Stephen Dodson Ramseur

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Stephen Dodson Ramseur
49th North Carolina Infantry
Ramseur's Brigade, II Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
Early's Division, II Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
Battles/warsAmerican Civil War
RelationsEllen "Nellie" Richmond (Wife)
Mary Dodson Ramseur (Daughter)

Stephen Dodson Ramseur (May 31, 1837 – October 20, 1864) was a

mortally wounded at Cedar Creek
.

Early life

Dodson Ramseur generally did not use his first name; intimate friends called him "Dod". He was born in

second lieutenant, and was assigned to the 3rd and 4th U.S. Artillery regiments just before the start of the war. An intensely devout man, he believed slavery a divinely blessed institution, and by the time he entered West Point he bore great hatred for all Northerners.[1]

Civil War

S. D. Ramseur in the Civil War

Ramseur did not wait until North Carolina seceded from the Union, joining the Confederate States Army in Alabama, but quickly transferred to the 10th North Carolina Militia. He became the lieutenant colonel of the 3rd North Carolina Infantry on May 27, 1861. He was injured with a broken collarbone while being thrown from his horse in July and was out of service until the following spring.

Peninsula Campaign

At the start of the

brigadier general on November 1, 1862, he became, at 25 years old, the youngest general in the Confederate army at that time.[2] This was a remarkable accession to rank for someone who had missed so many battles, but Gen. Robert E. Lee
had been very impressed by Ramseur's aggressive performance at Malvern Hill.

Chancellorsville

In the

major general
; this would not come to pass for another year. Ramseur's performance was actually overly aggressive because his brigade moved out in front of the other brigades too quickly, became exposed, and ran out of ammunition. They had to have reinforcements rush in from the neighboring brigade to help consolidate their gains. His brigade had higher casualties in the battle—more than 50%—than any other Confederate brigade. On the following day, he was wounded again, this time in the leg. General Lee wrote about Ramseur's brigade after the battle:

I consider its brigade and regimental commanders as among the best of their respective grades in the army, and in the battle of Chancellorsville, where the brigade was much distinguished and suffered severely, General Ramseur was among those whose conduct was especially commended to my notice by Lieutenant General Jackson, in a message sent to me after he was wounded.

— Robert E. Lee, Official Report on Chancellorsville

Gettysburg

In the

Alfred Iverson and Edward A. O'Neal required him to move forward to keep the assault from petering out. Rather than repeating their direct assaults, he swung around to the left, across the Mummasburg Road, and hit the defenders in the rear, routing them and driving them back through the town. (This assault was not as difficult as Iverson's and O'Neal's because the Union defenders had now only one brigade in position instead of two and they were low on ammunition.) Ramseur was dismayed when ordered to halt the pursuit of his foe at the foot of Cemetery Hill. This was the last fighting at Gettysburg for Ramseur; Rodes's division sat idle just northwest of Cemetery Hill for the next two days and retreated to Virginia with the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia
. Ramseur returned home on leave to marry Ellen E. "Nellie" Richmond and they spent three months together in the Confederate army winter encampment.

The Wilderness

In the

Winfield S. Hancock
after its assault on the Mule Shoe at the "Bloody Angle". Desperate hand-to-hand fighting, some of the most intense of the war, lasted for over 20 hours. He was wounded again in this attack, shot from his horse in the right arm, but refused to leave the field.

Major General

Ramseur assumed command of

Jubal A. Early's division when that general took over from Ewell after Spotsylvania. He received a temporary promotion to major general on June 1, 1864, becoming at 27 the youngest West Point graduate to ever be promoted to major general in the Confederate Army.[3] He fought at Cold Harbor and was the first division to intercept Grant before he could capture Petersburg
.

1864 Valley Campaign

In June 1864, Ramseur and the rest of Early's corps was sent by Lee to the

Battle of Opequon
, also known as the Third Battle of Winchester. Ramseur's division was routed by a strong Union assault near Stephenson's Depot; Ramseur allegedly wept openly and immaturely blamed his men for the retreat. His colleague Rodes was mortally wounded.

Cedar Creek and death

In a surprise attack a month later, Early routed two thirds of the Union army at the

1st Vermont Cavalry.[4]

Dodson Ramseur died the following day near Middletown, Virginia, at Sheridan's headquarters in the Belle Grove Plantation. His last words were, "Bear this message to my precious wife—I die a Christian and hope to meet her in heaven." The day before the battle, word reached Ramseur of the birth of a baby daughter. He is buried near his birthplace, Lincolnton, in St. Luke's Episcopal Cemetery.

Jubal Early's account of Ramseur at Cedar Creek sums up the man and his accomplishments:

Major-General Ramseur fell into the hands of the enemy mortally wounded, and in him not only my command, but the country suffered a heavy loss. He was a most gallant and energetic officer whom no disaster appalled, but his courage and energy seemed to gain new strength in the midst of confusion and disorder. He fell at his post fighting like a lion at bay, and his native State has reason to be proud of his memory.

— Jubal Early, Official Report from Cedar Creek

Legacy

Monument dedication to S. D. Ramseur at Cedar Creek Battlefield near Middletown, Virginia, 1920

The town of Ramseur in eastern Randolph County, North Carolina is named in Ramseur's honor.[5]

A monument on the Cedar Creek battlefield commemorates Ramseur's death in the Belle Grove House.

By chance, Henry A. Dupont, his friend from West Point, was present at Cedar Creek, and years later described his death bed scene.[6]

In popular culture

In MacKinlay Kantor's 1961 alternate history book If the South Had Won the Civil War, Ramseur appears as one of several prominent people who would have campaigned for the abolition of slavery in an independent Confederacy and eventually achieved it by 1885.

In

Valley Campaigns of 1864
, Valley of the Shadow, General Ramseur is a significant character up until his death near the end of the book.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Thomas A. Lewis, The Guns of cedar Creek (New York: Laurel, 1998).
  2. John D. Kennedy
    were both 24 when promoted to brigadier general, but those appointments came in 1863 and 1864, respectively.
  3. ^ Warner, p. 252.
  4. ^ He was captured by Corporal Frederick A. Lyon and Private James Sweeney Company A of the 1st Vermont Cavalry, who both received the Medal of Honor. Obituary, New York Tribune, September 26, 1911.
  5. ISBN 9780807812471
    .
  6. ^ [1]

References

Further reading

External links

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