My staff of biography writers is very small right now if you think you might have what it takes to write biographies for others to enjoy please step forward. I will be more then happy to help you with a template or you can come up with one of your own. Also we need a photographer for grave pictures if you love to take pictures and always wanted to help the site step forward we could use your help. We currently need photographers and writers from everywhere. If your interested in joining the crew we would love to have you. This would be a big help to me.
Good afternoon gentlemanrob
I have attached a condensed biography of Colonel Emory Upton for your consideration. If you decided to use it, please be at liberty to modify it as you wish. Regards Dennis
Emory Upton – A Compressed Biography
“if there are anymore of you down there that want anything, come right up”
Approximately twenty-five miles south of Lake Ontario and thirty miles east of Buffalo, nestled in upper central New York state lies the town of Batavia. It was there on the 27
th day of August 1839 that Daniel and Electra Randall Upton welcomed their sixth son and tenth child, Emory, into the world. The Upton’s were a Reformed Methodist family, and Emory’s early Christian teachings remained with him throughout his life. He never smoked, drank, or cursed; he seldom smiled nor carried on an unnecessary conversation and he prayed frequently.
When by the age of fifteen, Emory enrolled into Oberlin College in Ohio and studied under Presbyterian evangelist Charles G. Finney1. At the time of his enrollment, Oberlin was one of only a few ethnically and gender integrated schools of higher education in America. He viewed Oberlin as a stepping-stone to his life’s goal of becoming a military officer. Following his second year at school, the seventeen-year-old student was accepted as a cadet at the US Military Academy, West Point in 1856 and so begin his career in the vocation he desperately sought.
The division in our nation had become more profound by the late 1850s, and they were prevalent at West Point. Cadets from diverse backgrounds were not immune from aiming and receiving insults between one another. Historian Thomas Fleming wrote that many of the southern cadets hurled insults at Upton. One such instigator was Cadet Wade Hampton Gibbes of South Carolina. When Cadet Gibbes accused Cadet Upton of “enjoying the Negro coeds at Oberlin”, Upton demanded an apology. Gibbes declined and the northerner Upton challenged him to a dule. “They struggled it out with swords in a darkened cadet barracks room cleared of furniture, while half the corps packed the nearby halls and stairs. The larger Gibbes gave Upton a terrific beating but the real climax,” according to Ohioan, Morris Schaff, “came when Upton’s roommate, Pennsylvanian John Rogers, came to the top of the stairs with eyes glaring like a panther and shouted “if there are anymore of you down there that want anything, come right up”. During the ensuing melee Upton suffered a cut to the face. He graduated eighth in his class of forty-five cadets on May 6, 1861.
(Emory Upton Wikipedia)
Upton’s valor first appeared on the plains of Manassas in July 1861. While commanding an artillery piece at Blackburn’s Ford, he had a horse shot from under him and suffered a wound to his side and arm, but the young first lieutenant refused to leave the field. His actions gained the attention of superiors and he was rewarded with a battery during the Peninsula campaign, then a brigade at Antietam. After recognizing faulty fuses at the latter engagement, Upton effectively substituted solid shot with lethal effectiveness. By October ‘62, he secured an appointment as colonel of the 121st New York Regiment, rather than accept earlier orders (and safety), as an instructor at West Point.
Colonel Upton led his regiment, known as Upton’s Regulars, at Fredericksburg two months later as a part of Major General William B. Franklin’s Grand Division’s push through Slaughter Pen Farm and the southern defenses dug-in along Prospect Hill. Upton was given command of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of the VI Corps at Gettysburg where he was held in reserve. During the battle of Bristoe Station, Upton again demonstrated his courage after being wounded and having a horse shot from under his again. At the commencement of the Overland Campaign in May ‘64, Upton’s brigade saw action in the Wilderness and his Corps was the second to reach the frontline along Laurel Hill at Spotsylvania Courthouse on May 8th. It was here he would make his most memorable military contribution and gain the admiration of his superiors.
