Civil War historians often paint with a broad brush, devoting little attention to individual soldiers and the impact of the war on their lives. But hundreds of thousands of individuals put their civilian lives on hold to serve in the Civil War armies. Many of these men perished during the four-year-long conflict, never to return home and realize their prewar promise. Tennessean Sidney Smith Stanton was one such individual. The ninth child of a large family, Stanton accomplished a great deal in the middle of the nineteenth century, especially in politics. But his promising political career ended with his service and death in the Civil War. His contemporaries lauded his service both before and during the war, and postwar eulogies lamented the loss of Stanton as a soldier and a statesman. By offering a brief glimpse into Stanton’s life, this essay attempts to humanize one Civil War participant.
The Stanton family was among the early settlers of the Upper Cumberland region. Champion Stanton and his wife, Sallie (Sarah) Lindsey Stanton, both born in the 1780s in Virginia, settled in Jackson County, Tennessee, in the 1820s. By 1832, Stanton had built a log house on Martin’s Creek and owned at least 125 acres to support his large family.1 His wife gave birth to eleven children, seven boys and four girls.
Sidney was born in Jackson County in 1829, and he attended school there, may be Montpelier Academy near Gainesboro. There is also speculation that he studied law in Lebanon. Although no personal letters of Stanton’s exist, his official letters and reports in the Official Records indicate that he was a highly literate person. The grammar, syntax, and spelling in his writings are superb.
Col. Sidney S. Stanton. Courtesy McMinnville (Tenn.) Southern Standard.
Sidney married Martha Apple about 1857 and began practicing law in Carthage, moving back to Jackson County, and hanging out his shingle in Gainesboro.2 One early author claimed: “His fame as a brilliant and logical orator had spread throughout the upper Cumberland district, and before he was 25 he was lionized.”3
Stanton joined the Whig rather than the Democratic Party in the 1850s, just as that party was dividing between its Northern and Southern factions. Winfield Scott, the Whig presidential candidate in 1852, carried Tennessee by fewer than two thousand votes, the last time that a Whig candidate would win the state.
The American Party resulted from the decline of the Whigs; it became the second party in Tennessee for a short time, its members expressing dissatisfaction with the large number of immigrants and Catholics who were entering the nation. Stanton’s thoughts concerning this particular issue are unknown; he may have harbored strong feelings, or may be he was just following the leaders of his party.
In the 1855 congressional campaign in the “mountain district,” Stanton supported the American Party candidate, Gen. William Cullom, against the incumbent, Col. John H. Savage, a Democrat. While Stanton was making a speech in support of Cullom in McMinnville, Savage called him a liar. Stanton immediately challenged Savage to a duel, a practice that had long been illegal in Tennessee. Efforts at reconciliation failed, and the two principals practiced their skills with pistols. Savage enjoyed a formidable reputation as a duelist, and Stanton possessed no experience. Balie Peyton took Stanton to his mansion in Gallatin to teach him the skill of shooting. The duel was finally aborted by Savage’s apology, which rescued the political careers of both men (convicted duelists could not hold public office) and may be saved the life of one of them.4
William G. Brownlow and Andrew Jackson Donelson led the American Party in Tennessee, and Stanton was among their followers. In 1857, the party chose Robert Hatton of Wilson County as its gubernatorial candidate, and Stanton ran for the General Assembly on the ticket. Isham G. Harris, a Democrat, defeated Hatton, but Stanton won a legislative seat, representing Jackson County. Two years later, he won a seat in the Senate, representing Jackson, Macon, and White counties; Harris was the successful candidate for governor again.
By 1860, Governor Harris was the leader of a vocal minority in the state that advocated secession. Senator Stanton adamantly opposed the idea. He and other former Whigs formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated Tennessean John Bell for the presidency, and Stanton served as a presidential elector in his behalf. Balie Peyton, Thomas A. R. Nelson, and Horace Maynard joined Stanton in the campaign for Bell and national union. Bell carried only Tennessee and two other states in the election.
