Gil R.
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Good bio. No changes of any significance made.
Maj. Gen. William Wing Loring (b. 1818, d. 1886). From fighting Seminole Indians as a youngster to serving in the army of the Egyptian Khedive, Loring enjoyed a long military career. He was never afraid to question orders which he felt would put his troops in too much danger. “Old Blizzards,” as he was nicknamed (for his encouragement of “Give them blizzards, boys!”), was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on December 4, 1818. While he was a youth, his family moved to Florida, where he rose to 2nd lieutenant fighting in the Second Seminole War of 1835-1842. Loring next studied law and earned election to the Florida legislature. In 1846, he entered military service as a captain in the new regiment of mounted riflemen. During the Mexican War, Loring earned brevets to major and lieutenant colonel during the war, but also lost an arm at the Battle of Chapultepec. He was able to remain in service and received a promotion to lieutenant colonel of his regiment in March 1848. Loring subsequently campaigned in Texas, commanded the Department of Oregon in 1849, and returned to Texas in 1851. On December 30, 1856, he became the U.S. Army’s youngest line colonel – a distinction he still held on May 13, 1861, when he resigned his commission to cast his lot with the Confederacy. Loring was appointed a brigadier general on May 20, 1861, commanding the Army of the Northwest in western Virginia. His first action was in the Cheat Mountain Campaign under Gen. Robert E. Lee in mid-September. During the Romney Expedition that winter, Loring and Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson argued over the conduct of operations: Loring felt his men were given outpost duty by being stationed in Romney while Jackson kept his command in Winchester, Virginia, leading Loring to write to the War Department to express concern that this post was exposed. As a result, the War Department ordered Jackson to recall Loring’s men to Winchester. Jackson nearly quit the army over the issue and requested reassignment back to Virginia Military Institute as a professor. When others, including Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and Virginia Gov. John Letcher, intervened, Jackson agreed to stay in the army, and while Loring would be transferred. Loring was promoted to major general on February 16, 1862, and, after briefly serving at Suffolk, on May 8 given command of the Department of Southwestern Virginia. That November, he was sent west to serve in the Army of Mississippi under Gen. John C. Pemberton, commanding a division. His troops were cut off from the army’s main body, partially because he disagreed with Pemberton about tactics, at the Battle of Baker’s Creek, the decisive Union victory that cleared the way for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to besiege Vicksburg. This allowed Loring’s division to escape the fate of being contained in Vicksburg and eventually captured in July 1863 when the stronghold fell. After Baker’s Creek, Loring commanded his division under Gens. Joseph E. Johnston and Leonidas Polk. When Polk was killed, Loring ascended to command his Army of Mississippi, which by that time was a corps in the Army of Tennessee, and served under Johnston and later Gen. John B. Hood as they attempted to thwart Gen. William T. Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas. Loring was the senior major general in Johnston’s command when he surrendered at Durham Station, North Carolina, in April 1865. After the war, Loring continued his military career, heading to Egypt in 1869 and reaching the rank of brigadier general in the army of the Khedive, for whom he commanded a division with distinction. Loring returned to the United States in 1879, and five years later wrote of his experiences abroad in a book entitled, “A Confederate Soldier in Egypt.” Loring died in New York City of a heart attack on December 30, 1886. He is buried in St. Augustine, Florida. (Bio by Bill Battle)
Leadership: 4
Tactical: 5
Initiative: 4
Command: 4
Cavalry:
Start date: 9
Teaches: Random, Random
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