"Some men can fight battles over a telegraph wire, but you know I have no talent in that direction:" Reminiscences of Major-Gen. Sumner. [1]
"From Our Special Correspondent,
Washington, March 23, 1863
Ten days ago Gen. Sumner was here, apparently in vigorous health. Yesterday, intelligence of his death sent through the capital a thrill of surprise and regret. Surprise that one who had braved the hardships of campaigning and the perils of battle for more than 40 years, until he seemed to bear a charmed life, should be cut off abruptly by disease. Regret at the loss of one so loved and honored.
Major-Gen. Sumner was eligible for the retired list, having belonged to the army of the United States for 48 years; but he was never one to eat the bread of idleness. He entered the service from civil life, and was free from West Point traditions and narrowness. Senator Ben. Wade once asked him, "General, how long were you at West Point?" "I was never there in my life, Sir," replied Sumner. The bluff Ohioan sprang up and shook him fervidly by the hand, exclaiming, "Thank Good for one General of the regular army, 'who was never at West Point?'"
During the Kansas troubles, Col. Sumner was stationed in the Territory with his regiment of dragoons. Utterly unscrupulous as the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan were in their efforts to force Slavery upon Kansas--embittered as the people were against the troops, mere tools of Missouri ruffians, their feelings toward Sumner were always kindly and grateful. They knew he was a just man, who would not willingly harass or oppress them, and that he sympathized with them in their fiery trial. No State will tour him more deeply than youg Kansas--worthy of the precious blood which baptized here--who, in this greater struggle, bears away the palm from all her sisters; who has already contributed to the war 3,000 more men than the Government ever asked of her, and who tolerates no treason at home.
When the history of this war is faithfully written, Sumner's name will be one of the brightest in that noble army which has illustrated the discipline and valor of Northern troops on so many bloody fields, but which, through a leader infirm of purpose, never yet gathered the ripe fruits of victory. At Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill he decided the fate of the day; and through the whole Peninsular campaign he was in the hottest, deadliest of the fighting.
He had the true soldierly temperament. Not only was his whole heart in the ar, but if it is possible for any man to love fighting, to feel what the ancients called "the rapture of the strife," Sumner was that man. He snuffed the battle afar off. He went into it with a boyish enthusiasm. Our Generals usually exposed themselves not too little but too much. If they participated less in the peril, they might often economize the lives of their men more, and yet achieve the same realists. But in this soldierly imprudence Sumner eclipsed them all. The chronic wonder of his friends was that he ever came out of battle alive; but at last they began to believe, with him, that he was invincible. He would get bullets in his hat, his coat, his boots, his saddle, his horse, sometimes have his person scratched, but always escaped without serious injury. HIs soldiers used to tell, with great relish, the story that in the Mexican war a bullet which struck him square in the forehead fell flattened to the rough without breaking the skin, as the hunter's ball glances from the forehead of the buffalo. It was this anecdote which won him the sobriquet of "Old Bull Sumner." I think he desired, when his time should come, to fall in battle; but it illustrates the fortunes of war that the officer who for forty years had thus courted death should at last die peacefully in his bed, sounded by his family.
At Fair Oaks, when his troops were staggering under a pitiless storm of bullets, Sumner came galloping along up and down the advance line, more exposed than any private in the ranks. "What regiment is this?" he asked. "The 15th Massachusetts," replied a hundred voices. "I, too, am from Massachusetts; three cheers for our old Bay State!" And swinging his hat, the General led off, and every soldier joined in three thundering cheers. The enemy look on in wonder at the strange episode, but was driven back by the fierce charge which followed.
This was no unusual scene; it was the way Sumner fought his b
attles. Staff officers will tell you, by the hour, how, when the guns began to pound, his mild eye would light up with flashes of fire; how he would take out his artificial tee, which became troublesome during the excitement of battle, and place them carefully in his pocket; raise his spectacles from his eyes and rest them upon the forehead, had he might see clearly objects at a distance; give his orders to his subordinates, and then gallop headlong into the thick of the fight.How many soldiers, as they read and talk of his death in their camps to-day, recall the erect form, the snowy hair streaming in the wind, the frank face of that wonderful old man, who, "In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge of battle when it raged,"[2] would ride along their front lines, when they were falling like grass before the mower, encouraging the fearful, and shouting through the smoke, "Steady, men, steady! Don't be excited. When you have been soldiers as long as I, you will learn that this is nothing. Stand firm and do your duty!"
