Hayes of the Twenty-Third: The Civil War Volunteer Officer

by T. Harry Williams

Rutherford B. Hayes became president of the United States after the disputed election of 1876. But for Hayes the "golden years" were not the four he spent in the White House but the four he served as a unit commander in the Civil War. "It was as though he had encountered in the war a largeness of the human spirit, courage, generosity, sacrifice, that disappeared in the peace. . . . No matter how high he went, he would always be Colonel Hayes of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Regiment from 1861 to 1865. This is the exciting story of his part in the western Virginia campaign, chasing the Confederate John Morgan up and down the Ohio, and fighting under Phil Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley.

Genres: Civil War, History

345 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

T. Harry Williams (Thomas Harry Williams) was an historian at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge whose writing career began in 1941 and extended for thirty-eight years until his death in 1979. Williams is perhaps best known for his American Civil War study, Lincoln and His Generals, a "Book of the Month" selection from 1952, and Huey Long, winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1970.

Williams passed away approximately two months after retirement due to complications from pneumonia.

In 1998, Williams was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th US President is a forgotten figure in US history. He shouldn’t be. I became impressed with this level-headed, courageous man. A true war hero. Hayes goes from an inexperienced volunteer to a competent regimental commander to an aggressive, hardened combat veteran with little mercy for guerillas/secessionists to a seasoned senior officer with an emphasis to limit casualties to his units and an understanding of the impact of war on the larger nation and the noncombatants. He was elected to Congress (he didn't seek it but was put up by his friends back home) while serving and wouldn't take his seat while the war is going on.

Hayes commanded the 23rd Ohio, which had in its ranks, two future US presidents, Hayes and McKinley, a future Senator and Supreme Court Justice, Stanley Matthews, and a future hero/goat general in Rosecrans.

Hayes was a man who did not use his civilian influence to gain military rank above his competency. He starts in the middle and only goes as far as he thinks he can be effective:

He was quite satisfied with his status. Although he might well have complained of his tardy advancement, he made no particular effort to push himself, and he never employed the political and personal influences at his disposal. He held back partly because he had qualms about exercising a command beyond his background and capacity. And, although he did not fully realize it, he would rather be a colonel of a regiment than hold any other post. He liked to say: “I prefer to be one of the good colonels to being one of the poor generals.” Good colonels were vital to the mass armies that swarmed to the field in the Civil War. Without these colonels, men like Hayes just out of civilian life but who were able to master the art of war, the armies could not have operated.
Like many other regimental commanders, Hayes was wounded in battle, a total of four times. Except for James Monroe in the Revolution, he is the only President who had been wounded.

Although he had no previous military trading, Hayes studies hard and has common sense combined with courage. He had the knack of command:

Hayes seemed to recognize instinctively this requirement of command and he always acted on it. One of his officers wrote: “This implicit trust in the man extended down through the brigade, the different regiments constituting it, and thence on down to the shortest man in the rear rank. We all knew no foolish movement would be ordered...but wherever we were our leader was a leader in the full acceptance of the term, and we always found him well to the front, with the orders, ‘Come on boys, not ‘Go on boys.’” In one engagement Hayes with the regimental colors and a portion of the regiment somehow got beyond the formed line of battle and to the extreme front. An officer who ranked him called: “Bring the colors back to the line of the brigade.” Hayes turned and shouted: “Bring the brigade up to the colors.” Without any orders the brigade sprang forward with cheers to the advanced position. By modern standards such exhortations as Hayes’s may seem romantic and even incredible, but they were of the stuff that inspired Civil War soldiers to perform impossible feats of valor. When uttered by an officer exposing himself in the very front of battle, they did not sound like empty rhetoric to the men hearing them. It was an attribute of the good infantry commander that he could spontaneously employ language as an element of leadership.

