Oliver Otis Howard

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Oliver Otis Howard
Freedmen's Bureau
  • United States Military Academy
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    Other workPresident, Howard University Managing Director, Lincoln Memorial University
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    Oliver Otis Howard (November 8, 1830 – October 26, 1909) was a career

    Western Theater
    .

    Known as the "Christian General" because he tried to base his policy decisions on his deep,

    Reconstruction Era. Howard took charge of labor policy, setting up a system that required freed people to work on former plantation land under pay scales fixed by the Bureau, on terms negotiated by the Bureau with white land owners. Howard's Bureau was primarily responsible for the legal affairs of the freedmen. He attempted to protect freed blacks from hostile conditions, but lacked adequate power, and was repeatedly frustrated by President Andrew Johnson
    .

    Howard's allies, the Radical Republicans, won control of Congress in the 1866 elections and imposed Radical Reconstruction, with the result that freedmen were given the vote. With the help and advice of the Bureau, freedmen joined Republican coalitions and won at the ballot boxes of most of the southern states. Howard was also a leader in promoting higher education for freedmen, most notably in founding Howard University in Washington, D.C., and serving as its president 1867–73; and aided in the charter of Howard University and Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) in 1867.

    After 1874, Howard commanded troops in the

    Nelson Miles.[2]

    Early years

    Oliver Howard was born in Leeds, Maine, the son of Rowland Bailey Howard and Eliza Otis Howard. His great-grandfather, Rogers Stinchfield and great-granduncle Thomas Stinchfield founded Leeds. Rowland, a farmer, died when Oliver was 9 years old.[3] Oliver attended Monmouth Academy in Monmouth, North Yarmouth Academy in Yarmouth,[4] Kents Hill School in Readfield,[5] and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1850 at the age of 19. He then attended the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1854, fourth in his class of 46 cadets, as a brevet second lieutenant of ordnance. He served at the Watervliet Arsenal near Troy, New York, and was the temporary commander of the Kennebec Arsenal in Augusta, Maine. In 1855, he married Elizabeth Anne Waite, with whom he would have seven children. In 1857 he was transferred to Florida for the Seminole Wars. It was in Florida that he experienced a conversion to evangelical Christianity and considered resigning from the Army to become a minister. His religious proclivities would later earn him the nickname "the Christian general." Howard was promoted first lieutenant in July 1857, and returned to West Point the following September to become an instructor of mathematics. As the Civil War began with the surrender of Fort Sumter, thoughts of the ministry were put aside and he decided to remain in the service of his country.[6]

    Civil War

    Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard c. 1862-1864

    Howard was appointed

    Peninsula Campaign
    .

    On June 1, 1862, while commanding a Union brigade in the Fair Oaks, Howard was wounded twice in his right arm, which was subsequently amputated. (He received the Medal of Honor in 1893 for his heroism at Fair Oaks.) Brig. Gen. Philip Kearny, who had lost his left arm, visited Howard and joked that they would be able to shop for gloves together. Howard recovered quickly enough to rejoin the army for the Battle of Antietam, in which he rose to division command in the II Corps. He was promoted to major general in November 1862 and assumed command of the XI Corps the following April, replacing Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel. Since the corps was composed largely of German immigrants, many of whom spoke no English, the soldiers were resentful of their new leader and openly called for Sigel's reinstatement.

    Failure at Chancellorsville

    At the

    Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson devised an audacious plan in which Jackson's entire corps would march secretly around the Union flank and attack it. Howard was warned by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker
    , now commanding the Army of the Potomac, that his flank was "in the air", not anchored by a natural obstacle, such as a river, and that Confederate forces might be on the move in his direction. Howard failed to heed the warning and Jackson struck before dark, routing the XI Corps and causing a serious disruption to the Union plans.

