Trivia 1-17-17 Who said that?

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I was Oliver Otis Howard.
Battle of Chancellorsville

Why - Rally cry - "The Eleventh Corps, caught off guard by Jackson's unexpected attack, fled toward Chancellorsville in panic."

"Clutching a Union banner under the stump of his amputated right arm, General Howard endeavored to rally his panic-stricken troops near Dowdall's Tavern. 'I felt...that I wanted to die,' Howard wrote, '...and I sought death everywhere I could find an excuse to go on the field."

http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=3939


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General Oliver O. Howard
Battle of Chancellorsville
Union pickets had warned Howard of the enemy's approach, but he had ignored their reports. Headquarters had assured him that the Confederate army was in retreat. Now, as the Southerners bore down upon Howard's flank, the men of the corps broke ranks and fled. Although the general and his officers eventually restored order, they could not restore the corps' reputation. From then on, the Eleventh Corps would be known derisively as "the Flying Dutchmen." Howard admitted his error in not preparing for a flank attack.
 
Ironically, it's not Stonewall Jackson who succeeded where the speaker failed.

It is Oliver Howard at Chancellorsville and he said it because he was so ashamed his XI Corps had been shattered and he blamed himself.

Evidently he didn't seek death very well either. Which is a good thing because his post-war work with the Freedmen Bureau and in founding Howard University was important.
 
General Oliver Otis Howard
The Battle of Chancellorsville
He and the Eleventh Corps were surprised by the enemy. In response, the men fled. Their reputation took a hit, and the Corps became known as "The Flying Dutchmen".

"At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Howard suffered the first of two significant military setbacks, which together led to his occasional nickname, "Uh-Oh Howard". On May 2, 1863, his corps was on the right flank of the Union line, northwest of the crossroads of Chancellorsville. Robert E. Lee and Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson devised an audacious plan in which Jackson's entire corps would march secretly around the Union flank and attack it. Howard was warned by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, now commanding the Army of the Potomac, that his flank was "in the air", not anchored by a natural obstacle, such as a river, and that Confederate forces might be on the move in his direction. Howard failed to heed the warning and Jackson struck before dark, routing the XI Corps and causing a serious disruption to the Union plans."

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It was said by Union General Oliver Otis Howard.
It had to do with the Battle of Chancellorsville.
He said it because he was ashamed because his corps had fled in uncontrollable panic from the enemy and he probably knew that the commanding General Hooker did not hold him in any esteem, but thought him to be "queer" and not a good corps commander.

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From the book "Lincoln's Generals" / Gabor S. Boritt (ed.)

https://books.google.de/books?id=s5...uld find an excuse to go on the field&f=false
 
O.O.Howard
Chancelorsville

Edit - Howard is the correct answer for the first part and Chancellorsville is the correct answer for the second part of the three-part question, but in order to get credit for a correct response, you would have needed to give answers to all three parts.

Hoosier
 
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1. Oliver Otis Howard
2. Battle of Chancellorsville

3. His XI Corps was routed in Jackson's Flank attack. He was embarrassed and ashamed that his Corps had fled in panic. He felt personally responsible and was depressed, perhaps to the point of being suicidal. Apparently, according to Lincoln's Generals, the desire to expose oneself recklessly after defeat was a pretty common problem, even though we know only about those who lived to describe it afterward. https://books.google.com/books?id=s...ld find an excuse to go on the field.&f=false
 
Per https://books.google.com/books?id=s...d find an excuse to go on the field."&f=false:
Oliver Otis Howard
Chancellorsville
His reaction to his corps' retreat from the Stonewall Jackson attack
, May 2, 1863. "I felt. . . that I wanted to die. It was the only time I ever weakened that way in my life, before or since, but that night I did all in my power to remedy the mistake, and I sought death everywhere . . . ."

A footnote in this source https://books.google.com/books?id=a...d find an excuse to go on the field."&f=false gives a source: "Howard, quoted in San Francisco Chronicle, May 23, 1872, quoted in Ferguson, Chancellorsville 1863, 181."
 
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