“no man was to stop and succor or assist a wounded comrade”
What Upton lacked in social graces, he more than made up with his brilliant military mind. On the morning of May 10, 1864, Upton was summoned to the VI Corps Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Martin McMahon to receive approval to an earlier request he submitted. Up to this point in the war, offensive attacks were performed as in Napoleonic wars. Troops were staged in a long line, with only two ranks deep and marched forward toward the foe, likened to a wave crashing against a beach. In a time prior to firearms rifling, and sometimes misfires from flint rifles, it was a suitable form of attack. But with newer, riffled weapons, faster loading techniques, the invention of the percussion cap and the mini ball, it had become an obsolete approach.
At the battles of Second Fredericksburg in May ’63 and at Second Rappahannock Station in November ‘64, Upton had taken part in a revolutionary mode of attack. Instead of lining troops up in a long shallow line, they were lined up narrow and deep and rushed forward.2 At Spotsylvania, Colonel Upton saw an opportunity to refine his new approach.
The terrain at Upton’s position was ideal to his liking. His position on the Spotsylvania battlefield placed his division closer to the enemy than any other Union position elsewhere on the field. A farm road ran from the Scott family house, through his position and it dropped down a slope just before it elevated to scattered pines, then 200 yards of open field, and finely the confederate line. It would allow him a capability to position his troops just a few hundred yards from the enemy with the protection of the terrain, all affording ideal elements for a surprise attack.
.
NPS hiking trail following Upton’s route. This trail intersects with traces of the original road Upton used – Photo by author May 2020
Remnants of original road used by Upton at the center of the photo – Photo by author May 2020
The southern line at Upton’s proposed point of attack was defended by a 29-year-old Georgian, Brigadier General George Dole, whose line bulged out slightly just west of the Mule Shoe salient. The Georgians had fortified their position with abatis in front and surrounded by heavy logs, underneath which were loopholes for musketry. Dole was flanked on the right by Virginians of the famed Stonewall Brigade and on the left by Brigadier General Junius Danial’s North Carolinians.
Upton drew his men together just prior to the assault and explained his plan to his division commanders. He made each repeat it up the line. His new command consisted of twelve regiments, including his own 121st New York. They were aligned three regiments wide and four deeps. Convinced confederate General Robert E. Lee was shifting his men to fill gaps in southern defenses, Upton’s plan called for something the Union army seldom successfully accomplished, two other coordinated diversionary attacks, to draw the enemy away from his front at the time of the assault. The men in the front ranks were permitted to load their weapon and fix bayonets but were forbidden to place percussion caps on their rifles. Just as with Second Fredericksburg and Second Rappahannock Station, he did not want them to stop, fire and reload. They were to move swiftly, and the first three divisions were to “kick in the door”, allowing the two waves behind them to overwhelm the enemy, fan out and take control of the enemies works. From the commencement of the charge until the works were carried, he later remembered, “no man was to stop and succor or assist a wounded comrade”. The final wave was to be held in reserve until needed or to cover a retreat if necessary.
“the Green Mountain Boys was up, and they refused to budge a single hair from the field they had wrestled from the enemy”
The plan got off to a bad start when both supporting attacks failed. Major General Gouverneur Warren, reeling from a horrible performance the day before was anxious to prove his competence. He informed Headquarters that he saw a break in the line to his front and set his V Corps in motion a full 90 minutes early.3 Meanwhile the undersized II Corps, fourth division of Brigadier General Gershom Mott, supporting Upton’s left was on schedule while Upton ran late due to unanticipated difficulty getting his large body of troops down the narrow farm road and into position.
Warrens men were once again mowed down just as they had been in earlier attempts. A crossfire that Lieutenant General J.E.B. Stuart had constructed two days prior was manned by Major General Richard Anderson’s I Corps. They overwhelmed the V Corps attempt just as they crossed the open field to their front at Laurel Hill. When Motts division came into the open field, they performed admirably, but their attack alerted the Confederate line and the southern artillery overpowered the minuscule division. Although the supporting cast performed poorly, in one instance and ineffective on the other, the stage was set.
With his men in position and ready to step up a small slope, through scattered pines and into an open field; “I felt my gorge rise, and my stomach and intestines shrink together in a knot, and a thousand things rushed through my mind……I looked about in the faces of the boys around me and they told the tale of expected death. Pulling my cap down over my eyes, I stepped out……” Corporal Clinton Beckwith, 121 NY Volunteers.
