Charge, God Damn 'Em!
Notable Scumbags Of The Civil War – The Fourth In A Series
General Judson “Kill-Cavalry” Kilpatrick, USA 1836-1881
“I know that Kilpatrick is a hell of a damned fool, but I want just that sort of man to command my cavalry on this expedition.” – Gen. William T. Sherman
When a master gemcutter is given a raw diamond, before he even applies his chisel, he gives the stone’s many facets long and careful study to determine the best angle of attack. When confronted by a many faceted swine of the ginormous dimensions of Kill-Cavalry Kilpatrick, the mind boggles at how to approach the various aspects of his awfulness. How were you a scumbag, Kilpatrick, O, let me count the ways: war profiteer; pathological liar and shameless self-promoter; miserable martinet and rotten tactician who squandered Providence alone knows how many good, brave soldiers in pointless, head on attacks; one of the worst looters and burners of the March To The Sea; and an unconscionable, shameless slut so low as to even outdo old Earl Van Dorn, caught by the enemy not once, but TWICE with his pants down, as will be related in more sordid detail subsequently. Although it’s still early in the series, Judson Kilpatrick rates so high on the scale of miserable, self-centered, horribly flawed pieces of trash, I doubt anyone else will ever exceed him.
Kilpatrick grew up a New Jersey farm boy with ambitions far beyond the scope of his rural hamlet. He decided to go to West Point, get elected governor of New Jersey, and then President in that order. These were wildly lofty goals, basically delusional, but Kilpatrick implemented his agenda with diligence and zeal. He managed to wangle a West Point appointment from his local congressman, not for academic prowess, but because he tirelessly stomped from village to village to urge voters to cast ballots for his patron. Kilpatrick proved a good student at the Military Academy, but often quarreled and fought with his classmates due to being short and frail, which provoked derision, and his aggressive nature, which led to fistfights.
Like Dwight Eisenhower’s class in 1915, the “class stars fell on,” the West Point class of 1861 was lucky. Any professional military officer will tell you nothing accelerates chances for promotion like war. Originally assigned to the artillery, Kilpatrick lusted for action and military glory. He finagled an assignment with the infantry stationed at Fort Monroe, under the overall command of the previously discussed Benjamin Butler. Kilpatrick saw combat at the Battle of Big Bethel, a badly handled affair where Union forces came out the worst. He was wounded, the first regular officer in the Union army to have that dubious distinction, the glory diminished in that he was hit in the ass by shrapnel, not generally considered an “honorable wound.” Despite the fact that the battle was a debacle, Kilpatrick nonetheless wrote a glowing account of his conduct and many feats of arms. This pack of lies was printed in the New York Times and helped establish his reputation as a Yankee beau sabreur without peer, a key factor in subsequent, continued promotions.
Sent on a recruiting mission to New York City, Kilpatrick encountered competition for enlistees from a rival officer trying to start a cavalry regiment. Rather than beat him, Kilpatrick agreed to have his recruits join the cavalry regiment instead of the infantry. As a quid pro quo, Kilpatrick would be commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the regiment. The deal went through and Kilpatrick left the infantry and his thoroughly disgusted commander behind with nary a backward glance. While Kilpatrick’s men sweated in a camp outside of Washington, DC, he stayed at the Willard Hotel, dined with politicians, and wheeled and dealed with crooked sutlers (civilian quartermasters) to pay his hotel bill, taking bribes to steer contracts. He was only one in what was even then an infinitely long, interlocking daisy chain of influence peddling criminal scum come to leech off the body politic like ticks on a dog that continues to the present day.
Kilpatrick did his best to cut a stirring figure as a dashing cavalryman, despite his stoop and odd features. He wore thigh high boots, a black slouch hat set at a rakish tilt, and a uniform of his own design. Fellow officers fought not to laugh in the face of this unlikely, ungainly, strutting military peacock. On the march through Virginia, Kilpatrick continued to indulge his venal nature in conduct completely unbecoming for an officer and gentleman. He confiscated the finest horseflesh from private citizens in the U.S. government’s name and sold the best mounts up North for private gain. Kilpatrick also stole tobacco from farmers and sold it to sutlers who sold it in turn to Kilpatrick’s own men. Despite these illegal deals, Kilpatrick was always short of money and regularly borrowed money from the sutlers.
In combat, Kilpatrick showed little tactical or operational savvy. He either flinched and retreated in the face of insignificant numbers or ordered a frontal assault by all his forces against well defended positions with heavy casualties as the result. Kilpatrick drove his men hard. Saddle sore and resentful of his tyrannical ways, they gave him his derisive nickname. His primary positive military quality was his fighting spirit, a readiness to take the fight to the enemy at all times, even if the effort was hopelessly misguided and futile. Aggressive Yankee cavalrymen were in short supply at the Civil War’s beginning. This probably accounts in large part for the tolerance of Kilpatrick’s superiors for a considerable period until his blunders became too egregious and bloody to be further ignored.
