Union Captain Judson Kilpatrick

 | Civil War Times  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

‘ We found the enemy with about from three to five thousand men posted in a strong position,’ Union Captain Judson Kilpatrick wrote of the June 10, 1861, Battle of Big Bethel, Virginia. ‘Captains Winslow, Bartlett, and myself charged with our commands in front. The enemy were forced out of the first battery, all the forces were rapidly advancing…everything promised a speedy victory, when we were ordered to fall back.’

A few days later, the New York Times published Kilpatrick’s stirring report of this early Civil War clash. Northerners eagerly christened him a hero. Here, it seemed, was a man of action–the type of fighter who would help crush the rebellion in short order.

Kilpatrick’s admirers might have hesitated to drape him in glory if they had gotten a good look at him. He was not quite the image of the consummate hero, with his long, pointed nose, scraggly hair, and frail, stooped body. Furthermore, lurking behind his bravado was a glory hound willing to say anything to make himself look good. In truth, the fight at Big Bethel had been an ugly, confused skirmish, with little opportunity for glory. Union Colonel Joseph B. Carr called it ‘the disastrous fight at Big Bethel–battle we scarce may term it.’ Kilpatrick, in fact, suffered an embarrassing minor wound to his buttocks. How this occurred while he was supposedly charging the Confederate position, Kilpatrick did not say. His performance during this brief campaign established a pattern of behavior that would earn him few admirers, many enemies, and–inexplicably–rapid promotions during the Civil War.

Kilpatrick’s mere presence at Big Bethel was a testament to his ability to cultivate influential friends. Born on a farm in Deckertown, New Jersey, in 1836, he had decided early on what he wanted out of life. ‘I will be an outstanding soldier,’ he would boast, ‘and then go on to be Governor of New Jersey, and eventually president of these United States.’ It seemed simple enough.

In 1855, the 19-year-old with big plans applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. He was rejected. Not to be denied, Kilpatrick went to work for New Jersey Congressman George Vail, who was up for reelection. Kilpatrick ‘went from village to village, haranguing the electors,’ the Comte de Paris wrote in his 1875 study History of the Civil War in America. Vail was reelected and thanked Kilpatrick by appointing him to the academy.

At West Point, Kilpatrick made a new beginning, dropping his first name, Hugh, in favor of his middle name, Judson. The upper classmen immediately went to work hazing the odd-looking plebe, but the 5′ 5′, 140-pound Kilpatrick did not hesitate to fight back with his fists. He was a good student, an avid debater, and often appeared in plays the academy produced. His conduct, too, was exemplary. In his five years at West Point, he earned only 40 demerits, none of them in his last two terms.

Kilpatrick had a powerful motivation for behaving–good conduct meant freedom to leave campus on weekends. The cadet had fallen for Alice Shailer, niece of a prominent New York politician. At Kilpatrick’s graduation on May 6, 1861, one of his friends approached her. ‘Kill is going to the field and may not return,’ he said. ‘Better get married now.’ The two wed that evening. After a honeymoon of a single night, Kilpatrick headed for Washington and the Civil War.

The outbreak of war was a stroke of good fortune for ambitious young soldiers. Kilpatrick sized up his best opportunities for advancement. Graduating 17th in a class of 45, he had received a commission as a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery, but he saw the new volunteer army as his best bet. He asked his mathematics instructor at the academy, Gouverneur K. Warren, to recommend him for a post with a New York regiment. Warren came through; Kilpatrick was commissioned captain of Company H, 5th New York Infantry.

After a month of training at Fortress Monroe on the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, east of Richmond, the 5th was ready for action. Major General Benjamin Butler, commanding the Department of Virginia, sent parts of seven regiments under Brigadier General Ebenezer W. Pierce to attack the Confederate outpost at Big Bethel. The excursion–Kilpatrick’s self-congratulatory account notwithstanding– proved a Union embarrassment. After suffering 76 casualties in a brief attempt to flank the Rebels–who were actually outnumbered nearly two-to-one–Pierce ordered a retreat. Kilpatrick, with his bleeding posterior, struggled back to camp on a mule. ‘Everything was utterly mismanaged,’ Butler later wrote.

Colonel Abram Duryée, the commander of the 5th New York, could not have been pleased when Kilpatrick offered his skewed battle report to the press. Still, Kilpatrick’s name was now well known, and when Duryée was told to dispatch an officer to New York City to recruit more men for the regiment, he sent Kilpatrick. In New York, Kilpatrick found himself competing for recruits with Colonel J. Mansfield Davies, who was organizing a cavalry regiment. The two quickly struck a deal. Instead of enrolling men into the infantry, Kilpatrick signed them up as horsemen. When Davies reached his quota, he would make Kilpatrick a lieutenant colonel.

