supremely happy in battle

This is Colonel William Ransom Johnson Pegram, one of the remarkable young men produced — and then taken, sadly when the outcome was already decided — by our Civil War. ¹ He was known as “Willy.” ² Looks more like a school boy or the professorial type than a warrior gunner, don’t you think? But he was one of the most fierce fighters in the Army of Northern Virginia. General Harry Heth would even remark that Pegram was “one of the few men who, I believe, was supremely happy when in battle.”

A law student at the beginning of the War, at the tender age of 19 (he would not turn twenty for several months), Pegram joined the Richmond “Purcell Artillery” in April 1861. Because he suffered from severe near-sightedness, he had to wear gold rimmed spectacles — even in the heat of battle.

This bookish appearing fellow was an especial favorite of A.P. Hill. ³ During the Gettysburg Campaign, Pegram had fallen ill with fever. He then had to ride to catch up with his men. “General Hill,” Lee said, “I have good news for you; Major Pegram is up.” Hill responded, “Yes, that is good news.” When a staff officer recited the exchange to Pegram, the officer noted that “Pegram valued those few words from the General of the army and the General of his corps more than another star upon his collar.”

Yet, Pegram would have liked promotion and it was richly deserved. Upon seeing a recommendation that Pegram be promoted to command of a brigade near the end of the War, Hill endorsed it: “No officer of the Army of Northern Virginia has done more to deserve this promotion than Lieutenant Colonel Pegram.”

But because Pegram served in the artillery and because he was a young man, he was not ever promoted above the rank of colonel. Speaking to Heth, Lee asked, “He is too young–how old is Colonel Pegram?”

Heth replied, “I do not know, but I suppose about 25.”

Lee answered: “I think a man of 25 as good as he ever will be; what he acquires after that age is from experience; but I can’t understand, when an officer is doing excellent service where he is, why he should want to change.” And the recommendation for promotion was thus returned, camp gossip had it, with the statement that “the artillery could not lose the services of so valuable an officer.”

And so on April 1, 1865, Pegram found himself still in command of his battalion of artillery at the battle of Five Forks. Freeman would recount the day thusly: to the artillerists, it was a day of disaster not to be recorded solely in terms of four guns lost or of good soldiers captured.

Willy Pegram had once sworn that his guns would not be taken from his while he lived; he finally suffered the loss of a gun at Five Forks, but it was only while lying mortally wounded, shot through the left side. He died the next morning. With great feeling his friend Gordon McCabe remembered his final hours,

At about 10 o’clock we reached Ford’s, and I obtained a bed for him . . . I had given him morphine in small quantities until he was easier, and he soon fell into a doze. The enemy advanced on the place about 12 o’clock, and I was left alone with him. I sent off our sabres, horses, spurs, etc., as I felt sure that we would be captured. I shall never forget that night of waiting. I could only pray. He breathed heavily through the night, and passed into a stupor. I bound his wounds as well as I knew how and moistened his lips with water. Sunday morning he died as gently as possible.

His men liked to say no bullet had been molded that could ever take down their young commander who had survived so many sharp fights and so many hails of lead; sadly, it was not so.

Like Pender, Willy Pegram was a devoted Christian and a pious, brave young individual. Of Pegram it was said, “he fell in the discharge of his duty, and died with the philosophy of a Christian.” Many would agree with John C. Haskell that Pegram was the best artillery officer in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, near his brother, General John Pegram, killed a few weeks before.

The following day, likely not knowing of Pegram’s fate, A.P. Hill was killed. Seven days after that, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox.

The true scope of the tragedy of the Civil War was that it cost our country young, brilliant men like Willy Pegram, who would have been destined to be the country’s leaders. Pegram sadly illustrates that it was often the best and brightest who were killed. And adding to the senseless of his death was the timing — the outcome had been decided by that point, it had only become a question of when and where the final end would come.

1. Willy’s older brother, John, was a West Point graduate, class of 1854. He was a Confederate general and was killed at the battle of Hatcher’s Run in February, 1865, soon after his marriage to the “most beautiful woman of her generation,” Hettie Cary. The death devastated Willy who had always been close with his brother. [↩]
2. D.S. Freeman refers to Pegram as “Willie,” but his biographer Peter Carmichael points out that Pegram usually was called “Willy” by his family.  Although Freeman was a careful historian, a very good historian, I am deferring to Carmichael as a Pegram expert. [↩]
3. And as Hill was known to the men for his red shirt, so Pegram was known for his specs. Upon sighting Pegram, infantryman were said to remark “there’s going to be a fight, for here comes that damn little man with the ’specs’.” Pegram was cut of the same cloth as Hill, and if Pegram flaw it was he was sometimes too aggressive and eager in a fight. [↩]

the unusual case of R.S. Andrews

Even before being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease — an occurence that caused me to spend a lot of time learning about medicine — I have had an interest in the medical aspects of the Civil War.  In fact, my screen-name when I was a member of American Online was CWSurgeon0.  And I even have a website about a Civil War surgeon named Hunter McGuire.  You probably know Dr. McGuire best as Stonewall Jackson’s medical director.  He was actually a lot more than that and although he is probably best remembered for failing to save Jackson, he had an extremely distingushed medical career.

As usual I digress.  The point of this post was to tell the story of Snowden Andrews.  Most of the material for this post comes from Krick’s excellent book, Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain.  I warn you ahead of time that this is graphic and not to be read while eating (unless you are the twisted type who likes to eat and read about horrific battle wounds).

