b'General William S. McCaskeyParticipant and Witness to HistoryPART 1 By Alan RockmanO n a deceptively chillyThe man\'s name was William Spencer McCaskey, and it isby the militia Dakota morning inhigh time to set the record straight. bug and around early July 1876, threethe same time he grim-faced men strodeWilliam Spencer McCaskey was born on October 2, 1843,went to work for the third son of a prominent Lancaster, Pennsylvaniathe Examiner and silently up the hill at Fortfarming family that would eventually bear seven children,Herald and he had Abraham Lincoln towardsone of whom, William\'s elder brother and lifelong bestalso joined up with a large white house in thefriend John Piersol, also known as "J.P." or Jack wouldthe local Lancaster center of the fort. Two of them wore the blueeventually become the mayor of Lancaster. (Farioli, DennisFencibles. Perhaps and Nichols, Ron, Last Man Standing: William SpencerMcCaskey didn\'t regulation uniform of officers in the United StatesMcCaskey (self-published? 2014, pp. 5-6). Lancaster,think much of it at first or associate it with future glory, but Army, and the third dressed in surgeon\'s garb.the center of the Pennsylvania Dutch, had, by the 1850sby the time the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, just as They had just received word that Colonel Georgebecome one of the most important communities in ahe turned 17 1/2, he knew that the countless marches and Armstrong Custer and 212 of his immediategrowing America, a hub of manufacturing. The Kentuckydrills stood him in good steed. Joining the 1st Pennsylvania command, plus nearly 60 other soldiers of theRifle had been developed in Lancaster, and the ConestogaVolunteers, McCaskey\'s first taste of war was a farcical Wagon, so important in the development of the westwardone when the forces he was a part of under the aged United States 7th Cavalry had been killed at themovement had been mass-produced there as well. Inand dithering Union General Robert Patterson failed to Little Big Horn River in Montana, just over 400addition, Lancaster, at the time of McCaskey\'s childhoodarrive on time at the Bull Run Battlefield, thus ensuring a miles due west of the fort, and they were on theirboasted being the hometown of some of America\'s mostConfederate victory. Patterson was relieved of his command, way to inform the women who resided in thatfamous citizens - the late steamboat inventor Robertthe 1st Pennsylvania disbanded.house, Custer\'s wife Libbie and the other womenFulton, then-Secretary of State and later President James Buchanan, although a disaster as a president, was fromThe young McCaskey, still not quite 18 by then promoted of the 7th, that they were now widows. there, as well as the influential Abolitionist Congressmanto sergeant, signed up with the 79th Pennsylvania. It was Thaddeus Stevens. Thad Stevens and his family woulda fortuitous decision as this was a regiment that under This is the story of one of those men, a friend of the latebecome instrumental in nurturing McCaskey\'s eventualColonel Henry Hambright would soon see its share of colonel, who had been made acting commander of Fortdecision to make the military a career - but that was quite ahard marching and rough fighting in the Western Theater Abraham Lincoln when Custer and his men rode off onfew years later, and after the Civil War ended (Ibid., p.8). stretching from the Battle of Perryville in October 1862 their date with Valhalla. through the battles at Stones River, the Chickamauga-A growing lad could find a good job in Lancaster andChattanooga Campaigns, the Atlanta Campaign, the This man wasn\'t a Medal of Honor winner nor was he aa fifteen-year-old William McCaskey soon became anMarch to the Sea, and finally the Battle of Bentonville West Pointer, but he fought in some of the bloodiest battlesapprentice printer at a local newspaper, The Lancasterand the subsequent surrender of Confederate General of the Civil War. He would go on to serve on the frontierExaminer and Herald. The adolescent McCaskey seemedJoseph E. Johnston and the remnants of the Army of during the Indian Wars, then he would lead his regiment into enjoy newspaper work, and it seems he initiallythe Tennessee at Durham Station, North Carolina, just charging the Spanish fortifications at El Caney at the sameplanned on taking up newspaper work for his adult careerweeks after Lee\'s surrender at Appomattox. McCaskey time Teddy was leading his "Rough Riders" up San Juanbut war clouds were gathering in America, and within justparticipated in all of the aforementioned engagements Hill. He would rise through the ranks to eventually retire asa few years William McCaskey\'s interests would turn into- and more. In those four years, McCaskey\'s leadership a major general commanding the Southern District duringthings military. abilities and his willingness to take risks to ensure victory the notorious Brownsville Riots. were noticed by his immediate commanders, and he swiftly SERGEANT TO CAPTAIN: MCCASKEY\'S CIVIL rose from an 18-year-old sergeant to a 20-year-old captain Throughout it, all he would rub shoulders with WilliamWAR, AND HIS FIERY HEROISM LEADING Ajust before the Atlanta Campaign.Tecumseh Sherman, Phil Sheridan, William HowardCHARGE DIRECTLY INTO HOOD\'S ONSLAUGHTTaft, Teddy Roosevelt, possibly John J. Pershing too - butAT THE BATTLE OF PEACHTREE CREEK (THEIt was at the Battle of Peachtree Creek during the Battleprobably the most famous of them all he encountered wasBATTLE OF ATLANTA), HIS ADMIRATION ANDfor Atlanta (July 20-23, 1864) where McCaskey\'s starone George Armstrong Custer, whom he served alongsideSUPPORT OF BLACK SOLDIERS shone brightly.as a captain commanding the 20th Infantry at Fort AbrahamMcCaskey, like many a teenage male growing up in the Lincoln at the time Custer and the immortal SeventhAmerica of the 1850s, had a fondness for things military.John Bell Hood, the "Gallant Hood of Texas," had assumed rode out of the gates of the fort to death and glory. ThisThe Revolution was but eight decades earlier, the Americanthe command of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee Pennsylvania-born and bred officer might have remainedmilitary triumphs in the Mexican War, less than ten yearsfrom General Joseph Johnston on July 17, 1864. He wasted unknown except to his contemporaries and fellow soldiers,behind. The local militia, with their gaudy uniforms, wasno time planning a surprise and what he thought would be serving his country faithfully on the prairies and plains ofquite the "thing" during this period. To join a militia groupan overwhelming assault on Union forces under William the Old West without fame or fortune in all of the annalsoften meant you "made the grade." Young Will McCaskeyTecumseh Sherman. They had recently crossed the vital and books of the Indian Wars and the Little Big Hornwas but one of the countless American males smittenChattahoochee River, a move that had led to Johnston\'s campaign if it hadn\'t been for the circumstance that it was he, the post commanding officer at Fort Abraham Lincoln, who on July 6, 1876, just two weeks after the Little Big Horn massacre, informed Elizabeth Custer, Maggie Calhoun and the women of Custer\'s immediate command of the 7th Cavalry that they were now widows.Yet despite a stellar career of nearly five decades in the "Old Army" this officer is most known as a mere footnote in the Warfare History Networkpoignant aftermath of the Little Big Horn disaster if known at all. Even his "official" biographer was unaware of his role in questioning his old Spanish-American War comrade and President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt\'s questionable decision in condemning an entire regiment of the United States Army in the wake of the Brownsville Riots.Battle of Peachtree Creek18 April 2022'