George Stoneman

George Stoneman Jr. (August 8, 1822 – September 5, 1894) was a United States Army cavalry officer and politician who served as the fifteenth Governor of California from 1883 to 1887.

Stoneman trained at West Point (where his roommate was Stonewall Jackson ^{[citation needed]}), graduating in 1846, and served in the U.S. Army for 36 years. He was involved in multiple conflicts, including the Mexican–American War , the Yuma War, and the American Civil War. In 1861, Stoneman was promoted to Brigadier General, and was later put in command of the Army of the Potomac's 3rd Infantry Corps, and subsequently the newly created cavalry corps.

At the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, under the command of Joseph Hooker, Stoneman failed in an ambitious attempt to penetrate behind enemy lines, getting bogged down at an important river crossing. Hooker placed much of the blame for the Union army's defeat on Stoneman. His sharp criticism may have been in part intended to deflect blame placed on himself for the North's defeat.

While commanding cavalry under William Tecumseh Sherman in Georgia, Stoneman was captured by Confederate soldiers, but soon exchanged. Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, Stoneman commanded occupying troops at

At the start of the Civil War Stoneman was in command of

The plan for the Battle of Chancellorsville was strategically daring. Hooker assigned Stoneman a key role in which his Cavalry Corps would raid deeply into Robert E. Lee's rear areas and destroy vital railroad lines and supplies, distracting Lee from Hooker's main assaults. However, Stoneman was a disappointment in this strategic role. The Cavalry Corps got off to a good start in May 1863, but quickly bogged down after crossing the Rapidan River. During the entire battle, Stoneman accomplished little, and Hooker considered him one of the principal reasons for the Union defeat at Chancellorsville.^[7] Hooker needed to deflect criticism from himself and relieved Stoneman of his cavalry command, sending him back to Washington, D.C., for medical treatment (chronic hemorrhoids, exacerbated by cavalry service),^[8] where in July he became a Chief of the U.S. Cavalry Bureau, a desk job. A large cavalry supply and training depot on the Potomac River was named Camp Stoneman in his honor.

In early 1864, Stoneman was impatient with garrison duty in Washington and requested another field command from his old friend Maj. Gen.

Stoneman was exchanged relatively quickly due to the personal request of General Sherman.[6] Following his release, Stoneman was briefly the commander of the Department of the Ohio. In December 1864, Stoneman led a raid through southwestern Virginia.^[12] In March 1865, Stoneman took roughly 4,000 troops out of Knoxville, Tennessee, and led them on a raid of Virginia and North Carolina, the intent being to cripple Confederate infrastructure and demoralize the population. Within a week, they had sacked the towns of Hillsville, Asheville, and Christiansburg, among others, and destroyed several bridges, lead mines and railroads.^[13]

Postbellum politics

In June 1865, following the end of war, Stoneman was put in command of the Department of Tennessee in occupied

Stoneman was assigned to administer the military government in the sub-district of Petersburg, Virginia, and in 1868, he assumed command of the First Military District. A Democrat who was opposed to the radical Reconstruction, Stoneman pursued more moderate policies than the other Military Governors, which garnered him support among white Virginians.^[16][17]

Stoneman mustered out of volunteer service on September 1, 1866, and reverted to the regular army rank of colonel. In 1869, the Army transferred him out west to command the District of Arizona (1869–1870) and subsequently the Department of Arizona (1870–71). Stoneman was relieved of his command due to controversies surrounding his handling of the region's Indians, including the Camp Grant massacre.^[18] On August 16, 1871, Stoneman was granted a disability retirement at his brevetted rank of Major General. Three days later, however, President Ulysses S. Grant revoked his disability licence, forcing him to retire at the rank of colonel.^[17]

Stoneman was a First Class Companion of the California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

California

Stoneman moved to California, the place of which he had dreamed since his service as a young officer before the war. He and his wife settled in the San Gabriel Valley on a 400-acre (160 ha) estate called Los Robles, which is now a California Historical Landmark.^[19] He was appointed to the California Transportation Commission in 1876. In 1879 he was elected California Railroad Commissioner.^[20]

In 1882, Stoneman was elected

He returned to New York State for medical treatment, and to stay with his sister, Charlotte S. Williams. He suffered a stroke in April 1894 from which he was unable to recover. Stoneman died in Buffalo, New York, on September 5, 1894, at age 72 and was buried at Bentley Cemetery in Lakewood, New York.^[21]

Legacy and honors

Stoneman's raids into North Carolina and Virginia in the last weeks of the war were memorialized by songwriter Robbie Robertson of The Band, in the 1969 song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
Till Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again ...

Stoneman is not mentioned in the 1971 recording of the song by Joan Baez, in which she substitutes "so much cavalry" for "Stoneman's cavalry". Baez told Kurt Loder of Rolling Stone magazine that she had learned the song by listening to the track on The Band's album. Having never seen the printed lyrics, she sang the words as she (mis)heard them.^[22]

Stoneman Avenue in Alhambra, California, was named in his honor. Camp Stoneman, near Pittsburg, California, was the place from which many soldiers shipped out to the Pacific Theater in World War II and the Korean War. Stoneman Elementary School in San Marino, California, is built on Stoneman's Los Robles Ranch property.^[23] In 1885, California, which owned Yosemite at the time, built a luxury hotel with accommodations for 150 guests near the present location of Curry Village and named the hotel Stoneman House. The adjoining Stoneman Meadow takes its name from the hotel. The nearby Stoneman Bridge takes its name from the meadow. The hotel burned to the ground in 1896.^[24] Stoneman Lake in Arizona is also named in his honor. General George Stoneman Business Park, the site of the Southern Tier Brewery, is located on the Stoneman family farm in the town of Busti, New York.

General Stoneman's name is engraved on the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Park Star of Honor due to his time there before the Civil War.

See also

• List of American Civil War generals (Union)

Notes