Samuel D. Sturgis

was an American military officer who served as a Union general in the American Civil War .

Sturgis entered West Point at the age of 20, and graduated in the famous class of 1846.

During the Mexican War , he served as a Lieutenant of Dragoons and was captured and held for eight days as a prisoner of war while making a reconnaissance near Buena Vista , Mexico . After the war, he served in the West, was promoted to First Lieutenant and Captain, took part in a number of Indian campaigns.

When the Civil War broke out, Sturgis served in the 1st US Cavalry. He was promoted to major and in August 1861, at the battle of Wilson's Creek , he succeeded to command of the Federal forces after the death of General Nathaniel Lyon. In March 1862 he was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers to rank from August 10 1861 , the day of the battle.

After a tour of duty in the Washington defenses, he was ordered to the front to support General John Pope 's Army Of Virginia just prior to the Battle of Second Manassas. While attempting to secure priority for movement of his troops on the railroad, he was told that he must wait his turn as other troops and supplies were going forward to support Pope. His reaction was his now-famous remark, "I don't care for John Pope one pinch of owl dung."

Sturgis then commanded the 2nd Division in the IX Corps at the battles of South Mountain , Antietam and Fredericksburg .

He went west with IX Corps in 1863 and later had a number of relatively unimportant commands in Tennessee and Mississippi . He also served as Chief of Cavalry of the Department of the Ohio . In June 1864 he was routed by Nathan Bedford Forrest at the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads , Mississippi, an encounter which terminated his Civil War service.

He was breveted Brigadier General and Major General, U.S. Army, in March 1865 and mustered out of the volunteer service in August. He reverted to his regular rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the 6th U.S. Cavalry. On May 6 , 1869 be became Colonel and commander of the 7th U.S. Cavalry and his Lieutenant Colonel was George Armstrong Custer .

Sturgis was on detached duty when parts of the 7th Cavalry were literally destroyed at the Little Big Horn (One of Sturgis' sons, Second Lieutenant James G. Sturgis, was an officer with the 7th and was killed in that battle). Samuel Sturgis then took personal command of the regiment and led the 7th Cavalry in the campaign against the Nez Percé in 1877.

Sturgis was retired for age in 1886 and died at St. Paul , Minnesota , September 28 , 1889 . He is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery . His son Samuel Davis Sturgis Jr also became a general in the US Army , and was a division commander in the American Expeditionary Force during World War I .

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Samuel D. Sturgis