Civil War
Garnett resigned his commission in the U.S. Army on May 17, 1861, and entered the Confederate States Army. His first assignment in Virginia was as a major of artillery in May, and then as lieutenant colonel of Cobb's Georgia Legion on August 31. He was promoted to brigadier general on November 14, 1861, and commanded the 1st Brigade of the Valley District of the Confederate Army of the Potomac, which was the brigade originally formed by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, the Stonewall Brigade; Jackson was now in overall command in the Shenandoah Valley.
During Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862, Garnett's military career took a downward turn at the First Battle of Kernstown in March. Jackson marched his army 40 miles (64 km) to intercept a portion of the Union Army under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. On March 23, Jackson's cavalry commander, Col. Turner Ashby, brought faulty intelligence that the retreating Union division of Brig. Gen. James Shields had four regiments in the rear outside Winchester, Virginia. Since that force was of comparable size to Jackson's, he ordered Garnett and the Stonewall Brigade to attack. Unfortunately, Shields had a full infantry division on hand, almost 9,000 men, twice the size of Jackson's force. The attack went badly and Garnett, finding his brigade low on ammunition and surrounded by forces attacking from three sides, ordered a retreat. Jackson was infuriated and accused Garnett of disobeying orders, meaning that he should not have retreated without obtaining permission from Jackson first. Jackson, well known as a strict disciplinarian, arrested Garnett for "neglect of duty" on April 1 and relieved him of command. Garnett's court-martial started in August 1862, with only Jackson and his aide giving testimony. However the trial was suspended due to the start of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run that September.
Lee ordered Jackson to release Garnett from arrest and he was assigned to command the injured George Pickett's brigade in Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's First Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia. Garnett commanded the brigade credibly at the Battle of Antietam in September, after which he assumed permanent command of the brigade on November 26 when Pickett was promoted to divisional command, and at the Battle of Fredericksburg that December. He did not participate in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 because Longstreet's Corps was assigned duties in Suffolk, Virginia.
Stonewall Jackson was gravely wounded at Chancellorsville and died soon after from pneumonia. Upon Jackson's death, Garnett returned to Richmond where the general's body lay in state. Despite his professional disagreement with Jackson, Garnett held no ill will against him and was observed crying beside the casket. He then served as a pall bearer along with Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, and others.
Read more about this topic: Richard B. Garnett
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“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)
“The utter helplessness of a conquered people is perhaps the most tragic feature of a civil war or any other sort of war.”
—Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930)
“... 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)