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Notable Scumbags Of The Civil War – The First In The Series
General Earl Van Dorn, CSA, 1820-1863
World English Dictionary scumbag (ˈskʌmˌbæɡ) — n slang an offensive or despicable person
[C20: perhaps from earlier US sense: condom, from US slang scum semen + bag]
1. I originally planned to call this “Notable Poltroons,” but poltroon actually means a despicable coward, not just a contemptible person in general. Hence the current, admittedly vulgar, but more accurate title. Much has been written about Civil War heroes, including excessive hagiography about the likes of Lee and Jackson, but little attention has been paid to the conflict’s worthless figures, those far more notable (or notorious) for glaring flaws than noble traits in their characters. Who better to start with than Earl Van Dorn (or “Damn Born” as he was known to his West Point alumni).
2. A large part of this feature has been “novelized.” That is, I’ve dramatized a good deal of Van Dorn’s affair with Jessie Peters, mixing in speculation and rumor with the few known facts. Note too that most of this account has been freely adapted from my most recent novel, The Confessions Of Septimus P. Nasby, soon to appear on bookracks in airports internationally.
He was a study in contrasts. Unquestionably brave and a superb horseman, Van Dorn would gladly undertake a forlorn hope that would make any sane man blanch, happily lead his men from the front head on into a galling fire. He distinguished himself by long service with much combat in the Mexican-American War, Seminole War, and campaigns against the Comanche in Texas. Educated and cultured, Van Dorn painted and wrote poetry and was accounted passable in both fields.
Then there were the bad qualities. Ego comes uppermost to mind. In the Confederate army, whose officers wore red velvet lined cloaks and dueled on the eve of battle, as far as he was concerned, no more dashing, brilliant cavalier rode in the ranks than Earl Van Dorn. The unshakable conviction in his own undeniable superiority grated on both superiors and subordinates alike. The fool almost dueled with Nathan Forrest, a particularly savage backwoods hick turned slave trader, made General by the fortunes of war. The quarrel was successfully mediated, a good thing for Van Dorn too since Forrest would have made mincemeat of him. He loved a show as well with himself as the star attraction. With the exception of a bloody battle, nothing stirred him like a grand military review, an all day affair where thousands of men passed by for inspection while he sat a magnificent bay mare, in short, nothing any sensible, adult man should take an interest in, much less enjoy.
There is no dispute, however, about what constituted Van Dorn’s worst flaw, the real stain: his eternal, ceaseless womanizing. The sight of a slick piece of calico utterly distracted him, blew all thought from his head more effectively than a gunshot. He made no effort to conceal his passion either and openly flirted with any passably attractive woman he saw. While stationed in Texas, he had three illegitimate children by a woman named Martha Goodbread (she was the fort laundress, the horny dog!) while his legitimate wife pined for him in Mississippi.
Van Dorn yearned for military glory to compare with Stuart and Jackson, but badly blundered twice after showing promise at the war’s beginning, the first when he mishandled his men at Pea Ridge and basically handed a victory to the badly outnumbered Yankees. The second was the Battle of Corinth. He made his soldiers charge heavily fortified and defended positions in waves of bloody frontal assaults. For this last wrong step, Van Dorn stood before a military court of inquiry. Although exonerated, the accusation of military incompetence still stung. Relieved of command of an army and relegated back to cavalry service, Van Dorn lusted for glory the way a spurned lover aches for his inamorata.
As commander of the Army of Tennessee’s cavalry corps, Van Dorn hoped to defeat the Yankees in a significant battle and thereby gain undying military glory. He set up headquarters in Spring Hill, Tennessee. While small, the town had its local aristocracy, gentry with mansions, slaves, and pretty wives and daughters. The daughters were thrilled to have officers quartered in their homes and there was a steady round of teas, luncheons, and dances. Of all the young women who swarmed about the gold braid, the most attractive and vivacious was Jessie Peters. She was bright eyed with a fine figure, thick brunette hair, and half Van Dorn’s age, the way he liked them. It took no time for him to scratch up an acquaintance. She was smitten by the pint sized, red haired Lochinvar. They were spotted riding together in a carriage (easy enough in a flyspeck like Spring Hill). Even if Jessie were single, an unrelated man and woman on a buggy ride without an escort was scandalous enough. Yet Jessie was married to her cousin, George Peters, a retired doctor, local politician, and principal landowner. This set every tongue to wagging. This was reckless even for someone as impulsive as Van Dorn when it came to female pheromones.
It wasn’t just the outrage of the thing in and of itself. Van Dorn was thick as thieves with Peters. He frequently came by Van Dorn’s headquarters to request a pass to cross the lines. People said he owned property in Nashville, now Union territory. Or rather, owned until the Federal government seized it. That was supposed to be why he crossed the lines so frequently, to plead for its return. Despite wealth, status, a fine home, and a pretty young wife, Peters was an old, cold fish. His property’s loss only aggravated his miserable disposition. You really couldn’t much blame Jessie for straying.
Stray she did one afternoon. Jessie sashayed up to the house Van Dorn had requisitioned as his quarters dressed in a tight black riding outfit and matching bonnet with an ostrich plume. Peters was away on another trip up north. Rather than request he come down to the parlor as a respectable woman would, the impudent baggage asked the lady of the house if she could speak with Van Dorn alone. When Madam showed understandable reticence, the brazen thing announced she’d ask him herself, brushed past, and went upstairs to Van Dorn’s room where she stayed alone with him for over an hour. This was more than enough for Madam who informed her husband of her outraged feelings upon his return home. Patriotism considerably diminished, she further told him he must inform Van Dorn that the house was no longer available. The husband dutifully if fearfully complied, pleading his family needed the room. Van Dorn graciously acceded, understandably since the next house he requisitioned was close to Jessie’s with only a field between them.
