Robert Ransom

Background

Robert Ransom was born on 12 February 1828 at his family plantation, Bridle Creek, in Warren County. He was the son of Robert and Priscilla West Coffield Whitaker Ransom.

Education

Robert Ransom and his brother, Matt, were educated by private tutors and in academies in Warren and Franklin counties. In 1850 Robert graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Career

Robert Ransom, who spent 1850-1851 at the cavalry school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was a splendid horseman in the Dragoons, and he served as a scout in Kansas and New Mexico before returning to West Point as a cavalry instructor in 1854. The following year he was promoted to the first lieutenant. After participating in the Sioux expedition, he was promoted to captain in 1861.

He resigned his commission when the Civil War began. Like his brother Matt, Robert Ransom entered the Confederate Army. He served as a captain and later colonel of cavalry, with a command in Vienna, Virginia, in the early days of the war.

Promoted to brigadier general on March 6, 1862, he later organized Johnston’s and Beauregard’s Cavalry in the west and southwest. He fought in the Seven Days' battles and at Harper’s Ferry, distinguished himself at Sharpsburg, and commanded a division at Fredericksburg. On May 26, 1863, he was promoted to major general and went to North Carolina to defend the Weldon Railroad.

In April 1864, he was sent to Richmond. He fought at the Bermuda Hundred and Drewry's Bluff and commanded the cavalry during General J. A. Early’s raid on Washington in July 1864. In November of the same year, illness forced him to accept a command in Charleston, South Carolina, where he remained for the rest of the war.

A farmer in Warren County, North Carolina, until 1878, Ransom was also an express agent and city marshal at Wilmington, North Carolina, and a civil engineer in charge of river and harbor improvements in New Bern, North Carolina.

Achievements

• Ransom's success in campaigns gained him a promotion to major general in May 1863, and he was ordered to take over command of Richmond from General D. H. Hill. For two months he organized the defenses of the key city but was forced to give up his post when he had a recurrence of the ill health that had plagued him before the war.

Connections

By Robert's first marriage to Mary Elizabeth Huntt in 1856, he had eight children. In 1884, after his first wife's death, he married Katherine DeWitt Willcox.

Father:

Robert Ransom

1797-1866

Mother:

Priscilla Coffield Whitaker Ransom

1800-1848

Sister:

Seymourosa Priscilla Ransom

1823-1832

Brother:

Matt Whitaker Ransom

1826-1904

Sister:

Betsey Coffield Ransom

1838-1839

late wife:

Mary Elizabeth Huntt Ransom

1830-1881

Wife:

Katherine DeWitt Willcox Ransom

1853-1951

Daughter:

Mary Huntt Ransom Bell

1858-1930

Son:

Gibson Huntt Ransom

1860-1861

Son:

Robert Ransom

1860-1931

Daughter:

Matt Cary Ransom McCorkle

1866-1941

Son:

George G. Ransom

1869-1922

Son:

Seymour H. Ransom

1870-1930

Daughter:

Katherine DeWitt Ransom

1885-1887

Son:

Eugene Mayson Ransom

1887-1955

colleague:

Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard

colleague:

Jubal Anderson Early

References

• Civil War High Commands
  2002
• Who Was Who in the Civil War
  1988
• Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders
  2006