General Torbert a Confederate Officer?
 

 by Marvin P. Schelhouse, President, Torbert Society

     In the December 2001 issue of North and South magazine, author Albert Nofi stated that Major General Alfred Torbert held two commissions: one in the US Army and one in the Confederate Army.  This is an old claim that has surfaced over and over since the War’s end; but, it is misleading and unfair to Torbert's service to the United States.

     Torbert was a Class of ‘55 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  It is true that while serving as a First Lieutenant, 5th U.S. Infantry, he was nominated and confirmed a First Lieutenant in the Corps of Artillery of Confederate Army of the Confederate States of America, with rank from March 16, 1861 (Journal of the Confederate States Congress, Provisional Congress proceedings of March 16, 1861, pages 155-56, published as Senate Document No. 234, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, Washington 1904).  But, this commission was never sought or accepted by Alfred Torbert, nor did he ever serve for any period of time in the Confederate Army.  

     One can only speculate why the Confederate Congress saw fit to nominate and confirm upon him this appointment.  Eyra J. Wagner, author of Generals in Blue, felt that that one or more of his Army comrades may have tried to cause Torbert to toy with the notion of "going South".  His native state of Delaware was a slave state, and there was very likely additional pressure coming from there.

     Nofi admits that, "the precise circumstances which led to Torbert's commission in Confederate service are completely unclear.  It is possible that while on leave during March 1861, he solicited a commission, on the assumption that Delaware, a slave state, might also secede, but it is also possible that his name was independently put forward by Delawarean secessionists."

     Was there any loyalty by Alfred Torbert to the Confederate cause and disunion with the Army he served as a Regular officer?  There are many credible and documented sources which followed him from March 1861 to the time of his death in 1880 that will lay this issue to rest.  General Torbert left no personal papers, nor did he ever find time to write an autobiography.  When one considers his unassuming character, he probably had no desire or interest in doing so.  One of the most important sources of information on General Torbert is the Memorial written by the famous New York Herald Civil War correspondant George Alfred Townsend at the time of Torbert's death in 1880, The General Alfred T.A. Torbert Memorial.  This article was first published in the Army and Navy Journal on November 13, 1880, and printed in pamphlet form by the Historical Society of Delaware in 1922.  Both Torbert and Townsend lived and attended the local school in Georgetown prior to the Civil War.  Townsend built the Memorial to Civil War correspondents, dedicated at South Mountain, Maryland in 1896.  It was this battle in September 1862 that gained admiration and respect for then-Colonel Torbert as a Brigade Commander of the 1st New Jersey Brigade, and shortly thereafter his promotion to the rank of Brigadier General.  According to Townsend, Alfred Torbert provided his mother a comfortable home in Philadelphia during the Rebellion, along with two of his sisters.  His furloughs for the vigorous campaigning and battles of the Civil War were all taken there.

     There were some social influences exerted to prejudice him against the invasion of the Southern States, and particularly Virginia, where a part of his family married and settled.  Also, southern influences were powerful, if not dominant at West Point while Torbert was a cadet there.  Robert E. Lee, a Colonel in the Regular U.S. Army, was superintendent of West Point for most of the four years that Torbert was there.  Yet, Townsend declares that, "like General George H. Thomas and others…the qualm was but momentary, and when orders came to take charge of volunteers and prepare them for the conflict, there was not a more useful and expeditious Army officer in the country." 

     After frontier duty out west which included the Utah Expedition and hostilities against the Seminole Indians in Florida, in the early part of 1861, Torbert received 60 days leave of absence, his first since graduating from West Point in 1855.  As he headed east he crossed into Texas where a brother was living.  At San Antonio, he was told that seven States from the South had gone out of the Union.  According to Townsend, the manner in which he was told was designed to persuade Torbert into the Confederate Army, or failing to do so, to at least decoy or detain him there. 

     It seems that he recognized the scheme against him --he kept his own counsel and slipped the soldiers in his charge out of harm's reach and got them back into the loyal States.  Hardly the actions of a man in sympathy with the South.

     Chancellor Willard Saulsbury, was a townsman of  General Torbert and was Delaware's U.S. Senator from 1859-1871.  He asked Torbert at the brink of the Rebellion how he meant to go.  According to Townsend, Torbert replied: "The United States Government has given my education and I should be a pretty disgraceful pupil if I used it against the country."  Saulsbury, a Democrat whose sympathies were with the Southern people, replied, "Alfred, if you will take principle like that to guide you through life you will make no mistake."  Saulsbury is further quoted as declaring, "I don't believe, notwithstanding a good many stories I hear that Torbert ever wavered for one moment in his mind.  He was not a disputative man, and he would have listened to some of his Army friends, who were of the other way of thinking with toleration; but, his course was just like his promise, quiet, but sure."

