Williams Carter Wickham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Williams Carter Wickham
September 21, 1820 – July 23, 1888

Place of birth Richmond, Virginia
Allegiance Confederate States of America
Years of service 1861–64
Rank Brigadier General
Battles/wars American Civil War
- First Battle of Bull Run
- Battle of Williamsburg
- Battle of Antietam
- Battle of Chancellorsville
- Battle of Gettysburg
- Battle of Yellow Tavern
Other work C.S.A. Congressman

Williams Carter Wickham (September 21, 1820 – July 23, 1888) was a lawyer, judge, politician, and an important Confederate cavalry general who fought in the Virginia campaigns during the American Civil War. After the war, he held various political posts and was the President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway company.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career

Wickham was the son of William Fanning Wickham and Anne Butler Carter. His mother was first cousins with Robert E. Lee, while his father was the son of John Wickham, the constitutional lawyer. His great-grandfather, Gen. Thomas Nelson, Jr., was one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. Other ancestors were among the founders of Yorktown.

Wickham was born in Richmond, Virginia, but spent much of his youth on his father's 3,200 acre plantation, "Hickory Hill," just north of Richmond. Wickham was graduated from the University of Virginia and was admitted to the bar in 1842. He was married to Lucy Penn Taylor and had several children. He became a justice and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1849.

In 1858 he was commissioned captain of Virginia volunteer militia cavalry, and in 1861 he was elected by the people of Henrico County to the state convention as a Unionist, where he voted against the articles of secession.

[edit] Civil War

Following the secession of Virginia, Wickham took his company, the Hanover Dragoons, into the service of the Confederate States Army. After participating in the First Battle of Manassas, Wickham was commissioned by Governor John Letcher as lieutenant colonel of the Fourth Virginia Cavalry in September 1861. On May 4, 1862, he incurred a severe saber wound during a cavalry charge at the Battle of Williamsburg. In this state of injury, he was captured, but quickly paroled. In August 1862, he was commissioned Colonel of the Fourth Virginia Cavalry. At the Battle of Sharpsburg, he was wounded again, this time in the neck by a shell fragment. Recovering, he participated in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.

Wickham was commissioned brigadier general on September 9, 1863, and put in command of Wickham's brigade of Fitzhugh Lee's division. On May 11, 1864, he fought at the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was mortally wounded during this engagement, with his final order being: "Order Wickham to dismount his brigade and attack." In September 1864, after the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Fisher's Hill, Wickham blocked at Milford an attempt by Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan to encircle and destroy the Confederate forces of Maj. Gen. Jubal Anderson Early. He then attacked the Federal cavalry at Waynesboro and forced them to retreat to Bridgewater.

Wickham resigned his commission on October 5, 1864, and took his seat in the Second Confederate Congress, to which he had been elected while in the field. Recognizing that the days of the Confederacy were over, he participated in the Hampton Roads Conference in an attempt to bring an early end to the war.

[edit] Postbellum activities

After the surrender of the Confederacy, Wickham was active in improving harmony between the states and reorganizing Virginia's economy, which had been ruined by the war. He became a Republican and voted in 1872 for General Ulysses S. Grant as a member of the Electoral College of Virginia. He became President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway company, and oversaw the construction of a railway from Richmond to the coal fields of West Virginia. After his death in 1888, a statue was raised in his honor in Richmond's Monroe Park.

[edit] References and links

Preceded by
James Lyons		 C.S.A. Representative from Virginia's 3rd Congressional District
1863–1865		 Succeeded by
none