John Gibbon
(c.1827-1896)

John Gibbon was born in Holmesburg, now a part of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 20, 1827. As small boy, he was taken to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was raised and from which state was appointed to West Point. He was held back a year from entering West Point when he failed to answer correctly a question on the date of Independence Day. He eventually graduated ranking in middle of the Academy class of 1847, which also produced Ambrose P. Hill and lifelong friend Henry Heth, both of whom would stand a few hundred yards away on the other side of the lines at Gettysburg, and Ambrose E. Burnside of the Union.

After a troubled time at West Point, he first saw action in the decades-long struggle to subdue the Florida Seminoles and force them westward onto Indian Territory. He served in the Mexican War and on the Great Plains.  By 1855 he was an  instructor at West Point, where he put in five years as artillery instructor and quartermaster.  Here and during that time he wrote The Artillerist's Manual, which demonstrated the force of his intellect. It was a highly scientific work, complete with mathematical formulas. The manual was adopted as an official text by the War Department in 1859, and was used as "The Book" by artillery on both sides during the Civil War.  In 1859, he was sent to Utah Territory, now as a Captain of the 4^th Artillery, as part of the force intended to maintain federal authority at the conclusion of the misdirected "Mormon War." In 1861 he was stationed at Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, as the commander of Battery B, 4^th U.S. Light Artillery.

The secession of the South posed a deep personal dilemma for Gibbon. His parents were Democrats and slaveholders and his wife was from Baltimore (then considered a Southern city). When the war broke out, being from North Carolina, many expected Gibbon to "go South" to find a command. However, the career artillerist was a remarkably uncomplicated man and basically unsubtle - he had taken an oath of loyalty as an officer of the United States Army, and he set national above state loyalty.  Orders at last came, by pony express rider, to Camp Floyd directing Battery B to St. Louis for further orders. Packing up their wives, children, and military gear, the soldiers started on foot across the twelve hundred miles to Fort Leavenworth. En route, the party learned of the Battle of Bull Run from another pony express dispatch. At Leavenworth, John Gibbon heard for the last time from his family in North Carolina. His three brothers were soon to enter the Confederate army (one was to be brigade surgeon for Lane's Confederate brigade at Gettysburg), and they disowned him as a traitor. A family reunion was not to occur until 1865.  Gibbon's Battery did not arrive in Washington until October 13, 1861.

He began his Civil War service as chief of artillery in McDowell's division during the first fall and winter of the war. Promotions in the artillery were slow, however, so he left his familiar guns and his tough Regulars for infantry and volunteers in the spring of 1862, when he was promoted to brigadier general and given command of the only all-Western brigade in the Army of the Potomac, consisting of the 2^nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 6^th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 7^th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and 19^th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. To his surprise, he found that he liked his new command. He was that rare officer: a strict disciplinarian who appreciated the qualities of volunteer soldiers. He recognized, as many Regular Army officers like himself refused to do, their quick intelligence, initiative, and ingenuity. He realized that they must be led, because they could not be driven. He admired their courage and realized that they were not susceptible to punishment as a motivator, that praise was more effective. Using his genius for discipline and drill tempered with this understanding, he took his Wisconsin and Indiana troops and forged them into fighters as good as any either army ever possessed. To heighten their morale he saw to it that they were outfitted, beyond regulations, in uniforms with white gaiters and black Western-style hats; hence their nickname, the "Black Hat Brigade." In their first fight, they showed themselves to be the equal of Jackson's Stonewall Brigade, the best the Confederacy had to offer, in a toe-to-toe slugging match at Brawner's Farm in August 1862, and after they thrilled McClellan with their gritty uphill attack at South Mountain two weeks later, they acquired their famous moniker: the "Iron Brigade." Gibbon commanded them through the Maryland Campaign, where at the climactic battle of Antietam, a brigadier in full uniform, he took time out to serve both as a gunner and No. 3 man for several rounds among the cannoneers in the bloody Cornfield. Afterward he wrote his wife, "I am as tired of this horrible war as you are, and would be perfectly willing never to see another battle field."

