St. John Richardson Liddell - Postbellum Career

Postbellum Career

In 1866, Liddell wrote his memoirs, in which he was highly critical of the Confederate leadership and his fellow officers, including Davis and Bragg. The memoirs themselves are actually a collection of several separate manuscripts, letters, and battlefield records, which he was unable to combine before he was murdered.

In them, his criticisms arise mainly from the failure of Bragg's subordinates, including Cleburne, Bishop Polk, John C. Breckenridge, Simon Bolivar Buckner, Joseph Wheeler, D.H. Hill, and James Longstreet, to support Bragg, which in the end leaves Liddell as one of the few writers of the period who was generous to Bragg. His writing reveals his minority opinion of praise for officers like General John Floyd and Gideon Pillow, whom nearly all modern historians consider inept. He expresses disgust for Judah P. Benjamin, whom most historians consider one of the most able Confederate Cabinet officials.

He mentions at several times the growing sense of futility he and other officers felt in the unlucky Army of Tennessee. It was plainly clear to them after the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson that their cause was doomed unless they could concentrate their forces and wage an offensive campaign, however political intrigue always seemed to squander any gains made by the Army. Liddell comes off as a fair, impartial officer, even proposing that had the south recruited Generals like George H. Thomas, whom he considered the best Union Commander, things may have turned out differently.

A gentleman and one of the few selfless officers of the period, Liddell refused promotion, and endeavored to help any officer he was assigned to, regardless of whether they were liked or not. He was opinionated and outspoken, yet his opinion was valued, and he held the ear of the echelons of Confederate command, including Davis, A.S. Johnston, Bragg, and Hardee. Perhaps his military education, but lack of formal military background, led to this unique quality. He spent his vast personal fortune on equipping his own brigade, even though it was from a different state. The brigade itself was the only unit in the Army of Tennessee never to court-martial an enlisted soldier, and was known as the hardest-fighting and best-drilled brigade in the Army of the Tennessee.

Liddell was murdered in 1870 by Col. Charles Jones, the culmination of a twenty-year real estate dispute that had seen Jones and his band of thugs murder several friends and family members of Liddell. He was buried on his sprawling plantation in Louisiana.

The St. John Richardson Liddell Chapter #271 of the Military Order of the Stars & Bars in Bay Minette, Alabama, was named for the former general.