John B. Gordon

John Brown Gordon was an American politician, Confederate States Army general, attorney, slaveowner and planter. "One of Robert E. Lee's most trusted generals" by the end of the Civil War, according to historian Ed Bearss,

Gordon was a student at the University of Georgia, where he was a member of the Mystical 7 Society. He left before graduating to "read the law" in Atlanta, where he passed the bar examination.

Gordon and his father, Zachariah, invested in a series of coal mines in Tennessee and Georgia. He also practiced law. In 1854, Gordon married Rebecca "Fanny" Haralson, daughter of Hugh Anderson Haralson and his wife. They had a long marriage and six children.

In 1860, Gordon owned one slave, a 14-year-old girl. His father owned four slaves in that same census year.

Civil War

Although lacking military education or experience, Gordon was elected captain of a company of the 6th Alabama Infantry Regiment. He was present at First Manassas, but did not see any action. During a reorganization of the Confederate army in May 1862, the regiment's original colonel, John Siebels, resigned, and Gordon was elected the new colonel. Gordon's first combat experience happened a few weeks later at Seven Pines, when his regiment was in the thick of the fighting. During the battle, Gordon witnessed his younger brother, Augustus Gordon, lying among the Confederate casualties, bleeding profusely with what appeared to be a fatal wound to the lungs. Augustus survived, but was killed a year later at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Toward the end of the two-day Battle of Seven Pines, Gordon took over as brigade commander from Brig. Gen. Robert Rodes when Rodes was wounded. Shortly after the battle, the 26th Alabama was transferred to Rodes's Brigade as part of an army reorganization. Its commander, Col. Edward O'Neal, outranked Gordon and thus took command of the brigade until Rodes resumed command just before the Seven Days Battles. Gordon was again hotly engaged at Gaines' Mill, and he was wounded in the eyes during the assault on Malvern Hill. On June 29, Rodes, still suffering from the effects of his wound, took a leave of absence; O'Neal commanded the brigade once again. During the Northern Virginia Campaign, Gordon and his regiment were kept in the Richmond area.

Assigned by General Lee to hold the vital sunken road, or "Bloody Lane", during the Battle of Sharpsburg, Gordon suffered new wounds. First, a Minié ball passed through his calf. A second ball hit him higher in the same leg. A third ball went through his left arm. Gordon continued to lead his men, despite the fact that the muscles and tendons in his arm were mangled and a small artery was severed. A fourth ball hit him in his shoulder. Despite pleas for him to go to the rear, Gordon remained on the front lines. He was finally stopped by a ball that hit him in the face, passing through his left cheek and out of his jaw. He fell with his face in his cap, and might have drowned in his own blood if it had not drained out through a bullet hole in the cap. A Confederate surgeon thought that he would not survive. After being returned to Virginia, Gordon was nursed back to health by his wife. The assault nearly crushed the Federal line at the Belle Grove Plantation before a "fatal halt" turned the tide of battle and doomed Gordon's successes made earlier in the day.

Returning to Lee's army around Richmond after Early's defeat at Cedar Creek, Gordon led the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia until the end of the war. In this role, he defended the line in the Siege of Petersburg and commanded the attack on Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865. There he was wounded again, in the leg.

In April 1865, he was pursued by Francis Barlow, who had returned to service just days before, during the Battle of High Bridge in Virginia. At Appomattox Court House, Gordon led his men in the last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia, capturing the entrenchments and several pieces of artillery in his front just before the surrender.

On April 9, 1865, Gordon's cavalry unit drove a brigade of Union infantry from a high ridge near Appomattox; Gordon looked around and realized that Lee`s embattled army was surrounded on three sides by masses of Union infantry. When Lee got word of the situation, he knew that escape was impossible and made up his mind to surrender to Grant that same day. On April 12, Gordon's Confederate troops officially surrendered to Bvt. Maj. Gen. Joshua Chamberlain, acting for Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Chamberlain recorded this event in detail:

In his book Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War, S. C. Gwynne states that this account is "one of the most cherished of the bogus Appomattox stories ... [but] ... there is no convincing evidence that it ever happened ... one of the thirty thousand other people who saw the surrender noted any such event". According to Gwynne, Chamberlain was, in his later years, "one of the great embellishers of the war".

