A Soldier's General gathers ninety-five letters written by McLaws to his family between 1858 and 1865, making these valuable resources available to a wide audience for the first time. The letters, painstakingly transcribed from McLaws's notoriously poor handwriting, contain a wealth of opinion and information about life and morale in the Confederate army, Civil War-era politics, the Southern press, and the impact of war on the Confederate home front. Among the fascinating threads the letters trace is the story of McLaws's fractured relationship with childhood friend Longstreet, who had McLaws relieved of command in 1863.
John Oeffinger's extensive introduction sketches McLaws's life from his beginnings in Augusta, Georgia, through his early experiences in the U.S. Army, his marriage, his Civil War exploits, and his postwar years.
A Soldier's General gathers ninety-five letters written by McLaws to his family between 1858 and 1865, making these valuable resources available to a wide audience for the first time. The letters, painstakingly transcribed from McLaws's notoriously poor handwriting, contain a wealth of opinion and information about life and morale in the Confederate army, Civil War-era politics, the Southern press, and the impact of war on the Confederate home front. Among the fascinating threads the letters trace is the story of McLaws's fractured relationship with childhood friend Longstreet, who had McLaws relieved of command in 1863.
John Oeffinger's extensive introduction sketches McLaws's life from his beginnings in Augusta, Georgia, through his early experiences in the U.S. Army, his marriage, his Civil War exploits, and his postwar years.
A Soldier's General: The Civil War Letters of Major General Lafayette McLaws
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A Soldier's General: The Civil War Letters of Major General Lafayette McLaws
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Overview
A Soldier's General gathers ninety-five letters written by McLaws to his family between 1858 and 1865, making these valuable resources available to a wide audience for the first time. The letters, painstakingly transcribed from McLaws's notoriously poor handwriting, contain a wealth of opinion and information about life and morale in the Confederate army, Civil War-era politics, the Southern press, and the impact of war on the Confederate home front. Among the fascinating threads the letters trace is the story of McLaws's fractured relationship with childhood friend Longstreet, who had McLaws relieved of command in 1863.
John Oeffinger's extensive introduction sketches McLaws's life from his beginnings in Augusta, Georgia, through his early experiences in the U.S. Army, his marriage, his Civil War exploits, and his postwar years.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780807860472 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The University of North Carolina Press |
| Publication date: | 04/03/2003 |
| Series: | Civil War America |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 322 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
A Soldier's General
The Civil War Letters of Major General Lafayette McLaws
By John C. Oeffinger
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright © 2002 The University of North Carolina Press.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0807826901
Introduction
Major General Lafayette McLaws, the lead division commander in Lieutenant General James Longstreet's First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, contemplated his division's most recent engagement as he prepared to write home on the evening of July 7, 1863. Torrential rain, the roads deep in mud, and thoughts of fellow soldiers left behind on Pennsylvania fields marked the long three-day march from Gettysburg. The men, weary from the thirty-five-day campaign into Pennsylvania and the intense fighting that took place on July 2, were in good spirits. These Georgians, South Carolinians, and Mississippians were hardy souls. The cowards and drifters had long since left their ranks. The true believers remained with the division, hardened by long marches with little food to keep them moving. They had just erected a series of breastworks outside of Hagerstown, Maryland, and waited for Major General George Gordon Meade, commander of the Union Army of the Potomac, to make his attack. Robert Edward Lee, the Confederate commanding general, would not have hesitated to aggressively attack Meade. Instead, the division led by the forty-two-year-old McLaws regrouped and waited behind their defensive positions. The men waited for the waters of the raging Potomac to recede enough for them to cross the pontoon bridge into Virginia and safety. They would continue to wage war with a determined spirit, long for a lasting victory and an end to the bloodshed.
July 2, 1863, the second day of battle on the ground in and around the crossroads town of Gettysburg, was one of the most important military engagements of Lafayette McLaws's twenty-three-year military career. The young general from Georgia was not allowed to wage battle in the manner he believed necessary to win. The division, comprised of four brigades, advanced under Longstreet's orders in a piecemeal manner. It crossed the Emmitsburg Road beginning at 4:00 p.m. on that hot, dusty day led by four civilian prewar brigade commanders. The 6,924 men pushed the opposing Federal units back through the Peach Orchard, Rose Farm, and the Wheatfield. "The result of the day's fighting showed us that we had driven the enemy back to their main line, the right of which was Cemetery Hill and the left Round Top, and that was all we did." The men, "had driven the forces opposed to them, from their positions, and occupied the grounds and held them unt[i]l withdrawn by order." The conduct of their corps commander, James Longstreet, not their lack of courage or aggressiveness, determined the outcome. It was Longstreet's ineffective coordination and the disjointed manner in which he committed the four brigades that led to the afternoon's incomplete results.[1]
McLaws tallied the loss to his division and the Confederacy as one brigade commander killed (William Barksdale), another mortally wounded (Paul Jones Semmes), and a long list of irreplaceable colonels, majors, captains, and soldiers. "The loss in my division was near twenty four hundred, the heaviest of the war, and many of the most valuable officers in the whole service have been killed."[2]
McLaws began to mentally question the command skills of Longstreet, a boyhood friend and West Point classmate, in a letter to his beloved wife Emily:
My dear wife, Since I wrote you last we have had a series of terrible engagements out of which God has permitted me to come unscathed again. . . . I think the attack was unnecessary and the whole plan of battle a very bad one. Genl Longstreet is to blame for not reconnoitering the ground and for persisting in ordering the assault when his errors were discovered. During the engagement he was very excited giving contrary orders to every one, and was exceedingly overbearing. I consider him a humbug, a man of small capacity, very obstinate, not at all chivalrous, exceedingly conceited, and totally selfish. If I can it is my intention to get away from his command. We want Beuregard very much indeed, his presence is imperatively called for.[3]
This 138-year-old letter is arguably the most celebrated McLaws passage cited in American Civil War literature. Lafayette McLaws never expected other individuals, much less people in the early twenty-first century, to read his most private thoughts. In the 1930s his daughter Virginia donated the largest group of his papers to the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These papers contain a sizable amount of unpublished primary material—except for a few quotations that pointedly describe Longstreet.
McLaws's letters to Emily and other family members, his written communications to leading figures in the Confederate army, and his Order and Letter Book entries provide new insight into the all-but-forgotten general. Apart from William Dorsey Pender, no other major general reporting to Robert E. Lee left a comparable unpublished legacy. McLaws's atrocious penmanship is the most significant reason these letters and their associated papers have never been widely circulated. Robert K. Krick tells us that the former Confederate general "spent the later years of his life writing and speaking copiously on war topics, but little of that production reached print." According to Krick, "The enormous volume of surviving manuscripts by McLaws represents perhaps the most extensive unused body of material on any Confederate major general, but his execrable handwriting renders that splendid mass of documentation difficult to retrieve." This body of surviving wartime records is clearly an important untapped resource in understanding major elements of the Confederate States Army—its battles, troops, and leaders.[4]
Now we can all share in his insights, thoughts, and struggles as McLaws wrote home about the savage war. In the final analysis, the men who served under Lafayette McLaws began to shape how history would view their commander. His engraved tombstone in Savannah's Laurel Grove Cemetery reads, "He knew when to lead us in, and he always brought us out." His troops knew him for what he was—a soldier's general.
Family and Early Life in Augusta, Georgia, 1821-1837
Alexander McLaws and his family were returning to Scotland from Santo Domingo when a storm wrecked their ship off the coast of Georgia, near Darien, in 1783. "After this unfortunate experience, he decided to settle in America, so Augusta was selected as their home as it was far away from the sea."[5] In 1790 Alexander's wife Janet gave birth to their youngest son, James.
James McLaws married Elizabeth Huguenin on January 24, 1815. Elizabeth, the daughter of David and Elizabeth Huguenin, grew up in St. Luke's Parish, South Carolina. Virginia McLaws noted that "the Huguenins were French Huguenots who came to South Carolina from one of the West Indies islands where they owned family plantations." Elizabeth's brother, Captain Abram Huguenin, lived on the family's original plantation, "Roseland." Union major Henry Orlando Marcy described Roseland as "one of the most lovely spots he had ever seen, pen would fail to do it justice." He recorded in his diary that the plantation was located "near the Coosawatchie R [River] situated on high ground, in a splendid grove of live oaks of a centuries growth. Outhouses and all at a distance bear the look of a county village. Every outhouse was nicely whitewashed. The grounds were beautifully laid and splendidly kept. The mansion was huge and eloquently furnished."[6]
James McLaws began working as a cotton factor and moved into county politics six years later. Augusta was a rapidly growing city and the political environment changed quickly between 1817 and 1821. The citizens of Augusta sent James to the city council, where he represented the middle ward of Augusta on April 9, 1821. On January 10, 1822, the voters elected him to the newly established post of superior and inferior court clerk of Richmond County, a position he held through fifteen successive elections spanning thirty years.[7]
The political world opened up investment opportunities for James. In 1833 he helped organize the railroad from Augusta to Athens, which became the original segment of the famed Georgia Railroad. He also developed lasting political and family friendships. The future governor of the Territory of Florida, Robert Raymond Reid, mused that "among his first friends in Augusta was James McLaws, always my friend, and afterward my brother-in-law." Reid resigned his position as judge of the superior court to become district judge for eastern Florida in 1832.[8]
Elizabeth gave birth to Anna Laura, the McLaws's first child, on October 29, 1816, and to William Raymond on November 20, 1818. The couple's third child, Lafayette, was born in Augusta on January 15, 1821. Abram Huguenin, the youngest surviving child, followed on April 13, 1823. A fifth child, Janet, was born on June 15, 1826. Elizabeth died on October 8, 1848. James lived two more years; at his death on November 20, 1850 at age sixty, he was the oldest native citizen of Augusta. Their children buried James and Elizabeth McLaws in Augusta's Summerville Cemetery.[9]
Anna Laura became a scholar and never married. An avid reader, she appeared to inject the intellectual or thought-provoking questions into family discussions. Family papers indicate that she may have had an affectionate relationship with Henry Clay. Anna Laura also provided Lafayette encouragement and support, especially during and after his court-martial in 1864. She frequently wrote to her brother and joined him in Savannah in the fall of 1864. After her death on July 17, 1894, she was buried near her parents in Summerville Cemetery.[10]
William R. and Lafayette were the closest in age and attended the University of Virginia together for a year. Lafayette then moved on to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and pursued a military career. William R. opened the political doors for his younger brother. Following his father's example, he began his career as a delegate to the June 1843 Democratic state convention. Between 1855 and 1859 he was the attorney general of Georgia. The 1872 Augusta City Directory lists William R. in a law practice with Joseph Ganahl Jr., the surgeon of the 10th Georgia Infantry and an attorney, who served as Lafayette's defense counsel at his court-martial. After the war he became a judge.[11]
On November 20, 1853, William R. married Mary Ann Boggs, who had previously moved from Monmouth County, New Jersey, to teach the Huguenin children at Roseland. The couple had three children, William Raymond McLaws Jr. (1859), Meta Telfair (July 3, 1855), and Lillie Huguenin "Bet" (1860). Mary Ann died in Augusta on December 1, 1872, and William R. in Clarkesville, Georgia, on August 29, 1880.[12]
James and Elizabeth named their third child for Marie Joseph Motier Marquis de Lafayette, the famed French general of the American Revolution. McLaws intensely disliked his name, pronounced LaFet in Georgia, preferring family names instead. In 1825 the marquis returned to the United States as an invited guest of the U.S. Congress. "On the ocean voyage he sailed on the same vessel with Mr. King [John Pendleton King], and during the journey became intimately acquainted and a lasting friendship was formed." King succeeded Robert Reid as judge of the superior court of Richmond County. The Marquis de Lafayette visited Boston, New York, and Washington, then traveled to Augusta in the fall of 1825. "Here he was entertained by Mr. King, who accompanied him throughout the city, where he received the highest honors." Virginia McLaws wrote that the French general noticed her father "and took the young Lafayette on his knee."[13]
McLaws was able to "write when he was four years of age." Family records indicate that "as a small boy he wrote on the walls or his books, 'Gen. Lafayette McLaws,' not realizing that he would one day become a general." The practice of scribbling in books continued with his grandchildren. Numerous pages scattered throughout the SHC-LM collection contain a young child's scribbled marks.[14]
Abram Huguenin McLaws attended Georgetown and William and Mary Colleges before becoming a member of the bar. The family's businessman, he was elected lieutenant of the Richmond Blues, fought with the Georgia regiment, and was wounded in the War with Mexico. After the war he returned to Augusta and married Sarah Twiggs Porter on November 2, 1848. They lived in Sand Hills, just outside Augusta, and raised nine children: Mannie E. (1854), Sarah "Sallie" Telfair (1856), James P. (1857), Anna Laura (1859), Emily Lafayette (1863), Huguenin G. (1867), Evanline W. (1871), Adam (1872), and Raymond B. (1874). County records indicate that there may have been two other boys who died in childbirth. Hu McLaws joined his brother's staff as division quartermaster in 1862.[15]
Hu variously ran a plantation, worked as a geologist, and served as the second superintendent of Richmond County's school district, where he led efforts to build schools to meet black Augustans' needs. In the final years of his life he was a newspaper editor. Among the children of Hu and Sarah, James graduated from the University of Georgia, and in 1880 the U.S. Engineer Corps appointed him engineer in charge of a survey of the Savannah River between Augusta and Savannah. Their most notable child, Emily Lafayette McLaws, lived with Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis's second wife, in New York City after her parents died. Emily Lafayette published five fictional books with Civil War themes, taking her uncle's name as a pseudonym. She died on February 21, 1944, at the age of eighty-one. Huguenin G. died at Emily Lafayette's home on November 20, 1933. Evanline taught grammar school in Richmond County and died in 1937. Raymond became a physician and lived until March 4, 1961.[16]
