Originally aired on July 10, 1998 - In part 202 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson profiles the career of Union General John Gibbon, whose men once were described by General McClellan as “dauntless as iron.” Thereafter, they were known as the Iron Brigade.
#202 – John Gibbon
John Gibbon is often characterized as a North Carolinian who became an outstanding Union general. That is inaccurate. Gibbon was born in April, 1827, in Philadelphia. His parents then moved to the Tar Heel State where Gibbon grew up.
He attended West Point and graduated higher in the Class of 1847 than did classmates A. P. Hill and Ambrose Burnside. Gibbon obtained military experience against the Seminoles and the Mexicans. He returned to the military academy and served five years as an artillery instructor and quartermaster.
His wife was from heavily southern Baltimore and three of his brothers cast their lot with the Confederacy. John Gibbon remained with the Union. No one dare challenge the decision of this lean, sharp-nosed, bearded man whose unmistakable habit was blunt speech.
The colonel was Chief of Artillery under General Irvin McDowell until May, 1862, when Gibbon was promoted to brigadier general and given command of a mid-western infantry brigade. Gibbon was privately disappointed to leave his cannon and tough regular soldiers for the infantry branch with all of its volunteers. His untested foot soldiers at first thought Gibbon arbitrary, severe, and exacting. The brigadier drilled his men endlessly and worked hard to instill in them a cohesive identity. He succeeded.
The four western regiments became as good as any in the army, and better than most. Gibbon led the unit through the thick of the fighting at Second Manassas. On September 14, 1862, his men scaled South Mountain, Maryland under fire and with such determination that General George McClellan praised them for being “dauntless as iron”. Thereafter, they were the Iron Brigade.
Gallant behavior three days later at Antietam led to Gibbon’s promotion to division command. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, but was back on duty the following spring. Conspicuous conduct appeared again at Gettysburg where Gibbon went down with a bullet in his shoulder. He performed deskwork while recuperating. Then he rejoined his old division for General U. S. Grant’s 1864 campaign in Virginia.
Gibbon was in all the battles from the Wilderness to Petersburg. An officer who saw him in the action at Spotsylvania said, “by the roadside was Gibbon, and a tower of strength he is, cool as a steel knife always and unmoved by anything and everything.” Casualty figures tell of the valor of Gibbon’s command.
He crossed the Rapidan River in May, 1864, with six thousand eight hundred men. Within two months the six thousand eight hundred men had suffered about eight thousand casualties. More men killed and wounded than the number that began the campaign. Reinforcements had come steadily of course, but division losses for that period were a staggering seventy-two percent. Gibbon reported that troops which at the commencement of the campaign were equal to almost any undertaking became toward the end of it unfit for almost anything. At Appomattox Gibbon was a major general in charge of the 24th Corps. He was one of the commissioners who received the surrender of Lee’s army.
After the war Gibbon reverted back to a colonel of infantry. He conducted a number of offenses against the Indians where he stated; “the fallacy of pursuing the world’s finest horsemen with foot soldiers was indelibly illustrated”. Gibbon enjoyed telling officers how wrong the story of Joshua at Jericho actually was. Joshua’s army and the blowing of horns had nothing to do with the fall of the city. That was the result of a flanking movement and the use of well-placed mortars.
Gibbon’s death in Baltimore in 1896, a fellow officer eulogized the old warrior as, “the most American of Americans, with his up and down manner of telling the truth no matter who it hurt”.