John Sedgwick

• 1. A General's Last Words

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  John Sedgwick was standing in the open at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on the 9th of May, 1864. Confederate sharpshooters, about 1,000 yards away, had begun targeting officers directing artillery. His staff was flinching. Soldiers from the 87th Pennsylvania and the 14th New Jersey were ducking for cover. Artillerymen from the 1st Massachusetts crouched between shots. Sedgwick walked freely in the field and scolded them. 'What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line?' His men were ashamed but kept flinching anyway. 'Why are you dodging like this?' he asked. 'They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.' Moments later, a Whitworth rifle bullet struck him under the left eye. He never regained consciousness.

  Born on the 13th of September, 1813, in Cornwall, Connecticut, Sedgwick spent more than two decades in uniform before that morning. He served in three wars and pushed to the remote edges of the American frontier. What kind of soldier did those years produce? Why did men on both sides of the war mourn his loss with genuine feeling? Just months before his death, he had written to his sister that he could gladly leave the army without regret. Sharon Academy and Cheshire Academy were his earliest schools, long before he ever wore a uniform.

• 2. A Soldier's Formation

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  At West Point in 1837, Sedgwick ranked 24th out of a class of 50 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the artillery. He had been named for his grandfather, also John Sedgwick. That grandfather had served as lieutenant colonel of the 14th Regiment of Connecticut Militia during the Revolutionary War. Theodore Sedgwick, the noted statesman, was this grandfather's brother. The family name carried a Revolutionary-era military tradition that the younger John was about to extend much further.

  His early postings brought Sedgwick to the Seminole Wars in Florida, his first sustained combat experience. The larger test came in the Mexican-American War. He earned two brevet promotions there for valor in the field. The first raised him to the honorary rank of brevet captain, for the battles of Contreras and Churubusco. The second elevated him to brevet major for the storming of Chapultepec. Back home in 1849, he received the permanent rank of captain and replaced James Duncan as commander of Battery A, 2nd U.S. Artillery.

  In March 1855, Sedgwick accepted a transfer promotion from artillery to the United States Cavalry at the rank of major. He then served in Kansas, in the Utah War, and in the Indian Wars that stretched across the western frontier. In 1857, he participated in a punitive expedition against the Cheyenne.

  In the summer of 1860, Sedgwick led an expedition to the Platte River in what is now Colorado. His orders were to establish a new fort in territory with no railroad and no easy supply route. Supplies had to come by riverboat, wagon train, or horseback, and much of what was sent never arrived. Sedgwick still managed to erect solid stone buildings before the cold weather set in, keeping his men sheltered through the winter. The spring of 1861 found him in Washington, serving as a colonel and assistant inspector general of the Military Department of Washington.

• 3. The Assault at Antietam

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  Sedgwick missed the First Battle of Bull Run while recovering from cholera. On the 31st of August, 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general. His assignment was command of the 2nd brigade in major general Samuel P. Heintzelman's division of the Army of the Potomac. He later commanded his own division, designated the 2nd division of the II Corps for the Peninsula campaign. In Virginia, his men fought at Yorktown and Seven Pines. During the Seven Days Battles, his division engaged at Savage's Station and Glendale. Sedgwick was wounded at Glendale. A promotion to major general followed.

  At the Battle of Antietam, a single command decision turned a manageable situation into catastrophe. II Corps commander major general Edwin Vose Sumner sent Sedgwick's division into a mass assault without conducting any reconnaissance. Confederate forces under major general Thomas J. 'Stonewall' Jackson caught the division from three sides at once. The attack collapsed. The division fell back with barely half the men who had started the assault.

  Sedgwick himself was shot three times in the chaos: once in the wrist, once in the leg, and once in the shoulder. The wounds kept him out of action for months. He was still recovering when the Battle of Fredericksburg was fought. By the 26th of December, 1862, he was back in the field and briefly led the II Corps and then the IX Corps. His final command assignment would be the VI Corps.

• 4. Leading the VI Corps

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  During the Chancellorsville Campaign, the VI Corps faced Fredericksburg in a holding action. Major general Joseph Hooker's four other corps were maneuvering against Robert E. Lee's left flank, 10 miles west at Chancellorsville. Sedgwick was slow to act, but eventually crossed the Rappahannock River. On the 3rd of May, he assaulted major general Jubal Early's small force on Marye's Heights. He then began moving south to join Hooker, aiming to trap Lee's army between two halves of the Union force. That plan ended at the Battle of Salem Church. Elements of Lee's Second Corps, now under major general J.E.B. Stuart following the wounding of Jackson, blocked his path. Sedgwick was forced to retreat back over the Rappahannock.