Young Lafayette McLaws attended Augusta's Richmond Academy. Charles C. Jones observed: "one of the oldest schools of its kind dating to 1785, it was the oldest seat of learning in the United States with the exception of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton." The curriculum included "Latin, Greek, French, German and English languages, a thorough mathematical course from arithmetic to calculus, a popular course of natural philosophy, theoretical and analytical chemistry, astronomy, geology and also a course of physiology and hygiene. The highest rate of tuition was ten dollars per quarter." James Longstreet, the nephew of prominent Georgia educator Augustas Longstreet, attended the academy at the same time as McLaws. McLaws also studied at the Georgia Male Academy, run by an ex-army officer and West Point graduate Thomas S. Twiss.[17]
The College Years, 1837-1842
When McLaws was sixteen, John P. King, who had advanced from the superior court of Richmond County to the U.S. Senate, recommended that the youth be appointed to the U.S. Military Academy. The academy deferred the 1838 appointment until it could fill the next vacancy from Georgia. As a result, Lafayette completed his first year of college at Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village, University of Virginia, in 1837.[18]
McLaws entered West Point on July 1, 1838. The seventeen-year-old cadet's classmates included future Civil War generals James Longstreet, Gustavus Woodson Smith, Daniel Harvey Hill, Earl Van Dorn, Abner Doubleday, John Pope, and William Starke Rosecrans. Another member of the class of 1842, James Monroe Goggin of Virginia, left the academy before graduation to fight in the Texas revolution. He later became McLaws's adjutant general. McLaws described Smith as one who "is most decidedly a reserved man on all military matters—although away from that topic he is as free as a boy, he is a classmate of mine, and has always been distinguished for his talents and sound judgment." McLaws continued to correspond and discuss the "interior workings in Bragg's Army" with G. W. Smith as late as 1893.[19]
McLaws's first year at West Point was his best at the academy. Out of 85 fourth-class students, he ranked thirty-fourth in math and twenty-fourth in French. He kept his demerits down to thirty-eight for the year, which ranked him ninety-first out of 231 cadets, and did not earn any demerits in December 1838.[20]
The second (third-class) year proved to be more difficult. McLaws ended with a rank of fifty-seventh out of seventy-six cadets. He was fifty-first in math, thirty-ninth in French, a dismal sixty-ninth in drawing, and sixty-fourth in English grammar. His demerits nearly doubled to seventy, ranking him 166th out of the 233 cadets at the academy in 1840.[21]
His third (second-class) year continued the trend, as he finished fiftieth in a class of sixty cadets. He earned rankings of thirty-seventh in philosophy, fifty-first in chemistry, and fifty-fourth in drawing. McLaws rated 176th out of 219 cadets as his annual demerit total increased to ninety-eight. He averaged a few demerits per month except for three specific months. In August he "was caught without crepe on his arm," in January he "was absent from quarters," and in July he was written up for "allowing smoking." All three reports earned McLaws an extra tour of guard duty on Saturdays.[22]
The first-class cadet ranked forty-third in engineering, thirty-ninth in ethics, fiftieth in tactics, fiftieth in artillery, and forty-third in mineralogy. His demerits continued to escalate until McLaws earned 147 for the year, a lackluster performance that ranked him 178th out of 207. In January he received demerits "for visiting after taps," earning him two more tours of Saturday guard duty. Cadet McLaws accumulated 353 demerits before graduation. The academy's Conduct Roll noted "but three in his class of fifty-eight members, worse in conduct." In an interesting twist, McLaws outranked Longstreet in ethics by sixteen positions. These rankings were somewhat reversed in infantry tactics, where Longstreet ranked fortieth and McLaws fiftieth—neither turning in stellar academic performances. McLaws graduated forty-eighth in his class of fifty-six.[23]
Early Life in the U.S. Army and the War with Mexico, 1842-1848
Before the War with Mexico the U.S. Army deployed its forces in regimental posts across the frontier. By General Order No. 44 Lafayette McLaws received his commission as a brevet second lieutenant on July 21, 1842 and joined Company I of the 6th U.S. Infantry at Fort Gibson, located in the Cherokee part of the Indian Territory, on October 11. The fort, established in 1824, was designed to house five companies and sat 150 yards from the river. Rectangular in design, the two sides running north to south were 318 feet in length and held the barracks and stores. The longer east-west sides measured 348 feet. As a result of this close proximity to the river, poor quality of the water, and exposure to the miasmas of the river valley, Fort Gibson was considered one of the unhealthiest posts in the army. McLaws endured it through early July 1844, having transferred through four different companies. According to 6th Infantry returns, he had reported sick for three of his twenty-one months on the post.[24]
General Order No. 33 promoted the young officer to second lieutenant and transferred him to the Baton Rouge Barracks on July 8, 1844. The engineers had placed the garrison on rich, fertile land nestled among numerous plantations whose owners grew crops such as sugar and cotton and raised cattle. More importantly, the fort was located on the first level plain of high ground overlooking the Mississippi River north of New Orleans. It contained two ranges of officers' quarters and two barracks, both 180 feet long and 36 wide. The buildings were two stories high, included a piazza on one side, and housed eight companies of men. During a posting to the fort General Zachary Taylor complained about "the lack of a wall around the installations," which "permitted soldiers to mingle with the local inhabitants to the detriment of health and morals."[25]
McLaws joined Company D of the 7th Infantry and took temporary command of the unit on September 5. Over a four-month period the new second lieutenant accepted, then relinquished temporary command, and during his posting to the barracks he reported sick four of the nine months. This included a sixty-day leave of absence with permission to apply for an extension based on a surgeon's certificate of ill health. Widespread disease was common to forts located next to rivers, and during McLaws's tenture the Baton Rouge Barracks overlooking the Mississippi River was no exception. There the outbreak of infectious diseases was so rampant that a special military board was created to define precautionary measures needed to prevent exposure. McLaws had his first direct involvement in a court-martial in June 1845, when the army tried Captain Richard H. Ross, the commanding officer of Company D, for being absent without leave. McLaws and the other three company officers appeared as witnesses.[26]
In preparation for the War with Mexico, the 7th Infantry relocated to Fort Pickens, Florida, in July 1845, then left Florida by ship on September 17. Zachary Taylor, the commanding general of the Army of Occupation, had established the base camp on August 15. The site was located on a small, flat plain on the southern side of the mouth of the Nueces River known as "Kinney's Ranch." Colonel Henry L. Kinney had established the trading post in 1838, and by 1845 "the ranch had grown into a rambling collection of twenty to thirty houses whose inhabitants made their living largely by engaging in that most peculiar of trades common to many parts of the Gulf of Mexico—smuggling." After a ten-day voyage across the Gulf of Mexico, the 7th Infantry arrived at the camp on September 26.[27]
One of the principal advantages of Taylor's choice was the large, level plain located within a quarter of a mile of Kinney's Ranch. After the American soldiers cleared the field of scrub brush, Taylor used the natural sand surface as the perfect drill field that could accommodate large contingents of troops at the same time. The plain was ideal for unit drills, parades, inspections, and reviews. Based on the army's prewar garrison strategy, only a limited number of field grade officers had commanded battalion size or larger units on the drill field. Colonels and majors thus needed the drill experience as much as the captains, lieutenants, and enlisted men. The parade ground made an excellent field for constant drill and training. "A camp where there is not active service is a dull and stupid place," Lieutenant George Gordon Meade wrote his wife Margaretta on November 3. "Nothing but drill and parades, and your ears are filled all day with drumming and fifeing."[28]
The young men also needed outlets to expend their energy and natural curiosity beyond the army's requirements of drill and instruction. West Point classmate Lieutenant Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana wrote, "about every week now an expedition of some kind or other is fitted out, and many of them volunteer and get permission to go along. Day before yesterday [November 4, 1845] one left for San Antonio de Bexar, that paradise of Texas. . . . Many officers went along for pleasure. Among other inducements for the young officers is that San Antonio is said to have pretty girls." Virginia McLaws related that on November 29 her father "joined a party of officers on a buffalo and deer hunt through as far as San Antonio and in what was then considered Comanche country. McLaws horse, a mustang which was recently caught, fell upon him after swimming the Nueces River and 'badly mashed' his foot. This confined him to bed for over six weeks."[29]
The lieutenant's luck did not improve with the arrival of the new year. Lieutenant Samuel Gibbs French, another friend, recounted the beginning of McLaws's return to Corpus Christi at San Pedro Springs, the source of the San Antonio River. The majority of the returning officers had arrived and were marking time until the next wagon train's departure. Lieutenant William Logan Crittenden decided that a little target practice was in order. He "got up and took from his pocket what was called a pepper box pistol and fired at a tree in a line parallel to the road. Just at that time Lieut. Lafayette McLaws left the train to come where we were, and shouted: 'Quit firing, I am shot.' As he was not in range, no one regarded what he said, and Crittenden kept firing the revolver." French observed that McLaws had a "wild look" when he rode up to the officers, his shirt red with blood. Two of the bullets fired by Crittenden had ricocheted off the tree and hit McLaws as he arrived on the scene. "There was the hole where the bullet entered the breast, and he was spitting blood; and no surgeon being present he was put back in the wagon to be taken back to San Antonio." McLaws believed that his days were numbered and told French that his "whole chest is filled with blood, and I can feel the blood shaking inside as though I were filled with water." The surgeon found that one ball had hit his index finger and another lodged near his spine. The blood McLaws was "spitting up" actually came from his finger since he periodically put his fingers in his mouth. The other wound was more serious, "as the wound was probed by a surgeon and the ball discovered near the spine. It was a glancing shot that pressing against the skin followed the line of least resistance until arrested by the spine." The surgeon did not extract the ball lodged next to the spine.[30]
Meanwhile, Taylor's Army of Occupation left for Matamoras, Mexico. The 7th Infantry departed Kinney's Ranch on March 10, 1846, and began its dull, dusty march over the flat prairies of what is now southern Texas. The distance between water holes generally determined a day's march. Company D and the 7th Infantry arrived in camp opposite the Mexican town on March 28, eighteen days after they began their overland trek of 150 miles.[31]
On March 28 Taylor's army set up camp and started constructing Fort Texas, a six-pointed star earthwork designed to hold eight hundred men, opposite Matamoras. The fort was located on the road to Palo Alto and Port Isabel and within a few hundred yards of the Rio Grande River, just above the main ferry crossing. Two of the sides measured 150 yards in length and the other four measured 125 yards. "The angled walls of packed earth rose to a height of nine feet with a width of fifteen feet. Inside there were dug powder magazines and bomb shelters; cannon platforms were raised at each point of the star. Outside a moat encircled the fort, twenty feet wide and eight feet deep, spanned by a single drawbridge."[32]
Meanwhile, the Mexican army, under Brigadier General Francisco Mej¡a, had delayed building its defenses until after the arrival of Taylor's army. Mej¡a quickly set about constructing a fort with sandbags above the main river ferry crossing. He also built two redoubts, each of whose distance to the American earthen work was between 700 and 800 yards. His intent was to catch Fort Texas in a cross fire once his artillery opened fire on the American troops.
McLaws rejoined Company D and the rest of the 7th Infantry on April 14. Major Jacob Brown, the regiment's commander, moved the 7th, Captain Allen Lowd's four 18-pounders, and Lieutenant Braxton Bragg's flying field battery into Fort Texas on May 1. In all, the troops numbered about five hundred men. Taylor led the rest of his army back up the road to Port Isabel, nineteen miles away, to establish a supply base and ensure the security of the port.[33]
General Mariano Arista, the new Mexican commander, wasted no time in executing an assault on Fort Texas. He sent the 4th Infantry, the Puebla Battalion, some sappers, and two hundred light cavalry across the Rio Grande to begin the siege. The attack, in coordination with artillery fire from the Matamoras redoubt batteries, began at 5:00 a.m. on May 3. Lieutenant Dana wrote that "reveille was as usual at the earliest dawn and we had just commenced washing, etc., before going to work when the batteries of the enemy opened, and their shot and shells began to whistle over our heads in rapid succession. They had commenced in real earnest, and they fired away powder and copper balls as if they had plenty of ammunition."[34]
The next day four more guns and 1,320 men arrived to complete the encirclement. Dana wrote that on the morning of the sixth, "a howitzer shell mounted the parapet and before he could dodge took off the leg of Major Brown below the knee." Arista demanded the fort's surrender on the afternoon of May 6, to which the new commander, Captain Edgar S. Hawkins, "begged leave politely to decline his invitation." A desultory bombardment and counterbombardment continued until May 9, though the Mexican army made no effort to attack. The Mexican generals concluded that their artillery was too light to breach the earthen walls and the only recourse was to starve the Americans into surrendering before Taylor returned from Port Isabel.[35]
Taylor set his 2,228-man army in motion to return on May 7. Arista, alerted to Taylor's march, moved to block the U.S. army. The Mexican army stretched across the Port Isabel to the Matamoras road at Palo Alto. The Americans won a tactical victory on May 8 since they slept on the field of battle that night.
Starting on the morning of May 9 a third and final engagement took place in a dense tangle of chaparral and trees called Resca de la Palma, where Taylor's troops were engaged in a pitched battle that lasted most of the day. The American army turned the Mexicans' flank at the end of the day, resulting in their flight of panic back across the river and into Matamoras.[36]
The fort's name changed from Texas to Brown on May 17, 1846, to honor the fallen major. The 7th Infantry relinquished control of the fort and moved outside to encamp on May 23. Taylor's army remained in camp opposite Matamoras through early September. On the sixth Company D with McLaws departed for Monterrey, Mexico. They arrived at Walnut Springs, within three miles of the city, on September 19. In 1846 the town was the capital of the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon and had an estimated population of 10,000.
