American Civil War: Lesser Known People and Events (bomb, generals, Mexico)

[Grandstander]

He was played by actor Mathew Staley in a movie, but you would be extremely hard pressed to find anyone who can identify the man or the actor. He shares a name with another historical figure who is immensely more famous. His death in combat was completely overshadowed by concurrent events.

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is justly famous for his superior exploitation of the terrain in his 1862 Valley Campaign. However, Jackson owned up to not having an especially good eye for military ground. To compensate, Jackson secured the services of two engineering officers who served as his topographers and created the maps which allowed Jackson to exploit the geographical features so well. One was Captain Jedediah Hotchkiss and the other was our protagonist, James Boswell. (no relation to the biographer)
Boswell and Hotchkiss became very close friends and worked well together, the former named chief engineer and specializing in the construction of defenses and placement of troops, the latter becoming the master mapmaker. What Jackson did in the Valley was made possible by these two men.

On May 2nd, 1863, Jackson met his end at the hands of his own troops at Chancelorsville. Most accounts of his mortal wounding will say ".....wounding Jackson, and killing several members of his staff who were with him." Then it will follow Jackson through amputation and eventual death, those staffers have left the stage and the story.

Two weeks earlier Boswell had written a letter to his aunt, commenting on how unusual it was that to date, no one on Jackson's staff had been killed in any of the numerous engagements. Riding with Jackson at Chancelorsville, Boswell was struck once in the leg, and twice in the head, by the same volley which brought down Stonewall. Boswell died instantly, 18 days short of his 25th birthday. He left behind a a war diary which historians have found very valuable in treatments of Jackson.

Here is a link which features a photgraph of Boswell, as well as one of his grave in Fredericksburg.
James Keith Boswell (1838 - 1863) - Find A Grave Memorial

It was "Gods and Generals" which featured Boswell as a very minor character.

This thread isn't about the more famed of the Civil War figures, or about revisting the contoversies, if you contribute, try and make it something which most us us do not know.

[Grandstander]

Deserving of more fame than it has achieved, perhaps the most surprisingly lopsided victory of the war took place on September 8th, 1863.

Richard W. Dowling, an Irish immigrant to Louisiana, was a Confederate lieutenant who commanded an small earthen artillery works protecting the Texas border along the Sabine River. Dignified to "Fort Griffin", it contained but six pieces of artillery and 42 men to man the works and serve the guns.

The Union command decided to send an expedition up the Sabine to make Federal inroads into Texas. General Nathaniel Banks assembled a force of 4000 soldiers aboard transports, accompanied by four gunboats which mounted 20 plus large guns.

Typical of Banks, he carelessly allowed word of the expedition to leak, and the Confederate high command gave Dowling the option of abandoning his fort since it was assumed that it would be lost in any event. Instead, Dowling with his 42 men, known as the Davis Guard, opted to stay and defend.

The Union fleet arrived early in the morning of September 8th and commenced a bombardment of the fort which did not do much damage and failed to injure any of the defenders. Dowling and his men absorbed the pounding throughout the day, then in mid afternoon they began to return fire. They put a shot directly into the gunboat Sachem's boiler which exploded and forced the ship to surrender to the force in the fort. Then they focused on the gunboat Clifton, shooting away its steering, causing it to drift out of control directly under the fort's guns. After a short bombardment at point blank range, the Clifton also surrendered.

The loss of these two ships caused the other two to give up the attack, which in turn caused Banks to abandon the entire expedition since the fort remained barring his way. The Davis Guard had inflicted 50 casulaties on the gunboat crews, and captured another 350 from the surrendered vessels. The Davis Guard suffered zero casualties, not a single wound.

Dowling and his men were decorated by the State of Texas, the City of Houston and Jefferson Davis. Dowling remains a popular and heroic figure in Houston, but for whatever reasons, his incredible stand has not gathered national attention.

[noetsi]

I don't know his name, GS probably does, but during the seven days Stonewall asigned important engineering duties to one of his officers who's role before then appears largely to have given religious services. During the union retreat part of the problem in Stonewall's pursuit is that the officer did a very poor job of building a critical bridge (a point upon which the officer himself agreed was the case).

I am not sure if Chivington is poorly known enough to qualify for this thread, but the sometimes union officer played a key role in defeating the Sibley expedition into New Mexico. His fame was brief. He later led one of the worse massacre of native Americans in US history, the Chivington massacre, and would have been court martialed had he not resigned first. He soon faded out of history.