Civil War History

Although he never achieved the fame of a Winfield Scott Hancock or Dan Sickles, Samuel P. Heintzelman is a familiar name to students of the Civil War, for in addition to his having been one of the Army of the Potomac’s original corps commanders and played a significant role in two major campaigns in Virginia in 1862, his journals have long been valuable sources of information for researchers. Unfortunately, as is the case with nearly all of the Army of the Potomac’s original corps commanders, for over 140 years no historian deemed Heintzelman worthy of study in his own right. Jerry Thompson’s thorough and impressive Civil War to the Bloody End not only effectively fills this void in Civil War military history but offers much of value to students of the antebellum army and Reconstruction as well.

Of course, it was the Civil War that made Heintzelman a subject worthy of a major biography. After a solid performance as a division commander at First Manassas, Heintzelman found himself subordinate to George McClellan, who had not even been born when Heintzelman graduated from West Point, and outside the clique of officers the “Young Napoleon” relied on as he built the Army of the Potomac and formulated strategy. That Heintzelman resented this is understandable. Not only was he senior to McClellan in the antebellum army, but, as Thompson ably documents, he [End Page 427] had compiled a fairly impressive record of service prior to 1861. Although he missed the major campaigns of the Mexican War, Heintzelman performed important duties in southern California afterward and provided notable leadership to U.S. operations during the Cortina War of 1859–60. Utilizing the general’s journals, as well as an impressive range of other primary and secondary sources, Thompson effectively chronicles these activities, as well as Heintzelman’s ambition for an independent command and his resentment of McClellan during the Civil War, the ways Radical Republicans tried to use him in their efforts to undermine “Little Mac,” and the emergence of divisions within the Army of the Potomac that would plague its history.

After being imposed on McClellan as commander of the Third Corps, Heintzelman led that unit through the Peninsula campaign, turning in solid performances at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, and in the Seven Days Battles while doing little to hinder the emergence of his corps as a bastion of anti-McClellan sentiment within the Army of the Potomac. After his corps took a severe beating during the Second Manassas campaign, it was retained within the Washington defenses during the Maryland campaign, at which point Heintzelman faded from center stage. As he does with Heintzelman’s active military career, Thompson provides exceptionally informative accounts of the general’s activities after he was kicked upstairs to command the Department of Washington and of his later service as commander of the Northern Department, where his duties mainly consisted of keeping watch over prison camps and monitoring Copperhead activity in the Midwest. Thompson then follows Heintzelman through his postwar military career, in which his most notable service came in Texas, where he had the opportunity to see and deal firsthand with the problems of Reconstruction.

Given the range and importance of his experiences before, during, and after the Civil War, and the fact that his journals provide plenty of material to work with, it is a bit surprising that it has taken so long for Heintzelman to be the subject of a full-scale biography. Thompson, however, has made it worth the wait. His research is thorough and careful, his arguments are persuasive, his prose is clear and compelling, and the text is effectively supplemented with maps, photos, and other images that are clear and useful.

The past decade has been an enjoyable one for anyone with an interest in the officer corps of the Army of the Potomac. Long...