The 7th Infantry took part in the attack on the Bishop's Palace on September 21. The same day the city surrendered, and McLaws's regiment moved into the central part of the town to locate quarters. Lieutenant Dana wrote that "on the morning of the twenty-eighth, the last division of the Mexican army filed past us, and the city was cleared of them. We then set to work to select quarters for officers and men. We took possession of two sides of the [city] plaza, and I had a room in the second story of a house all to myself. Gault, McLaws, Gardner and Clitz lived on the same floor." Four of the young officers, including McLaws, would become generals in the Civil War. Dana was promoted to Union major general of volunteers in November 1862. Franklin Gardner, who earned a brevet promotion to first lieutenant at Monterrey, later commanded Confederate troops at Port Hudson, Louisiana. He was confirmed a major general in June 1864. Henry Boynton Clitz was brevetted Union brigadier general for actions at Gaines Mill, Virginia, on June 27, 1862.[37]
McLaws's health did not fare much better in Monterrey than it had in Texas. He reported sick beginning December 23, 1846, and remained on the sick list through February 20, 1847, when he returned to his regiment at Camp Watson, near Tampico, Mexico. McLaws received his promotion to first lieutenant on February 16 and returned to duty in time to take part in the siege of Vera Cruz from March 9 to 29, 1847. He then transferred to Company H and left for recruiting duty in New York on April 5 because of poor health. McLaws recruited volunteers in New York City, Schenectady, and Buffalo through the remainder of 1847 and into 1848. He finally rejoined his regiment after the fall of Mexico City, convoying supply trains from the United States. Family papers indicate that he repeatedly requested to return to his unit. In the end, U.S. senator John P. King had to intercede with the War Department to get McLaws transferred back to Mexico. He arrived with the supply train after the fighting was over.[38]
Marriage to Emily, a Family, and the Antebellum Army, 1848-1861
McLaws became acting regimental adjutant as the 7th Infantry departed Mexico City for the United States on June 6, 1848. On July 20 Company H arrived at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, and on August 19 McLaws transferred to Company C as acting adjutant. He stayed with Company C one month before transferring to Company I on September 18; he remained in Company I for the balance of the year. In December 1848 McLaws relinquished command of his company to serve for the first time as a judge advocate in a court-martial.
Although St. Louis, Missouri, and Jefferson Barracks experienced an outbreak of cholera in June and July 1849, it does not appear that McLaws contracted the disease or reported sick. During his tour at the barracks he did, however, meet and marry twenty-three-year-old Emily Allison Taylor. Emily, a niece of Zachary Taylor, was the daughter of John Gibson and Elizabeth Lee Taylor of Louisville, Kentucky. According to Virginia McLaws, Emily's "father and mother were second cousins"; her mother was "pretty, witty, lively, sweet and sincere." Jefferson Davis married his first wife Sara Knox Taylor on June 17, 1835, at Beechland, Elizabeth Lee Taylor's plantation home. Several of Emily's sisters had already married military officers, and while visiting one of the sisters she met McLaws.[39]
Lafayette McLaws and Emily Allison Taylor were married by Reverend Robert M. Chapman, an Episcopal priest, in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 9, 1849. Their marriage bond, dated August 7, listed Frederick Geiger Edwards as the bondsman. Edwards was the husband of Emily's older sister Anne Pendleton Edwards. McLaws had only four days to spend with his new bride before he left on detached service to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The young couple did not see each other again for more than two years.[40]
Colonel John Munroe, commander of the Department of New Mexico, requested McLaws's assignment as his adjutant and inspector general, a position the youthful officer held from October 23, 1849, to July 19, 1851. Special Order No. 117, issued on August 24, 1851, transferred McLaws back to Company D and promoted him to captain. The Western Division's Special Order No. 57, dated August 9, 1851, granted him a furlough for four months. McLaws rejoined Company D on March 25, 1852, at Fort Gibson, where he remained from 1852 to 1857. His orders sent him to Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1857, then back to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, for garrison duty in 1858.[41]
Lafayette and Emily McLaws started their family probably in Louisville while he was on leave from the distant military assignments. William Huguenin "Willie" was born at Fort Gibson in 1852. On November 15, 1851, shortly before Willie's birth, McLaws had applied for the 160 acres land bounty due him because of his Mexican War service. John Taylor "Johnnie" followed on September 20, 1853, at Port Gibson 1854 and Laura in 1856, perhaps in Louisville. Uldrick Huguenin was born on November 30, 1861, in Augusta. McLaws mentions all four children prominently in his letters home. In 1861, when the Civil War began, the older boys were nine and seven and Laura was under five years old. Three daughters were born after the war: Annie Lee, in 1867; Virginia Randall, on August 29, 1868; and Elizabeth Violet, on January 15, 1870.[42]
Willie, the oldest son, died in 1870 at the age of eighteen. Laura, while away at school in Virginia, contracted a fever, "perhaps typhoid," and returned home; she died in October 1877 at age twenty-one—another "great blow to her mother and father especially." In April 1890 Annie Lee died of typhoid fever, the same disease that took Emily Allison Taylor McLaws's life the next month, on May 22. McLaws buried his wife and daughter in Savannah's Laurel Grove Cemetery.[43]
John Taylor McLaws became a post office clerk for his father and then a purser on the steamship Nacoochee. He died on August 17, 1921, and was buried in Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah. Uldrick Huguenin attended North Georgia College and became a prominent Savannah lawyer. He was the captain commanding Savannah's Oglethorpe Light Infantry between 1896 and 1897. Uldrick's wife was the former Gertrude Livingston Hobby, a direct descendant of Philip Livingston, president of the Provincial Congress in 1775. Uldrick died on November 24, 1934; he was buried in Bonaventure Cemetery near his older brother. Virginia, who never married, became an artist on the Art Department's faculty at Sweetbriar College. Who Was Who in American Art, compiled from the original thirty volumes of the American Art Annual (1898-1933) and its subsequent four volumes also under the title Who Was Who in American Art (1935-47), contains several of Virginia's citations. The last surviving child of Lafayette and Emily McLaws, she died on August 11, 1967, and was buried beside her parents and sister. Elizabeth, the youngest daughter, became a children's librarian and for a brief period worked for the Georgia Historical Society. She later married her younger cousin, Edward Postell King Jr. of Atlanta. Elizabeth died on September 28, 1954, and was buried beside her husband in Hendersonville, North Carolina.[44]
In 1858 the army sent Lafayette McLaws to the Utah frontier, where troops from Camp Floyd and Fort Bridger patrolled the immigrant trails during the 1859 traveling season. McLaws, now in command of several companies, protected the immigrants proceeding west through the Fort Hall region.[45]
The distance between McLaws and Emily increased the difficulty in raising a young family. Virginia described her mother as "a strong, persevering woman who was devoted to her husband, and children." Emily brought the children west to see their father on at least one occasion. They were traveling by stagecoach to meet McLaws when they came to a river or creek crossing and "as it was late and getting dark, the driver thought it wiser to wait until the next morning, when they began to drive on, but the river was too full to cross. A big storm had come up during the night and it was not considered safe." Emily and her children sought lodging in a small house nearby and waited a week before crossing the river. "Always there was danger on account of Indian tribes." Emily and the children moved to Louisville, Kentucky, because "it was not considered safe in the part of the country where her husband had to be."[46]
McLaws could see the country begin to unravel even at a distance from the political events taking place in the United States. On February 27, 1860, he wrote, "Debates in congress show no mitigation of sec. feeling." The notation continued: "Conservative papers of the North do not blame her for it. I think it would be better not to be so fanatical on any subject, the extreme pro-slavery man is as bad as that type of anti-slavery, John Brown. I do not consider slavery an evil by any means, but I certainly do not think it the greatest blessing. The abolitionists think it is the greatest curse, a good deal worse than Cholera or the plague—with the South it is a practical question—with the North it is all theory & fanaticism."[47]
On March 20 he observed, "Brigham Young still rules the country." Later in the passage he wrote: "The Utah question is such an apt one to suit the principles of the Rep. Party & break down squatter sovereignty that both Rep. & Dem. will keep it to electioneer upon." McLaws believed that the Democratic Party would "not allow Congressional interference in the Territories for that will give the majority to abolish slavery in them whether the inhabitants are willing or not—Douglass Dem. against it on abstract principles—Southern Dem. from principles of interest & the others because it is contrary to the Rep. doctrine." He concluded: "The Dem. will be afraid to move troops because Mormons will so behave that humanity will cry for gov. protection & martial law will be tacitly admitted. Rep. say slavery is as bad as Mormonism. Sutlers, merchants & gentiles have invested money in hopes of getting gov. contracts. Their interest to retain army—if army moves, these fail."[48]
On April 24, from Camp Floyd, McLaws commented that "about this time Charleston Convention in full blast." He thought that the "squatter sovereignty doctrine" espoused by U.S. senator Stephen Arnold Douglas was, "though not orthodox according to extreme Southern notions, can do us no harm, but on the contrary the only [one] under which the south [can stay] in the union, can have a shadow of a shade in maintaining her 'peculiar institutions' in the territories to be formed out of the Cherokee Creek & Choctaw nations. These people if left to themselves will of course decide to have slavery. The old whigs who are attempting to organize an independent party are playing into the hands of the Rep. [Republican] party." Douglas, a native of Vermont who had built his national reputation in Illinois, was a longtime opponent of Abraham Lincoln. He believed that the country's frontier residents should decide for themselves whether to allow slavery to exist in their territory. On June 7 McLaws noted, "If leave of absence is granted, more desirable to get it from El Paso than Sante Fe because of difficulty which may be expected in carrying our servants through Kansas."[49]
McLaws learned who the 1860 presidential nominees were on July 4. "I am informed of the Pres. & Vice Pres. nominations," he wrote. "I like Breckenridge & Lane best—Bell and Everett stand no chance against Douglas [in] the north, nor B. & L. in the South." He went on to describe the camp near Denver City: "We have been traveling along the base of the Rocky Mts. Long's Peak, still white with snow, constantly in view over 2 1//3 miles high. Scenery magnificent, climate delightful, gold seeks & land speculators everywhere—gold not plentiful for diggers—owners of quartz mills may be making money. Every little stream dotted with squatters principally from Ohio, known by their brazen faces & exceeding course manners[,] a better lot from Ind. & Ill."[50]
The detached duty without leave and long marches began to take its toll on McLaws. On July 26 he wrote: "To-day reached here within 26 ms. of Fort Garland. We expect in two days to be in immediate vicinity of this fort to repair wagons, harness, exchange oxen & get a supply of provisions." He stated: "I intend writing to a friend of mine; Maj. [James] Longstreet who is paymaster at headquarters to use his influence in getting a leave granted to me." It took McLaws and his command three days to reach Fort Garland, on July 29.[51]
He did not receive the leave and instead prepared an expedition. "Mexican spies & guides will accompany the column," he wrote. McLaws and his men were "busy arranging packs & fitting saddles to mules—are to move with pack animal only, no tents." He closed with the observation, "The Navajos are terrifying people, stealing all their stock etc. near to Albuquerque." McLaws described Colonel Thomas F. Fauntleroy, the "officer in charge of dept. of New Mexico (incapable)." As he prepared for the expedition, he repeated, "Navajos a terror to country."[52]
McLaws left Fort Craig on September 10 "with two companies of infantry and one of mounted rifles." On returning from the expedition, he camped in Canon Bonito near Fort Defiance. "I have been busy preparing 3 companies of Infantry for field service. Col. Canby has not arrived. All in doubt about campaign"; he observed that the distance between Fort Craig and Fort Defiance was 250 miles. On October 17 Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Edward Sprigg Canby directed McLaws to lead one of three columns in the Navajo expedition. His command would be "composed of 5 companies, 2 of mounted rifles, 3 of Infantry."[53]
Canby did not arrive at Fort Defiance as expected. McLaws's column "left this place with 252 men completely equipped & well ready for the fray" on October 20, 1860. "I had marched only 11 miles the first day, halting at La Joya for the night when about 10 men from Col. Canbys command came galloping into camp." They brought orders that changed the column's objectives. In an order originally dated October 19, Canby informed McLaws:
There are indications that the Navajos, in large bodies, are making their way to North & South of the Moqui villages. This may change and extend operations. To meet the contingency I have ordered 12000 rations to be advanced on that road. If the column is not usefully employed you may employ it in the direction of Moqui after a few days. Of course I can not judge of this as you can. Use your discretion in the matter. If the express meets you on the road, open all the communications addressed to the com. officers of Fort Defiance.
