Civil War & Indian Campaigns
Shafter served as a 1st lieutenant the Union Army's 7th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment at the battles of Ball's Bluff and Fair Oaks. He was wounded at the Battle of Fair Oaks and later received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the battle. He led a charge on the first day of the battle and was wounded towards the close of that day's fighting. In order to stay with his regiment he concealed his wounds, fighting on the second day of the battle. On August 22, 1862 he was mustered out of the volunteer service but returned to the field as major in the 19th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was captured at the Battle of Thompson's Station and spent 3 months in a Confederate prison. In April 1864 after his release he was appointed colonel of the 17th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops and led the regiment at the Battle of Nashville.
By the end of the war, he had been promoted to brevet brigadier general of volunteers. He stayed in the regular army when the war ended. During his subsequent service in the Indian Wars, he received his nickname "Pecos Bill". He led the 24th Infantry, another United States Colored Troops regiment, in campaigns against the Cheyenne, Comanche, Kickapoo and Kiowa Indians in Texas. While commander of Fort Davis, he started a controversial court-martial of second lieutenant Henry Flipper, the first black cadet to graduate from West Point. In May 1897 he was appointed as a brigadier general.
Read more about this topic: William Rufus Shafter
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war, indian and/or campaigns:
“Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garages earthquake.”
—Robert Lowell (19171977)
“If we love-and-serve an ideal we reach backward in time to its inception and forward to its consummation. To grow is sometimes to hurt; but who would return to smallness?”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 3 (1962)
“Bernstein: Girls delightful in Cuba stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery but dont feel right spending your money stop. There is no war in Cuba. Signed Wheeler. Any answer?
Charles Foster Kane: YesDear Wheeler, You provide the prose poems, Ill provide the war.”
—Orson Welles (19151985)
“There is no difference between the client and the prostitute. If a man goes to a prostitute, he is also a prostitute.”
—Sister Michele, Indian nun. As quoted in the New York Times Magazine, p. 35 (January 16, 1994)
“That food has always been, and will continue to be, the basis for one of our greater snobbisms does not explain the fact that the attitude toward the food choice of others is becoming more and more heatedly exclusive until it may well turn into one of those forms of bigotry against which gallant little committees are constantly planning campaigns in the cause of justice and decency.”
—Cornelia Otis Skinner (19011979)