79 Facts About William Rosecrans

William Starke Rosecrans was an American inventor, coal-oil company executive, diplomat, politician, and US Army officer.

William Rosecrans gained fame for his role as a Union general during the American Civil War.

William Rosecrans was the victor at prominent Western Theater battles, but his military career was effectively ended following his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.

William Starke Rosecrans was born on a farm near Little Taylor Run in Kingston Township, Delaware County, Ohio, the second of five sons of Crandall Rosecrans and Jemima Hopkins.

William Rosecrans was descended from the Dutch-Scandinavian nobleman Harmon Henrik Rosenkrantz, who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1651, but the family name changed spelling during the American Revolutionary War.

William Rosecrans's mother was the widow of Timothy Hopkins, a relative of Stephen Hopkins, the Colonial Governor of Rhode Island and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

William Rosecrans had little formal education in his early years, relying heavily on reading books.

Unable to afford college, William Rosecrans decided to try for an appointment to the United States Military Academy.

William Rosecrans interviewed with Congressman Alexander Harper, who had been reserving his appointment for his own son, but Harper was so impressed by Rosecrans that he nominated him instead.

William Rosecrans was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the prestigious Corps of Engineers, reflecting his high academic achievement.

William Rosecrans wrote about this decision to his family, who had raised him in the Methodist faith, which inspired the youngest of his brothers, Sylvester Horton Rosecrans, to convert as well.

William Rosecrans applied for a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute in 1851, losing the position to fellow West Pointer Thomas J Jackson.

William Rosecrans suffered a period of failing health and resigned from the Army in 1854, moving into civilian fields.

William Rosecrans took over a mining business in Western Virginia and ran it extremely successfully.

William Rosecrans designed and installed one of the first complete lock and dam systems in Western Virginia on the Coal River; today recognized as the Coal River Locks, Dams, and Log Booms Archeological District.

William Rosecrans obtained patents for many inventions, including the first kerosene lamp to successfully burn a round wick and a more effective method of manufacturing soap.

William Rosecrans was promoted to brigadier general in the regular army, ranking from May 16,1861.

William Rosecrans was esteemed in the South as one of the best generals the North had in the field.

William Rosecrans then prevented, by "much maneuvering but little fighting," Confederate Brig.

McClellan agreed, and William Rosecrans assumed command of what was to become the Department of Western Virginia.

In late 1861, William Rosecrans planned for a winter campaign to capture the strategic town of Winchester, Virginia, turning the Confederate flank at Manassas.

McClellan disapproved telling William Rosecrans that putting 20,000 Union men into Winchester would be countered by Confederates moving an equal number into the vicinity.

William Rosecrans transferred 20,000 of Rosecrans's 22,000 men to serve under Brig.

William Rosecrans served briefly in Washington, where his opinions clashed with those of newly appointed Secretary of War Edwin M Stanton on tactics and Union command organization for the Shenandoah Valley campaign against Stonewall Jackson.

One of Stanton's assignments for William Rosecrans was to act as a guide for Brig.

Louis Blenker's division in the valley, and William Rosecrans became intimately involved in the political and command confusion in the campaign against Jackson in the Valley.

William Rosecrans was transferred in May 1862 to the Western Theater and received the command of two divisions of Maj.

William Rosecrans took an active part in the siege of Corinth under Maj.

Grant did not wait to be attacked, approving a plan proposed by William Rosecrans to converge on Price with two columns before Van Dorn could reinforce him.

William Rosecrans was concerned that if he used both roads, the two halves of his divided force could not support each other if the Confederates attacked.

Some rumors circulated that the reason Ord's column had not attacked in conjunction with William Rosecrans was not that the battle had been inaudible, but that Grant had been drunk and incompetent.

Grant sent word to William Rosecrans to be prepared for an attack, but despite the warning, William Rosecrans was not convinced that Corinth was necessarily the target of Van Dorn's advance.

William Rosecrans believed that the Confederate commander would not be foolhardy enough to attack the fortified town and might well instead choose to strike the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and maneuver the Federals out of their position.

Van Dorn began his assault at 10 am as a planned double envelopment, in which he would open the fight on William Rosecrans's left, in the hope that William Rosecrans would weaken his right to reinforce his left, at which time Price would make the main assault against the Federal right and enter the works.

William Rosecrans had been driven back at all points, and night found his entire army, except pickets, inside the redoubts.

William Rosecrans had failed to anticipate the enemy's action, put little more than half his troops into the battle, and called on his men to fight on ground they could not possibly hold.

William Rosecrans had sent a series of confusing and unrealistic orders to his division commanders and had done nothing to coordinate their activities, while he personally remained safely back in Corinth.

William Rosecrans was in the thick of battle, but his presence was hardly inspiring.

William Rosecrans found that he was a hero in the Northern press.

William Rosecrans was promoted to the rank of major general.

Grant was not unhappy that William Rosecrans was leaving his command.