McLaws observed, "A disappointing order, it broke up the planned Nov. expedition." He returned to Fort Defiance while Canby continued operations against the Navajo Indians.[54]
On November 7 McLaws noted: "Col. Canby has left with his column, another has gone—I remain in command of this place—charged with making out estimates for the expedition, organizing recruits into companies as they arrive & then to put on foot an expedition against the Indians, composed of men from my column."[55]
McLaws told Emily on December 10 that he had just returned from a twenty-two-day scout. The opening paragraph conveyed his most important thoughts: "my command and myself in good health, and have but time to write you that I am here. And to say that Colonel Fauntleroy has granted me permission to avail myself of the leave of absence given by the War Department when the Navajo Expedition terminates."[56]
The third column departed Fort Defiance, and McLaws's men camped near West Spring on December 17. He informed Emily: "I will send you a copy of my report [on the Navajo expedition], although it is eighteen pages of writing. . . . When you have read the report, please send it to WmR to whom I intend writing. . . . I wish to ask his advice to the course I should pursue if Georgia secedes from the Union. My present idea is to go with my State as a matter of course. To offer my services as a military man." McLaws also provided an assessment of his commanding officer: "Colonel Canby is endeavoring to do his duty through good and evil report, and in spite of a great many unexpected obstacles, caused chiefly by the want of supplies."[57]
McLaws led another column as 1860 ended. On December 23 he wrote: "yesterday I received orders to move with my command tomorrow morning on a 16 days scout to open a wagon road from here down the Puecos to Bealy road running by Zuni to California & to examine the country west of the Puecos so as to make a road thence to the Moqui villages on the Moqui road coming from Fort Defiance. On my return from that Col. Canby says he will relieve me." He learned of the secession proceedings on January 16, 1861. Canby finally granted McLaws the six-month leave of absence promised in September 1860. He began his homeward journey from New Mexico to El Paso and then to Fort Davis, Texas, where he caught a stage to Jefferson, Missouri, and ultimately Louisville, Kentucky. True to form, he retained a duplicate receipt in turning over his 7th Infantry ordnance in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on January 20. He left behind one Colt revolver pistol and three dragoon holster pistols, all in "good" condition.[58]
Meanwhile, William R. McLaws set about securing a position in the Georgia infantry for the about-to-be-resigned officer. He sent Emily a circular dated February 2 stating that Captain L. McLaws "will be offered a position relative to his position in the U.S. Army." After a brief visit with his family in Louisville, Lafayette traveled on to Augusta, Georgia. From there he sent his letter of resignation dated March 14, which the army approved on March 23. He retained the notice from the Treasury Department's Auditor's Office on which he noted that the "clothing return for the following quarters—3d and 4th 1860 . . . 1st 1861 has been received, examined, and found correct & closed." On the reverse side he added: "I was about in the Rocky Mountains and did not get to Georgia until last of March, although I started from fort Bear Springs on 16th January, the fort being in the heart of Rocky Mountains—snow 2 feet deep, thermometer 10 degrees below zero." McLaws then enlisted in the forces organized by Governor Joseph Emerson Brown of Georgia.[59]
The Civil War, 1861-1865
Special Order No. 27 directed Confederate Major Lafayette McLaws to Savannah, Georgia, in March 1861. He reported to Brigadier General Alexander Robert Lawton as an assistant quartermaster and commissary on April 18. The new major relinquished the staff duties to command Thunderbolt Point on April 26. He then set about organizing three underequipped companies into a fighting unit capable of defending an important section of Savannah's defensive perimeter. Brigadier General William Henry Talbot Walker wrote McLaws on June 4 asking him to join Walker's staff in Pensacola, Florida, since McLaws sought "more active service" and Walker believed that he would be assigned to Virginia. McLaws did not join Walker's staff, although he did receive the desired orders twelve days later. Special Order 58 relieved McLaws from duty in Savannah and ordered him to report to the adjutant general in Richmond. On June 21 McLaws left behind the tedious details of organizing Savannah's defense and boarded a train to command the 10th Georgia Infantry.[60]
Special Order No. 79 directed McLaws to Yorktown, Virginia, on June 24. The order promoted him to colonel and instructed him to report to Brigadier General John Bankhead Magruder, commander of the Army of The Peninsula. He found the 10th Georgia in need of his organizational talents, as the regimental leaders elected to establish the unit did not have the command skills necessary to prepare it for battle. McLaws, with his antebellum army training and recent work in Savannah, immediately assessed the situation. He put a regimental command structure in place and began to mold the unit into an effective infantry unit. The 10th Georgia would go on to garner fame and attention throughout the war.[61]
Magruder recognized McLaws's attention to detail and his ability to organize troops. In him he found an officer willing to tackle the details involved in forming new units and oversee the building of defensive fortifications—tasks that did not interest the brigadier general. Magruder's strategy was to build a line of redoubts and forts spanning the Virginia peninsula between the James and York Rivers. McLaws excelled in these tasks and assumed increasing responsibilities for the defensive line's completion. Though not officially in command of a brigade, McLaws oversaw a combination of regiments that exceeded the charge of a brigade commander.
McLaws became increasingly concerned that his actions and leadership would go unnoticed by individuals responsible for appointing major unit commanders. Worse, he feared the influence of officers who were also politicians. He believed that they would gain control of the regiments he led, negating his chance to become a brigade commander. He should not have worried. Magruder exerted efforts on his behalf, and McLaws received his promotion to brigadier general on September 25, 1861.[62]
Constructing the Williamsburg fortifications was time-consuming and tedious. On June 12, 1862, Henry Lord Page King, McLaws's aide-de-camp, recounted in his diary that "last night the Genl. [McLaws] and several of us of the staff trifled with a rifle shell of about 20 pounds—took out the fuse plug & set it off with a piece of paper put near the magazine. It exploded with terrible force—breaking window panes &c. God's mercy we were not killed." The by-the-book McLaws and his staff thus found a means to relieve their boredom on at least one occasion.[63]
The short-lived Battle of Williamsburg was the next command stepping-stone for McLaws. Lieutenant General Joseph Eggleston Johnston, now in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, had absorbed Magruder's Army of The Peninsula. Determining that Magruder's defensive lines were not the best place to fight Major General George Brinton McClellan's Army of the Potomac, Johnston ordered an evacuation of the Yorktown and Williamsburg defensive lines on May 3. McLaws's brigade was beginning its retreat on May 4 when Union brigadier general Phillip St. George Cooke's cavalry brigade attempted to cut off the line of retreat at Fort Magruder, a large bastion fort that McLaws had built.
The timing was perfect. McLaws knew the ground better than anyone else; he also knew where to bring fire to bear on the Federal units making the attack. He immediately sent Colonel Joseph Brevard Kershaw's 3rd South Carolina Infantry back into the fort. The combination of Kershaw's advance and the other small unit deployments McLaws made into the low-numbered redoubts stopped the Union attack cold. Johnston wrote in his report that McLaws "made his dispositions with prompt courage and skill, and quickly drove the Federal troops from the field, in spite of disparity of numbers." The commanding general remarked, "I regret that no report of this handsome affair has been made by General McLaws."[64]
McLaws did, in fact, write a report dated three days before Johnston's. In it he called "attention to the promptness with which Kershaw placed his men into the various positions he was directed to occupy and the readiness with which he seized on the advantages offered by the ground." McLaws made a habit of recognizing officers and men in his reports and giving them the credit for their actions. He wrote that Kershaw's "command obeyed his orders with an alacrity and skill highly creditable to the gallant and obedient soldiers composing it." Meanwhile, Longstreet's division moved up and assumed responsibility for defending Fort Magruder. Longstreet's troops were engaged with Union troops throughout May 5, allowing the remaining Confederate units to retreat up the peninsula toward Richmond.[65]
Johnston saw McLaws's quick and decisive action. On May 23, 1862, he wrote McLaws, "I have seldom performed a more agreeable duty then forwarding to you a letter of appointment to the grade of major general, upon which your troops are to be congratulated." Lafayette McLaws now outranked such Army of Northern Virginia luminaries as Ambrose Powell Hill, John Bell Hood, George Edward Pickett, James Ewell Brown Stuart, Jubal Anderson Early, and Richard Heron Anderson. On May 26 Johnston placed McLaws "in command of the troops heretofore commanded by Major-General Magruder, the latter having been relieved" on the twenty-third.[66]
Division Command
The army assigned Magruder to the command of Department 2 of the Trans-Mississippi District on May 23, 1862. The order was recanted on May 26, and he was told to report to Johnston for his assignment. Once again McLaws reported to Magruder, who commanded several divisions. On the morning of May 31 Johnston launched an attack against McClellan at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks; he purposely left Magruder's troops out of the way, as his plan unfolded and unraveled. After Johnston was wounded by Federal troops, General Robert E. Lee assumed command of the army on June 1.[67]
When Lee launched the Seven Days campaign on June 25, "Magruder's command was composed of three divisions of two brigades each" and played a relatively minor role in the campaign. His troops were engaged late in the day on July 1 at Malvern Hill. Lee then made the first of several leadership changes, and Magruder found himself packing his bags for Galveston, Texas. Magruder's departure opened up new opportunities for McLaws. Lee transferred McLaws's division to Longstreet's command, and McLaws now led four brigades commanded by Brigadier Generals Howell Cobb, Paul Jones Semmes, William Barksdale, and Joseph Brevard Kershaw.[68]
According to Robert K. Krick, "The division that General McLaws led for more than two years consisted of two Georgia brigades and one each from South Carolina and Mississippi. None of the brigadiers who commanded McLaws's brigades for extended periods—Semmes, Wofford, Kershaw, and Barksdale—had training or experience as a professional soldier." Krick, perhaps the most knowledgeable authority on the Army of Northern Virginia, observed: "the norm in the army was a mix of about one-half professionals among the brigades of most divisions. No other division operated for any extended period with all-amateur leadership at the brigade level. Despite that considerable disadvantage McLaws put together a solid record as a division commander." In the most extensive biographical note on McLaws to date, Krick commented, "only Ewell, and D. H. Hill among the familiar division commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia outranked McLaws, and both of those officers were away from the army for extended periods." The fact that McLaws was able to weld the four headstrong brigade commanders into an effective infantry division was no small feat and is a testament to his leadership ability.[69]
Artillerist Edward Porter Alexander, one of the South's most talented commanders, was referring to McLaws's troop positioning when, long after the war, he wrote, "McLaws was about the best general in the army for that sort of job, being very painstaking in details, & having a good eye for ground." Alexander stated, "I have always, since the war, spoken of him as, perhaps, the very best division commander with whom I was ever brought in contact—for the thorough organization and discipline of the division, for the care of his men, and for his untiring personal zeal and energy in the study of the ground around him, and in his foresight and preparation for all contingencies." Moreover, "I know of few men better qualified for executive authority, both from personal character, ability and dignity, and from long and extensive and varied experience."[70]
Alexander described their first meeting somewhat differently. As a young officer in 1862, he commented, "among the first troops I met was Gen. McLaws' division & somehow I was commissioned to deliver him some order from either Gen. Longstreet or Gen. Lee, but cannot recall what it was. . . . I only remember that he [McLaws] did not relish it for some reason &, although he obeyed it, he exhibited his distaste of it, which I thought at the time to be in bad taste." Lieutenant Colonel Alexander continued: "I think it must have required some extra marching for his men for I afterward got to know him more intimately, & to appreciate that few of our generals equaled him in his care for their comfort & the pains he took in many matters of little detail. It gave him the reputation of being slow, but he made up for it in having his division always in the best possible condition."[71]
Robert Stiles, one of McLaws's officers from Mississippi, characterized him as "rather a peculiar personality. He certainly could not be called an intellectual man, nor was he a brilliant and aggressive soldier; but he was regarded as one of the most dogged defensive fighters in the army. His entire make-up, physical, mental and moral, was solid, even stolid." Further, Stiles wrote: "in figure, he was short, stout, square-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-limbed; in complexion, dark and swarthy, with coal-black eyes and black, thick, close-curling hair and beard. Of his type, he was a handsome man, but the type was that of a Roman centurion; say that centurion who stood at his post in Herculaneum until the lava ran over him." McLaws was, in fact, five feet nine inches tall with dark complexion, hair, and eyes.[72]
McLaws's concern for his men was sometimes not fully recognized. He was not "popular with his raw troops, who generally designated him by the sarcastic title of 'Marse Make-Laws.' But after the first engagements on the Peninsula they became enthusiastically attached to him, appreciating his abilities and his constant care for their comfort and welfare."[73]
Lafayette McLaws led his division in most of the major actions of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia through December 1863. He did not take part in the Battle of Second Manassas, as the division was responsible for guarding river fords. His first leadership test took place during Lee's Maryland campaign between September 4 and 22, 1862. Lee called McLaws to his headquarters on Tuesday, September 9, and told him that "the whole army would move the next morning (Wednesday), taking the Hagerstown road, and that Gen. R. H. Anderson of South Carolina would be directed to report to me, and that I would follow with Andersons' and my own division in the rear of the army, until reaching Middletown, I would take the route to Harpers Ferry, and by Friday morning, the 12th, possess myself of Maryland Heights, and endeavor to capture the enemy at Harper's Ferry and vicinity." McLaws replied that he "had never been to Harper's Ferry, nor in the vicinity." Lee stated, "It did not matter." He believed that the enemy was smaller than reported and intimated that McLaws would have no trouble dealing with the "3000 or 4000" Federal troops.[74]
Shortly afterward Lee issued Special Order No. 191 directing Major General Thomas Jonathan Jackson's command to lead "the advance, and, after passing Middletown, with such portions as he may select, take the route toward Sharpsburg, cross the Potomac at the most convenient point, and by Friday morning take possession of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, capture such of them as may be at Martinsburg, and intercept such as may attempt to escape from Harper's Ferry." From the outset McLaws clearly understood his role. The report he submitted after the campaign began, "In compliance with Special Orders, No. 191, of September 9, 1862, from your headquarters, I proceeded with my own and General Anderson's division, via Burkittsville, to Pleasant Valley, to take possession of Maryland Heights, and endeavor to capture the enemy at Harpers Ferry and vicinity." Historians have generally described the actions McLaws took as those needed to support Jackson. Joseph L. Harsh recently observed, "Jackson and McLaws are depicted as operating separately against the enemy 'at each place.'" McLaws believed, "So long as Maryland Heights was occupied by the enemy, Harpers Ferry could never be occupied by us. If we gained possession of the heights, the town was no longer tenable to them."[75]
On September 12 the brigades of Kershaw and Barksdale climbed the 1,400-foot Elk Ridge, the southern portion of which was designated Maryland Heights. The men traversed the narrow ridgeline without benefit of water. The next day Kershaw launched his attack with "a very sharp and spirited engagement through the dense woods and over a broken surface." He did not have the use of a road to help organize his troops. Instead, Kershaw moved through the woods and encountered "two abatis, the last quite a formidable work, the east and west sides being precipices of 30 or 40 feet, and across the ridge were breastworks of heavy logs and large rocks." The two brigades routed Colonel Thomas H. Ford's Union brigade late in the afternoon despite the apparent strength of their position. The Union troops escaped down a logging trail and across a pontoon bridge into Harpers Ferry. The town, "entirely commanded by Maryland Heights, from which a plunging fire, from musketry even, can be made into the place," was now the center of McLaws's attention.[76]
McLaws later wrote, "The engineers, who had been examining the mountain during the evening before, had reported that night it was impracticable to carry cannon to the top, owing to the steepness of the ascent and the numerous walls of rock that could not be passed." Abram Huguenin McLaws located "an old wood road, which wound up a part of the way" while returning from Kershaw's brigade. Lafayette assigned his brother the task of cutting the road, "and by using ledges and hauling them by hand in other places, the difficulties were finally overcome and by 2 p.m. we had two guns each from the batteries of [Captain John Postell Williamson] Read and [Captain Henry H.] Carlton in position overlooking the town."[77]
McLaws now had units spread out five miles between Crampton's Gap and Sandy Hook, at the base of the heights. He ordered Howell Cobb to take his brigade from Sandy Hook and reinforce J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry screen and the small detachment left to protect his rear at Crampton's Gap. Cobb set his troops in motion about noon on September 14.
