Montgomery Dent Corse

Montgomery Dent Corse
Montgomery Dent Corse
	Brigadier General (CSA)
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Montgomery Dent Corse (March 14, 1816 – February 11, 1895) was an American banker, gold prospector, and soldier who served as a

17th Virginia Infantry and then Corse's Brigade of Pickett's Division in the Army of Northern Virginia

, and served in several of that army's most important battles.

Early life and career

Montgomery D. Corse was born in

Lafayette's 1825 visit to Alexandria and participated in the inauguration of President Andrew Jackson in 1829.^[1]

He worked in business with his father and was then a

first lieutenant of the Alexandria Home Guard. In 1860, he organized a militia company known as the Old Dominion Rifles and became its captain.^[2]

Civil War service

In early 1861 he was given an appointment as the

George E. Pickett and was only lightly engaged at Fredericksburg

.

Corse married Elizabeth Beverley (1825–1894) on November 22, 1862. They had four children.

In early 1863 he accompanied

Hanover Junction, north of Richmond. Because of this, the brigade did not participate in the battle nor the disastrous assault known as Pickett's Charge.^[3]

Pickett's Division was detached from

Battle of Sayler's Creek

on April 6, 1865.

After his surrender, General Corse was conveyed to

Boston, Massachusetts, on the day that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and he and the fourteen generals accompanying him narrowly escaped the violence of a mob at a town in Pennsylvania on the next morning. They were only saved by the determination of their small guard of Union soldiers and officers.^[4]

Postbellum career

Following the war, he took the Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America on July 24, 1865, and was released from Fort Warren.[5] He subsequently returned to his banking profession in Alexandria, Virginia, with his brothers. He was a charter member of the R.E. Lee Camp of the United Confederate Veterans. In 1870, he was seriously injured when part of the Virginia State Capitol building in Richmond collapsed. He suffered partial blindness for several years thereafter. On May 24, 1880, Corse was a distinguished guest along with Governor Fitzhugh Lee and General Joseph E. Johnston at the dedication of the Confederate monument at Washington and Prince Streets in Alexandria.

M. D. Corse died at his home in Alexandria on February 11, 1895, following a brief illness. He and his wife are buried in the town's Episcopal Cemetery. His personal and wartime papers are in the special collections of the Alexandria Library.