Born in 1822 in Ohio, Ulysses S. Grant graduated from West Point in 1843. He fought in the Mexican War, served out west and then resigned from the U.S. Army in 1854. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Ulysses was working in his father's leather store in Galena, Illinois. He gained national attention with his victories at Forts Henry, Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg. After his victory at Chattanooga, Lincoln appointed him general-in-chief of all U.S. armies in March of 1864. Grant assumed command of the Army of the Potomac and for the first time faced Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee surrendered after the bloody battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. At Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, Grant delivered magnanimous terms of surrender that prevented treason trials. He was elected president of the United States twice (1869-1877). In 1884 he started writing his autobiography. He completed the book a few days before dying of throat cancer in July of 1885. Author Mark Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar."
General
George Armstrong Custer portrayed by Joseph Topinka
George Armstrong Custer was born in New Rumley, Harrison
County, Ohio on December 5, 1839. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy
in June of 1861 and was assigned, as a lieutenant, to the 5th Cavalry. At the
outbreak of the Civil War, Custer participated in the First Battle of Bull Run.
At Gettysburg his brigade helped to defeat General J.E.B. Stuart's efforts to
turn the Federal’s left flank. In May of 1864, he was recognized for gallant
and meritorious services in the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Perhaps the highest
honor Custer received was in being chosen to receive the first flag of truce
from the Army of Northern Virginia at the surrender at Appomattox Court House.
Remaining in the army after the war, he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the
newly authorized 7th Cavalry, remaining its active commander until his death.
He took part in the 1867 Sioux and Cheyenne expedition, but was court-martialed
and suspended from duty for one year for paying an unauthorized visit to his
wife. Custer’s army career ended June 25, 1876, at the Battle of Little
BigHorn, which resulted in the extermination of his immediate command and a
total loss of some 266 officers and men.
General William
T. Sherman portrayed by Dean Cass
William Tecumseh Sherman was
born in Lancaster, Ohio on Feb. 8, 1820. Showing great intellect, he was
appointed to West Point in May of 1836 and graduated 6th in the class of 1840.
After serving 23 years in the United States Army he resigned his commission to
make his way in the civilian world. In May of 1861, he accepted a colonel’s
commission and raised the 13th Regiment of U.S. Infantry, which would follow
him for the entire Civil War. He fought at the First Battle of Manassas as a
brigade commander and his force included what would later become the famous
69th N.Y. of the famed “Irish Brigade.” He later rose to the rank of major
general in 1864. By the war’s end he was second in command only to U.S. Grant
while having command of three Federal armies and an entire theater of war.
After a succession of crucial victories including the capture of Atlanta,
Savannah and effectively Charleston, SC, he accepted the surrender of the
Confederate Army of the Tennessee on April 24, 1865. General Sherman retired in
1884 and became a public speaker. He died on February 14, 1891.
General John
Buford portrayed by Joseph Schafer
After graduating 16th in his class
from West Point in 1848, John Buford was commissioned as a brevet lieutenant in
the First Dragoons. He transferred to the Second Dragoons in 1849, where he saw
some action along the frontier. After serving a staff duty at Washington’s
defenses, he obtained a position on Pope’s staff in northern Virginia. Soon
after, he was rewarded with his brigadier's star and given command of a brigade
of cavalry. While leading his troopers at Second Bull Run, Buford suffered a
wound to his knee. The next spring he was given command of the Reserve Brigade,
which was composed mainly of regular army units and took part in Stoneman's
Raid during the Chancellorsville Campaign. Buford also directed the division at
Brandy Station, Aidie, Middleburg and Upperville. It was two of his three
brigades that were able to hold off the Confederate assaults on the first day
at Gettysburg until the Union Infantry arrived. Buford later served in the
Bristoe Campaign, but just before the end of the Mine Run Campaign, he was
struck down by typhoid and forced to relinquish his command on November 21,
1863. He later died in Washington DC on December 16, 1863 and was buried at
West Point. His official commission to major general was presented to him on
his deathbed.
