Death of Union Major-General John Sedgwick
It is widely recorded that eyewitnesses around Sedgwick at the time of his fatal shooting heard the distinctive long shrill whistling sound of whitworth bullets travelling through the air. These references are easy to find.
Although at least five whitworth marksmen claimed the kill, the most likely candidate is Ben Powell, a reputedly decent and honest person. The reported shot was estimated to be over 900 yards.
An extract from Ben Powell’s letter written to his wife in November, 1980, states:
…”I served until a few days before the battle of Gettysburg when I was presented with a long-range Whitworth rifle with a telescope and globe sights and with a roving commission as an independent sharpshooter and scout. This rifle killed Gen. Sedgewick at Spotsylvania Court House.”…
Powell’s account is corroborated by another Confederate sharpshooter, Berry Benson. Benson wrote an article, ‘Who Killed General Sedgwick’ which appeared in the ‘
Augusta Chronicle’, Augusta, Georgia, on November 25, 1917. Relevant extracts from this article are shown below:
WHO KILLED GENERAL SEDGWICK
…”About 10 o'clock in the morning of the 9th of May, 1864, three days after the battle of the Wilderness, and three days before the battle of the Bloody Angle, Major-General John Sedgwick, commanding the sixth corps of Grant's Army, was killed, near Spottsylvania, by a single shot from a Confederate sharpshooter, over a half mile distant. History thus records, but history does not record who fired the fatal shot. Nor is it generally known, but we of the battalion of sharpshooters of McGowan's South Carolina Brigade, of which I was first sergeant, knew….
…In the distribution to Lee's Army of these Whitworth rifles two fell to our brigade; one a walnut stock, was given to Ben Powell, and one, an oak stock, to a young fellow of Edgefield district, named Cheatham. Both of these men were excellent shots, and they now became independent sharpshooters, to go where they pleased. and carry on war at their own sweet will….
On this 9th of May, Ben came in about noon, and walking up to me, he said:
"Sergeant, I got a big Yankee officer this morning."
"How do you know it was an officer?" I asked.
"I could tell by the way they behaved; they were all mounted; it was something over half a mile; I could see them good through the telescope; I could tell by the way they acted which was the head man; so I raised my sights and took the chance; and, sir, he tumbled right off his horse. The others dismounted and carried him away. I could see it all good through the glass."
"Oh Ben," I said, "you shot some cavalryman, and you think it was an officer."
"No, sir, he was an officer, and a big one too. I could tell."
That night the enemy's pickets called over to ours:
"Johnny, one of your sharpshooters killed General Sedgwick today."
So we knew that Ben did what he said.”…
The flaw in Benson’s corroborating account, however, is that he claimed Powell’s shot hit a mounted officer (Sedgwick was on foot at the relevant time). However, it is quite possible that his memory was hazy and his recollections of the finer details of the story were inaccurate, after so long a period.
Major W. S. Dunlop, commander of a battalion of sharpshooters in Lee’s Third Corps at Spotsylvania, also attributes the shot to Powell when he states in his authoritative work, ‘
Lee’s Sharpshooters’
(1889) at page 49 that….”A few shots only had been fired at the group , when the ringing peal of Powell’s “Whitworth” was heard some distance to the right, the officer was seen to stagger and fall; and the brilliant career of that gallant and distinguished soldier, Maj. Gen. Sedgwick , commander of the fifth Federal army corps, was closed and closed forever. Powell reported at once that he had killed a Federal general, but we knew not his name or rank until it came out a few days later in the Northern papers, announcing that Gen. Sedgwick had been killed by a Confederate sharpshooter”…
Interestingly, Dunlop’s account correctly refers to a standing not a mounted target.
Death of Union Major-General John Reynolds
Some notable historians do claim that a sharpshooter’s minie ball fired from an elevated position killed Reynolds. I will not bother with their commentaries here.
Some of the contemporaneous accounts describing Reynold’s death at the time are shown as follows.
