate on the Civil War. His first foray into the field is poignant and exciting, top notch in every way. Scrupulous in its research, enormous in breadth and scope, this is a highly readable history on the same level as the best of Catton or Foote. This is history as it should be told, powerful and sweeping, evocative to the very core.”

  —The Tampa Tribune and Times

  “[A] wonderful saga … Of epic proportions equal to that of Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels … With wit and anecdote John C. Waugh has masterfully written this story of ‘a brothers war.’ ”

  —BookPage

  “A COLLECTIVE BIOGRAPHY OF EPIC PROPORTIONS … MASTERFULLY CHRONICLED …

  With meticulous research, deft organization and graceful prose, Waugh has produced a vivid and engrossing book that will appeal to everyone interested in American history. The book’s approach is original, and its impact is as resounding as a battery of Parrot fieldguns.… The author skillfully interweaves human and historical detail, anecdotes and humor, in a stunning chronicle of young men learning to become warriors.… All in all, the Class of 1846 was as star-studded—and star-crossed—a class as ever marched through the hallowed halls of West Point, and author Waugh has told their story well.”

  —America’s Civil War

  “John C. Waugh does a splendid job.… His narrative illuminates the strong connection among the men, as well as the power of political events to place them opposite one another on bloody Civil War battlefields, and in doing so captures much of the tragedy of that great American conflict.”

  —Gary W. Gallagher

  Professor and head, Department of History,

  Pennsylvania State University,

  Editor of Fighting for the Confederacy

  “A page-turner … If you can keep a dry eye reading of the reunion of these classmates in Appomattox Court House, you are of sterner stuff than I.”

  —Greenwich Times

  “This marvelous book is like a sweeping symphony of four stirring movements.… Like a symphony, The Class of 1846 rises and falls, carrying the reader intellectually and emotionally. Waugh’s pacing is wonderful, as wonderful as the story he tells so deftly. This is the finest book about a West Point class since Rick Atkinson’s The Long Gray Line.… This human symphony should be heard and enjoyed, not just by those who know and love the Academy, but by any who appreciate a good story told well. Waugh has achieved that and has created an enduring and important work.”

  —West Point Assembly

  “Waugh skillfully traces the transformation of 1842’s callow plebes into some of the most important Civil War leaders on either side—Stonewall Jackson, George B. McClellan, McClellan’s roommate A. P. Hill, George E. Pickett, and many other familiar names. The result is a riveting book, certain to appeal to students of the Civil War and of American history in general.”

  —Robert K. Krick

  Author of Stonewall at Cedar Mountain

  “No one can fully understand the military actions of the Civil War without understanding the influence of West Point on the officers of both sides. This book, excellently researched and written, will help.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “A COMPELLING WORK

  which entertains was well as informs the general reader.… Waugh breathes life into the people he writes about … the men of ’46 are well worth knowing, and John Waugh is to be commended for affording us the opportunity to make their acquaintance.”

  —James L. Morrison, Jr., Ph.D., Col. U.S.A. (Ret.)

  Professor Emeritus,

  York College of Pennsylvania

  Author of The Best School in the World:

  West Point, the Pre-Civil War Years, 1833–1860

  “While written accounts of most of these soldiers already exist, Waugh presents his sketches in a way that makes them fresh again.… In some works, historical figures are as cold and lifeless as the statues that commemorate their victories: this is definitely not true of John C. Waugh and The Class of 1846. Waugh’s writing style breathes life into his subjects and gives his readers a view of Jackson, McClellan, and their classmates as they have rarely been seen before. This touching story would be an attractive addition to many personal and scholarly libraries.”

  —The Journal of Southern History

  “Waugh’s description of [Jackson’s] death is splendidly done, as is Waugh’s retelling of Gettysburg, particularly of Pickett’s charge, and of Lee’s surrender.… Despite its massive subject, it is filled with the kind of incidents, quotations and anecdotes that make the Civil War book endlessly fascinating. It’s a first-rate book that is highly recommended.”

  —Gazette-Mail Sunday Life (Charleston, W.V.)

  “Every year, dozens of new books are published, many by first-rate scholar-writers. Only a handful of those touch our hearts and minds. John C. Waugh’s book does more than that—it will haunt you. After reading it, a visit to a Civil War battlefield will take on a whole new meaning. Bring lots of tissues.”

  —Martinsburgh Journal (W.V.)

