Did Loreta Velazquez really have General Grant in her sights?

rosefiend

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Loreta Janeta Velazquez, alias Lieutenant Harry J. Buford, writes in her memoirs that, when she was at Shiloh, she was so angry at Gen. Beauregard for stopping the Confederate troops and not pursuing the Federals, that she did some recon behind Federal lines clear back to the river. And what did she happen see but two generals in a boat! Here's what she wrote:

******

"While surveying, from my post of observation in the bushes, the movements of the routed Federal troops at the Landing, a small boat, with two officers in it, passed up the river. As it drew near the place where I was concealed, I recognized one of the officers as General Grant, and the other one I knew by his uniform to be a general. Grant I had seen at Fort Donelson, and I had met with pictures of him in some of the illustrated papers, so that I had no trouble in knowing him in spite of the darkness. The boat passed so close to me that I could occasionally catch a word or two of the conversation that was passing between the Federal commander and his associate, although, owing to the splashing of the oars, and the other noises, I could not detect what they were talking about.

"My heart began to beat violently when I saw Grant, and my hand instinctively grasped my revolver. Both he, and the officer with him, were completely at my mercy, for they were within easy pistol shot, and my first impulse was to kill them, and run the risk of all possible consequences to myself. I did even go so far as to take a good aim, and in a second more, had I been a little firmer-nerved, the great Federal general, and the future President of the United States, would have finished his career.

"It was too much like murder, however, and I could not bring myself to do the deed, although it would have been as justifiable as any killing that takes place in warfare. Any soldier, however, will appreciate my feelings; for those who are bravest, when standing face to face with the enemy, will hesitate to take deliberate aim at a single man from an ambush. I therefore permitted Grant to escape, although I knew it was better for my cause to slay him than would be the loss of many hundreds less important soldiers. Indeed, had Grant fallen before my pistol, the great battle of Shiloh might have had a far different termination; for his loss would have so completed the demoralization of the Federals, that another rally would, in all probability, have been an impossibility. To have shot him, as I at first intended to do, would almost certainly have insured my own destruction; for large numbers of the Federals were so near me that I could plainly hear them talking, and escape would have been almost out of the question. I would, however, have been willing to have made a sacrifice of myself, had I not been influenced in the course I did by other considerations than those of prudence. At any rate, I permitted my opportunity to slip by unimproved, and ere a great many moments the boat and its occupants were out of my reach, and I saw the two generals go on board one of the gunboats."

****

What do you think of that? In the paragraph previous to this, she said it was raining heavily that night, and the Federals were sending shells into the Confederate camp. But not a bit of rain do I see here.

I did think of the instance (apocryphal or not) where an Alabama sharpshooter wrote Col. Joshua Chamberlain after the war and told him that he'd actually had Chamberlain in his sights but couldn't get himself to pull the trigger.

Does her recollection of that evening fit the official record? I'm sure we could never know for certain, but I'm interested in knowing (where possible) how much is fact and how much is fancy.
 
One aspect that casts doubt in my mind is the authoress' statement,

Grant I had seen at Fort Donelson, and I had met with pictures of him in some of the illustrated papers, so that I had no trouble in knowing him in spite of the darkness.

As I mentioned in a thread showing Grant in an 1861 photo montage, it wasn't until around the time of Shiloh that Grant's appearance was properly represented in the illustrated weeklys and popular prints. Any pictures of him she would've seen probably resembled the "genuine article" very little, if at all.
 
One aspect that casts doubt in my mind is the authoress' statement,

Grant I had seen at Fort Donelson, and I had met with pictures of him in some of the illustrated papers, so that I had no trouble in knowing him in spite of the darkness.

As I mentioned in a thread showing Grant in an 1861 photo montage, it wasn't until around the time of Shiloh that Grant's appearance was properly represented in the illustrated weeklys and popular prints. Any pictures of him she would've seen probably resembled the "genuine article" very little, if at all.
And, newspapers could not run actual photos until much after the war. Any photo had to be an engraver's etching; i.e., he had to copy the photo onto a block of wood or sheet of metal.
 
I don't know how she could know it was important to shoot that particular Federal officer at that particular time. It's like Forrest not shooting Sherman - who knew he'd march through Georgia! They just recognized each other's uniforms. I can't see how she would be so thrilled to see Grant her heart went pitter-patter. He 'tweren't nobody yet!
 
Based on the following I can't say it is impossible.