Duryée soon learned of this scheme and ordered Kilpatrick to return to Fortress Monroe. Kilpatrick instead applied for sick leave, awaiting the payoff from his deal with Davies. Duryée was disgusted and suggested to his superiors that his derelict subordinate be replaced, to ‘relieve us from what has been…an embarrassment.’ On September 25, 1861, Davies fulfilled his promise and made Kilpatrick lieutenant colonel of his ‘Harris Light Cavalry,’ the 2d New York.

While Kilpatrick’s men lived and trained in a camp outside Washington, D.C., Kilpatrick took up residence at Willard’s Hotel in the city, where he mingled with the politicians who might advance his career. To help pay for his expensive room, Kilpatrick cut a deal with crooked Union sutlers. One, Hiram C. Hull, later testified, ‘I paid Lieut. Colonel Kilpatrick twenty dollars in gold’ for steering an army contract his way.

Late in the spring of 1862, Major General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac marched into Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln gave McClellan’s 1st Corps to Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, with orders to fend off any Confederate force that threatened Washington. The 2d Cavalry joined McDowell, with Kilpatrick acting as commander in place of the ill Davies, who would never return to the field. As he moved into Rebel territory, Kilpatrick came up with a number of backdoor schemes to line his pockets. He confiscated horses from local farms for the Union army, but kept the best mounts for himself and sold them in the North. He stole tobacco from local plantations, which he passed on to the sutlers to sell to the troops. Despite receiving ‘one-third of all monies accrued,’ Kilpatrick was still borrowing money from the sutlers, a breach of army regulations.

Kilpatrick had little opportunity to distinguish himself while McClellan plodded toward Richmond. When a chance did come, though, he slipped up. In late May, Confederate Major General Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson plowed into the Shenandoah Valley, routing one Union opponent after another and threatening the Yankee capital. Kilpatrick was sent to the Richmond area to scout Confederate movements. On May 28, Kilpatrick reported that 15,000 Rebels had been sent to reinforce Jackson. He had been duped. The misinformation kept McDowell’s corps anchored near Washington, while Jackson slipped from the valley unmolested.

Between June 25 and July 1, Jackson and General Robert E. Lee, the new commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, confronted McClellan in the Seven Days’ Battles. McClellan’s troops fought well in these battles, but the cautious, timid, Union commander retreated anyway, giving up the offensive. Frustrated, Lincoln fused three independent commands, including McDowell’s corps, into the new Army of Virginia, led by Major General John Pope. He hoped for better results from this new army. Kilpatrick’s 2d New York joined Brigadier General George D. Bayard’s cavalry brigade, attached to Brigadier General Rufus King’s infantry division, in Pope’s army.

The bombastic but aggressive Pope gave the cavalry a fighting role. On July 19, Kilpatrick’s 2d New York left Falmouth for Beaver Dam Station on the Virginia Central Railroad. The Yankee riders burned the depot and captured the one Confederate they found there–a then-unknown captain named John S. Mosby. ‘The affair was most successful,’ Pope noted, ‘reflecting high credit upon the commanding officer and his troops.’

Kilpatrick followed up this success by charging into Hanover Junction on July 23. His men burned the depot before Major General J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry chased them off. On August 6, the 2d New York joined a raiding party led by Colonel Lysander Cutler that leveled Frederick’s Hall Station. While Kilpatrick’s superiors applauded him, his men began to grumble. ‘Many were confined to their tents [with] saddle boils and lameness,’ Lieutenant Henry C. Meyer recalled. The troopers began to call their aggressive commander ‘Kill-Cavalry.’

Bayard’s cavalry was screening for Pope’s army two weeks later when Stuart’s cavalry approached near Brandy Station. ‘Down came the enemy, charging along the road,’ a New Jersey cavalryman recalled, ‘and Kilpatrick was ordered to meet them.’ The 2d was almost in position when confusion suddenly engulfed the ranks. Before Kilpatrick could realign his men, the 12th Virginia Cavalry crashed into the line and scattered it. Other Rebel units followed up and drove the Yankees from the field.