Captain
Robert Todd Lincoln portrayed by Andre Wagner
Robert was the son of President Abraham and Mary Todd
Lincoln. He was born in 1843. Robert had a different personality than the rest
of the Lincoln family. He was shy and not outgoing and enthusiastic like his
brothers. Robert was the only son that survived into adulthood. He graduated
from Harvard College in 1864. After four months at Harvard Law School, at the
age of 22, he was commissioned a captain on the staff of Lt. General U.S.
Grant. “Bob” was appointed an aide-de-camp and was in charge of escorting
foreign dignitaries around the camps. Captain Lincoln was present during the
surrender of Lt. General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Courthouse. In 1868 he
married Mary Eunice Harlan and they produced three children. “Bob” became a
very successful lawyer in the 1870’s. In 1875 he instigated an insanity hearing
against his mother. He served as the president of the Pullman Company in 1897.
Robert passed away on Sunday July 25, 1926. Mary Harlan Lincoln lived until
March 31, 1937.
General
A.E. Burnside portrayed by Mack Cothran
Ambrose Burnside was born May 23, 1824 in Liberty, Indiana. In 1843 he received an appointment to West Point, where he graduated 18th in a class of 38. Among his fellow cadets were Thomas Jackson, George McClellan, A.P. Hill and George Pickett. He served in Mexico, protecting the supply trains from the Mexican cavalry. After the war he served in Braxton Braggs’ 3rd Artillery, fighting against the Apache in New Mexico. He left the army in 1853 to open a rifle factory, but was unable to patent his design. He returned to the army in 1861 as a colonel in the Rhode Island Brigade. He led an expedition into the Carolinas in 1862 that captured New Berne and much of the coast. He went on to command the 9th Corps, Army of the Potomac and Army of the Ohio. He resigned from the army in August of 1864. He was elected governor of Rhode Island three times beginning in 1866 and later served as a US senator. He died on September 13, 1881.
General
William Woods Averell portrayed by Nick Korolev
William Averell
was born in Cameron, New York in 1832. He graduated from the United States
Military Academy at West Point in 1855 and was commissioned a second lieutenant
in the U.S. Army Mounted Rifles. Averell first saw action at the First Battle
of Bull Run while acting as assistant adjutant general to Brigadier General
Andrew Porter. In August of 1861, he was appointed colonel of the 3rd
Pennsylvania Cavalry regiment, which he led through the Peninsula Campaign and
the Seven Days Battles. Immediately after that campaign, he was given command
of the 1st Cavalry Brigade in the Army of the Potomac and went on to fight at
the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. In November of 1863, he
conducted what is called Averell's West Virginia Raid against the Virginia and
Tennessee Railroad. Following the war, William accepted an appointment as U.S.
consul general to British North America. In later life, he earned a comfortable
living as an inventor of practical devices and manufacturing methods. His most
famous invention was that of American asphalt pavement. He was the posthumous
co-author of History of the Third
Pennsylvania Cavalry, 60th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers (1905) and the
posthumous author of Ten Years in the
Saddle (1978).
General Joshua Chamberlain portrayed by (name here?)
Born in Brewer, Maine in 1828,
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick in 1848 and
graduated in 1852. At the start of the Civil War, Professor Chamberlain
volunteered for service and later achieved fame at the Battle of Gettysburg,
where his valiant defense of Little Round Top became the focus of many
publications and stories. Sent to defend the southern slope of Little Round
Top, Chamberlain found himself and the 20th Maine at the far left end of the
Union line. He quickly understood the tactical significance of Little Round Top
and thus the need for the 20th Maine to hold the Union left at all cost. For
his tenacity at defending Little Round Top he was known by the sobriquet Lion of the Round Top. Chamberlain left
the army soon after the war ended, going back to his home state of Maine and
was elected and served as the governor of Maine for four one-year terms. After
leaving political office, he returned to Bowdoin College. In 1893 Chamberlain
was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg. He died in 1914
at Portland, Maine at the age of 85.
General Winfield Scott Hancock portrayed by David Townsend
Winfield Scott Hancock was a
career U.S. Army officer who served with distinction as a Union general in the
American Civil War. He was noted, in particular, for his personal leadership at
the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy
in 1844 and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 6th U.S.
