Devilish Dwight in Division Command

ECW welcomes back guest author Brian D. Kowell. This post is part two of a series.

Nathaniel Banks ordered a massive bombardment and another grand assault on Port Hudson’s works for June 11, 1863. General Willaim Dwight’s division, on the Federal left flank adjacent to the Mississippi River, was to attack a strong Rebel fortification on a commanding hill called the Citadel. In another alcoholic haze, Dwight concocted a plan of attack. He wanted to test a hypothesis that he could march his men forward during the bombardment and time it exactly so that when the firing ceased, his men would reach the Rebel earthworks and take them before the defenders adequately recovered. Leading the way would be a small force to dash through the Confederate lines and take Confederate General Franklin Gardner prisoner.

Dwight called to his headquarters Captains John Cordon and Henry Stark of the 6th Michigan Infantry Regiment. The two entered the carpeted tent into the presence of the short, stocky, red-faced Dwight. Pointing to a crude map, Dwight ordered Stark to select 50 men disguised as Rebels, pass through the lines during the bombardment, and proceed to Gardner’s headquarters, taking him prisoner. Stark’s first thought was that Dwight was joking. The entire XIX Corps had failed to penetrate the Confederate lines. As one historian speculated, “Perhaps this was alcohol-induced talk. After all, Dwight’s breath reeked of the stuff.”^[1]

Stark asked the general where exactly Gardner’s headquarters were located. Dwight did not know, telling the captain, “You must make a prisoner of the first man you meet and holding your revolver to his head exact the information.”^[2]

Turning to Cordon, Dwight ordered him to follow Stark with 200 men to spike Port Hudson’s big guns. Once successful, he was to fire up rockets so Dwight could send more troops and announce to the army that, “General Dwight has taken the Citadel.” Returning his red eyes to Stark, Dwight said very seriously, “After you have taken Gardner’s house, you are to establish yourself in it, barricade the doors, and defend it at all hazards.” Dwight would meet him there.^[3]

Cordon and Stark were stunned. Dwight’s staff spoke jestingly about the project, smiling and laughing at such a desperate undertaking. As they walked away, the captains thought the general was drunk, hoping Dwight would forget about the whole matter when he sobered up.

Early on the morning of the bombardment and assault, Dwight and his division staff showed up well fortified with “Louisiana Fire-water” to watch. Apparently Dwight never sobered up.

Cordon and Stark were rudely awakened by their colonel to see if they were ready. “What for?” Cordon replied. When told to fulfill Dwight’s instructions that they received, the two played dumb and said they never received written notification and that the general said he would send it. Already late, Stark and Cordon quickly gathered their men and moved forward on their suicide mission. They advanced through heavy fire, but were forced to stop when they encountered a water-filled ravine, too deep to cross. After taking many casualties the captains ordered their men to fall back.

After the fighting, the Confederates sent word that they would permit the removal of the Union dead and wounded. Dwight, incensed at the failure, refused to raise a white flag. “No, sir,” Dwight said. “It’s all a stratagem of the enemy to get the dead carcasses carried away from before their works. They know that they will be stunk out if the bodies rot there … No, sir! I’ll stink the Rebels out of the Citadel with dead bodies of those damned volunteers if I cannot make the cowards take it by storm.” Dwight continued his rant, “God damn you volunteers. If you had done as you were ordered I would now be in General Gardner’s headquarters. I’ll hang all those captains who failed to enter the Citadel.” In his mad ravings, his staff tried to humor him and pumped him with a steady supply of whiskey.^[4]

Ordered to report to Dwight’s headquarters, the two captains thought they were to be hanged. When they were brought before Dwight, they found him stumbling about, babbling nonsense, and his speech slurred almost incomprehensibly. Dwight pointed to drinks on the table and mumbled, “Gentlemen, ep yur-seves.” The staff mixed each a drink and advised that they make themselves scarce.^[5]

Dwight’s visions of glory at Port Hudson knew no bounds. His next attempt was to have engineer Joseph Bailey build him a grand battery to smash the Citadel’s walls. Bailey had several hundred Black men use cotton bales in constructing the fort. By cursing and threatening, Bailey made his “importance felt through cruelty and atrocious wickedness” while the besotted Dwight boasted of taking the Citadel as the “Great Cotton Bale Battery” took shape. One historian wrote that “Dwight and Bailey in concert were about as competent as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.”^[6]

For days Dwight caroused, debauched, and drank himself into senseless stupors, bragging that “By God, I’ll have an artillery fire that will drive every soul out of this part of Port Hudson.”^[7]

Its walls completed and its guns in place, Dwight had a platform built on a lookout tower where he placed a table, easy chair, and a supply of liquid refreshment to observe the spectacle. On June 26, he and his staff, immaculately dressed, climbed to their perch. Glancing at his watch – 3:45 p.m. – Dwight gave the signal to open fire. For two days the shots flew. When they finally fell silent and the smoke cleared, much to Dwight’s disappointment, little had changed.^[8]

Undaunted, Dwight planned another assault. On Monday, June 29, a Confederate deserter came into Brig. Gen. Frank S. Nickerson’s lines. He questioned the man about the size of the force defending the Citadel and was told 700 men. This was true. But when he informed Dwight, Nickerson’s mind was clouded with drink and, not wanting to seem a coward, he told his commander that there were only 40 men. Dwight soon ordered two regiments to charge. No one was foolish enough to actually charge; instead they crawled up the hill. Rebel fire and hand grenades stopped them. The soldiers, ignoring their officers, did not move further and waited until dark to retreat. They hoped Dwight would drink himself into a stupor and forget about the charge.