On November 5, 1862, Gibbon's ability was rewarded with promotion to command of the Second Division, I Corps. At their head the following month at the Battle of Fredericksburg he was severely wounded in the right wrist, and a bone of the hand was broken by a piece of shell. Taken to Baltimore to recover, his wound healed slowly but he was able to rejoin the army in March 1863, when he was posted to the command of another division, one he would lead for the next year and a half - the Second Division of Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock's II Corps. He commanded it at Chancellorsville, but since his men were held across the Rappahannock in reserve and did no fighting there, Gibbon must still have been still uncertain when he arrived at Gettysburg about what the division could and could not do. To add to the uncertainty, he had put two of his three brigadiers under arrest in the weeks before Gettysburg, and went into the battle with unfamiliar newcomers in charge of his First and Second Brigades.

Commanding General George Meade, a good friend who had great trust in Gibbon, gave him command of the Second Corps twice in the first two days of the battle, despite the fact that General Caldwell was superior in rank - on the afternoon of July 1^st, when Hancock was sent ahead to act as commanding officer on the battlefield, and on afternoon of July 2^nd, when III Corps commander, General Dan Sickles was wounded, and Meade expanded Hancock's authority to include the Third Corps and part of the First Corps. At all times, Gibbon retained control over his own division besides.

At the end of the generals' meeting on the night of July 2^nd, Meade took Gibbon aside and predicted, "If Lee attacks tomorrow, it will be on your front." Through noon on July 3^rd, it looked like there would be no attack at all. Gibbon lounged through the sultry morning, and at noon gave a luncheon for all the generals near Cemetery Hill. During the intense Confederate cannonade that started around one o'clock, he sat down on the reverse slope of the hill in a comparatively safe place, then returned to his lines and chatted with his men while the shells whistled and exploded around them. Until the shelling stopped and the gray lines of Pickett's, Pettigrew's and Trimble's men hove into view, he believed the enemy would retreat rather than attack.

As Pickett's Charge rolled toward him, Gibbon paid last-minute attention to his dispositions. Then, for twenty minutes or so, as the musketry began to rattle and the great roar of the battle rose, the issue was out of his hands. When the Rebel lines bunched together and paused at the wall in his front, Gibbon walked toward Harrow's brigade on the south end of his line to get them to turn and enfilade the mass of Southerners. Just then he was hit by a bullet which entered in the middle of his left arm near the shoulder and passed backward, fracturing the shoulder blade. He grew faint and was helped from the field..

The wound was severe and healed slowly, and Gibbon would not rejoin the army for eight months. His conduct at Gettysburg, meanwhile, was praised by Hancock as "all that could be desired in division commanders." There was no question that Gibbon would remain in command of his Second Corps division in the reorganization of the army from three corps to two in the spring of 1864.

But, upon  his recovery, he commanded the Cleveland and Philadelphia draft depots until the commencement of General U.S. Grant's Overland Campaign in 1864, when he assumed command of his old Division. With it he fought in all the battles between the Wilderness and the investment of Petersburg, and was promoted to the rank of Major General on June 7, 1864.

In January 1865, he was given command of newly organized XXIV Corps, Army of James. At Appomattox he was one of commissioners designated to receive the surrender of Army of Northern Virginia.

There was another side to Gibbon completely apart from artillery manuals and infantry tactics: he was a family man, with a wife named Frannie whom he wrote about every three days, and three children - two girls and a baby boy. On the morning of July 3^rd, in the midst of the carnage at Gettysburg, he wrote to his wife, his "Darling Mama," to tell her that he was still well, that God had been good to him, and that she should kiss the children for him and write often.

