Above:
Federal Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth was killed in action at Gettysburg, July 3,
1863.
I’ve
been putting together a spreadsheet showing details of fatal battle casualties
among general officers in the cavalry arm during the U.S. Civil War. According
to data assembled by Russell K. Brown, there were 158 general officer
combat-related fatalities in the war (78 Federal and 80 Confederate), the
battlefields of which he aptly characterized as “the great killing grounds of
American generals.”1
“Whoever
saw a dead cavalryman?” was a popular calumny at the time of the war, and I was
curious to examine the overall data on general officer combat deaths to
discover the representation of cavalrymen among them. (I am doing this as well
for field grade officers, but that is another, more ambitious, matter
altogether.) Basically, I identify each general, their rank and unit, and the
place, date, and circumstances of their death or fatal wounding.
I’ve
only just begun this project, but it’s proving much more interesting (and
challenging) than I imagined.
1Brown, Maj. Russell K.,
Jr. "Fallen Stars." Military Affairs, 45:1 (Feb. 1981), 9-12.
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