-40%

Hayes of the 23rd - Rutherford B. Hayes and Service in the 23rd Ohio Volunteers

$ 6.86

Availability: 68 in stock
  • Condition: 1994 Paperback. Near Fine condition - this book appears to have never been read. Only light wear to the covers, as might be expected from being in storage with other books for a long time.

    Description

    HAYES OF THE 23rd
    Civil War Experiences of future
    President Rutherford B. Hayes
    By T. Harry Williams
    University of Nebraska / Bison Books, 1994
    =============================
    Condition : Paperback : Appears to have never been read.
    Covers have very slight wear, typical to have been in storage
    with other books for some time.  Overall - Near Fine.
    324 pages, 13 illustrations, 10 maps, indexed
    ========================================
    The
    23rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry
    (or 23rd OVI) was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during much of the American Civil War. It served in the Eastern Theater in a variety of campaigns and battles, and is remembered with a stone memorial on the Antietam National Battlefield not far from Burnside's Bridge.
    The regiment later became noted for its many postbellum politicians. Future Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley served in this unit, as did future U.S. Senator and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Thomas Stanley Matthews and Robert P. Kennedy, a future U.S. Congressman. Other notable officers included James M. Comly and Eliakim P. Scammon, both of whom became influential nationally after the war. Harrison Gray Otis, the famed owner and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, also fought with the 23rd Ohio during the war.
    The 23rd OVI was organized at Camp Chase (Columbus, Ohio) and mustered into duty on June 11, 1861, as a three-year regiment. Its 950 enlistees were originally led by Col. William Rosecrans. In July, after training and drilling, the regiment departed for western Virginia, where it served for several months, helping to restore that portion of Virginia to the Union. The 23rd was attached to Jacob D. Cox's Kanawha Brigade and served throughout much of the war in what became the IX Corps. The unit saw heavy action during the Battle of South Mountain, where Colonel Hayes was wounded in an attack on the slopes near Fox's Gap. Within a week, the 23rd OVI fought at Antietam in the fields southeast of Sharpsburg, Maryland, before returning to duty in West Virginia. It was again heavily engaged in Philip Sheridan's 1864 Valley Campaign. The regiment mustered out in July 1865.
    The 23rd OVI lost 5 officers and 154 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded, and 1 officer and 130 enlisted men by disease (total 290 out of 2230 who were members of the regiment at various times).
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Thanks for Looking !!!
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Postage is free
    (within Continental US - others at cost)
    either by media mail or priority depending upon the final sale price of the items(s).
    I always include delivery confirmation, and will insure more expensive packages at my cost.
    Check my other auctions for Civil War related books, documents, and ephemera,
    plus the occasional other book or curiosity - mostly military related.
    I have recently opened an Ebay Store - "The Civil War Bookstore".
    Check it out, and please subscribe to my newsletter.  I plan to try and do one or two per month,
    and will be offering occasional discounts just to those who get my newsletter.
    Again, I Thank you for looking !
    --------------------------------------------------
    From Wikipedia :
    St. John Richardson Liddell
    (September 6, 1815 – February 14, 1870) was a prominent
    Louisiana
    planter who served as a general in the
    Confederate States Army
    during the
    American Civil War
    . He was an outspoken proponent of Southern
    emancipation
    of
    slaves
    . Liddell was murdered by a former Confederate Officer near his home in 1870.
    Western Theater: 1861–63
    With the outbreak of the Civil War and Louisiana's secession, Liddell enlisted in the Confederate army and received a commission. He initially served as a staff officer to his close friend
    William J. Hardee
    and Albert Sidney Johnston during the early part of the conflict. He then commanded the famous
    Arkansas Brigade
    in
    Patrick Cleburne
    's
    division
    of the
    Army of Tennessee
    from 1862–63, including the battles of
    Perryville
    and
    Murfreesboro
    .
    Liddell commanded a division at Chickamauga in 1863, but repeatedly refused promotion to
    Major General
    in order to secure an assignment closer to his plantation, which was in jeopardy from
    Jayhawkers
    . Liddell was approached by General Braxton Bragg, a West Point classmate, to become his Chief-of-Staff and replace General W.W. Mackall, but Liddell refused. Although he was publicly critical of Bragg, Liddell seemed to enjoy his favor, which may have earned him the enmity of several of the officers in the Army of Tennessee. He remained very close with his classmate Hardee. Despite his personal clashes with fellow officers, Liddell had provided invaluable service to the Army of Tennessee. His brigade was pivotal at Perryville and Stones' River (where his sixteen-year-old son Willie Liddell was mortally wounded), and suffered the highest percentage of casualties at Chickamauga.