Two weeks later, Pope sent the cavalry to Thoroughfare Gap to intercept Major General James Longstreet’s Confederate corps. It was too little too late. Longstreet hurried through the gap to link up with Stonewall Jackson at Manassas. On the morning of the 30th, as Pope threw his army at Jackson’s entrenched Rebels, Longstreet slammed into Pope’s exposed flank. The Second Battle of Bull Run ended the same way as the first had a year earlier.

Pope’s beaten army began a rapid withdrawal. As Confederate shells fell indiscriminately among the scurrying Union infantry, Kilpatrick decided to make his presence felt. ‘General McDowell wants the Harris Light to take [that] battery,’ he yelled to his men. ‘Draw sabers!’ Kilpatrick watched from relative safety as his troopers cantered toward a Rebel battery hidden in the darkness. Suddenly, the Rebel guns lit up the air, unhorsing several Yankees and scattering the rest. ‘The charge was a blunder,’ Lieutenant Meyer wrote. ‘Kilpatrick was severely criticized in the regiment for it.’

Pope was relieved and his Army of Virginia dispersed. Lee promptly moved north into Maryland, with McClellan–back in charge of the reassembled Army of the Potomac–on his heels. As the 2d New York rested near Washington, Kilpatrick again plundered the Virginia countryside. When he sold two mules ‘borrowed’ from a local farmer, however, the victim filed a complaint with the provost marshal. The subsequent investigation exposed all of Kilpatrick’s crooked schemes, and he was locked up in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington.

‘Affidavits,’ Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, concluded, ‘…leave little question of [Kilpatrick's] guilt.’ The defendant, however, was one of the few Union cavalry leaders who took on Confederate horsemen. So, on January 21, 1863, after three months in jail, he was released.

Kilpatrick returned to a new and improved cavalry organization. Major General Joseph Hooker, now commanding the Army of the Potomac, had combined the horse units wasting away alongside infantry divisions into a single, powerful corps of 9,000 horsemen, led by Brigadier General George Stoneman. Kilpatrick, who was now a colonel, was given command of the 1st Brigade in Brigadier General David McMurtrie Gregg’s 3d Division.

In April, Hooker began his campaign against Lee. He sent Stoneman out on a preliminary raid, with orders to do ‘a vast amount of mischief.’ The cavalry chief divided his 4,000 riders into several raiding parties and sent them out. Kilpatrick set to work with his old 2d New York and spent the next five days tearing up track, burning rail depots, and destroying rail cars and telegraph lines. At one point he rode within two miles of Richmond, where his little force surprised and captured a group of Rebel horsemen. When the regiment rode into the Federal garrison at Gloucester Point, the men were cheered as ‘lions of the day.’ It was probably Kilpatrick’s best moment of the war.

Overall, however, Stoneman’s raid yielded little success. ‘With the exception of Kilpatrick’s operations,’ Hooker noted, ‘the raid [did not] amount to much.’ Worse for Hooker, while his horsemen wasted their time to the south, Lee and Jackson had surprised and beat his army at Chancellorsville on May 1-4.

Lee followed up his victory by invading the North for the second time. Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton replaced Stoneman and set off in pursuit. Before dawn on June 9, 1863, Pleasonton’s Union cavalry surprised Stuart’s Confederate horsemen at Brandy Station, Virginia. Brigadier General John Buford crossed the Rappahannock River and hit Stuart from the north. Stuart set up his defense–led by William E. ‘Grumble’ Jones, Wade Hampton, and W.H.F. ‘Rooney’ Lee–around the base of a rise called Fleetwood Hill. Meanwhile, Gregg, with Kilpatrick’s brigade in tow, crossed the river at Kelly’s Ford, and approached the scene from the south.

Gregg sent Colonel Percy Wyndham’s brigade to surprise Stuart from behind. He held Kilpatrick in reserve in woods just south of the nearby Orange and Alexandria Railroad tracks. Wyndham fought his way to the top of Fleetwood Hill, where his men tangled with Confederate riders in dust so thick, a 1st Pennsylvania trooper recalled, that ‘we could not tell friend from foe.’ Gregg ordered Kilpatrick to support Wyndham. Kilpatrick, however, had inexplicably failed to align his brigade. During the delay, Wyndham was driven from the hill.

When Kilpatrick finally moved, he compounded his mistake by sending his three regiments forward in echelon, rather than as one body. Within minutes, both the 10th and 2d New York were shattered by Rebel charges and sent ‘floating off like feathers on the wind.’ Kilpatrick was shocked. He turned to 1st Maine Colonel Calvin S. Douty. ‘Colonel Douty,’ Kilpatrick asked, ‘What can you do?’