At 6:30 PM, Upton’s men burst from the tree line. Private Wilber Fisk of the 2nd Vermont recalled the scene of the first wave; “they rushed ahead across an open field, to the enemy’s works, while we cheered as lustily as we could to heighten the effect, and help create a panic among the enemy. How terribly the bullets swept the plane and rattled like hailstorm among the trees over our heads. The boys could not be restrained in their wild excitement and without waiting for orders, (for I certainly heard no order to halt, and I know of no one that did) they rushed in after the other brigade, and we drove the enemy from his first line of works.”
Modern day photo showing where Upton’s men stepped out of the woods looking toward the southern defenses which were just short of the tree line in the background – Photo by author, May 2020
Marker where Upton’s men stepped out of the woods and charged the southern defenses – Photo by author, May 2020
“Quick as lightening a sheet of flame burst from the rebel line, and the leaden hail swept the ground over which the column was advancing while the canaster from the artillery came crashing through our ranks at every step” remembered Private Robert Westbrook, 49
th Pennsylvania. Another Pennsylvanian recalled, “Many a poor fellow fell pierced with rebel bullets before we reached their rifle pits. But when we got there, we let them have it.”
Upton’s first wave “kicked the door in” with perfection, swinging to the right they swept the enemy from two rows of trenches and captured the guns of the Richmond Howitzers. To the left they overwhelmed the enemy for 200 years until stopped by the Stonewall Brigade. Then over the top came the second wave, creating a reserve line at the works as they pushed the salient further inward. Upton described the fight at the top of the works “Here occurred a deadly hand to hand conflict. The enemy setting in their pits with rifles loaded and bayonets fixed, ready to impale the first to leap over, absolutely refused to yield his ground. The first of our men who tried to surmount the works fell pierced through the head with a musket ball. Others seeing the fate of their comrades held their pieces at arm’s length and fixed downward while others poised their pieces vertically, hurled them down upon the enemy, pinning them to the ground. “
Inward rode Confederate Second Corps Commander, Lieutenant General Richard Ewell, “don’t run boys, in five minutes I will have enough men here to eat up every damned one of them” he yelled. True to his word, the southerners came flowing in like a mighty wind crashing into Upton. The federal boys were forced backward, and the breach was sealed. With his third wave and nine divisions committed to the works, Upton rode back to find his reserves, consisting of the 2
nd., 5
th and 6
th. Vermont. They had already moved up to the works and although the enemy was pouring led in on them, they did not yield. One newspaper correspondent recounted “the Green Mountain Boys was up, and they refused to budge a single hair from the field they had wrestled from the enemy”.
Upton’s VI Corps Commander, Brigadier General Hereto Wright4 seeing the success went to Commanding General U.S. Grant to report the good news. “Pile the men into the breach” Grant demanded. But it was futile to make such a coordinated effort on such a large scale and with little notice or planning. Upton did an admirable job with his offensive, but his men failed to hold their position due to lack of support and confusion once inside the enemy defenses.
Following the Union withdrawal, a southern band moved to a ridge along the line and struck up Nearer My God to Thee. As the sound faded, not to be outdone, a Federal band countered with the Dead March. The southern band responded with Bonnie Blue Flag and cheers went up all along the southern line. The Union responded with Francis Scott Key’s, The Star-Spangled Banner and cheers went up all along the Union line. A moment of silence and the Confederates answered with Home Sweet Home. A cheer went up all along both sides of the battlefield. All was quiet, and it is speculative that there was many a moist eye on either side of the field as each solder thought of their home and family in distant destinations.
Grant recognized the importance of such an innovative offense, decided to hurl his entire army along several points at the southern line in a similar manner two days later. Like Upton, two Corps met initial success, but poor planning, weather, and a dismal effort from two other Corps commanders produced the same result but on a larger scale.
As Grants army moved closer to Richmond, Upton’s brigade suffered heavy losses at Cold Harbor on June 1
st. and later took part in the siege at Petersburg. While at Petersburg, the VI Corps, which Upton’s brigade was assigned, was detached, and ordered with Major General Phil Sheridan to rid the Shenandoah Valley of Major General Jubal Early. There, at Grants command to “clear that Valley and make sure no rebel would live there again”, Sheridan then put in motion a malicious form of warfare, where they lived off the land, burning buildings, food and killing animals and destroying any commodities in their path.
