Thomas Wathey, 6th U.S. Cavalry

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by dccaughey in 6th U.S. Cavalry, battle of Antietam, battle of Fairfield, Uncategorized, volunteers

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6th U.S. Cavalry, battle of Antietam, battle of Fairfield, Civil War, Civil War cavalry, soldiers, Winchester

A Union Deserter Settles in Winchester

Photo courtesy of Krista Al Qirim Thompson

Thomas Wathey was born on February 2, 1841 in Londonderry, Ireland to Thomas and Mary Wathey. His mother was Irish and his father a Scot. In 1855, Mary, Thomas and his younger brother Will emigrated from Liverpool on the ship American Union. The family had a lower deck non-cabin berth. They arrived in New York City on June 16, 1855 en route to Rhode Island. According to the 1860 census, Thomas worked as a machinist in Providence, but by the following year the family moved to Northbridge, MA.

On May 25, 1861 Thomas was one of 64 men from Northbridge who enlisted in Company H, 15^th Massachusetts Infantry. The regiment mustered into Federal service on July 12, 1861 and moved to Washington the following month. On October 21^st the regiment saw its first action at Ball’s Bluff and suffered the heaviest losses of any of the Union regiments engaged. Thomas was wounded in the leg and sent home to recover from his wound. While he was home, he married Harriet Elizabeth Smith in Northbridge, MA on November 23, 1861. Minister William Merrill presided over the ceremony.

The following spring the 15^th MA was assigned to the II Corps and accompanied the rest of the Army of the Potomac to the peninsula. The regiment fought at Seven Pines, Savage’s Station, and Glendale with modest losses. One of the last regiments to depart the peninsula in August, the 15^th Massachusetts missed the battle of Second Bull Run. Military service agreed with Thomas, and he rapidly progressed through the enlisted ranks from private to first sergeant of Company H.

The regiment was brigaded with the 1^st Minnesota, 34th and 82^nd New York under Brigadier General Willis A. Gorman during the Maryland Campaign. In heavy fighting at the battle of Antietam it fought against the brigades of Semmes, Early and Barksdale and was savagely flanked by the Confederates not far from Dunkard Church. It suffered 52% casualties, losing 320 killed, wounded or missing of 606 engaged. Eleven men were killed in Wathey’s Company H alone. For the second time in less than a year the 15^th Massachusetts suffered the heaviest losses by a Union regiment in a battle.

This was enough for Thomas. A month later he transferred to Company M, 6^th U.S. Cavalry on October 24, 1862 in Knoxville, MD. His enlistment documents described him as 5’ 8 ½ ” tall, with blue eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion. When the regiment returned to Virginia the following month, he and the other volunteers were sent to a camp of instruction outside of Washington to be mounted and trained.

Private Wathey quickly completed the training and rejoined the regiment. He spent the winter rotating off and on picket duty along the Rappahannock River. Cavalry life evidently agreed with him, as he was promoted to corporal before spring campaigning started.

Corporal Wathey participated in Stoneman’s Raid and the regiment’s heavy engagement at Brandy Station without injury, as well as the long march and skirmishes on the way to Gettysburg. At Fairfield on July 3, 1863, he fought dismounted in Lt. Adna Chaffee’s squadron behind a fence in an apple orchard on the regiment’s left flank. Unable to reach their horse holders when the regiment was overrun, Wathey was one of the majority of his company captured by the Confederates. When his first sergeant conducted roll call the following day, only two privates in the company were present for duty.

Corporal Wathey marched on foot south with the rest of the prisoners to Harrisonburg in the Shenandoah Valley, then travelled by rail the rest of the way to Richmond. After being processed at Castle Thunder in Richmond, they were incarcerated on Belle Isle on the James River. Wathey was fortunate, as Company M’s were in the first group of prisoners paroled and sent north the following month. Wathey returned to duty with the regiment at the beginning of September.

Corporal Wathey was re-enlisted in Company M by Lt. Tullius Tupper on February 8, 1864. The documents say Brandy Station, but more than likely this happened at the Reserve Brigade’s encampment at nearby Mitchell’s Station. His fortunes in battle improved greatly, as he fought in all of the regiment’s major engagements of 1864 and 1865 without incident.

Thomas didn’t serve long after the end of the war. Following the Appomattox campaign, the regiment was sent to Pleasant Valley, MD to recruit and re-fit. As the regiment prepared to head west to the frontier, he deserted on July 23, 1866. He did not return home to Massachusetts, and his first wife Hattie remarried to Frank A. Cross in Northbridge, MA on August 6, 1868.