In January 1861 a special session of the General Assembly convened to consider a secession convention. The body called for a vote of the people, and in February Tennesseans rejected the idea of a secession convention; only West Tennessee favored the idea. Stanton campaigned against a convention, supposedly stumping the state from border to border. On April 14, Stanton attended a meeting of the Union Party in Carthage. There, he was appointed to a committee charged with drafting resolutions. The second resolution complimented Congressman W. B. Stokes for “unflinching devotion to the union of these States.”5 Later that week, John Bell called for the preservation of the Union.
On April 25, after the battle at Fort Sumter, Governor Harris called a second special session. After Fort Sumter and President Lincoln’s call for seventy-five thousand volunteers to put down the rebellion, the mood in Middle Tennessee had changed drastically, and the lawmakers’ actions reflected a more bellicose sentiment. On April 26, Senator Payne offered a resolution “to prepare a plan for separating the State of Tennessee from the States of the Union.” Stanton immediately offered a second resolution that “the Governor of this State be . . . authorized to make contracts to ration and subsist the military forces of the State.”6
On May 6, the lawmakers drafted a “Declaration of Independence” and put it before Tennessee voters for approval on June 8. Stanton voted for the declaration; only four senators voted no.7 On May 9, Stanton, a member of the Joint Select Committee, signed a “Legislative Address to the People of Tennessee.”8
Stanton was now in sympathy with secession, and in the 1861 General Assembly he led the effort to align Tennessee with the Confederacy. On June 28, Tennessee accepted the “Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States.” Stanton also sponsored other measures related to establishing a military force for the state.9 The legislature presented Stanton with an engraved gold-headed cane in appreciation for his leadership in the body. Lt. Col. R. C. Sanders later said of his friend: “His prospects for success as a lawyer and a politician at the breaking out of the war were of the most flattering character.”10
In July, Sidney Stanton returned to the Upper Cumberland to pursue the Confederate cause in the military. At Livingston, he enlisted as a private in Company F, Twenty-fifth Tennessee Infantry. He recruited several companies of men from Putnam, Jackson, Overton, and White counties, totaling about eleven hundred “large, brave, and stalwart men.”11 In August, the regiment elected Stanton colonel instead of George Dibrell; Dibrell became lieutenant colonel.
The regiment trained for about three months at Camp Myers in Overton County until October 1861. The Twenty-fifth Tennessee skirmished with home guards and Federal troops along the Kentucky border, making one raid into Albany to capture arms and ammunition. This action was intended to provide safety for Overton County citizens, who were worried about attacks from the Federal troops in Kentucky.
The Twenty-fifth Regiment left Tennessee for Kentucky in October 1861, moving along the Tennessee-Kentucky border toward Camp Beech Grove near Mill Springs and Fishing Creek. Near Tompkinsville they burned camps of the home guards, “including Fraims, the Mud camps, the Moore camp, and the Burkesville camp, and also the Albany camp.”12 Gen. S. B. Buckner complimented Stanton on the actions of his regiment during the march: “Your dispatch is received and contains very satisfactory intelligence. Please compliment your troops on their good conduct. I doubt not, from the manner in which they have already borne themselves, that their campaign will be a successful one.”13
The unit was to be part of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston’s army. Johnston was recognized as one of the nation’s most capable generals, and Stanton was pleased to be under his command. Brig. Gen. Felix Zollicoifer requested control of the Twenty-fifth Tennessee, a move Stanton opposed. When Zollicoifer complained about Stanton’s fierce opposition, Stanton wrote Johnston asking for clarification regarding his status and the composition of his troops: “We are proud to be under your command and will cheerfully obey all your orders strictly. . . . I hope at least that if your last order (which I have not yet seen) does not define the nature and extent of my command, that you will soon forward to me such information in that regard as you may think proper.”14 The regiment had at this time about 683 men on duty, out of 949 on the regiment roll, and Zollicoifer desperately wanted such a force. He may have heard of the unit’s success on its march to Kentucky. The general was advised in November that Stanton would be under his command.
