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Originally Posted by The Reaper
Back to my premise, my initial research indicates approximately 1.5 Union generals who were lawyers to each Confederate general who was a lawyer. Yet they eventually won despite that. Shocking.
TR
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I don't know about your initial research, but mine, based on
Generals in Gray and
Generals in Blue, both by Ezra Warner, the
Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War,
The Civil War Dictionary, the
Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903 and various online sources including the biographies of members of Congress and various state government officials, indicates:
Of 427 Confederate generals, 162 were lawyers before the war. This comes to 38% and represents the largest single profession among Confederate generals, more even than professional U.S. Army officers.
Of 582 Union generals (excluding brevet brigadier generals not further promoted or given responsibilities commensurate with being a general officer), 175 were lawyers before the war. This comes to 30%. I am not sure, but I think here too lawyers are the most overrepresented profession.
I find it unsurprising that lawyers were heavily represented among general officers, and especially so in the South. There are a number of reasons why this might be so:
1. Lawyers are professionals. Professionals were overrepresented in the Civil War militaries for two reasons. One is the officer corps bias toward education as a measure of leadership skill (something we still see today). The other is the fact that planters and businessmen, for example, might be underrepresented because they are more important to the civilian economy in wartime.
2. Lawyers were probably slightly overrepresented in the South to the extent that the merchant and banking classes were underrepresented, since the North had a larger middle class.
3. It has been often noted that in the
antebellum South, second and younger sons of landed estate-holders went into the military because the laws of primogeniture meant that only the eldest son would inherit the estate. But besides the Army, many of these sons also went into the law. Many, of course, did both, graduating from West Point, serving on the frontier, then pursuing the law with perhaps an eye on politics.
4. Lawyers are always overrepresented among politicians, and politicians were overrepresented among generals, especially early in the war when every Senator Tom, Congressman Dick and Lt. Governor Harry decided to raise his own regiment. Many secessionist politicians were also willing to put their money and lives where their mouths were, and went to the front (where quite a few were killed or wounded). I suppose the same might have been true among abolitionists - Robert Gould Shaw would likely have made general had he lived.
That's just generals. There were also plenty of colonels, majors, captains and others who were members of the bar. And not limited to officers: Logan Edwin Bleckley was solicitor-general for the Coweta Circuit in Georgia when he enlisted as a private. He was soon discharged for health reasons and rose to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Henry Massey Rector, Governor of Arkansas at secession, enlisted as a private in the Arkansas State Militia after leaving the governor's mansion in 1862. Ebenezer Allen, who had served as Attorney-General of the Texas Republic and later of the State of Texas, enlisted at the age of 57 and died in Virginia in 1863.