Brigadier General Thomas W. Sweeny (USA)

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Hangzhou, China (Wisconsin, USA)
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Brigadier General Thomas William Sweeny (USA)


Thomas William Sweeny was born in Cork, Ireland, 25 December 1820. He immigrated to the United States in 1833. In 1846, he enlisted as a second lieutenant in the 2nd New York Volunteers and fought under General Winfield Scott in Mexico. Sweeny was wounded in the groin at the Battle of Cerro Gordo, and his right arm was so badly injured at the Battle of Churubusco that it had to be amputated. His fellow servicemen nicknamed him “Fighting Tom”. Despite his wounds, he continued serving with the 2nd U.S. Infantry until the outbreak of the Civil War.

At the outbreak of the war, Sweeny was in command of the arsenal at St. Louis, Missouri. In reply to Confederate sympathizers who tried to make him surrender the arsenal, he declared he would blow it up rather than surrender. He participated in the capture of Camp Jackson in May 1861 and assisted in organizing the Home Guards.

Sweeny commanded the 52nd Illinois at Fort Donelson. At Shiloh, in command of a brigade, he successfully defended a gap in the Union line. He was wounded in the battle having received two shots in his only remaining arm and a shot in one of his legs. He kept the field until the close of the fight, exciting the admiration of the whole army.

He returned to command of the 52nd Illinois but returned to brigade command when Brig. Gen. Pleasant A. Hackleman was killed at Corinth. He commanded the Second Division of the XVI Corps during the Atlanta Campaign. At the Battle of Atlanta, Sweeny’s division intercepted John B. Hood’s flank attack. Sweeny got into a fistfight with his corps commander, Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, when Dodge broke protocol and personally directed one of Sweeny’s brigades during the fight. Sweeny received a court-martial for these actions but was acquitted. He mustered out of the volunteers in August 1865, and was dismissed for going AWOL by the end of the year.

In 1866, he commanded the ill-fated Fenian invasion of Canada, after which he was arrested for breaking neutrality laws between the United States and Britain, but was soon released. He was reinstated with his former rank of major later that year, and retired from the Regular Army in May 1870 as a brigadier general. Sweeny retired to Astoria on Long Island. He died there on 10 April 1892.

170608 Thomas W Sweeny comparison.jpg
 
Thanks for this astonishing photo -- looks so immediate that it's like traveling back in time.

My 1st cousin 3x removed, Charles Webster, served in Sweeny's division in the Atlanta Campaign (66th Illinois, Birge's Western Sharpshooters) and died at Atlanta on 7/22/64:
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Sweeny was a real fighter, all right -- sometimes as prone to fight with Union officers as with the Confederates!
His Irish republican background and support for the Fenian cause may help explain Sweeny's hostility to Brig. Gen. John Fuller, who commanded the other division in Grenville Dodge's XVI Corps that fought at Atlanta. Fuller was an Englishman who emigrated to the USA in the 1830s.
 
I like Sweeney he did one hell of a job wherever he fought. He was very important to the Federal success in Missouri in 1861. He was a hard fighter at Wilson's Creek too, where he was wounded. He was a tough fighter with all of commands, but he didn't like Dodge very much. He was a great hero to the Irish, and did well except for the whole Fenian Invasion of Canada. He was a fighter.
 
So I was reading in Series 1 Volume 3 of the Official Records about the Southwest Expedition out of St. Louis, pages 15- 23. Thomas Sweeney at the time, July 12, 1861, sent in his report from Springfield Missouri, where he had established his headquarters, to the Secretary of War. He signed off as Captain T. W. Sweeney commanding the 2nd U. S. Infantry. With the report he submitted Colonel Franz Sigel's report of the Dry Fork Creek battle.
I am perplexed at the current pronouncement along the lines of command, for Capt. Sweeney says, "I issued orders to Colonel Sigel and Colonel Salomon...." and Colonel Sigel in his own enclosed report signs off as commanding the Second Brigade Missouri Volunteers, and addresses Captain Sweeney as a Brigadier-General, commanding the Southwest Expedition.
Can someone explain the use of rank as it stands, officially, why a Captain is ordering a Colonel, and receiving the reports to send in to Washington from a higher rank? Thanks,
Lubliner.
 
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