John Pelham & The Concepts of Courage and Glory

“War is not glorious as novelists would have us believe.” John Pelham stated it plainly during the summer of 1861, just after he had witnessed his first large-scale battle at First Manassas. Yet he also recognized a type of glory in combat and felt conflicted over it. The concepts of courage, war, and glory provide an interesting lens to examine Pelham’s life and military actions, particularly at West Point, First Manassas, and Fredericksburg.

The title of my new book Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War was carefully chosen, and I offer my thanks to the team at Savas Beatie for allowing the two words “Glorious Courage.” Those words are actually drawn from a quoted compliment that Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee offered as he observed Pelham’s actions during the battle of Fredericksburg. “It is glorious to see such courage in one so young!” There is much about Pelham’s life and choices that can be debated, but his courage is a record that stands strong. To take cannon into advanced positions, to defend high ground to the last moment, and to bring artillery firepower to critical locations were part of his tactics as commander of the Stuart Horse Artillery. Pelham evolved his tactics and and trained his gunners exceptionally well.

Courage had been on John Pelham’s mind for a while, even before the Civil War. In February 1859 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Pelham wrote a letter to his younger brother Samuel, giving advice on character and courage:

“I do not think a man can be strictly honorable unless he is brave. If he fears and cringes to other men, he cannot fill the full definition of a man. When you leave home to enter college or other high schools you will find it much more pleasure to yourself and at the same time command greater respect, if you are not afraid of the other scholars, and that they cannot make you knuckle to them. But by all means avoid being contentious and quarrelsome, it shows a want to true courage. . . .”[i]

Honor and courage would be closely tied in John Pelham’s considerations as he weighed his decision in 1860 and 1861 to stay or leave West Point. Throughout his life, he was known to be well-mannered and not prone to arguing. In April 1861, Pelham resigned from West Point and then escaped into the Confederacy, returning briefly to Alabama—his home state—before accepting a commission and returning northward to Virginia.

Weeks later, in temporary command of Alburtis’s Battery, Pelham entered combat for the first time on July 21, 1861. His main position was at the right of the Confederate artillery line on Henry House Hill, probably near the Robinson House, though some accounts suggest that Pelham moved his artillery for more fire advantage. In a letter written to his father that was published in a local Alabama newspaper, Pelham wrote a lengthy paragraph describing the shattering of novelists’ so-called glorious war:

I have seen what Romancers call glorious war. I have seen it in all its phases. I have heard the booming of cannon, and the more deadly rattle of musketry at a distance—I have heard it all near by and have been under its destructive showers. I have seen men and horses fall thick and flat around me. I have seen our own men bloody and frightened flying before the enemy. I have seen them bravely charge the enemy’s lines and heard the shout of triumph as they carried the position, I have heard the agonizing shrieks of the wounded and dying—I have passed over the battle field and seen the mangled forms of men and horses in frightful abundance. Men without heads, without arms, and others without legs. All this I have witnessed and more, till my heart sickens; and war is not glorious as novelists would have us believe. It is only when we are in the heat and flush of battle that it is fascinating and interesting. It is only then that we enjoy it. When we forget ourselves and revel in the destruction we are dealing around us. I am now ashamed of the feelings I had in those hours of danger. The whistling bullets and shells were music to me, I gloried in it—it delighted and fascinated me—I feared not death in any forms; but when the battle was won and I visited the field a change came over me, I see the horrors or war, but it was necessary.[ii]

[Quoting from Glorious Courage] “His letter after First Manassas suggests an internal struggle with his feelings in combat and the reality of his battlefield exploits. Combat animated and enthused him like nothing else, but the weight of his successful killing seemed to burden and possibly guilt him. Artillery command required the intensity of finding a target and deciding on the trajectory of the ammunition to hit the target. Pelham observed—and sometimes up-close with field glasses—the effects of his shots. He saw ranks of men torn apart, horses eviscerated, enemy caissons or cannons exploding. Pelham was good at killing, and he knew it. His discomfort in talking about his battlefield actions or hearing Stuart retell the stories may have stemmed from a consciousness of doing his duty well, but also knowing that his success came with death and destruction. Unfortunately, with the loss of Pelham’s letters, his thoughts and views are missing from this period of his life.”[iii]

Drawing a definition from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, “courage” is defined as “Bravery; intrepidity; that quality of mind which enables men to encounter danger and difficulties with firmness, or without fear or depression of spirits; valor; boldness; resolution. It is a constituent part of fortitude; but fortitude implies patience to bear continued suffering.”[iv] Courage needs danger, suffering, or difficulties to exist and be displayed. On battlefield after battlefield from First Manassas, Williamsburg, Gaines Mill, Second Manassas, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, throughout the Loudoun Campaign, Fredericksburg, and Kelly’s Ford, John Pelham “encountered danger…with firmness, boldness, and resolution.”

While war itself is not glorious, it can bring out responses in humans that are noble and sometimes glorious. That is what Lee complimented on December 13, 1862, as he watched Pelham command a lone gun in an advanced flanking position which drew the fire of at least five Union batteries. Though Lee said his famous quote later in the battle of Fredericksburg, “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it,” too fond of the intensity that brings out the courage that can be glorious.

In 1863 in the weeks following Pelham’s death after the battle of Kelly’s Ford, Lee wrote in private correspondence: “I do not know how I can replace the gallant Pelham. So young so true so brave. Though stricken down in the dawn of manhood, his is the glory of duty done!” Once again, Lee united the concepts of courage with the ideals of military glory.

Pelham defined some of his ideas of courage and manhood in his 1859 West Point letter, and he lived those character principles. His courage was tied to his concept of honor, and with a reckless, glorious courage he fought on Virginia’s Civil War battlefields for two years.

Read more in one of the newest books in the Emerging Civil War Series—Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War by Sarah Kay Bierle (May 2025). 

Notes: 

[i] Jacksonville Public Library, Pelham Collection, Folder 3, John Pelham to Samuel Pelham, February 26, 1859.

[ii] John Pelham to Atkinson Pelham, Jacksonville Republican, 1861.

[iii] Sarah Kay Bierle, Glorious Courage: John Pelham in the Civil War (El Dorado Hills: Savas Beatie, 2025), page 68-69.

[iv] Noah Webster, “Courage”, 1828 Webster Dictionary. Accessed online at: https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/courage