CHARLES WILLIAM FIELD

Background

Charles William Field was born at “Airy Mount” in Woodford County, Kentucky, descended from Henry Field who settled in Virginia in the seventeenth century, and the youngest son of Willis and Isabella Miriam (Buck) Field.

Education

He was graduated from the United States Military Academy on July 1, 1849, and assigned to the 2nd Dragoons (present 2nd Cavalry) as brevet second lieutenant.

Career

Until 1855, he served on the frontier in New Mexico, Texas, and Kansas. He was promoted first lieutenant on March 3, 1855, and the next year was detailed instructor in cavalry tactics at the Military Academy. lie became captain on January 31, 1861, and resigned his commission to enter the Confederate service as captain of cavalry on May the twenty-seventh anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, he died in Washington, D. C.

Appointed colonel of the 6th Virginia Cavalry in September 1861, he organized that regiment at Manassas and served in Jeb Stuart’s cavalry division until March 9, 1862, when he became brigadier-general and commanded an infantry brigade which participated in the fighting against McDowell’s advance on Fredericksburg and opened the Seven Days’ battles in the attack on Mechanicsville, June 26, 1862. He was in the battles of Cedar Mountain and Second Bull Run (Manassas).

In the latter he received a desperate wound through the hips, from which he never entirely recovered. As a token of the esteem in which he was held by his superiors, he was promoted major-general in February 1864 and given command of that crack fighting unit, Hood’s old Texas division (Long- street’s corps), which he led in the vanguard of the troops that checked Grant’s flank movement in the Wilderness.

One company in his 4th Texas (Gregg s) Brigade lost every officer and man in that fight. Field was with Lee, Longstreet, and Jenkins when Longstreet was seriously wounded and Jenkins killed by fire from Confederate troops, supposed to be Mahone’s, who mistook them for Federáis.

Until the end of the war Field was constantly engaged and he bore a heavy part in the bloody fighting at Cold Harbor, Deep Bottom, and before Petersburg. At Appomattox his division, the only thoroughly organized and effective body of troops in the Army of Northern Virginia, its nearly 5. 000 men comprising more than half of the infantry surrendered by General Lee, with bands silent, and flags nevermore to he unfurled, stacked arms and became again true and orderly citizens of the United States. ”

After the war Field engaged in business in Baltimore and Georgia until 1875 when he became colonel of engineers of the Egyptian Army and its inspector-general during the Abyssinian War. In recognition of his services he was decorated by the Khedive with the Order of the Medjidie. In 1877 he returned to the United States and on April 18, 187S, became doorkeeper of the House of Representatives of the Forty- sixth Congress.

From 1881 to 1885 he was a civil engineer in the service of the United States and from 1885 to 1889 superintendent of the Hot Springs (Ark. ) Reservation.

Achievements

• His division was considered as one of the finest in the Army of Northern Virginia. Field was one of a handful of American officers who advised the army of Egypt following the Civil War.

Personality

Of vigorous intellect and indomitable will, of superb physique, Field was the beau sabreur. In the words of General Bradley T. Johnson (post), “Gentle and tender as a woman, and bold and true as Bayard, no better man ever strode horse or drew blade in peace or war. ”

Connections

In 1857 he married Monimia Mason oí Virginia, by whom he had two sons.

Father:

Willis Field

Mother:

Isabella Miriam (Buck) Field

Wife:

Monimia Mason