Oddly enough, the former Union cavalryman returned to the Shenandoah Valley. He settled in Winchester, VA and eventually joined the Masonic fraternity. He married Winchester native Marietta Clark, daughter of Willis B. and Emily Z. (nee’ Pierce) Clark. The couple’s first three children died in their first year, but the next three survived. Their final child also did not survive his first year in 1881.

Thomas remained in the Winchester area of Frederick County for the rest of his life. In 1880 he lived in Stonewall township, in 1890 Shawnee, and in 1900 on his son Thomas Norval Wathey’s farm as a laborer. He moved in with his son following his wife’s death on October 28, 1898.

On the 1890 veteran’s schedule, Thomas listed his service as a sergeant in Company H, 2^nd U.S. Cavalry from 1858 to 1866. When he applied for a disability pension on July 25, 1892, he again cited service the wrong regiment and omitted his desertion. Understandably, the processing of his claim was greatly delayed by the inaccuracies of the filing.

Thomas Wathey died after a brief illness of pleurisy in Winchester on March 3, 1907. He had finally received a back payment for his pension of $1,100 just a month before. He was buried in the German Lutheran Church Cemetery next to his wife. His obituary in the Winchester Evening Star read:

“Obituary: Mr. Thomas Wathey, a well-known and highly-respected citizen of Winchester, who had made this city his home ever since the Civil War, passed away about 10 o’clock on Sunday morning at his home on North Kent street, near the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad passenger station, after a brief illness of pleurisy, aged 66 years.”

Sources:

Adjutant General of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War, Volume VII. Boston: Norwood Press, 1931.

Caughey, Donald C. and Jimmy J. Jones. The 6^th United States Cavalry in the Civil War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.: 2013.

Clemens, Thomas G., ed. The Maryland Campaign of September 1862. Vol. II: Antietam. El Dorado Hills: Savas Beatie LLC, 2012.

Ford, Andrew E. The Story of the Fifteenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War 1861-1864. Boston: W.J. Coulter Press, 1898.

National Archives, Record Group 94, U.S. Army Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914.

National Archives, Record Group 94, U.S. Returns from Regular Army Non-infantry Regiments, 1821-1916: 6th U.S. Cavalry.

National Archives, Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration, Pension record #67724.

“Thos. Wathey Dead; Just Got Pension.” Evening Star, Winchester, VA, March 4, 1907.

U.S. Federal Census, 1860, 1880 and 1890. Accessed on Ancestry.com, March 2020.

Fiddler’s Green: Thomas Hood McCormick

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by dccaughey in 1st/ 4th Cavalry, 4th U.S. Cavalry, Fiddler's Green, officers

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4th U.S. Cavalry, battle of Franklin, Civil War cavalry, George H. Thomas, James H. Wilson, James McIntyre, Neil McCafferty, Thomas McCormick, U.S. Grant

It’s ironic that this Fiddler’s Green entry follows the last one of James McIntyre. These two officers were virtually inseparable throughout their cavalry service during the war, though their careers ended rather differently. Contrary to appearances from the frequent mention of McCaffertys, McCormicks and McIntyres, there were a number of non-Irish officers in the 4th U.S. Cavalry during the Civil War.

Thomas Hood McCormick was born on February 24, 1836 at Mill Hall, Clinton County, Pennsylvania to Saul and Catharine Hood McCormick. He graduated Lafayette College with a law degree in 1855, and according to census information was living with his mother and family and working as an attorney in Lock Haven in 1860.

He was appointed second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Cavalry on March 27, 1861. As one of the early appointees he was quickly promoted as resignations thinned the regiment’s officer ranks, achieving first lieutenant less than a month and a half later on May 7, 1861.

Lieutenant McCormick quickly completed his initial training as a cavalry officer at Carlisle Barracks over the summer, and was assigned to the squadron of the regiment in Washington, D.C. Although only a first lieutenant, he assumed command of Company A, 1st U.S. Cavalry, which was redesignated the 4th U.S. Cavalry in August. The commander of Company E and the squadron of the 4th U.S. Cavalry as a whole was Captain James McIntyre. In addition to his other duties, McCormick also served as an acting assistant quartermaster for the squadron, as the remainder of the regiment was serving in the western theater.

