USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 2 > Part 8
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At a little past midnight, as he had anticipated, the attack came; and now was seen the advantage of strong picket lines well out; for they made a good fight, falling back slowly, and contesting every inch stubbornly, so that, by the time they had reached the main body, it was in readiness to receive the on- coming foe. Charge after charge was made and the incessant
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JOHN W. GEARY.1 ...
flashes of the guns lighted up the whole heavens. But firmly this handful of men held their ground, and dealt fearful destruc- tion. Thirty-five out of forty-eight artillery horses in Kitap's battery were killed. General Geary's son, Edward R., a gallant young officer, was instantly cut off while sighting his gun. Until four o'clock the struggle was maintained. The sixty rounds of ammunition were exhausted, and the dead and wounded were searched for a supply. The Union guns were ably handled and produced terrible effect. Finally, one of the pieces was dragged · to a position where it enfiladed a rebel force which had taken shelter behind a railroad embankment, the fire from which caused his line to waver. Taking advantage of this sign of weakness, Geary ordered a charge, which drove everything before it. At this moment a pack of frightened mules broke away, and with their traces dangling at their sides rushed in a body in the same direction, producing the impression that the Union cavalry was charging, and causing a stampede-the confident midnight as- sault of the enemy ending in inglorious rout. One hundred and fifty-seven of the enemy's dead were left on the field, and one hundred and thirty-five severely wounded. When Generals Grant and Hooker arrived, and witnessed the evidences of the intensity of the struggle, they expressed their surprise and grati- fication that so small a body of men had made so gallant a fight. General Slocum wrote : " I wish you and your command to know that I feel deeply grateful for their gallant conduct, and for the new laurels they have brought to our corps." Badeau in his life of Grant says : "Mr. Jefferson Davis had visited Lookout Mountain only a week before, and feasted his eyes with the sight of the National army shut up among the hills, like an animal ready for slaughter; and now, at a single stroke, the prey had been snatched from his grasp. The door for relief was opened, and, from a besieged and isolated army, the force in Chattanooga had suddenly become the assailant. . . The army felt as if it had been miraculously relieved. Its spirit revived at once, the depression of Chickamauga was shaken off, and the unshackled giant stood erect." "For almost three hours," says General Hooker in his official report of this battle, "without assistance he [Geary] repelled the repeated attacks of vastly superior numbers,
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and in the end drove them ingloriously from the field. At one time they had enveloped him on three sides, under circumstances that would have dismayed any officer except one endowed with an iron will, and the most exalted courage. Such is the char- acter of General Geary." No words could more veritably por- tray his character, and the victory achieved
"In the dead waste and middle of the night,"
against numbers many fold his own acting upon a preconcerted and well-matured plan, was gained by that iron will and most exalted courage.
Scarcely a month had elapsed before he divulged to General Hooker an ingenious plan for sweeping the enemy from the seemingly impregnable heights of Lookout Mountain. At a dis- tance of half or two-thirds up the side of this bold chain rises a perpendicular, and in some parts overhanging, face of rock which reaches to a great height. His device was to cause a close column to hug this palisade-where it would be sheltered from the fire of the troops above-which should turn the flank of any body of soldiers that might be encountered on the lower slope of the mountain, like the point of a ploughshare, and follow this up closely by a heavy force three lines deep and well supported, which like the moulding-board of the plough should overwhelm and scatter every opposing force. His plan was adopted and he was given a strong column. A dense fog on the morning of the 24th of November served to screen his preliminary move- ments, and before the enemy were aware of it that resistless ploughshare was running along under the shadow of the towering rock. Stubborn resistance was made; but taken unawares and in the reverse direction from that in which they were fortified to fight, they were swept along by this novel and swiftly moving force. Still, taking advantage of the little ravines by which the face of the mountain is seamed, and the loose rocks everywhere covering the ground, desperate fighting at every turn was kept up. But nothing could stay the onward progress of Geary. Mists hung low on the breast of the mountain, and the com- batants were shut out from the view of the distant observer; yet the progress of the fight could be discerned by the flashes of
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JOIIN W. GEARY.