Front page of Harpers Weekly, March 8, 1862.
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/general-ulysses-grant.htm
general-ulysses-grant.jpg


Quote from Memoirs of General U. S. Grant, Complete (Chapter XXIV). "On one occasion during the day I rode back as far as the river and met General Buell, who had just arrived; I do not remember the hour, but at that time there probably were as many as four or five thousand stragglers lying under cover of the river bluff, panic-stricken, most of whom would have been shot where they lay, without resistance, before they would have taken muskets and marched to the front to protect themselves. This meeting between General Buell and myself was on the dispatch-boat used to run between the landing and Savannah. It was brief, and related specially to his getting his troops over the river. As we left the boat together, Buell's attention was attracted by the men lying under cover of the river bank.
 
I'd go easy on Harry Velazquez, or J. Loretta Buford or whichever one had him in her pitter-pattering sites? While it's probably a little strong to say she invented 100% of everything, the stuff which was created from spit and air is so intermingled with plain earth- never be able to sort it all out. What's a shame is, she was probably a kick regardless, with some fabulous stories all by herself. This need to embellish past reclaim shot holes in the boots she gets to wear through History.

" Everything known about Velázquez comes from her 600-page book, 'The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velázquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T Buford, Confederate States Army. How much of it is true is unknown. Historians have generally doubted its veracity for the improbability of many of her adventures, her frequent vagueness or inaccuracy about names and places, and the absence of any evidence to corroborate her sensational claims, due to Jubal Early's refusal to accept her memoirs as fact"
Ok, that's a Wiki quote, sorry, but representative of every, single site you can find barring those which wish to craft her into the exact heroine she sought to be. I'll take Jubal's crusty pronouncements over hers any day, too. I'm not trying to be too tough on her- it would be more than wonderful to be able to claim her as a ' sister' of the day and genuinely celebrate those exploits.

You'd have to dig up someone's academic paper on her book, if one exists- which might painstakingly research each and every claim before being able to ascertain whether or not the majority of her statements could be taken seriously. If you're thinking of using her for a serious piece- like I said, maybe go easy?
 
Blanton and Cook did find newspaper articles that corraborated some of Loreta's claims, as well as the instances where she was arrested on suspicion of being a woman. General Early did get a case of the vapors when he read her book, yes! And due to the stories she added in -- like the above -- some historians have dismissed her book. But I think there's enough truth behind it to be worth following up. That's a super good point about Grant being a relative unknown at the time, and the lack of pictures. She did say she'd seen him at Fort Donelson (though she never wrote about how she managed to escape the place and not be taken as a prisoner of war, or go with Gen. Forrest, which would have definitely been worth writing about). I wonder if Loreta might have actually drawn a bead on some Federal boatman and didn't fire, and then later she decided to relate that story with a little "reader interest" added.

Blanton and Cook did mention that she used her first married name, Alice Williams, as an alias when she was a spy, and she was on the federal payroll for six months as spy for the Federals, which was the amount of time she said she was a double agent for the north. They also found something she did not mention in her memoirs: that "Alice Williams, who was commissioned in the rebel army as a lieutenant under the name of Buford," plotted with other Confederate agents to assassinate President Lincoln in winter 1865.

Ernie, I actually listened to that incident about the men hiding on the riverbank (and Grant's generous assessment of them) a week ago. :smile:

This is interesting stuff, folks, keep firing away!
 
I'd go easy on Harry Velazquez, or J. Loretta Buford or whichever one had him in her pitter-pattering sites? While it's probably a little strong to say she invented 100% of everything, the stuff which was created from spit and air is so intermingled with plain earth- never be able to sort it all out. What's a shame is, she was probably a kick regardless, with some fabulous stories all by herself. This need to embellish past reclaim shot holes in the boots she gets to wear through History.

" Everything known about Velázquez comes from her 600-page book, 'The Woman in Battle: A Narrative of the Exploits, Adventures, and travels of Madame Loreta Janeta Velázquez, Otherwise Known as Lieutenant Harry T Buford, Confederate States Army. How much of it is true is unknown. Historians have generally doubted its veracity for the improbability of many of her adventures, her frequent vagueness or inaccuracy about names and places, and the absence of any evidence to corroborate her sensational claims, due to Jubal Early's refusal to accept her memoirs as fact"
Ok, that's a Wiki quote, sorry, but representative of every, single site you can find barring those which wish to craft her into the exact heroine she sought to be. I'll take Jubal's crusty pronouncements over hers any day, too. I'm not trying to be too tough on her- it would be more than wonderful to be able to claim her as a ' sister' of the day and genuinely celebrate those exploits.

You'd have to dig up someone's academic paper on her book, if one exists- which might painstakingly research each and every claim before being able to ascertain whether or not the majority of her statements could be taken seriously. If you're thinking of using her for a serious piece- like I said, maybe go easy?