    Gettysburg

    Monument to Howard in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

    At the

    George G. Meade with written orders to take command, but Howard insisted that he was the ranking general present. Eventually he relented. Controversy centers on three points: 1) Howard's choice of Cemetery Hill as the key to defense; 2) the timing of Howard's mid-afternoon order to abandon positions north and west of town; and 3) Howard's reluctance to recognize that Hancock, his junior, had superseded him. Historian John A. Carpenter holds that Howard alone had wisely selected Cemetery Hill, that the order to withdraw was probably a sound one, and that the conflict between Howard and Hancock might have been avoided had Meade himself gotten onto the field.[8]

    Howard started circulating the story that his corps' failure had actually been triggered by the collapse of Maj. Gen.

    Jubal Early on July 2 and participating at the margin of the defense against Pickett's Charge on July 3. Also at Gettysburg, Howard's younger brother, Major Charles Henry Howard, served as his aide-de-camp.[9]

    Western theater

    Francis P. Blair Jr.
    (possibly cut in)

    Howard and XI Corps were transferred to the

    Carolinas. Sherman, having favored Howard over Logan for permanent command of the Army of the Tennessee, recognized Logan's success at Atlanta. In recognition of the outstanding leadership Logan displayed at Atlanta, Sherman asked Howard to allow Logan to ceremonially lead the Army in the May 1865 Grand Review in Washington. Howard agreed when Sherman appealed to him as a Christian gentleman. Ultimately, by the war's end, Gen. Sherman would commend Howard as a corps commander of "the utmost skill, nicety and precision".[9]

    Postwar career

    Governor's Island

    Freedmen's Bureau

    From May 1865 to July 1874, General Howard was commissioner of the

    freedmen, northern Republicans who came south and were referred to derogatorily as carpetbaggers, and southerners who supported Reconstruction, nicknamed scalawags, won (except in Virginia). The Bureau was very active in helping blacks organize themselves politically, and therefore it became a target of partisan hostility.[11]

    President Johnson called Howard a fanatic.[12] Reconstruction's opponents alleged that, in abusing both civil and military power, the Bureau became a centralized dictatorship.[citation needed] Howard described the extent of his enormous powers as:

    ...Almost unlimited authority gave me scope and liberty of action... Legislative, judicial and executive powers were combined in my commission.[13]

    Andrew Johnson reacted to the meaning of such unlimited scope of action against civilians:

    The power thus given to the commanding officer over all the people ... is that of an absolute monarch ... He alone is permitted to determine the rights of persons and property ... It places at his free disposal all the lands and goods in his district, and he may distribute them without let or hindrance to whom he pleases. Being bound by no State law, and there being no other law to regulate the subject, he may make a criminal code of his own; and can make it as bloody as any in history ... Everything is a crime which he chooses to call so, and all persons are condemned who he pronounces to be guilty.[14]

    The limited ideological framework of General Howard and his aides encouraged their attempt at radical reconstruction of southern society without realizing the need for essential legislation. They thought that the elimination of all statutory inequalities—for instance, Black court testimony—would be enough to assure protection. Southern states pretended to comply with this point in order to end the threat of the Freedmen's Bureau courts' system.[15]

    Military commands and Native American affairs

    Oliver Otis Howard during the Nez Perce War

    In 1872, Howard, accompanied by 1st Lt Joseph A. Sladen, who served as his aide, was ordered to Arizona Territory to negotiate a peace treaty with Cochise, resulting in a treaty on October 12.[16] He was placed in command of the

    Indian Wars, particularly against the Nez Perce in Idaho and Montana territories in 1877, with the resultant surrender of Chief Joseph. He was criticized by Chief Joseph as precipitating the war by trying to rush the Nez Perce to a smaller reservation, with no advance notice, no discussion, and no time to prepare. Joseph said, "If General Howard had given me plenty of time to gather up my stock and treated Too-hool-hool-suit
    as a man should be treated, there would have been no war."

    Subsequently, Howard was

    Legion of Honor in 1884 and he was subsequently promoted to the ranks of officer and commander.[17]

    Howard University

    The General Oliver Otis Howard House, located on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974.

