Reveille in Washington, 1860 - 1865 by Margaret Leech

[David Lockmiller]

Margaret Kernochan Leech (November 7, 1893 – February 24, 1974), also known as Margaret Pulitzer (she married the son of Joseph Pulitzer), was an American historian and fiction writer. She won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1942 (Reveille in Washington, Harper) (first woman to win for history).

She was born in Newburgh, New York, obtained a B.A. from Vassar College in 1915, and worked for fund-raising organizations during World War I, including the American Committee for Devastated France. After the war, she became friendly with members of the Algonquin Round Table, including critic-raconteur Alexander Woollcott. She was an associate of some of the wittiest and most brilliant men and women of literature that spent time at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan.

As stated on a previous thread, I came across her book because of her support of the theory that President Lincoln did appear before the Committee on the Conduct of the War in defense of his wife, Mary Lincoln, on possible charges of treason.

I have added this thread because in reading the first few pages of her book, I came upon an observation of great historical importance in one paragraph of which I had not heretofore been acutely aware (I knew in general, but not in detail the basis for Southern officers dominance in the Army prior to the Civil War).

[I]n the twenty years of [Lieutenant General] Scott's command he had shown a marked partiality for advancing Southern officers. To favor gentlemen from the slave States, with their marital spirit and their "habit of command," had been as natural to the old Virginian as a daily perusal of the Richmond Enquirer. Of the six Army departments, only the Department of the East was commanded by a Northerner, General John E. Wool. The five Western departments, in which the mass of the Army was stationed, were all headed by officers of Southern birth. Scott found the "Southern rascals" not only meritorious, but congenial. The only Northern aide on his staff was his military secretary, Lieutenant-Colonel E. D. Keyes, and the appointment had been offered to a Virginian, Colonel Robert E. Lee. Since the nation's political destinies had long been controlled by the statesmen of the slave States, there had been no interference with the General's predilections. For twelve years, the War Department patronage had been in Southern hands. A Southern clique ruled the Army, and many ambitious Northerners who had shown promise at West Point -- Halleck, McClellan, Hooker, Burnside, Sherman, Rosecrans -- had felt sufficiently discouraged to resign their commissions and return to civil life.




I presume that the author Margaret Leech left out any reference to Grant because he was not a top student at the Academy and he had served as a quartermaster in the Mexican War and thus had no positive opportunity to demonstrate his skills as a military leader.