Rufus Saxton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rufus Saxton | |
|---|---|
| October 19, 1824 – February 23, 1908 (aged 83) | |
 Medal of Honor recipient |
|
| Place of birth | Greenfield, Massachusetts |
| Place of death | Washington, D.C. |
| Allegiance |  United States of America |
| Service/branch |  U.S. Army |
| Rank | Brigadier General |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
| Awards | Medal of Honor |
Rufus Saxton (October 19, 1824 – February 23, 1908) was a Union Army Brigadier General during the American Civil War who received America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the Battle of Harpers Ferry.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Saxton was born 19 October 1824 in Greenfield, Massachusetts and died 23 February 1908 in Washington, D.C. Educated at Deerfield Academy and at the United States Military Academy at West Point, (graduated in 1849), his career included posts fighting Seminoles in Florida, teaching artillery tactics at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, surveying the uncharted Rocky Mountains on George McClellan's staff in advance of the Northern Pacific Railroad (1853), mapwork for the Coastal Survey, and, once the American Civil War broke out, as a quartermaster and ultimately brigadier general for the Union forces. During that war, he commanded the Union defenses at Harpers Ferry and his "gallant service" there won him a Medal of Honor. According to a New York Times article of April 22, 1893 about Saxton's award, "So far to only two other general officers have been awarded the medals, Gens. Schofield and Miles." Saxton was later appointed military governor of the Department of the South. As such, he directed the recruitment of the first regiments of black soldiers who fought in the Union army. He later served as assistant commissioner for the Freedmen's Bureau, where he pursued the policy of settling freed slaves in land confiscated from white landowners in the Sea Islands, until he was removed from his position by President Andrew Johnson.
His father, Jonathan Ashley Saxton, was a transcendentalist whose feminist and abolitionist writings were heard on the lyceum circuit. He descended from a family of ministers (Ashley, Williams, Edwards). His father attempted to secure a place for Rufus Saxton at Brook Farm in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a transcendentalist community started by George Ripley and attended by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rufus Saxton's brother Samuel Willard "Will" Saxton attended Brook Farm in his stead, learning the printing trade for the Farm's publication "The Hive". Later, Will would join Rufus Saxton in South Carolina as his aide-de-camp and printer during the Port Royal Experiment. Rufus Saxton married a Philadelphian missionary, Mathilda Thompson, who had come South to teach the newly freed blacks with her newspaper journalist brother.
He was an abolitionist and proponent for greater rights for blacks. According to an account by his close personal friend, author Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Saxton "had been almost the only cadet in his time at West Point who was strong in anti-slavery feeling, and who thus began with antagonisms which lasted into actual service."[1]
In 1866, Saxton testified before Congress's Joint Committee on Reconstruction, saying "I think if the Negro is put in possession of all his rights as a citizen and as a man, he will be peaceful, orderly, and self- sustaining as any other man or class of men, and that he will rapidly advance." [see chnm.gmu.edu/122/recon/saxton.htm]
Rufus Saxton appointed his friend, author and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, captain of the 51st Massachusetts Volunteers, one of the first black regiments. Rufus Saxton figures prominently in Higginson's book Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870). On the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Higginson and Saxton were both presented with engraved silver ceremonial swords by the freedman.
After the Civil War, Saxton remained in the Army, serving in the Quartermaster Corps. He retired in 1888 and lived in Washington D.C. until his death in 1908. Saxton is honored with a private memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.[2]
[edit] Namesake
Battery Barlow-Saxton at Fort MacArthur is named in his honor.
[edit] Medal of Honor citation
Rank and Organization:
- Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Harpers Ferry, W. Va., 26 to 30 May 1862. Entered service at: Deerfield, Mass. Birth: Greenfield, Mass. Date of issue: 25 April 1893.
Citation:
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ T.W. Higginson, Carlyle's Laugh and Other Surprises, Riverside Press (1908).
- ^ Rufus Saxton at Find A Grave Retrieved on 2007-10-25
- ^ "Civil War Medal of Honor Citations" (S-Z): Saxton, Rufus. AmericanCivilWar.com. Retrieved on 2007-11-09.
- ^ "Medal of Honor website” (M-Z): Saxton, Rufus. army.mil. Retrieved on 2007-11-09.
