If Sturgis Had a Little Bit of Sugar
There were many generals in the Civil War that graduated from the famous Class of 1846 such as George B. McClellan, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, A.P. Hill, George E. Pickett and George Stoneman. Among them was Samuel D. Sturgis. A Pennsylvanian by birth, Sturgis was a veteran of the Mexican War and Indian Wars. During the Civil War he fought at Wilson’s Creek, South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and later at Brice’s Cross Roads. He is most famous for a remark he made about General John Pope during the second campaign to Bull Run: “I don’t care for John Pope one pinch of owl dung.”[i]
What is little known is that General Sturgis liked his alcohol. During the winter of 1863-1864, Sturgis commanded the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Ohio. General Jacob D. Cox wrote of Sturgis in East Tennessee in the winter of 1863:
“[Our commander, General Gordon] Granger had been ailing for a day or two and had not been with the troops. He was lying in bed in a room where we met, and the rest of us sat about the fireplace, a tallow candle being on a rude table in the middle of the floor. Sturgis came in later than the others, having a longer ride. He was a handsome fellow, with full, round features, sharp black eyes, and curly black hair and mustache. He had been seated but a few minutes when he noticed a bottle of whiskey on the table and a glass which had been placed there as camp hospitality for anyone that wanted it, but had been apparently neglected. Glancing that way, Sturgis said, ‘If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I’d take a toddy.’ A colored boy produced a sugar bowl and the toddy was taken. The conversation ran on for a few moments, when, as if it were a wholly new suggestion, the same voice repeated, ‘If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I’d take a toddy,’ and again the attendant did the honors. Our orders were received and we were about ready to go to our commands, when again, with polite intonation and a most amusing unconsciousness of any repetition, came the words, ‘If I had a little bit of sugar. I believe I’d take a toddy.’”[ii]
In late May 1864, Sturgis was in Memphis, Tennessee. He was ordered by Gen. William T. Sherman to take 8,300 troops and prevent Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest from disrupting Sherman’s extended supply line from middle Tennessee to Georgia during Sherman’s advance on Atlanta.
On the night of June 1, 1864, on the eve of his advance, Sturgis was on a bender. His staff saw him stagger down the steps in the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis and drunkenly grab the hotel register from the hotel clerk’s desk. He began feigning to swinging it down upon nearby people’s heads while laughing in a silly manner. His staff guided him by the arm out of the hotel where he spotted a lady passing by. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward him. Leaning against one of the pillars fronting the Gayoso, he soon had one arm over the startled lady’s shoulder and the other around her waist. A brother officer had to disentangle him and help him aboard a hack.[iii]
Sturgis wasn’t the only drunken officer in Sturgis’ command. Colonel William E. McMillen, one of Sturgis’ division commanders, was also known to be a heavy drinker. Soldiers witnessed him staggering and stumbling as he detrained at Lafayette, Tennessee. Finally falling to the ground on the street, his aides helped him to his feet. As he staggered on towards his command post, he fell again. His aides hustled him into a nearby home to sleep it off before his soldiers could see his condition.[iv]
At Brice’s Cross Roads on June 10, Forrest attacked and routed Sturgis’ command. His forces were in rapid retreat. Trying to direct this retreat, Sturgis and McMillen were spotted together by members of the 114th Illinois Infantry. They saw that McMillen had a bottle of whiskey and handed it to Sturgis, who took a swig.[v] The thought of General Nathan Bedford Forrest on your tail would cause anyone to drink but I don’t think Sturgis wanted to wait around to ask Forrest for a little bit of sugar.
[i] Samuel D. Sturgis • Cullum’s Register • 1303
[ii] Cox, Jacob Dolson, Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2, November 1863-June 1865, Aeterna Publishing, 2010, p.71
[iii] Bearss, Edwin C., Forrest at Brice’s Crossroads, Dayton, Ohio, Morningside Press, 1979, p. 44
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid. p. 109
Amusing story. Sounds as if Sturgis had had a today or two even before that meeting.
Little known fact: Sturgis was the commanding officer of the 7th Cavalry at the time of the Little Big Horn Battle (he was on detached service). Unfortunately, his officer son was killed with Custer.
“Today” should be “toddy” (darned autocorrect).
Supposedly, Sturgis was near the present site of the Reno Monument when Reno was shot in that area about 6:30 pm on September 14, 1862. However, Sturgis’s two brigades were near Cox’s Intersection, today the intersection of Moser Road and Reno Monument Road, about one half-mile west of the Reno Monument. Sturgis’s Division routed BG John Bell Hood’s attack at Cox’s Intersection as the Union Army had Lee’s Army surrounded on three sides at Turner’s and Fox’s Gaps. Sturgis’s apparent location near the site of the Reno Monument around 6:30 pm and the location of his two brigades a half-mile west at 7:00 pm apparently led to the confusion about just where BG John Bell Hood’s men attacked the evening of the battle. Fortunately, my latest book, Hood’s Defeat Near Fox’s Gap, has published the truth about the battle at Fox’s Gap that other authors missed for 162 years after the battle.
Thanks, Curtis. Look forward to reading your book.
Hi Kevin,
I hate that autocorrect as well. Yes, Reno was commanding Custer but from afar sitting on his headquarter’s boat while the Custer massacre took place. Maybe having a toddy or two.
I recall reading somewhere that Sturgis fell off his horse during the Brice’s Crossroads battle. Might be apocryphal. V. Tsao