Kilpatrick’s penchant for throwing a long rope over other people’s livestock finally got him in trouble when he stole two mules from a Virginia farmer who filed a complaint. His thefts exposed, Kilpatrick was incarcerated at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington. Yet, as noted before, cavalrymen were scarce and he soon returned to duty. He gave a fairly good account of himself as part of a massive cavalry raid into Virginia. (Accurate rifles made frontal charges obsolete, so cavalry was largely relegated in the Civil War to reconnaissance, picket duty, and raids.) Afterward, however, he badly mishandled his men at Brandy Station and wasted a clear chance to defeat and possibly rout Jeb Stuart’s forces. Despite this blunder, Kilpatrick continued to fail upward and was promoted to brigadier general at age 26. Like Arthur MacArthur, Douglas’s father, Kilpatrick was a Civil War “boy general.”
Kilpatrick’s instinct was to order a charge, first, last, and foremost.”[The] standing order was, ‘Charge, God damn ’em,’ whether it was five or five thousand.” As a result, Kilpatrick often made his men ride at full gallop into deadly ambushes. At Gettysburg, he ordered a subordinate to assault Rebel soldiers retreating from Pickett’s Charge. The terrain was wooded and rough. A mounted charge would surely fail. When the subordinate remonstrated, Kilpatrick accused him of cowardice. This led to a screaming match so loud Reb troops on the other side of the battlefield heard them go at it. Stung to the quick by Kilpatrick’s accusation, the officer led a charge only to fall from his horse riddled with minié balls, another one of Kill-Cavalry’s victims.
In pursuit of Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg, Kilpatrick as usual made a hash of another battle, sending a pitiful force against thousands. Also in keeping with his character, he published more lies in the Times about a tremendous victory, bragging about prisoners and spoils of war. Lee wrote to Union commander General Meade and politely, but firmly stated that this in no way resembled the truth. Meade turned to Kilpatrick for an explanation only to find him absent without permission. He’d gone to Washington to be with his wife for the birth of their first child, a boy. Upon his return to duty from the blessed event, Kilpatrick immediately shacked up with a teenage camp follower. This wasn’t Kilpatrick’s first lapse from monogamy while in the field. He was already notorious. Beyond peculation and military incompetence, eternal, ceaseless womanizing was his chief failing.
Once again in pursuit of Lee late in 1863, Kilpatrick sent his men into another ambush cleverly laid by Stuart. The Yankee cavalry was hopelessly routed. Kilpatrick’s copybook was badly, ineradicably blotted. Chagrined by a defeat so total even he couldn’t lie it away, Kilpatrick’s cup of bitterness ran over when he learned his wife and son were dead. Confronted with professional and personal disaster, Kilpatrick didn’t just take it, but instead reared back on his hind legs and fought like a man. Unfortunately, he chose to do so by means of a harebrained, desperate scheme any flathead with a grain of common sense could see was plainly bound to fail. Kilpatrick proposed a large cavalry raid upon Richmond with the stated purpose of liberating Yankee prisoners of war. His superiors thought little of the scheme, but Kilpatrick went directly to Lincoln and secured his approval.
Kilpatrick approached Richmond from the north with a large cavalry force. Another, smaller cavalry unit would strike from the south under the command of Ulric Dahlgren, a brave cavalryman and son of John Dahlgren, the famous naval cannoneer. The mission was the complete and ignominious bust Kilpatrick’s commanders had anticipated. Rather than act with dash and decision, Kilpatrick typically lost his nerve at the first sign of resistance and flat out fled when a small group of Reb cavalry under Wade Hampton attacked his superior forces. While Kilpatrick put on his usual miserable performance, Dahlgren attempted to carry out his end of the operation, only to retreat in the face of superior forces. Cut down while attempting to escape, papers were found on Dahlgren’s body that purportedly ordered him to assassinate Jefferson Davis and other key, high ranking Confederate officials. The authenticity of these documents remains a matter of controversy to the present day.
After this disgrace, Kilpatrick was demoted back to brigade command. Rather than take his rebuke and resolve to be a better soldier, Kilpatrick instead wangled a transfer to the Western Theater in hopes of making a new start. Sherman gave him command of a division, fully aware of Kilpatrick’s many failings and shortcomings (see the quote above), but prepared to use his foolhardy aggression for his own purposes. Kilpatrick was more than ready to ride. Unfortunately, due to his venal, coarse nature and penchant for bad decision-making, the results were the same as in the Eastern Theater, mixed at best and often quite disastrous.
Kilpatrick was seriously wounded in the leg by a Reb sharpshooter at the battle of Dalton. Recovered from his wound, Kilpatrick led a raid in a spectacular right wheel around Atlanta to cut off the Rebs’ supply lines. Cavalrymen tore up railroad tracks and burned the ties, only to see the damage repaired by Reb engineers in less than twenty-four hours. Atlanta was finally taken by infantry. When Sherman set out upon the March To The Sea, Kilpatrick and his men distinguished themselves as the biggest looters and burners in the Army of the Tennessee. Livestock was driven from every plantation, vast herds of sheep, cattle, and hogs and every bushel of oats, wheat, and corn was stolen as well. What wasn’t eaten or used was simply destroyed. In the cruelest, most obscenely wasteful example of this, Kilpatrick confiscated a huge number of horses, more than he and his men could possibly use, and then ordered the excess clubbed to death, over five hundred. What a despicable, stupid thing to do.
