Civil War Oddities #73

Although many amputees and cripples gave up, others did not. Had all commanders minus the use of as leg or an arm been brought together, they’d have been numerous enough to form their own brigade.

Union Brig. General Egbert B. Brown took a direct hit in the shoulder at Springfield, Missouri, in January 1863. For the duration of the war he had only one usable arm, but he sometimes commanded cavalry forces.

Civil War Oddities #72

Union Brig. General Davis Tillson suffered a pre-war injury that led to amputation of a foot. Hobbling from battery to battery, he commanded artillery that defended both Cincinnati and Knoxville.

At least three well-known Confederates could sympathize with Tillson. Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens suffered all his life from a severe case of clubfoot. Col. Roger W. Hanson had “an especially peculiar gait” as a result of taking a bullet in his leg during a pre-war duel. Brig. General Henry H. Walker lost a foot as a result if a wound at Spotsylvania.

Civil War Oddities #71

Francis R. Nicholls was a Confederate double amputee who wouldn’t give up. During the first battle of Winchester he lost an arm, and at Chancellorsville a Federal shell caused him to lose a foot. Assigned to post duty for a period, the brigadier became head of conscription in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Returning to Louisiana and admitting that he was “only the broken remnant of the man who marched off to fight the Yankees,” he served two terms as governor before becoming head of the state supreme court.

Civil War Oddities #70

Guiding his horse during the heat of battle, a line officer sometimes wished for an extra arm. That way he could use his revolver while holding his reins and waving signals to his aides.

Confederate Major General John B. Hood tops the list of those who kept on going with inadequate body equipment. At Gettysburg, an injury to his left arm left it all but useless. Chickamauga then cost him his right leg, which was amputated very close to his trunk. Hood therefore led Confederates in the battle of Atlanta while strapped into his saddle, wearing a five thousand-dollar French made cork leg.

Though notoriously temperamental, drugs may have affected his judgment. Trying to cope with constant pain, he used laudanum in such quantities that some medical analysts suggest it may have produced euphoria.

Civil War Oddities #69

Scores of Federal officers were awarded post-war brevets as brigadier generals. Some of the men who received the strictly honorary title had long and distinguished records; others knew how to pull political strings.

Because he was not among those to whom: “honorary and temporary promotions” were given, the name of Col. Eli Lilly does not appear in standard Civil War dictionaries and encyclopedias. In postwar years, however, the man who was bypassed when congressmen and senators handed out large numbers of brevets headed an Indianapolis pharmaceutical firm. Because his corporation was a pioneer in making and distributing insulin and other life-saving medications, the name of Eli Lilly is now familiar around the world.

Civil War Oddities #68

Daily prodding by New York Tribune headlines that demanded “on to Richmond” probably contributed to the Federal fiasco at Bull Run in July 1861. Publisher Horace Greely heartily supported the war effort at that time, but he parted company with Lincoln over the issue of slavery.

Former warmonger Greeley, whose newspaper is widely regarded as having been the most influential in the nation, eventually headed a Northern movement whose aim was to affect a negotiated peace. After the war, he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis despite warnings that such a move could cut circulation of the Tribune in half.

Nominated for the presidency by liberal Republicans in 1872 and supported by Democrats, Greely might have gone to the White House had his opponent been anyone other than Ulysses S. Grant.

Civil War Oddities #67

John Charles Fremont, known as “the Pathfinder,” explored the West as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers Corps. By the time pioneer settlers in California elected him governor he was already nationally famous. Republicans turned to him in 1865 and made him their first nominee for the U.S. presidency. Small wonder, therefore, that in July 1861 Lincoln made him a major general and put him in command of the Western Department.

Fremont may have considered himself to have a wider following that the president who gained his office by support of less than 40 percent of the nation’s voters. Without consulting his commander in chief, he issued an August 1861 emancipation proclamation that Lincoln forced him to rescind. Embittered at Washington and chafing at having been defeated at Wilson’s Creek, the Union’s most notable active general at that time resigned after just five months in uniform.