Lewis Armistead | |
|---|---|
 Armistead,c. 1861–1863 | |
| Nickname | "Lo" |
| Born | (1817-02-18)February 18, 1817 New Bern, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | July 5, 1863(1863-07-05) (aged 46) Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance |  United States Confederate States |
| Branch |  United States Army Confederate States Army |
| Service years | 1839–61 (USA) 1861–63 (CSA) |
| Rank |  BrevetMajor (USA) Brigadier General (CSA) |
| Unit | 6th U.S. Infantry |
| Commands | 57th Virginia Infantry Armistead's Bde,Pickett's Div,I Corps |
| Conflicts | |
| Relations |
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Lewis Addison Armistead (February 18, 1817 – July 5, 1863) was a careerUnited States Army officer who became abrigadier general in theConfederate States Army during theAmerican Civil War. On July 3, 1863, as part ofPickett's Charge during theBattle of Gettysburg, Armistead led his brigade to the farthest point reached by Confederate forces during the charge, a point now referred to as thehigh-water mark of the Confederacy. However, he and his men were overwhelmed, and he was wounded and captured by Union troops. He died in a field hospital two days later.
Armistead, known to friends as "Lo" (forLothario),[1] was born in the home of his great-grandfather, John Wright Stanly, inNew Bern, North Carolina, toWalker Keith Armistead and Elizabeth Stanly.[2] He came from an esteemed military family.[3] Armistead was of entirely English descent, and all of his ancestry had been in Virginia since the early 1600s.[4] The first of his ancestors to emigrate to North America was William Armistead fromYorkshire, England.[4][5][6] Armistead's father was one of five brothers who fought in theWar of 1812; another was MajorGeorge Armistead, the commander ofFort McHenry during thebattle that inspiredFrancis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", which would later become the national anthem of the United States. On his mother's side, his grandfatherJohn Stanly was aU.S. Congressman, and his uncleEdward Stanly served as military governor of eastern North Carolina during the Civil War.[citation needed]
Armistead attended theUnited States Military Academy, joining in 1833 but resigning the same year. He rejoined in 1834 but was found deficient and had to repeat his class once more. In 1836 he resigned again following an incident in which he broke a plate over the head of fellow cadet (and future Confederate general)Jubal Early.[7] He was also having academic difficulties, however, particularly in French (a subject of difficulty for many West Point cadets of that era), and some historians cite academic failure as his true reason for leaving the academy.[8]
His influential father managed to obtain for his son asecond lieutenant's commission in the 6th U.S. Infantry on July 10, 1839, at roughly the time his classmates graduated. He was promoted to first lieutenant on March 30, 1844. Armistead's first marriage was to Cecelia Lee Love, a distant cousin ofRobert E. Lee, in 1844.[9] They had two children: Walker Keith Armistead and Flora Lee Armistead.
Armistead then served inFort Towson, Oklahoma andFort Washita near the Oklahoma border. Serving in theMexican War, he was appointedbrevetcaptain forContreras andChurubusco, wounded atChapultepec, and was appointed a brevetmajor forMolino del Rey and Chapultepec.[2]
Armistead continued in the Army after the Mexican War, assigned in 1849 to recruiting duty in Kentucky, where he was diagnosed with a severe case oferysipelas, but he later recovered. In April 1850, the Armisteads lost their little girl, Flora Love, atJefferson Barracks. Armistead was posted toFort Dodge, but in the winter he had to take his wife Cecelia toMobile, Alabama, where she died December 12, 1850, from an unknown cause. He returned to Fort Dodge. In 1852 the Armistead family home in Virginia burned, destroying nearly everything. Armistead took leave in October 1852 to go home and help his family. While on leave Armistead married his second wife, the widow Cornelia Taliaferro Jamison, inAlexandria, Virginia, on March 17, 1853.[citation needed] They both went west when Armistead returned to duty shortly thereafter.
The new Armistead family traveled from post to post in Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas. The couple had one child, Lewis B. Armistead, who died on December 6, 1854, and was also buried at Jefferson Barracks next to Flora Lee Armistead. He was promoted to captain on March 3, 1855.[10] His second wife, Cornelia Taliaferro Jamison, died on August 3, 1855, atFort Riley, Kansas, during acholeraepidemic.[citation needed]
Between 1855 and 1858 Armistead served at posts on theSmoky Hill River inKansas Territory,Bent's Fort,Pole Creek,Laramie River, andRepublican Fork of the Kansas River inNebraska Territory. In 1858, his6th Infantry Regiment was sent as part of the reinforcements sent toUtah in the aftermath of theUtah War. Not being required there, they were sent to California with the intention of sending them on toWashington Territory. However, aMohave attack on civilians on theBeale Wagon Road diverted his regiment to the southern deserts along theColorado River to participate in theMojave Expedition of 1858–59.
