Oliver
Otis Howard was born in Leeds, Maine, on 8th November,
1830. Educated at Bowdoin College he graduated from the U.S. Military
Academy, West Point in 1855. After
two years in the army he returned to the military academy to teach
mathematics.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War,
Howard, an opponent of slavery, resigned
his regular army commission and became colonel of the Third Maine
Volunteers in the Union Army.
Howard fought at the Bull Run (July,
1861) and accompanied George McClellan
on his Peninsular Campaign. During the battle at Fair
Oaks (May, 1862), Howard was badly wounded and had to have his
right arm amputated. Howard also took part the the battles at Antietam
(September, 1862), Fredericksburg
(December, 1862), Chancellorsville
(May, 1863) and Gettysburg (May,
1863). Promoted to the rank of major general, Howard commanded the
Army of Tennessee under William T. Sherman
during his Atlanta Campaign in 1864.
After the war President Andrew Johnson
appointed Howard as commissioner of the Freedom
Bureau. His first task was to provide food and medical facilities
for former slaves. In 1867, with the support of Radical
Republicans in Congress, helped establish Howard
University and for five years served as its president (1869-74).
Howard returned to military service and fought in the Indian
Wars before serving as superintendent at
West Point (1880-82). After leaving
the army he continued his campaign to improve the quality of African
American education in the Deep South and founded the Lincoln Memorial
University, in Harrogate, Tennessee (1895).
Howard also wrote several books including Chief
Joseph (1881), Zachary Taylor
(1892), Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard
(1907) and Famous Indian Chiefs I Have Known
(1908). Oliver Otis Howard died on 26th October, 1909.
(1)
While at West Point Oliver Howard
campaigned against conservatism in the United
States Army. He wrote about these events in his autobiography
published in 1907.
One thing that troubled me was class distinction, which seemed
to intense for our republican ideas, and, indeed, made the army itself
disliked by the people at large. While considering this subject in
1858 I wrote an article entitled Discipline in the Army. There I advocated
with as much force as I could a paternal system. I endeavored to show
that the general who cared for his men as a father cares for his children,
providing for all their wants and doing everything he could for their
comfort consistent with their strict performance of duty, would be
the most successful; that his men would love him; would follow him
readily and be willing even to sacrifice their lives while enabling
him to accomplish a great patriotic purpose.
(2)
Oliver Howard remembers going home for the first time after deciding
to join the Union Army in May, 1861.
Before entering my front gate, I raised my eyes and saw the picture
of my little family framed in by the window. Home, family, comfort,
beauty, joy, love were crowded into an instant of thought and feeling,
as I sprang through the door and quickly ascended the stairway.
My wife was patriotic, strong for the integrity of the Union, full
of the heroic spirit, so when the crisis came, though so sudden and
hard to bear, she said not one adverse word. I saw her watch me as
I descended the slope toward the ferry landing, looked back, and waved
my hat as I disappeared behind the ledge and trees.
(3)
Oliver Howard described taking his regiment, Third Maine Volunteers,
on the way to Washington in June,
1861.
At railroad stations in Maine, on the approach and departure of
our trains, there was abundant cheering and words of encouragement.
However, here and there were discordant cries. Few, indeed, were the
villages where no voice of opposition was raised. But, later in the
war, in the free States after the wounding and the death of fathers,
brothers, and sons, our sensitive, afflicted home people would not
tolerate what they called traitorous talk.
(4)
In his autobiography Oliver Howard described fighting
at Bull Run on 21st July, 1861.
I saw Burnside's men, who had come back from the field with their
muskets gleaming in the sunshine. They had some appearance of formation
and were resting on their arms. I noticed other troops more scattered;
ambulances in long columns leaving the field with the wounded. There
were men with broken arms; faces with bandages stained with blood;
bodies pierced; many were walking or limping to the rear; meanwhile
shells were shrieking and breaking in the heated air. I was sorry,
indeed, that those left of my men had to pass that ordeal.
When forming, I so stationed myself, mounted, that the men, marching
in twos, should pass me. I closely observed them. They were pale and
thoughtful. Many looked up into my face and smiled. As soon as it
was ready the first line swept up the slope, through a sprinkling
of trees, out into an open space on high ground. An enemy's battery
toward our front and some musketry shots with no enemy plainly in
sight caused the first annoyance. Soon another battery off to our
right coming into position increased the danger. And, worse than the
batteries, showers of musket balls from the wood, two hundred yards
away.
