★ ★  Barlow, Francis C.

Francis Channing Barlow

:us34stars:
Barlow.jpg


Born: October 19, 1834

Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York

Father: Rev. David Hatch Barlow 1805 – 1864

Mother: Almira Cornelia Penniman 1810 – 1864
(Buried: Walnut Street Cemetery, Brookline, Massachusetts)​

1st Wife: Arabella Wharton Griffith 1824 – 1864
Info: Army nurse who died of Typhoid Fever​
(Buried: Old Somerville Cemetery, Somerville, New Jersey)​
Married: April 20, 1861

2nd Wife: Ellen “Nellie” Shaw 1845 – 1936
Info: Sister of Colonel Robert G. Shaw
(Buried: Moravian Cemetery, New Drop, New York)​

Married: 1866

Children:

Robert Shaw Barlow 1869 – 1943​
(Buried: Moravian Cemetery, New Drop, New York)​
Charles Lowell Barlow 1871 – 1965​
(Buried: Moravian Cemetery, New Drop, New York)​

Education:

Graduated from Harvard University – (1st in class)​

Occupation before War:

Member of Newspaper Staff at New York Tribune Newspaper​

Civil War Career:

1861: Private in 12th New York State Militia Regiment​
1861: 1st Lt. in 12th New York State Militia Regiment​
1861 – 1862: Lt. Colonel of 61st New York Volunteers Infantry Regt.​
1862: Colonel of 61st New York Volunteers Infantry Regiment​
1862: Served in the Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia​
1862: Advanced his men into the fight at Battle of Glendale, Virginia​
1862: Picked up Confederate Battle Flag at Battle of Malvern Hill​
1862: Wounded in the face and groin at Battle of Antietam, Maryland​
1862 – 1865: Brigadier General of Union Army, Volunteers​
1863: Served in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia​
1863: Wounded in the left during the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania​
1863: Cared for by Brig. General John B. Gordon at Gettysburg​
1863 – 1864: Leave of absence from army due to his wounds​
1864: Division Commander at Battle of the Wilderness, Virginia​
1864: Division Commander at Battle of Spotsylvania, Virginia​
1864: Brevetted Major General not confirmed until Feb. 14th,1865​
1864: Served at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia
Barlow 1.jpg
1864 – 1865: Served in the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia​
1865: Served in the Battle of Saylor’s Creek, Virginia​
1865: Served in the Battle of High Bridge, Virginia​
1865: Commander of II Army Corps, in Army of the Potomac​
1865: Appointed Major General, but not confirmed until 1866​
1865: Mustered out of the Union Army on November 16th

Occupation after War:

1866 – 1867: New York Secretary of State​
1869: United States Marshal, Southern District of New York​
1872 – 1873: New York State Attorney General​
1876: Investigator of Hayes – Tilden Presidential Election​
1876 - 1896: Attorney in New York City, New York​

Died:
January 11, 1896

Place of Death: New York City, New York

Cause of Death: Bright’s Disease

Age at time of Death: 61 years old

Burial Place: Walnut Street Cemetery, Brookline, Massachusetts (Find a Grave)