  The VI Corps was the last to arrive at the Battle of Gettysburg, reaching the field on the 2nd of July. Only a few of its units could join the final Union counterattacks in the Wheatfield. During the second and third days, the corps was not kept together as a unit. Its brigades were scattered across the line to fill gaps wherever other units were stretched.

  At the Second Battle of Rappahannock Station in November, the VI Corps swept the Confederate position. It captured four field pieces, eight stands of enemy colors, and 1,700 prisoners.

  George Meade's reorganization of the Army of the Potomac in early 1864 raised serious questions about Sedgwick's future in the war.

• 5. Out of Favor

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  Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had grown hostile toward Sedgwick for reasons that were openly political. Stanton disapproved of Sedgwick's well-known admiration for the departed Army of the Potomac commander George B. McClellan. He also found Sedgwick insufficiently enthusiastic about abolitionism and the Radical Republican political platform. Sedgwick had compounded his difficulties by criticizing General Benjamin Butler, one of the Radical Republicans' most prominent favorites.

  George Meade, aware of the political pressure surrounding Sedgwick, proposed a solution: reassign him to command in the Shenandoah Valley. In the end, General Franz Sigel received the Shenandoah command instead. That theater turned out to be far more contested in 1864 than anyone had expected. Sedgwick stayed with the VI Corps.

  At the Battle of the Wilderness, the opening engagement of the Overland Campaign, the VI Corps held the Union right flank. Sedgwick's men defended against assaults by Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps and held their ground. The next major engagement was only days away, and it would claim his life.

• 6. The Last Morning

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  Martin T. McMahon, Sedgwick's chief of staff, was close enough to go to the ground with him when he fell. The VI Corps had been probing Confederate skirmish lines ahead of the left flank of the main defenses. Sedgwick was directing the placement of artillery when the sharpshooters' fire intensified.

  McMahon recalled that the bullets were making a shrill whistling sound before they struck. He was speaking to Sedgwick when the same whistle ended in what he described as 'a dull, heavy stroke.' He had started to say 'General, they are firing explosive bullets' when he saw Sedgwick's face turn slowly toward him. Blood was spurting from his left cheek under the eye in a steady stream. McMahon tried to support the general as he began to fall, but went to the ground with him. Some accounts later claimed that Sedgwick never finished his sentence about the elephant before the bullet struck. Those reports were generally considered apocryphal. The words were certainly among the last he spoke.

  The bleeding from the wound continued until his hair was soaked through with blood. Corps medical personnel were summoned immediately. He was the highest-ranking general officer in the Union Volunteers to die in the war. That distinction drew expressions of grief from men on both sides of the conflict.

• 7. Uncle John's Legacy

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  Ulysses S. Grant, upon hearing that Sedgwick was dead, reportedly asked his staff: 'Is he really dead?' George Meade wept at the news. The two men had recently quarreled: Meade had criticized Sedgwick for relying too heavily on fellow corps commander Gouverneur K. Warren for advice. 'I wish we could have parted on better terms,' Meade said afterward. Even Robert E. Lee expressed public sadness, calling Sedgwick an old friend.

  Grant characterized Sedgwick as one who 'was never at fault when serious work was to be done.' He went further, telling his staff that losing Sedgwick was worse for him than the loss of an entire division. Among his soldiers, Sedgwick carried the affectionate nickname 'Uncle John.' His reputation in the army was that of a solid, dependable commander, if not the most aggressive one.

  Sedgwick is buried near his birthplace, at Cornwall Hollow, Connecticut. An equestrian statue honors him and the VI Corps at Gettysburg National Military Park. At West Point, a monument to Sedgwick carries an enduring tradition. Cadets believe that spinning the rowels on the boots of the statue at midnight brings good luck on a final exam. The cadet must be wearing full parade dress gray over white uniform under arms for the ritual to work.

  Sedgwick County in Kansas and Sedgwick County in Colorado both carry his name, as do the towns of Sedgwick in each state. Fort Sedgwick served as part of the Union siege line at Petersburg in 1864-65. Camp Rankin, near Julesburg, Colorado, was renamed Fort Sedgwick in 1865.

  Sedgwick Avenue runs through the Bronx in New York City, named in his honor. Streets named after him can be found near American University in Washington, D.C., and on Chicago's near north side. The Chicago street is served by a CTA station bearing his name. Grand Army of the Republic posts in Keene, New Hampshire; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Santa Ana, California; and York, Pennsylvania, were all named for him. John Sedgwick Middle School in Port Orchard, Washington, carries his name. Farley, his home at the time of the Battle of Brandy Station, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.