James Montgomery (colonel) - Civil War

Civil War

On July 24, 1861, Montgomery was commissioned as colonel of the 3rd Kansas Infantry of U.S. Senator James H. Lane's Kansas brigade, with Montgomery as second-in-command of the brigade. Discipline was lacking under Montgomery, and both the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Kansas would be consolidated into the 10th Kansas Infantry in April 1862. Lane's Kansas brigade was notorious for its Jayhawker-style raids into Missouri at the start of the war, particularly the Sacking of Osceola. Noted historian Albert Castel describes Montgomery as a "a sincere, if unscrupulous, antislavery zealot."

Montgomery was authorized to raise a regiment of African-American infantry in January 1863 that would become the 2nd South Carolina (African Descent). Throughout 1863 and part of 1864, Montgomery practiced his brand of warfare in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

In June 1863, Colonel Montgomery commanded a brigade, including his own 2nd South Carolina and the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, in operations along the coast resembling his earlier Jayhawk raids. The most famous of his controversial operations was the Raid at Combahee Ferry in which 800 slaves were freed with the help of Harriett Tubman. Montgomery led a raid on the coastal town of Darien, Georgia, which he ordered looted and burned even though it was not defended and had not offered any resistance. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw condemned the action, and in a private letter gave Montgomery's reason for burning the town as "that the Southerners must be made to feel that this was a real war, and that they were to be swept away by the hand of God, like the Jews of old." Montgomery stated to Shaw, "We are outlawed, and therefore not bound by the rules of regular warfare."

Montgomery commanded a brigade in the Battle of Olustee. In September 1864 he resigned his commission and returned to Kansas. He ended his military career as colonel of the 6th Kansas State Militia, active in October of that year during Confederate General Sterling Price's raid.