BARLOW Francis Channing, soldier, b. in Brooklyn, NY, 19 Oct. 1834. He was at the head of his class at Harvard in 1855, studied law in the office of William Curtis Noyes, New York, and began practice in that city. For a time he was on the editorial staff of the "Tribune."​
In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 12th regiment New York state national guard, and went the front on the first call for troops to defend capital. At the end of the three months term service he had been promoted lieutenant. He at once reentered the service as lieutenant-colonel of the 61st New York volunteers, was promoted to Colonel during the siege of Yorktown and distinguished himself at the battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines (31 May and 1 June, 1862), for which he afterward (19 Sept.) promoted brigadier-general. He brought his regiment in good form through the trying "change of base" from the Chickahominy to the James river.​
At Antietam (17 Sept.) command captured two sets of confederate colors and 300 prisoners, but he was severely wounded, carried apparently dead from the field. At Chancellorsville (2 May, 1863) he commanded a brigade in the 11th corps, but was not involved in the discreditable surprise of its commanding officer, having been detached early in the day to harass "Stonewall" Jackson in his flank movement on national right, At the battle of Gettysburg (1 July, 1863) he was severely wounded and taken prisoner during the first day's fight; but he was exchanged, and recovered in time to take the field again the following spring.​
At Spotsylvania Court House, 12 May, 1864, the 2d corps (Gen Hancock's) was ordered to storm the confederate works at dawn. Gen. Barlow commanded the 1st division which, with the 3d, formed the advance line. The works were carried with a rush, and 3,000 prisoners captured, comprising almost an entire division, with two general officers, D.M. Johnson and H. Stewart. This opened one of the most sanguinary and stubbornly contested engagements of the civil war, and was the first substantial success won during the campaign.​
Gen. Barlow participated in the final campaigns of the Potomac Army under Gen. Grant, was present at the assault on Petersburg, and at the surrender of the confederate forces in April 1865, and was mustered out of the military service on the conclusion of peace.​
He was elected secretary of the state of New York in 1865, and served until 1868, when president Grant appointed him U.S. marshal of the southern district of the state. He resigned in October, 1869. In November, 1871, he was elected attorney-general of the state, serving through 1872-'3 Since that date he has practiced law in New York city.​
Gen. Barlow married Miss Arabella Griffith, who, while her husband was in the field, was highly efficient in the hospitals as a member of the U.S. sanitary commission. She died 27 July, 1864, of fever contracted in the hospitals of the Army of the Potomac. His second wife is a daughter of Francis G. Shaw.​
 
Last edited by a moderator:
That leave of absence for his Gettysburg wound was for 10 months, that's how long it took him to recover. Upon his return He led a division at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. He was again granted an extended sick leave a month after the Petersburg siege. This he used to travel to Europe to regain his health. He returned to divisional command in the last days of the war and was in reserve at Sayler's Creek. His division also fought at Farmville and was at Appomattox. He wasn't promoted to Major General until after the hostilities ceased.
 
Barlow, after being wounded at Gettysburg, ran into General John Brown Gordon, who gave him a canteen to drink and placed him in the shade of a tree. Gordon claimed he thought Barlow was dead for decades, and Barlow (after hearing of the death of James Brown Gordon at Meadow Bridge in 1864) believed the same occured to Gordon. While in Washington, Gordon met with Barlow, and the two apparently became life long friends.

Both men professed their friendship and recounted the stories themselves. However, it is strange that Gordon didn't know Barlow survived Gettysburg, as his command would face off against Barlow's division often during the Overland Campaign, and must have heard from prisoners that he faced "Barlow's division". As well as during the Appomattox Campaign.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I used to get Francis Barlow and Francis Bartow mixed up.

Kind of like A.P. Hill in his "red battle shirt" Barlow frequently wore a checkered flannel lumberjack shirt.

After being given the command of the 1st division,XI Corps, to replace it's wounded commander, He angered his men by having Col. Leopold von Gilsa arrested. It was probably for Gilsa's using alot of profanity in German in the presence of General Howard,who thought Gilsa had gone insane. Plus Gilsa allowing his men to leave the column to get water. Barlow's disdain for stragglers was a personal obsession. The Germans in the division saw Barlow as a "petty tyrant".

He used to carry a heavy Cavalry Saber and whacked the backside of stragglers and had a company with fixed bayonets follow behind his marching columns. He was known for his personal disdain of stragglers.

Barlow was present at Appomattox as he had taken over the 2nd division, II Corps just days before (April 6, 1865). General William Hays had been commanding this division but was relieved of command for sleeping on the job and his failing to prepare his men for the pursuit of the Confederate army. Hays' brevets were revoked and his command given to Barlow.

Barlow was one of the few men who entered the Civil War as a private and exited as a general.

