Question of the Week: What officer’s staff would you want to join?

If you could join the staff of one military or naval officer from 1865, whose would you most want to join?



15 Responses to Question of the Week: What officer’s staff would you want to join?

      1. Remember what Napoleon said: “Never hold councils of war – they always elect not to fight.” Meade kept holding councils at Gettysburg – and they kept telling him not to fight. As soon as the whole army was up on July 2 he should have attacked.

  1. I would like to be on Stonewall Jackson’s staff. Just to see how genius and eccentricity could coexist in one individual.

  2. In 1865 I would prefer to be with Edmond Kirby-Smith just to see what happened in the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy because there are so many questions about the disintegration.
    In 1865 for the Union side I would like to have been on Grant”s staff to see so many parts moving at the same time and answer questions about the relationships with various leaders both political and military concerning the final days of the war.

  3. If limited to joining in 1865, I would like to be on George Pickett’s staff, so I could solve the mystery of whether Lee really did dismiss Pickett from the army after Five Forks.

    Also, if I could join Pickett in 1863, perhaps I could have secretly copied that post-Pickett’s Charge report that Lee ordered him to destroy as being too imflammatory. Would love to find out who he blamed for the failure (and the language he used).

  4. Sheridan’s staff … to get the real story of his relationship with General Warren and his sacking at Five Forks.

  5. George H. Thomas. “Slow Trot” took participated in some of the most consequential battles in the west. Yet I know relatively little about him.

  6. One of my ancestors was a Lieutenant in Company C, 78th Pennsylvania…but I’m sure mere Lieutenants were not allowed a staff, nor were Captains – an ancestor by marriage was a Captain in the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves. None of my other 23 who served were officers, because we have a tradition in our family: We work for a living.

    So, I could not serve with a relative, and thus I’d like to serve on Jeb Stuart’s colorful staff, which included a German military officer and a Philadelphia Democrat who happened to be George McClellan’s cousin; or on Robert Lee’s staff, for it was too small and overworked, and Lee was too much a macromanager; a little micromanagement would have helped him. His staff, as well, included a New Yorker. In fact, the vast majority of senior command in the Army of Northern Virginia and their staff officers did not own slaves nor approve of slavery. War of abolition be damned!

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