Van Dorn sent a messenger to the Peters’s house with a billet-doux to Jessie, but Peters caught him and read the message. Irate to the point of blowing a vein, Peters screamed, “Tell your whiskey headed master if either he or any servant of his sets foot on my lawn, I’ll blow his brains out where he stands. Now get out.”
The messenger hurried back to Van Dorn’s quarters. Like the vagina-stricken sap he was, Van Dorn ignored his warning. A few days later, Peters was seen in the morning riding out of town on the Shelbyville road. Word spread he’d left on business and would be gone several days. Like opium before an addict, Van Dorn couldn’t resist. Around midnight, Van Dorn skulked out of the back door, wrapped in a black cloak and headed for the Peters house. He went inside.
An hour later, Peters rode up softly, horse held to a walk. He dismounted, and tied the reins to a hitching post. Peters reached into a saddlebag, pulled out a heavy dragoon revolver, and tiptoed up the stairs. Tried to, that is, since Peters was old and clumsy. Even with the noise he made, Van Dorn and Jessie were apparently oblivious, locked in passion or insensible from it. He opened the door and went inside.
A few seconds of silence.
BAM!
The crash of a door kicked open, masculine shouts mingled with feminine screams, a cat’s yowls, and a chamber pot’s crash. Van Dorn ran outside stark naked, caught in flagrante. Rather than flee, the nitwit hid under the porch. Peters burst out of the house. He only searched briefly to find Van Dorn. With surprising activity and strength for an older man, Peters dragged Van Dorn out by the hair from under the porch. He put his pistol to Van Dorn’s temple.
“Now I’ve caught you, sir. You can’t deny your guilt, can you?”
“No. I’ve wronged you, George, Wronged you terribly. Please let me go.”
The fearless Van Dorn, the dauntless cavalier, trapped, naked and ashamed, made to eat crow by a fat old civilian. Maybe I should call him a poltroon after all.
“Will you admit your guilt? Write a letter and confess how you wronged me and beg my pardon so I can print it and show the world what a scoundrel you are? Come now, Van Dorn, tell me plain. I need to know if I have to shoot you.”
“Yes, anything you say. I can’t afford any scandal.”
The rank idiot. Why didn’t he think of that sooner?
Peters lowered his pistol. Jessie came out and went to the men. She handed Van Dorn his nightshirt and cloak which he hurriedly donned. She was the calmest and most self possessed.
“You made your point, George. Let Earl go home and let’s go to bed. It’s late.”
“As if I’d share a bed with such a disgraceful hussy. I’ll divorce you, never mind the scandal.”
Jessie laughed long and loud.
“You’d never dare. You want to keep the property that came with me. We both know how much you love land, George.”
She sure had nerve, laughed in Peters’s face, bid him defiance, while he held a loaded gun and the proof of her treachery stood nude before him. Jessie had him buffaloed too. Van Dorn took the opportunity to skedaddle. Peters shook his fist at him.
“I’ll come for that letter tomorrow, Van Dorn. By God, don’t you dare disappoint me.”
Van Dorn was halfway across the field. Peters tried to argue with Jessie, but she neatly deflected him and soon had him inside the house. The lights went out again and they went to bed together after all. Each marriage is its own peculiar arrangement.
No guard was posted outside Van Dorn’s quarters the next day. Several staff officers were outside, diverted from duty by idle chitchat and a smoke. Peters came down the road on his horse, headed toward the house. He dismounted, went into the house and strode down the hall.
“Dr. Peters. I suppose you want another pass. That should be no problem.”
“You know damn well what I want, Van Dorn. The written confession of your guilt you promised me last night. That’s the only reason you’re still alive right now. Now do you have the letter ready or not?”
Van Dorn fixed Peters with his patented disdainful glare. Last night was one thing. Caught in the act, naked, and drunk, Van Dorn had given way to shame and fear and cravenly promised to eat crow. Now he was in uniform, in his headquarters, with thousands of soldiers around, ready to obey his commands. There was no way Van Dorn would crawfish to Peters now.
“I’ve given that matter some thought. For an officer of field rank to make such admissions, well, it would be injurious to my own personal reputation. More importantly, it would bring dishonor to our Sacred Cause. I can’t be asked to take that step when our young nation is still in so much peril.”
Van Dorn swiveled in his chair to his desk, intent on paperwork, his back to Peters.
“So you won’t write the letter?”
“Yes, that’s the short of it, Peters. Now take the door, you damn puppy, or I’ll-”
BLLLAAAAMMMM!!!!
A gunshot cut Van Dorn off. A sharp clatter of heels and Peters was out the door, on his horse, and galloping toward the Yankee lines. Van Dorn sat slumped onto his field desk, the back of his head a bloody mess. Peters had taken advantage of his foolhardy arrogance to take a coward’s revenge and shoot Van Dorn from behind.
This was the ignominious end of Van Dorn, the only Confederate general to die in the war of causes other than battle, namely shot dead by the man whose head he put horns on, the last in a long line of ugly, cuckolded husbands. In short, a disgrace to the uniform that he wore and his commission as an officer and a gentleman. Let us all raise a glass in a drunken toast to Earl Van Dorn, first and possibly the finest of our Civil scumbags!