Civil War
When he returned from Utah in 1859, Reno was promoted to captain for fourteen years of continuous service. Captain Reno then took command of the Mount Vernon Arsenal near Mount Vernon, Alabama, in 1859. At dawn on January 4, 1861, Reno was forced to surrender the arsenal to troops from Alabama, a bloodless transfer ordered by the governor of Alabama, Andrew B. Moore. Alabama seceded from the Union a week later.
Upon leaving Alabama with his small force, Reno was temporarily assigned to command the Fort Leavenworth Arsenal until he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers in the fall of 1861. He transferred to Virginia, took command of the 2nd Brigade, Burnside Expeditionary Force, and soon had organized five regiments. The 2nd Brigade fought in Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside's North Carolina Expedition from February through July 1862. Reno became a division commander in the IX Corps, which had become part of the Army of the Potomac. In the Northern Virginia Campaign, Reno actively opposed his friend and classmate Stonewall Jackson during the Second Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Chantilly. Reno was appointed a major general on August 20, 1862. (This promotion was confirmed posthumously on March 9, 1863, with date of rank established as July 18, 1862.) Burnside became commander of the Army of the Potomac's Right Wing for the start of the Maryland Campaign in September, elevating Reno to command of the IX Corps from September 3.
Reno had a reputation as a "soldier's soldier" and often was right beside his troops without a sword or any sign of rank. On September 12, 1862, Reno's IX Corps spent the day in Frederick, Maryland. Two days later, while he was stopped directly in front of his troops as he reconnoitered the enemy's forces at Fox's Gap at the Battle of South Mountain, Reno was hit in the chest by a Confederate sharpshooter's bullet. He was brought by stretcher to Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis's command post and said in a clear voice, "Hallo, Sam, I'm dead!" Sturgis thought that he sounded so natural that he must be joking and told Reno that he hoped it was not as bad as all that. Reno repeated, "Yes, yes, I'm dead—good-by!", dying a few minutes later. In his official report, D. H. Hill sarcastically remarked, "The Yankees on their side lost General Reno, a renegade Virginian, who was killed by a happy shot from the Twenty-third North Carolina.
Read more about this topic: Jesse L. Reno
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)