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Post by Diane Merkel on May 23, 2006 17:30:06 GMT -6
From a website visitor: I am looking for information on Custer at Gettysburg. Custer pushed two wagons of Confederate wounded over a cliff. Confederate General John Daniel Imboden confronted Custer and pointed a pistol point blank at him, but the gun misfired. Do you know where I can get Information about this?
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Post by El Crab on May 23, 2006 18:56:17 GMT -6
Wow.
Just did some reading. Custer not only did exactly that, singlehandedly pushing two wagons full of wounded Confederates off of a sheer cliff, but he slapped a baby right after. And his reason for pushing the wagons over the cliff, besides hating the South? He was enjoying a BBQ, and the sounds of the creaking wagons and groaning wounded were disturbing his lunch of BBQ'd baby kittens.
After pushing the wagons over the cliff and slapping the baby, he sat back down to finish his meal, rejoining his comrades, time travel enthusiasts Fidel Castro and David Berkowitz.
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Post by alfuso on May 23, 2006 19:21:10 GMT -6
Maybe that really was Custer disguised as Forrest at Fort Pillow!
And al therse years I missed it.
alfuso
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Post by Jas. Watson on May 24, 2006 8:35:21 GMT -6
Am I missing something here? What cliff in Gettysburg? There ain't any. This is weird--reading this right after reading 'Custer's secret diary and Indian carnival' on another thread. (Shakes head)
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Post by elisabeth on May 24, 2006 9:29:54 GMT -6
Could the story come vaguely from this? tinyurl.com/s366bWe have the retreat from Gettysburg, we have cliffs, we have wagons of wounded, we have Imboden ...
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Post by Diane Merkel on May 24, 2006 14:34:24 GMT -6
Great find, Elisabeth! That's a fascinating account. Even more interesting is the story that is linked in the first paragraph: The Retreat from Gettysburg
By Brig. General John Imboden C.S.A. (1887) Here is an excerpt from near the end of his account: My whole force engaged, Wagoner's included, did not exceed three thousand men. The ruse practiced by showing a formidable line on the left, then withdrawing it to fight on the right, together with our numerous artillery, 23 guns, led to the belief that our force was much greater. By extraordinary good fortune we had thus saved all of General Lee’s trains. A bold charge at any time before sunset would have broken our feeble lines, and then we should all have fallen an easy prey to the Federals. The next day our army arrived from Gettysburg, and the country is familiar with the way it escaped across the Potomac on the night of the 13th of July [emphasis added]. Imboden does not even mention Custer, so the story that started this thread is another anti-Custer fable. I urge anyone who is interested in the Civil War to read General Imboden's account of his return with the wounded. Northerner or Southerner, you will feel the pain.
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Post by Tony on May 25, 2006 11:57:21 GMT -6
I have read some off the wall stuff pertainig to Custer, but this is the worst. It is a complete false hood. Read 'Custer Victorious" to see the important role Custer played in defeating Lee at Gettysburg.
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 25, 2006 12:28:19 GMT -6
The story is rather typical and, I'm willing to bet, a Southern War Fable that many rational people believe. But it's only preposterous because of the inclusion of a supposed confrontation between Imboden and Custer which both survive and neither a prisoner.
It's clearly Southern because John Daniel Imhoden (as opposed to John Xepheadell Imboden and Qudihople-Mendes Daniel Imhoden, two other Confederate Generals also fleeing) is graced with the three names to no known point. That and the confrontation of elevated Southern Honor over crass Yankee power.
And yet the story could be entirely true, depending on how you read it and your point of view.
The wounded Rebs were in wagons on a dark, rainy night being pursued and chased at speed in mountains by Union cavalry at some point known to be commanded by Custer. There seems to be, from the referenced URL, a certain number who didn't make it to safety. If you were being chased under those conditions and went off the road - say, on the deep side of an arguable cliff - it's not hard to see how this came to be told as "Custer drove us off the cliff" and later embellished some.
No, Custer isn't responsible and, yes, he is, all at the same time.
It still annoys people when told that American submarines surfaced and machine-gunned the survivors of torpedoed Japanese civilian ships, given the captains involved were held up as impeccable heroes for decades and that particular action was reserved in the public mind for Nazi U-boat skippers.
I don't find it hard to believe that after prolonged stress in combat, good people can do very bad things sometimes. And I find it very hypocritical and unfair to feign horror at the thought.