Hayes gained confidence as his unit gains combat experience and was aggressive when the situation allows. His superior was cautious but Hayes was not afraid of taking the lead:

the weather cleared, and Hayes pushed on to Shady Spring at the foot of Flat Top Mountain. He was now in the presence of the enemy and eager to go farther. But because of Scammon’s orders, he found time to write Lucy, “‘we are not allowed to push on as fast as we would like.” He was not disposed to be bound too much by the orders. He was in his “proper element,” as one of his officers later admitted significantly, “in command of a force, near the enemy and cut loose from telegraphic communication with his superior commanders.’’

In the Battle of South Mountain, Hayes’ 23rd is leading the column trying to go through Fox’s Gap on the road to Antietam. They are given the task of capturing artillery on the Confederate right. Haye’s orders his men to charge several times. And then a musket ball finds a target:

fire continued, however, and Hayes ordered another charge. This time the Confederates were driven clear from the woods and had to take shelter behind a stone wall. The battle was going well for the Federals along the whole line, and Hayes, sensing victory in his sector, shouted for another advance. Just as he gave the command, he felt a stunning blow on his left arm and found that a musket ball had struck him right above the elbow.

His first thought was that an artery might be cut, and he asked one of the soldiers to tie his handkerchief above the wound. Then, feeling faint and sick, he lay down on the ground. He was about twenty feet behind the line of his men and was still able to give directions. Seeing some of them retire to the cover of the woods, he thought they might be giving way. He forced himself to his feet and ordered them to hold. A sergeant approached him and said: ‘I am played out; please, sir, let me leave.” Hayes pointed with his sword to his helpless arm and replied: “Look at this. Don’t talk about being played out. There is your place in the line.” But soon he had to sink to the ground again. A wounded Confederate lay near him, and Hayes and this man engaged in a friendly conversation. “You came a good ways to fight us,” Hayes remarked. The Confederate asked where Hayes was from. “I am from Ohio” was the answer. “Well,” said the graycoat, “you came a good ways to fight us.” Hayes finally gave his new acquaintance a message for Lucy if he should die there.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/ma...

This was an excellent book. A cross between a first-person account and a decent military unit history. So much of the book is directly taken from cited sources on both sides. The author does not insert himself into the story but lets the players speak for themselves. Easily 4 Stars

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This unusual book is an overview of the Civil War history of a man who really wasn't famous during the war, but who became President later. Rutherford B. Hayes commanded a unit which missed most of the major battles of the Civil War, but which was in some interesting fights nonetheless. The 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry fought mainly in what is now West Virginia, as well as in the Shenandoah Valley. Hayes was a good officer, but not a great one, and so the book tells a story about a man who never would have been famous just from his military experience. Because he was later elected to high office, though, his story has been preserved.
The book provides helpful insights into the "less famous" battles, and the ways in which they were fought, but is otherwise not exceptional. Hayes himself just doesn't come to life in the book, which is its real weakness.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rutherford B. Hayes - he wanted to be remembered more as the Colonel of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiment during the Civil War than President of the US.
This book, basically a history of the 23rd and Hayes from 1861-1865, was written 50 years ago by the acclaimed historian T.Harry Williams who draws upon Hayes' diaries and letters and the Official Records as well as scores of other primary source (and secondary source) materials.
I get the impression that Williams thought Hayes a good man and a good general but was not above pointing out Hayes' flaws. That is was struck me about the story - very even handed.
Williams made a point of stating that in the heat of battle different people will observe the same events differently. It's up to the historian to try and sift through all of the stories and arrive at an approximation of the truth.
One drawback - it does not have a bibliography. There are footnotes on every page referring to sources but a bibliography would have been most welcome.
A nice addition to my Civil War library.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting part of the Civil War that is often overlook and the part Rutherford Hayes play in it.

[Joel Manuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A typically great Williams book, though I admit it dragged a little when Hayes and the 23rd were mired deep in the mountains of West Virginia. Picks up during the Shenandoah Campaign of 1864.