[Chamberlain's] memoirs ... often reflect[ed] the world as he wanted it to be instead of the way it was. For one thing, he did not command the troops at the ceremony, as he claimed, and thus couldn't order the men to salute. His story, moreover, changed significantly over the years. ... Its staying power was mostly rooted in the fact that Gordon never refuted it. The rebel general apparently liked it, and it reflected well on him, as the time went by Gordon added his own liberal embellishments, including the suggestion that Lee himself had led the Army through town. The two generals would clearly have preferred this distinctly Walter Scott-like sequence, described in countless books and memoirs, to the decidedly less romantic one that actually took place.

Though Gordon often claimed he was promoted to lieutenant general, there is no official record of this. He was a presidential elector in 1868.

Gordon was elected by the state legislature to the US Senate in 1873, as Democrats regained their power in Georgia. In 1879, he became the first ex-Confederate elected to preside over the Senate. He was a strong supporter of the "New South" and industrialization, and he was a part of the Bourbon Triumvirate.

Gordon resigned as senator on May 19, 1880. After his unexpected resignation, Governor Alfred H. Colquitt quickly appointed Joseph E. Brown to succeed Gordon. There were allegations of corruption when it was discovered Gordon resigned to promote a venture for the Georgia Pacific Railway.

He was elected Governor of Georgia in 1886 and served a two-year term. He later returned to national politics, elected by the state legislature to the U.S. Senate in 1890 and serving from 1891 to 1897.

Gordon published a memoir of his Civil War service entitled Reminiscences of the Civil War.

He gave a series of popular speaking engagements across the country. These lectures, entitled "The Last Days of the Confederacy", were very well received in both the North and South. He tended to focus on anecdotes and incidents that humanized soldiers from both sides. This was a period of reconciliation among the soldiers of the North and the South.

General Gordon was the first Commander-in-Chief of the United Confederate Veterans when the group was organized in 1890. He held this position until his death. He died at the age of 71 while visiting his son in Miami, Florida. His body was returned to Georgia, where he was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta. Upwards of 75,000 people attended and participated in the memorial ceremonies.

Racial views

It is exceedingly difficult to determine Gordon's exact role in the Klan, but given the nature of his testimony, his almost constant travel throughout Georgia and the South, and his desire to maintain peace, social order, and white supremacy, one can conclude with reasonable certainty that he was at least titular head of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan. Although it is remotely possible that Gordon was unaware of the threats and violence southern whites so often employed against southern blacks, it seems more plausible that Gordon simply "looked the other way" and countenanced such excesses as the price that had to be paid if social peace—a peace determined and defined exclusively by southern whites—was to be regained and preserved. Gordon may not have condoned the violence employed by Klan members, but he did not question or oppose it when he felt it was justified. In this sense, Gordon typified the upper levels of Southern society: he would do what had to be done to assure a white-controlled social order, but he hoped it could be accomplished without violence. — but the organization was so secretive that his role was never proven conclusively. In the midst of Reconstruction, a variety of organizations cropped up in the South, which existed to defy Reconstruction (i.e., the Ku Klux Klan, White League, and Red Shirts). As many of these groups feared arrest while the states were occupied by Federal troops, they generally operated in secret.

In 1866, Gordon made substantial financial and material contributions to help build churches and schools for Black residents of Brunswick, Georgia. He advised them to:

educate themselves and their children, to be industrious, save money and purchase houses, and thus make themselves respectable as property holders, and intelligent people. With submission to the laws, industry, and economy, with union among yourselves, and courtesy and confidence toward the whites, you will reach these ends, and constitute an important element in the community. The John Brown Gordon statue on the grounds of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta is the only public equestrian statue in the city. U.S. Highway 19 in Gordon's native Upson County, Georgia, is named in his honor. John B. Gordon Road in Gordon's 2nd home Taylor County, Georgia, is named in his honor. A statue dedicated to Gordon stands on the lawn of the Thomaston, Georgia, courthouse. Gordon State College (Georgia) in Barnesville, Georgia, is named for him. in LaFayette, Georgia is named for Gordon. John B. Gordon Elementary School in Atlanta was named for Gordon. John B. Gordon High School in Decatur, Georgia was also named after him. It operated from 1958 until 1987; Gordon was changed to a middle school and renamed as McNair Middle School.