Colonel John Pelham: Lee's Boy Artillerist

By Satoshi Kitamura

Even before the end of the Civil War Colonel John Pelham had become a legendary figure of the Confederacy. General Lee called him "the gallant Pelham," and on seeing the young artillerist employ but a single gun to hold up the advance of three Union divisions and over a hundred guns at Fredericksberg, he exclaimed: "It is glorious to see such courage in one so young."

"Stonewall" Jackson, who relied implicitly on Pelham in tight situations said: "It is really extraordinary to find such nerve and genius in a mere boy. With a Pelham on each flank I believe I could whip the world."

"Jeb" Stuart, the dashing cavalry chief, claimed that "John Pelham exhibited a skill and courage which I have never seen surpassed. I loved him as a brother."

Major John Esten Cooke, a fellow-officer and tent-mate, wrote: "He is the bravest human being I ever saw in my life."

And one of Pelham's veteran gunners asserted: "We knew him -- we trusted him -- we would have followed him anywhere, and did."

Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in the spring of 1861, Cadet Pelham slipped away from West Point to join the Confederacy. Following the fierce Battle of First Manassas, in which he fought side-by-side with "Stonewall" Jackson, Pelham was assigned to "Jeb" Stuart's command with orders to organize the Stuart Horse Artillery. This mounted unit -- dashing from action to action on the battlefield -- provided General Lee's army with invaluable mobile firepower which saved many desperate situations.

In over sixty battles Pelham's blazing guns saw furious action against Union infantry, cavalry, artillery, gunboats and even locomotives. Although he fought against tremendous odds, Pelham never lost an artillery duel or a single gun!

Colonel Pelham was an outstanding figure on the battlefield and off. The modest, boyish-looking commander of the Horse Artillery was as calm and popular with his gunners under fire as he was with beautiful Southern belles in the ballroom. This action-packed book fully describes the incredible feats of the adventurous, romantic artillery genius of the Confederacy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Nov 9, 2000
• ISBN: 9780807866788

Satoshi Kitamura

Satoshi Kitamura has written over 20 picture books and illustrated many more. A multiple award-winner whose work has been translated all over the world, he lives in Kobe, Japan.

Book preview

Chapter I

The Training of a Soldier

In all his seventeen years adventure-loving John Pelham could not remember a year which was nearly as exciting as 1856. Almost every newspaper carried gory accounts of new violence in Bloody Kansas where Northern and Southern sympathizers were hustling ruffians into the territory to fight for or against the state’s admission into the Union as a slave state.

During May a wild-eyed migrant farmer by the name of John Brown cruelly murdered five pro-slavery Kansas settlers along Pottawatomie Creek. In Washington, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina angrily strode into the Senate chamber and, without warning, clubbed Senator John Sumner of Massachusetts with his cane until the anti-slavery New Englander fell unconscious beside the desk at which he had been working quietly.

In his own state of Alabama, John listened to bitter stories about William Strickland and Edwin Upson, owners of the largest bookstore in downstate Mobile. These two storekeepers had been run out of town by enraged citizens because they sold three anti-slavery books which some curious customers had ordered. Dr. Pelham cautioned his boys to keep calm in the hope that passions would cool. But when Major Buford of South Carolina stopped in Alabama to recruit several hundred daring lads who could handle a musket, John Pelham itched to join the crusade which was heading for Kansas under a blazing red banner bearing the motto SOUTH CAROLINA AND STATES’ RIGHTS.

However, John wisely decided to follow his father’s advice and first obtain an education at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Certainly no young man had a better background to recommend him for such an appointment. He was the third son of Dr. Atkinson Pelham and his wife Martha, both prominent citizens of Benton County in northeastern Alabama. Here on a thousand acre estate young John and his five brothers played their share of pranks and became embroiled in rough scrapes. Those wild Pelham boys, as the neighbors called them, always seemed to be up to some mischief or other. They played hooky from school to fish and hunt; they feasted on farmers’ ripe corn and luscious melons; and they deviled their teacher by removing and hiding all the desks in the little one-room schoolhouse.

In this healthy outdoor environment John Pelham developed a wiry athletic physique which later enabled him to endure strenuous battle campaigning with such sturdy veterans as Generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jeb Stuart. The young Alabamian enjoyed all sports and rough-and-tumble activities. When he and his brothers tired of fighting each other they would tussle with anyone who was spoiling for a fight. On one such occasion John took on a scrapper much larger than himself. Pelham fought gamely, but he soon realized that he was no match for the older lad who battered him so hard that Charlie, John’s oldest brother, started to step in and take his kid brother’s part. But John waved him back, shouting, No, Charlie, I’ll fight this one out myself. And slug it out he did until he fell to the ground completely exhausted.

