Was there a significant number of Confederate soldiers who continued their military service after the surrender of the Confederacy by joining the US Army (US Navy, US Marine Corps) after 1865?
I have read about at least one US officer in the Spanish-American War who, as young man, had served in the CSA.
To be clear, I’m not talking about Confederate soldiers who defected to the Union Army during the Civil War or Confederate POWs who chose to join the Union Army. I’m interested in individuals who remained loyal to the Confederacy until the end but then accepted the new reality and wished to continue their military career.
General Joseph Wheeler was a cavalry general in the Civil War, and also served as a general in the Spanish American War. From all I have heard he did a pretty good job, too.
He did make history when, during a battle in the S.A. War, he got so excited that he forgot who he was fighting, and yelled out “Go get 'em boys! We’ve got those Yankees on the run!”
I went through about 30 names of Confederate generals from a wiki list and couldn’t find any who went into the Union army after the war was over. Politics or planter were common, along with a few who left the country. Although it wasn’t a war with a great deal of violation of the rules of war (Fort Pillow was an exception), it still was a civil war. What former generals such as Longstreet and Mosby who became Republicans, were looked upon with scorn by their neighbors.
I am just guessing here but before and after the war, the entire U.S. army was about 12,000 men. The war ballooned it to at least 500,000. Those who stayed in, such as George Custer who was a brevert major general, took demotions to stay in (which is why you various hear him referred to as a colonel or general, but post 1865 he was officially a colonel). It would be hard for some high ranking Confederate officer to join, even if he was highly regarded. Southerners who were loyal to the Union during the war, such as George Thomas or Frederick Benteen, stayed in but they were often ostracized by their families.
My understanding is enlisted men after the war were poorly paid and comprised of many immigrants or men who couldn’t make it as civilians. Perhaps some “Jonny Rebs” joined but I don’t know.
I found a list of soldiers and civilians attached to Custer’s 7th cavalry at Little Big Horn in 1876. looking at the birthplaces, there are two Virginians, one Tennessean and two Louisianans. One of the Louisianans was Isiah Dorman, a former slave who was the only Black so he sure didn’t serve in the Confederate Army. As I mentioned above, Benteen of Virginia, fought for the Union. I didn’t count the number of foreign born, but it looks substantial.
Very few. The problem was that, just like after World War II, they had to massively downsize the army because, obviously, there wasn’t a war on anymore and there were millions more than enough to deal with the needs of (tiny by our standards) standing army and the Indians and even Reconstruction. Plus, most men on both sides just wanted to go home.
Nathan Bedford Forrest is one Confederate general who tried to join the U.S. forces after the war but was declined. Before the war he was a rags-to-riches story: born in a shack, father died when he was a kid, and by the time he was in his 30s he was a millionaire through speculation in land, slaves, horses, and cotton- everything he touched turned to money. During the war he spent much of his fortune financing his own regiment initially then of course the collapse of the southern slave economy destroyed anything that was left. After the war, everything he touched turned to dross, but he knew he had another talent- cavalry leader- that could be used against Indians or Mexicans (there was fear of another war with Mexico after the Civil War due to the renewed European interest), and he had some great references including Sherman (who had said in the war “he must be killed if it costs 10,000 men and bankrupts the Treasury”) and other officers he’d fought, so ultimately he volunteered his services, but was turned down. Ironically it was probably less his scandals that made them reject him as his lack of military education or training before the war (he was completely self taught).
By the time the U.S. forces started swelling again for the Spanish American War, most veterans of both sides were too old. Joe Wheeler was one of the youngest generals of the war (in his late 20s at war’s end) which is why he was still young enough (early 60s) for the Spanish American and Philippines War. Most enlisted me were the same age he was or just a little younger and thus too old for enlisted positions, and most high ranking rebel officers were either too old or too dead by the 1890s.
