Soldiers in American History - Page 3

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He was soon appointed as a Colonel in June, 1861 and on August 7, was appointed as a brigadier general of volunteers. Sent to the front, he had a number of successes in the Western Theater, culminating in the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1863. Grant personally supervised the 1864 Overland Campaign against General Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia. Grants tactics of dividing and destroying the Confederate armies finally help to bring the war to an end in 1865.

Grant's success and war-hero status propelled him to the White House in 1868, when he was elected as the 18th President. However, his two terms were some of the rockiest in American history. Politically inexperience, he first had problems dealing with Congress; however remained popular with the people and was re-elected in 1872. His second term was plagued by corruption and scandal, and was harshly criticized for the way he dealt with the situation.

After his second term of Presidency was complete, Grant became a partner in a financial firm, which went bankrupt. About the same time he learned that he had cancer of the throat and began writing his recollections to pay off his debts and provide for his family, racing against death to produce a memoir that ultimately earned nearly $450,000. Soon after completing the last page, he died on April 23, 1885.

He led a number of campaigns and battles during the Civil War, including the Valley Campaign, first and second battles of Bull Run, Antietam and Fredericksburg. It was during the Battle of Bull Run when Jackson assumed his nickname, when Brigadier-General Barnard E. Bee stated, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall."

He died on May 10, 1863 after being shot by "friendly fire" at the Battle of Chancellorsville.  A Southern hero, military historians consider him to be one of the most gifted tactical commanders in U.S. history.

Lane's Brigade, aka: Kansas Brigade (1861) - After the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri on August 10, 1861, the Union army retreated. With the Kansas border exposed and General Sterling Price's men threatening the "free-soilers" of Kansas, General James H. Lane began the work of organizing troops for defense. He quickly began recruiting and within a short time, the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh regiments were ready for service. Lane took command of some 1,500 troops at Fort Scott, Kansas and led them into action against General Price in the Battle of Dry Wood Creek on September 2, 1861. Though, his troops lost the battle, Lane continued on, fighting through the towns of Paninsville,  Butler, Harrisonville, and Clinton, Missouri, before he ended his campaign by the burning of Osceola on September 23, 1861. The troops continued to pursue Price's men for a time but Lane was severely criticized for his actions in Osceola and soon sent back to Kansas. Lane was most severely condemned by General Henry Halleck, Commander of the Department of Missouri, who believed that the attacks made by Lane and Colonel Charles Jennison, aggravated anti-Union sentiments in Missouri and intensified resistance to federal authority in the state. Of their actions, he would state: "The course pursued by those under Lane and Jennison has turned against us many thousand who were formerly Union men. A few more such raids will make this State unanimous against us." Thus, Lane's Brigade was ended.

However, when Fort Sumter fell on April 14, 1861 and it seemed apparent that Virginia would secede, Lee turned down the offer of a top command and resigned from the U.S. Army on April 20. Three days later he took charge of the Virginia state forces. Upon the formation of the Confederate States Army, he was one if its first five full generals. His first field assignment was as loss when he led his men to defeat in the Battle of Cheat Mountain. He then was working to organize the coastal defenses, but hampered by the lack of an effective Confederate Navy, he became a military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

In the spring of 1862, commanding the Army of Northern Virginia, he led his men in the battles of the Peninsula Campaign. By August, he had defeated the Union Army at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Manassas II), before invading Maryland and fighting in the Battle of Antietam. In May, 1863, Lee, along with General Stonewall Jackson, made news with their dramatic victory over a larger force at Chancellorsville, Virginia.

Lee continued to lead his troop in a number of battles throughout the war. He was promoted to General-in-Chief of the Confederate forces on January 31, 1865. But for the the South, it was too late, as its army was devastated by casualties, disease and desertion. When the Union attack on Petersburg, Virginia was successful on April 2, 1865, Lee abandoned Richmond and retreated west. A week later, his forces were surrounded, and he surrendered them to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, at the Appomattox Court House.

After the war, Lee moved to a friend's plantation in Cartersville, Virginia, as his own had been seized by Union forces. In October, 1865, he became the president of the Washington College (later renamed the Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia, a job he retained until his death.  In late September, 1870, he suffered a stroke and on October 12th he died. He was buried beneath the Lee Chapel at the University, where his body remains today.

The most celebrated general of the South during the Civil War, he became even respected after his surrender, for his character, devotion to duty, and brilliant battle successes. Today, a number of monuments attest to this fact, and his birthday is commemorated as a holiday in five southern states.

Isaiah Mays (1858-1925) - Born in Carters Bridge, Virginia on February 16, 1858, Mays grew up to fight as a Buffalo Soldier. On May 11, 1889 he was serving as a Corporal in Company B of the 24th Infantry, when he and several others in his regiment were asked to escort Army Paymaster, Major Joseph Washington Wham and a strongbox carrying more than $28,000 in gold and silver coins, from Fort Grant to Fort Thomas. However, when the caravan was about 15 miles from Pima, Arizona they were ambushed by bandits and a gun battle ensued, in what is known as the Wham Paymaster Robbery. In the bitter engagement, eight members of the escort were wounded, including Sergeant Benjamin Brown, Mays' superior, and the bandits made off with the payroll. Corporal Isaiah Mays, though shot in both legs, walked and crawled two miles to a nearby ranch for help. A year later, he was awarded the Medal of Honor on February 19, 1890. He, and fellow officer, Sergeant Benjamin Brown were the only black infantrymen to receive the Medal of Honor for bravery in the frontier Indian Wars. The money from the robbery was never recovered and no one was ever convicted of the robbery or the shootings.

Thirty-three years after receiving the medal of Honor, in 1923, he to the United States Government for a pension and was denied. Eventually, he became  indigent and was committed to the Arizona State Hospital, which at the time housed not only ill and injured, but also indigents with nowhere else to go. He died at the age of 67 in 1925, and was buried in the Arizona State Hospital Cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona.

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