the musketry: Grant, and Thomas, and Sherman, and Hooker, with their troops a hundred thousand strong, from their several positions were watching with the deepest solicitude the progress of the contest. As Geary fought his way on he gradually wound upwards, and finally, having swept all before him, emerged into the bright sunlight far above the black clouds that still hung on the breast of the mountain, and planted the White Star flag upon the lofty summit. As the Union army beheld that beautiful emblem floating upon the serene air, and knew that the victory was won, peals of rejoicing rung out from every valley and hill- side, and the distant mountains repeated the glad shout. It was the noted BATTLE ABOVE THE CLOUDS, which the imagination has allied to the fiery contests of angels upon heaven's battlements, as pictured by the prolific fancy of Milton.
The battle of Missionary Ridge followed on the next day, when Sherman stood upon the left, Thomas upon the centre, and Hooker upon the right. Geary was sent to turn the extreme right of the rebel column, and gaining the rear of that flank dashed on in triumphal course. His progress here, as described by himself, was the most exciting and inspiring of any in the whole course of his military life.
Early in the spring of 1864, Sherman commenced his campaign on Atlanta, where, for a hundred days, was one almost continu- ous battle, in which General Geary never for one moment left his post. At Peachtree Creek, where the enemy, under Hood-the new rebel Commander-in-chief-attacked with unwonted power, he stood unmoved, and finally beat back the foe, gaining a complete triumph. In the March to the Sea he led his division with un- broken success, and when arrived at Savannah, and that strong- hold had fallen with its outlying forts, he was selected to be Military Governor of the city. With the march northward through the Carolinas, and the surrender of Johnson, the war virtually ended, and the armies were disbanded. General Geary now returned to private life, and, in 1866, was nominated and elected Governor of Pennsylvania for a term of three years. At its close he was re-elected for a second term. In his administra- tion of civil affairs he showed himself, if possible, more gifted than in the field. His messages abound in recommendations for
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
correcting abuses in legislating and in administering affairs. To this end the veto power was freely used, and a most careful and scrutinizing personal supervision was given to the entire working of the Government. During the six years of his administration the State debt was diminished by the sum of $10,992,662.54. In January, 1873, his gubernatorial labors closed. Without allowing himself any time for relaxation, he at once entered upon extensive business projects, which he was preparing to carry forward with his usual unrelenting hand; but on the morning of Saturday, the 8th of February, while seated at the breakfast table in the midst of his family, his head dropped upon his breast, and without a struggle he expired. An examination disclosed no apparent signs of disease. But a microscopical inspection by an expert proved that death was caused by fatty degeneration of the heart and kidneys. His brain weighed fifty-six and a half ounces, one of the largest on record. The suddenness of his death, coupled with his having so recently laid aside the gubernatorial dignity, created a marked sensation at the capital and through- out the State. A public funeral was accorded. The Governor and heads of departments, members of both houses of the Legis- lature, military and civic societies, united in paying the last sad rites, which were rendered unusually solemn and impressive.
By his first marriage he had three sons, one of whom died in infancy, another was killed at Wauhatchie, and a third was a recent graduate at West Point. Mrs. Geary died in 1853. In 1858, he was married to Mrs. Mary C. Henderson, daughter of Robert R. Church, of Cumberland county. The issue of this marriage was three daughters and one son.
In person Governor Geary was six feet four inches in height, and well proportioned. In manners he was courteous, and at the same time affable and cordial. He was endowed with a deep sense of religious obligation, and was hence preserved from those vices which have dragged down many of the most exalted intel- lects. He had much of the iron in his nature, and consequently was exacting and imperious, not only towards others but also towards himself. He was careful of the public welfare. Few men have been more successful. Though cut off in middle life, he had been much in the public eye, and had filled numerous
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CHARLES J. BIDDLE.
stations of great responsibility-a soldier in two wars, and prac- tically Governor in three States. What to most men would have been regarded a short life to him was long and full; for
" We live in deeds, not years; in thought, not breath ; In feelings, not in figures on the dial. We should count time by heart-throbs when they beat For God, for man, for duty. He most lives Who thinks most, feels noblest, acts the best ;
And he but dead who lives the coward life."