Stanton then complained to General Johnston that his regiment was ill equipped. He explained that his soldiers each had only about four rounds of cartridges: “It will be indispensably necessary that about 12,000 musket cartridges and 5, 000 rifle cartridges be sent at once from Nashville to my regiment. . . . We have no Government wagons at all and have to hire and press into the service ox and all other sorts of inferior teams.”15 In addition, the regiment had not been paid for months: “My regiment, although mustered into service more than three months ago, has not received a dime’s pay, neither officers nor privates, and their clothes (only one suit each) are well-night [sic] worn out (inferior at first). They have but one light, small blanket, each, weather getting cold, no money to clothe themselves with; . . . I hope you will see that they are soon to be visited with means of relief.”16
No record exists to indicate whether Stanton’s requests were satisfied, but, on November 15, the Twenty-fifth Tennessee Regiment arrived at Camp Beech Grove near Mill Springs, Kentucky. Two months later, the regiment was engaged in the Battle of Mill Springs (or Fishing Creek) against Gen. George Thomas’s ten-thousand-man army. On January 19, Gen. George Crittenden’s poorly equipped force of about sixty-five hundred troops attacked the larger Union force. Stanton’s regiment of General Zollicoffer’s brigade was in the first line of attack. Conditions were miserable. Poor visibility owing to the early hour and a driving rain along with inadequate training slowed the Confederate assault. Chaos and confusion reigned on the battlefield. The Confederate Fifteenth Mississippi Regiment mistook the Union Fourth Kentucky Regiment for a Rebel unit. General Zollicoffer also mistook the Fourth Kentucky for a Confederate outfit, and he was killed instantly by Union fire. Colonel Stanton suffered a severe wound in his arm, but he continued to lead the charge until Zollicoffer was killed. The Confederate left flank began to crumble with Zollicoffer’s death, and Stanton led a counterattack to gain time for the other forces to regroup and recover Zollicoffer’s body. By ten o’clock, the entire Confederate line had collapsed and fallen back to Camp Beech Grove, abandoning cannon, animals, food supplies, and wounded men. The dismal retreat under General Crittenden terminated in Gainesboro, Tennessee, eightyfive miles south. In addition to Stanton’s wounded arm, the Twenty-fifth Regiment had suffered fifty-five casualties; the entire Confederate army had about three hundred killed and wounded. Although Stanton and his men had acted courageously and fought bravely in their first major action, the results of their efforts were disheartening. The reasons for this Confederate disaster were numerous and are not the topic of this essay. Stanton’s reaction to this catastrophe is unknown, but the losses must have weighed heavily on him.
In February 1862, the Twenty-fifth Tennessee moved to Livingston, then to Murfreesboro. As the Battle of Shiloh was shaping up, Stanton’s regiment was ordered into Mississippi to guard a railroad out of Corinth. The Twenty-fifth took no direct part at Shiloh, the first major bloodbath of the western theater.
Mississippi was perhaps the low point of Stanton’s military career. In an engagement on Farmington Road on May 28, the Twenty-fifth Tennessee Regiment was under the command of Gen. Patrick Cleburne in Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard’s army. The Twenty-fifth was repeatedly ordered to advance in this action, but, according to Cleburne, Stanton failed to comply. Stanton suffered no disciplinary action except Cleburne’s rebuke.17 The regiment moved to Tupelo in the summer, and there Stanton engaged in a dispute with the brigade commander, Gen. John Marmaduke, concerning a matter of discipline. The details of the disagreement are not known, but Stanton was ordered to the rear by the general. Stanton’s fellow officer R. C. Sanders later said: “If he had a fault as a military man, . . . he was too kind-hearted to impose discipline upon his inferior officers and privates.”18 The altercation resulted in Stanton’s and Sanders’s resignations from the Twenty-fifth Tennessee Regiment.
Returning to his home in Tennessee, Stanton soon became restless. Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate army passed through White, Putnam, and Jackson counties on its way to Kentucky during the summer and autumn of 1862, prompting Stanton to act. In December, he went to McMinnville in Warren County to organize a new regiment, the Eightyfourth Tennessee Infantry. Men from Smith, Warren, DeKalb, Overton, and Putnam counties made up the unit. Lt. Col. R. C. Sanders and Capt. W. Gooch Smith, Stanton’s colleagues from the Twenty-fifth Tennessee, became his field officers in the Eighty-fourth. They had also resigned from the Twenty-fifth because of disagreements concerning discipline.