McLaws remained on the "Maryland Heights, on top of the elevated 'lookout' erected by the Federals, directing and observing the fire of our guns," when he heard artillery fire coming from the direction of the gap. "General Stuart, who was with me on the heights and had just come in from above [Crampton's Gap], told me he did not believe there was more than a brigade of the enemy." McLaws immediately sent his adjutant general, Major James Monroe Goggin, with "directions to hold the gap if he lost his last man in doing it," then followed with Stuart. They covered the five miles quickly, only to see Howell Cobb's Georgian brigade streaming down the hillside. McLaws arrayed the troops he brought with him across Pleasant Valley. Union major general William Buel Franklin's Sixth Corps had started its attack from Burkittsville, only to stop after it passed through the gap. Franklin feared that the Federals confronted a much larger force than their own and called off the attack as darkness fell.[78]
That night McLaws faced a complex decision. He needed to hold Franklin in place with roughly the same number of troops as the Federals had on hand. McLaws would fail if Franklin cut McLaws's two divisions off from Lee, who had started to concentrate the army at Sharpsburg. He also needed to complete his assignments. His ineffective communication with both Jackson, his senior commander, and Lee added to his dilemma. McLaws had received intermittent handwritten messages from Lee. Jackson had attempted to initiate contact by use of a signal system. "Captain Manning, who had charge of the signal corps, being unable to attend to his duties from a sudden attack of erysipelas in the head," was of little help in communicating with Jackson and relinquished his duties to Captain Ellison L. Costin, one of McLaws aides-de-camp. It took Costin time to effectively establish communication with Jackson, even though he was able to maintain communication with McLaws in Pleasant Valley.[79]
McLaws bluffed Franklin into thinking that he faced a much larger concentration of troops than were present, and the Union general did not advance during the early morning hours of September 15. After McLaws received word from his signal station that Harpers Ferry had surrendered to Jackson about 10:00 a.m., he gradually removed his troops from Pleasant Valley and Maryland Heights and completed all but one assignment. Roughly 1,500 Union cavalry escaped from Harpers Ferry on the night of September 14 using an unguarded trail.
Jackson immediately marched his corps toward Sharpsburg, leaving to A. P. Hill's division the task of paroling the Federal troops. McLaws and his commissary chief, Major John F. Edwards, crossed the bridge over the Potomac River only to find that Hill's troops had requisitioned all of the food supplies. McLaws's men had been without food or water for the better part of the two previous days. Edwards, a nephew of McLaws, was the son of Emily's sister Anne Pendleton and Frederick Geiger Edwards. His brother, Lieutenant Alfred Edwards, was McLaws's ordnance officer. McLaws prominently mentions both brothers in the letters.
"I formed a new line across Pleasant Valley, still holding Maryland Heights and Weverton Pass, and waited until 2 o'clock a.m. of the 16th, when most of the paroled prisoners having crossed to the left bank, my troops were withdrawn to the right bank, and marching through Harper's Ferry, camped near Hall Town, about four miles distant, on the 16th inst." McLaws charged his brigade commanders with getting their units through the small town choked by Hill's detainment and release of the Federal soldiers. Meanwhile, he and Edwards set out for Charlestown to locate food for their hungry troops. Unable to locate any measurable quantity, the fatigued men resumed the march to Sharpsburg, crossing the Potomac River in the early morning hours, and arrived on the field at sunrise on September 17, 1862. McLaws sought out Lee, who ordered McLaws to bivouac his division near Lee's headquarters, about two miles from the battle.[80]
Called into action at 9:00 a.m., McLaws led his division in fine style as they slammed into the left flank of Union major general John Sedgwick's division and drove back Major General Edwin Vose Sumner's Second Corps in the woods west of the Dunkard Church. They hit the Federal troops with great force at exactly the right time. The Union assault stalled, forcing McClellan to begin anew, this time attacking the Confederate center. The investment of Harpers Ferry and McLaws's action in the West Woods gave the division commander added confidence in his ability to prosecute a battle.[81]
On September 17 H. L. P. King wrote in his diary that he "Met Gen. Jackson & he & Gen. McLaws had a conference. Shell fell at our feet, wounding one of Gen's Couriers—did not explode or it would have killed both Gens." Once again, McLaws luckily escaped an artillery shell with King nearby.[82]
McLaws's division recouped after the short but intense Maryland campaign. When it arrived at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on November 19, Longstreet assigned "McLaws's division upon the heights immediately behind the city and south of the Telegraph road." McLaws again put the knowledge he had gained on The Peninsula to work, paying particular attention to how he positioned the division at Fredericksburg.[83]
McLaws's "division occupied the front of defense from Hazel Run along the ridge of hills to the right and through the point of woods extending to Mr. Alfred Bernard's field, one brigade in reserve." He directed his left-hand brigade to construct "an extended rifle-pit at the foot of the main ridge, from the left of Telegraph road to a private road near Mr. Howison's barn." The center brigade constructed "rifle-pits along the foot of the hills in front of its position, and others on the crest of the hills." The brigade on the right "constructed rifle-pits and breastworks of logs through the woods, with abatis in front of them." Finally, McLaws arranged the artillery on the crests of the hills.[84]
Colonel Henry Coalter Cabell, McLaws's chief of artillery, wrote, "The position of our artillery and infantry made by Major-General McLaws was certainly most happy to counteract the disadvantages of our position." Cabell made several recommendations that McLaws agreed to. He concluded, "It is but an act of simple justice to Major-General McLaws to say that the disposition of the artillery in other respects was such as he had chosen." Artillerist Alexander observed that a "sunken road, for a part of the way, gave the infantry a beautiful line, &, where that was lacking, McLaws, with his usual painstaking care & study of detail, had utilized ditches & dug trenches & provided for supplies of water & of ammunition & care of the wounded."[85]
McLaws's division held despite the six significant attempts to push his men off Marye's Heights on December 13. The stalwart defense helped to force Major General Ambrose Everett Burnside's Army of the Potomac to accept another major defeat, which ultimately led to his removal as commander.
Typically, McLaws recognized the officers who merited attention and, in doing so, singled out Alfred Edwards, an "ordnance officer, who was active and efficient in supplying ammunition to the troops." He also recognized "Surgeon [John T.] Gilmore, chief surgeon of the division, [who] had his field hospital in readiness, and his arrangements were so complete that there was no detention or unnecessary suffering of the wounded." Gilmore made sure the 1,186 wounded officers and men "who could not remain in camp were sent at once to the hospitals in Richmond." Significantly, McLaws did more than construct extended rifle pits and build abatis and breastworks to reinforce the defensive position. He made sure that water and ammunition was nearby. More important, he ensured that the wounded troops received medical attention immediately. These tactical characteristics are reminiscent of World War I, some fifty-two years in the future.[86]
William Allen Blair has written that "scholars credit Longstreet with encouraging the use of entrenchments, thus contributing a tactical innovation to the army." Moreover, "Longstreet's appreciation of the power of the defensive probably matured at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, when his soldiers repulsed numerous Federal assaults while losing only eight hundred men behind strongly fortified positions on Marye's Heights." According to Longstreet, "Much credit is due Major-General McLaws for his untiring zeal and ability in preparing his troops and his position for a successful resistance, and the ability with which he handled his troops after the attack." McLaws should have received credit for the tactical innovations at Fredericksburg, although it was not in his nature to seek public recognition.[87]
Lafayette McLaws returned from his first leave home on April 10, 1863, to find Longstreet on detached service with Hood's and Pickett's divisions. Longstreet's absence changed the command structure, for during the May 1863 Chancellorsville campaign McLaws reported directly to Robert E. Lee. At the outset of the battle Lee sent Stonewall Jackson's corps and the divisions of McLaws and Richard H. Anderson to meet Major General Joseph Hooker's Army of the Potomac. Hooker, the new Union commander, attacked the flank and threatened Lee's rear. McLaws and his men marched from their fortified positions in Fredericksburg up the Plank Road, moving into position just short of Chancellorsville. On May 2 both McLaws's and Anderson's divisions formed a blocking position. Lee wanted their troops to threaten Hooker's units with enough force to hold the Federals in place. While this occurred, Jackson completed his famous flank march and secured Lee's victory at Chancellorsville. McLaws and Anderson became the anvil and Jackson's troops the hammer as they caught Hooker between them.
The plan worked as Jackson rolled up the Federal right flank, only to have dusk overtake his attack. The combination of a continued night attack and the dense underbrush helped stall the attack's progress. The night's work also brought disastrous results for the Army of Northern Virginia. Jackson's own troops shot him while he reconnoitered the next phase of his attack. His death cost Lee one of his top two field commanders.
The next day, May 3, Sedgwick's Sixth Corps crossed the Rappahannock River, pushed through Fredericksburg, and threatened Lee's army from the rear. Lee assigned the defense of Fredericksburg to Major General Jubal A. Early. Barksdale's Mississippians remained with Early to keep Sedgwick's wing from catching Lee's men between two Federal pincers. McLaws arrived at Salem Church, roughly midway between Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, in time to help Brigadier General Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox stop the Federal advance. Kershaw's South Carolinians were put in as they arrived on the field and helped blunt the Federal attack as the rest of the division deployed on Wilcox's flanks.[88]
Many Civil War commanders had days that they wished they could change, particularly when they did not measure up to expectations. McLaws's performance at Salem Church might have been one of those days. Defensive opportunities made the best use of his strengths. He could take the time to choose the ground on which to fight and properly align his troops. He took painstaking efforts to deploy troops and take advantage of terrain features. Noted Lee biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, described McLaws as a "professional soldier, careful of details and not lacking in soldierly qualities, but there was nothing daring, brilliant, or aggressive in his character." Freeman explained, "An excellent division commander when under the control of a good corps commander, he was not the type to extemporize a strategic plan in an emergency." In the case of Salem Church, McLaws's lack of initiative tarnished his reputation and accentuated the perception that he was slow to engage in battle.[89]
Jubal Early and McLaws exchanged messages between each other and Lee on the night of May 3. Early's intent was to begin an attack at daybreak on the fourth. He wanted McLaws to press forward, extending his right when he heard that Early's troops had begun their attack. McLaws contended that Kershaw started this movement but did not find Early's men on his right and pulled back to his earlier position. Ever careful in the face of greater strength, McLaws requested additional troops. By midday Lee arrived with Anderson's division to supervise the attack. It took Anderson's men more time to move into position than initially expected. In the meantime, McLaws did virtually nothing until late in the afternoon, when it was almost dark. He then began to press his troops forward before stopping them when darkness descended over the field. Lee had looked for offensive action but relied on one of his most cautious commanders. McLaws, much better suited for defensive action, did not aggressively attack as Lee had hoped.
Perhaps McLaws mentally calculated his division's losses and held the troops back instead of pushing through the dense underbrush and steep ravines in the growing darkness. Whatever the reason, the attack did not proceed, and Sedgwick was able to evacuate his troops over Bank's Ford during the night. When McLaws, Anderson, and Early renewed their attacks the next morning, the Federal troops were safely across the river. The delay thus cost Lee the opportunity for a more complete victory.
McLaws, ever the detail commander, provided little insight in his report. He remarked, "The darkness of the night, ignorance of the country, and of the events transpiring on the other end of the line, prevented that co-operation which would have led to a more complete success." In the end, he concluded, "I believe all was gained that could have been expected under the circumstances." In an address after the war, McLaws wrote a ten-page description of the engagement at Salem Church and Sedgwick's advance from Fredericksburg. In his thirty-one-page review of the battle, however, he reduced his comments on this part of the fight to one line. In his own report Robert E. Lee indirectly criticized McLaws for his inaction when he wrote that "the speedy approach of darkness prevented General McLaws from perceiving the success of the attack until the enemy began to cross the river a short distance below Bank's Ford." Gary W. Gallagher describes McLaws's performance as "inept," since he spent May 4 as a "bystander" at Salem Church. In the end, McLaws's offensive shortcomings reinforced Lee's desire to have Longstreet more closely supervise McLaws in future battles.[90]
In June 1863 McLaws settled a feud stemming from his perceived tardiness in relieving Major General John Bell Hood's division at Sharpsburg. The Reverend Nicholas A. Davis, chaplain of the 4th Texas Infantry, had recently published The Campaign from Texas to Maryland, in which he and Hood were highly critical of McLaws's delay. Hood insinuated that the wait had cost Lee a major victory and led to a greater loss of men in Hood's division. In many cases, the information was inaccurate, especially regarding McLaws's arrival in the field. Based on second- or third-hand information, Davis's book was heavily biased to the Texan's perspective. Most significant, Davis did not take part in the battle, for his publication duties in Richmond delayed his return until after the troops returned to Virginia. McLaws finally received an apology from Hood on June 3. Davis, who did not return to the army until after Gettysburg, sent his admission of regret to McLaws on July 30. (For the relevant letters to McLaws from Hood and Davis, see the Appendix.)