  “Boasting a vigorous narrative that appeals to lay readers, The Class of 1846 also merits the attention of scholars.… Better than any previous author, Waugh fleshes out these generalizations and conveys how profoundly the West Point experience influenced the lives of graduates.… Waugh captures the rhythms and traditions of life at the Academy, explores the bonding effect of service in Mexico and on the United States frontier, and touches on other factors that forged a close fraternity among the officers.”

  —Reviews in American History

  “An exceedingly well-written narrative … Wonderful, poignant stories, often alluded to but rarely told, and even more rarely told well.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1994 by John C. Waugh

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Warner Books, Inc., in 1994.

  Ballantine and colophon are trademarks of Random Hous
e, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-90081

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77539-9

  First Ballantine Books Edition: May 1999

  v3.1

  For Kathleen, my own companion in exile as I

  went off to war with the Class of 1846.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Cast of Characters

  PART 1 WEST POINT

  From Every Degree of Provincialism

  Sighing for What We Left Behind

  As Intelligible as Sanskrit

  Oh, for the Sight of Our Native Land

  Death in the Family

  Gone Are the Days of Our Youth

  PART 2 GONE FOR A SOLDIER

  War at Last

  That City Shall Soon Be Ours

  The Seventeen-Minute Victory

  To the Halls of the Montezumas

  Indian Country

  India-Rubber Women and Buffalo Men

  The Bloody Saddle

  The Courtship of Miss Nelly

  PART 3 AND THE WAR CAME

  Our Men at Sumter

  Waiting for the Ball to Begin

  The First Shot

  Stonewall’s Great Locomotive Heist

  The Shirttail Skedaddle

  PART 4 DOWN IN THE VALLEY

  The Valley Man

  The Odd Couple

  From under the Little Faded Cap

  My Friend, My Enemy

  Delightful Excitement

  PART 5 BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER

  High Hopes and Paranoia

  Maryland, My Maryland

  The Man in the Red Battle Shirt

  The Night the General Was Fired

  Caught in the Rain

  Shots in the Night

  Death of the Enthusiastic Fanatic

  The Dandy at the Foot of the Class

  Where Is My Division?

  PART 6 CLOSING OUT THE WAR

  The Meeting on the Court House Steps

  The Wind That Shook the Corn

  Epilogue

  In Appreciation

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Illustration Credits

  Photo Inserts

  Foreword

  by

  JAMES M. MCPHERSON

  The description of the American Civil War as a war of brothers is more than a cliché. The war did divide families, especially in the border states. In hundreds of cases brother and brother, uncle and nephew, even father and son or son-in-law chose different sides. More than once they faced each other on the battlefield. Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, whose ill-fated compromise proposal of 1861 failed to avert war, had one son who became a Union general and another who became a Confederate general. Seven brothers and brothers-in-law of Mary Todd Lincoln fought against the army whose commander in chief was her husband.

  In a metaphorical as well as a literal sense it was a brothers’ war. Americans often likened themselves to a family formed by the common heritage of a revolution that forged the nation and launched it on a perilous experiment of republican government. The quarrels that led to the falling out of 1861 threatened the survival not only of that experiment but also of the family itself.

  These two themes of the brothers’ war—literal and metaphorical—have received thorough treatment in the vast literature on the Civil War. This book treats a third aspect of the phenomenon. The United States Military Academy at West Point created a band of brothers more tightly bonded by mutual hardship and danger in war than biological brothers. Officers who fought shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy in Mexico from 1846 to 1848 fought against each other in the war of 1861 to 1865. Serving together on the staff of General-in-Chief Winfield Scott in Mexico were George B. McClellan and Pierre G. T. Beauregard. Captain Robert E. Lee’s daring reconnaissances behind Mexican lines prepared the way for two crucial American victories in 1847; after one of those battles Captain Lee officially commended Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant. The latter received official thanks for his role in the attack on Mexico City; those thanks were conveyed to him by Lieutenant John Pemberton, who sixteen years later would surrender to Grant at Vicksburg. Lieutenants James Longstreet and Winfield Scott Hancock fought side by side in the battle of Churubusco; sixteen years later Longstreet commanded the attack on Hancock’s corps at Gettysburg, an attack led by George Pickett who doubtless recalled the day he picked up the colors of the Eighth Infantry in its assault at Chapultepec when Lieutenant Longstreet fell wounded while carrying those colors. Winning brevets for their performance in this battle, lieutenants Thomas J. Jackson and George Henry Gordon (both of the class of 1846) would fight against each other in the Shenandoah Valley fifteen years later. At Buena Fista in 1847, artillery officers George H. Thomas and Braxton Bragg fought alongside each other with the same spirit they would show as opposing commanders at Missionary Ridge a thousand miles and sixteen years distant.