He didn’t. The next day Dwight was furious. He ordered another charge, and went himself to see it done. One soldier recorded:

General Dwight came into our rifle pit and ordered the boys to charge. Our men were always ready to obey commands and quite a squad of them rushed out into the Rebel works. In the meantime our valiant General became stupidly unconscious from the effects of “commissary” administered to keep up his courage, and he lay closely hugging the most secure part of our works. Our men were told that only a small posse held the Citadel, that once inside they could easily hold the fort. But alas, it was a sad mistake.^[9]

When night fell, the men of the 6th Michigan and 165th New York were assembled behind the Great Cotton Battery. There sat Dwight on his lookout tower platform, looking for all the world “like an ugly little heathen god in his pagoda.” His red face was illuminated by aides holding tallow candles. He drunkenly berated his men:

I am going to take Port Hudson by storm this very night. I order you to pay no attention to any fire that may be opened upon you. No! You are to rush forward with a shout and carry these interior works at the point of a bayonet. The enemy will think there is a perfect earthquake, and will fly in all directions before you … Go, execute my orders, and in the morning Port Hudson surrenders to me.^[10]

The demoralized troops headed off into the trenches and readied for another charge that never came. Hearing of it, Banks countermanded the attack order. Thus, ended what became known as the Great Whiskey Charge.

The siege continued with fruitless assaults, lengthening the sap lines, and digging a tunnel to blow up the Citadel. When the tunnel was completed, explosives were packed and wired and waiting for Banks’ word. That, too, never came as the Confederate garrison surrendered on July 9, 1863.

William Dwight went on to serve as Banks’s chief of staff during the Red River Campaign. There Dwight spent more time drinking and speculating in cotton. The corps was then transferred to Virginia and became part of Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah. In his report about the fighting at Winchester, Dwight criticized fellow division commander Cuvier Grover and the conduct of his division “flying in so much disorder.” Corps commander Maj. Gen. William H. Emory asked Dwight to rewrite his report, but he refused. Emory placed Dwight under arrest. Grover retaliated by accusing Dwight of taking time out from directing his division’s fighting and going to the rear to enjoy lunch (drink?).^[11] Whatever, Dwight’s name was not included for brevet promotions after the war. He was honorably discharged in 1866 and worked in Cincinnati, Ohio with two of his brothers managing railroads.

After a lifetime of hepatic abuse, 57-year-old William Dwight died of cirrhosis of the liver in Boston on April 21, 1888. He is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.^[12]

Brian Kowell is a past president of the Cleveland Civil War Round Table and has had an article published in America’s Civil War July 1992 edition about the Buckland Races.

 

Endnotes:

^[1] David C. Edmonds, The Guns of Port Hudson: The Investment, Siege, and Reduction, (Lafayette, LA: Acadiana Press. 1984), Vol. 2, 226-227; Edward Bacon, Among the Cotton Thieves, (Detroit: The Free Press Steam Book and Job Printing House, 1867) 150-158.

^[2] Bacon, 154-156.

^[3] Edmonds, 227.

^[4] Ibid, 235. Willis, Henry A., The Fifty-third Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, (Fitchburg, MA, 1889), 139. Bacon, 185-186.

^[5] Edmonds, 249.

^[6] Ibid, 244, 278.

^[7] Ibid, 278

^[8] Ibid, 280-283, 299.

^[9] Ibid, 303-304. Bacon, Among the Cotton Thieves. pp. 257-266. Johnson, Benjamin C., A Soldier’s Life: The Civil War Experiences of Ben C. Johnson, Alan S. Brown, ed. (Kalamazoo, MI, Western Michigan University Press, 1962), 264-265.

^[10] Edmonds,  306-307

^[11] Warner, Generals in Blue, 134-135; Jeffery D. Wert, From Winchester to Cedar Creek: The Shenandoah Campaign of 1864, (Carlise, PA, South Mountain Press, Inc., Publishers, 1987), 189, 230. Scott C. Patchan, The Last Battle of Winchester: Phil Sheridan, Jubal Early, and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, August 7- September 19, 1864, (El Dorado Hills, CA, Savas Beatie, 2013), 457.

^[12] Warner, Generals in Blue, 134-135.