Posted on 09/23/2004 11:55:07 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- Gen. John Buford's bravery at the battle of Gettysburg was little noted nor long remembered in his native Kentucky.
"He is one of those all but forgotten heroes," said John Trowbridge, director of the Kentucky Military Museum in Frankfort. "But we would never have won the battle without Buford's quick thinking and quick action on the first day."
Rebel infantry outnumbered and outgunned Buford's Yankee cavalry. Even so, the horsemen in blue stalled the Confederates long enough for Gen. George G. Meade's Union Army of the Potomac to organize a defense and ultimately to win the Civil War's bloodiest battle.
A bronze statue at Gettysburg National Military Park commemorates Buford's stand. "There are no monuments to John Buford in Kentucky that I know of," Trowbridge said.
Buford was born near Versailles, Ky., the Woodford County seat, in 1826. A state historic marker in Versailles names Buford and five other county natives who were Civil War generals. "It is amazing that six could come from one small county," Trowbridge said.
A pair of generals on the marker were Buford kin. His half brother, Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, also fought for the Union. Their cousin, Gen. Abraham Buford, donned Rebel gray.
John Buford moved with his parents to Rock Island, Ill., in the 1840s. He graduated from West Point in 1848.
The mustachioed, pipe-puffing Buford had little use for fancy uniforms and military spit and polish. "He don't put on so much style as most officers," one of his men said.
Though popular with his own troops, Buford was tough on the enemy. He hanged a Confederate guerrilla to a tree with a sign that warned, "This man to hang three days; he who cuts him down before shall hang the remaining time."
At Gettysburg, Buford's 2,700 horse soldiers were the first Yankees to make contact with Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. They galloped into town on the evening of June 30 in time to skirmish with some of Lee's advance units. Buford correctly figured the whole Southern army would attack the next day.
On the morning of July 1, Buford deployed his men on high ground west of Gettysburg. More than 7,000 Rebels assaulted Buford's dismounted troopers around 9 a.m. "The two lines became hotly engaged, we having the advantage of position, he of numbers," the general reported.
His soldiers held on until Gen. John F. Reynolds' infantry arrived around midmorning. The Union troops fell back through Gettysburg to higher ground, including Cemetery Ridge, where the Yankees stopped Gen. George Pickett's storied charge on July 3 and won the battle.
Buford, who was badly wounded and left for dead after the 1862 battle of Second Bull Run, Va., did not survive the Civil War. The general succumbed to typhoid fever on December 16, 1863, and was buried at West Point.
Buford, described by a Yankee colonel as "decidedly the best cavalry general" in the Army of the Potomac, was featured in "Gettysburg," the 1994 movie and TV miniseries. Sam Elliott sported a Buford-style mustache in portraying the Kentucky general who, according to the colonel, could "always be relied on in any emergency."
That, FRiend, is the most dangerous thing you could have said.
And you're thin-skinned like Kerry, too, and speak in non-sequiturs.
Amazing.
I'm scared. Ping who you want if you can't fight your own battles.
So, someone who emulates a bigoted leader from a lost cause, is better?
Classic example of the headline not really relating to the points made in the actual article.
Where did I say I emulate him?
I admire his military genius, particularly since he didn't have any formal military training.
Later great generals like Patton and Rommel both considered his tactics and strategies to be required reading.
Ghengis Khan was a great military mind.
So was Xerxes, and Nebachadnezzar.
Alexander the Great was a great military mind, Atilla the Hun, Julius Caesar, Sparticus, and Wellington.
You sound like someone who is very bitter about history.
Like a certain rumored dead muslim who mourned for Moorish Spain and had a certain gleeful interest in certain dates in history and their significance with muslim history.
Statements like yours can be aimed at anyone.
Think a little beforehand please.
It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand.
You seem to have stumbled into the wrong forum, sir.
And knock off the attacks on Old Sarge.
This is not the place to interject causes of the war, racist comments, or anything of the like. Drop the white sheet stuff, others have gotten banned for that in the past.
Burgoyne had been an excellent general once.
I do believe he attacked me, sir.
Hmm now?
I have no problem with respecting NB Forrest's skill as a military man. Nevertheless, the founding of a fortune based on the selling of fellow humans speaks more to me of his human nature than public platitudes late in his life.
Maybe he did repent his sins, but unless he made recompense to every human he sold on the auction block, that repentance was sorely late and lacking.
You're on your own on this one.......:^)
How does objectively admiring a brilliant strategist for being a brilliant strategist make me "bitter about history?"
Post 11 started the attack. Repairman made a legitimate observation in post 2.
Thank you, sir.
You are probably also know that Grant, as president, sent Mosby to China on a diplomatic mission.
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