During the third battle of Winchester, Upton assumed command of the 1
st Division, VI Corps when his commanding officer was killed. During that same battle, he was severely wounded in the thigh but refused to be removed from the fight until the battle was over. He was carried on a stretcher for the duration of the battle, giving orders and positioning his troops. His courage and tenacity during that action was rewarded by a promotion to colonel in the regular army in September ‘64 and Major General of volunteers a month later.
“[ I ] would like to commute the rest of life for just six months of such service”
When his health had improved from the thigh wound, Upton became a cavalry commander under Major General James H. Wilson, where he led the 4
th Division of Cavalry Corps in Mississippi. Combining his talents with those of Wilson, and 12,000 cavalrymen armed with the new Spencer breechloading carbine, they developed a new strike force that would eventually evolve into a mobile infantry by riding into battle then deploying on foot as infantry. Wilson and Upton often added their own sporadic innovations which struck terror wherever they rode. Under Wilson, he was awarded another promotion to brigadier general in the regular army and major general in the volunteer army in March for his action at the Battle of Selma. Upton was ordered to arrest Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in May ’64 and eventually, President Jefferson Davis was placed in his custody. Following his tour with the cavalry, Upton confided he “would like to commute the rest of life for just six months of such service” for once more he had found a new way around a frontal assault in that branch of service. His latest assignment in Mississippi also completed a round of service in each of the three army fields of training, artillery, infantry, and cavalry.
Following the war, Upton saw various assignments in the Army he loved, but due to peace, was unable to advance his interest in military strategies. His new assignments of protecting civilians from Indians in one remote duty station after another did not set well with the man who cherished fighting. Upton’s escape from the mundane service on the western frontier was to fight battles in the form of writing military manuals with revolutionary tactics for future use. His new 1867 manual, “Infantry Tactics”, formed a new method that relied on heavy skirmishers, who would advance on the enemy in large numbers, clearing the path for an overwhelming assault by large companies of reserves. His thoughts expanded on his success at Spotsylvania, by relying on individual responsibility5, marksmanship and moral, giving the soldier the advantage of the landscape being fought over. His new ideas of swiftness would lay the foundation for modern warfare and a new assignment to teach at West Point.
Emily Upton (findagrave.com Nikiti Barlow)
His new manual provided annual royalties of $1,000 and a life changing event in the young solders’ life. He got married. Emily Norwood Martin seemed a perfect fit for the dashing young officer. She was born on November 26, 1846 in Utica NY. The kind, gentle and Christian devoted young bride was the sister of famed writer Edward S. Martin and the sixth of eleven children born to successful attorney and journalist E.T. Throop and mercantile heiress Comeila Williams Martin. Following their marriage, the young couple set out for their honeymoon in France and Italy. During that travel Emily came down with a lung infection, causing her health to decline. On March 29, 1870, she died in Nassau, Bahamas leaving her widower with no children.
With Emily’s passing, Upton passionately through himself into his work. After returning to West Point to supervise discipline and administration, he expanded his Infantry Tactics manual to fit artillery and cavalry. But the young officer was not satisfied. The Army was smaller now and he felt a need to broaden his bounding energy.
In the fall of 1876, General of the Army, William T. Sherman sent Upton on a world tour to study other countries military. He travelled to China, Japan, India, Persia, Italy, France, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. Upton produced a detail report on each country, examining their military schools, officer training, tactics, administration, recruitment, munitions, equipment, hospitals, camps, barracks, pay, morale, and other general items. He finalized his travels by completing and submitting a 370-page book on his findings, “The Armies of Europe and Asia”, within one year. His new book included recommendations for reorganizing and improving Americas military based on those findings.
He would spend the remainder of his life advocating for a large standing Army, modeled somewhat after Germany’s. Their government drafted and recruited soldiers for three to five-year periods, after which they would spend four years in the active reserve and called up every six months for several weeks of training and maneuvering. In the event of war, a trained army could be mobilized effectively and quickly. The system had permitted Germany and Prussia to route every European force they faced.
