Civil War
Starke remained active in state politics after Mississippi passed its ordinance of secession, and was a commissioner to Virginia to help encourage the leaders of that state to join Mississippi in seceding from the Union. He helped recruit and equip a company of cavalry in mid-1861 while still a state senator. In late February 1862, he received a commission as the colonel of the 28th Mississippi Cavalry, a new regiment raised in Bolivar County that mustered into service in May.
He took an active role in military operations in central and northern Mississippi, leading his men on a series of scouting missions and raids. He was assigned to the cavalry division of Brig. Gen. William H. Jackson as the commander of the 1st Brigade (still with the rank of colonel) and served in the Vicksburg Campaign. Five companies of Starke's regiment reinforced Brig. Gen. Martin L. Smith at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and were posted to watch the flanks along the Yazoo River. During the campaign, Union troops burned Starke's mansion along Lake Bolivar. From December until February, he was in temporary command of the brigade.
In February 1864, Colonel Starke served under Stephen D. Lee in the forces that opposed Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's advance on Meridian, Mississippi, and he fought in the ensuing Battle of Meridian. Later that year, Starke returned to his role as the commander of the 28th Mississippi Cavalry during the Atlanta Campaign, serving under Frank C. Armstrong, and saw action in several small cavalry engagements throughout the summer. He was promoted to brigadier general on November 4, 1864, and assigned command of a cavalry brigade in the forces of Maj. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest. He was involved in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign.
When Forrest reorganized his command structure, Starke was initially without a field command, although he maintained his rank as a brigadier general. He spent the last few months of the war serving in Brig. Gen. James R. Chalmers' division in Alabama.
Read more about this topic: Peter Burwell Starke
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“... there was the first Balkan war and the second Balkan war and then there was the first world war. It is extraordinary how having done a thing once you have to do it again, there is the pleasure of coincidence and there is the pleasure of repetition, and so there is the second world war, and in between there was the Abyssinian war and the Spanish civil war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“To the cry of ‘follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,’ Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“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)