The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

W.H.L. Wallace: Grant's Greatest General?-- Part 2

Continued from October 6th.

The two Union generals with Wallace as both their last names causes a lot of confusion. When I first came across W.H.L. Wallace, I thought he was the one who wrote "Ben Hur." But, it was fellow General Lew Wallace who wrote that story.  Lew Wallace had commanded the 11th Indiana, wrote that the two generals being in the same army probably caused "great profanity in the army post office."

Before the war, W.H.L. Wallace had planned to study law under one Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, but ended up studying law and becoming a lawyer in Ottawa, Illinois.

At the onset of the Civil War, Wallace volunteered as a private in the 11th Illinois and soon was elected colonel of the regiment. For his conspicuous service at Fort Donelson, Wallace was appointed brigadier general.

At the Battle of Shiloh, Wallace's men were next to the Hornet's Nest and the Sunken Road and withstood six hours of Confederate attacks. Wallace was in command of the division there and was mortally wounded. Union soldiers found him barely alive and carried him to his wife in a home nearby. He died three days later on April 10, 1862.

He is buried in Ottawa, LaSalle County, Illinois, at his family cemetery at 815 LaSalle Street along with his war horse Prince. There is a mural of him in Ottawa.

It would have been interesting to see how he would have done in the war had he not been killed so early.

A Great, But Little-Known General. -B-R'er

No comments: