- Joined
- Jan 16, 2015
Pettiness is one of the more unattractive traits among human beings, especially during a war when the stakes were much higher:
[Brig. Gen. William Harrow] had some trouble with me and I was the means of getting him snubbed by the corps commander [William] Hays. He avenged himself by putting me in arrest for sending a sick man ahead of the regiment, when we were coming back through Manassas Gap. … Harrow could have found plenty of commanding officers who allowed dozens of their men to straggle to the rear, but he gained his object in insulting me. (Letter of July 27, 1863, Fallen Leaves, The Civil War Letters of Major Henry Livermore Abbott, 20th Massachusetts)
The infantry was forced to wade through Marsh Creek several hundred yards, and not allowed to pass over the covered bridge; while a general and his staff sat upon their horses, and amused themselves by laughing at those on foot in the stream. (Henry N. Blake, Three Years in the Army of the Potomac – 11th Massachusetts)
"B" Battery [1st New York] of my regiment had been badly posted by Captain [John] Hazard of the Rhode Island Artillery [commanding Second Corps Artillery Brigade]. He had got provoked at them for leaving a position the day before without orders, and had purposefully put them in a most exposed place, when there was just as good a one under cover. Their withdrawal the day before was the fault of Captain Regan [James M. Rorty], who had been placed in command of the battery a day or two before, simply because Colonel [Brig. Gen. R. O.] Tyler did not know what else to do with him. Captain Regan [Rorty] had no business with the battery, and even if it had been improperly withdrawn by its own commanding officer, he should have been placed in arrest, instead of a petty spite being visited on the whole battery. (A Diary of Battle, the Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861-1865, ed. by Allan Nevins, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962)
A general placed sentinels upon the houses in many towns, not to protect the property, but to obtain for the use of his mess all the luxuries they contained; while the line officers and enlisted men were driven from the premises, and not allowed to purchase articles of food. (Henry N. Blake, Three Years in the Army of the Potomac – 11th Massachusetts)
In this charge [July 3, across the plain west of Cemetery Hill], William E. Haynes was mortally wounded. I tried to get him, but [him] being a very heavy man I could not bring him [in] and in the undertaking I lost my gun. [Capt.] T. W. Higgins swore he would make me pay for it, but guns being plenty I soon found two and gave one to him, and told likewise I would make a charge on him for that won. … [Higgins] thought no more of a wounded man than you would a chicken two days old. At one time he was cursing about his company and wanted to know where the devil they were. One man spoke up for him to go right up to that fence and he would find the rest who were not killed or wounded, and the reply was with a sneer, "Is that so?" (Diary of William Cline, Company B, 73rd Ohio, Special Collections, University of Notre Dame, Indiana)
[Brig. Gen. William Harrow] had some trouble with me and I was the means of getting him snubbed by the corps commander [William] Hays. He avenged himself by putting me in arrest for sending a sick man ahead of the regiment, when we were coming back through Manassas Gap. … Harrow could have found plenty of commanding officers who allowed dozens of their men to straggle to the rear, but he gained his object in insulting me. (Letter of July 27, 1863, Fallen Leaves, The Civil War Letters of Major Henry Livermore Abbott, 20th Massachusetts)
The infantry was forced to wade through Marsh Creek several hundred yards, and not allowed to pass over the covered bridge; while a general and his staff sat upon their horses, and amused themselves by laughing at those on foot in the stream. (Henry N. Blake, Three Years in the Army of the Potomac – 11th Massachusetts)
"B" Battery [1st New York] of my regiment had been badly posted by Captain [John] Hazard of the Rhode Island Artillery [commanding Second Corps Artillery Brigade]. He had got provoked at them for leaving a position the day before without orders, and had purposefully put them in a most exposed place, when there was just as good a one under cover. Their withdrawal the day before was the fault of Captain Regan [James M. Rorty], who had been placed in command of the battery a day or two before, simply because Colonel [Brig. Gen. R. O.] Tyler did not know what else to do with him. Captain Regan [Rorty] had no business with the battery, and even if it had been improperly withdrawn by its own commanding officer, he should have been placed in arrest, instead of a petty spite being visited on the whole battery. (A Diary of Battle, the Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, 1861-1865, ed. by Allan Nevins, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962)
A general placed sentinels upon the houses in many towns, not to protect the property, but to obtain for the use of his mess all the luxuries they contained; while the line officers and enlisted men were driven from the premises, and not allowed to purchase articles of food. (Henry N. Blake, Three Years in the Army of the Potomac – 11th Massachusetts)
In this charge [July 3, across the plain west of Cemetery Hill], William E. Haynes was mortally wounded. I tried to get him, but [him] being a very heavy man I could not bring him [in] and in the undertaking I lost my gun. [Capt.] T. W. Higgins swore he would make me pay for it, but guns being plenty I soon found two and gave one to him, and told likewise I would make a charge on him for that won. … [Higgins] thought no more of a wounded man than you would a chicken two days old. At one time he was cursing about his company and wanted to know where the devil they were. One man spoke up for him to go right up to that fence and he would find the rest who were not killed or wounded, and the reply was with a sneer, "Is that so?" (Diary of William Cline, Company B, 73rd Ohio, Special Collections, University of Notre Dame, Indiana)
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