For a man of 64, his health was marvelous. His long, temperate life in the pure air of the great plains and the mountains--a region of which he was enthusiastically fond--retained in his vigorous frame the elasticity of boyhood. Upon a march he usually quite for out his staff with hard riding. When he left the field during the last days of January there were few officers of 25 as nimble and agile as he; few who could spring upon a horse more easily, or ride with more grace and endurance.
There was no straining for dramatic effect about Sumner. He never advertised his exploits, or attempted Napoleonic proclamations and reports. He sometimes displayed heroism which would illustrate the brighter pages of history; but he did it unostentatiously, unconsciously. It was the act of a soldier quietly performing a soldiers's duty.
At Fair Oaks, on Saturday evening, after Casey and Heintzelman had suffered greatly, and had driven three or four miles, Sumner crossed the Chickahominy at an unexpected point, and attacking the enemy vigorously in flank and rear, turned the tide of battle. On Sunday morning the fight was renewed; many gallant officers fell. Gen. Howard lost his arm at the head of his brigade, and our triumph was gained at a heavy cost; but Sumner held his advantage. During a lull in the battle, McClellan crossed the river, remained long enough to write his famous dispatch censuring Casey's men, and then succeeded in returning upon a log over the swelling stream. Our bridges were swept away; our army was thus cut in twain; and Sumner, with his three shattered corps, was left without hope of reinforcements. The weakened half of our army was at the mercy of the enemy's entire force.
On that Sunday night, after making his dispositions to receive an attack, Sumner sent for Gen. Sedgwick, who commanded his Second Division--one of his special friends and most trusty soldiers. "Sedgwick," said he, "you perceive the situation. The enemy will probably precipitate himself upon us at daylight. Reenforcements are impossible; he can overwhelm and destroy us. But at this most critical period the country cannot afford to have us defeated. The enemy may win a victory; but we must make it a victory that shall ruin him. There is just one thing for us to do: we must stand here and die like men! Impress it upon your officers that we must do this to the last man--to the last man! We may not meet again; but we will at least die like soldiers."
And so Sumner wrung the hand of his lieutenant [Sedgwick] and bade him farewell. Morning came; the enemy failing to discover our perilous condition, did not renew the attack; in a day or two new bridges were built, and the sacrifice was averted. But Sumner was the man to carry out his resolution to the letter.
After Fair Oaks, he retained possession of a house on our old line of battle; and the headquarters tents were brought up and pitched there. They were within range of a Rebel battery which awoke the General and his staff every morning, by dropping shot and shell all about them for two or three hours. Sumner implored permission to capture or drive away that battery, but was refused, on the ground that it might bring on a general engagement. He chafed and stormed: "It is the most disgraceful thing of my life," he said, "that this should be permitted;" but McClellan, whose prudence never forsook him, was inexorable. Sumner was begged to remove his headquarters to a safe position, but he persisted in staying there for fourteen days, and a last only withdrew upon a peremptory order from his superior.
The experience of that fortnight shows how much iron and lead my fly about men's ears without harming them. During the whole bombardment only two persons at the headquarters were injured. The surgeon of a Rhode Island battery was slightly wounded in the head by a piece of shell which flew into his tent; and a private, who laid down behind a log for protection, was instantly killed by a shell knocking a splinter from the log, which fractured his skull. There were many hairbreadth 'scapes; but not another man received a scratch.
During the artillery fighting, the day before Antietam, I saw Sumner lying upon the grass under the shade trees, in front of the brick house which served for General Headquarters. A few yards distant, in an open field, a party of staff officers and civilians were suddenly startled by a stray shell from the enemy, which dropped about a hundred feet from them. It was followed by another which fell still nearer, and the group broke up and scattered with great alacrity. "Why," remarked Sumner, with a peculiar smile, "the shells excite a good deal of commotion among those young gentlemen!" The idea which seemed to amuse him was that anybody should be disconcerted by shells.
After Antietam came McClellan's most costly and fatal mistake, of not renewing the attack and utterly destroying the enemy. His ever-swift apologists explained it by saying that all his corps commanders protested against a new attack and urged that their troops were unfit to go into battle again. Upon hearing this report, I asked Gen. Sumner if it was true of him. He replied with emphasis: "No, Sir. My advice was not asked at all; and I did not volunteer it. But I was certainly in favor of renewing the attack. Much as my troops had suffered, they were good for another day's fighting, especially when the enemy had that river in his rear, and a defeat would have ruined him forever." and yet Sumner's single corps (only one out of the five engaged) had suffered almost half of our entire casualties. Of our total loss (12,352) 5,208 cases were in his corps.