McLaws had other things on his mind besides clearing his name and his division's honor with Hood. On June 3 Longstreet wrote him: "You spoke of going South the other day. If you wish to go I expect that I may make the arrangement for you that I was speaking of for myself. That is for you to go there and let Beauregard come here with his Corps. We want everybody here that we can get and if you think of going South you must send us every man that you can dispense with during the summer particularly. I understand that Beauregard is anxious to join this army and if he is I believe that I can accomplish what I have mentioned."[91]
The recent promotions of Richard Stoddert Ewell and Ambrose P. Hill to lieutenant general and command of the two newly created corps may have started McLaws thinking of home again. Nevertheless, he was in good spirits as he led his troops into Pennsylvania. McLaws worked to keep his men in line and enforced Lee's orders to not treat the citizens of Pennsylvania as Union troops treated the families of Virginia.
His upbeat demeanor changed in the early morning of July 2. McLaws had brought his division up on July 1 and "arrived at Willoughby Run about 4 miles from Gettysburg, at 12 at night and camped there. During the night I received orders to march on at 4 a.m., but this was countermanded, and I was directed to be ready to move early in the morning. The sun rises about half-past four in the first days of July." Leaving shortly after dawn, at 4:30 a.m., the division continued its march toward Herr's Ridge. When McLaws reported to Lee at roughly 8:00 a.m., the commanding general "was sitting upon the trunk of a fallen tree, with a Topographic Map of the country about Gettysburg before him. Gen. Longstreet was walking up and down a little way off, apparently in an inpatient humor. Gen. Lee, calling my attention to the map, said, 'Gen. McLaws, I wish you to place your command in this position.'" Lee directed McLaws to locate his division at a spot "perpendicular to the Emmettsburg road, 'Can you do so?' I replied, 'General I do not know that there is anything to prevent it, but can I reconnoiter and see.' Before Gen. Lee could reply, Gen. Longstreet joined us and said, pointing to the map, and speaking to me, 'General, I want you to place your division there,' drawing his finger along a line parallel to the Emmettsburg road. 'No General,' said Gen. Lee, 'I want his division perpendicular to the Emmettsburg road.'" Lee then told McLaws that he had ordered one of his staff officers, "Capt. Johns[t]on, to reconnoiter in that direction." McLaws asked to go with Johnson, but Longstreet said no and Lee did not interfere. Instead, Longstreet ordered McLaws to wait for the results of a reconnaissance conducted by Captain Samuel R. Johnston, an engineer on Lee's staff.[92]
Lee wanted McLaws to take every precaution so that the Union signal station atop Little Round Top did not detect the approach of his division. Specifically, Lee wanted McLaws to be perpendicular to the Emmitsburg road and ensure that his attack would roll up the Union left flank. Major General George G. Meade, the next in a line of generals commanding the Army of the Potomac, had just taken command.
In spite of Longstreet's order, McLaws did complete a limited reconnaissance. The ever-careful McLaws wanted to be prepared to meet the spirit and intent of Lee's order. Indeed, he may not have wished to repeat his lack of reconnaissance at Salem Church. Longstreet waited until 1:00 p.m. to begin the march. McLaws's division led the advance, followed by Hood's men. The corps's third division, under the command of George B. Pickett, had just left Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, en route to Gettysburg.[93]
McLaws and Johnston crested the hill beyond Black Horse Tavern and, to McLaws's surprise, realized that the Union signalmen on top of Little Round Top could see the Confederate troops as they marched toward the Emmitsburg road. McLaws immediately halted the column of troops. Longstreet, who had been riding with Hood, came up to determine the cause of the delay. He realized that Johnston's reconnaissance had not uncovered this problem and ordered a countermarch. In the meantime, Hood's troops did not completely stop their march and overlapped with McLaws's men. This created a good bit of confusion in the ranks. At this point there was a spirited discussion regarding which division would now take the lead. Ultimately, both McLaws and Hood turned their troops around and countermarched. McLaws had located a path near Willoughby Run during his "against orders" reconnaissance. Both divisions marched along the run, avoiding the hill and detection, with McLaws at the front.[94]
At about 3:00 p.m. McLaws's lead brigade under Kershaw crested a small rise that overlooked the run. Kershaw wrote, "examining the position of the enemy, I found him to be in superior force in the orchard, supported by artillery, with a main line of battle intrenched in the rear and extending to and upon the rocky mountain to his left far beyond the point at which his flank had supposed to rest." McLaws and Kershaw realized that they were not on the Federal left flank, as Lee had anticipated. Major General Daniel Edgar Sickles, commander of the Federal Third Corps, had pushed his troops out to what he thought was higher and better ground. He was concerned about defending his position and completed the move shortly before Longstreet's corps arrived. The Federal line stretched from Little Round Top, on their left, down the Wheatfield road to the edge of the Peach Orchard, where it then extended up the Emmitsburg road a short distance.[95]
Kershaw understood what he must do as soon as his troops crested the rise. He placed his brigade behind a stone wall parallel to the Emmitsburg road and across from the Peach Orchard. Semmes positioned his brigade behind Kershaw's in support. Barksdale placed his brigade across the Wheatfield road, partially behind a stone fence and partially sheltered by trees. Wofford situated his brigade behind Barksdale's in support.
Sickles's action caused Longstreet to rethink a part of the attack. Hood's division continued marching behind McLaws, extending the Confederate right, in the hope of finding the new Federal left flank. Some of Hood's Texas scouts did find a way to continue around Big Round Top and roll up the Federal left. Longstreet determined that he needed to press the attack, as it was getting late in the day. He ordered Hood to commence the assault despite Hood's protests. Hood started the en-echelon attack shortly before 4:00 p.m. Longstreet ordered Kershaw to begin his advance on the enemy a short time after 4:00 p.m., and it was almost 6:00 p.m. before Longstreet released the last of McLaws's brigades.[96]
Longstreet's uncoordinated action and micromanagement of the division's attack did not deter McLaws's men from delivering one of their best assaults for the Confederacy. The men's stamina in dealing with the two days of marches and lack of water did not inhibit their ability to push Sickles and the Union divisions sent to his relief back to the edge of Little Round Top before darkness stopped the attack.
Gettysburg and Longstreet's action in not allowing McLaws to do what McLaws felt was rightfully his duty on July 2 opened a deep chasm between the two officers and friends. Even though McLaws had taken Magruder to task in his letters home, he remained cautious in what he committed to paper. The July 7 letter to Emily was the most serious break McLaws had with a superior. He sharply criticized and questioned his commander's leadership ability. Gettysburg also was the only major engagement where McLaws did not file a report as a division commander in Lee's army. July 2, 1863, thus represented a significant turning point in McLaws's career and in how he viewed Longstreet.[97]
After Gettysburg the Army of Northern Virginia returned to regroup near Orange Court House. Longstreet was growing restless and sought independent action. In September he and his corps were detached from Lee's army and transported by railroad to East Tennessee to help Lieutenant General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee. The delays caused by inadequate railroad rolling stock detained McLaws and two of his brigades in Atlanta, Georgia. They caught up with Longstreet as the Battle of Chickamauga was ending. The Federal commander, Brigadier General William S. Rosecrans, a West Point classmate of McLaws, had pulled his troops off the Chickamauga battlefield on the night of September 20, but Bragg, Longstreet, and the other Confederate commanders did not realize this until later the next day. Rosecrans wanted to move his troops back to the relative safety of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and almost lost the battle.
Longstreet attempted to dictate the army's combat strategy to Bragg on his arrival on the battlefield. He continued to try to take control of the army in late September with D. H. Hill and Major General Simon Bolivar Buckner. Confederate president Jefferson Davis had to personally intervene and prevent the attempted coup by traveling to Tennessee to meet with the generals. The distance and alienation between Longstreet and McLaws continued to grow. McLaws conspicuously elected not to join with Longstreet, Buckner, and Hill in their attempt to have Bragg removed from command.
The clash in leadership styles came to a head during the Knoxville campaign in December 1863. Bragg sent Longstreet to drive Ambrose E. Burnside's Army of the Ohio out of East Tennessee. Central to this effort was Longstreet's need to attack Burnside before he reached Knoxville. McLaws viewed Longstreet's attempts to take Knoxville in a timely manner as a bungled job and his lack of action at Campbell's Station as a decisive missed opportunity.[98]
Longstreet's misgivings about McLaws had increased as well. Longstreet assigned McLaws the task of taking Fort Loudon, a Union bastion protecting Knoxville. Faulty reconnaissance—this time on the part of Longstreet—again came into play. McLaws put his troops in motion late on the night of November 28 after a three-day delay caused by Longstreet. The attack took place in the early morning of November 29 with the barefoot troops pushing over the cold, frozen ground to reach the fort's earthwork. The Federals took several men prisoner as they advanced over the top of the work. The supporting troops could not get through to push the Confederates into the fort. After only twenty minutes Longstreet called off the attack, ordering McLaws to lead his division back to its starting point.[99]
Longstreet regarded the aborted attack as an opportunity to change two of his division commanders. On December 17 he relieved McLaws of command because he had failed "to make arrangements essential to success" in the attack on Fort Loudon on the early morning of November 29. Instead of facing McLaws directly, Longstreet instructed his aide, Major Gilbert Moxely Sorrel, to deliver the message. McLaws was devastated by the turn of events, especially since he had always prided himself on his attention to detail. The accusation, especially in light of Longstreet's actions at Gettysburg, cracked the controlled, thoughtful approach that was characteristic of McLaws.[100]
McLaws lashed back at Longstreet. He copied documents that passed back and forth between Sorrel, a fellow Georgian from Savannah, and himself. In the end, he wrote his brother William R., "I demanded a court martial which is the reason why I am ordered for trial." Rather than address his men before leaving for Georgia, McLaws chose to send word that "it was not proper for me to make remarks upon the campaign, which I would probably be compelled to do . . . as it tended strongly to destroy confidence in the leaders, and one against humanity as it was not necessary, in any point of view and was uncalled for at the time." He believed that the court would vindicate his honor and the adjutant general would restore his command.[101]
McLaws first sent a copy of his Knoxville report, including Longstreet's communications and his preliminary report, to Adjutant General Samuel Cooper. Within hours of receiving the charges and specifications, he launched a campaign to gather reports and information from members of his command. He extended the search for information to Richmond and Braxton Bragg and gathered reports from regimental commanders and other participants involved in the attack on Fort Loudon. McLaws also enlisted the help of family members and friends as he began to build the case to defend his honor.
Special Order No. 21, dated January 21, 1864, directed, "A general court-martial to consist of seven members—a greater number cannot be convened without manifest injury to the service." The seven-member board was to assemble in Russellville, Tennessee, on February 3 or shortly afterward. Two trials were to take place, one for McLaws, the other for Brigadier General Jerome Bonaparte Robertson. McLaws's court-martial board would include Simon B. Buckner, who would preside, and Brigadier Generals Charles W. Field, James L. Kemper, John Gregg, F. T. Nicholls, George Thomas Anderson, and Benjamin Grubb. Major Garnett Andrews, assistant adjutant general, would serve as the judge advocate. Field (USMA 1849) would later become a major general. Kemper, a graduate of Washington College, was recovering from wounds he received at Gettysburg; he also attained the rank of major general. Francis Redding Tillou Nicholls (USMA 1855) would later serve as chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court (1892-1904). Anderson had attended Emory College. The USMA had dismissed Humphreys in 1826; he was the only member of the court who had reported to McLaws and had taken command of Barksdale's brigade after Gettysburg. McLaws would be the ranking general officer, and one of two major generals, to be court-martialed between July 1863 and April 1865.[102]
McLaws's search for facts and details started to bring results. In a series of letters to Emily in early March 1864, the first days of the on-again, off-again trial, his comments on his progress to have his name cleared were positive, if not somewhat enthusiastic. E. P. Alexander, one of the initial prosecution witnesses, provided testimony that vindicated McLaws. Unfortunately for McLaws, he won the battle but lost the war to regain his division. The court-martial board found him not guilty of the first two specifications. On the third specification, which accused McLaws of "failing in the details of his attack to make arrangements essential to success," the court delivered a guilty verdict and recommended a suspension from rank and pay for sixty days.
In his review of the case, Adjutant General Cooper criticized the board's proceedings and Longstreet's attempt to manipulate the court: the "irregularities are fatal to the record." Cooper also found that the court could not substantiate its case based on the evidence and reversed its decision on the third specification. He concluded: "The proceedings, finding, and sentence of the court are disapproved. Major-General McLaws will at once return to duty with his command."[103]
Longstreet began to press Cooper to name a replacement for McLaws. On March 4 he recommended that one of his new prot‚g‚s and a member of McLaws's court-martial board, Charles Field, command McLaws's division. On April 3 Special Order No. 81 extended a leave of absence granted to McLaws for seven more days. McLaws had returned to Sparta, Georgia, to await the outcome of the court's decision. Also on April 3 McLaws wrote Cooper to determine if he was still under arrest and asked what action the court had taken in his case.
