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STYPLE
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with a command post.
In spring 1862, Lincoln promoted Kearny to brigadier general and placed him in charge of the 1st New Jersey Brigade, which, according to Styple, came to be “rated the finest in the Army of the Potomac.”
Ultimately, he was named to command a division, comprising three brigades. In charges, Kearny clenched the reins of his horse in his teeth and sword in his one arm, while urging on his men, shouting, “I’m a one-armed Jersey son-of-a-gun, follow me!.”
“The Confederates feared him and called him a ‘one-armed devil’ and he often became the target of Confederate riflemen,” Styple said.
Kearny, by now a major general, led the Division during the Second Battle of Bull Run and for a brief time, he was assisted by a young staff officer named George Armstrong Custer, who later wrote admiringly of Kearny, crediting him with teaching him the art of soldiering.
It was during the Battle of Chantilly in Virginia, on Sept. 1, 1862, while checking a gap in the Union lines during a driving rainstorm, that Kearny was confronted by
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rebel soldiers who ordered him to surrender. He refused and tried to race away, but was killed by a shot fired by an enemy musket.
Kearny’s body was turned over to Northern forces and he was buried in Trinity Churchyard in New York. His remains were later moved to Arlington Cemetery in 1912 where a statue by Edward Clark Potter marks his grave, one of only two such statutes at Arlington.
One revelation in Styple’s book – based on letters he sent to friends during the war – was that Kearny suspected Maj. Gen. Robert McClellan, who commanded the Army of the Potomac, was secretly negotiating with the South through a staff officer, Col. Thomas M. Key (a cousin of national anthem author Francis Scott Key), who favored emancipation with compensation – a tactic Key and McClellan reportedly believed would persuade the South to call off hostilities with little resulting bloodshed.
Part of Styple’s extensive profile of Kearny includes an examination of his life as a civilian and, in particular, the time and money he invested in his home, Belgrove, built to contain his fabulous arts collection – a wide assortment of statutes, oil paintings, watercolors, etchings and engravings, many illustrative of the Hudson River Artists School.
The property was sold off in parcels to various thread works plants that were built off the Passaic River and the mansion house itself was sold in 1926, with its art pieces largely ending up in mostly in private collections.
The mansion itself was razed in 1927, as youngsters in nearby Washington Elementary School watched that part of their town’s history disappear.
“General Philip Kearny, A Very God of War” will be available for sale through Amazon beginning next month. A hardcover edition is priced at $45.