Many officers labored to keep their men together, but I saw could
effect nothing under fire. At last I ordered all to fall back to the
valley and reform behind the thicket. Before many minutes, however,
it was evident that a panic had seized all the troops within sight.
Some experienced veteran officers, like Heintzelman, entreated and
commanded their subordinates, by turns, to rally their men; but nothing
could stop the drift and eddies of the masses that were faster and
faster flowing toward the rear.
Captain Heath, of the Third Maine, who, promoted subsequently to lieutenant
colonel and fell in the battle of Gaines Mills, walked for some time
by my horse and shed tears as he talked to me: "My men will not
stay together, Colonel, they will not obey me," he said. Other
brave officers pleaded and threatened. Surgeons staying back pointed
to their wounded and cried: "for God's sake, stop; don't leave
us!" Nothing could at that time reach and influence the fleeing
crowds except panicky cries like: "The enemy is upon us! We shall
be taken!" These cries gave increase to confusion and speed to
flight.
Heintzelman, with his wounded arm in a sling, rode up and down and
made a last effort to restore order. He sharply reprimanded every
officer he encountered. He swore at me. From time to time I renewed
my attempts. My brother, C. H. Howard, if he saw me relax for a moment,
sang out: "Oh, do try again!" Part of the Fourteenth New
York from Brooklyn rallied north of Bull Run and were moving on in
fine shape. "See them," said my brother; "let us try
to form like that!" So we were trying, gathering a few, but in
vain. Then I stopped all efforts, but sent out this message and kept
repeating it to every Maine and Vermont man within reach: "To
the old camp at Centreville. Rally at the Centreville camp."
(5)
In July, 1861, Oliver Howard joined the Army
of Potomac under the command of General George
McClellan.
My first sight of McClellan was in 1850, when I was a cadet
at West Point. He had then but recently returned from Mexico, where
he had gained two brevets of honor. He was popular and handsome and
a captain of engineers, and if there was one commissioned officer
more than another who had universal notice among the young gentlemen
of the academy it was he, himself a young man, a staff officer of
a scientific turn who had been in several battles and had played everywhere
a distinguished part.
Eleven years later, after his arrival in Washington, July 23, 1861,
an occasion brought me, while standing amid a vast multitude of other
observers, a fresh glimpse of McClellan. He was now a major general
and fittingly mounted. His record, from a brilliant campaign in West
Virginia, and the urgent demand of the Administration for the ablest
military man to lift us up from the valley of our existing humiliation,
instantly brought this officer to the knowledge and scrutiny of the
Government and the people.
(6)
In his autobiography published in 1907 General Oliver
Howard commented on the way that Abraham
Lincoln treated General George
McClellan during the early months of 1862.
Mr. Lincoln evidently had begun to distrust McClellan. There
was growing opposition to him everywhere for political reasons. Think
of the antislavery views of Stanton and Chase; of the growing antislavery
sentiments of the congressional committee on the conduct of war; think
of the number of generals like Fremont, Butler, Banks, Hunter, and
others in everyday correspondence with the Cabinet, whose convictions
were already strong that the slaves should be set free; think, too,
of the Republican press constantly becoming more and more of the same
opinion and the masses of the people really leading the press. McClellan's
friends in the army had often offended the Northern press. In his
name radical antislavery correspondents had been expelled from the
army.
(7)
In his autobiography Oliver Howard describes the aftermath of a battlefield
during Peninsular Campaign.
As we approached the front a thick mist was setting in and a dark
cloudy sky was over our heads, so that it was not easy at twenty yards
to distinguish a man from a horse. Miles, guiding us, remarked: "General,
you had better dismount and lead your horses, for the dead and wounded
are here.
A peculiar feeling crept over me as I put my feet on the soft ground
and followed the young officer. Some stretchers were in motion. A
few friends were searching for faces they hoped to find. There were
cries of delirium, calls of the helpless, the silence of the slain,
and the hum of distant voices in the advancing brigade, with the intermittent
rattle of musketry, the neighing of horses, and the shriller prolonged
calls of the team mules, and soon the moving of lanterns guiding the
bearers of the wounded to the busy surgeons.
I remember that the call of one poor fellow was insistent. He repeatedly
cried: "Oh, sir! Kind sir! Come to me!" I walked over to
where he lay and asked: "What regiment do you belong to?"
He answered: "The Fifth Mississippi."
I then said: "What do you want?"
He replied: "Oh, I am cold!"