Longstreet, unable to install Field as commander of McLaws's division, recommended Joseph B. Kershaw to Cooper on April 22. Clearly, Longstreet did not want McLaws to return, as he followed the Cooper recommendation with one to Lee on April 23. Longstreet wrote that Kershaw should continue to command the division: "as Genl McLaws is not well suited for the command of a division in active operations in the field[,] it is desirable that the place should be filled at once [and] that the new Commander may have the benefit of the position in the execution of his duties, and to avoid the trouble that sometimes spring up from jealousy amongst aspirants." Kershaw, the interim division commander, was perhaps the best brigade commander McLaws had developed. On April 28 Cooper sent a telegram to McLaws, first in Abingdon, Virginia, then in Sparta, Georgia, informing him that "a major-general is required at Savannah for the command of the defenses of that city." The telegram ended: "Do you desire the assignment? Answer at once by telegraph."[104]
Special Order No. 107, issued on May 7, contained the notation that "Major-General Lafayette McLaws will immediately rejoin his command." McLaws was traveling to resume his command in Virginia when he passed through Richmond in late May. He had already prepared two drafts of a speech that he planned to make before his soldiers. Both began with the statement, "It is a great pleasure under any circumstance to meet again with friends after a long separation." One continued, "But to meet with fellow soldiers after such a long absence, and under the circumstances which I was relieved from command, affords double satisfaction." The other described home events before McLaws wrote: "For me to meet you all fellow soldiers and friends after such a long separation, after the many efforts until now futile to resume my rights and my position, give much more pleasure than if I had been away but for a short period & upon my own application. With your permission I will give you a short synopsis of the different efforts to gain my command again." In both versions, McLaws laid out the events that had transpired from the time of his dismissal, through the court-martial, to his return to command.[105]
Longstreet continued to be concerned about McLaws. McLaws wrote Ganahl the month before his (McLaws's) death, "Mr. [Jefferson] Davis whom I called upon [in Richmond] when on my way to resume command of my division told me there was such a bitter feeling in the corps & especially among my old soldiers, that Gen Lee was of the opinion it would be better if I was put on duty elsewhere." Lee also left the door open for McLaws to return when he told Davis that if McLaws "insisted, I of course he said had a right to go back." The conversation with Davis took place with several other individuals in the room. Davis told McLaws "that he was sorry Longstreet had not taken my advice, and had refrained from assaulting Knoxville at the time he did."[106]
After asking to see McLaws, Braxton Bragg offered him Major General William Henry Chase Whitting's command under Beauregard. Since McLaws "had no mount, no staff, I declined the offer unless ordered." Jefferson Davis then sent for McLaws and told him that the District of Georgia, which extended halfway to Charleston, South Carolina, needed a new commander. "General Gilmer, then in command was to be relieved because of sickness; and as Gov. Joseph E. Brown of Georgia, so he had understood, was friendly to me & I to him, he felt constrained to order me there, and hoped I would go willingly." Major General Jeremy Francis Gilmer was responsible for the defense of Savannah. Both Davis and Bragg assured McLaws that his "record was clear, and there could be no reflection against me because of my transfer to another command."[107]
Apparently Longstreet was not only concerned about McLaws's return, he was even more worried about the effect McLaws would have on his old division. McLaws learned later that if he returned, there "would have been a grand demonstration of welcome . . . and I was warned that if in my response to the welcome, I should do, or say anything reflecting upon Genl Longstreet, it was his intention to re-arrest me." On May 18 Longstreet's work paid off, as Special Order No. 115, "issued in accordance with instructions from his Excellency the President," specified that "Major-General L. McLaws, Provisional Army Confederate States, will proceed to Charleston, S.C., and report to Major-General Samuel Jones, commanding, &c., for assignment to the command of the defenses of Savannah, Ga." In a letter of May 20, 1864, to Confederate secretary of war James A. Seddon, McLaws wrote, "whatever grounds of complaint may have been against me have been dismissed and my right to restoration of my proper command remains undisputed." He concluded, "if I am severed from command permanently, the decision in my case as announced in Genl Orders No. 46, gone for naught, my accusers will have gained their ends, and in so far as this action is taken in my case, I will stand convicted."[108]
Lafayette McLaws's Confederate military career had come full circle. He began anew where he had started four years earlier in Savannah. Union major general William Tecumseh Sherman now led his army away from the smoldering ruins of Atlanta in a march to the sea and Savannah. Lafayette McLaws, the general known for his defensive tactics and emplacements, attempted the impossible, for the burden of stopping Sherman's advance into Savannah rested largely on his shoulders.
When Lieutenant General William Joseph Hardee assumed command of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in September 1864, McLaws watched and prepared as Sherman left his mark on Georgia. He does not seem to have given up hope for a Southern victory, but he became increasingly concerned about the financial condition of his family during Sherman's march to the sea.
Hardee made the decision to evacuate Savannah lest it suffer the same fate as Atlanta. On December 20 McLaws helped oversee the army's late-night departure to South Carolina. It was an army made up of soldiers crippled from the war's early years, elderly men, and young boys. On February 22, 1865, at Fort Steven's Depot, McLaws began making daily notations in his journal. His entries continue uninterrupted, with the exception of four days, through March 30, 1865. Sherman's advance continuously placed McLaws in a defensive position as the army under Hardee, and later under Joseph E. Johnston, retreated through the Carolinas. They provide personal observations he made as the Confederates desperately tried to stem the tide sweeping through their countryside. One last battle took place at Bentonville, North Carolina, on March 19 through 21, 1865.
But McLaws's service did not end at Bentonville. On March 9, Beauregard sent a note to Johnston seeking a replacement for the current commander of Augusta, Georgia. He wrote: "A good major-general should be sent there [Augusta] at once to replace General [D. H.] Hill, who is now in command. I am informed he would not be acceptable again to the people." On March 17 Hardee drafted a cryptic note to Johnston stating that he "thought it best not to mention the order to anyone until McLaws arrives." On March 21 Beauregard asked Johnston, "Whom will you send to Augusta, McLaws or Wright?" Major General Ambrose Ransom Wright, like McLaws, was a native Georgian who had also served in the Army of Northern Virginia. On April 10, in Special Order No. 26, Johnston made the assignment official. McLaws was to assume "command of the Military District of Georgia, comprising so much of that State as is not included in the Department of Tennessee and Georgia." McLaws's last official act was to publish Johnston's announcement "to explain to the Southern people the state of things which compelled me [Johnston] to put an end to the war," on May 11, 1865.[109]
The Postwar Years, 1865-1897
In a February 1863 letter to Emily, Lafayette McLaws wondered what he would do after the war. He recognized that his only training was that of a military officer—he had no farming, artistic, or business skills. The conclusion of the war and the devastation that faced Southern officers and men as they returned home must have weighed heavily on his mind. McLaws's homecoming revived echoes of his military career. He found Augusta an unconquered city, bypassed by Sherman on his march through the South. On the morning of May 1, 1865, three hundred discharged Southern soldiers started a riot when they pillaged the former government's quartermaster stores. Charles Jones wrote: "The May Day riot made it necessary for McLaws to declare martial rule the next day, to restore order until Augusta was formally occupied by Federal troops. Each ward was put under a general, then in the city. . . . Orders printed in the newspaper required everyone to remain off the streets except for business. Women, children, and Negroes were forbidden to loiter on danger of being fired on where there is a mob by cannon or small arms."[110]
As time went on, McLawss future became even more uncertain. In 1866 voters elected McLaws to his father's old position as clerk of the superior and inferior courts of Richmond County. In short order, the local Federal military officers who did not want Southern sympathizers in government positions turned him out of office. But U.S. president Andrew Johnson restored his post, and he served out his original two-year term as clerk.
H. W. Graber, a former Texas scout for McLaws, recalled that "after spending a few days in Augusta, I found that one of my old commanders, General Lafayette McLaws, was then acting clerk of the Superior Court, with his office at the court house." Graber, a member of the 8th Texas Cavalry, had scouted for McLaws from Savannah through the Carolinas to Bentonville. He "found him wearing his old Confederate gray, with buttons and trimmings shorn off, and in conversation, referred to his love of the old uniform, still preferring it, but he said it was not a matter of choice, but of necessity." The court's fees and salary were insufficient to meet the needs of the McLaws family. McLaws told Graber that he expected Foster Blodgett, the mayor of the city, to remove him from office. "He seemed to be at a loss as to his future; said he was educated a soldier, which he had always been and never tried to make a living as a civilian, in fact, didn't know anything else."[111]
One option might have been to obtain the help of former West Point classmate, now Union major general John Pope, who commanded Georgia. Pope, raised in Louisville, Kentucky, had asked McLaws to pay him a visit. By-the-book McLaws "was afraid to accept, fearing unjust criticism by leading men of the State of Georgia, who would suspect that the object of this visit was to get office and join the Radical [Republican] band." McLaws told Graber that he would never change parties, yet he also "thought the State of Georgia had treated him badly and especially his rich acquaintances, at one time friends, and he seemed to feel he was an outcast with no prospect of ever re-entering the army, therefore, not knowing what to do." McLaws did write Pope's office to verify that the positions of magistrate in the 123rd District and surveyor in Richmond County were still open.[112]
McLaws purchased 1,572 acres in Effingham County in January 1870, the month and year of his daughter Elizabeth's birth. According to Virginia McLaws, the plantation was "named Egypt, because of the fine corn raised there. The house was quite large, two stories and a very high attic—a nice porch downstairs and upstairs with columns." The house was located forty miles north of Savannah. It "had eight large rooms with high ceilings, large closets in each, and every one with a nice fireplace. In those days there were no toilet facilities, no electric lights. There was an outdoor kitchen, also one on the large back porch." McLaws made the purchase, as the trustee for his wife Emily, for $2,500—$500 down and the balance with interest to be paid in two years.[113]
In addition to engaging in farming, McLaws attempted to sell life insurance for the Carolina Life Insurance Company, whose president was Jefferson Davis. Davis held "reasonable hope that southern men would prefer to insure with us rather than a northern company." McLaws believed the same; Davis wrote him, "your unwillingness to accept the idea of failure is the best guarantee of success." But McLaws could not find a way to make a living selling insurance or real estate.[114]
His hardships deepened in 1870, as he failed to succeed in business, his planting did not progress satisfactorily, and questions developed regarding clear title to Egypt. In a note to his older brother William in September 1872, he lamented: "I have been waiting here, waiting for proper titles before exerting myself to improve the premises. I have lost money and time and all from [Edmund C.] Corbett not furnishing proper titles according to agreement. . . . I have been suffering much with Vertigo again, and with a numbness in my fingers and extremities, which annoyed myself and family exceedingly but have been much better today."[115]
In 1871 McLaws initiated a correspondence with Joseph E. Johnston. His former commander wrote: "of all those associates there is no one whose official opinion and esteem I more respect than yours. You can understand, therefore, that your letter was highly gratifying and will be carefully preserved."[116]
As his financial situation continued to worsen between 1872 and 1875, McLaws realized that he was not a farmer and would have difficulty securing a steady income. He therefore renewed his efforts to find an administrative or elected post. Ambrose R. Wright, owner of the Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, assured him that "I will cheerfully give you my vote and whatever influence I may be able to wield to enable you to procure the Office of Comptroller General of the State."[117]
McLaws balanced his need for a steady income with a willingness to write or speak about Civil War battles. In 1873 he started the first of several exchanges with other former commanders, opponents, and fellow officers. Former brigadier general William Nelson Pendleton, the nominal Army of Northern Virginia chief of artillery, gave a lecture that dealt with Lee's alleged order to Longstreet to attack at sunrise on July 2, 1863. McLaws, on his own initiative, offered a written response to the lecture, with a copy to Longstreet, that formed the factual foundation that ultimately disproved the supposed order. Some historians have regarded this document as a defense of Longstreet's actions. In reality, McLaws detailed the events leading up to the attack to show why it could not have happened at sunrise. He also established the sequence of events demonstrating that his men arrived on the field of battle as early as possible and met their commander's expectations. Conversely, they could not have attacked at sunrise since they were not in position to do so.[118]
In 1875 McLaws traveled to Washington City to see former West Point friend and then current U.S. president, Ulysses Simpson Grant. The meeting took place after a delegation from Savannah had approached Grant for funding to clear the military obstructions in the Savannah River. Grant inquired about his "old friend" McLaws and learned that he was in dire financial circumstances. After dinner, McLaws wrote, "the general led the conversation so as to find out as to my private affairs asking what I was doing, how getting along, if I lived comfortably &c. I told him that I was then farming in a small way & living precariously." Grant paused and then asked, "McLaws have you any objection to holding office under me?" McLaws "told him that I could not perceive where the objection is in my doing so, that I resigned to follow my state when Georgia seceded as my education led me to believe that my citizenship of the U.S. came through my state." (McLaws's first allegiance was to his state.) He continued, "if I had not gone with my State, I would have regarded myself as a foreigner . . . that as my State had been restored by her own consent to the former relations with the Union, it was my duty to put myself back to follow her fortunes, so far as I was able to do so . . . & I do not know of any reason why I should not take office under my government." Consequently, Grant appointed McLaws as the collector of internal revenue for the Third District of Georgia. He worked in Savannah, where he boarded in a house on Congress Street, and returned to Egypt by train on the weekends.[119]
In 1876 Grant appointed McLaws postmaster for the city of Savannah, and the entire McLaws family moved to the first of four rented houses on South Broad, then Liberty Street. His daughter Virginia recounted a Savannah newspaper comment during this time: "The Post Office in this city is administered by Gen. McLaws. He has reformed many irregularities, and appointed a corps of assistants who are efficient and courteous. The people of Savannah are indebted to them for the best managed office in the state." McLaws, ever the detail person, brought new efficiencies to the office. President Rutherford Birchard Hayes reappointed McLaws to the postmaster position, though President Chester A. Arthur declined to do so in early 1885.[120]
McLaws also led the formation of the Atlantic and Mexican Gulf Canal Company, charted and approved by the state of Georgia on February 23, 1876. The legislation created the corporation to "build, construct, own and maintain a canal . . . from the St. Mary's or Big Satilla River, through the Okefenokee Swamp, or along its southern border, and thence westward by the most direct and practicable route . . . to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico." The canal's objective was to "open an artificial line of water communication" for the purposes of transporting timber, lumber and other products to market.[121]
The company's founding board of directors included "Joseph Shepard, G. A. Swain, and Philip Raiford of St. Mary's; Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and Gen. Lafayette McLaws, John R. Bachlott, S. L. Barnes and William Rogers of Savannah, Georgia." Meeting on April 20, 1876, the board elected McLaws chairman and Shepard secretary and issued 10,000 shares of stock for a total of $1 million. McLaws received a salary of $2,500 per year plus $500 for travel expenses. The board also awarded 1,000 shares of stock for "services rendered & expenses incurred by Lafayette McLaws in forming the company, obtaining the charter & passage of a bill through Congress ordering a survey (for the above mentioned Incorporaters)." At a meeting following the board's actions, the stockholders elected McLaws president of the company. He was "authorized to negotiate with capitalists in the United States and Europe for the necessary funds to construct the canal."[122]
The Atlantic and Mexican Canal Company remained in operation through February 2, 1884, and continued to seek capital funding in New York City, England, and France. Florida governor William D. Bloxham approved a legislative measure on March 1, 1883, granting the company certain privileges in that state; the act had received unanimous endorsement in the senate and only two nay votes in the assembly. Despite extensive efforts to sell stock subscriptions and obtain additional funding from the U.S. government, the board voted on February 2, 1884, to authorize the "sale or otherwise dispose of all rights, privileges & franchises & grants which" the company had acquired.[123]
In 1886 McLaws opened a series of lectures by southern and northern military leaders organized by the Grand Army of the Republic in Boston. This marked his last career change. The former army officer wrote many articles and delivered a considerable number of lectures. He engaged in extensive correspondence with former friends and foes. Eighty-three of the 113 postwar letters found in SHC-LM are dated between 1886 and 1897. Moreover, this collection contains a substantial number of articles, lectures, copies of selected portions of Official Records (OR), and galley proofs of articles with handwritten notations. In his quest for assembling facts, understanding the late war, and earning a living, McLaws thus became a prolific writer.