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Post by alfuso on May 25, 2006 20:27:50 GMT -6
darkcloud
wasn't "feigned" horror, DC. It was the idea that Custer would do such a thing *on purpose*
alfuso
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Post by alfuso on May 25, 2006 20:37:55 GMT -6
Tony the worse slander of Custer I have ever read can be found in
UNION COLLEGE'S CLASS OF 1868 -- by John Lubetkin; Lubetkin wrote one of the most savage and slanderous looks at GAC I've have ever read, comparing Custer to Jefrry Dahmer and a WWII Japanese war criminal. Not even Van DeWater sullied Custer that badly.
I'm astounded that, since his book came out, no one has taken him to task on his ferocious and one-sided slandering of Custer in that one chapter.
I did, in 1997. My letter to him then follows. I never received a reply and didn't expect to.
Sir:
Looking to gather more information from diverse sources and points of view on the Yellowstone Expeditions of 1872 and 1873, I purchased your book, UNION COLLEGE'S CLASS OF 1868. I was immediately heartened by your preface, part of which states:
"For me, there is nothing duller than sanitized, politically correct, history that debunks, discredits, second-guesses and heavy-handedly imposes current cultural values in judging long-ago actions." And there was also that magic word: "balance." I crave balance in historical research.
And so I read with fascination, treated to some fine anecdotes on graduates of the school; names I knew but had little background on, and names I did not know but was pleased to be introduced to.
Until I came to the chapter on the 1873 Yellowstone Expedition. Suddenly, the featured player was not a graduate of Union College, but a graduate of West Point's Class of 1861 -- George Armstrong Custer. And you had some decidedly strong and positive facts about him. So I was astonished to find that Custer was the prime trouble maker on that Expedition. That this lying, conniving brat was the source of just about all of the problems. Curiously, I'd been under the impression that there were relatively few problems. Yet, wasn't the Expedition stalled at one point for some days because Stanley was "indisposed"? And wasn't the Government paying a tidy sum per day to the steamboat that was also idled during that time? How is this Custer's fault? Because he worked Stanley into such a fury that the man put Custer under arrest -- for loaning out a Government horse to a civilian, which Stanley had also done -- and assigned him and the 7th Cavalry to the rear of the Expedition when the Cavalry was needed in the van, where it belongs? Seems to me that in his haste to punish Custer (because Stanley actually had become fixated on Custer's portable stove -- for which Custer had Stanley's permission), it was Stanley who jeopardized the Expedition.
Surely, you didn't mean to leave out that it was Stanley who, after he sobered up, abjectly apologized to Custer. And that the rest of the Expedition continued on fairly good terms; that Custer's letters home rarely chastised Stanley, indeed, one of them pointed out that, when sober, Stanley was a fine commander and a well-dispositioned man. Yet Stanley's letters continued to rip Custer.
For someone whose preface includes a philosophy of a "reasonable sense of balance," the rest of this chapter comes across a bit one-sided. In a chapter otherwise devoted to 1873, we get a profile of the Civil War Custer, with sentences neatly set up to make it look as though he brutalized his men during the Civil War. That, by "midpoint in the Civil War, Custer had so much blood on his hands that he washed his hands compulsively." But wasn't Custer a redhead, with that sensitive, freckled redhead skin that sunburns easily and dries out?
Why didn't you balance this with that any "brutalizing" of his men Custer did was after the Civil War, in Texas, when the volunteers, who wanted to go home, mutinied and regular punishment was not working? Or that men, later "executed," had deserted in broad daylight, in view of the entire regiment, taking horses and equipment with them. Or that Custer's killing of Indians was limited to the Washita, which was arguably a Military Target harboring Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and a white captive. Or that after the Washita, Custer spent the rest of the winter of 1868-69 negotiating and not a drop more blood was spilled by him. Or that the 19th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry labelled Custer a "coward" for not attacking a village when the wanted him to. That he didn't fight Indians again until 1873 and that was because the Indians attacked him.
I suspect, however, that this doesn't fit your Dorian Gray picture of Custer.
Your own preface speaks of "not heavy-handedly imposing current cultural values in judging long-ago actions" then you go on to interpret that "1000 yard stare," which we see in all men who have fought in war, is in Custer the "unfocused eyes of a killer." In doing so, you do a shameful disservice to all men who have served their country in war and ended up with that same unfocused look.
