In the past four posts, I’ve been profiling members of the Biddle
family, the clan of Philadelphia bluebloods who had their meaty paws all over
the Army of the Potomac. You’re probably getting tired of them. Well, guess
what? I’m not. We have two more to go! Today, we are going to discuss one of
the sillier Biddles, probably the least impressive, nay, the biggest bumbler of
the whole brood. Where did he serve? You guessed it! He was on the staff of
Major General George Meade!
James Cornell Biddle was born on October 3, 1835. He was among the
first Philadelphians to go to war. On April 25, 1861, Biddle mustered in as a
private in the 17th Pennsylvania Infantry, the first Philadelphia
regiment to reach the front. Biddle’s first campaign wasn’t terribly
interesting. The 17th Pennsylvania arrived in in Washington, D.C., on
May 10, 1861, and for a time, it encamped in the Senate building. In fact, Biddle
actually used the Vice President’s desk as a place to store his personal items!
(Yeah, weird.) Later on, the 17th Pennsylvania—and Biddle with it—moved to a
position along the upper Potomac where the soldiers served as sentries at important crossing points. On June 17, two companies had a small skirmish with
Confederates at Edward’s Ferry. That was the regiment’s only engagement. After three months of service, the 17th Pennsylvania mustered out on August
2.
As the scion of a prominent family, Biddle decided he couldn’t go back
to the army without officer’s bars. Using his family’s influence, he acquired a
first lieutenancy from Governor Andrew Curtin, who appointed him to Company A,
27th Pennsylvania, a troubled unit that had been cursed with several
resignations from disenchanted officers. The 27th Pennsylvania
participated in the spring offensive in the Shenandoah Valley, but on July 8,
1862, Biddle left his regiment to assume a position as aide-de-camp for Brig. Gen. Thomas R. Williams. (If any of you have ever read The Civil War Diary of Sarah Morgan, then you know that Biddle—while acting on General Williams’s orders—made a few appearances at Sarah Morgan’s house.) On November 5, 1863, Biddle was raised to the rank of major and served as an aide for Major
General George Meade. Biddle stayed with Meade throughout his army career,
rising to the rank of brevet lieutenant colonel. Meade’s wartime letters
frequently referred to him as “Major Jim Biddle,” and the two men seem to have
been close—or as close as the cantankerous General Meade would allow.
However, you shouldn’t judge Biddle by Meade’s letters. They ignored the fact that Biddle was a hard man to
like. He possessed something of a clownish arrogance that put off many
associates. Biddle was easily flustered, self-absorbed, and even a little
dimwitted. Meade’s precocious aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Lyman, vividly
described the peculiarities of Biddle’s personality in his private letters. Rarely did Lyman have
anything nice to say. He called Biddle a “bettyish sort of man, with no
fragment of tact.” If Lyman’s stories are to be believed, Biddle was often the author of
his own troubles. “Poor Biddle!” Lyman exclaimed, “I always begin his name with
‘poor.’ . . . If there is a wrong road he’s sure to take it.”
Sure enough, Biddle took plenty of wrong roads. His intuition tended to fail him. For instance, in early October 1864, when the Army of the Potomac was laying siege to Petersburg, Biddle received instructions to inspect the earthworks of the 2nd Corps and check the placement of the pickets. Because of the intensity of enemy fire in that sector, most officers went on foot and ducked their way to the picket line, but Biddle, lacking the clairvoyance of the other staff officers, decided to inspect the works on horseback. His decision nearly cost him his life. Lyman wrote, “in consequence, the whole [Confederate] skirmish line opened on him, and he returned, after his inspection, quite gasping with excitement. As he was not hit, it was very funny.”
Other encounters involving Biddle involved less life-threatening
situations. Biddle seemed to have no sense of how to judge the intentions of
his commander, General Meade. One day, Biddle tried to stop the headquarters
staff from encamping in a sandy area, not realizing that Meade had selected the
area for a tactical purpose. Not wanting to have sand blown in his face all
day, Biddle tried to convince Meade to camp elsewhere. A timid man, Biddle
interjected, “Ah, aw, hem, aw General, they are going to pitch camp in a very
sandy, bad place, sir; you will not be at all comfortable, and there is a nice
grassy—” General Meade couldn’t stand hearing an aide countermand his order. He
interrupted, shrieking, “Major Biddle!!!” and followed with a volley of oaths
and imprecations, chastising Biddle for his unbidden advice.
Instead of adapting to Meade’s non-specific (and exceedingly dyspeptic)
personality, Biddle merely increased his complaining. For instance, when Meade
mounted up and left headquarters one morning, few of the staff were ready for it. They
had to cease their camp activities and follow their chief down the road, like
it or not. Biddle whined the entire way. He came trotting along, “like a
spinster who had lost her lap dog,” as Lyman eloquently described it, complaining
that he had not had any breakfast. Biddle lamented, “Well, I do think it is too
bad! The General never tells anyone when he is going out, and here I am with no
breakfast—no breakfast at all!” To emphasize the point, Biddle held up a boiled
egg, the only food he had managed to grab from the table before mounting his
horse. Lyman laughed. It seemed ludicrous to imagine a general’s aide galloping
across the Virginia countryside with egg in one hand and reins in the other.
Easily, Biddle’s most awkward moment came when he lost a pack of
expensive cigars. On October 17, 1864, an entourage of politicians—including
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton—came to visit General Ulysses S. Grant’s
headquarters at City Point. As you might expect, Grant had purchased a box of exceptional
Cuban cigars for the occasion, and entrusted them to Meade for safe-keeping. (As
it happened, Stanton decided to leave early and never smoked the cigars,
prompted by Grant’s offer to take him to Fort Wadsworth, which was close to the
enemy line.) Meade, in turn, gave the cigars to Biddle, telling him to “take
charge of the cigars, for the present.”
For whatever reason, Biddle thought Meade had given the cigars as a
gift. (I’m not sure how anyone would assume that Grant—who adored cigars—would
just want them given to a staff officer, but I guess that was the mystery
of Biddle.) Theodore Lyman explained it this way: “Now B[iddle] has few equals
in the power of turning things end for end; and so he at once clearly
understood that he [was] made a sort of almoner of tobacco, and proceeded to
distribute the cigars in the most liberal manner, to everybody who would either
smoke them or pocket them! The staff and bystanders asked no questions but
puffed away at Grant’s prime Havanas.”
Naturally, this set the stage for a comical misunderstanding. Later
that evening, General Grant returned to City Point, most of the politicians
having left the area by then. He turned to the senior Union naval commander, Admiral
David Dixon Porter, saying, “I think now is the moment to enjoy those good
cigars!” Grant dispatched his servant, Shaw, to head back to Meade and claim
the box. Shaw knew that Meade had entrusted the cigars to Major Biddle, so he politely
asked the befuddled major where he might find them. Biddle turned white. They were all gone! Biddle had given
them away and none were left. Lyman, the officer who narrated the event, never
explained the outcome, but ended the story as if it were a play. “And the
curtain dropped, . . .” he wrote. Naturally, we are left to imagine Biddle
hemming and hawing his explanation to General Grant: “Aw, hem, ah, yes, yes, General,
the cigars! Where are those cigars? Aw, yes, that’s a good question. . . .”
Biddle died November 2, 1898. So Grant didn’t kill him, if that’s what
you were wondering.
 |
| At left is the cigar-thief, Major James C. Biddle. At right is his foil, Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman. |
No comments:
Post a Comment