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Gil R. -> RE: Maj Gen Don Carlos Buell (4/15/2007 2:23:39 AM)
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Okay, Buell's ready:
Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell (b. 1818, d. 1898). Buell was born near Marietta, Ohio, and lived in Indiana for a time before the Civil War. He graduated from West Point in 1841 and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the infantry. In the Mexican War, he was brevetted three times for bravery and was wounded at Churubusco. Between the wars he served in the U.S. Army Adjutant General’s office and as an adjutant in California. In 1859, Buell was sent by Secretary of War John B. Floyd on a secret mission to Charleston so that he could both evaluate Maj. Robert Anderson’s garrison at Fort Moultrie and assess the mood in the city; it was Buell’s determination that if the Federal garrison appeared to be threatened it should relocate to Fort Sumter. Commissioned a brigadier general on May 17, 1861, Buell was assigned to the Union’s Army of the Potomac at the recommendation of Gen. George B. McClellan that September. In this capacity, he was an early organizer of this army and commanded one of its divisions before succeeding Gen. William T. Sherman as the head of the Department of the Ohio – which was eventually designated the Army of the Ohio and finally the Army of the Cumberland – for operations in eastern Tennessee. Buell essentially disregarded his orders and moved instead against Nashville, which he captured on February 26, 1862 against little opposition, since Confederate attentions were elsewhere at this time, as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was capturing Forts Henry and Donelson nearby. In March, Buell was promoted to major general of volunteers, and the following month he reinforced Grant at the Battle of Shiloh, helping him to defeat the Confederates. Buell considered – and let it be known – that his arrival was the primary reason that Grant avoided a major defeat, leading Grant to develop a professional grudge against Buell that would haunt his future career. Buell next served under Gen. Henry W. Halleck, who in March had been appointed overall commander of the western theater, at the Battle of Corinth that May. In June and July, Buell started a leisurely movement of four divisions towards Chattanooga, but his supply lines were disrupted by Confederate cavalry under Gen. Nathan B. Forrest and his offensive ground to a halt. In the fall of that year, Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg invaded Kentucky and Buell was forced to fall back as far north as the Ohio River. Buell fought Bragg at the indecisive Battle of Perryville on October 8, which halted the Confederate invasion and forced them back into Tennessee, but he failed to pursue Bragg's withdrawal. Because of that decision, he was relieved of command and replaced by Gen. William S. Rosecrans. Buell spent the next year and a half in Indianapolis, in military limbo, hoping that a military commission would exonerate him of blame, accepting his claim that he had not pursued Bragg because he lacked supplies. Exoneration never came, and he left military service in May 1864. Although he had been offered a new command at the express recommendation of Grant, Buell declined it, saying that it would be degradation to serve under either Sherman or Gen. Edward R.S. Canby because he ranked them both. In his memoirs, Grant called this "the worst excuse a soldier can make for declining service." Following the war Buell lived in Indiana and then in Kentucky, employed in the iron and coal industry as president of the Green River Iron Company. From 1885 to 1889 he was a government pension agent. He died at his home in Rockport, Kentucky, and is buried in St. Louis at Bellefontaine Cemetery. (Bio by Scott Jennings)
Leadership: 5
Tactical: 3
Initiative: 2
Command: 5
Cavalry: 0
Teaches: Foragers (17), Random (-1)
“Death” date: 80
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