I knew it was from the approach of death, but noticing that I had
a blanket over him I said: "You have a good warm blanket over
you." He looked toward it and said gently: "yes, some kind
gentleman from Massachusetts spread his blanket over me, but, sir,
I'm still cold."
A Massachusetts soldier had given his only blanket to a wounded man
- a wounded enemy.
(8)
In his autobiography General Oliver Howard describes
how he was ordered to reinforce Brigadier General William French at
Fair Oaks on 29th May, 1862.
Just as we were ready to advance, the enemy's fire began to meet
us, cutting through the trees. My brown horse was wounded through
the shoulder, and I had to dismount and wait for another. Turning
toward the men, I saw that some had been hit and others were leaving
their ranks. This was their first experience under fire. I cried out
with all my might: "Lie down!" Every man dropped to the
ground. In five minutes I had mounted my large grey horse, my brother
(Charles Howard) riding my third and only other one, a beautiful zebra.
In order to encourage the men in a forward movement I placed myself,
mounted, in front of the 64th New York, and Lieutenant Charles H.
Howard, in front of the 61st New York. Every officer was directed
to repeat each command. I ordered: "Forward!" and then "March!"
I could hear the echo of those words and, as I started, the 64th followed
me with a glad shout up the slope and through the woods.
Before reaching French's line I was wounded through the right forearm
by a small Mississippi rifle ball. Lieutenant Howard just then ran
to me on foot and said that the Zebra horse was killed. He took a
handkerchief, bound up my arm, and then ran back to the 61st.
As the impulse was favorable to a charge I decided to go on farther,
and, asking Brooke's regiment on French's left to lie down, called
again: "Forward!" And on we went, pushing back the enemy
and breaking through the nearest line. We pressed our way over uneven
ground to the neighborhood of the crossroads.
The rear of their line was rapidly firing. My grey had his left foreleg
broken and, though I was not aware of it, I had been wounded again,
my right elbow having been shattered by a rifle shot. Lieutenant Howard
was missing. Lieutenant William McIntyre seized me, and put me in
a sheltered place on the ground. I heard him say: "General, you
shall not be killed." McIntyre himself was slain near that spot,
giving his life for mine. The bullets were just then raining upon
our men, who without flinching were firing back.
(9)
After being badly wounded at Fair Oaks,
General Oliver Howard was taken to a large house
that had been converted into a Union Army hospital.
Dr. Hammond, my personal friend, met me near the house, saw the
blood, touched my arm, and said: "General, your arm is broken."
The last ball had passed through the elbow joint and crushed the bones
into small fragments. He led me to a negro hut, large enough only
for a double bed. Here I lay down, alarming an aged negro couple who
feared at first that some of us might discover and seize hidden treasure
which was in that bed.
My brigade surgeon, Dr. Palmer, and several others soon stood by my
bedside in consultation. At last Dr. Palmer, with serious face, kindly
told me that my arm had better come off. "All right, go ahead,"
I said.
"Not before 5 p.m., general." "Why not?" "Reaction
must set in." So I had to wait six hours. I had received the
second wound about half-past ten. I had reached the house about eleven,
and in some weakness and discomfort occupied the negro cabin till
the hour appointed. At that time Dr. Palmer came with four stout soldiers
and a significant stretcher. The doctor put around the arm close to
the shoulder the tourniquet, screwing it tighter and tighter above
the wound. They then bore me to the amputating room, a place a little
gruesome with arms, legs, and hands not yet all carried off, and poor
fellows with anxious eyes waiting their turn.
On the long table I was nicely bolstered; Dr. Grant, who had come
from the front, relieved the too-tight tourniquet. A mixture of chloroform
and gas was administered and I slept quietly. Dr. Palmer amputated
the arm above the elbow. When I awoke I was surprised to find the
heavy burden was gone.
(10)
General Oliver Howard fought at
Antietam in September, 1862. In his autobiography published in
1907, he compared the military achievements of the two opposing commanding
officers, George McClellan
and Robert E. Lee.
Lee's generalship at Antietam could not be surpassed; but while
McClellan's plans were excellent, the tactical execution was bad.
Had all of the right column been on the spot where the work was to
begin, Sumner, seizing Stuart's heights by the Potomac, could have
accomplished the purpose of his heart - to drive everything before
him through the village of Sharpsburg and on to Burnside's front.
Of course, Burnside's move should have been vigorous and simultaneous
with attacks on the right. McClellan so intended. we had, however,
a technical victory, for Lee withdrew after one day's delay and recrossed
the Potomac.