At Fredericksburg, by the express order of Burnside, Sumner remained on this side of the river during the fighting. The precaution probably saved his life. He'd he ridden with his usual rashness out on that fiery front, he had never returned to tell what he saw. Still, he chafed sadly under the restriction. As the sun wen down on that day of glorious but fruitless endeavor, he paced to and from in front of the Lacey House with one arm thrown around the neck of his son, his face haggard with sorrow and anxiety, and his eyes straining eagerly for the arrival of each successive messenger.
He was a man of high ambition. Once, hearing Gen. Howard remark that he did not aspire to the command of a corps, he exclaimed: "General, you surprise me. I would command the world, if I could!" But it was the ambition of a soldier and a patriot. He gave to his superiors not merely lip service, but jealous, hearty, untiring co-operation. It was a point of honor with him, even when he believed them mistaken or incompetent, never to breath a word to their disparagement.
He was sometimes called arbitrary; but he had great love for his soldiers, especially his old companions in arms. I heard one of his officers tell a laughable story of applying to him for a ten days' furlough, when the rule against them was imperative. Sumner peremptorily refused it. But the officer sat down beside him, and began to talk about the Peninsula campaign, the battles in which he had done his duty, immediately under Sumner's eye; and it was not many minutes before the General granted his petition. "If he had only waited," said the narrator, "until I reminded him of some scenes at Antietam, I am sure he would have given me twenty days instead of ten."
He was charged with rashness, especially at Antietam--an accusation of the justness of which I had no opportunity of judging. But I know it was the mode, about McClellan's headquarters, to say of our most gallant officers--Hooker, Kearney, and others--"O yes, he fights well; but then he isn't discreet; he has not the head to manage a battle." And veterans of the Army of the Potomac--men on whose judgment I have learned to rely--testify that it was Sumner who saved the field at Fair Oaks, who fought an won the battle of Malvern Hill, and who would have pursued the stricken enemy from the field straight into Richmond, had not orders from headquarters restrained him.
He possessed great kindness of heart; he was intrinsically a gentleman--an example which some of our Major=Generals might study to advantage. His intercourse with women and children was characterized by peculiar chivalry and gentleness. There was much about him to revive the old ideal of the soldier--terrible in battle, but with a heart open and tender as a child's.
To his youngest son--a Captain upon his staff--he was bound by ties of unusual affection. "Sammy" was his constant companion; in private he leaned upon him caressed him, and consulted him upon the most trivial matters. It was a touching bond which untied the gray, war-worn veteran to the child of his old age. He leaves another son in the service--Capt. E.V. Sumner, of Gen. Stoneman's staff--and the son-in-law, at whose house he died--Liet. Col. W. W. Teall, of the Commissary Department. He leaves also two sons=in=law--both native Virginians--in the Rebel army.
The order assigning Gen. Sumner to succeed Gen. in command of the Department of the West was written before the battle of Fredericksburg, but postponed at the special request of Gen. Burnside. On Saturday, the 14th inst.--just a week before his death--he had received his final orders and left Washington for Syracuse, to spend a few days at home preparatory to starting for St. Louis.
While the carriage was waiting at the door to take him to the train, I went into his room to bind him adieu. Allusion was made to the charges of speculation brought against his predecessor, in the new department. "I trust," said he, "they are untrue. No General has a right to make one dollar out of his official position, beyond the salary which his Government pays him." He talked somewhat in detail of his plans, and remarked, "For the present, I shall remain in St. Louis; but whenever there is a prospect of meeting the enemy, I shall take the field, and lead my troops in person. Some men can fight battles over a telegraph wire, but you know I have no talent in that direction."
With his friendly grasp of the hand, and his old, kindly smile he started for home. It has proved to him Home indeed. We may have greater Generals left, but we have not better soldiers or purer patriots. May his memory be green forever in the hearts of his countrymen!
A.D.R.
========
Notes
[1] Source: Norwood Penrose Hallowell Papers, 1784-1914, Scrapbook Vol. 5, 1861-1875 Massachusetts Historical Society. The transcript is that of a newspaper article without date or publication and signed by A.D.R. who was Albert Dean Richardson (1833-1869) a journalist for the New York Daily Tribune. The authorship by Richardson suggests that this biography was published in the New York Daily Tribune. Richardson, like Sumner a Massachusetts native, spent time in the West prior to the war and may have become acquainted with Sumner at that time.
[2] This is drawn from John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book 1.
Posts
