Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
One day during the summer of 1863, in Union-occupied Nashville, Tenn., Anna Rhoads visited the headquarters of Gen. Walter C. Whitaker and requested a meeting with him. Perhaps to her surprise, he granted one.
A Kentuckian known for his volatile temper and a fondness for alcohol, Whitaker was moved as the earnest young woman recounted the grim errand that prompted her visit. "Mrs. Rhoads is here with the body of her husband, Lt. Rhoads of the 7th Penn. Cav.," wrote Whitaker to Gen. Robert S. Granger, an old West Pointer in command of the military district that included Nashville. "He was a gallant officer. She has come from Pennsylvania to take his body home and is short of money." Whitaker added, "I send this note to you hoping in its perusal you may find it proper to give her transportation for herself and the body of her husband."
Anna had seen little of her husband since their marriage two years earlier. Back in the summer of 1861, she wed Amos B. Rhoads in the bustling Pennsylvania town of Williamsport. She was then an 18-year-old schoolteacher who eked out a living with her widowed mother and five siblings. Amos, six years her senior, worked in a local foundry as a molder of iron castings.
The wedding took place on Aug. 8, 1861, about a week after Amos returned home from a three-month stint in the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry. The apex of the regiment's brief existence occurred on July 2, 1861, when its rank and file skirmished with Confederates in Virginia near Falling Waters. The rebels were under the command of Col. Thomas J. Jackson, who would receive the nom de guerre Stonewall for his steadfast defense at the Battle of Bull Run a few weeks later.
A few months after Amos returned from the war, local Army recruiters in Williamsport came looking for volunteers to join a new regiment. Amos joined a company that became part of the Keystone State's Seventh Cavalry. The rank and file elected officers, a common practice among volunteers, and voted Amos first lieutenant.
The Seventh went to Tennessee and soon crossed sabers with bands of butternut horse soldiers commanded by some of the Confederacy's finest, including Nathan Bedford Forrest. On July 13, 1862, Forrest's men surprised and captured the Union garrison at Murfreesboro, where Amos and some of his fellow Pennsylvanians were stationed. They fell into enemy hands.
Amos spent the rest of the year as a prisoner of war in Georgia and Virginia, and was exchanged and sent to the North in January 1863. It was about this time that he posed for his carte de visite photograph in the New York City studio of Mathew B. Brady. He may have visited Anna before he returned to his comrades in the Seventh, who had remained on duty in Tennessee.
Five months later, on June 27, 1863, Amos was part of a 225-man detachment from the Seventh that participated with other federal cavalry units in a noteworthy attack against enemy infantry and artillery at Shelbyville, about 50 miles south of Nashville. The Confederate cavalryman John A. Wyeth described the engagement in his autobiography and an article in Harper's Weekly magazine. "I witnessed one of the most magnificent cavalry charges of the entire war," Wyeth declared. "Had we been wise our small band would have scattered at once into the woods to the east and saved itself, instead of waiting to be ridden over."
Wyeth watched as Amos Rhoads and the other Union cavalry approached along a main road on the outskirts of town. "On either side of the highway, in columns of fours, they advanced at a steady gallop, until they passed into the opening in a line of earth works, through which the main road led, some two or three hundred yards in our advance. As soon as they reached this point inside the works, still on the full run, they deployed from columns of fours into line of battle, like the opening of a huge fan. The movement was made with as much precision as if it had been done in an open plain, on dress parade, or in some exhibition of discipline and drill."
Wyeth observed that the federals came on rapidly with their sabers raised high. "It was a glorious sight, and the thunder of their horses' hoofs was the only sound. Not a word of command, not a huzza from them, or a yell of defiance from us do I recall. The truth is, there was no defiance from us, only the courage born of despair, for we knew we were doomed."
Wyeth reported, "Our orders were to stand until they approached within fifty yards, when we were to empty our rifles, draw our pistols, and then sauve qui peut!"
The silent fan of federals thundered down upon them. Wyeth and his comrades braced for action. "It was only a short space of time, probably the fraction of a minute, until they were so near that we could distinguish their faces, and in fact their individual features," Wyeth recalled.
He continued, "Leveling our guns at them we fired our final volley, and by the time our horses' heads were faced to the rear, they, coming at full speed, were upon us." Some of the Confederates fled into Shelbyville. Others, including Wyeth, took off into the countryside and went into hiding.