Attacked by Reb cavalry, Kilpatrick retreated until he considered himself well away from the enemy. His thinking might have been done more by the little head than the big one, for once camp was set up, Kilpatrick proceeded to put the blocks to a black prostitute brought along for the ride. Just then, Reb cavalry tactlessly and gracelessly spoiled Kilpatrick’s fun and attacked. At this moment, with the camp under assault, the commanding officer, Kilpatrick, once again stayed true to his essential character. Clad only in his underwear, he jumped onto the nearest horse and ran for it, a poltroon in longjohns, unbuttoned buttflap waving in the air, his uniform, whore, and unit left to the Rebs.
Undaunted by this latest disgrace, Kilpatrick campaigned with Sherman’s forces into South Carolina. His men continued to loot and burn, the worst behaved of all the “bummers.” In what was possibly the single most horrible act ever committed by Kilpatrick in a lifetime crammed with wretched behavior, ladies who lived near Barnwell, SC, were compelled to attend a “Nero” ball held by Kilpatrick and forced to dance while their own plantation houses were set ablaze. Although nowhere near as bad, the sheer nastiness of this little stunt seems comparable to something Nazis would do in occupied Europe during WWII.
His shameless, open sluttery continued as well. Kilpatrick crossed into North Carolina with his head in a beautiful young woman’s lap while he rode in her fine, well sprung carriage. Charged with protecting Sherman’s main forces from Wade Hampton’s cavalry, Kilpatrick fulfilled his duties by going to bed with his latest woman in a requisitioned cabin. His tryst was rudely interrupted, however, in the early morning hours when none other than Wade Hampton himself and his merry Confederate cavalry came to say hello. You’d think Kilpatrick would have learned from past experience. I guess you can say that he did to some extent in that he put the same old, tried and true, slam on the panic button, survival tactic into play. Namely, he ran outside in his underwear, jumped onto the nearest horse, and ran hell for leather to save his scantily clad hide, mistress and men abandoned without a thought as before. I know that the competition is quite stiff, human nature being what it is, but this really must take the cake for some of the most disgraceful behavior by a commissioned officer in the entire history of the U.S. Army.
The war was winding down. Opportunities for Kilpatrick to snare more glory for himself would soon end. When Rebs attacked at Bentonville, Kilpatrick rode up to his commanding officer.
“My cavalry is in the field, ready and willing to participate in the battle.”
Fully aware who he was dealing with, Kilpatrick’s commander replied with the mid-19th century, Victorian equivalent of “Get the fuck away from me, you stupid clown.”
The war ended at last. Johnston tried to surrender his forces to Sherman with Kilpatrick acting as intermediary, only to have negotiations foiled when Kilpatrick rode off to sleep with yet another woman. ¡Que hombre! Kilpatrick finished up as a major general, but quickly left the army to run for governor of New Jersey, the next step in his three point plan for success. Things went awry, however. The nomination went to another man so Kilpatrick used political pull one more time to secure an appointment as the U.S. ambassador to Chile.
Things might have went well for Kilpatrick as a diplomat, but as always he simply couldn’t keep it in his pants. He found another woman to sleep with on the trip to Valparaiso, even presented her as his wife. This caused a local scandal. Shameless as ever, Kilpatrick married a beautiful young Chilean woman of high birth and great wealth. His path seemed set for him, until President Grant recalled him from his position, scandalized by Kilpatrick’s open whoring and no doubt disdainful of his military record. Kilpatrick persevered as always. He ran for Congress in another attempt to make himself President, but didn’t get elected. Garfield restored him as ambassador to Chile, but he died shortly afterward of kidney disease at the age of 45, a youthful death even in that era.
To sum up, the best that can be said for Kilpatrick was his real fighting spirit. Despite severe wounds and many setbacks, he was still ready to take the field until the war’s bitter end. Unfortunately, beyond this aggressive nature, an essential officer attribute, Kilpatrick’s military skill set was sadly, hopelessly lacking. Despite a West Point education, Kilpatrick seemed to show a complete failure to grasp tactics at the most rudimentary level. Worse, he never learned from experience, hotheadedly sent his men time after time into one massacre after another. This is bad enough, but his serious personal failings have to be accounted for as well, his corrupt abuse of his military authority and his shameless, habitual whoring in the field while his men lived on bacon and hardtack and slept outdoors next to their horses.
Judson Kilpatrick was truly a disgrace to the U.S. Army, but he surely wasn’t the first and undoubtedly won’t be the last. After writing this biographical sketch, I want to take the literary equivalent of a scalding hot shower for several hours with lye and bleach powder to get the stain off myself.
Bibliographical note: This post is largely based on a post from HistoryNet that originally appeared as an article in The Civil War Times. The link below will take you to the article:
http://www.historynet.com/union-captain-judson-kilpatrick.htm