He requested additional recruits to bring his company to full strength in September, and appears to have served well over the winter in the defenses of Washington. As the Army of the Potomac prepared to embark on the Peninsula Campaign, the squadron was assigned as Major General McClellan’s escort. It served in this position throughout this campaign, assigned to the army headquarters. The squadron’s men saw little action other than the odd artillery shelling when the general moved too close to the action. McCormick was promoted to captain and retained command of Company A on August 7, 1862.

The day after the battle of Antietam he recommended his first sergeant, Neil J. McCafferty, for a commission in the regiment. The two had been together since McCormick joined the company, first McCafferty was the quartermaster sergeant, then he was promoted to company first sergeant in October 1861. Captain McCormick wrote in his recommendation, “The highest compliment I can pay to the excellence of his character and his soldierly qualities is to request that if he should receive a commission he may be attached to my company.” Captain McIntyre, still commanding the squadron, endorsed the request, and McCafferty was commissioned a short time later.

The squadron finally rejoined the rest of the regiment during the winter of 1863-1864, and the following spring saw its first active campaigning of the war. Captain McCormick apparently had no issues with the adjustment. He was commended for his actions during fighting at Franklin, TN on April 10, 1863. According to the report of Captain James McIntyre, who commanded the regiment during the battle, “No officer could have behaved more gallantly than Captain McCormick, who with the rear squadron repulsed the enemy who in force attempted to surround and cut off our retreat to the ford.” He served through the remaining campaigning of 1863 and 1864 without reported incident.

Captain McCormick took a leave of absence during the winter of 1864-1865. He saw a doctor while at home in Lock Haven and requested an extension of twenty days on February 24, 1865 for “congestion of the liver,” which was granted. This is the first clue in his records that something may have been wrong.

On June 18, 1865, Captain McCormick’s cavalry career came to an abrupt and unpleasant end. According to the report of acting regimental commander Captain John A. Thompson:

“I have the honor to state that at about 5 o’clock last evening Capt. Thos. H. McCormick 4th U.S. Cav was driven into this camp in an ambulance in a beastly or insensible state of intoxication – he was lying on his back on two seats with his head hanging down and totally unconscious of where he was or his condition. I believe several of the men saw him. Myself and Lieut. W.W. Webb saw him and conversed with the driver.

“The driver said he had been taken out of the cars in that condition by Col Eggleston and himself aided by others at the depot.

“His condition was such that I could not permit him to be taken out in presence of the command and ordered the driver to take him to Wilson Hospital.”
The regimental surgeon, Assistant Surgeon Merritt S. Jones, concurred with Captain Thompson’s assessment, describing McCormick’s condition as “insensible from intoxication. He was so entirely helpless that he had to be carried into the ward on a stretcher.”

Correspondence then followed fast and furiously on the subject of McCormick’s dismissal. Brevet Major General James H. Wilson recommended immediate dismissal for habitual drunkenness. “This is no new thing in his conduct,” he wrote. “His public disgrace by drunkenness is a matter of notoriety in service tho’ hitherto he has managed to escape punishment. A Court Martial cannot well be convened to try him, and the credit of the public service, as well as its discipline and good order demands his summary dismissal.” Major General George H. Thomas concurred and forwarded the recommendation. It was approved by Lieutenant General U.S. Grant on July 12th, and by the Secretary of War on July 21st. McCormick was dismissed on July 25, 1865, and returned home to Lock Haven.

Thomas Hood McCormick died in Lock Haven on March 30, 1866. He is buried in Highland Cemetery, Lock Haven, PA.

A thorough examination of McCormick’s personnel records revealed no clues as to what may have happened other than the surgeon’s certificate on his request to extend his leave. While it was far from infrequent for there to be issues with alcohol for officers on the frontier following the war, examples such as this during the war were pretty infrequent and seldom drew such high-ranked ire. General Wilson’s evident disgust may have been the result of extended service by the regiment as his escort during that spring’s campaigns.

I give you Thomas Hood McCormick, gallant in battle, but all too human in the end.

Sources:
Coffin, Selden Jennings. Record of the Men of Lafayette. Easton, PA: Skinner & Finch, Printers, 1879.
Heitman, Francis B. Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1903. Page 430.
National Archives, Record Group 94, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General, 1861-1870.
National Archives, Record Group 94, Letters Received by the Commission Branch, 1863-1870.
National Archives, Record Group 94, U.S. Returns from Regular Army Non-infantry Regiments, 1821-1916: 4th U.S. Cavalry.