Rhoads and the rest of the Seventh paused at this juncture. They received new orders to pursue the retreating enemy into town, where a large number of Confederate infantry and an artillery battery of four cannon had massed.
The Seventh charged straight through the center of town, and it was supported by other troops that attacked along side streets to left and right of the Pennsylvanians. Most of the Confederates surrendered or skedaddled.
But a pocket of determined rebels continued the fight from a railway station and an adjacent brick structure. Rhoads and his company attacked the station from behind to force them out. A skirmish ensued, and six Pennsylvanians were shot and killed, including Rhoads. According to the senior officer of the Seventh, Lt. Col. William B. Sipes, the dead were buried before the regiment left Shelbyville.
In addition to the six killed, the Seventh suffered 10 wounded during the entire engagement. Total losses for all Union forces involved amounted to 35. Estimated Confederate casualties ran in the hundreds.
The charge at Shelbyville was the high point of the Middle Tennessee Campaign, a weeklong operation with low casualties commanded by Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland. "Old Rosy," as his soldiers called him, skillfully maneuvered Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg and his army out of the region, and threatened the safety of rebel-held Chattanooga.
Related
Disunion Highlights
Explore multimedia from the series and navigate through past posts, as well as photos and articles from the Times archive.
News of the victory in Tennessee quickly spread to the North. But reports of the glorious victories at the Battle of Gettysburg and the Siege of Vicksburg the following week completely overshadowed the achievement of Rosecrans and his army.
In the midst of the wild celebrations that erupted across the Union in the wake of the twin victories, Anna Rhoads received word of the death of Amos. Smart, savvy and fiercely independent, she set out for the South to recover his remains.
Details of her journey are sketchy. One solid piece of evidence is the note written by General Whitaker to the district commander, General Granger. Whitaker requested that Anna be furnished transportation for herself and the body to Louisville, Ky., from where she would likely continue her journey to Williamsport. Granger denied the request. "We have no authority for transporting the body of her husband," he scribbled on the back of Whitaker's memo.
In the end, Amos's remains were buried in Tennessee. He was most likely interred in the Nashville area and later removed to the Stones River National Cemetery. According to a government burial list, the exact location of his grave in the cemetery is unknown.
Anna went to Washington, where she landed a job at the Treasury Department. At some point, she met Henry Marcotte, a lieutenant who had been wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. The two married in October 1865. Henry continued on in the regular Army, and Anna accompanied him to various frontier posts.
They eventually settled in St. Augustine, Fla. Anna rose to local prominence as the editor and publisher of The Tatler of Florida Society, a popular society newspaper published weekly during the winter tourist season. A crusader for civic responsibility, she was active in several organizations. After Henry died in 1923, she moved to New York City and lived with her only child, a daughter from her second marriage. Anna died in 1935 at age 93. She was buried alongside Henry in Arlington National Cemetery.
Follow Disunion at twitter.com/NYTcivilwar or join us on Facebook.
Sources: James G. Wilson and John Fiske, eds., "Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography," Vol. VI; Anna M. Rhoads pension record, National Archives and Records Administration; 1860 Federal Census; John F. Meginness, ed., "History of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania; Amos B. Rhoads military service record, National Archives and Records Administration; William B. Sipes, "The Seventh Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Cavalry: Its Record, Reminiscences and Roster"; John A. Wyeth, "With Sabre and Scalpel: The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon"; Harper's Weekly, June 18, 1898; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; Joseph G. Vale, "Minty and the Cavalry: A History of Cavalry Campaigns in the Western Armies"; William F. Beyer and Oscar F. Keydel, eds., "Deeds of Valor: How America's Civil War Heroes Won the Congressional Medal of Honor"; Thomas Graham, "Flagler's Magnificent Hotel Ponce De Leon"; Sidney W. Martin, "Florida's Flagler"; New York Times, Nov. 11, 1935.
Ronald S. Coddington is the author of "Faces of the Civil War" and "Faces of the Confederacy." His most recent book is "African American Faces of the Civil War." He writes "Faces of War," a column for the Civil War News.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Opinionator | Disunion: ‘A Gallant Officer’
Dengan url
http://opinimasyarakota.blogspot.com/2013/06/opinionator-disunion-aa-gallant-officera.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Opinionator | Disunion: ‘A Gallant Officer’
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Opinionator | Disunion: ‘A Gallant Officer’
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar