The Real Custer (67 page)

5
.
      
Pleasonton to Humphreys, August 2, 1863.

6
.
      
Sheridan to Halleck, October 27, 1864.

7
.
      
E. A. Paul, “Operations of Our Cavalry: The Michigan Cavalry Brigade,”
New York Times
, August 6, 1863.

8
.
      
J. H. Taylor to Major John M. Waite, August 28, 1864.

9
.
      
Staunton Spectator
, August 25, 1863, 1.

10
.
    
Philip Henry Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan
, vol. 2 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1888), 51.

11
.
    
Sheridan to Grant, October 7, 1864, 9:00 p.m.; and Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
.

12
.
    
Sheridan,
Personal Memoirs
, vol. 2, 52.

13
.
    
Report in the
New York Times,
August 25, 1864.

14
.
    
Williamson,
Mosby's Rangers
, 215.

15
.
    
Ibid., 214–15.

16
.
    
Munson,
Reminiscences of a Mosby Guerrilla
, 147. In addition to the passion of the moment, there was a general order among Confederate troops that no quarter was to be given to soldiers found burning homes.

17
.
    
Grant to Sheridan, August 16, 1864.

18
.
    
Sheridan to Grant, August 17, 1864.

19
.
    
Mosby to Robert E. Lee, October 29, 1864.

20
.
    
“Hanging of Mosby's Men in 1864,” ‘B.' in Warrenton Virginia, February, 1896,
Southern Historical Society Papers
24, J. William Jones, ed., 108–9. See also Jay W. Simson,
Custer and the Front Royal Executions Of 1864
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009). Jay Simson argues that Custer was not involved in the actual executions but was in the vicinity and stood out because of his distinctive appearance, so newspaper accounts placed the blame on him. Simson makes the case that Brigadier General Alfred Torbert ordered the hangings and was most responsible for them. The Confederates, however, still blamed Custer.

21
.
    
“Hanging of Mosby's Men in 1864,” 108–9.

22
.
    
John H. Alexander,
Mosby's Men
(New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1907), 141.

23
.
    
“Hanging of Mosby's Men in 1864,” 108–9.

24
.
    
Ibid.

25
.
    
John W. Munson,
Reminiscences of a Mosby Guerrilla
(New York: Moffat, Yard, 1906), 149.

26
.
    
Mosby to Robert E. Lee, October 29, 1864.

27
.
    
Robert E. Lee to Office of the Secretary of War, November 3, 1864; H. L. Clay to Robert E. Lee, November 19, 1864.

28
.
    
This account follows Williamson,
Mosby's Rangers
, 288ff, and “An Hour with Mosby,”
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, December 1, 1864.

29
.
    
Alexander,
Mosby's Men
, 143–44

30
.
    
Quoted in Williamson,
Mosby's Rangers
, 452ff.

31
.
    
Report of finding the bodies by O. Edwards to Lieutenant Colonel C. Kingsbury, November 7, 1864.

32
.
    
Ibid.

33
.
    
Mosby to Sheridan, November 11, 1864.

34
.
    
Williamson,
Mosby's Rangers
, 317.

35
.
    
Sheridan to Halleck, November 26, 1864.

36
.
    
Forsyth to Merritt, November 27, 1864.

37
.
    
Walt Whitman, “A Glimpse of War's Hell Scenes,”
Specimen Days
, in
The Portable Walt Whitman
, 550.

CHAPTER 15

1
.
      
George Perkins,
Three Years a Soldier: The Diary and Newspaper Correspondence of Private George Perkins, Sixth New York Independent Battery, 1861–1864
, Richard N. Griffin, ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006), 300.

2
.
      
Philadelphia Evening Telegraph
, November 25, 1864, 1.

3
.
      
Sheridan to Grant, December 20, 1864, 10:30 a.m.

4
.
      
New York Tribune
report, reprinted as “Cavalry Fight in the Valley—Amusing Scenes,” in the
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, December 30, 1864.

5
.
      
Ibid.

6
.
      
Sheridan to Rawlins, December 24, 1864; R. E. Lee to Seddon, December 23, 1864.

7
.
      
Grant to Sheridan, February 20, 1865, 1:00 p.m.

8
.
      
Sheridan report, March 2, 1865.

9
.
      
Jubal A. Early,
A Memoir of the Last Year of the War of Independence, in the Confederate States of America
(Toronto: Lovell and Gibson, 1866), 132.

10
.
    
New York Herald
, March 10, 1865.

11
.
    
Sheridan report, March 2, 1865.

12
.
    
Supplemental report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, in two volumes. Supplemental to Senate Report No. 142, 38th Congress, 2d session, 53.

13
.
    
Early, 133.

14
.
    
“The Yankees in Charlottesville,”
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, March 15, 1865.

15
.
    
EBC in Arlene Reynolds, ed.,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer: Reconstructed from Her Diaries and Notes
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 33.

16
.
    
Ibid.

