Oliver Otis Howard

At the Battle of Gettysburg, the XI Corps, still chastened by its humiliation in May, arrived on the field in the afternoon of July 1, 1863. Poor positioning of the defensive line by one of Howard's subordinate division commanders, Brig. Gen. Francis C. Barlow, was exploited by the Confederate corps of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell and once again the XI Corps collapsed, forcing it to retreat through the streets of Gettysburg, leaving many men behind to be taken prisoner. On Cemetery Hill, south of town, Howard quarreled with Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock about who was in command of the defense. Hancock had been sent by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade with written orders to take command, but Howard insisted that he was the ranking general present. Eventually he relented. Controversy centers on three points: 1) Howard's choice of Cemetery Hill as the key to defense; 2) the timing of Howard's mid-afternoon order to abandon positions north and west of town; and 3) Howard's reluctance to recognize that Hancock, his junior, had superseded him. Historian John A. Carpenter holds that Howard alone had wisely selected Cemetery Hill, that the order to withdraw was probably a sound one, and that the conflict between Howard and Hancock might have been avoided had Meade himself gotten onto the field.[8]

Howard started circulating the story that his corps' failure had actually been triggered by the collapse of Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday's I Corps to the west, and this was a partial reason for Doubleday's removal from command of the corps. However, this excuse was not accepted by history—the reverse was actually true—and the reputation of the XI Corps was ruined. Some argue that Howard should get some credit for the eventual success at Gettysburg because he wisely stationed one of his divisions (Maj. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr's) on Cemetery Hill as a reserve and critical subsequent defensive line. For the remainder of the three-day battle, the corps remained on the defensive around Cemetery Hill, withstanding assaults by Maj. Gen. Jubal Early on July 2 and participating at the margin of the defense against Pickett's Charge on July 3. Also at Gettysburg, Howard's younger brother, Major Charles Henry Howard, served as his aide-de-camp.[9]

Howard and XI Corps were transferred to the Western Theater with fellow general Henry Slocum's XII Corps to become part of the Army of the Cumberland in Tennessee; they were commanded once again by "Fighting Joe" Hooker. In the Battles for Chattanooga, the corps joined the impulsive assault that captured Missionary Ridge and forced the retreat of Gen. Braxton Bragg. In July 1864, following the death of Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson, temporary command of the Army of the Tennessee was given by order of William Tecumseh Sherman to the ranking officer on the field that day, Major General John A. Logan. Shortly after the success at the Battle of Atlanta, Sherman (who favored granting command to a West Point graduate) appointed Howard to permanent command of the Army of the Tennessee. At the closing of his "After Action Report" filed by Major General John A. Logan on September 10, 1864, Logan referred to his having served as Commander of the Army of the Tennessee for a scant four days. Logan's detailed report ended with: "I withdrew the Army of the Tennessee the night of the 26th, and moved it along the rear of the center and right of the army to a position across Proctor’s Creek. After putting the army in position that night I was relieved by Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard." Howard subsequently led the right wing of Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's famous March to the Sea,[10] through Georgia and then the Carolinas. Sherman, having favored Howard over Logan for permanent command of the Army of the Tennessee, recognized Logan's success at Atlanta. In recognition of the outstanding leadership Logan displayed at Atlanta, Sherman asked Howard to allow Logan to ceremonially lead the Army in the May 1865 Grand Review in Washington. Howard agreed when Sherman appealed to him as a Christian gentleman. Ultimately, by the war's end, Gen. Sherman would commend Howard as a corps commander of "the utmost skill, nicety and precision".[9]

From May 1865 to July 1874, General Howard was commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau (the Army's Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands), where he played a major role in the Reconstruction era, and had charge of integrating freedmen (former slaves) into American society. Howard devised far-reaching programs and guidelines including social welfare in the form of rations, schooling, courts, and medical care. Howard often clashed with President Andrew Johnson, who strongly disliked the welfare aspects of the Freedman's Bureau, and especially tried to return political power to Southern whites. However, Howard had the support of the Radical Republicans in Congress. When the Radical Republicans gained power in 1867, they gave blacks the right to vote in the South and set up new elections, which the Republican coalition of freedmen, northern Republicans who came south and were referred to derogatorily as carpetbaggers, and southerners who supported Reconstruction, nicknamed scalawags, won (except in Virginia). The Bureau was very active in helping blacks organize themselves politically,[11] and therefore it became a target of partisan hostility.[12]

