The Scoundrels

[Mark F. Jenkins]

You love 'em... you hate 'em... you love to hate 'em... but they're always great to read about!

I'll nominate a few of my favorite Civil War Scoundrels:


On the Northern side of the line...

Benjamin Franklin Butler: Perhaps the arch-scoundrel of them all.

David Dixon Porter: Especially when mixed up with Butler.

William D. "Dirty Bill" Porter: David's older brother. Like a Porter, only even more so.

Dan Sickles: Twain once said he valued the leg he lost more than the one he still had.

Charles Wilkes: Would deserve being on this list solely for the Trent affair, but he didn't stop there.


On the Southern side...

Gideon J. Pillow: I'm still amazed anyone that knew him in the Mexican War would still have accepted him as a military man.

Braxton Bragg: Let's see; Fort Hood... Fort Lee... Fort Jackson... Fort Bragg? One of these things is not like the others... [I'm being flip; I know why it was named after him, but still. And yes, I know that Jackson is named after Andrew...]

John B. Floyd: Yup, still thinking of Buckner repeatedly face-palming at Donelson... Floyd came along too early in history for the important-men-and-hiker-on-a-plane joke, but he would have fit right in.

Earl Van Dorn: I hesitate to name him to a list that contains Floyd, because Van Dorn actually had ability. But his exit from this mortal coil surely qualifies him for inclusion...

Interestingly, I'm having a tough time naming a Confederate naval officer to this list. For the most part, the incompetent ones were successfully shuffled off to where they could do little harm, and the colorful ones (Semmes, Read, Maffitt, etc.) were too successful to be true scoundrels. (Not that success necessarily exempts one from the list; see David Dixon Porter, above.) I think I'll have to drop a little further down the rolls and select John A. Stevenson, who managed to come up with the South's first ironclad (the Manassas), the River Defense Fleet, and yet managed to cooperate with just about nobody.

Who did I overlook?

 

[DanF]

You overlooked the Confederate version of Butler. Though in truth he made Butler look like a amateur.

Thomas C. Hindman the rogue military dictator of Arkansas.

It was said of Hindman that the chief differences between him and Butler was that Butler oppressed hie enemies while Hindman Oppressed his friends.

Gen. Albert Pike declared that Hindman executed somewhere between 30-50 confederate citizens.

 

[kholland]

Good list Mark. I think my candidate for scoundrel of scoundrels would most definitely be good ole' Dan Sickles. Tammany Hall politician, murdered his wife's lover in broad daylight around the block from the white house (and got off in 1st temporary insanity case), political general of political generals, a spin doctor before there were any, yada yada, yada.

And I loved Twain's quote about how "he valued the leg he lost more than the one he still had". Probably because he got more mileage out of that one, by far.

 

[diane]

You're right - I can't think of a villainous Confederate navy man, either! Maybe an honorary one for Waddell - but that's not fair. He was doing his duty and nobody told him to quit fighting!

Jefferson C Davis gets my vote for Mr. Nasty. He got away with murdering Bull Nelson (another good seaman, by the way) and, a well-known racist, pulled up the bridge across Ebenezer Creek, causing between 200-1000 blacks to be drowned or killed by Confederate cavalry, who rounded up another 2000. Then he came out with Nelson Miles to mess up Indian affairs, particularly those of the Modocs.

Fielding Hurst is another good candidate. He and his boys were semi-renegade Unionists who absolutely terrorized middle and western Tennessee. They planted seven of Forrest's scouts along the road up to their necks and tortured their officer to death - at that point Forrest put out an order to shoot Hurst and any of his men on sight. Four times Hurst was threatened with courts-martial by Grant but somehow never got a come-uppance.

 

[tmh10]

My pick would be Major General Henry Wager Halleck. He was a man that would rather see one of his Generals fail than gain some Glory that Halleck thought his due.

http://www.militarymuseum.org/Halleck.html

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

My pick would be Major General Henry Wager Halleck. He was a man that would rather see one of his Generals fail than gain some Glory that Halleck thought his due.

http://www.militarymuseum.org/Halleck.html

I need to read more about Halleck. I long looked at him through Grant's postwar lens (decidedly antagonistic) but looking at him through Sherman's eyes gives a bit of a different view, and reading Bearss' Vicksburg trilogy really brought out Halleck's machinations against McClernand, in favor of Grant. (Not that he was trying to do Grant a favor, so much as he was trying to damage McClernand.)

Is Ambrose's bio of Halleck worth tracking down? Or should I look elsewhere?

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

You're right - I can't think of a villainous Confederate navy man, either! Maybe an honorary one for Waddell - but that's not fair. He was doing his duty and nobody told him to quit fighting!

Totally agree. Waddell wasn't quite the leader Semmes was, but wasn't a scoundrel. I was wondering about Matthew Fontaine Maury, but he doesn't seem to fit the "scoundrel" definition to me, either.

Jefferson C Davis gets my vote for Mr. Nasty. He got away with murdering Bull Nelson (another good seaman, by the way) and, a well-known racist, pulled up the bridge across Ebenezer Creek, causing between 200-1000 blacks to be drowned or killed by Confederate cavalry, who rounded up another 2000. Then he came out with Nelson Miles to mess up Indian affairs, particularly those of the Modocs.

Yup, he's a 'good' candidate.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

In my opinion Burnside was more of an incompetent than a scoundrel. He had good intentions, but wasn't up to the job.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/burnbio.htm

Burnside has a bit of the tragic about him. He famously attempted to decline command of the AOP, saying he wasn't fit for it; he should have been taken at his word there. He did pretty well in the North Carolina Sounds and when in command at Cincinnati, organizing the "second" Army of the Ohio, but then couldn't do much in East Tennessee.

There were a couple of good pieces on him in NC in the collection Union Combined Operations in the Civil War (Craig L. Symonds, editor; Fordham Univ. Press, 2010) by David E. Long ("Burnside When He Was Brilliant: Ambrose Burnside and Union Operations in Pamlico Sound") and David C. Skaggs ("A Thorn, Not a Dagger: Strategic Implications of Ambrose Burnside's North Carolina Campaign").

 

[tmh10]

Burnside has a bit of the tragic about him. He famously attempted to decline command of the AOP, saying he wasn't fit for it; he should have been taken at his word there. He did pretty well in the North Carolina Sounds and when in command at Cincinnati, organizing the "second" Army of the Ohio, but then couldn't do much in East Tennessee.

There were a couple of good pieces on him in NC in the collection Union Combined Operations in the Civil War (Craig L. Symonds, editor; Fordham Univ. Press, 2010) by David E. Long ("Burnside When He Was Brilliant: Ambrose Burnside and Union Operations in Pamlico Sound") and David C. Skaggs ("A Thorn, Not a Dagger: Strategic Implications of Ambrose Burnside's North Carolina Campaign").

I was going to edit my post about Burnsise but accidently deleted it. I mistook your biography of Halleck by Ambrose for Burnside. Sorry, just finished mowing 2 acres and a bit tired.

 

[Copperhead-mi]

Federal - Colonel John Milton Chivington

 

[diane]

Boy, I'll second that - talk about a nit that should have been stepped on before he became a louse! He was commanding the Colorado militia when Sand Creek happened but he'd been Union army. (Think that's why he was militia - didn't want him in the army!)

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Federal - Colonel John Milton Chivington

Never heard of him. Please tell me about him!

 

[ole]

Never heard of him. Please tell me about him!

Try googling the Sand Creek Massacre.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Wow... my reaction to Chivington broke the site!