  And so it went. Most of the commanders of the Union and Confederate armies that slaughtered each other to the tune of 620,000 war dead from 1861 to 1865 had fought together as brothers in arms in Mexico—and in the Indian wars of the 1850s. Here, truly, was a brothers’ war. And for no West Point class was this tragedy more poignant than for the class of 1846. Graduating just as the Mexican War began, fifty-three of the fifty-nine members of this class (the largest in the Academy’s history to that time) fought in Mexico. Four of them lost their lives there. Two more were killed fighting Indians in the 1850s. Ten members of that class became Confederate generals; twelve became Union generals; three of the Confederates and one of the Unionists were killed or mortally wounded in action during the Civil War. The Class of 1846 is their story.

  And never has this story of a brothers’ war been told so well. Jack Waugh takes these men from their first fearful day as plebes at West Point through their careers together and apart. He blends humor and anecdote with stirring narrative and incisive analysis. The reader learns how George McClellan and A. P. Hill, roommates at the Point and friends for life, courted the same woman. In that contest McClellan exhibited more determination and achieved greater success than he ever experienced on a Civil War battlefield.

  The two most illustrious alumni of the class of 1846 were McClellan and Jackson. For the Civil War years this book becomes largely their story. In this interpretation of these two leaders, Jack Waugh does not challenge the orthodox portrait of McClellan as a disappointing failure and of Jackson as an eccentric genius. Indeed, this hardhitting narrative sharpens and clarifies the portrait so that the reader comes away in full agreement with the author’s conclusion that “McClellan had failed to fulfill the shining promise of greatness” while Jackson “turned out to be one of the best generals the world has ever produced.”

  But the two-thirds of this book that focuses on the Civil War is more than the story of McClellan and Jackson. The twenty other members of the class of 1846 who fought in that conflict play important supporting roles. At times, several of them appear on the stage together. “Indeed,” Waugh writes, “there could have been a class reunion on the banks of the Antietam if the times had not been so troubled.” McClellan of course commanded the Union army and Jackson commanded half of the Confederate army in that battle. Eight other members of the class, five Unionists and three Confederates, faced each other in the bloodiest single day of American history. And it was A. P. Hill’s flank attack late in the day against his good friend Ambrose Burnside’s (class of 1847) corps that prevented a complete victory for his former roommate and rival in love, George McClellan.

  At Gettysburg, too, there occurred dramatic confrontations between former classmates and brothers in arms. Jackson and McClellan had been removed from the scene—one by death and the other by dismissal. But a half-dozen other members of the class of 1846 were there. The Union division commanded by John Gibbon (a North Caroli
nian whose three brothers fought for the Confederacy) bore the brunt of the assault commanded by his classmate George Pickett. The repulse of Pickett’s charge by Gibbon’s men was a microcosm of the Civil War—and of the part played in it by the class of 1846. Here is their story, told by a master craftsman, a saga of a band of brothers whose tragic separation was the nation’s tragedy but whose reunification after Appomattox also became the nation’s triumph.

  Cast of Characters

  The main characters in these true stories were at one time or another members of the West Point class of 1846, arguably the most illustrious of the academy’s antebellum years. Thirty-four of them appear in this book in various roles, large and small. Of those, most started and graduated with the class. Some fell back into it from the class ahead; a few dropped out of it into the class behind and graduated a year later; a few didn’t graduate at all. For purposes of this narrative all are considered members of the class of 1846.

  A handful of the thirty-four listed here play starring roles, reappearing many times throughout the book. Some take featured parts and appear less frequently. Others are bit players, flashing for but a passing instant across a passing page, often on the way to their graves. A few in the class are merely mentioned, or not mentioned at all, and therefore are not listed in this cast of characters. Most, but not all, lived to fight in the Civil War. Many of them became generals. A few of them became immortal.

  The following list of these thirty-four is offered as a thumbnail guide to their lives up through the rebellion, to help track them along the way. To learn what really happened to them, you must read on.

  PART 1

  WEST

  POINT

  From Every Degree of Provincialism