Lt. Col. (CSA), Alexander "Sandie" Pendleton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandie_Pendleton

Alexander Swift "Sandie" Pendleton (September 28, 1840 –September 23, 1864) was an officer on the staff of Confederate Generals Thomas J. Jackson, Richard S. Ewell and Jubal A. Early during the American Civil War. He and was mortally wounded during the Battle of Fisher's Hill on September 22, 1864. He died the next day.

Sandie Pendleton was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the only son of future Confederate General William N. Pendleton and his wife Anzolette Elizabeth Page. He spent most of his childhood in Maryland before his father accepted the rectorship of Grace Church in Lexington, Virginia. He attended Washington College, where he first met Stonewall Jackson who was part of the same literary society. He graduated in 1857 and enrolled at the University of Virginia where he was studying for a master of arts degree when the civil war broke out.

At the outbreak of war, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Provisional Army of Virginia and was ordered to Harpers Ferry. Stonewall Jackson was in command of the Confederate forces in Harpers Ferry and he requested Pendleton join his staff as ordnance officer. He soon showed his capabilities as a staff officer and Jackson appointed him assistant adjutant general on his staff. He served Jackson in every battle until the latter's death at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.

Following Jackson's death, he continued his service on the Second Corps staff under its new commander, Richard S. Ewell during the Gettysburg Campaign. In 1864, when Jubal A. Early assumed command of the second corps, he promoted Pendleton to chief of staff with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The Second Corps returned to the Shenandoah Valley in the summer 1864 and mounted the last Confederate invasion of the north.

Following this, the Union assigned Major General Philip Sheridan to put down resistance in the valley once and for all. Early was defeated at the Third Battle of Winchester on September 19, 1864, forcing the Confederates to retreat to nearby Fisher's Hill. When Union forces attacked on September 22, 1864, Pendleton was fatally wounded in the abdomen. He was moved to the nearby town of Woodstock, where he died the following day. Initially interred near the battlefield his body was exhumed and returned to his family in Lexington where he was buried near Stonewall Jackson on October 24, 1864.

Pendleton met Kate Corbin when the Confederate army was stationed in the vicinity of Fredericksburg during the winter of 1862. The two were engaged just prior to the Chancellorsville campaign in 1863 and married in December of that year. Kate was pregnant at the time of Sandie's death and gave birth to a son, Sandie, a month later. The child contracted diphtheria and died in September 1865. Kate Corbin next married John Mercer Brooke and is buried beside him near where Stonewall Jackson was originally buried.

"Sandie" Pendleton was portrayed by Jeremy London in the 2003 Civil War film Gods and Generals.

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https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Pendleton_Alexander_S_1840-1864

Alexander Swift Pendleton was a Confederate staff officer in the Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Nicknamed Sandie, he was best known for his service under Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, who died following the Battle of Chancellorsville (1863), but he also served under Jackson's successors Richard S. Ewell and Jubal A. Early. Henry Kyd Douglas, a fellow member of Jackson's staff, called him "the most brilliant staff officer in the Army of Northern Virginia and the most popular with officers and men."

Pendleton was born near Alexandria, Virginia, on September 28, 1840, the son of William Nelson Pendleton and Anzolette E. Page. In 1853 his father, an 1830 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, was appointed an Episcopal minister in the Shenandoah Valley town of Lexington. The younger Pendleton entered Lexington's Washington College that fall and was graduated in 1857 having won the college's highest academic award. Two years later he entered the University of Virginia to pursue a master's degree. His graduate studies and plans to enter the ministry were cut short, however, when Virginia seceded in April 1861.

Pendleton served unofficially with his father's command, the Rockbridge Artillery—a unit formed by John A. McCausland and a part of the Stonewall Brigade. In June, Jackson asked him to join his staff as a second lieutenant and brigade ordnance officer. Appointed a first lieutenant in November, Pendleton became Jackson's de facto chief of staff during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, in spite of Robert Lewis Dabney's grade of major and official designation as Jackson's assistant adjutant general.

Pendleton was an inspired choice. He was equally comfortable in battle relaying orders or encouraging troops, on the march coordinating officers and units, or in camp handling the endless correspondence and other paperwork required to make the army run. Jackson prized Pendleton's intelligence, attention to detail, and boundless energy. When asked for frank assessments of several lower-ranking officers, Jackson replied, "Ask Sandie Pendleton. If he does not know, no one does." A. Cash Koeniger has observed that Pendleton was one of only a few officers, most of them "notable for their pronounced faith in God" as well as for their devotion to duty, who got along well with the notoriously irascible and judgmental general. Jackson recommended Pendleton for promotion to captain just after the end of the Valley Campaign.

Pendleton, with Jackson at the Seven Days' Battles during the summer of 1862, missed the Second Manassas Campaign in August on sick leave, but returned to duty in time for Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North and the Battle of Antietam on September 17. After being slightly wounded at Fredericksburg in December, Pendleton was promoted to major and assistant adjutant general in the Army of Northern Virginia's new Second Corps, commanded by Jackson. He was already among the most respected staff officers in Lee's army.

