Dorothy E. Kelly: General Who? William P. Sanders

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Ambrose Burnside, Antietam, Battle of Fort Sanders, Belle Boyd, Chattanooga, E. Porter Alexander, Fort Dickerson, George McClellan, James Longstreet, James M. Shackelford, Joseph Kershaw, Joseph Wheeler, Lamar House Hotel, Orlando Poe, Peninsula Campaign, Robert E. Lee, William P. Sanders

By Dorothy E. Kelly

ddkelly@earthlink.net

Civil War historians outside the East Tennessee area know little or nothing about the Federal general who gave his life at Knoxville. But how much do WE know about this man whose name adorns modern buildings, hospitals, and even a neighborhood?

Born under the Southern skies of Kentucky and raised in the humid Mississippi river town of Natchez, William Price Sanders was a young Federal officer on his way up when he died at Knoxville in 1863. He had been a general one month and one day.

Sanders was the sixth child of Margaret and Lewis Sanders, a prominent Mississippi attorney. According to his sister, Elizabeth J. Sanders Haggin, William Price was named for a physician uncle and was known as “Doc” to family and friends, a nickname which was later adopted by his fellow officers.

William Price Sanders

Sanders’ politically connected father secured his appointment to West Point in 1852. His career at West Point was somewhat rocky. A May, 1854 letter from West Point Commandant, Robert E. Lee, announced his impending dismissal for want of application, deficiency in academics and accumulation of numerous demerits. With the aid of a fellow Mississippian—Secretary of War Jefferson Davis— Sanders avoided dismissal and went on to graduate in 1856. In addition to Sanders, two of his West Point classmates played important roles in the Civil War in East Tennessee: Orlando M. Poe, Burnside’s Chief Engineer and designer of the Knoxville fortifications, and E. Porter Alexander, Longstreet’s Chief of Artillery.

George Smalley reports the battle of Antietam

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Antietam, George Smalley, Joseph Hooker, New Yrok Tribune, reporting the Civil War

During the hours after the battle of Antietam in September 1862, New York Tribune correspondent George Smalley went through hell.

Having attached himself to the headquarters staff of Gen. Joseph Hooker, Smalley had seen more of the battle than any other newspaper correspondent at the scene.

George Smalley

Desperate to get word back to his newspaper, he rode through the night to the telegraph station at Frederick, Maryland. The telegraph operater agreed to send a short account, and Smalley sat down and wrote one.

“Fierce and desperate battle between two hundred thousand men has raged since daylight, yet night closes on an uncertain field. It is the greatest fight since Waterloo–all over the field contested with an obstinacy equal even to Waterloo. If not wholly a victory tonight, I believe it is the prelude to a victory tomorrow. . . .”

Smalley handed the telegraph operator each page as he wrote it. Without Smalley’s permission or knowledge, the operater sent the account to the War Department in Washington rather than to the Tribune in New York. There President Abraham Lincoln read the first account of the battle that he knew Union forces had to win.

Smalley’s job, however, was far from done.