Lt. Col.William Hoffman, at the head of a column of six companies of infantry, two of dragoons, and some artillery, struggled up the Colorado River from Fort Yuma. On April 23, 1859, Colonel Hoffman dictated a peace to the overawed Mohave chiefs, threatening annihilation to the tribe if they did not cease hostilities, make no opposition to the establishment of posts and roads through their country, and allow travel free from their harassment. Hoffman also took some of their leading men or family members hostage. Afterward he left forSan Bernardino, taking most of his force with him; others went down river by steamboat or overland to Fort Tejon.
Captain Armistead was left with two infantry companies and the column's artillery to garrison Hoffman's encampment at Beale's Crossing on the east bank of the Colorado River, Camp Colorado. Armistead renamed the postFort Mojave. In late June 1859 the Mohave hostages escaped from Fort Yuma. Trouble broke out with the Mohave a few weeks later when they stole stock from a mail station that had been established two miles south of Fort Mojave, and attacked it. Mohaves tore up melons planted by the soldiers near the fort, and the soldiers shot a Mohave who was working in a garden. Eventually after a few weeks of aggressive patrolling and skirmishes, Armistead attacked the Mohave who returned fire in a battle between about 50 soldiers and 200 Mohave, resulting in three soldiers wounded. Twenty-three Mohave bodies were found but more were killed and wounded and removed by the Mohave. Following this defeat, the Mohave made a peace, which they kept from then on.[11]
When the Civil War began, Captain Armistead was in command of the small garrison at theNew San Diego Depot[12] inSan Diego, which was occupied in 1860. He was a close friend ofWinfield Scott Hancock, serving with him as aquartermaster inLos Angeles, before the Civil War. Accounts say that in a farewell party before leaving to join the Confederate army, Armistead told Hancock, "Goodbye; you can never know what this has cost me."[13]
When the war started, Armistead departed from California to Texas with theLos Angeles Mounted Rifles, then traveled east and received a commission as amajor, but was quickly promoted tocolonel of the57th Virginia Infantryregiment. He served in the western part of Virginia, but soon returned to the east and theArmy of Northern Virginia. He fought as abrigade commander atSeven Pines, and then underGeneralRobert E. Lee in theSeven Days Battles (where he was chosen to spearhead the bloody assault onMalvern Hill), andSecond Bull Run. AtAntietam, he served as Lee'sprovost marshal, a frustrating job due to the high levels of desertion that plagued the army in that campaign. Then he was a brigade commander inMaj. Gen.George Pickett'sdivision atFredericksburg. Because he was withLt. Gen.James Longstreet'sFirst Corps nearSuffolk, Virginia in the spring of 1863, he missed theBattle of Chancellorsville.
In theBattle of Gettysburg, Armistead's brigade arrived the evening of July 2, 1863. Armistead was mortally wounded the next day while leading his brigade towards the center of the Union line inPickett's Charge. Armistead led his brigade from the front, waving his hat from the tip of his saber, and reached the stone wall atThe Angle, which served as the charge's objective. The brigade got farther in the charge than any other, an event sometimes known as thehigh-water mark of the Confederacy, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a Union counterattack. Armistead was shot three times just after crossing the wall. Union CaptainHenry H. Bingham received Armistead's personal effects and carried the news to Union Major General Winfield Hancock, Armistead's friend from before the war.[14][15]
Armistead's wounds were not believed to be mortal; he had been shot in the fleshy part of the arm and below the knee, and according to the surgeon who tended him, none of the wounds caused bone, artery, or nerve damage.[16] He was then taken to a Unionfield hospital at the George Spangler Farm[17] where he died two days later. Dr. Daniel Brinton, the chief surgeon at the Union hospital there, had expected Armistead to survive because he characterized the two bullet wounds as not of a "serious character." He wrote that the death "was not from his wounds directly, but from secondary bacterium, fever and prostration."[18]
Lewis Armistead is buried next to his uncle, Lieutenant ColonelGeorge Armistead, commander of the garrison ofFort McHenry during theBattle of Baltimore, at theOld Saint Paul's Cemetery inBaltimore, Maryland.[19]
Armistead's sword was returned to the South at a reunion of Civil War veterans held at Gettysburg in 1906.[20]
His death is memorialized in theFriend to Friend Masonic Memorial located on theGettysburg Battlefield, dedicated in 1994.[citation needed]
InGettysburg, the film version ofMichael Shaara's novelThe Killer Angels, Armistead was portrayed by actorRichard Jordan, who died shortly afterwards.[21] In the film, the meeting between Armistead and Bingham at the High Water Mark was altered with Lt.Thomas Chamberlain (portrayed byC. Thomas Howell), brother of Col.Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, taking Bingham's place. In the original novel and in the movie, Armistead was shot in the chest; in the novel, Armistead dies on the spot, but that is corrected to two days afterward in the movie end titles.
ActorJohn Prosky depicted Armistead for a special appearance inGods and Generals, accompanying Pickett atFredericksburg.
Armistead is a character in thealternate history novelGettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War (2003) byNewt Gingrich andWilliam Forstchen.
"Armistead, Lewis Addison".The Biographical Dictionary of America. Vol. 1. 1906. pp. 135–136.| International | |
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