(11)
General Oliver Howard
fought at Fredericksburg in
December, 1862. He later wrote about how General Ambrose
Burnside reacted to the defeat.
At first, Burnside, saddened by the repulse of his attacks in
every part of his lines, planned another battle for the 14th. His
heart naturally went out to the old Ninth Corps that he had but lately
commanded.
On the 14th, while matters were in suspense, I went up into a church
tower with Couch, my corps commander, and had a plain view of all
the slope where the severest losses of the preceding day had occurred.
We looked clear up the suburban street or deep roadway and saw the
ground literally strewn with the blue uniforms of our dead.
Burnside closed this remarkable tragedy by deciding to move the night
of December 15, 1862, his brave but beaten army to the north side
of the Rappahannock. That work of removal was accomplished without
further loss of men or material.
(12)
General Oliver Howard
wrote about the battle of Chancellorsville
in his autobiography, Autobiography of Oliver Otis
Howard (1907)
It has
been customary to blame me and my corps for the disaster. The imputations
of neglect to obey orders; of extraordinary self-confidence; of fanatical
reliance upon the God of battles; of not sending out reconnaissances;
of not intrenching; of not strengthening the right dank by keeping
proper reserves; of having no pickets and skirmishers; of not sending
information to General Hooker, etc., etc., are far from true. My command
was by positive orders riveted to that position. Though constantly
threatened and made aware of hostile columns in motion, yet the woods
were so dense that Stonewall Jackson was able to mass a large force
a few miles off, whose exact whereabouts neither patrols, reconnaissances,
nor scouts ascertained. The enemy crossing the plank road, two and
a half miles off, we all saw. So the turning at the Furnace was seen
by hundreds of our people; but the interpretation of these movements
was certainly wrong. Yet, wherein did we neglect any precaution? It
will be found that Devens kept his subordinates constantly on the
qui vive; so did Schurz. Their actions and mine were identical. The
Eleventh Corps detained Jackson for over an hour; part of my force
was away by Hooker's orders; part of each division fought hard, as
our Confederate enemies clearly show; part of it became wild with
panic, like the Belgians at Waterloo, like most of our troops at Bull
Run, and the Confederates, the second day, at Fair Oaks.
I may leave
the whole matter to the considerate judgment of my companions in arms,
simply asserting that on the terrible day of May 2, 1863, I did all
which could have been done by a corps commander in the presence of
that panic of men largely caused by the overwhelming attack of Jackson's
26,000 men against my isolated corps of 8,000 without its reserve
thus outnumbering me 3 to 1.
There is
always a theory in war which will to rest all the imputation of blame
to those who do not deserve it. It is to impute the credit of one's
great defeat to his enemy. I think in our hearts, as we take a candid
review of everything that took place under General Hooker in the blind
wilderness country around Chancellorsville, we do, indeed, impute
our primary defeat to the successful effort of Stonewall Jackson,
and our other checks to General Robert E. Lee.
(13)
General Oliver Howard
summarized the state of the Confederate Army after the battle of Chancellorsville
in May, 1863.
We could gather little hope from the splendid condition of Lee's
army. It had been reorganized. Its numerous brigades were grouped
into divisions and the divisions into three army corps, and cavalry.
Stonewall Jackson, it is true, was no more, but the three lieutenant
generals - Longstreet, A. P. Hill, and Ewell - were not wanting in
ability or experience. They were trusted by Lee and believed in by
the troops and people.
(14)
General Oliver Howard took part
in the battle of Gettysburg. In
his autobiography Howard wrote about his feelings after the battle
had finished.
It is sometimes said to me that writing and speaking upon
the events of war may have a deleterious influence upon youth. I can
conceive of two reasons of such a warning - one, that a soldier by
his enthusiasm may, even unconsciously, infuse into his writing and
speech the war spirit, and thus incite strong desires in younger minds
for similar excitements and deeds; and secondly, a soldier deeply
affected as he must have been in our great struggle for national existence,
may not take sufficient pains in his accounts of historic incidents
to allay any spirit of animosity or dissension what may still exist.
But with regard to the first, I think there is need of a faithful
portraiture of what we may call the after-battle, a panorama which
shows with fidelity the fields covered with dead men and horses; and
the wounded, numerous and helpless, stretched on the ground in masses,
each waiting his turn; the rough hospitals with hay and straw for
bedding, saturated with blood and wet with the rain; horses torn into
fragments; every species of property ruthlessly demolished or destroyed
- these, which we cannot well exaggerate, and such as these, cry out
against the horrors, the hateful ravages, and the countless because
of war. They show plainly to our children that war, with its embodied
woes and furies, must be avoided, except as the last appeal for existence,
or for the rights which are more valuable than life itself.