     The estimate of General Torbert held by his adopted State of New Jersey is given in Foster's history, New Jersey and the Rebellion:   

     "It was owing to General Torbert's industry and fidelity that the authorities of New Jersey were enabled at the outbreak of hostilities to so promptly fill all the requisitions made on them for troops. His experience and familiarity with the methods of organization wonderfully diminishing the difficulties of the task, which was so suddenly imposed upon them. 

     For a period of six months, Torbert labored in this work with unexampled activity, proving a strong right arm to the Executive - never shrinking for a moment from any undertaking, however formidable; never failing in the performance of any duty laid upon him. 

     Yet all this while there were some, strange to say, who questioned his loyalty and who labored to undermine him in the confidence of the authorities, and impair his influence with those by whom he was surrounded.  This hostility, so far as has ever been ascertained, had no better foundation than the fact that General Torbert was a native of the South (State of Delaware) and had been associated for the most part with Southern officers - having many influential friends among Southern politicians with whose views upon the Slavery question he in some degree coincided.  But over against this stood the fact that with the very first matter of treason he arrayed himself vigorously and earnestly on the loyal side, doing more than any single mustering officer in the Northern States to hurry troops to the field to aid in maintaining the authority of the Government, and the further fact, also, that he was at all times outspoken and emphatic in denouncing the whole rebellious conspiracy, never hesitating to rebuke in others the slightest expression of sympathy with it. 

     These facts, amounting to positive evidence, finally, it is gratifying to know, were accepted as conclusive as to Torbert's status; and if, later in the war, when his saber was flashing over the heads of the nation's enemies, any still entertained doubt as to his loyalty, they must have been of the class whom neither argument nor reason can overcome the influence of irrational prejudice.    

     As a soldier, General Torbert was courageous, vigilant, skillful, with excellent natural capacities for command, uniting much acquired information as to the high arts and rules of war which made him, in point of qualification, vastly the superior of many who ranked him in the service.

     As a cavalry officer he displayed peculiarly brilliant qualities, his entire connection with that arm of the Service being in the highest degree creditable to himself and the Army.  Sheridan, under whose eye he fought, held him in the highest estimation, finding in him many of the elements which in his own character shone so conspicuously.  Torbert's success was the result not merely of skill and combination and high personal courage, but is a large measure the enthusiasm with which he fought and which inspiring his command made it irresistible either in attack or when assailed.”

     Townsend added that at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Trenton and New Jersey gave to Delaware one of her three brigadier-generals, John Dagsworthy.  In the war of the Rebellion, Delaware repaid the loan by giving New Jersey the colonel of her first regiment in the field - Alfred T. A. Torbert.                

     He further declared, “…sullen intolerance long after the war sought in Delaware to reclaim him for ‘the lost cause’ by magnifying stories of how he wavered, or hesitated at some indefinite, mythical time, vivid only to the imaginations of overtaken and degraded peace men.  It was to the credit of the New Jersey authorities that they were above vexing the soul of a man almost the consignment of Providence to them, with the least suspicion or want of confidence.”

     Robert F. Stockton Jr., the Adjutant General of the State of New Jersey during the entire Civil War gave a lengthy oration at General Torbert's funeral in Milford, Delaware, claimed to be the largest in Delaware’s history.  The funeral commenced in New York City; his body lay in state at the Governor's Room in the City Hall.  Assembled there were distinguished Civil War generals who were pallbearers:  George B McClellan, Daniel E. Sickles, Alexander S. Webb, William F. "Baldy" Smith, John B. McIntosh and John M. Corse. 

     Stockton also wrote of the General’s experience in Texas, stating that upon reaching San Antonio,

     “Torbert first learned that seven states had determined to secede from the Union.  To secure his services for the cause of secession, great temptations were offered, but he never deviated from his determination to remain in the services of the United States; indeed a frank denunciation of the scheme of secession gave rise to an adroit attempt to capture him, together with the men under his charge, but suspecting that an effort would be made to detain him, he changed the route, and after some difficulty, succeeded in reaching the States, and arrived safely in Philadelphia.”   

     According to Stockton, Torbert had always been averse to taking a position in the volunteer service, preferring duty with his regiment, the 5th U.S. Infantry.  Stockton saw there was no chance of a valuable regular officer being of use to his country unless he went into the volunteer service, and therefore, urged Torbert to accept an appointment as Colonel of the 1st New Jersey Regiment, which he did effective September 16, 1861.

     Two Union Generals that won the Medal of Honor at Gettysburg also had much to say of Torbert’s character.  Alexander Webb, a classmate at West Point, thought the nearest Torbert ever came to personal ambition in the Army was when they gave him a brigade, speaking of the 1st New Jersey Brigade.  Webb said that his sympathy with his soldiers and the desire to see them fight well and think well of themselves stimulated him to put esprit into that brigade.