The 1890s and the last seven years of McLaws's life may have been both his best and worst years. During this period he began to gain recognition for his articles and lectures, and he became the first honorary president of the Confederate Veterans Association of Savannah, an association he had previously helped organize and served as the first president. In 1893 the board of governors of the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition elected McLaws to the executive committee, though his service ended before the exposition opened when he refused to place an R beside his name demonstrating a Republican Party affiliation. He argued that Georgia governor John Brown Gordon had not requested a political party affiliation before he recommended McLaws's appointment. McLaws stood on principle and refused to renounce his membership in the Democratic Party, knowing that he was sacrificing what little income he could count on from the fair. Ironically, Longstreet was his alternate and he too resigned his position following McLaws's lead. McLaws's ability to make a comfortable living remained questionable.[124]
McLaws's financial situation continued to deteriorate. While many of his friends and family managed to survive the war and grow in political and financial stature, McLaws appears to have never asked for help. Indeed, several friends strongly encouraged him to approach Grant regarding a political appointment. Perhaps his most difficult task was to apply for a Mexican War pension, for this would reveal to his friends and the men who served under him how destitute he had become. He would have to file several affidavits and ask individuals to write about his physical and financial status. This would have forced him to swallow a good bit of pride.
McLaws's application for the pension was received on June 21, 1887, and the government issued a certificate from Knoxville, Tennessee, on October 14 for eight dollars per month. McLaws's sworn affidavit was supported by affidavits sworn by two of his former commanders, Alexander R. Lawton and James Longstreet, both on May 30, 1887.
On November 13, 1894, and again on December 7, 1894, McLaws asked for an increase due to his disability and current financial situation. On the application for an increase he explained, "In March last, I had my left eye extracted and am still under treatment because of it." Furthermore, "my right eye was injured when I was young and the sight seriously impaired because of the old wound or injury and from age." McLaws also described other physical disabilities, including his pepperbox pistol wound: "I am in constant, more or less pain all the time from either rheumatism in my hip joint or from the ball, just mentioned, and I am wholly disabled from manual labor." He wrote that he had no means of subsistence except for support from his children and that "I do not own any property, real or personal, but my clothes, books and papers, from which no income is derived." With the pension application were affidavits from Brantley A. Denmark, president of the Citizens Bank of Savannah; A. R. Lawton, his former commander, now president of the Augusta and Savannah Railroad Company; and Dr. Montague L. Boyd, his physician. Lawton wrote, "I know that he is very poor; that his present pension of eight dollars per month, taken in connection with his income from all sources, is utterly insufficient, in my opinion, to provide him with the necessities of life." The government granted the pension increase on December 11, 1894, backdated to commence on December 6, 1894.[125]
It took Longstreet until October 20, 1892, to personally acknowledge to McLaws that he had treated him dishonestly. Although he never offered a personal apology, Longstreet did admit in a letter to McLaws: "I think I have made clear it was I who caused the failure at Knoxville. It is after the same course as pointed out in my Knoxville address two years ago." McLaws considered the remarks too little too late. One month before his death, he wrote: "Since my report of Knoxville, was published [in the OR], Genl Longstreet, in an address he made at a re-union at Knoxville, exonerated me from all blame for the failure at Knoxville, taking it all himself. But my report exonerates me, so his generosity comes too late." He concluded, "I have written the foregoing, in order that you may have a statement of certain things, that never will appear in official reports—but which will enable one to form an opinion as to the motives of action, of certain men of high renown, and perhaps lead to a more just conception of their real merits, than the general public entertains for the want of such information."[126]
McLaws exchanged letters on the subject with his court-martial counsel, Joseph Ganahl, in 1894. He reflected at length on the dissension among senior commanders when Longstreet, D. H. Hill, and Buckner attempted to remove Bragg from command of the Army of Tennessee, viewing their acts as a disservice to the Confederacy. He wrote Ganahl, "I declined to prefer charges against Longstreet because I did not wish to be a party to dissensions among Confederates." He continued, "I once wrote Longstreet that he had laid himself open to very severe criticism & that I had been urged to retaliate by bringing his conduct under review; but I had refrained as it was not in my nature to bear malice, & I thought it would be detrimental to the Confederate cause, to keep creating dissensions."[127]
On April 19, 1895, the Confederate Veterans Association of Savannah sponsored a series of six lectures, published by the association's president in its 1896 annual report. McLaws spoke on "The Maryland Campaign" on April 19, 1895, and "The Battle of Gettysburg" on April 27, 1896. The forty-one-page essay on Gettysburg presents a detailed, systematic sequence of events that led up to the battle and its conclusion. It also takes Longstreet to task and questions the actions of Lee's subordinates on the field.
In the essay McLaws recounts the events that took place after the failure of Longstreet's attack of July 3, 1863, and spent three pages dissecting his corps commander's behavior. "Shortly after the repulse," McLaws received a request from Brigadier General Evander McIvor Law, who had taken command of Hood's division, "asking if he could spare a brigade to put in place of one from his division which had been drawn out from his line to meet the enemy's cavalry." McLaws sent back word that he "could not spare a man" as "the enemy were close to my line and might attack at any moment, although there was no sign of it as yet, but it was to be expected." G. Moxely Sorrel showed up within a few minutes with "an order from Gen. Longstreet for your [McLaws] command and that of Hood to retire at once to your position of yesterday." McLaws was "astonished" by the order and suggested a delay until it could be reconfirmed. He could not believe that an order to retire had been issued when the enemy was not advancing against his or Hood's front. But Sorrel insisted that "the order was positive, and there was no use in discussing it." McLaws then withdrew his division in an orderly manner and reestablished his line where he had begun at 4:00 p.m. on July 2. "So soon as my command retired, the enemy advanced to occupy the positions I had left, having a cloud of skirmishers in front." Sorrel then returned and asked McLaws if he could "re-occupy the ground" he had just vacated. McLaws responded that he "would dislike to undertake it, as the enemy was occupying it in heavy force." He asked Sorrel if he remembered the earlier order to retire; he also wanted to know why the new order was issued to "re-take the abandoned position." Sorrel answered, "Because, Gen. Longstreet now denies that he gave the order for this command to retire."[128]
After the campaign McLaws asked Longstreet for an explanation "because it was not pleasant to be under the command of any one who would deny giving an order after it was found out that existing circumstances did not imperatively call for such an order—as it afterwards appeared." In "The Battle of Gettysburg," he concludes the section on Longstreet with the observation that "it was unpleasant to think that the reputation of my command and myself were dependent upon—shall I say—a bad memory?"[129]
In the last two pages of the piece, McLaws reflects on Lee, his senior subordinates, and the battle's outcome. He repeats Longstreet's published comment "That Gen. Lee was excited and off his balance, as was evident on this afternoon (July 2), and that he labored under that oppression until enough blood was shed to appease him." Yet, McLaws notes, "The evidences I have given seems to show that it was not Gen. Lee, but his leading lieutenants, [who] were off their balance, either that or had never possessed that capacity to determine the most salient points in the positions to be attacked. . . . So that now, as in the past, and as I believe will be done in the future, we can, with sentiments of profound admiration and respect, [say] 'Hurrah for Gen. Lee.'"[130]
McLaws then relates three stories that deal with command and control of men in battle, providing examples of how Generals Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor involved their senior officers in decision-making councils:
It was the practice of Gen. Winfield Scott, who commanded our armies and captured the City of Mexico, in the Mexican war, to call his principal officers, and many others of lesser rank, to meet him, before undertaking any important movement. When assembled, he would tell them he had called them, not to ask their advice, but to give them an outline of a movement he was about to make, and to hear their views about it. He wished them to talk freely about it, and discuss it. By doing this you will have clearer ideas, he told them, each one, of his special duties, when the order to execute is issued, and I may get ideas or information from your conversation which will assist me, when issuing the final order, by showing me in what particulars I should be the most clear and the most positive.
McLaws cites Taylor's council after the Battle of Palo Alto and another story by F. X. Aubrey, a French Canadian trader he met in New Mexico. He offers the three accounts to "strengthen his suggestion and belief" that if Robert E. Lee had called a council of his senior generals on July 1, he might have found a better solution than the one he selected. Since a council was not called, Lee "adopted the course which, if it had been intelligently and energetically carried out by his subordinates, would have produced the very best results."[131]
McLaws remained constant in his views on Longstreet to the end of his life. Shortly after Longstreet's memoir was published in 1895, McLaws wrote: "so it looks as if Gen Longstreets crucial test of the fitness of any one to command was his compliance or non-compliance with Longstreets 'suggestions'—It was a sort of mania of his, and there can be no doubt that he was honest in that belief—for it seemed to make the difference, who it was he advised—if he followed his advice he was worthy, if he did not he was not worthy."[132]
On July 24, 1897, at the age of seventy-six, McLaws died suddenly at 12:20 in the morning. The Savannah Morning News reported: "His death was a great shock to his family, none of whom had the slightest idea until a few minutes before it occurred that his end was near. Except for an apparently slight attack of indigestion from which he suffered during the last few days, Gen. McLaws appeared to be in his usual health." According to the Savannah press, "he wrote with terseness and vigor." McLaws "had only recently been selected by General Clement A. Evans to write the history of 'Georgia in the Confederate War.'" The writer of the obituary made the astute observation that "it will always be a matter of profound regret that he should have died before this task was performed."[133]
Concluding Thoughts
Lafayette McLaws attempted to apply personal values of duty, honor, and service to his state and country in his everyday life. Commanders found that he carried out their orders, even if he disagreed with them. Though in several cases he may have delayed the execution of a task, his record shows that he took his duties and assigned responsibilities seriously. In the same way, McLaws expected his subordinate officers to complete their assignments. In recommending officers for promotion, he generally cited the phrase "competent to the discharge of the duties" or similar wording. The proper discharge of duties was a prerequisite for military unit discipline, and McLaws excelled in fostering such discipline.[134]
His concept of honor can be best demonstrated by what he thought was right, his high principles by how he dealt with others, and his integrity. He believed that an officer must be consistent, honest, and sincere in his dealings with colleagues.
Perhaps his most impressive trait was keeping meticulous records. He combined attention to even the most minor details with a methodical approach to decision-making. This focus on details may have contributed to the perception that McLaws moved too slowly. Finally, McLaws was convinced that fulfilling the needs of his men helped ensure their success in battle. He did not sacrifice his men on the field, and concern for their welfare often placed him in conflict with his commanders. Virginia McLaws concluded that "some of his most prominent characteristics were extraordinary firmness and determination to do his duty, regardless of all selfish aspirations."[135]
The letters and journal entries of Lafayette McLaws illuminate the thoughts and actions of an important Confederate general who has remained virtually invisible over the last century. Whereas other Civil War generals have had biographies, autobiographies, diaries, or letters published, McLaws's body of work has not seen the light of day. His July 7, 1863, comment on Longstreet has received the most circulation. Periodically historians cite other letters, but few individuals outside the core group of Civil War historians realize the wealth of information that exists in the McLaws collections. McLaws adds both military insight and human sensitivity to his letters—ones that focus attention on many key leaders and the struggles of their troops in the war that tore this nation apart.
Excerpted from A Soldier's General by John C. Oeffinger. Copyright © 2002 by The University of North Carolina Press. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
What People are Saying About This
For much of the war, Lafayette McLaws held the senior major general's rank in the Army of Northern Virginia. His extensive letters, skillfully transcribed from the almost illegible originals by John Oeffinger, constitute a rich--and virtually untapped--lode of primary evidence from an officer of major importance.
A long overdue book. The letters of Lafayette McLaws will be read and consulted for years by historians and students of the Civil War. It is an important and fine book.
Oeffinger has done yeoman work in making selected writings of the Georgia Confederate major general available to the researching public. . . . A well-written and accurately researched work. The editor has done an excellent job of telling, in part, the story of a Confederate general who was known throughout the army for his skill as a defensive fighter and for his thoroughness in attention to detail.—North Carolina Historical Review
A Soldier's General is a long overdue book. The letters of Lafayette McLaws will be read and consulted for years by historians and students of the Civil War. It is an important and fine book.—Jeffry Wert, author of Gettysburg—Day Three
For much of the war, Lafayette McLaws held the senior major general's rank in the Army of Northern Virginia. His extensive letters, skillfully transcribed from the almost illegible originals by John Oeffinger, constitute a rich—and virtually untapped—lode of primary evidence from an officer of major importance.—Robert K. Krick, author of Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain and The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy