Solomon Meredith
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Solomon Meredith (May 29, 1810 – October 2, 1875) was a prominent Indiana farmer, politician, and lawman who was a controversial Union Army general in the American Civil War. He gained fame as the commander of the Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac.
Solomon Meredith was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, to Quaker parents and was educated at home. In 1829, he traveled to Wayne County, Indiana, where he found work chopping wood and working on a farm. He later clerked in a general store in Centerville. In 1834, he became the Sheriff of Wayne County, serving for two years. He was subsequently elected to the Indiana House of Representatives for four terms. In the mid-1850s, he was the U.S. Marshal for Indiana. He owned a sprawling farm, "Oakland," near Cambridge City. He was nicknamed "Long Sol" for his towering 6' 7" body.
When the Civil War erupted in early 1861, Meredith recruited hundreds of men from his county and organized them into a volunteer regiment of infantry. Governor Oliver P. Morton appointed Meredith as the first colonel of the newly named 19th Indiana, despite his lack of previous military experience. The regiment traveled by train to Washington, D.C., where it would eventually join the Army of the Potomac and be brigaded with three Wisconsin regiments in what became famous as the Iron Brigade.
Meredith and his Hoosiers fought during the Northern Virginia Campaign at Brawner's Farm, where his horse was shot from under him, crushing him and breaking several ribs. As a result of the injury and taking a leave of absence in Washington, he missed the Battle of Antietam in September, drawing the rebuke of his superior, John Gibbon. A month later, Meredith received a promotion to brigadier general and replaced Gibbon (promoted to a different division) as the commander of the Iron Brigade, against the latter's advice. In November, Meredith led the brigade in combat for the first time at Fredericksburg, where he drew the ire of division commander Abner Doubleday, who temporarily replaced Meredith with Col. Lysander Cutler.
In the spring of 1863, Meredith's brigade participated in the Chancellorsville Campaign, but saw relatively little combat. That would would change in July, when the Iron Brigade would be decimated during the first day's fighting at Gettysburg. There, shrapnel struck him in the head and killed his horse, which fell on Meredith and further injured him. He was disabled and unfit for any further field command.
Meredith performed administrative duty for the rest of the war, commanding garrisons protecting Union riverports along the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois, and Paducah, Kentucky. While still on army duty in mid-1864, Meredith unsuccessfully ran against George Julian for the U. S. House of Representatives. Openly feuding with his opponent, Meredith beat Julian unconscious with a whip, but used his political influence to have charges of assault and battery dropped.
With the war over in 1865, Meredith mustered out from the volunteer army with the brevet rank of major general and returned home to Indiana, where he resumed farming. From 1867–69, he was the surveyor general of the Montana Territory. He retired to his farm and raised prize-winning long-horn cattle, sheep, and horses.
Solomon Meredith died on his farm in 1875. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Cambridge City, Indiana.
The Grand Army of the Republic Post in Richmond, Indiana, was later named in his honor.
[edit] References
- Nolan, Alan T., The Iron Brigade: A Military History. New York: The MacMillan Co., 1985.
- Dunn, Craig, Civil War Indiana website