When I dwell on the scenes on July 4th and 5th at Gettysburg, the
pictures exhibiting Meade's men and Lee's though now shadowy from
time, are still full of terrible groupings and revolting lineaments.
There is a lively energy, an emulous activity, an exhilarating buoyancy
of spirit in all the preparations for an expected battle, and these
feelings are intensified into an increased ardor during the conflict;
but it is another thing to see our comrades there upon the ground
with their darkened faces and swollen forms; another thing to watch
the countenances of friends and companions but lately in the bloom
of health, now disfigured, torn, and writhing in death; and not less
affecting to a sensitive heart to behold the multitude of strangers
prone and weak, pierced with wounds, or showing broken limbs and every
sign of suppressed suffering, waiting for hours and hours for a relief
which is long coming - the relief of the surgeon's knife or of death.
As to the second reason, any feeling of personal resentment towards
the late Confederates I would not counsel or cherish. Our countrymen
- large numbers of them - combined and fought us hard for a cause.
They failed and we succeeded; so that, in an honest desire for reconcilement,
I would be the more careful, even in the use of terms, to convey no
hatred or reproach for the past. Such are my real convictions, and
certainly the intention in all my efforts is not to anger and separate,
but to pacify and unite.
(15)
Report on the work of the Freemen's Bureau
that was signed by General Oliver Howard
and Salmon P. Chase (August, 1867)
The abolition of slavery and the establishment of freedom are
not the one and the same thing. The emancipated negroes were not yet
really freemen. Their chains had indeed been sundered by the sword,
but the broken links still hung upon their limbs. The question, "What
shall be done with the negro? agitated the whole country. Some were
in favour of an immediate recognition of their equal and political
rights, and of conceding to them at once all the prerogatives of citizenship.
But only a few advocated a policy so radical, and, at the same time,
generally considered revolutionary, while many, even of those who
really wished well to the negro, doubted his capacity for citizenship,
his willingness to labour for his own support, and the possibility
of his forming, as a freeman, an integral part of the Republic.
The idea of admitting the freedmen to an equal participation in civil
and political rights was not entertained in any part of the South.
In most of the States they were not allowed to sit on juries, or even
to testify in any case in which white men were parties. They were
forbidden to own or bear firearms, and thus were rendered defenceless
against assault. Vagrant laws were passed, often relating only to
the negro, or, where applicable in terms of both white and black,
seldom or never enforced except against the latter.
In some States any court - that is, any local Justice of the Peace
- could bind out to a white person any negro under age, without his
own consent or that of his parents? The freedmen were subjected to
the punishments formerly inflicted upon slaves. Whipping especially,
when in some States disfranchised the party subjected to it, and rendered
him for ever infamous before the law, was made the penalty for the
most trifling misdemeanor.
(16)
General
George
Crook, Autobiography (1889)
Soon after his arrival
at Prescott, General Howard expressed his wish for a general council
with the Indians. So word was sent to Old Camp Grant that on such
a day all the Indians were to meet for a council. Our party rode on
horseback from Prescott to McDowell.
I was very much amused
at the General's opinion of himself. He told me that he thought the
Creator had placed him on earth to be the Moses to the Negro. Having
accomplished that mission, he felt satisfied his next mission was
with the Indian. This struck me as particularly funny, as the "Freedmen's
Bureau Denouement" was still on the mouths of everybody, and
things certainly looked very bad for those connected with it, especially
for General Howard. I was at loss to make out whether it was his vanity
or his cheek that enabled him to hold up his head in this lofty manner.
General Howard opened the
council by stating the object of the council, and informing the Indians
that he had commanded 30,000 men during the war, and if they did not
behave themselves and do what he told them, he would come sweeping
through their country and exterminate them all.
Eskimmi-yan was the "head
center" of the cut-throats there assembled, and looked at General
Howard in a half-quizzical, half contemptuous and defiant manner,
as much as to say, "Go to hell!" When it came Skimmy's time
to talk, he evaded all the points at issue, but told General Howard
that he, Skimmy, had heard all his life of a man who was so pure that
the Great Spirit had kept him on an island in order that he could
not witness the frailties of mortals, and that he was satisfied that
Howard was that man.
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