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Major General George B. McClellan
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George Brinton
McClellan (1826-1885) - McClellan was
born in Philadelphia on December 3, 1826 to Dr. George McClellan,
a a prominent surgical ophthalmologist and founder of the
Jefferson Medical College, and Elizabeth Steinmetz Brinton McClellan,
daughter of a leading Pennsylvania family. The third of five children,
he first attended the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 13,
planning on studying law. However, after two years, he decided he
wanted to be in the military and was accepted to United States
Military Academy in 1842.
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Graduating second in his class he began his career as a brevet second
lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. While serving in the
Mexican War, he was promoted to Captain and afterwards served as an
instructor at West Point and as a surveyor of potential transcontinental
railroad routes. In 1857, he resigned his commission and became Chief
Engineer of the
Illinois Central Railroad, where he occasionally worked with a lawyer
named Abraham Lincoln. When the Civil War
began, he once again found himself in the military, with President Lincoln
approving him as a Major General in the regular army. He was
outranked only by General-in-Chief Winfield Scott.
He organized the famous Army of the Potomac
and served briefly as the General-in-Chief of the Union Army from November
1861-1862. However, he consistently overestimated his opposing forces and
his military operations were perceived as failures. After the Battle of
Antietam, he was ordered to turn over his command to Ambrose E.
Burnside and await further orders at his home in New Jersey. They never
came.
After his military service, he was an
unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States in 1864 and was
a Democratic Party politician, who served as the 24th Governor of New
Jersey from 1878-1881.
On October 29, 1885, George Brinton
McClellan died in Orange, New Jersey. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery
in Trenton. |
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Major Frank Joshua North
(1840-1885) – Best known for his organization of a group of
Pawnee
scouts, North was instrumental in the
Indian Wars,
protecting the wagon trails and later, the railroad crews during the
construction of the transcontinental railroad.
Born in Ludlowville, New
York on March 10, 1840, his family moved to Ohio when Frank was just two
years old. They moved again in 1856 to
Nebraska,
where the 16 year-old worked as a transporter, moving goods between Omaha
and Fort Kearny. It was in this capacity that North first made contact
with the local
Pawnee
Indians.
He soon learned their language, so well, that by 1860, he was working at
the
Pawnee
Reservation near Fullerton,
Nebraska as a
clerk in their trading post. Later he became so proficient in the language
that he worked as an interpreter.
In 1864 he accompanied
the first
Pawnee
Scouts to the field under General Samuel R Curtis in an unsuccessful
campaign against the Sioux. Curtis was so impressed with his knowledge of
the
Pawnee,
that he suggested that North organize a company of
Pawnee
scouts to help the army during the
Indian Wars.
When North agreed, he was given the rank of lieutenant. For the next 13
years, North would lead the scouts in a number of campaigns against the
Plains
Indians,
serving in
Nebraska,
Kansas,
and
Wyoming,
receiving promotions to captain and then to major. But by 1877, the Plains
Indians
had all but been subdued and the North and his scouts were mustered out
for the last time.
North then went into
partnership with
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody in a cattle ranch at the
head of Dismal River in Western
Nebraska.
When the pair sold the business in 1882 then served one term in the
Nebraska
Legislature before joining up with
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show as its
Indian Manager.
In 1884 he was severely
injured in a riding accident in Hartford, Connecticut. He was brought home
to Columbus,
Nebraska
where he continued to suffer from the injuries until he died on March 14,
1885.
Marcus A. Reno -
(1834-1889) - A career military
officer in the
Civil War and the Black Hills War
against the Lakota
Sioux and Northern
Cheyenne, Reno is most noted for his
role in the
Battle of
the Little Bighorn.
Born at Carrollton,Illinois on November 15, 1834, Reno attended West Point, where he was
commissioned as a second lieutenant in July, 1857. He served on the
frontier in Oregon before joining the 1st Cavalry when the
Civil War began. By the time the
war was over, he had been promoted to captain and in 1866 was sent to Fort
Vancouver. Two years later he was promoted again to the rank of major and
in December, 1868, joined the 7th Cavalry based at Fort Hayes,
Kansas.