With very little training, the Eighty-fourth joined the Army of Tennessee on December 29 and became part of Gen. D. S. Donelson’s brigade. Within the next twelve hours, the Battle of Murfreesboro (Stones River) began. General Bragg’s outnumbered army was positioned on both sides of Stones River north of Murfreesboro. The Union general William S. Rosecrans’s sizable army was advancing south from Nashville. Stanton’s Eighty-fourth was positioned on the left flank of Bragg’s army west of the river, where the attack against Rosecrans would take place.
Preparing frantically for the conflict, Stanton “drilled the regiment all day Tuesday, on the field, under the enemy’s shells, and likewise Wednesday morning until the battle opened.”19 Because of its lack of training and experience, the Eighty-fourth acted in support of Captain Carnes’s battery during the battle; however, in the middle of combat, the unit was directed to support Colonel Savage’s Sixteenth Tennessee Regiment as it moved up to “the brick house.”
At one critical point in the battle, Confederate troops were driven behind Stanton’s regiment and began reforming. On receiving orders, Stanton moved forward to protect these units. He advanced some five hundred yards to a bend in the Stones River and halted on a bluff. Savage’s regiment and the Twelfth Tennessee joined him, and there they waited for orders. Stanton’s report indicated that his regiment “showed marked coolness and courage all the while, as they were under heavy shelling for a great portion of three days, and showed no fear or excitement. They kept good order and never scattered.”20 On the night of January 3, the Confederate army began withdrawing from Murfreesboro to assume strong positions along the Duck River.
Trouble once again visited Stanton after Murfreesboro. After the battle, he was ordered to the rear under arrest “on account of a personal difficulty or fight with a staff officer.”21 No additional details about this dispute are available, but this was the third altercation that Stanton had with a fellow officer. Lack of information prevents me from concluding any character traits or flaws of the colonel. Stanton was not disciplined after any of his three altercations, so we can conclude that none was serious.
Stanton rejoined his regiment, which was now in Shelbyville. The War Department ruled that the Eighty-fourth Regiment had been illegally organized, and, on March 8, 1863, the unit was consolidated with the Twenty-eighth Tennessee Regiment; Stanton was elected colonel of the consolidated regiment. Soldiers of the Twenty-eighth were men from Cumberland, Overton, Putnam, Wilson, Jackson, Smith, and White counties. The regiment had fought at Fishing Creek and Shiloh with Stanton’s Twenty-fifth Tennessee.
In the summer of 1863, the regiment moved to Chattanooga with General Bragg’s army. Bragg was forced out of Chattanooga in early September by General Rosecrans’s threatened envelopment of the city; then Bragg failed on three attempts to attack and defeat portions of Rosecrans’s army. By September 18, Rosecrans had concentrated his army on Chicamauga Creek south of Chattanooga. The Federals had about fifty-eight thousand troops positioned against about sixty-six thousand Confederates.
On September 19, Bragg attacked. Confederates, including Stanton’s regiment, crossed Chicamauga Creek in the morning and by noon were attacking the breastworks of the enemy: “My brave boys fired promptly at the command and moved forward a few paces, when they were ordered to fire and load lying down.” After an hour, the regiment retreated about fifty yards, then moved forward again. Observing that the Federals were moving on the left flank, the Twenty-eighth received orders to counter this advance: “By this last movement the men were more fully exposed to the deadly fire of the enemy, and we were ordered to retire.”22
Not reported by the colonel in his description of the battle to General Wright was an account of his own bravery. When the Twenty-eighth wavered and began its first retreat, Stanton “rushed to the front on horseback, seized the standard of the colors, and bearing them to the front, shouted for his men to follow, which they did in the most gallant manner, regaining the ground they had lost.”23 Stanton’s flag was “riddled with ball,” pierced more than thirty times. This addendum was signed by fourteen of Stanton’s officers. As a result of this report, Colonel Stanton was cited for unusual bravery by General Cheatham.
