John Sedgwick

General John Sedgwick

John Sedgwick (born September 13, 1813 in Cornwall Hollow , Connecticut , † May 9, 1864 in Spotsylvania , Virginia ) was a general of the US Army and commanding general during the American Civil War .

Life

John Sedgwick was born in the Berkshires, an area of ​​the Appalachian Mountains in Connecticut, into a family with a military tradition. It is named after his grandfather, who fought with Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga during the American Revolution and wintered with George Washington at Valley Forge .

After finishing school, John Sedgwick was a teacher for two years, from 1831 to 1833.

Military career up to the Civil War

Sedgwick was appointed to the Military Academy at West Point , New York , in 1833 . He graduated in 1837 as 24th in a class of 50 graduates. He was then promoted to lieutenant and assigned to the artillery. He first fought the Seminoles in Florida and later earned two certification promotions to captain and major in the war against Mexico . In 1855 he changed the type of service and was transferred to the cavalry in order to be used in a post as a major. As a member of the 1st US Cavalry Regiment, he was used in the suppression of the civil war-like unrest in Kansas, the so-called Bleeding Kansas , during the Mormon uprising in the Utah Territory and the Indian Wars.

In the course of the actual crisis of secession on the eve of the Civil War, Sedgwick twice succeeded his friend Robert E. Lee - on March 16, 1861, as Lieutenant Colonel, Deputy Commander of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry Regiment and only nine days later, on March 25, as Colonel Commander of the 1st US Cavalry Regiment.

Commander and Commanding General in the Civil War

During the first major battle in the eastern theater of war, the first Battle of Bull Run , Sedgwick fell ill with cholera and was unable to participate. No sooner had he recovered than he was appointed Inspector General of the Washington Defense Area on August 3, 1861. Sedgwick was promoted to Volunteer Brigadier General on September 5, 1861 retroactively to August 31, 1861 . Sedgwick's reports on the conditions in the army camps were raw and made few friends. Nevertheless - or perhaps because of it - he was given command of the 2nd Brigade of Heintzelmans Division of the Potomac Army on October 3, 1861 . He remained a member of this army until his death.

On February 19, 1862 he took over the division of Brigadier General Charles P. Stones. With the division he took part in the Peninsula Campaign to capture Richmonds , Virginia and fought in the Siege of Yorktown , Virginia and the Battle of Seven Pines . During the Seven Day Battle , he was wounded in the Battle of Glendale . On July 4, he was promoted to major general.

Sedgwick took part in the Maryland campaign with his division. At the Battle of Antietam , the commanding general of II Corps ordered Sedgwick to carry out a frontal attack. Without having cleared up the positions of the enemy beforehand, Sedgwick suddenly saw himself attacked from three sides by Major General Jackson's corps and had to revert to his starting positions with heavy losses. Sedgwick was wounded three times; however, resumed service after only three months.

On December 26th after the Battle of Fredericksburg he briefly took over the II., Then the IX. and finally the VI. Potomac Army Corps. During the Battle of Chancellorsville he and his corps were supposed to bind the right flank of the Northern Virginia Army at Fredericksburg. Attacking slowly, he managed to storm Marye's Heights. From there he slowly attacked westward, trapping and destroying the Confederates between himself and the other corps of the Potomac Army. But it did not succeed (because of General Lee's daring decision to beat the Northerners one by one). On May 3, 1863, Sedgwick's attack was halted by McLaw's division at the Battle of Salem Church. On May 4th, Lee attacked him with three divisions and forced him to evade over the Rappahannock .

During the Battle of Gettysburg , his corps formed the reserve . It wasn't until the Rappahannock Bridge in autumn that the VI fought. Corps again against General Lee's rearguard and cleared the Confederate beachhead during a night attack.

When the five corps of the Potomac Army were reduced to three, also because of the heavy losses, he remained in command as one of the most prominent commanders in the Union . John Sedgwick then led his corps in the bloody fights of the Battle of the Wilderness and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House .

death

Just as Sedgwick was about to assign positions to his artillery, Confederate snipers shot him and the soldiers accompanying him. The latter ducked. Sedgwick told them that the Confederates could not meet an elephant at this distance. Shortly afterwards, a bullet hit him in the head. The bulky general, whom the snipers could easily identify due to his stocky stature, was dead on the spot. He was the fourth and final commanding general of the Potomac Army (after Joseph KF Mansfield, Jesse L. Reno and John F. Reynolds), who fell during a battle. When Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant heard of Sedgwick's death, he said: "His loss to this army is greater than the loss of a whole division." ("This loss is more important to the army than the loss of an entire division.")

John Sedgwick was buried in the place of his birth.

Appreciation

His soldiers always called Sedgwick "Uncle John" because of his jovial, confidential tone. Ironically, it was his boyhood towards his soldiers and his endeavor to calm them down that led to his death. Sedgwick never sought a higher command than that of his beloved VI. Corps. He was respected by his soldiers because he exposed himself to the same hardships that they had to endure; He was respected by his superiors because he took an active part in the preparation of decisions, carried out decisions made without grumbling, and gave his orders cautiously but emphatically. Grant once described his nature as follows: "Sedgwick and Meade were of such good character that if they had been ordered to exchange their rank of general for the services of a sergeant, they would have done it without a murmur."

Honors

An equestrian statue honors Major General John Sedgwick and the VI. Corps on the grounds of the Gettysburg National Military Park. Another statue is at West Point.

Trivia

In Kevin Costner's western epic " Dances with Wolves " , John Dunbar's post in the Indian area was named after Sedgwick.

literature

• United States War Department: The War of the Rebellion. A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies . Government Printing Office, Washington 1880-1901 ( online ).
• John H. Eicher, David J. Eicher: Civil War High Commands . Stanford University Press, Stanford 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3 .
• Robert J. Jurgen, Allan Keller: Major General John Sedgwick, US Volunteers, 1813–1864 . Connecticut Civil War Centennial Committee, Hartford 1963 ( online ).
• Stewart Sifakis: Who was who in the Civil War. A comprehensive illustrated biographical reference to more than 1500 of the principal Union participants in the Civil War . 2 volumes, Facts on File, New York 1988/1989, ISBN 0-8160-2202-X .
• Richard Elliott Winslow: General John Sedgwick: The Story of a Union Corps Commander . Presidio Press, Novato 1982, ISBN 0-89141-030-9 (originally doctoral thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, 1970).

Web links

Commons : John Sedgwick  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography on civilwarhome.com (English)
• Major General John Sedgwick, US Volunteers, 1813–1864 (English)
• John Sedgwick in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ The War of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume LI, Part I, p. 434: Inspector of the defense area
2. ^ Robert J. Jurgen, Allan Keller: Major General John Sedgwick, US Volunteers, 1813–1864 . Connecticut Civil War Centennial Committee, Hartford 1963, p. 31.
3. ^ Robert J. Jurgen, Allan Keller: Major General John Sedgwick, US Volunteers, 1813–1864 . Connecticut Civil War Centennial Committee, Hartford 1963, p. 3.