Don Carlos Buell

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Don Carlos Buell (March 23, 1818 – November 19, 1898) was a United States Army officer who fought in the Seminole War, the Mexican-American War, and the American Civil War. Buell led Union armies in two great Civil War battles—Shiloh and Perryville. The nation was angry at his failure to defeat the outnumbered Confederates after Perryville, or to secure East Tennessee. Historians concur that he was brave and industrious, and a master of logistics, but was too cautious and too rigid to meet the great challenges he faced in 1862. Buell was relieved of field command in late 1862 and made no more significant military contributions.

Antebellum

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Service Record

December 26, 1860 - April 14, 1861: Operations in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina Dispatches
At the outbreak of the war, Don Buell was an Assistant Adjutant General in the Engineer Department of the United States Army


These dispatches were compiled with primary source materials from The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Chapter 1)

CONTENTS

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(US Maj) Robert Anderson
  • At the outbreak of the war, Robert Anderson Major in the United States Army commanding two half-full companies of United States Artillery troops.
To Buell: From Buell:
December 11, 1860 - Asst. Adj. Gen. Don Buell to Major Robert Anderson

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Union Correspondence, etc.

FORT MOULTRIE, S.C.,
December 11, 1860.

Memorandum of verbal instructions to Major Anderson, First Artillery, commanding at Fort Moultrie, S.C.

You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a collision of the troops with the people of this State shall be avoided, and of his studied determination to pursue a course with reference to the military force and forts in this harbor which shall guard against such a collision. He has therefore carefully abstained from increasing the force at this point, or taking any measures which might add to the present excited state of the public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt, by violence, to obtain possession of the public works or interfere with their occupancy. But as the counsel and acts of rash and impulsive persons may possibly disappoint those expectations of the Government, he deems it proper that you should be prepared with instructions to meet so unhappy a contingency. He has therefore directed me verbally to give you such instructions.[1]

You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly tend to provoke aggression; and for that treason you are not, without evident and imminent necessity, to take up any position which could be construed into the assumption of a hostile attitude. But you are to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on or attempt to take possession of any one of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.

D.C. BUELL,
Assistant Adjutant-General.


(To view this page in its Source Category, click HERE for Part 1 and HERE for Part 2)


Post-War Career

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Family

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Notes


Sources