David M. Gregg

[Eric Wittenberg]

South of Reading, in Morgantown. Then moved down the street to Elverson. I usually get the reference of "lived sorta near where Taylor Swift grew up" . LOL not really, but I'll let her have it.

I can remember going to Reading to get our marriage license.

Morgantown and Elverson--the Daniel Boone School District.

I, on the other hand, am from Wyomissing, where Taylor's family lived until the family moved to Nashville for her career. She would have attended the same high school as me. One of my high school classmates actually lived in that house back in our day.

 

[jackt62]

My theory is this: Gregg watched Phil Sheridan wreck the careers of his West Point classmates and friends, William Woods Averell and Alfred Torbert, and figured he was next.

That is a very intriguing explanation! Maybe Gregg was particularly prescient when it came to crossing Sheridan because just months later Sheridan's relief of General Warren at Five Forks basically wrecked Warren's career.

 

[J. D. Stevens]

It's not a book. It's a pamphlet. You can read it in its entirely here--it's 32 pages long: https://archive.org/details/cu31924030924272/page/n6?q="The+Second+Cavalry+Division+of+the+Army+of+the+Potomac+in+the+Gettysburg+Campaign"

Thanks for posting this link. My favorite CW reading is that written by those who were there and participated.

Brooke-Rawle

I am going to try and find the second pamphlet you noted.

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

I am going to try and find the second pamphlet you noted.

Your wish is my command.

The right flank at Gettysburg : an account of the operations of General Gregg's cavalry command, showing their important bearing upon the results of the battle : Rawle, William Brooke, 1843-1915 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archi

Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

archive.org

The contents of this pamphlet are also included in the regimental history of Brooke-Rawle's regiment, the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry. He was the editor of that book project, so it makes sense.

 

[Eric Wittenberg]

That is a very intriguing explanation! Maybe Gregg was particularly prescient when it came to crossing Sheridan because just months later Sheridan's relief of General Warren at Five Forks basically wrecked Warren's career.

I also think that Gregg was probably resentful of having been passed over for corps command to have an infantry officer with a grand total of 60 days' experience commanding cavalry placed over him. Frankly, I don't really blame him for that. That's me speculating, but it makes sense.

 

[PJO]

Gregg is an enigma.

The men loved him because he was modest and unpretentious. At the same time, he had all of the charisma of an old shoe, which means that he doesn't make for the most interesting subject for a biography.

Gregg is an enigma. He was capable of brilliant performances, such as his magnificent performance on East Cavalry Field at Gettysburg. Most of the credit for the victory there belongs to him. But other times, he seemed slow and stupid. His performance at Brandy Station on June 9, 1863, as an example, left a lot to be desired. He was slow that day, and left Buford hanging for hours. During the retreat from Gettysburg, he was missing an action, a complete non-factor. Some of that was due to Alf Pleasonton's failures to be an effective corps commander, but Gregg, in the absence of orders from Pleasonton, showed no initiative, which is why he was missing in action for most of the ten days after the Battle of Gettysburg.

It's unknown why he resigned his commission in February 1865. Dr. Alphonzo Rockwell, the regimental surgeon of the 6th Ohio Cavalry, wrote a memoir near the end of his life. This is what Rockwell said: "I was not a little surprised to hear Gregg say to [Brig. Gen. Charles] Smith that he was about to resign from the army. 'The fact of it is,' said Gregg, 'I am a good deal of a coward. Every engagement tells upon my nervous system to the last degree, and it is only the exercise of all my will power that I can appear natural and unafraid.'" There is absolutely no corroboration for this claim, which was made in 1920, 55 years after the fact. Gregg himself never said, and there is nothing else to substantiate it.

My theory is this: Gregg watched Phil Sheridan wreck the careers of his West Point classmates and friends, William Woods Averell and Alfred Torbert, and figured he was next. Sheridan had already hung Gregg out to dry at Samaria Church on June 24, 1864, when Gregg's two brigades were pounced upon by six brigades of Confederate cavalry and only escaped by the skin of their teeth. Gregg was nearly captured. I think that he made a choice that he didn't want to be next, and that he was unwilling to serve under Sheridan again after what Sheridan had done to him once and what he had done to Averell and Gregg, so he resigned his commission. I have absolutely no evidence in particular to support that theory, but knowing what I know of Gregg, it is a sound and reasonable explanation.

We do know that Gregg regretted his choice later. He tried to get a Regular Army commission after the war, but Sheridan would not allow it. Big surprise, right?

Is there any evidence that Sheridan thwarted Gregg's reentry into the Regular Army? Oddly, on 5 March 1866, Sheridan recommended Gregg for an appointment to field grade officer rank in the cavalry. Sheridan praised Gregg as a "gallant and efficient officer", qualified for "any position in the Cavalry. "The record of General Gregg is too well known to the (War) Department to require its mention by one", Sheridan wrote...