Chickamauga was a tactical victory for the Confederacy, but the cost was frightful. Bragg had lost at least 28 percent of his troops, with about eighteen thousand casualties in the two-day battle. Six of the Confederate brigade commanders were killed or wounded. Stanton’s regiment suffered a total loss of eighty-five—seventy wounded and fifteen dead.24
In November, the battle-hardened Twenty-eighth Tennessee was back in Chattanooga defending Missionary Ridge with Bragg’s army. Gen. U. S. Grant was in command of the Federal troops. On November 25, Grant’s troops moved in three sections against Bragg’s forty thousand men on the ridge. The Union general George Thomas’s troops in the center won the battle. Stanton’s regiment “received orders to take position on high hill below the bridges, . . . to hold said hill as long as possible.” The colonel did not report any action on that hill, and he received orders to evacuate about 11 P.M. In the retreat, Stanton was part of Gen. Lucius Polk’s brigade, which covered the withdrawal.25 Bragg lost sixty-seven thousand in the battle; Stanton had two or three slightly wounded. He commented that his men were “bold and fearless, willing to measure steel with the enemy.”26
The Army of Tennessee now began its long and bloody retreat toward Atlanta. The hurried, chaotic nature of the movement was indicated by the fact that Stanton was four months late writing his report on the Battle of Missionary Ridge. The regiment wintered in Dalton, Georgia, although it journeyed to Demopolis, Alabama, and Atlanta during that period.
Resaca was the first battle of General Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, and it was the last battle for Colonel Stanton. Sherman attacked Joseph Johnston’s troops near Resaca on May 14, 1864. The Oostanuala River was the point of contention in the battle. The crucial point was the Federals crossing the river near Calhoun, south of the Rebel forces.
Stanton’s regiment was in the heat of the battle. Capt. W. L. Woods was wounded, a ball entering his mouth and shattering one side of his jawbone. A ball entered below the right ear of Lieutenant Rogers and exited near his left eye. Both men lived to fight again. Stanton was not so lucky. On May 14, he was standing on a log directing a line of skirmishers when a piece of shell struck his head.27 His burial place is unknown, although the General Assembly directory lists the cemetery at “Colhoune” (Calhoun) as the site.28 Lt. George Dillon of the Eighteenth Tennessee Regiment noted that Stanton’s death was mourned by the entire army. Another of Stanton’s fellow officers commented: “It was a sad and depressing sight to see this good man and gallant soldier drop to his death.”29 About 450 other Confederates died in the battle.
During his long career in the Confederate military, Sidney Stanton fought in six major battles. He was always cited for bravery, never for cowardice or indecisiveness. Fourteen officers signed for him a commendation for bravery on the battlefield at Chickamauga. He was respected by the men in his commands, as he was by his peers in the officer corps. Stanton served in three regiments, and he was elected commanding colonel in each of them. He must have possessed a strong personality and leadership qualities that inspired confidence.
Although on three occasions he had altercations with fellow officers, he was not disciplined on any occasion. As noted above, these disputations were in the heat of battle, so they may have been misunderstandings. They also may indicate an independence of mind, a trait not encouraged in the military.
Sidney Smith Stanton, like thousands of other soldiers, never returned home after the Civil War. A promising political figure in the antebellum period, he was denied the opportunity to live the life he was supposed to live. Although it cannot be known what he might have accomplished had he survived the war, his political skills might have carried him far. Indeed, his political constituents had hoped that he would return to Tennessee after the war and run for governor. Stanton’s abilities are perhaps best summed up by his friend, Lt. Col. R. C. Sanders: “Col. Sidney Smith Stanton was a man of talent and genius not surpassed by any man in the state. . . . He possessed every quality of mind and soul necessary to endear him to the people—warmhearted and generous to a fault.”30
1. Richard F. Cooke, “Putnam County Survey Book, 1825–1839,” Survey No. 325, Survey No. 520, photocopy, Tennessee Room, Putnam County Library, Cookeville, Tenn.