     Daniel Sickles stated that he first met Torbert in 1861 leading the first Battalion (regiment) of the New Jersey Volunteers. 

     “It was easy to see then that he was sure to win distinction.  Afterwards, as a brigade and division commander his brilliant services merited and received the commendation of the Government and the applause of the country.  Towards the close of the war, I reviewed his command in the Shenandoah.  The soldierly bearing of the troops of all arms revealed the presence of an intrepid leader, a thorough disciplinarian and beloved companion.”

     Hon. John W. Houston, a Delaware Judge, had an intimate knowledge and acquaintance of General Torbert  from an early period of his life.  At Torbert's funeral, Judge Houston declared of Torbert’s Civil War service,

        “He was the most illustrious hero that my county or my State furnished to the country in the late memorable conflict through which we have passed, and no one knows better than I that he never was properly appreciated at home at least.  He was a noble example as a champion of the freedom of our great country, and of the Constitution under which we now live.  Because of this, I shall always have reason to be proud of him and cherish his memory with grateful recollection to the last period of my life.”

     During the re-organization of the Army of the Potomac in the spring of 1864, General Torbert was transferred from his beloved 1st New Jersey Brigade to the command of the 1st Cavalry Division.  It was a sad and emotional day when he turned over his old command to Colonel Henry Brown.  Torbert had been Brigade commander since Second Manassas in August 1862 and had been in that Brigade since September 1861.  

     Less than a month after assuming command of the 1st Cavalry Division, Torbert returned to present a New Jersey State flag, made by the ladies of Newark, to the 1st New Jersey Brigade.  He was accompanied by his two aides, Captain Whitehead and Lieutenant Goldsmith, whom he had taken with him when he transferred to the cavalry corps.  After presenting Colonel Brown with the flag, Torbert made a patriotic speech as recorded by the historian of the Brigade, Chaplain Alanson Haines.  The sentiment of this speech expressed Torbert's deepest loyalties. 

        "May I not ask of you, in accepting this testimonial from me, to remember by whom it was wrought?  Your valor and bravery are beyond question.  Of that I need no proof.  But do not forget the sacred trust that you take upon yourselves in accepting this bright and beautiful flag.  Remember that "only the brave deserve the fair," and he who proves recreant to this flag would receive no favor at the hands of the noble women of your native state ...You are about entering a campaign of no ordinary magnitude.  The great question of civil and religious liberty is to be settled.  Remember the motto of the brave and lamented Kearny, nulla vestigia restorsum*, and keep well in view always that your brigade was never known to falter.  March on to honor and to victory, letting your watchword be, God, your country and the ladies.  Whatever my place in life may be, I shall always revert with pride and pleasure to my connection with the 1st New Jersey Brigade.  Accept this flag.  It may be the last gift you will ever receive from me.  The destiny of men and of nations is in the hands of One ‘who doeth all things well,’ and whatever may happen, let us not fail to be encouraged to do our duty to such a flag as this.  If our national emblem goes down, we go down with it, and of our once glorious country nothing will be left but its smoldering ruins to tell the sad tale of its former glory.  But this can never be, our eagles and the red cross ever lead us on to victory.  

     In Nancy Slade's book, A.T.A. Torbert Southern Gentleman in Union Blue,  she commented,

      "Speeches of this kind always sound simplistic, yet Torbert's words revealed his gentlemanly convictions.  It was devotion to their duty which would make the Jerseymen worthy of the virtuous ladies at home.  In Torbert's mind, these women were not only supporters of the Union cause, they were that cause personified.  They had empowered the fighting men of their state in a way the army could not.  God's truth, as revealed to the American people, had required of them this conflict to resolve the great issue of national survival and civil liberty.  Torbert warned that if his listeners forsook their manhood, all - as symbolized by this flag - would turn to dust."

     She also stated that upon Lieutenant Torbert reporting to Jefferson Barracks enroute back East prior to the Civil War, he was embarrassed to learn that on March 16, 1861, he had been nominated and confirmed as a First Lieutenant of Artillery by the Confederate Congress.  Slade declared that regardless of the appointment, Torbert never wavered in his loyalty to the United States Government. 

     There is no documented point during which Alfred Torbert wavered for one moment in his allegiance to the Union.  After reviewing the facts and testimony presented,  I do not believe for one moment that Alfred T. A. Torbert ever gave any serious thought  or consideration to accept the commission offered him by the confederate congress.  He remained steadfast in his loyalty and dedication to the flag of the United States of America and distinguished himself time and again during the course of Civil War.     

*”Never a step backwards” –Editor