While researching my 3rd great grandfather, I was surprised to find the records starting with Confederating and then ending with Union. Since his name was “King David Shiflett” I was pretty sure that there was not more than one. Although I think he joined the Union Army out of necessity (he was captured), he eventually deserted. Below is the narrative that I was able to put together through records. He didn’t seem to be a soldier who “set the world on fire” on either side as he was always “sick”…
King David D Shiflett first enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862. He joined on 22 Feb, 1862 in Crockett, Houston, Co., Texas. He was living with his wife and daughter. Muster roll reports that he enlisted for 12 months. In November of 1862 the muster roll reports that he was sick and that he was sent to Camp Nelson in Arkansas. In Jan./Feb. of 1863 he is listed as present and the muster roll notes that he has not been paid since October of 1862. On June 10, 1863 he was captured at Providence, LA but he is listed as being in Providence and “sick” on a muster roll in 1864. According to records he was captured and Alton, IL. He then transferred to Camp Douglass in Chicago where one month before the Civil War ended, he enlisted in the Union Army. According to these records, he stayed in for two months before being sent to Ft. Leavenworth Hospital for an undetermined illness. He never arrived. He was listed as deserted in July, but two telegraphs reveal that he was arrested in Ft. Scott, Kansas six days after he left for Ft. Leavenworth. From the records, it is not clear if he was cleared to return to Ft. Leavenworth and never arrived or what happened to him after he was arrested. In October, the army again wrote that he was a deserter and that he had never been captured. By 1870 he was back in Texas.
Here is one for you–William C. Oates. He was a Colonel in the Confederate Army (fought at Gettysburg) and then later fought with US forces in the Spanish-American War: William C. Oates - Wikipedia
By mid-1863, much of Virginia and Louisiana–and all of Tennessee–was under Union control. It’s why Tennessee wasn’t mentioned in the Emancipation Proclamation (Andrew Johnson was already their Military Governor in 1863, and several Tennessee counties never seceded to begin with) and many Virginia and Louisiana counties were exempted by name in it. Perhaps Custer’s men were in counties that had already been considered rehabilitated before Reconstruction was underway?
*Captain Nathan Brittles: [while burying the dead] I also commend to your keeping, Sir, the soul of Rome Clay, late Brigadier General, Confederate States Army. Known to his comrades here, Sir, as Trooper John Smith, United States Cavalry… a gallant soldier and a Christian gentleman. *
But for reals, how about Thomas Tibb:
The Life And Campaigns
Of Major-General J. E. B. Stuart
Commander Of The Cavalry Of The Army Of Northern Virginia
by
H. B. Mcclellan, A.M.
Late Major, Assistant Adjutant-General And Chief Of Staff Of The Cavalry Corps, Army Of Northern Virginia
The Life and Campaigns of Major-General J.E.B. Stuart
Roll Of The Second Regiment Virginia Cavalry.
THOS. A. TIBB, wounded at Buckettsville, Md., dismissed from the regiment; enlisted in Preston’s battery; promoted for gallantry to First Lieutenant; after the war joined 7th U.S. Cavalry; was killed in battle with the Indians at Washeta, Indian Territory. A dashing, handsome youth.
A lot of soldiers of the Confederacy had nothing to go home to after the war. So, it’s easy for me to imagine some headed west, joined the army, and served during the “Indian Wars”.
Lt General James Longstreet was the only high-ranking Confederate general who after the war became a Republican, endorsed Ulysses Grant for President in 1868 and attended his inauguration.
He got appointed surveyor of cusytoms in New Orleans and later became a major general of the Louisiana state militia, commanding African-American troops and other forces against White Leaguein the Battle of Liberty Place in 1874. Longstreet subsequently was criticized a lot by “lost cause” adherents on his role in the Confederacy losing the Civil War. But more recent scholarship rates Longstreet pretty well as a chief of staff.
I also recently found William Mecklenburg Polk (Son of General Leonidas Polk). William reached the rank of Captain in the Confederate Army by the time the war ended. He went on to become a doctor and became a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps in 1917. He was still in that position when he died in June 1918 during World War I. Here’s a Wikipedia article that has some good sources on it: William Mecklenburg Polk - Wikipedia .
‘Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay’ by Don Rickey Jr is about the enlisted ranks in the US Army in the post Civil War ‘Indian Wars’. He says that many ex-Confederate enlisted men and officers joined the US Army as enlisted men, usually under assumed names (though he notes that others did this too either because wanted under their real names or simply because the social status of peacetime enlisted military service was so low at that time). He gives an example of an officer of the 7th Cavalry in 1868 noting that one one of his enlisted men had been an artillery major in the Confederate Army.
Section 3 of the 14th amendment prohibited any prewar US officers who had joined the Confederacy again holding ‘any office civil or military under the United States’ which was apparently interpreted to mean they couldn’t becomes officers, not they couldn’t enlist as privates and some might have under their real names. Congress removed this disability by the required 2/3’s in 1898 for the basically political appointments of a few ex-CSA officers as generals of volunteers in the Spanish War as have been mentioned. Also technically it might not have prevented someone who served as enlisted in the Confederate Army becoming a US officer postwar, but it doesn’t seem there were many if any such cases.