    General Howard is also remembered for playing a role in founding Howard University, which was incorporated by Congress in 1867.[18] The school is nonsectarian and is open to both sexes without regard to race. On November 20, 1866, Howard was among ten members of various socially-concerned groups of the time who met in Washington, D.C., to discuss plans for a theological seminary to train black ministers. Interest was sufficient, however, to create an educational institute for areas other than the ministry. The result was the Howard Normal and Theological Institute for the Education of Preachers and Teachers. On January 8, 1867, the board of trustees voted to change the name of the institution to Howard University. Howard served as president from 1869 to 1874. He was quoted as saying "[t]he opposition to Negro education made itself felt everywhere in a combination not to allow the freed men any room or building in which a school might be taught. In 1865, 1866, and 1867, mobs of the baser classes at intervals and in all parts of the South occasionally burned school buildings and churches used as schools, flogged teachers or drove them away, and in a number of instances murdered them."[19] He also founded Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, in 1895, for the education of the "mountain whites."

    Memberships

    General Howard was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States and the Grand Army of the Republic.

    Death and burial

    Oliver Howard died in Burlington, Vermont on October 26, 1909, and is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Burlington. At his death, Howard was the last surviving Union Army general to have held the permanent rank of a general in the regular U.S. Army.

    Howard c. 1908

    Legacy

    A bust of Howard designed by artist James E. Kelly is on display at Howard University.[20] An equestrian statue is on East Cemetery Hill on the Gettysburg Battlefield.[21] A dormitory at Bowdoin College is named for Howard.[22]

    The Oliver O. Howard Relief Corps of the

    U.S. Army Reserve units.[24]

    Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington, Delaware, is named in his honor,[25] as is Howard County, Nebraska[26] and the Howard School of Academics and Technology, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Howard, Kansas is named in his honor.[27]

    The

    Officer's Row within the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site was built in 1878 upon General Howard's order at a cost of $6,938.20 (~$192,366 in 2023). Completed in 1879, the building suffered a fire in 1986 and was left vacant until renovated by the City of Vancouver in 1998. The building serves as the headquarters of the Fort Vancouver National Trust.[28]

    In

    New York Times interview given the day after Howard retired from the Army on November 8, 1894, at the age of 64, it was reported that he was traveling West to stay at his daughter's house in Portland, Oregon
    , where he planned to start writing his memoirs.

    Selected works

    Howard was the author of numerous books after the war, including:

    • Donald's School Days (1878)
    • Nez Perce Joseph (1881)
    • General Taylor (1892)
    • Isabella of Castile (1894)
    • Fighting For Humanity, or Camp and Quarterdeck (1898)
    • Henry in the War: Or the Model Volunteer (1899)
    • Autobiography (1907)
    • My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians (1907)

    He wrote an account of the Civil War's Atlanta campaign in

    Century Magazine for July 1887.[17]

    He translated:

    In popular media

    In the 1950 film Broken Arrow, Howard is played by Basil Ruysdael opposite James Stewart, who portrays Tom Jeffords. In the 1956 film The Last Wagon, he was portrayed by Carl Benton Reid. Both of these films were written and directed by Delmer Daves.

    James Whitmore portrayed General Howard in the 1975 television film, I Will Fight No More Forever, about the U.S. Army campaign against the Nez Perce and the surrender of Chief Joseph in 1877. In episode 6 of The West, he was portrayed in voiceovers by Eli Wallach and is the protagonist of William T. Vollmann's novel The Dying Grass (2015).[citation needed]

    Dates of rank

    Insignia Rank Date Component
    No insignia Cadet, USMA 1 September 1850 Regular Army
    Second Lieutenant 1 July 1854 (brevet)
    15 February 1855 (permanent)    		 Regular Army
    First Lieutenant 1 July 1857 Regular Army
    Colonel 4 June 1861 Volunteers
    Brigadier General 3 September (accepted 5 September) 1861 Volunteers
    Major General 29 November 1862 Volunteers
    Brigadier General 21 December 1864 Regular Army
    Major General 19 March (accepted 2 April) 1886 Regular Army

    [30] [31]

    Awards

    Medal of Honor citation

    In the citation for Howard's Medal of Honor – issued June 1, 1862, at Fair Oaks, Virginia – he was described as "Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers". The citation reads:

    Led the 61st New York Infantry in a charge in which he was twice severely wounded in the right arm, necessitating amputation.