Another favorite sport of John’s was horseback riding in which he became expert at an early age. When he tired of riding horses across the cotton fields he rode a neighbor’s cow around the pasture. Several days of this vigorous exercise reduced the poor cow and cut her milk supply to a trickle. Pelham then went to the irate owner and admitted that he was responsible for the cow’s rundown condition. The farmer ordered John hereafter to leave the cows alone and ride the bull if he felt he must ride some animal beside a horse for variety. This idea appealed immensely to Pelham who proceeded to mount the bull which snorted unhappily as it pranced back and forth in a furious attempt to dislodge the determined rider. But Pelham stayed on and eventually tamed the bull so that even his younger sister Betty could ride him.

But now that the country was seething with internal troubles, seventeen year old John Pelham put aside these fun-loving antics to seriously consider his future. During the national crisis of 1856 John and his father talked with the Honorable S. W. Harris, local representative to the United States Congress, about the possibility of securing an appointment for John to attend West Point. Congressman Harris was favorably impressed by young Pelham’s sincerity and manliness, and promptly obtained the appointment for him.

The last week in June John bade farewell to his family and started north to this country’s best school for military training and engineering. On the last leg of his journey he took the leisurely steamboat ride from New York to West Point. Upon leaving the boat at the South Dock pier he climbed with his bags up the steep slopes to the broad and remarkably flat plain which commands a panoramic view of the peaceful Hudson and the majestic heights bordering the opposite shore.

In the middle of the plain stood a group of two, three and four-storied buildings which housed the offices, classrooms and barracks. A cadet sergeant directed John to the administration building where he signed the register and was immediately assigned to Company D which was composed mostly of Southern boys. Pelham shared his cramped quarters with Tom Rosser, a tall, powerfully built Virginian whom John soon came to admire and respect. Another classmate with whom John formed a close and warm friendship was Adelburt Ames of Maine who later remembered Pelham as easily the most popular man of the Corps . . . everybody liked him. Ames himself later became a boy general in the Union army.

Plebe Pelham entered West Point under an experimental five-year program established by Jefferson Davis in 1854 when he was Secretary of War under President Pierce. July and August the new students or plebes got their first taste of army life as they encamped on the Plain. Throughout the hot summer days these future officers fell in shortly after daybreak for inspection, followed by long hours of drilling in infantry tactics and artillery practice. While most of the sweating youths dropped off to sleep at the end of each day—four in a tent—a few classmates took turns standing guard on the post. These sentinels were frequently the butt of upper-classmen, who would wrap themselves in sheets and approach the guards on hands and knees while muttering strange words which scared the new plebes into believing they were being challenged by weird creatures from outer space. But in spite of the rugged schedule and teasings, most of the plebes including Pelham came to enjoy this outdoor experience more than any other at the Academy.

When the hardened plebes returned to barracks in September they plunged into the study of mathematics and English. John was bright and enjoyed reading entertaining adventure books, but he did not study as much as either he or his instructors knew he should. Sometimes he would put off studying until too near the deadline. Then he had to tack blankets over his window in order to study after taps sounded lights out at 10 o’clock. Although he was by no means a model student, Pelham managed to pass the oral final examinations and finish 35th in a class of 59.

In contrast to his mediocre work in his studies, John excelled in cavalry tactics and athletics. Every afternoon he practiced riding on the cavalry plain, followed in the evening by an hour’s boxing and fencing in the gymnasium. Despite his medium build, John shortly gained the reputation of being the finest athlete at the Academy. When the Prince of Wales visited West Point in 1860, the future King Edward VII of England was impressed by the form and grace of Cadet Pelham’s horsemanship. For years after Pelham left the Academy, instructors and cadets held up his riding feats as a model to imitate.

John’s athletic ability coupled with his friendliness and integrity made him a favorite among his classmates. When he tried out for the color-guard (an honor that required military bearing plus spit and polish) his fellow cadets made sure that he was perfectly garbed in every detail. One classmate loaned him a new waist-belt, another brought a gleaming scabbard, while still a third carefully whisked the last specks of dust from Pelham’s gun. During this ceremony the modest Alabamian, blushingly thanked his friends for their attention and help, but said he didn’t think he’d get the position. However, the regular army officers at the Academy thought otherwise and appointed him to the post from which he later advanced to a cadet non-commissioned officer and finally to a cadet officer.