William Rosecrans was known to his men as "Old Rosy", not only because of his last name, but because of his large red nose, which was described as "intensified Roman".

William Rosecrans could swing swiftly from bristling anger to good-natured amusement, which endeared him to his men.

William Rosecrans personally rallied his men along the line, and gave direct orders to any brigades, regiments or companies he encountered.

William Rosecrans stemmed the tide of retreat, hurried brigades and divisions to the point of danger, massed artillery, infused into them his own dauntless spirit, and out of defeat itself, fashioned the weapons of victory.

William Rosecrans received numerous entreaties from President Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton, and General-in-Chief Halleck to resume campaigning against Bragg, but rebuffed them through the winter and spring.

The Tullahoma Campaign was characterized by flawless maneuvers and very low casualties, as William Rosecrans forced Bragg to retreat back to Chattanooga.

When William Rosecrans' troops entered Shelbyville, they were able to rescue captured Union spy Pauline Cushman.

William Rosecrans's rescue came just three days prior to her scheduled execution.

In contrast, Rosecrans had approved the courtmartial and hanging of two Confederate Officers, Lawrence Orton Williams and Walter Peters, on June 9,1863, at Franklin Tenn after these two officers had disguised themselves as Union Officers for the purposes of spying.

William Rosecrans did not receive all of the public acclaim his campaign might have under different circumstances.

William Rosecrans did not immediately pursue Bragg and "give the finishing blow to the rebellion" as Stanton had urged.

William Rosecrans paused to regroup and study the logistically difficult choices of pursuit into the mountainous regions to the west and south of Chattanooga.

William Rosecrans threw aside his previous caution under the assumption that Bragg would continue to retreat and began to pursue with his army over three routes that left his corps commanders dangerously far apart.

William Rosecrans decided to proceed in haste to Chattanooga in order to organize his returning men and the city defenses.

Thomas urged William Rosecrans to rejoin the army and lead it, but William Rosecrans, physically exhausted and psychologically a beaten man, remained in Chattanooga.

Whether he did or did not know that Thomas still held the field, it was a catastrophe that William Rosecrans did not himself ride to Thomas, and send Garfield to Chattanooga.

William Rosecrans came into my car and we held a brief interview, in which he described very clearly the situation at Chattanooga, and made some excellent suggestions as to what should be done.

William Rosecrans was sent to Cincinnati to await further orders, but ultimately he would play no further large part in the fighting.

William Rosecrans was given command of the Department of Missouri from January to December 1864, when he was active in opposing Sterling Price's Missouri raid.

Friends of Rosecrans speculated that Edwin M Stanton, Secretary of War, intercepted and suppressed it.

William Rosecrans was mustered out of the US volunteer service on January 15,1866.

William Rosecrans resigned from the regular army on March 28,1867.

From 1868 to 1869, William Rosecrans served as US Minister to Mexico, but was replaced after just five months when his old nemesis, Ulysses Grant, became president.

William Rosecrans then became interested in civil administration and wrote a book, Popular Government, with a former newspaperman, Josiah Riley, which advocated registration and voting reforms.

William Rosecrans was approached by various political parties to run for high office: Governor of Ohio ; governor of California ; governor of Ohio ; USRepresentative from Nevada.

In 1869, William Rosecrans bought 16,000 acres of Rancho San Pedro in the Los Angeles basin for $2.50 per acre, a low price possibly because the land was deemed worthless for lack of a spring for water.

The ranch, dubbed "William Rosecrans Rancho", was bordered by what later was Florence Avenue on the north, Redondo Beach Boulevard on the south, Central Avenue on the east, and Arlington Avenue on the west.

In 1880, William Rosecrans was elected US Representative as a Democrat from California's 1st congressional district.

William Rosecrans was distressed to see that Garfield's campaign literature played up his role in the war at William Rosecrans's expense.

William Rosecrans was reelected in 1882 and became the chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee, a position in which he publicly opposed a bill that would provide a pension to former President Grant and his wife.

William Rosecrans served as a Regent of the University of California in 1884 and 1885.

Newspaper stories circulated that William Rosecrans was under serious consideration to be appointed his Secretary of War, but he was appointed instead as the Register of the Treasury, serving from 1885 to 1893.

William Rosecrans spoke at a grand reunion of veterans at the Chickamauga battlefield on September 19,1889, delivering a moving address praising national reconciliation.

In February 1898, William Rosecrans suffered from a cold that turned into pneumonia, but appeared to recover successfully.

William Rosecrans was seized with grief and his health failed precipitously.

William Rosecrans died on March 11,1898, at Rancho Sausal Redondo, Redondo Beach, California.

William Rosecrans's casket lay in state in Los Angeles City Hall, covered by the headquarters flag that flew over Stones River and Chickamauga.

William Rosecrans was the first colonel of the regiment to which I belonged, my boyhood ideal of a great soldier, and I gladly pay him tribute.