17
.
    
Richmond Daily Dispatch
, March 24, 1865, and the
Knoxville Whig
, December 20, 1865.

CHAPTER 16

1
.
      
For general reference, see Chris M. Calkins,
The Appomattox Campaign, March 29–April 9, 1865
(Conshohocken, PA: Combined Books, 1997).

2
.
      
Frederick Cushman Newhall,
With Sheridan in the Final Campaign against Lee
, Eric J. Wittenberg, ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 36.

3
.
      
Daily Ohio Statesman
(Columbus), April 04, 1865, 3.

4
.
      
Capeheart received the Medal of Honor for saving the life of a drowning soldier during the Valley campaign. His brother Major Charles E. Capehart also received the award for a separate action.

5
.
      
Henry Edwin Tremain,
Last Hours of Sheridan's Cavalry: A Reprint of War Memoranda
(New York: Bonnel, Silver and Bowers, 1904), 53.

6
.
      
Ibid., 54.

7
.
      
Charles Alfred Humphreys,
Field, Camp, Hospital and Prison in the Civil War, 1863–1865
(Boston: George H. Ellis, 1918), 238.

8
.
      
Ibid., 241.

9
.
      
Ibid., 242.

10
.
    
Sheridan to Warren, April 1, 1865, 4:40 a.m.

11
.
    
Fitzhugh Lee,
General Lee: A Biography of Robert E. Lee
(New York: D. Appleton, 1894), 376.

12
.
    
George Pickett,
The Heart of a Soldier: Intimate Wartime Letters from General George E. Pickett, CSA, to His Wife
, La Salle Corbell Pickett, ed. (New York: Seth Moyle, 1913), 171.

13
.
    
New York World
report quoted in “The Fall of Richmond,”
Supplement to the Guardian
(UK), April 19, 1865, 1. The report described Five Forks as “a magnificent strategic point. Five good roads meet in the edge of a dry, high, well-watered forest, three of them radiating to the railway, and their tributaries unlocking all the country.”

14
.
    
Newhall,
With Sheridan in the Final Campaign against Lee
, 48–49.

15
.
    
Details on the Warren incident are in Bruce Catton, “Sheridan at Five Forks,”
Journal of Southern History
, August 1955, 305–15.

16
.
    
George E. Farmer to his father, April 14, 1865, Gilder Lehrman Collection: GLC00808.01

17
.
    
Quoted in Richard Wheeler,
Witness to Appomattox
(New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 75.

18
.
    
Pickett,
The Heart of a Soldier
, 173–74.

19
.
    
“Sheridan's Ride,”
Indiana (PA) Democrat
, March 4, 1875, 1.

20
.
    
New York World
report, quoted in “The Fall of Richmond,”
Supplement to the Guardian
(UK), April 19, 1865, 1.

21
.
    
Pickett,
The Heart of a Soldier
, 173–74.

CHAPTER 17

1
.
      
Frederick Cushman Newhall,
With Sheridan in the Final Campaign against Lee
, Eric J. Wittenberg, ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 114.

2
.
      
Robert Stiles,
Four Years under Marse Robert
(Washington, D.C.: Neale Publishing, 1904), 326–27.

3
.
      
John Brown Gordon,
Reminiscences of the Civil War
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904), 423–24.

4
.
      
The actual name of the stream is Sayler's Creek, but most contemporary sources refer to it as “Sailor's Creek,” which will be used throughout.

5
.
      
George Pickett,
The Heart of a Soldier: Intimate Wartime Letters from General George E. Pickett, CSA, to His Wife
, La Salle Corbell Pickett, ed. (New York: Seth Moyle, 1913), 177.

6
.
      
In Lydia Minturn Post, ed.,
Soldiers' Letters, from Camps, Battle-Field and Prison
(Washington: U.S. Sanitary Commission, 1865), 463–64.

7
.
      
Charles Alfred Humphreys,
Field, Camp, Hospital and Prison in the Civil War, 1863–1865
(Boston: George H. Ellis, 1918), 268–70.

8
.
      
Burlington Free Press
, April 21, 1865, 2.

9
.
      
Custer in
The Custer Story
, 150–51.

10
.
    
Capehart to EBC, quoted in Elizabeth B. Custer, “A Beau Sabreur,” in
Uncle Sam's Medal of Honor
, Theophilus F. Rodenbough, ed. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Son, 1886), 227.

11
.
    
Quoted in Jay Monaghan,
Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), 238.

12
.
    
In Arlene Reynolds, ed.,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer: Reconstructed from Her Diaries and Notes
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 138.

13
.
    
Two sailors also were given this distinction, coxswain John Cooper, and boatswain's mate Patrick Mullen.

14
.
    
In Reynolds,
The Civil War Memories of Elizabeth Bacon Custer
, 138.

15
.
    
Cleveland Morning Leader
, April 11, 1865, 1.

16
.
    
Stiles,
Four Years under Marse Robert
, 333.