Brights disease was the cause of his death, a pair of non-working kidneys can affect one's looks as well.

Barlow's second wife,Ellen,was the sister of Col. Robert Gould Shaw. His first wife, Arabella,died of Typhus on July 27, 1864.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In a letter to his family, I don't remember which family member, maybe his Mother, he seems to blame his soldiers for their defeat at Gettysburg, saying something to the effect he had an "enviable position" but his men weren't up to the task. I'm no expert but the position doesn't look to "enviable" to me. If I remember correctly he has a rather low opinion of immigrants in general.

John
 
Barlow was leading the consolidated 61st/64th New York on Richardson's assault on the Sunken Road, helping achieve the Union breakthrough in that sector. He was wounded in the groin. His brigade commander commended the Massachusetts newspaper man and two days after the battle, Barlow became a brigadier.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Barlow graduated from Yale College in 1855. (The Report to the Secretary of the Class of 1855, of Harvard College, July 1855 to July 1865, Boston: Printed by Alfred Mudge and Son, 1865, p. 11)

In an obituary, the Barlow-Gordon incident at Gettysburg is described: Two of his men attempted to bear him through that shower of lead from the field [on July 1], but one was instantly killed, and Gen. Barlow told the other to save himself. Here he was found by Gen. John B. Gordon, whose Georgia brigade had just charged over the ground. At Barlow's request, Gordon read to him one of his wife's letters, which Barlow carried with him, and making the supposed dying man as comfortable as possible Gordon rode on. Years afterward, when Gordon had become a Senator of the United States, he met in Washington a gentleman named Barlow, and asked him whether he was related to an officer of that name killed at Gettysburg. "I am the man," said Barlow. He had been nursed back to life by his wife, though she herself died of fever contracted while caring for wounded soldiers. (National Tribune, January 16, 1896, p. 4)

Barlow was initially taken to the barn of Josiah Benner just across Rock Creek on the Harrisburg Road by order of Lt. Andrew Lewis Pitzer, an aide on Early's staff. On the morning of July 2, he was moved to the John S. Crawford house located on the outskirts of Gettysburg, which for a time served as Ewell's headquarters, then to the George Spangler farm, the Eleventh Corps hospital, after the Confederate retreat.
 
He did not age well.
Yeah, I thought that bizarre deformed double chin was the result of his war wounds...but I found this photo of him in 1864 with other 2nd Corps Commanders, and he looks fine, face wise. Was it simply aging? Or was it the after effects of his wounds didn't manifest physically until later life? (If that last statement doesn't tell y'all my level of science education, I don't know what else will).
mlz_fWLeRIl1HAKC4eq1IRwGz2bVg8FLJUX3_ECbaTbeb0CezH.jpg
 
If I remember correctly, (always a slippery slope), after enlisting as a private he soon found that position not to his liking. So he goes to daddy who pulls strings to get him a commission.

I believe many members of the Irish Brigade felt about the same concerning him as the Germans of the 11th. Corps did.

From my reading about him, I must admit to having devloped an intense dislike for the guy myself.

John
 
@Tom Elmore I had been under the impression that the Barlow/Gordon incident at Gettysburg had been debunked?

John
to my own knowledge, the incident itself probably did, but the postwar stuff about the two thinking the other dead is questionable, given Gordon was directly facing off against Barlow's Division at the Mule Shoe, and should have gotten prisoners from his command to tell him what unit they were from. Maybe they did meet, and Barlow did confuse John Gordon with James Gordon (honest mistake), and so the surprise would have been more one sided.
 
Barlow was leading the consolidated 61st/64th New York on Richardson's assault on the Sunken Road, helping achieve the Union breakthrough in that sector. He was wounded in the groin. His brigade commander commended the Massachusetts newspaper man and two days after the battle, Barlow became a brigadier.
That 61st New York that Barlow commanded up until his Antietam wounding was taken over by it's Lt. Colonel, Nelson A. Miles.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Back
Top