Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Civil War Oddities #29


The first Confederate general to be killed was Robert S. Garnett, shot at Corrick’s Ford, Virginia, before the first battle of Manassas/ Bull Run. He was first buried in Baltimore, and then secretly moved to a Brooklyn cemetery plot beside his wife. The family, because of strong wartime sectional feeling, did not reveal his identity. His resting place remained generally unknown until 1959.

The youngest Confederate general was William Paul Roberts of North Carolina, a cavalry commander who went to war at twenty. His claim to the title has been established only recently through a study of vital statistics.

Of the 435 Confederate generals, 77 were killed or died of wounds during the war. The last surviving lieutenant general of the Southern armies was Simon Bolivar Buckner, who lived until 1914; his son and namesake was killed as a general in World War II.