HARLES JOHN BIDDLE, Colonel of the Bucktail regiment, was born on the 30th of April, 1819, in the city of Phila- delphia. He was the son of Nicholas, and Jane Margaret (Craig) Biddle. He was educated at Princeton College, and read law in his native city, where he was admitted to the bar. He volun- teered in the militia for the suppression of the riots in 1844, and at the breaking out of the Mexican War recruited a company -- of which he was made Captain-for service in one of the new regiments just then ordered for the regular army, in which Joseph E. Johnston was Lieutenant-Colonel. He participated in all the battles fought in the Valley of Mexico, and received honorable mention in the reports of his superiors, General Scott designating him as "among the first in the assault" at Chapul- tepec, and his regimental commander saying, "Captain Biddle behaved with his accustomed bravery ; he joined us in the morn- ing from a sick-bed, against my wish and orders." He was breveted Major for "gallant and meritorious" conduct, and was selected as Aide-de-camp by General Kearny. Upon his return from Mexico he resumed the practice of the law, and in 1853 was married to Miss Emma Mather.
At the breaking out of the Rebellion he was appointed a mem- ber of the Committee of Public Safety for the city, and was active in drilling troops. He was commissioned by Governor Curtin, Colonel of the Bucktail regiment, and upon his arrival in Harrisburg was placed in command of Camp Curtin, then crowded with new levies, where his superior discipline had a happy effect. In June, 1861, on an occasion of alarm for the safety of the southern border of the State, Colonel Biddle was sent thither with his own, the Fifth regiment, and a section of
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
artillery, where he displayed, says Mcclellan, in his official report, "great activity and intelligence." After the defeat of the Union army at Bull Run, his position was for a time perilous; but he maintained it until the advance of the army under General Banks in the Shenandoah Valley brought relief. In that army the com- mand of a brigade of five regiments and a battery-on the depart- ure of General George H. Thomas to the western army-was given to Colonel Biddle. In September he was ordered with his regiment to join the Pennsylvania Reserves before Washington. In the meantime, at a special election held in Philadelphia, Colonel Biddle had been elected a member of Congress. He did not take his seat at the called session in July, as he was then facing the enemy; but at the opening of the regular session in Decem- ber, being in camp, with no immediate prospect of hostilities, he resigned his position as Colonel and was installed in that body. His political views at this period are illustrated by a single paragraph from his reply to the address of his constitu- ents : " The Government that embraces the great, rich, and popu- lous States of the North must sink to no humble, no degraded place among the nations. National prosperity is too nearly allied to national dignity to suffer us to stand in the relation of the vanquished to those who never can secede from geographical connection ; with whom close relations, warlike or amicable, must continue always." At the close of his congressional term he returned to Philadelphia. In the emergency, in the fall of 1862, he volunteered as a private in the militia, and was among the first to cross the border into Maryland. When arrived in close proximity to the enemy, and there was a prospect of a collision, he was assigned to duty as an officer. Again, in 1863, he was active in encouraging enlistments and in raising troops, until the victory at Gettysburg put an end to hostile invasion. In 1865 he was nominated for City Solicitor, but was defeated. He had in the meantime become editor of a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and one of its proprietors. In this capacity he continued to labor with marked skill and ability until the day of his death, which occurred suddenly on the 28th of September, 1873. " He was," says John Cadwalader, in his memoir, " of a frail body but great soul. The body, in his own language, he
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613
ALEXANDER SCHEMMELFINNIG.
regarded as a "hack-horse to be urged on by the soul to the jour- ney's end, though the galled jade should fall on the road.' His rule of conduct was, in his own words, always to seek 'practical and active employment; for without it,' he said, 'even if our time is spent in the most arduous study, there is danger that the char- acter may be sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and lose its vigor and aptitude for the contests of life.' He added that he had found ' nothing which so nearly approached happiness as the self-satisfaction arising from the exact fulfilment of prescribed duties."" "I should say," says Peter McCall, of the Philadelphia bar, " he was a man for an emergency. If an enemy were at the gates, he was the man under whom I would have liked to serve. . He was a man of the highest probity, a true patriot, a lover of his country and of its institutions. . , He was a scholar, a ripe scholar, and a thorough gentleman. His scholarship was more than ordinary. He was a graduate of Nassau Hall, and that was my first bond of union with him, and mark me, Nassau Hall will set him down among her distinguished children."
