More on Cadmus Wilcox

Major Edward Joseph Hale was the one who wrote to Brig. Gen. James Henry Lane on August 2, 1899 about the desire of Maj. Gen. Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox's other brigadiers (McGowan, Scales and Thomas) to court-martial Wilcox for cowardice for some action that seems to have occurred in the summer of 1864.  Hale wound up the war on Lane's staff and would have had the colonelcy of Lane's old regiment, the 28th North Carolina, but for not rising through its ranks--he began the war with the 1st North Carolina and rose through the 56th North Carolina. 

Bryce Suderow points out that General Lee appears to have punished Wilcox for his mishandling of his mission, to cooperate with Brig. Gen. William Mahone, on June 22, 1864.  On that day, Wilcox admittedly took about four or five  hours (from no later than 3:30 p.m until sundown around 7:30 p.m.) to move two or three miles.  (Wilcox Report on the Petersburg Campaign, Lee Headquarters Papers, Virginia Historical Society.)  The punishment was to strip Wilcox of troops.  "Two of my brigades were ordered to the north side of the James river to relieve two of Heth's, June 25th, McGowan & Lane," wrote Wilcox in his report on the Petersburg Campaign in the Lee Headquarters Papers in the Virginia Historical Society.  "July 4th, the remainder of the division, Scales and Thomas, were ordered to occupy from the Appomattox to Ashton Run," north of the Appomattox.  Not until August 24 did Wilcox get command of troops again.

Stripping troops from incompetent subordinates was one way Lee got rid of them.  After Brig. Gen. Roger Atkinson Pryor mishandled Anderson's division at Sharpsburg, Lee stripped him of troops by breaking up his brigade and assigning its regiments elsewhere.  Pryor got the message and resigned the following year.

Pryor was only a pre-war newspaperman and politician.  Wilcox was a West Pointer, not as easily abandoned.  Likewise, a court-martial for cowardice seems a bit extreme for mere incompetence, especially when everyone but Mahone shared that attribute moving around in the veritable jungle south of Petersburg.  In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and south of Petersburg, Mahone (a former railroad engineer who had surveyed much of the ground) was the guy with one eye.

Wilcox's Brigadiers Wanted Him Court-Martialed for Cowardice

It recently came to my attention that three of Maj. Gen. Cadmus Wilcox's brigadiers (Scales, Thomas and McGowan) wanted Wilcox court-martialed for cowardice (!) during the summer of 1864, looks like before Second Reams Station.  Letter, E. J. Hale to Lane, August 2, 1899.  I'm grateful to Russ Edwards and Bryce Suderow for this information.  I'll be looking into this further and will report on it as more light is shed.  Please feel free to pass on any information you have about this to me at johnedwardhorn@gmail.com

12th Virginia Infantry, Small World Department

Charles David "Charley" Blanks was born in Petersburg, Virginia in September 1842.  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/154717152/charles-david-blanks   No official record ties him to the 12th Virginia Infantry, C.S.A., also known as "the Petersburg Regiment."  He did not join the regiment while the official records that have survived were being generated.  The only information that ties him to the 12th is that Private Blanks and First Lt. Allen Washington Magee laid down their arms at Appomattox with the regiment's Company C, the Petersburg New or B Grays, after returning from furloughs, and that they did not receive paroles.  Our source for this information is an undated letter by Magee that is reprinted on pages 322-324 of the Appendix of George S. Bernard's War Talks of Confederate Veterans (Petersburg, Va.:  Fenn & Owen, 1892).

Charley was the son of Henry A. Blanks, who died in Petersburg June 10, 1864, of wounds sustained the previous day in the previous day's Battle of Old Men and Young Boys.  Charley's mother was Ann Eliza Fisher Banks, 1816-1888.  Charley's elder brother was Pvt. Henry A. Blanks, Jr., a carpenter born in 1840 who enlisted in the Petersburg City Guard April 19, 1861, and was killed in action at Malvern Hill July 1, 1862.  Charley's first wife was Louisa J. Blanks, born in Nottoway County in 1841 and married in Petersburg December 7, 1865.  She died in Petersburg March 29, 1875, after the birth of Charley's son Charles B. Blanks on March 12, 1875, who died in Petersburg June 27, 1875.  Henry, Ann, Henry, Jr., Louisa and Charles B. all lie in Petersburg's Blandford Cemetery.

In the following year, Charley married Sarah J. Rowan Blanks, born in Richmond in 1856.  By 1912, he lived in Chicago.  His wife died in Chicago on June 25 of that year and was buried in Chicago's Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum in Chicago.  

By 1916, Charley was living in Oak Forest, Illinois.  He died there June 14, 1916.  He lies in Tinley Park, Illinois' Tinley Park Memorial Cemetery.

Charley is special for me because I live in Oak Forest, my law office is in Tinley Park, and I am one of the historians of his regiment.

It's a small world.