"A just right to select our own officers": Reactions in a Union Regiment to Officers Commissioned from Outside Its Ranks

"a just right to select our own officers": Reactions in a Union Regiment to Officers Commissioned from Outside Its Ranks Mark H. Dunkelman "The regiment is the family," wrote Gen. William T. Sherman in the postwar years, and his simile was an apt one. In most of the thousands of regiments raised, North and South, community ties bound the men together in a familial fashion. Companies were often recruited within the confines ofa few neighboring towns; regiments were frequently raised within the borders ofa county or two. Family ties in companies and regiments were literal in many cases. Pairs ofbrothers were not uncommon, and fraternal trios, quartets, and quintets occasionally volunteered together. Combinations of uncles and nephews and cousins were readily encountered in the ranks, and father and son duos were also to be found.1 Members of companies and regiment not related by blood were bonded in brotherhood by the ordeals faced in the service—particularly in the crucible of combat. Leading these bands of brothers were their officers, often (at least initially ) the very men who had recruited the volunteers. Respected officers paternalistically looked after the well-being oftheir "boys," subjected them to stern but fair discipline, and led them by example when the storm of battle raged. At the other end of the spectrum were officers who misused or abused their fatherly role. Some men were corrupted by their sudden elevation to positions of authority and became petty tyrants. Others proved to be prey to incompetence, drunkeness, or—worst of all—cowardice.2 1 WilliamT. Sherman,Memoirs ofGeneral William T. Sherman byHimself, vol. 1 1 (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1957), 385. Examples of kinship ties are numerous in the 154th New York Volunteers. In Company C, for instance, at least ten sets of brothers have been identified, a full quarter of the ???-man total. Eight pairs of fathers and sons are known to have served in the regiment. 2 James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), 53-55, 86-87; Joseph T. Glatthaar, The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman's Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1985X 21-27; Earl J. Hess, The Union Soldier in Battle: Enduring the Ordeal of Combat (Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas, 1997), 1 17-22; James I. Robertson, Jr., Soldiers Blue and Gray (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1 988), 2 1 . Civil War History, Vol. xliv No. 1 © 1998 by The Kent State University Press "A JUST RIGHT TO SELECT OUR OWN OFFICERS"25 Who replaced the officers who were felled by bullets in combat, died of disease in camp, or simply chose to exercise their prerogative to resign? A system of promotions stipulated by army regulations was usually ignored in volunteer regiments. Methods of filling vacancies varied from state to state, but governors generally deferred to the recommendations of regimental commanders in issuing commissions. Most often, officers were replaced by promotion from within the company or regiment. That procedure best served the good of the service: a familiar figure of proven ability assumed the fatherly role vacated by the departed officer and offered his fellow soldiers an example to emulate. But on occasion, openings in regimental officer corps were filled by outsiders. Much like a stepfather meeting his new family, how such an officer was received by his new military family depended on the circumstances of the case.3 A typical Union army regiment offers several examples.The 154th NewYork Volunteer Infantry was raised in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua Counties in the summer of 1 862 in response to President Abraham Lincoln's July 1 call for three hundred thousand three-year volunteers. The regiment left western New York for the front in September 1 862 with a full complement of seven field and staff and thirty company-grade officers. Each and every one of them was from either Cattaraugus or Chautauqua County, and many of them had helped to recruit the regiment. When the inevitable vacancies occurred in the officer corps, members of the 154th fully expected that the positions would be filled from within their...