‘I can drive the Rebels,’ came the reply.

‘Go in and do it!’ Kilpatrick said.

The 1st Maine charged up the hill, smashing through the 1st South Carolina on the way. Douty advanced more than a mile before realizing he was cut off from support. As he fought his way back toward the railroad tracks, Kilpatrick sent help. ‘Back, the Harris Light! Back, the Tenth New York!’ he exclaimed. ‘Re-form your squadrons and charge!’ After a series of inconsequential charges and counter-charges, the Yankees pulled back from the heights. Pleasonton retired from the field in the late afternoon.

At a crucial point in this pivotal battle–one that might have given the improving Union cavalry its first clear-cut victory over Stuart–Kilpatrick had failed. His name was conspicuously absent from the list of officers Pleasonton cited for gallantry. Nevertheless, probably because of his role in Stoneman’s recent operations, Kilpatrick became a brigadier general on June 14.

On June 10, Lee started his infantry northward down the Shenandoah Valley. Hooker, still unsure of Lee’s intentions, sent his cavalry west to gather intelligence. Kilpatrick led the way. As he approached Aldie on June 17, he spotted Rebel troops about the village. ‘Kilpatrick’s standing order,’ a newspaperman wrote, ‘was ‘Charge god damn ‘em,’ whether they were five or five thousand.’ This day was no exception. Without bothering to determine the enemy’s strength or position, he sent the 1st Massachusetts forward with sabers flashing.

The Confederates fled out of town, bearing right at a fork in the road and drawing the Union riders after them into an ambush. ‘My poor men were just slaughtered,’ Captain Charles Francis Adams of the 1st Massachusetts recalled. Kilpatrick next called the 2d New York to the front, gave a fiery speech, and sent them down the left fork. Again, the Yankee horsemen rode into an ambush. More than 100 of them fell in a deadly crossfire.

Kilpatrick was devastated. ‘His countenance was dejected and sad,’ a 1st Maine trooper recalled. ‘The fire in his eyes was gone. He looked indeed a ‘ruined man.” He made one more attempt to dislodge the Rebels. He assembled the 1st Maine, and for one of the few times in his career, personally led a charge against the enemy. The Confederates were driven back into the gaps of the Blue Ridge, but they had kept the Federal troopers from spotting Lee’s infantry.

As Lee moved into the North, the command of the Army of the Potomac changed again. On June 28, Major General George Gordon Meade replaced Hooker, and he immediately shook up the cavalry. Despite his recent blunders, Kilpatrick was given command of the Cavalry Corps’ 3d division. Newly minted Brigadier Generals Elon J. Farnsworth and George Armstrong Custer would lead Kilpatrick’s two brigades.

On June 30, Kilpatrick rode in the van of his division as it trotted through Hanover, Pennsylvania. At about 10:00 a.m., just as Farnsworth’s troops were exiting the town, Stuart’s men attacked the rear of the Union column. When Kilpatrick heard firing, he whirled about and galloped wildly back toward Hanover. He arrived just after the fight ended. As Kilpatrick dismounted in the village square, his exhausted horse collapsed and died.

Stuart’s troopers stole away during the night. Kilpatrick advanced cautiously on July 1, ignoring the boom of cannons to his left–the opening salvos of the Battle of Gettysburg. On July 2, Meade sent for Kilpatrick, but the cavalry leader moved so slowly that he did not arrive at the front until noon on July 3. He took up a position on the far left of Meade’s line.

That afternoon, as Pickett’s Charge failed, Kilpatrick thought he saw a chance to be a hero. He ordered Farnsworth to assault the flank of the retreating Confederates.

‘Do you mean it?’ Farnsworth gasped. The ground ahead was heavily wooded and strewn with huge boulders. A mounted charge through that labyrinth would be suicidal.

Incensed by Farnsworth’s response, Kilpatrick sneered, ‘If you are afraid, I’ll lead the charge.’

‘Take that back!’ Farnsworth shouted.

‘Forget it!’ Kilpatrick snapped.

‘I will lead it,’ Farnsworth insisted, so loudly that a nearby Confederate regiment could hear the exchange, ‘but you must take the responsibility.

‘I take the responsibility,’ Kilpatrick replied.

Farnsworth led a column of troopers forward. As he had feared, they were greeted by a hailstorm of minié balls. In minutes the Yankee riders were scrambling desperately to return to their line. Farnsworth, however, lay dead, killed in the last flurry of shots.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: Civil War Times, Historical Figures

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.