    See also

    Notes

    1. ^ David Thomson, "Oliver Otis Howard: Reassessing the Legacy of the 'Christian General'," American Nineteenth Century History 10 (September 2009), 273–98.
    2. ^ Robert M. Utley, "Oliver Otis Howard," New Mexico Historical Review 62, no. 1 (Winter 1987): 55–63.
    3. ^ Tagg, p. 121.
    4. ^ Warner, p. 237; Oliver Otis Howard, In the Beginning, Bowdoin Orient website. Archived August 29, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
    5. ^ Kent's Hill Notables, Rootsweb.
    6. ^ Cimbala, pp. 1008–10.
    7. ^ Eicher, p. 306.
    8. ^ John A. Carpenter, "General O. O. Howard at Gettysburg," Civil War History, September 1963, 261–76.
    9. ^
      ISBN 978-0307740694
      .
    10. ^ Strong, William E. (2004). "The Capture of Fort McAllister, December 13, 1864". Georgia Historical Quarterly. 88 (3): 406–421. Retrieved February 15, 2018.
    11. JSTOR 2955086
      .
    12. ^ Cincinnati Gazette, August 23, 1967
    13. ^ Annual Report of the Secretary of War for the year 1869 (Government printing office), pp. 499,504
    14. ^ Johnson, Andrew, "Veto of First Reconstruction Act,"
    15. S2CID 145241431
      .
    16. ISBN 978-0-8061-2973-0
      .
    17. ^ a b Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1892). "Howard, Oliver Otis" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
    18. ^ "Brief History". Howard University. Retrieved January 19, 2008.
    19. ^ Moore, Robert B. Reconstruction the promise and betrayal of democracy. New York, N.Y: CIBC, 1983.
    20. ISBN 978-1-883926-18-2
      .
    21. ^ Hawks, Steve. "Monument to Major General Oliver O. Howard on the Gettysburg battlefield". www.stonesentinels.com. Retrieved December 20, 2014.
    22. ^ "Howard Hall Howard". www.bowdoin.edu. Bowdoin College. Retrieved December 20, 2014.
    23. ^ Thirteenth Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the state of Utah. Salt Lake City: Utah Secretary of State. 1920. p. 8.
    24. ^ "HQIIS USAR Sites" (PDF). usar.army.mil. October 26, 2015. p. 27. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
    25. ^ National Historic Landmark Nomination by Flavia W. Rutkosky and Robin Bodo, January 5, 2004.
    26. ^ Nebraska Association of County Officials website Archived July 4, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
    27. ISBN 0-8061-0994-7
      .
    28. ISBN 0-615-19528-8
      .
    29. ^ [1]
    30. ^ Cullum, George W. (1891). Biographical register of the officers and graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., from its establishment in 1802 to 1890. Vol. II (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 576–577.
    31. ^ Official Army Register for January 1900. Washington: Adjutant General's Office. 1900. p. 244.

    External links

    References

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oliver O. Howard.
    Military offices
    Preceded by Commander of the II Corps
    January 26, 1863 – February 5, 1863     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by Commander of the IV Corps
    April 10, 1864 – July 27, 1864     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by Commander of the XI Corps
    April 2, 1863 – July 1, 1863     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by Commander of the XI Corps
    July 1, 1863 – September 25, 1863     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by Commander of the XI Corps (Army of the Cumberland)
    September 25, 1863 – January 21, 1864     		Succeeded by
    Preceded by Commander of the XI Corps (Army of the Cumberland)
    February 25, 1864 – April 10, 1864     		Succeeded by
    none
    Preceded by
    Superintendents of the United States Military Academy

    1881–1882     		Succeeded by
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