American Civil War Service
Despite the secession of his home state in December 1860, Huger remained in the U.S. Army until after the Battle of Fort Sumter, resigning effective April 22, 1861. Just prior to the battle, Huger traveled to the fort and conferred with its commander, Maj. Robert Anderson, to determine where he stood. Although Anderson was also Southern-born, he had already chosen to follow the Union cause, and Huger left when "their discussions came to naught."
Huger was commissioned an infantry lieutenant colonel in the regular Confederate Army on March 16, and then briefly commanded the forces in and around Norfolk, Virginia. On May 22 he was appointed a brigadier general in the state's militia, and the next day took command of the Department of Norfolk, with defensive responsibilities for North Carolina and southern Virginia, with his headquarters located at Norfolk. Sometime that June he was also commissioned a brigadier in the Virginia Provisional Army, however Huger entered the Confederate volunteer forces on June 17 as a brigadier general. Later on October 7 he was promoted the rank of major general.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Huger (general)
Famous quotes containing the words american, civil, war and/or service:
“I note what you say of the late disturbances in your College. These dissensions are a great affliction on the American schools, and a principal impediment to education in this country.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“A man’s real and deep feelings are surely those which he acts upon when challenged, not those which, mellow-eyed and soft-voiced, he spouts in easy times.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 13 (1962)
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“The ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some skill to do useful service, some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community,—these are the most vital things education must try to produce.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)