LEXANDER SCHEMMELFINNIG, Colonel of the Seventy-fourth regiment, and Brigadier-General of volunteers, was born in Germany, in 1824. In the Hungarian War he was a soldier with Kossuth, and upon its unfortunate termination came to America. In 1854 he published a work entitled "The War between Russia and Turkey." He was commissioned Colonel of the Seventy-fourth, on the 23d of July, 1861. He was of the column which marched, in inclement weather and across swollen streams, to the support of Fremont in West Virginia, and had scarcely reached his destination before, with Fremont, he re- turned to the assistance of Banks in the Shenandoah Valley. He was afterwards in the corps of Sigel, and with it fought in Pope's campaign, distinguishing himself in the battle of Bull Run, for which he was made Brigadier-General. In the battle of Chancel- lorsville he commanded a brigade in the Third division of the Eleventh corps, and when the First division, commanded by Devens, gave way before the attack of Jackson, he faced to meet the disaster and, with Buschbeck's brigade of the Second, held the enemy in check under fierce assaults for nearly an hour.
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
The indiscriminate denunciation heaped upon the corps for its conduct called forth the vigorous protest of this intrepid soldier. In a letter to General Schurz he says: "For the surprise on the flanks and the rear in broad daylight, by a force outnumbering us four to one, the responsibility falls not on the Third division, holding the centre, but upon the First division, which held the right wing, and upon those whose duty it was to anticipate such a contingency, and to prepare for it. General, I am an old soldier. Up to this time I have been proud of commanding the brave men of this brigade; but I am convinced that if the infamous lies uttered about us are not retracted and satisfaction given, their good-will and soldierly spirit will be broken, and I shall no longer see myself at the head of the same brave men whom I have heretofore had the honor to lead."
General Schemmelfinnig commanded the Third division in the battle of Gettysburg, where he did effective service when hard pressed by the Louisiana Tigers. Early in the year 1864, he was transferred to the Department of the South, and had command of the forces on St. John's Island. Upon the fall of Charleston, on the 18th of February, 1865, his forces were the first to enter the city, and to take possession of Forts Sumter and Moultrie. He died at Minersville, Pennsylvania, on the 7th of September, 1865.
OHIN CLARK, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Third Reserve regi- ment, was born in Philadelphia on the 30th of November, 1822. He was the son of George and Ann (Kearney) Clark, of Irish descent. He received a good common-school education, but no military training previous to the Rebellion. He entered the service of the United States on the 31st of May, 1861, as Captain of Company E, in the Third Reserve. No officer of his · command was more attentive to duty nor more constant than he. He was with the corps throughout the entire Seven Days' battle upon the Peninsula, and at its close was promoted to Lieutenant- Colonel for meritorious services. At Antietam he was wounded in the hand, but refused to leave the field, and did not go to a hospital, though the wound resulted in the permanent injury of one of his fingers. He was here in command of the regiment, as also at South Mountain and Antietam, where he was in the
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LT COL. 3RD REGT PRY '
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JOHN CLARK .- JOSEPH ROBERTS.
thickest of the fight and acquitted himself with distinction. Soon after the battle of Fredericksburg, Colonel Clark was detailed for special duty in the engineer corps. It was at a time when the Government was carrying on stupendous campaigns reaching over almost the entire breadth of the continent, and the building and repair of railroads for the transfer of troops and supplies was not among the least of its labors. Colonel Clark had, in early life, acquired great familiarity with the practical part of railroad construction, and his services were invaluable. At the close of his term he was mustered out, and was subsequently chosen a member of the City Council of Philadelphia, and a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, of which body he was elected Speaker. He died at his residence in Philadelphia, on the 30th of May, 1872.