William C. Davis has researched her claims thoroughly and says she lies about everything.
 
Blanton and Cook did find newspaper articles that corraborated some of Loreta's claims, as well as the instances where she was arrested on suspicion of being a woman. General Early did get a case of the vapors when he read her book, yes! And due to the stories she added in -- like the above -- some historians have dismissed her book. But I think there's enough truth behind it to be worth following up. That's a super good point about Grant being a relative unknown at the time, and the lack of pictures. She did say she'd seen him at Fort Donelson (though she never wrote about how she managed to escape the place and not be taken as a prisoner of war, or go with Gen. Forrest, which would have definitely been worth writing about). I wonder if Loreta might have actually drawn a bead on some Federal boatman and didn't fire, and then later she decided to relate that story with a little "reader interest" added.

Blanton and Cook did mention that she used her first married name, Alice Williams, as an alias when she was a spy, and she was on the federal payroll for six months as spy for the Federals, which was the amount of time she said she was a double agent for the north. They also found something she did not mention in her memoirs: that "Alice Williams, who was commissioned in the rebel army as a lieutenant under the name of Buford," plotted with other Confederate agents to assassinate President Lincoln in winter 1865.

Ernie, I actually listened to that incident about the men hiding on the riverbank (and Grant's generous assessment of them) a week ago. :smile:

This is interesting stuff, folks, keep firing away!

Yes, that's what I mean. There's hit and miss. If you're looking to use something on her- it's just tough to be able to extract the wheat from the chaff. Like that guy up in Mass. who had a Neolithic settlement on his farm- he got in there, spent years hauling it around with his tractor, moving rocks, building things. Then opened it under the name " America's Stonehenge". Well it wasn't and isn't-no one knows what's what is the thing. Something Neolithic transpired there, we'll just never know without a Neolithic psychic, the farmer took care of that in his enthusiasm to give folks a REAL sight worth their money.

There's mystery on top of mystery too- with all the inventing she did, why on earth NOT bring up one thing it looks like she DID do, instead of leaving it for researchers to dig up 150 years after the fact? Given her love of the dramatic and a book filled to the gills with " Things I did which were amazing "- why leave THAT out?

Just to be on the safe side, maybe have a look at what William Davis came up with- you never know. Like I said, would LOVE to have her in the midst of the nameless women who served, the female found dead after Picketts Charge- the women we know served and probably just went home. The one whose bones were found in that mass burial a few years ago. I'm still not convinced, that's all. I'm not dissing anyone's research, it hasn't come together, made the kitchen smell like a baked loaf of bread yet.

Hee- if you're looking for a female with the odd kick in her gallop, also controversial but who did put women several checkerboard spaces ahead in our moves up the ladder, maybe Dr. Mary Walker would be helpful. Not sure I'd have liked to have met her- she sounds cranky. :smile: But she DID her stuff, was an early doc, for one thing. Did not become sidetracked through life in serial marraiges, for another. Think men may have fled, like I said, she sounds cranky. And that's just fine! :smile:
 
William C. Davis has researched her claims thoroughly and says she lies about everything.

Yes, thank you. Haven't read his stuff on her yet but have read her- must find his. Spent a long time trying very, very hard to discount her nay-sayers because there has been a knee-jerk reaction on a lot of our women- that no, there could not have been so many and no, how could it all have happened. Even, gee whiz, listening to drivel about how they were not ' really' soldiers since legally they couldn't BE one. Bleah. I'm not a fabulous researcher, but not sure she requires, or should require such a massive amount of digging- either what she says is true and right out there for History to see or it isn't.

I'm very willing to be pointed to facts on her, what she genuinely may have done. The women who did serve, well, Martha Linley, 6th US Cavalry, ( have a special fascination because my grgrgrandfather was in the 6th ) , you get an account from her, easily verified in triplicate, you know? Bet a book by her would have been incredible except she had no murky, mysterious parentage. Pretty normal. Plus she just wanted to go home afterwards, like everyone else, no parades made on her service. Maybe it's the Forrest Gump aspect on top of everything else which makes me SO suspect in the end- was everywhere, did everything.
 
Any published first-person accounts at the time are suspect. Seems like everyone's account of whatever is hyped up.
 
I am reminded of an incident from the Revolutionary War where the British Major Fergusson, the inventor of a breech loading and accurate rifled musket, had George Washington in his sights at the Battle of Brandywine. Fergusson tells how the general rode out of a copse of woods right in front of the major. He was so close it would have been killing distance with a smooth bore but as the major sighted down the barrel of his rifle the general looked right at him and as Fergusson relates, it would have been murder to have shot him, and let him go. Fergusson says that he did not know the identity of the general officer at the time.