Yet in the same chapter, you laud Nathan Bedford Forrest, a men who terrorized his own men by hitting and kicking them when in fits of temper and who once killed one of his own men in hand-to-hand combat, not a duel. Let's consider Mosby, who had in school shot a man, fully intending to kill him. He came to the Civil War already a "killer." But no, only in Custer is this the look of a cold-blooded killer who shot a man in the back while he was "attempting to escape." Conveniently leaving out that that man was a fully armed enemy officer. So, soldiers should let armed enemies escape in war?
In my 35 years of studying Custer and his era, I have seen him slandered and trashed and I usually consider the sources. But never have I seen such a savaging as you do in comparing Custer to a "serial murderer." To Jeffrey Dahmer and a WWII Japanese Army mass murderer who liked to cut off the heads of POW's with a sword! This, in the face of your own preface which states you do not like "second-guessing" or applying 20th Century values to "long-ago actions."
So, now Custer's hunting enthusiasm, which he shared with most of his Victorian counterparts, takes on a dark and sinister meaning. This man who loved horses and dogs killed scores of animals and kept detailed lists. You failed to mention that the typical Victorian sportsman killed scores of animals, all while loving his horses and dogs. That a typical Victorian hunt saw scores, even hundreds, of small birds and animals killed, laid out on the ground and counted and listed. That Victorians were fanatic list makers and stat keepers. No, only in Custer does it take on another meaning -- your personal meaning, leaving out pertinent facts in a blatant application of 20th Century cultural values on a man produced by the 19th century.
And now Custer's "sudden" new hobby of taxidermy has a deeper meaning. Let's consider what you left out:
1. that in 1873 it was the first time he'd come in contact with people who could teach him the art
2. that Victorian sportsmen covered their walls with their hunting trophies
3. that for the first time the Custers had a house in which to mount trophies and
4. that he'd made application to join the Masons and sending gifts of mounted game trophies was one way to remain prominent in the eyes of important people he needed to vouch for him -- a common practice even today. But no, only in Custer does it take on darkly sinister psychobabble undertones: keeping his trophies on his walls is akin to JEFFREY DAHMER keeping his refrigerator full!
That is the single most disgusting and dishonorable agenda I have ever seen regarding Custer and you have nothing but your own twisted speculation for such an accusation.
Shame on you.
alfuso
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Post by ericwittenberg on Feb 12, 2008 13:48:15 GMT -6
I realize that this is an ancient thread and that I am pitching into it very late, but I thought I might be able to shed a little light on the situation and settle the question once and for all.
By way of introduction, I have spent more than 15 years researching and writing about the retreat from Gettysburg. I am co-author of a nearly 600 page book on the topic that includes more than 1200 endnotes that will be out in just over three months. Our bibliography for the book contains nearly 1,000 entries, meaning that I feel reasonably certain that I am familiar with the available literature. In all of those years, and in reviewing all of those sources, I have NEVER seen anything to suggest that the incident described in the first post in this thread ever happened.
Having said that, I can tell you with absolute certainty that there was no episode where Imboden and Custer would even have seen each other, let alone gotten into a personal duel.
Initially, it bears noting that Imboden's brigade did not even arrive in Gettysburg until very late in the day on July 3, meaning that it was neither present nor even available to engage in the fighting on East Cavalry Field on July 3. Imboden met with Robert E. Lee on the night of July 3 to get instructions for his role in the coming retreat of the Army of Northern Virginia.
That night, Robert E. Lee personally gave Imboden the thankless task of escorting a 17-mile long wagon train of wounded (the "WTOW") from Gettysburg to the Potomac River crossings at Williamsport, MD. The main Union pursuit of the WTOW was conducted by two brigades of Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg's 2nd Cavalry Division, along with a couple of independent cavalry detachments, one led by Capt. Ulric Dahlgren and the other led by Capt. Abram Jones of the 1st NY (Lincoln) Cavalry. The route of the WTOW was west along the Chambersburg Pike toward Fayetteville, and then turning south, headed toward Greencastle, PA, across the Mason-Dixon Line, and then on through Cunningham's Crossroads (today, Cearfoss, MD), and on into Williamsport.