    Trans-Mississippi Theater: 1863–65
    General Bragg refused to spare Liddell, but when Bragg was relieved by Jefferson Davis after the Chattanooga disaster, Liddell appealed personally to the President for a transfer and command of
    District of Northeastern Louisiana
    , which he received and held during the
    Red River Campaign
    in 1864. He was later assigned to overall command of the infantry at
    Mobile
    , Alabama until to its surrender in 1865. During the last campaign, Liddell and
    Union
    Maj. Gen.
    E.R.S. Canby
    engaged in the
    Battle of Fort Blakely
    , one of the last engagements of the war, where he was captured. Canby would later prove influential in Liddell's life by securing amnesty for him from the Federal Government.
    During his Trans-Mississippi service, Liddell found himself in conflict with his immediate superior,
    Richard Taylor
    , the brother-in-law of President Davis, and regretted leaving the Army of Tennessee. In contrast to many modern historians, Liddell lays the blame for the Confederate failure to recapture the Mississippi or unite some 60,000 troops of their far Western Commands under Generals
    Magruder
    , Taylor, and
    Price
    with the Army of Tennessee on Taylor himself, rather than
    Edmund Kirby Smith
    . Unknown to Liddell, by late 1864 Generals Bragg, Hardee, and E.K. Smith made several petitions for Liddell's promotion to positions including
    James Mouton
    's Texas Division, and Hardee's Chief of Staff, but these were not acted on before the war drew to a close.
    Liddell on slavery
    Liddell held a reputation for being outspoken, and was well connected. In December 1864, he wrote a letter to
    Edward Sparrow
    , a Confederate Senator from Louisiana and chairman of the military Committee, expressing his conviction that the war was going against the Confederacy. He expressed the need for full emancipation of the slaves in order to secure foreign assistance. Although he admitted it may have been too late to act, he felt that emancipation may have also been a solution to the South's growing manpower crisis. Senator Sparrow showed the letter to General
    Robert E. Lee
    , who agreed with Liddell on all points, stating that "he could make soldiers out of any human being that had arms and legs."
    In 1866, Liddell wrote his memoirs, in which he was highly critical of the Confederate leadership and his fellow officers, including Davis and Bragg. The memoirs themselves are actually a collection of several separate manuscripts, letters, and battlefield records, which he was unable to combine before he was murdered.
    In them, his criticisms arise mainly from the failure of Bragg's subordinates, including Cleburne, Bishop Polk, John C. Breckenridge, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Joseph Wheeler, D.H. Hill, and James Longstreet, to support Bragg, which in the end leaves Liddell as one of the few writers of the period who was generous to Bragg. His writing reveals his minority opinion of praise for officers like General John Floyd and Gideon Pillow, whom nearly all modern historians consider inept. He expresses disgust for Judah P. Benjamin, whom most historians consider one of the most able Confederate Cabinet officials.
    He mentions at several times the growing sense of futility he and other officers felt in the unlucky Army of Tennessee. It was plainly clear to them after the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson that their cause was doomed unless they could concentrate their forces and wage an offensive campaign, however political intrigue always seemed to squander any gains made by the army. Liddell comes off as a fair, impartial officer, even proposing that had the south recruited generals like George H. Thomas, whom he considered the best Union Commander, things may have turned out differently.
    A gentleman and one of the few selfless officers of the period, Liddell refused promotion, and endeavored to help any officer he was assigned to, regardless of whether they were liked or not. He was opinionated and outspoken, yet his opinion was valued, and he held the ear of the echelons of Confederate command, including Davis, A.S. Johnston, Bragg, and Hardee. Perhaps his military education, but lack of formal military background, led to this unique quality. He spent his vast personal fortune on equipping his own brigade, even though it was from a different state. The brigade itself was the only unit in the Army of Tennessee never to court-martial an enlisted soldier, and was known as the hardest-fighting and best-drilled brigade in the Army of the Tennessee.
    Liddell was murdered in 1870 by Col. Charles Jones, the culmination of a twenty-year real estate dispute that had seen Jones and his band of thugs murder several friends and family members of Liddell. He was buried on his sprawling plantation in Louisiana.