Alfred Pleasonton

Alfred Pleasonton

Alfred Pleasonton (born July 7, 1824 in Washington, DC , † February 17, 1897 ibid) was an American major general and government official. During the American Civil War he became known as a high-ranking cavalry general on the side of the Northern States .

Life

Alfred Pleasonton was born to Stephen Pleasonton (1776-1855) and Mary Hopkins (1783-1851). The father was from 1820 to 1852 superintendent in the Ministry of Finance . On July 1, 1844, the younger Pleasonton the closed West Point Military Academy and was Brevet - lieutenant in the 1st Dragoons, which in Fort Atkinson was stationed. He followed his unit to border service in Minnesota and Iowa . During the war with Mexico he served in Texas and was promoted to lieutenant in the 2nd Dragoons Regiment on November 3, 1845. In 1846 he took part in the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Resaca de la Palma during the Mexico War. In his garrison in Albuquerque he was promoted to first lieutenant on September 30, 1849 and provided border protection in the New Mexico Territory . At the beginning of 1852 he fought the Apaches on the Jornado del Muerto . He was transferred from July 1, 1854 as a regimental adjutant to the 2nd Dragoon Regiment and promoted to captain on March 3, 1855 in the garrison of Fort Leavenworth . In 1856 he took part in an expedition against the Sioux and the following year he fought the Indians in Kansas . From October 27, 1858 to July 5, 1860, he ran an army depot in Oregon .

At the beginning of the Civil War (April 1861) he organized volunteers in Wilmington. As captain, Pleasonton accompanied the 2nd Dragoons from Fort Crittenden in the Utah Territory to Washington, DC in July 1861. He used the earlier connections of his late father for his further career and was promoted to major on February 15, 1862 . With the 2nd Dragoons Regiment he fought in the Potomac Army under General George B. McClellan on the peninsula and participated in the siege of Yorktown (April 5 - May 4) and in the operations against Richmond (June 26 - July 2). He then commanded a cavalry brigade of the Potomac Army.

On September 2, 1862 he took over at the XII. Corps under Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield command of a cavalry - Division and was with his horsemen on September 15, a skirmish in Boonsboro. On September 17, he was wounded in the right ear during the Battle of Antietam and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He led the pursuit of Stuart's cavalry and fought in battle at the Mouth of Monocacy on October 12th. As a result of the Rappahannock campaign, his cavalry covered the hinterland of the Potomac Army at the Battle of Fredericksburg . After the Battle of Chancellorsville (May 2-3, 1863) he claimed to have stopped the attack of Stonewall Jackson's Corps with his cavalry and thereby the XI. To have saved Union Corps from annihilation. His superior, Major General Joseph Hooker , assured President Abraham Lincoln that Pleasonton had "saved the Union Army" in Chancellorsville. Then he received on June 7th during the Pennsylvania Campaign instead of Major General George Stoneman in command of the entire Union Cavalry Corps and was promoted to Brigadier General on June 22nd, 1863 . Shortly thereafter, he led the Union cavalry in the Battle of Brandy Station , one of the greatest cavalry battles of the war. The Union cavalry surprised the Confederate cavalry under General Jeb Stuart and won the meeting after 14 hours of fighting. General Hooker had ordered the destruction of the Confederate cavalry near Culpeper, but Pleasonton later claimed that he had only been ordered to conduct a "reconnaissance against Culpeper", whereby his actions resulted in no decision. In the further course of the Gettysburg campaign up to the height of the battle, Pleasonton did not take part in any more fighting because he was detained at Hooker's headquarters . The Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee was able to advance almost unhindered through the Shenandoah Valley to Pennsylvania . During this time, Pleasonton, with the help of his nephew and congressman, pushed through the promotion of his minions, Captain Elon John Farnsworth , Wesley Merritt and First Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer to brigadier general.

At the Battle of Gettysburg , Major General George Gordon Meade knew how to exercise more direct control of the cavalry, so Pleasonton was not responsible for the unfortunate cavalry operation led by General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick on July 3rd. He was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi theater of war and defeated General Sterling Price's troops in the Battle of Byram's Ford. The battle at Mine Creek that followed removed the last of the Confederate threats to the west. From March 23, 1864 Pleasonton commanded the district of central Missouri and from July the district of St. Louis. Then he was active in the defense of Jefferson City , pursued the rebels under General Price in the direction of Fort Scott to Kansas and defeated this again on March 13, 1865 in the Battle of Marais des Cygnes. On April 10, 1866, President Andrew Johnson named him major general for the Missouri campaign , the appointment being confirmed by the United States Senate on May 4, 1866.

After the war, although he had already achieved the honorary rank of Brevet Major General in the regular army, he was downgraded to the permanent rank of cavalry major. He did not want to leave the cavalry, but he also refused the rank of lieutenant colonel in the infantry and remained dissatisfied with his ranking, where he stood among officers who were below him in the civil war. Pleasonton resigned in 1868, but was reinstated 20 years later (1888) as a major in the army. As a civilian, he served from January 3 to August 8, 1871 under President Ulysses S. Grant as Collector of Internal Revenue and then Commissioner of Internal Revenue ; in this capacity he succeeded Columbus Delano . He was soon asked to resign from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (later Internal Revenue Service ) after advocating for an income tax waiver before Congress and falling out with his superiors at the Treasury Department. He refused to resign and was officially dismissed. He also briefly served as President of Terre Haute and General Manager of the Cincinnati Railroad. Pleasonton was buried next to his father in the convention cemetery.

Web links

Commons : Alfred Pleasonton  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Alfred Pleasonton in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• http://lincolnsgenerals.org/AlfredPleasonton.html