2. Some have suggested that Stanton’s home was in Putnam or Smith County, but he represented Jackson County in the House and Jackson, Macon, and White counties in the Senate. So he lived in Jackson County. His family is listed in Jackson County in the 1860 census.
3. Earnest H. Boyd, “Col. Sidney S. Stanton,” special to the Nashville Banner, n.d., available through the Nashville public library.
4. After Cullom was defeated by Savage in the election, he was appointed clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. Cullom invited Stanton to accompany him to Washington as his assistant. There Stanton learned valuable lessons in politics, oratory, and lawmaking.
5. Republican Banner and Nashville Whig, April 14, 1861. This was the same day that the firing on Fort Sumter was reported in the newspaper.
6. Senate Journal of the Second Extra Session of the 33rd General Assembly (1861), 14, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.
7. Republican Banner and Nashville Whig, May 8, 1861. The Banner reported a meeting in Jackson County on April 27 that had commended Senator Stanton and Representative Kenner for “their devotion to Southern rights” (Republican Banner and Nashville Whig, May 4, 1861).
8. Senate Journal, 83–91.
9. Ibid., 75, 156–57.
10. R. C. Sanders, “Twenty-fifth Tennessee Infantry,” in Military Annals of Tennessee: Confederate, First Series, Embracing a Review of Military Operations, with Regimental Histories and Memorial Rolls, ed. John B. Lindsley (Nashville: J. M. Lindsley, 1886), 406.
11. Ibid., 401.
12. U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861–1865 (hereafter cited as OR), 70 vols. in 128 pts. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), ser. 1, vol. 52, pt. 2, pp. 182–83.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Tennesseans in the Civil War: A Military History of Confederate and Union Units with Available Rosters of Personnel, 2 vols. (Nashville: Civil War Centennial Commission, 1964–1965), 1:227.
18. Sanders, “Twenty-fifth Tennessee Infantry,” 406. Sanders, Stanton’s lieutenant colonel, said that Stanton was “entirely exculpated from the charges” of Marmaduke. Ibid., 405.
19. OR, ser. 1, vol. 20, pt. 1, pp. 720–21.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. OR, ser. 1, vol. 30, pt. 2, pp. 125–27.
23. Ibid., 80, 125–27.
24. Maj. W. G. Smith reported a loss of 230 men killed and wounded. Smith “received a severe shock from the bursting of a shell, his horse being shot from under him.” See Military Annals of Tennessee, 430.
25. OR, ser. 1, vol. 31, pt. 2, pp. 714–15.
26. Ibid.
27. 1st Lt. Spencer B. Talley, Twenty-eighth Regiment, “Memoirs, from Dalton to Atlanta,” pt. 4, www.tennessee-scv.org/talleyA.html. Lieutenant Colonel Sanders said that Stanton “was shot through the breast and fell dead upon the field.” See Military Annals of Tennessee, 405.
28. Robert M. McBride and Dan M. Robison, Biographical Directory of the Tennessee General Assembly, 6 vols. (Nashville: Tennessee State Library and Archives, 1975–1991), 1:694. Lieutenant Colonel Sanders agreed that Stanton “was buried in the cemetery at Calhoun, Georgia.” See Military Annals of Tennessee, 405. It has also been suggested that he was buried in Resaca or Griffin, Georgia. His widow was reportedly too impoverished to bring his body back to Tennessee. His son Sidney Saunders traveled to Resaca in 1917 looking for his father’s grave but could not find it.
29. Talley, “Memoirs, from Dalton to Atlanta.”
30. Sanders, “Twenty-fifth Tennessee Infantry,” 405–6. Martha Apple Stanton remarried John C. Smith. She died in 1905 at age sixty-nine and is buried in the Granville Cemetery. One of the three Stanton children, Sidney Saunders was raised by the colonel’s brother Layton. Sidney Saunders became a well-known and respected merchant in Cookeville. He died in 1932. Little is known of the other children, Bascom and Alma.