OSEPH ROBERTS, Colonel of the Third artillery, and Brevet Brigadier-General, was born on the 30th of December, 1814, at Middletown, Delaware. His father, Joseph Roberts, was a native of Delaware, but has for many years been a resident of Philadelphia, where, at the advanced age of eighty-eight, he still lives. His mother was Elizabeth Booth, also a native of Delaware. The greater portion of his early years was spent in New Castle, where he received his preliminary educational train- ing. At the age of sixteen he entered the sophomore class of the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained one year; but in 1831, having received an appointment to the Military Academy, he left the University and became a cadet at West Point. He graduated in 1835, standing the eighth in the class of fifty-six, and was promoted to Brevet Second Lieutenant in the Fourth United States artillery. He was, at successive periods, advanced through the several grades to that of Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment. For a year after entering the service he was in gar- rison at Fort Hamilton, New York harbor. In 1836, he was on active duty in the Creek Nation, in Georgia and Alabama. From September to November of this year he was Captain of a body of mounted Creek Indian volunteers, who were employed in the Florida War.
At the opening of the academic year of 1837, Captain Roberts
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MARTIAL DEEDS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
was transferred from field duty in Florida to civil duty at West Point; and for a period of twelve years was Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the United States Military Academy, where he had under his instruction Grant, McClellan, Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet, and many others who have since become famous in either army during the great. Civil War. Little did Professor Roberts think, while he was quietly but earnestly engaged in teaching these boys the elements of the sciences, that they would eventually use the knowledge thus acquired in leading armed hosts of their own countrymen against each other in mortal conflict, and that these then nameless youths would be world-wide known, and chief in the eye of fame. But so it proved, and their later eminence bears ample testimony to the excellence of their carly military instruction.
In 1849 he was again ordered to the field, having the year before been promoted to Captain in his regiment, and was engaged in active duty against the Seminole Indians in Florida. After a year's service here he was employed in garrison duty at Key West, Florida, in 1850; Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, in 1850-'53; Ringgold barracks, Texas, in 1853-'55; Fort Wood, New York, in 1855; Ringgold barracks, Texas, in 1856; and Forts McRae, Jupiter and Capron, Florida, in 1856-59. At this period he took the field, and was again engaged in hostilities against the Seminole Indians, in that seemingly endless Florida War. After a brief period of duty he was transferred to the frontier at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and in 1858 to Platte Bridge, Nebraska. In 1859 he was detailed upon recruiting service, and in 1859-'60- '61, was in garrison at Fortress Monroe, employed in the Artillery School of Practice, and as a member of the board to arrange the programme of instruction for that institution.
Soon after the Rebellion broke out he was placed in command at Fortress Monroe, and promoted to the rank of Major in the regular army. On the 13th of September, 1862, he was selected for Chief of Artillery in the Seventh army corps, which position he continued to fill until the 19th of March, 1863. In the mean- time the Third Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery-One Hundred and Fifty-second of the line-had been recruited, and an experi- enced officer was desired to lead it. Major Roberts was selected
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SULLIVAN A. MEREDITH.
for this purpose and commissioned Colonel. He was assigned to the command of Fortress Monroe, and his regiment to duty at this point and with the Army of the James. From June 10th, 1863, until November 9th, 1865, he continued to exercise this im- portant trust, having in the meantime been brevetted Brigadier- General in the volunteer service, and Colonel and Brigadier General in the United States Army, "for meritorious and distin- guished services during the Rebellion." He was subsequently for a short time in command of Fort McHenry, near Baltimore ; but was, in November, 1866, called to court martial duty, where he was retained until April, 1867, when he was made Inspector-General of the Department of Washington. His merit as an instructor had been tested by a long service early in his career, and in March, 1868, he was assigned to duty as Super- intendent of Instruction in the Artillery School at Fortress Monroe, where he has continued to serve with great credit until the present time. General Roberts was married on the 4th of Oc- tober, 1860, at Fortress Monroe, to Miss Adeline C. Dimick, third daughter of General Justin Dimick, of the United States Army. In person he is below the medium height, but of powerful make, with the air and carriage of a soldier. He is the author of a "Hand-book of Artillery," published in 1861, and revised in 1863, which has given him a deserved reputation as a writer and a tactician.
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