Cadet Pelham was just as particular about his habits off the parade ground as on. When the distinguished Board of Visitors inspected the Academy in 1860 the president of the Board personally complimented Pelham on the neatness and cleanliness of his room, jokingly adding that Pelham had no need of a wife as he could keep an orderly house by himself. And when a number of cadets were caught and arrested for drunkenness, John wrote disgustedly to his father: None of these cadets were members of the first or second classes, of course, for we are on a pledge to abstain from all intoxicating liquors.

For recreation the cadets had to rely on their own ingenuity as there were no movies, radio or television in Pelham’s day. In fact, the only opportunity John had to visit his family occurred at the end of his second year when his class was granted a two-month furlough. Nevertheless, Pelham and his classmates contrived to fill their few leisure hours reading, writing letters, and dancing. They usually danced with each other during the winter months as West Point was too isolated for visits from the fairer sex.

However, in the summer months attractive young ladies in bright crinoline dresses and parasols swarmed to the Point hoping to make the acquaintance of the smartly uniformed handsome cadets. Although Cadet Pelham belonged to the Bachelors’ Club because he believed a young man should not become serious with a girl until he was in a position to get married, he nevertheless enjoyed viewing through a telescope the colorful parade of beauties who promenaded on the walks bordering the green Plain.

During Pelham’s third summer at the Academy rumors began circulating throughout the barracks that the blond, blue-eyed Alabamian was deserting the Bachelor’s Club to date a sweet fair lady from nearby Newburgh. When John confirmed the gossip, he was roundly teased by his classmates who taunted him on his way to meet his date with cries of: Look here, fellows, Pelham has turned ladies man . . .

For more serious recreation Pelham took an active interest in the Dialectic Society which was devoted to the study and discussion of important current issues. When he was elected president of this organization John proudly wrote his mother: I am getting on very well.

With the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in the fall of 1860, Pelham found himself presiding over heated discussions of slavery and states’ rights at the meetings of the Dialectic Society. Considerable feeling was sparked at the Academy by a straw vote in which only 64 of the 210 cadets voted for Lincoln. A group of staunch Southerners began campaigning against the Black Republican Abolitionists in the Corps. Despite some bitter name calling on both sides, Pelham and a number of other level-headed cadets calmed tempers by showing respect for each other’s convictions. In a patriotic address to the entire cadet body Cadet Bill McCreery, a good friend of Pelham’s, called for an end to angry North South rivalry in these healing words: Let us put from us the seeds of sectional strife and draw closer and closer the bonds of this glorious union.

Unfortunately, this sensible attitude was not shared by powerful national political hotheads on both sides who kept the slavery issue boiling. Cadet Pelham viewed with alarm the rush of events pushing the country toward war. Like many Southern cadets at the Academy he was torn between loyalty to his country and devotion to his state. He had made many friends among his Northern classmates, and he recalled local political rallies back in his native Alexandria at which his father had argued against bellowing secessionists who wanted to withdraw from the Union. On the other hand he put his loyalty to his native state first, and on this basis he sadly but definitely decided to cast his lot with whatever course his beloved state of Alabama took. Shortly before Christmas in 1860 he described his mixed feelings in a letter to his mother:

My dear Mother,

You can’t imagine how glad I was to get a letter from you—I had been looking for it for a long, long time. You may expect to see me home by the first of February, 1861. I regret the circumstances which make it necessary, but I don’t see any remedy. Alabama seems determined to leave the Union before the middle of January, and I think it would be dishonorable in me to withhold my services when they will be needed. It seems pretty hard that I should toil for four and a half years for a diploma and then have to leave without it. I am studying hard and think I shall be higher after the coming January examinations than I have ever been before; but my standing will not do me any good.

I always (nearly always) get over my lessons and read a chapter in my Bible a short time before eleven at night. I am not allowed to have a light after this hour. For the past two years and a half I have read my Bible regularly, one chapter almost every night; and when I neglected it one night I made it up the next. I must write a short note to father tonight.

Lovingly your son, John

When Alabama passed an Ordinance of Secession on January 11, 1861, Cadet John Pelham did not immediately follow either his own plans or the advice of his native politicians to resign from the Academy and offer his sword to the Cotton State. Instead, he stayed on hoping that somehow he might be able to graduate before the fighting began. His hope was strengthened somewhat in January when Major Pierre G. T. Beauregard of Louisiana replaced Major Richard Delafield as Superintendent of the Academy. Major Beauregard, or Old Bory as the cadets nicknamed him, advised the Southern cadets to remain in the regular army as long as he did, but after only five days he was dismissed from his post.

During February