The 3rd Cavalry Division (which included the Michigan Cavalry Brigade) was given a different mission on July 4. It was to march toward Emmitsburg, MD, meet up with one of Gregg's brigades, under command of Col. Pennock Huey of the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and then attack the long Confederate wagon train of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps, which was slowly making its way from Fairfield, PA through the Fairfield Gap, up South Mountain, crossing at the Monterey Pass above Waynesboro, and then turning south toward Rouzerville, passing into Maryland just south of there. That wagon train then continued on toward Leitersburg and on into Hagerstown before heading west to Williamsport.
The route taken by the WTOW and the route taken by Ewell's train was separated by nearly twenty miles at all times, and in some instances, more. They never intersected or crossed paths until reaching their destination in Williamsport. Accordingly, there was no way to encounter both without making a very significant cross-country ride through unfriendly territory.
Ewell's train, which did carry some wounded, mostly consisted of baggage, ammunition, and spoils of war taken during the invasion of Pennsylvania. Kilpatrick's division pitched into the train at the Monterey Pass, with Custer's Wolverines doing much of the dismounted fighting on a horrible night marked by pitch blackness, heavy rains and violent thunderstorms. When Kilpatrick's headquarters escort, some troopers of the 1st Ohio Cavalry, finally broke through, he ordered the rest of his command to pitch in. Members of his division rolled full wagons, with their mules still in harness, down the very steep slopes along the Monterey Pass, which is where this legend probably comes from.
The Confederate troops assigned to guard the train were cavalry of the brigades of Brig. Gens. Beverly H. Robertson and William E. "Grumble" Jones, and NOT any of Imboden's men.
The 1st Vermont Cavalry was detached and pounced on another portion of the train at Leitersburg, burning most of that portion.
We have the most detailed tactical telling of the encounter at Monterey Pass yet written in our book, if this is of interest to you.
There was a brief encounter between Kilpatrick's division and Imboden's command at Williamsport, MD late in the day on July 6, after Kilpatrick was repulsed at Hagerstown. Kilpatrick then decided to try to link up with Brig. Gen. John Buford's 1st Cavalry Division, which was then engaged in a brutal fight with Imboden at Williamsport. Kilpatrick was repulsed at Williamsport by the timely arrival of Fitz Lee's brigade. I don't believe that the Wolverines ever engaged with Imboden's men at Williamsport, but rather believe all of their fighting there was with Fitz Lee's men. Thus, there simply was no opportunity for Custer to have had any sort of an encounter with John D. Imboden, and I regret that someone has gotten so horribly confused as to relate something that was utterly impossible as truth.
I hope this helps to clarify this situation.
Eric
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Post by gocav76 on Feb 12, 2008 14:17:49 GMT -6
Eric, I just read this account of how Capt Ulric Dahlgren captured dispatches for General Lee. Its written by John A. Miller. "Captain Ulric Dahlgren of the Union Army was sent on a mission which led him straight to Zora. One of the men in Captain Ulric Dahlgren’s unit, Captain Milton Cline of Indiana had ridden out of Salem with Stuart’s cavalry on June 25, and was an especially resourceful operative. After passing into Maryland, Cline had deserted his "comrades" and had ridden long and hard to rejoin the Army of the Potomac in Frederick. In that city he relayed to Captain Dahlgren a conversation that he had overheard at Stuart’s headquarters about a packet of dispatches en route from Richmond to General Lee. The dispatches, signed by Jefferson Davis, were to be conveyed across the Potomac by a courier, protected by a cavalry escort, at a specified hour on July 2. From there were to be forwarded to the Army of Northern Virginia headquarters via the Greencastle Turnpike. After hearing his story, General Pleasonton, provided Dahlgren with ten troopers to ride with him to Greencastle and intercept the Rebel mail. Early on June 30, Dahlgren set out, crossing South Mountain at Monterey Pass, Pennsylvania. With Cline and the others he veered northwest through Waynesboro, careful to avoid enemy patrols. Late in the morning of July 2, Captain Dahlgren’s company entered Greencastle, some twelve miles west of the site where Lee and Meade were locked in battle. Almost exactly on schedule, the Rebel mailman and his company size escort came up the trail. Captain Cline’s intelligence had come through magnificently. As Dahlgren prepared to signal his men into action, a Rebel supply train, trundled into Greencastle from the opposite direction, bound for Virginia with a harvest of spoils. Its arrival threw Dahlgren into a dilemma, for its infantry guard, if teamed with the courier’s escort, might overpower his little band. Dahlgren, could not let this opportunity pass and gave the signal to attack. As the wagons and the messenger converged on the middle of town, his men broke from cover and charged them, shouting and shooting. Cutting