|
Gil R. -> RE: csa brig gen robert s garnett (5/19/2008 9:16:52 PM)
|
Here's Garnett, to which I added some contextual information, but otherwise barely changed. I hope that you don't mind my putting those opinions about McClellan in your mouth (so to speak, er, type).
If one wants to get technical about it, since the July scenario begins in "late July" Garnett should never even enter the game, but that date is enough of an abstraction that we can imagine him somehow surviving that Union volley on July 13... (He'll never be in any later scenarios, though.)
Brig. Gen. Robert Selden Garnett (b. 1819, d. 1861). A career mililtary man, Garnett has the dubious honor of being the first general killed during the Civil War. Born December 16, 1819 in Essex County, Virginia, he attended West Point and in 1841 graduated with his cousin Richard Brooke Garnett, the future Confederate general who would famously die in Picket’s Charge. First assigned to the 4th Artillery as 2nd lieutenant, he was transferred to New York and served there during the Canada border disturbances, and then later assigned to Ft. Monroe, Virginia in 1842. Over the next couple of years, Garnett became an assistant instructor in infantry tactics at West Point, army recruiter, and aide-de-camp to Gen. John E. Wool, before joining Gen. Zachary Taylor in the Mexican-American War. Garnett received two brevets for gallant conduct at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista during this conflict. After the war, he was transferred to the 7th Infantry and moved to Florida to fight Seminoles in 1850, and later was sent to the Presidio in Monterey, California, where he would help in the design of the Great Seal of the State of California. In 1851, Garnett was promoted to captain and sent to the Texas frontier. He returned to West Point in 1852 as Commandant of Cadets and an instructor of infantry tactics until transferring back to Ft. Monroe in 1855. Garnett was made captain in the 1st Cavalry that year then promoted to major in the 9th Infantry and in 1856 was sent west to serve in the Yakima War in the Washington Territory, where he constructed Ft. Simcoe. In 1858, Garnett requested a leave of absence due to the illness of his wife and son, an illness that would take both their lives. He traveled to Europe and returned in 1861, resigning his commission in the U.S. Army after Virginia seceded and becoming Adjutant General under Robert E. Lee, who was commanding Virginia’s forces. Garnett was promoted to brigadier general in the newly-formed Confederate army that June and sent to western Virginia to stop the advance of Union Gen. George B. McClellan, whose goal was both to take control of the strategically vital region and give its citizens the freedom to secede from Virginia and remain in the Union. At the Battle of Rich Mountain on July 11, part of his force under Lt. Col. John Pegram was defeated by a flanking march conceived and executed by McClellan’s subordinate, Gen. William S. Rosecrans. (McClellan, however, would get the largely undeserved credit for the victory and be hailed as a hero by the press and public, and after the disastrous defeat at Manassas ten days later would be called back to Washington, D.C. and given command of the Union army there.) Now isolated, Garnett was forced to evacuate from nearby Laurel Mountain with his forces. On July 13, during a rearguard action around Corrick’s Ford on the Cheat River Garnett was struck down by a Union volley while he was commanding his skirmishers. Union Col. Ebenezer Dumont of the 7th Indiana regiment, a comrade of Garnett’s in the Mexican War, found his body, and later a Union honor guard delivered him to his family in Virginia under a flag of truce. Garnett was buried in Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. (Bio by Andrew Thayer)
Leadership: 4
Tactical: 4
Initiative: 3
Command: 4
Cavalry: 0
Teaches: Organized (24), Independent (9)
Start date: 10
|
|
|
|
