Civil War
When the war erupted, Devens was initially a major in the 3rd Battalion of Massachusetts Rifles. He was appointed as colonel of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry in July 1861. He was wounded in action at the Battle of Ball's Bluff.
Devens was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in April 1862 and assigned command of the 1st Brigade/1st Division/IV Corps. He was again wounded at the Battle of Fair Oaks in May. His brigade was not heavily involved in the Maryland Campaign. Shortly afterwards, it was reassigned to the VI Corps. Devens commanded the 2nd Brigade/3rd Division/VI Corps during the Battle of Fredericksburg.
Assigned command of the first division in the XI Corps, Devens was again wounded, this time at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.
Devens later distinguished himself at Battle of Cold Harbor, while commanding the 3rd Division/XVIII Corps in Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign. During final stages of the Siege of Petersburg, he commanded the 3rd Division of the XXIV Corps.
Devens's troops were the first to occupy Richmond after its fall in April 1865.
Read more about this topic: Charles Devens
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil and/or war:
“A war between Europeans is a civil war.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man’s yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)
“Stiller ... took part in the Spanish Civil War ... It is not clear what impelled him to this military gesture. Probably many factors were combined—a rather romantic Communism, such as was common among bourgeois intellectuals at that time.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)