Robert Snowden Andrews (1830-1903) was a 31 year old architect from Maryland.  He survived one of the worst wounds of the Civil War at the battle of Cedar Mountain.  Remarkably, he was coming off a prior wound; Andrews had suffered a leg wound during the Seven Days and as such was not quite yet up to par health wise at the time of the battle. It was said “Anyone not of his temperament would have been away in a hospital or on sick leave.”  But being on sick leave wasn’t Andrews style.

Thus, the 31-year old found himself on the Cedar Mountain battlefield in August 1862 as part of Stonewall Jackson’s command.  As Charles Winder’s chief of artillery, Andrews commanded cannons on the field near what is termed the “Crittenden Gate,” near the center of the battlefield. (This is also very close to where Jackson would try to draw his sword — it had rusted into its scabbard! — and make the famous rally of his troops).

It was while commanding and directing his guns with “success and gallantry,” that Andrews rode into the path of an exploding artillery shell. The result was catastrophic. A sharp piece of the projectile sliced open the right side ofhis abdomen, nearly cutting him into two pieces. Andrews threw one arm across the gaping hole and slid off his horse and onto his back. (Falling forward would have caused the Major to have almost certainly been disemboweled.)

Such wounds were almost universally fatal in the Civil War.  Any Civil War buff can tick off a litany of officers who died of “belly wounds,” perhaps the most famous case of all being dashing Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart.

So it is no surprise that General Taliaferro, who lauded Andrews four days later in an official report, sadly opined of his being wounded “I fear mortally.” Almost all who saw Andrews thought he was to surely die. In fact, this wound was very much like the one that Andrews chief, General Charles Winder, took in the same battle, except that Winder’s wound was to his left side and Winder did not survive. (Winder died quietly near sun down.)

My man General A.P. Hill at some point passed Andrews lying on the battlefield and promised to send help for him. Help arrived in the form of Dr. Hunter McGuire, Jackson’s medical director. (Yes, the same McGuire I referred to in the beginning of my post.)  McGuire, well-known for his bluntness and candor, told Andrews that there was simply no hope and nothing he could do. Andrews, who had already been seen a few other surgeons at this point, retorted “Yes, that’s what you fellows all say.” McGuire detailed two Georgia brothers, Drs. Thomas and William Amiss, to take care of Andrews.

The surgeons later described the injury thusly: Andrews was “completely disemboweled, his intestines covered with dust, hen-grass, sand, and grit.” The Amiss brothers also declared that there was no hope. Andrews angrily answered that he had been hearing that was the case, but if “you damned doctors would do something for me I’d get well.” Andrews noted that he once had a hound that “ran a mile with its guts out and caught a fox, and I know I am as good as any damned dog that ever lived and can stand as much.” The doctor replied with a pun, “This man is full of all kinds of grit.”

Finally, Andrews was taken from the battlefield and carried in great agony to a field hospital. Near midnight, the surgeons began to operate on Andrews and his seven hour old wound on the dining room table at the Garnett House. When the blood and gore was cleared, it was found that Andrews had a second severe wound near the hip that ran across his upper thigh.  (Such a wound could itself easily be mortal).  Nevertheless, the doctors carefully cleaned the wounds and then replaced the intestines, sewing the wound shut with cotton and a “common calico needle” as that was all that was available.

The medical prognosis continued to be characterized as beyond grim.  Dr. Harvey Black, a good surgeon and friend of Andrews, when asked replied that there was almost certainly no hope for Andrews.

Andrews came out of the surgery cool and composed, repeatedly asking the question of what his chances were. When he asked if it was at least one in ten or one in twenty, the doctor said “not more than that.” Andrews cheerfully declared his intention “to hold on to that one chance.”

Andrews wife had been staying in Baltimore with her three children. From the morning newspaper, she learned her husband had been mortally wounded. (She had already suffered one scare where her husband had been reported dead.) Mrs. Andrews left for Culpeper and arrived near 6 PM on August 16 with the couple’s seven month old baby. It was the first time that Andrews had seen the child.

Despite having survived this long, all the doctors were convinced that peritonitis must set in and Andrews would die. Within five weeks, however, the wound had healed enough that Andrews could sit up. A few weeks more and he was limping around on crutches. He was able to return to limited ordnance duty by October. Astonishingly, Andrews  actually eventually returned to FIELD SERVICE with the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring of 1863, wearing a silver plate over his wound. Once back, he quickly managed to get wounded again, this time at  the minor battle of Stephenson’s Depot on June 15, 1863. At this point, someone decided that it would be in Andrews best interest to serve the Confederate cause on ordnance duty in Europe. Andrews did not object.  Sent to Germany, Andrews proudly showed off his scar of the “most desperate wound ever received by a man from which he recovered.”

After the War, Andrews was a renowned architect in Baltimore. He grew to an “enormous size” and won at least a few bets with surgeons for bottles of wine over his wound.  Andrews died a natural death on January 6, 1903 at the age of 73.  The bloody and torn jacket he wore at Cedar Mountain is on display at the Maryland Historical Society.

In a war where a Union general died of a scraped shin, recoveries like Andrews’ — although exceedingly rare — are absolutely remarkable.  If you ever feel like giving up hope because no one says there is any, remember the story of Major Andrews and the terrible wound he took at the battle of Cedar Mountain.