THE CIVIL WAR: THE TRUE STORY BOOK 1

John Sedgwick: A good and ETHICAL union General

The Killing of Uncle John

Fred L. Ray
Major General John Sedgwick fatally misjudged the accuracy of Confederate sharpshooters at Spotsylvania.

"I beg of you not to go to that angle," said Lieutenant Colonel Martin McMahon. "Every officer who has shown himself there has been hit, both yesterday and to-day." McMahon, Major General John Sedgwick's chief of staff, was referring to a jog in the lines of the Union VI Corps near Laurel Hill, Virginia, where Confederate sharpshooters were particularly troublesome that May 9, 1864. One in particular "killed with every shot" and was "said to have taken twenty lives." Casualties of rank that morning already included a staff officer, Colonel Frederick T. Locke, and one of Sedgwick's brigade commanders, Brig. Gen. William Morris, who had been shot off his horse and severely wounded. "Well, I don't know that there is any reason for my going there," Sedgwick replied.

An hour later, however, smarting under the unceasing hail of lead, he ordered his own skirmish line to move farther out and sent McMahon up to supervise. A line of infantrymen soon filed into position near the point of the angle. "That is wrong," said Sedgwick. "Those troops must be moved farther to the right; I don't wish them to overlap that battery."

"Uncle John," as his men affectionately called him, joined his chief of staff near the guns to oversee the deployment, forgetting his promise of an hour before. On the brow of a low hill 500 yards away, a Confederate rifleman, probably from Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps sharpshooter detachment, noted how the others deferred to two men who had just arrived. He adjusted the sights of his Whitworth rifle and began gently squeezing the trigger.

All this Federal movement drew "a sprinkling fire" from their opponents. Mixed in with the popping of the service Enfields, however, was "a long shrill whistle" of another type of round. Although no one was hit, some of the men instinctively dodged. "What! What! men, dodging this way for single bullets!" said Sedgwick, laughing. "What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Another of the whistling rounds passed close by, even as the general prodded one of the men with his boot. "Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way," he said. He repeated that "they couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." The soldier defended his actions: "General, I dodged a shell once, and if I hadn't, it would have taken my head off. I believe in dodging." Sedgwick, who was in a genial mood, chuckled and said, "All right, my man; go to your place." The sharpshooter, now sure of the range, touched the trigger once more.

John Sedgwick was born in Cornwall Hollow, Conn., in 1813. After a short stint as a teacher, he attended West Point, graduating 24th in his class in 1837, after which he began his military service as an artillery officer. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Sedgwick gained plenty of combat experience prior to the Civil War, serving in the Seminole War and in Mexico, where he earned two brevets for gallantry. Transferring to the cavalry, he participated in various campaigns against the Indians in the West and in the Mormon Expedition.

In April 1861, Sedgwick was promoted to colonel and took over the 1st Cavalry when his commander, Robert E. Lee, resigned. Like many professional soldiers he saw the war as an opportunity to advance quickly through the ranks. By August, he had been appointed brigadier general of volunteers and had been given command of a brigade. That fall he took over a division in the Army of the Potomac after its commander, Charles P. Stone, was arrested, and as such took part in Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Peninsula campaign of 1862. Wounded at Glendale, he received a second star that summer. At Antietam Sedgwick tangled with Stonewall Jackson in the West Wood and came off second best. His division was cut to pieces, and Sedgwick himself, hit by three bullets, was carried unconscious from the field. "If I am ever hit again," he said, "I hope it will settle me at once. I want no more wounds."