Charles Candy

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Charles Candy commanded an Ohio regiment and, frequently, a brigade in the American Civil War.

Candy was born on August 7, 1832 in Lexington, Kentucky. He joined the United States Army on May 14, 1850. By the eve of the Civil War he was a sergeant major. Discharged from the regular army on January 1, 1861, Candy became a volunteer clerk in the Department of the Ohio. Then he served on the staff of Charles Pomeroy Stone at the time of the Battle of Ball's Bluff. Candy resigned his staff position on December 3, 1861. He was commissioned colonel of the 66th Ohio Infantry on December 17 of that year. Candy led his regiment under Nathaniel Banks in what became II Corps of John Pope’s Army of Virginia, serving in John W. Geary’s brigade of Christopher C. Augur’s division. When Geary was wounded in the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Candy succeeded to brigade command. Banks’ corps missed the Second Battle of Bull Run, and Candy was absent when the corps – newly dubbed XII Corps, Army of the Potomac – fought in the Battle of Antietam. XII Corps was in reserve during the Battle of Fredericksburg, but it participated in Ambrose Burnside’s Mud March.

Candy next saw action leading the first brigade in Geary’s second division XII Corps at the Battle of Chancellorsville. He commanded the same brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg, arriving on the Baltimore Pike, behind the Union right, late on the first day of the fight. Later on July 1, 1863, Geary took the brigades of George Sears Greene and Candy to Little Round Top to protect the Union left flank. The brigade returned to the right early the next day (July 2 and took part in the defense of Culp's Hill. Candy's brigade was in reserve, except when Geary — trying to go to the relief of the left flank of the army — got lost and took it and the brigade of George A. Cobham, Jr. down the Baltimore Pike in the wrong direction.

When XII Corps was transferred West under the command of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker later in 1863 to relieve the Army of the Cumberland besieged at Chattanooga, Candy was transferred with his brigade. It fought at the Battle of Wauhatchie. Candy was injured early in the Battle of Lookout Mountain, and he also missed the Battle of Ringgold Gap. When XII Corps and XI Corps were combined into Hooker’s XX Corps of the Army of the Cumberland, Candy became commander of a brigade in Geary’s second division. He led it in William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign until August 4, 1864. Candy was mustered out of the volunteer service on January 14, 1865 and he received a brevet as brigadier general on [[March 13], 1865.

After the war, Candy served as chief clerk in the Quartermaster General’s office of the War Department. From 1888 to 1906, he was commissary of subsistence for the Southern Branch of the National Home for Disabled Soldiers. Charles Candy died in Dayton, Ohio on October 28, 1910. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

[edit] Sources

  • Dyer, Frederick H., Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, 3 vols., New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.
  • Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
  • Greene, A. Wilson, "'A Step All-Important and essential to Victory': Henry W. Slocum ad the Twelfth Corps on July 1-2, 1863," in Three Days at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership, ed. Gary W. Gallagher, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1999, pp. 169-203.
  • Pfanz, Harry W., Gettysburg: Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8078-2118-7.
Persondata
NAME Candy, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American Civil War officer
DATE OF BIRTH 1832-08-07
PLACE OF BIRTH Lexington, Kentucky
DATE OF DEATH 1910-10-28
PLACE OF DEATH Dayton, Ohio