Major Joseph Rosengarten, who served on Reynold’s staff, was nearby but not present, at the time of Reynold’s death. He says of the general’s death in ‘
Annals of War’
(1879) in the following extract:
…"The suddenness of the shock was in itself, perhaps, a relief to those who were nearest to Reynolds in the full flush of life and health, vigorously leading the attack of a comparatively small body, a glorious picture of the best type of military leader, superbly mounted, and horse and man sharing in the excitement of the shock of battle, Reynolds was, of course, a shining-mark to the enemy's sharpshooters. He had taken his troops into a heavy growth of timber on the slope of a hillside, and, under their regimental and brigade commanders, the men did their work well and promptly. Returning to join the expected divisions, he was struck by a Minnie ball, fired by a sharpshooter hidden in the branches of a tree almost overhead, and killed at once; his horse bore him to the little clump of trees, where a cairn of stones, and a rude mark on the bark, now almost overgrown, still tells the fatal spot.” ...
The best eyewitness account of Reynold’s death is probably given by his Orderly Sergeant, Charles H. Veil, who was with him at the time of his death. Below is a newspaper extract from Veil’s reproduced Letter written on April 7, 1864:
…“The Regiment charged into the (Herbst) woods nobly, but the enemy was too strong, and they had to give way to the right. The enemy still pushed on, and was now not much more than 60 paces from where the Gnl. was. Minnie balls were flying thick. The Gnl. turned to look towards the Seminary (I suppose to see if the other troops were coming on) and as he did so a Minnie Ball struck him in the back of the neck and he fell from his horse dead.”…
(
The Gettysburg Times, Thursday, January 23, 1958, at page fifteen)
The artist, Alfred Waud, who accompanied the Union army at Gettysburg, shortly afterwards created a sketch, narrative and map detailing the death of Reynolds. This information can be digitally accessed publicly at the Library of Congress at:
https://www.loc.gov/item/2004660757/
A part of his narrative says,
…”the Iron Brigade (Meredith's), which Doubleday, who had command of the First Corps, was leading to action in a piece of wood skirting Willoughby Run, where Archer's (Rebel) Brigade, which had just crossed the Run was advancing in line of battle. At the moment when one regiment of this brigade, Fairchild's, accompanied by Doubleday, had entered the wood, and was becoming desperatley [sic.] engaged, Reynolds, with his staff, rode up to the neck of woods in Fairchild's rear, to examine the ground, and the disposition of the enemy, when he discovered the enemy advancing, and sweeping up on his left. Instantly wheeling to ride back, he received a ball in the back of his neck, from the direction in which he had seen the enemy, and was borne insensible from the field and soon after expired.”….
Perhaps the most compelling evidence supporting a possible elevated marksman shot is contained in a letter written on July 5, 1863, by Reynold’s sister, Jennie Gildersleeve, to her brother. After viewing the dead body she described the injury in this way, …“after the bullet hit him behind the right ear it passed down and around the skull and lodged in his chest”… She was indicating that the wound had a downward trajectory from the entry point at the neck. If her version is correct, then this suggests that the lethal shot was fired from a high position, like a tree, which is more probably the case because Reynolds was shot while mounted on his horse. This letter was apparently cited by Edwin B. Coddington in his book, ‘
The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, 1968. (I have not read this book).
This combination of information above reasonably suggests that the fatal shot originated from the Herbst woods (in front of Reynolds). The advancing ranks of Archer’s infantry brigade were approaching the woods from across Willoughbys Run and his skirmishers had infiltrated the tree lot at this time. I think Reynolds was felled by a targeted shot, rather than a random one. The saddled Reynolds would have made a conspicuous figure, shouting orders, as he approached the eastern edge of the trees. The fatal bullet was a precise head shot and none of his accompanying staff on horseback, Captains Mitchell and Baird and Sergeant Veil, were seriously hit, if at all (as far as I know). I believe it was fired by a skilled rifleman carrying a conventional weapon like an enfield (not a whitworth) who was probably a skirmisher in Archer’s brigade entering the woods directly in front of Reynolds. The resourceful shooter saw a tempting opportunity then temporaily perched himself high in a tall tree within the copse to get a clearer aim at his singled out target. Although one cannot be certain, this is a possible explanation.
The Bottom Line
The only way to be certain whether a whitworth was responsible for any kill is to have an authoritative account (eg in a medical autopsy report) that identifies the type of bullet recovered from the body. Without this evidence, one can only consider possibilities and likelihoods from the circumstantial evidence available, which sometimes might be unreliable.