Infantry Regiment. He fought in the Mexican-American War under his namesake,
General Winfield Scott. In the Battle of Antietam, Hancock assumed command of
the 1st Division, II Corps. He later reluctantly led his division in the
disastrous attack on Marye's Heights in the Battle of Fredericksburg the
following month and was wounded in the abdomen. At the Battle of
Chancellorsville, his division covered Major General Joseph Hooker's withdrawal
and Hancock was wounded again. His corps commander, Major General Darius N.
Couch, transferred out of the Army of the Potomac in protest of actions that
Hooker took during the battle. Hancock assumed command of II Corps and led it
until shortly before the war's end. After the war, he continued to participate
in significant events. He supervised the execution of the Lincoln assassination
conspirators. Hancock was also elected president of the National Rifle
Association in 1881.
General George H. Thomas portrayed by (name here?)
George Henry Thomas, aka the "Rock of
Chickamauga," was a career U.S. Army officer and a Union general during
the American Civil War. He was one of the principal commanders in the Western Theater. Graduating from the U.S.
Military Academy in 1840, he served as an artillery subaltern in the war
against the Seminole Indians in Florida and in the Mexican-American War. From
1851 to 1854, he was an instructor at West Point. In 1855 he was appointed a
major of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry. At the start of the Civil War, Thomas struggled
with the decision but opted to remain with the United States. In the First
Manassas campaign, he commanded a brigade in the Shenandoah Valley, but all of
his subsequent assignments were in the Western Theater. Thomas was in chief
command of only two battles in the Civil War, the Battle of Mill Springs at the
beginning and the Battle of Nashville near the end. Both were victories.
However, his contributions at the battles of Stones River, Chickamauga,
Chattanooga and Peachtree Creek were decisive. His main legacies lay in his
development of modern battlefield doctrine and in his mastery of logistics.
After the end of the Civil War, Thomas commanded military departments in
Kentucky and Tennessee until 1869. He died in San Francisco on March 28, 1870
while on duty at his headquarters
of the Military Division of the Pacific.
Mathew Brady portrayed by Wayne Ritchie
This native New
Yorker had studied painting before being attracted to the photographic process
of Louis J. M. Daguerre. He opened a portrait studio in a New York during the
1840’s, utilizing the improved daguerreotype. Eventually he also set up a
studio in Washington D. C., where he caught the images of some of the most
famous people of the era. At the beginning of the Civil War he was determined
to accompany the troops into the field and record the scenes of camps and
battlefields utilizing the newer wet-plate process. However, by this time his
eyesight was failing and he probably took none of the images in the field. Many
of his assistants resented the lack of credit and either joined other firms or
set up their own. Brady, however, did accompany his teams into the field
frequently. During the war, Brady’s studio teams set out to obtain a pictorial
view of the war and obtained photos of commanders, battlefields, victories and
the suffering of the sick and wounded. For Brady the war was a financial
disaster and even the sale of his archives some years after the war could not
save him from bankruptcy, though his photographs have provided the first
ever-pictorial view of war’s carnage.
General John Rawlins portrayed by Jim Opdenaker
John
Rawlins was born on February 13, 1831 in Galena, Illinois. He practiced law in
Galena after being admitted to the bar in 1854. He later served as city
Attorney in Galena in 1857 and like most of his Mid-western contemporaries; he
was a Douglas Democrat in 1860. At the outbreak of the Civil War he met Ulysses
S. Grant. Grant asked him to become his Aide-De-Camp, and on August 30, 1861 he
was commissioned a Captain and Assistant General on the staff of Grant. From
that time until the end of his brief life, he was Grant’s alter ego,
discharging with objectivity the duties and responsibilities of intimate
friend, military and political advisor and on a few occasions, apostle of
sobriety. Grant referred to Rawlins as the most nearly indispensable man he had
around him. Rawlins was made Major on May14, 1862: Lieutenant Colonel November
1, 1862: Brigadier General, U.S. Army, and Chief of Staff with rank from March
3, 1865. He was brevetted Major General in both Volunteer Service and the
regular Service. Rawlins remained with Grant even after the general was elected
president, serving as Secretary of War of the United States. However, Rawlins
had contracted tuberculosis and died on September 6, 1869.