Civil War
When the Civil War began in 1861, Seymour participated in the defense against the Confederate assault on Fort Sumter, after which he received the brevet of major.
Major Seymour commanded the 5th Regiment of Artillery and the U.S. Camp of Instruction at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from December 1861 to March 1862. He was Chief of Artillery for General George A. McCall's division of Pennsylvania Reserves from March 6, 1862, until July 25, 1862. He became a brigadier general of volunteers on April 28, 1862.
Seymour served in the Army of the Potomac's V Corps during the Peninsula Campaign of April–July 1862. He commanded the left wing of the Reserves at Mechanicsville on June 26, Gaines' Mill on June 27, Glendale on June 30 and led the division at Malvern Hill on July 1 after McCall was captured at the Battle of Glendale.
After the Peninsula Campaign, the Pennsylvania Reserves joined the III Corps of the Army of Virginia, later I Corps in the Army of the Potomac. Seymour performed well at the battles of Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam in the latter half of 1862, especially in his brigade's capture of Frosttown Gap, Maryland, on September 14. Seymour took command of the Reserves after Brig. Gen. George G. Meade became acting corps commander. He received the brevet from the regular army of lieutenant colonel after South Mountain and that of colonel after Antietam.
After November 18, 1862, General Seymour was sent to the Department of the South where he served as chief of staff to the commanding general from January 8 to April 23, 1863. He led a division on Folly Island, South Carolina, on July 4, participated in the attack on Morris Island on July 10, and commanded the unsuccessful attack on Fort Wagner on July 18. Seymour gained notoriety for this controversial attack. He had placed the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the black regiment about which the 1989 film "Glory" was made, in the vanguard of what most thought would be a feckless attack. He was also seriously wounded by grapeshot there and saw little field duty for the rest of 1863.
Read more about this topic: Truman Seymour
Famous quotes by civil war:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)