Later he was moved to Fort Abraham Lincoln in
North Dakota,
where he accompanied
Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer on his
Sioux campaign in
1876.
On June 17, 1876,
General George Crook and about 1,000 troops, supported by 300 Crow and Shoshone,
fought against 1,500 members of the
Sioux and
Cheyenne tribes in what is
known as the Battle at Rosebud.
Custer soon headed out to find those
Sioux and
Cheyenne involved at in the battle and on June 25th a
scout reported a large encampment near the Little Bighorn River. Though
the
Indians numbered some 10,000,
Custer assumed the numbers were much
less and instead of waiting for the main army under
General Alfred Terry
to arrive, he decided to attack the encampment immediately. He divided his
men into three groups, one under Reno, another under Captain Frederick Benteen, and led the third.
When Reno soon discovered
he was greatly outnumbered he retreated to the river and was later joined
by Benteen and his men.
Custer continued his attack but, also seriously
outnumbered, he was quickly defeated by about 4,000 warriors. He and all
his 264 men were killed. Reno and Benteen were also attacked and 47 of
them were killed before they were rescued by the arrival of
General Alfred Terry and his army.
After the
Battle of
the Little Bighorn, Reno was heavily criticized for his actions -- accused of
being drunk, a coward, and incompetent. However, this did not stop Reno
replacing
George A. Custer as commander of what was left of the 7th
Cavalry and in official inquiry found him not culpable of any wrong-doing
during the battle. However, in March, 1877, Reno was accused of making
improper advances on the wife of another officer and was suspended without
pay for two years.
In 1880 Reno was accused
of striking a junior officer and being drunk on duty. Found guilty, he was
dismissed from the army on April 1, 1880. In his last years Reno made
strenuous efforts to clear his name but this campaign was unsuccessful.
Marcus Reno died of cancer in Washington D.C. on March 30, 1889.
In 1967, a US military
review board reversed Reno's court martial decision after reviewing
original documents and testimony officially changing his general discharge
status to "honorable." Originally buried in an unmarked grave in
Washington's Oak Hill Cemetery, his remains were re-interred later that
year in Custer National Cemetery, within the
Little
Bighorn Battlefield.
 William
Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) - Born Tecumseh Sherman in Lancaster,
Ohio on February 8, 1820 to Judge Charles Robert Sherman and Mary Hoyt
Sherman, William was one of 11 children. When his father died when he was
nine, he was taken in and raised by a family friend. He joined the
Military Academy at West Point at the age of 16. Upon graduation in 1840,
he entered the Army as a second lieutenant and saw action in the Second
Seminole War. Later he served at several posts in the West.
In 1853, Sherman resigned his military commission and
became president of a bank in San Francisco. However, the bank failed in
the financial panic of 1857. He then practiced law in Leavenworh,
Kansas,
a venture that was unsuccesful. In 1859, he accepted a job as the first
superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military
Academy, a position he held until the outbreak of the Civil War.
On May 14, 1861, he accepted a commission as a Colonel
in the 13th U.S. Infantry regiment. In the Civil War
he fought in the First Battle of Bull Run,
Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga
and many others, and was promoted to a Brigadier General.
When the
Civil War
was over,
Ulysses
S. Grant promoted
Sherman first to Lieutenant General in 1866, and Commanding General of the
U.S. Army in 1869. Operating in the West, he deployed
troops to protect transcontinental railroad
workers from
Indians
who feared that the railroad would mean further encroachment on their
territory. He also established military outposts across the region,
expanding the network of federal authority.
Sherman retired
from the army on February 8, 1884 and lived most of the rest of his life
in New York City. He died there on February 19, 1891 and his body was
transported to
St. Louis,
Missouri,
where he buried in Calvary Cemetery.
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