Perhaps what we have here is a Civil War soldier who one time got close to a group of officers, close enough to have shot several, had qualms of conscience and later, as the story grew in the telling, made those officers into US Grant and his staff. In either case, the saddest words of mouth or pen are of the things that might have been.
 
Yes, thank you. Haven't read his stuff on her yet but have read her- must find his. Spent a long time trying very, very hard to discount her nay-sayers because there has been a knee-jerk reaction on a lot of our women- that no, there could not have been so many and no, how could it all have happened. Even, gee whiz, listening to drivel about how they were not ' really' soldiers since legally they couldn't BE one. Bleah. I'm not a fabulous researcher, but not sure she requires, or should require such a massive amount of digging- either what she says is true and right out there for History to see or it isn't.

I'm very willing to be pointed to facts on her, what she genuinely may have done. The women who did serve, well, Martha Linley, 6th US Cavalry, ( have a special fascination because my grgrgrandfather was in the 6th ) , you get an account from her, easily verified in triplicate, you know? Bet a book by her would have been incredible except she had no murky, mysterious parentage. Pretty normal. Plus she just wanted to go home afterwards, like everyone else, no parades made on her service. Maybe it's the Forrest Gump aspect on top of everything else which makes me SO suspect in the end- was everywhere, did everything.

I'm not a nay-sayer on women in the Civil War, but I've heard Davis speak on her and he's very convincing.
 
I am reminded of an incident from the Revolutionary War where the British Major Fergusson, the inventor of a breech loading and accurate rifled musket, had George Washington in his sights at the Battle of Brandywine. Fergusson tells how the general rode out of a copse of woods right in front of the major. He was so close it would have been killing distance with a smooth bore but as the major sighted down the barrel of his rifle the general looked right at him and as Fergusson relates, it would have been murder to have shot him, and let him go. Fergusson says that he did not know the identity of the general officer at the time.

Perhaps what we have here is a Civil War soldier who one time got close to a group of officers, close enough to have shot several, had qualms of conscience and later, as the story grew in the telling, made those officers into US Grant and his staff. In either case, the saddest words of mouth or pen are of the things that might have been.

Just reading the quotation from Velazquez above, I'd have to agree with you that someone probably got close to a group of officers. That group may actually have included U. S. Grant, but it's likely the soldier didn't know it until later. But, I'd think that perhaps the soldier who caught a glimpse of Grant and the other general was not Velazquez.

There are very few details in the quotation from the memoir--oars splashing is about the only detail. When people are relating something from memory, all kinds of details come out and often not in a coherent, orderly fashion. People backtrack in what they're saying, go off on tangents about some other subject, correct themselves.

The excerpt above is like an essay about the incident, what should have happened. I'm a person who puts great stock in the credibility of first person testimony, but I don't get the impression that this is "first person" but a repeated narrative, perhaps from someone Velazquez served with.
 
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The one item that makes me think there is at least a grain of truth to the story is that Grant was on the river in a dispatch boat with Buell at the end of the first day's battle. He discussed it in his memoirs which were not published until nine years after Velazquez published hers. IMO this detail is not something that would have been widely known, neither Grant nor Buell mentioned the boat in their Official Reports. Whether Velazquez witnessed it herself or heard it somewhere else I can't answer.
 
Quote from Memoirs of General U. S. Grant, Complete (Chapter XXIV). "On one occasion during the day I rode back as far as the river and met General Buell, who had just arrived; I do not remember the hour, but at that time there probably were as many as four or five thousand stragglers lying under cover of the river bluff, panic-stricken, most of whom would have been shot where they lay, without resistance, before they would have taken muskets and marched to the front to protect themselves. This meeting between General Buell and myself was on the dispatch-boat used to run between the landing and Savannah. It was brief, and related specially to his getting his troops over the river. As we left the boat together, Buell's attention was attracted by the men lying under cover of the river bank.

Does anyone know what this dispatch boat was? I expect it was a small steamer; "between the landing and Savannah" was about ten miles. Buell had just arrived from Savannah, and it seems unlikely he would have taken an oared boat such as Velazquez decribes. The generals observing the demoralized troops suggests that the dispatch boat was at the landing when Grant and Buell met. So we have Grant standing on a riverboat at the landing rather than splashing around the river in a rowboat.
 
Buell did come up the river from Savannah by steamer and immediately requested Grant send steamers at his disposal to forward his troops. The military steamers frequently had oared dispatch boats on board for communication purposes so I highly suspect one would have been available and might have been better suited to close in reconnaissance, especially if the time frame was late afternoon or early evening.
 
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