through the supply train, they stampeded the lead teams, causing some vehicles to overturn. The center of Greencastle was in chaos under cover of which Dahlgren’s men dispersed the courier’s escort with pistol and carbine fire. As the Rebel company dispersed, Captain Cline wrested the dispatch case from its bearer and dashed with it to safety. The wild abandon of Dahlgren’s fight persuaded the Confederates that they were outnumbered. The train escorts fled town, leaving behind three officers and fourteen men. The prisoners were turned over to the local authorities as the captain had no time to deal with these men. Captain Dahlgren, then remounted and galloped south, with his company behind him. Below Waynesboro, fearing pursuit, the troops split up. Riding alone with the mail, Captain Dahlgren re-crossed the mountains at Monterey Pass by way of Zora and entered Emmitsburg. He finally reached General Meade at Gettysburg at approximately midnight." www.emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/history/civil_war/zora_%20and_gettysburg_part_1.htm
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Post by ericwittenberg on Feb 12, 2008 14:28:20 GMT -6
gocav,
That's a fairly accurate account. Again, this is an episode that I have researched extensively in the course of writing a biography of Ully Dahlgren that will be published by Edinborough Publishing in the spring of 2009. The book manuscript is finished and under contract with the publisher, which is working on editing it. Its title is Like a Meteor Blazing Brightly: The Short but Controversial Life of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren.
In the course of researching it, I read everything I could get my hands on pertaining to this episode, and I think that the account you recite is a pretty accurate telling of the capture of the dispatches at Greencastle on July 2.
Dahlgren then dashed back to Gettysburg--35 miles, all behind enemy lines--by way of Emmitsburg, arriving just after the conclusion of the council of war. He delivered the intelligence to George Meade, who thus obtained irrefutable proof that Lee would not receive reinforcements and that Meade did not have to watch his rear for a surprise attack.
The next morning, July 3, Dahlgren asked for, and received, permission to take a detachment of 100 hand-picked troopers of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry (also known as Rush's Lancers) back to Greencastle to see what kind of trouble he could cause the Confederates with a larger force. They operated in the area until the arrival of the WTOW on the morning of July 5, when, along with some civilians armed with axes, they pitched into the wagon train just south of the town square in Greencastle, capturing hundreds, wrecking wagons, and generally causing havoc. Imboden sent a whole regiment to deal with them, and they bugged out, scattering over the countryside.
Dahlgren, with most of the Lancers in tow, arrived in Hagerstown on the morning of July 6, arriving just in time to pitch into the fighting there between Kilpatrick and Chambliss' Confederate cavalry. Dahlgren personally led a dismounted charge by troopers of the 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry in downtown Hagerstown, receiving a severe wound to his right leg that required the leg's amputation at the knee a few days later.
Gangrene set in, and nobody expected him to survive. As a courtesy to his father, Admiral John A. Dahlgren, commander of the naval forces blockading Charleston, who was a close personal friend of Lincoln's, Edwin Stanton arranged for Ulric to be promoted from captain to colonel on his deathbed, making him, at 21 years and 4 months, the youngest colonel in the Union service at the time. Ulric was an extremely ambitious young man, and the arrival of the commission provided enough of a boost that he soon turned the corner and slowly began recovering, such that he was able to briefly return to active duty in the field in February 1864, after receiving a wooden leg.
Dahlgren was quite a daring fellow, full of courage but prone to make rash decisions without thinking through the consequences first. I have often compared him to GAC, and think the comparison valid. I often wonder just how good a soldier he would have made over the long haul, had he lived.
However, the particulars of his death stray far beyond what's relevant here, and I won't bore you with all of that here.
Eric
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Post by gocav76 on Feb 12, 2008 14:47:39 GMT -6
Eric, Was Dahlgren's promotion a Brevet? Do you know what his regular army rank was? Thanks, Larry
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Post by ericwittenberg on Feb 12, 2008 14:51:32 GMT -6
Larry,
It was NOT a brevet. It was a full-rank commission as colonel of volunteers.
To the best of my knowledge, Dahlgren had no regular army rank. His commission, issued by Stanton himself, in late May 1862, was as captain of volunteers and aide-de-camp, and despite many efforts (including by Lincoln) to obtain his promotion before the wounding, he never did receive a promotion until it was believed he would not survive the combat wound. Most cited his youth and lack of professional training as the reason why.
Eric
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