“lead me to sacrifice myself rather than to perpetuate a method which might in the future cost a single man his life”
After completing his latest work, he became superintend at Fortress Monroe, the army’s postgraduate artillery school where he set out to win his reforms. What he wanted was a small full time, trained force of about 25,000 men with a trained reserve of 140,000 volunteers. But he was never able to acquire needed political and military support to implement such an idea during a time of harmony.
By this point in his life, he had begun to lose his zeal, possibly due to his physical conditions. He began to suffer violent headaches and consulted a Philadelphia specialist, who diagnosed a sinus condition. The physician treated Upton by an electrical wire inserted against the mucous membrane sending a shock to his nasal passage. His condition was later speculated to be a tumor in his face or brain, but nevertheless, the headaches continued.
In 1881 after returning to the rank of Colonel, Upton was transferred to the Presidio of San Francisco as commander of the 4
th US Artillery. The headaches continued and his actions and words became erratic. He began to forget things and sometimes became confused and questioned his own work.
On March 14, 1881, he wrote his sister of his hope that God would “lead me to sacrifice myself rather than to perpetuate a method which might in the future cost a single man his life.” He then wrote his resignation, picked up his pistol and shot himself in the head while setting at his desk. He was 41 years old. His remains rest at Fort Hill Cemetery, Auburn NY.
Graves of Emory and Emily Upton – Courtesy of Find A Grave; Andrew R. Pulsifer
Sidebars:
- 1 Reverend Charles Finney was a leader in the second great awakening. His flamboyant style of preaching in upstate New York and Manhattan earned him the title of The Father of Modern Revivalism.
- 2 During the second battle of Fredericksburg, Major General John Sedwick’s assault on Marye’s Height, included three divisions attacking from three different points simultaneously. Each division was formed in close ranks, with bayonets fixed, and charged the enemy behind the stone wall along Sunken Road at double quick without stopping to fire. At Second Rappahannock Station, Sedwick’s Corps shelled the southern works for several hours, then ordered his infantry forward toward the southern works in the same manner as Second Fredericksburg. Many laurels were won that day, but the casualties were staggering.
- 3 General Ulysses Grant had lost confidence in Warren after he failed to clear Brock Road two days prior and had failed to take Laurel Hill after repeated attacks on May 8th.. To keep Major General Gouverneur Warren engaged, Grant temporally place Major General Winfield Hancock in charge of Warren to “coordinate” the two corps efforts. The decision by Grant infuriated Warren. Later that morning, before Upton’s assault, Hancock became distracted by a part of his own Corps in danger on the opposite side of the Po River, Warren decided to move with his attack on Laurel Hill while Hancock was detained rescuing his own men..
- 4 Wright was selected to become Commander of the VI Corps following the death of Major General John Sedwick.
- 5 Upton realized one failure at Spotsylvania was due to leadership after his assault breached the southern works. As officers were killed, the soldiers had no one to consult for orders. Upton’s manuals were the forerunner to modern warfare, giving non-commissioned officers responsibility to make decisions when engaged on the battlefield.
Sources used are as follow:
Ambrose, Stephen E. Upton and the Army. Baton Rouge: Louisianan State University Press 1993.
American History Illustrated, August 1971 " This Monotonous Life" by Stephen Ambrose
Cassidy, Robert M. Prophets or Praetorians? The Uptonian Parafox and the Powell Corollary (U.S. Army War College). Autumn 2003.
Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher.
Civil War High Commands. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Fitzpatrick, David J.
Emory Upton: Misunderstood Reformer (U of Oklahoma Press, 2017). xviii, 325 pp.
Heidler. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000.
History.net.com
Hoffsommer, Robert D. "Emory Upton." In
Historical Times Illustrated History of the Civil War, edited by Patricia L. Faust. New York: Harper & Row, 198
Mackoeski Chris and White Kristopher D., A Season of Slaughter (The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse May 8 -21, 1864; Savas Beatie Publishing 2013.
Morris, James M. "Emory Upton." In
Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, edited by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T.
North, Safford E., ed. Biographies of Genesee County , New York
, Boston History Company, 1899.