After the war, he received the usual brevets and was appointed Colonel of the 36^th U.S. Infantry and in 1869 he took command of the 7^th U.S. Infantry. Colonel Gibbon went west as part of the force sent to guard Union Pacific railroad workers from Indian attack.  In Nebraska a siding was built during the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1866. It was named Gibbon Switch in his honor.  The town of Gibbon was laid out and a settlement commenced on April 7, 1871 by a colony of 85 families from Ohio and other eastern states. Gibbon was organized by the Union Pacific Railroad during the preceding winter and set up for the purpose of building homes in the young state of Nebraska.

His service was mainly against Indians on the frontier. He fought against many of the great Indian chiefs.  By 1876 he was again headed for battle.  Federal authorities had order the Lakota chiefs to report to their reservations by January 31^st. Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and others defiant of the American government refuse. General Philip Sheridan ordered General George Crook, General Alfred Terry and Colonel John Gibbon to drive Sitting Bull and the other chiefs onto the reservation through a combined assault. Colonel Gibbon was given command of the infantry for this operation.  The original plan for defeating the Lakota called for the three forces under the command of Crook, Gibbon, and Custer to trap the bulk of the Lakota and Cheyenne population between them and deal them a crushing defeat. On June 17^th, Crazy Horse and 500 warriors surprise General Crook's troops on the Rosebud River, forcing them to retreat. On June 25^th, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, part of General Terry's force, discovered Sitting Bull's encampment on the Little Bighorn River. Terry had ordered Custer to drive the enemy down the Little Bighorn toward Gibbon's forces, who would soon be waiting at its mouth.  Custer's 7^th U.S. Cavalry advanced too quickly and when he charged the village, Custer discovered that he was outnumbered four-to-one. Hundreds of Lakota warriors overwhelmed his troops, killing them to the last man, in a battle later called Custer's Last Stand. This destruction occurred two days before Gibbon's slower-moving infantry could reach the battlefield. Gibbon shared no blame in Custer's headstrong conduct at Little Big Horn, arriving in time only to rescue survivors of Custer's command and bury the dead. News of the massacre shocked the nation, and Sheridan flooded the region with troops who methodically hunted down the Lakota and forced them to surrender. Sitting Bull, however, eluded capture by leading his band to safety in Canada.

The next year Gibbon was again involved in a critical battle when, on August 9, 1877, his forces attacked Chief Joseph's (Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt) unsuspecting camp at Big Hole, Montana. Although the Nez Percé fought him off and were able to make a successful retreat, Gibbon¹s troops had inflicted massive casualties.  During his time as an Indian fighter, he continually complained about the fallacy of pursuing the world's finest horsemen with foot soldiers. Nevertheless, his overall conduct of operations was highly commendable.
 

On July 10, 1885, Gibbon was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the Regular Army and assumed command of the Army in the Pacific Northwest. His last brush with history came in 1886 when anti-Chinese mobs in Seattle killed five and destroyed parts of the city before forcing 200 Chinese aboard ships bound for San Francisco. Leaders of the race riot vow to sweep the city clean of Chinese within the month.  General Gibbon put Seattle under martial law to restore order after the violent riots.

After retiring in 1891, he made his home in Baltimore where he died February 6, 1896, serving at the time as Commander-in-Chief of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. He was the author of many works during his career, including: The Artillerist's Manual, published by the War Department in 1860 and Personal Recollections of the Civil War, written in 1885 but not published until 1928 and Life on the Western Frontier. He also wrote "Hunting Sitting Bull," American Catholic Quarterly (2), 1877, "Last Summer's Expedition Against the Sioux," American Catholic Quarterly, (2), 1877, "The Battle of the Big Hole," Harpers Weekly (39), 1895, "Gibbon on the Sioux Campaign of 1876." He is buried in Section 2, Grave 986, Arlington National Cemetery.

Although never more than a supporting player in the historical drama unfolding around him, John Gibbon built a military career that is almost a catalog of key episodes in that drama. Through him, we can follow the steady advance of federal authority across the latter nineteenth century, compelling rebellious forces to accept the rule of law.

You can read the record of General John Gibbon as published in the book Officers of the 4^th U.S. Artillery in 1890 by clicking here.