President Johnson called Howard a fanatic.[13] Reconstruction's opponents alleged that, in abusing both civil and military power, the Bureau became a centralized dictatorship. Howard described the extent of his enormous powers as:

...Almost unlimited authority gave me scope and liberty of action... Legislative, judicial and executive powers were combined in my commission.[14]

Andrew Johnson reacted to the meaning of such unlimited scope of action against civilians:

The power thus given to the commanding officer over all the people … is that of an absolute monarch … He alone is permitted to determine the rights of persons and property … It places at his free disposal all the lands and goods in his district, and he may distribute them without let or hindrance to whom he pleases. Being bound by no State law, and there being no other law to regulate the subject, he may make a criminal code of his own; and can make it as bloody as any in history … Everything is a crime which he chooses to call so, and all persons are condemned who he pronounces to be guilty.[15]

The limited ideological framework of General Howard and his aides encouraged their attempt at radical reconstruction of southern society without realizing the need for essential legislation. They thought that the elimination of all statutory inequalities—for instance, Black court testimony—would be enough to assure protection. Southern states pretend to comply with this point in order to end the threat of the Freedmen's Bureau courts' system.[16]

In 1872, Howard, accompanied by 1st Lt Joseph A. Sladen, who served as his aide, was ordered to Arizona to negotiate a peace treaty with Cochise, resulting in a treaty on October 12, 1872.[17]

He was placed in command of the Department of the Columbia in 1874, went west to Washington Territory's Fort Vancouver, where he fought in the Indian Wars, particularly against the Nez Perce, with the resultant surrender of Chief Joseph. He was criticized by Chief Joseph as precipitating the war by trying to rush the Nez Perce to a smaller reservation, with no advance notice, no discussion, and no time to prepare. Joseph said, "If General Howard had given me plenty of time to gather up my stock and treated Too-hool-hool-suit as a man should be treated, there would have been no war."

Subsequently, Howard was superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1881–82. He served as commander of the Department of the Platte from 1882 to 1886 and the Military Division of the Pacific from 1886 to 1888. From 1888, his final command was of the Department of the East (Military Division of the Atlantic) at Fort Columbus on Governors Island in New York Harbor, encompassing the states east of the Mississippi River. He retired from the United States Army at that posting in 1894 with the rank of major general. The French government made him a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1884 and he was subsequently promoted to the ranks of officer and commander.[18]

The General Oliver Otis Howard House, located on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974.

General Howard is also remembered for playing a role in founding Howard University, which was incorporated by Congress in 1867.[19] The school is nonsectarian and is open to both sexes without regard to race. On November 20, 1866, ten members, including Howard, of various socially concerned groups of the time met in Washington, D.C., to discuss plans for a theological seminary to train black ministers. Interest was sufficient, however, in creating an educational institute for areas other than the ministry. The result was the Howard Normal and Theological Institute for the Education of Preachers and Teachers. On January 8, 1867, the Board of Trustees voted to change the name of the institution to Howard University. Howard served as president from 1869 to 1874. He was quoted as saying "The opposition to Negro education made itself felt everywhere in a combination not to allow the freed men any room or building in which a school might be taught. In 1865, 1866, and 1867, mobs of the baser classes at intervals and in all parts of the South occasionally burned school buildings and churches used as schools, flogged teachers or drove them away, and in a number of instances murdered them."[20] He also founded Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, in 1895, for the education of the "mountain whites."

General Howard was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States and the Grand Army of the Republic.

Oliver Howard died in Burlington, Vermont on October 26, 1909, and is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Burlington. He died of old age.

Howard ca. 1908

Rank and organization: Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Fair Oaks, Va., June 1, 1862. Entered service at: Maine. Born: November 8, 1830, Leeds, Maine. Date of issue: March 29, 1893.

Citation:

Led the 61st New York Infantry in a charge in which he was twice severely wounded in the right arm, necessitating amputation.