Pendleton was on another part of the battlefield, however, and not with Jackson's party on the night of May 2, 1863, when it was accidentally fired on by Confederate pickets at Chancellorsville. Jackson was wounded and died a few days later following the amputation of his left arm. "God knows," Pendleton later told Jackson's wife Mary Anna, "I would have died for him."

He tendered his resignation, believing that Jackson's successor Richard S. Ewell should choose his own staff, but Ewell retained him, recommending him for promotion to lieutenant colonel and chief of staff in August 1863. When Lee replaced Ewell with Jubal A. Early in May 1864, Pendleton kept the same position. He accompanied Early during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 with a new Army of the Valley, created with the Second Corps as its nucleus.

On September 22, 1864, Early's Confederates were overwhelmed and utterly routed at Fisher's Hill, their second defeat in four days. Pendleton, trying to rally men streaming to the rear, was mortally wounded. He died the next day, less than a week before his twenty-fourth birthday. He is buried in Lexington, not far from the grave of Stonewall Jackson.

Time Line

September 28, 1840 - Alexander Swift Pendleton is born near Alexandria.

July 2, 1857 - Alexander Swift Pendleton graduates from Lexington's Washington College having won the college's highest academic award.

1859 - Alexander Swift Pendleton enters the University of Virginia to pursue a master's degree. His graduate studies and plans to enter the ministry will be cut short when Virginia secedes from the Union in April 1861.

June 25, 1861 - Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson asks Alexander Swift Pendleton to join his staff as a second lieutenant and brigade ordnance officer.

November 30, 1861 - Alexander Swift Pendleton is appointed a first lieutenant. He will become Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's de facto chief of staff during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862.

September 17, 1862 - After missing the Second Manassas Campaign in August for sick leave, Alexander Swift Pendleton returns to duty in time for Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North and the Battle of Antietam.

December 13, 1862 - Alexander Swift Pendleton is wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Soon after, he will be promoted to major and assistant adjutant general in the Army of Northern Virginia's new Second Corps, commanded by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.

August 1863 - Richard S. Ewell recommends Alexander Swift Pendleton for promotion to lieutenant colonel and chief of staff.

September 22, 1864 - Alexander Swift Pendleton is mortally wounded when the Confederates are overwhelmed and utterly routed at the Battle of Fisher's Hill in the Shenandoah Valley.

September 23, 1864 - Alexander Swift Pendleton dies less than a week before his twenty-fourth birthday. He is buried in Lexington, not far from the grave of Stonewall Jackson.

Civil War Confederate Army Officer. His father was William Nelson Pendleton, a minister and future Confederate General, who settled his family in Maryland from 1844 to 1853. Educated at home and in a private school, at age 13 Alexander Pendleton enrolled in Washington College, (now Washington and Lee), at Lexington, Virginia, where his father had accepted a parish. An excellent student, he belonged to the same literary society as Thomas J. Jackson, then on the faculty of the Virginia Military Institute. Following his graduation in 1857, he taught at Washington College for two years. At that same time he enrolled at the University of Virginia to earn a Master's degree. After entering the Provisional Army of Virginia as 2nd Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers on May 17, 1861, he left school without completing his studies. A week later he reported to Jackson, then a Colonel in the Confederate army, at Harpers Ferry. In July, Jackson requested him for his ordnance officer, and from the 19th of that month until his death he served as a capable, well-liked, and highly respected staff officer to Jackson and his successors. Historians today call him the most capable staff officer in the whole Confederate army. He enjoyed a close relationship with Jackson, whose intensely religious nature he shared. When his commission in the Virginia expired, Jackson arranged to have him appointed 1st Lieutenant in Confederate service on November 30, 1861. He served at that rank though the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, winning Jackson's approval for manning a field piece at Kernstown when he saw its gun crew killed as he returned from carrying orders to Jackson's subordinates. Again Jackson interceded on his behalf, securing for him a promotion to Captain, in June 1862. Illness kept him out of the Second Bull Run Campaign, but he returned to duty in late summer holding a temporary appointment as Assistant Adjutant General of Jackson's II Corps. Jackson depended on his ability to convey his orders clearly and concisely, in routine paperwork and under battlefield conditions. Most of Jackson's battle reports after First Bull Run were written by him, whose efficiency resulted in a promotion to Major and permanent assignment to the adjutant generalship, on December 4, 1862. The two men became almost inseparable. It was he who dressed Jackson's body for burial after his death from wounds he received at Chancellorsville, and he was one of the pallbearers at Jackson's funeral. On succeeding Jackson as commander of the II Corps, Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell advanced him to chief of staff with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early requested him for detached duty in the Shenandoah Valley in December 1863, and again the following June. On September 22, 1864, 3 days after the Third Battle of Winchester, he received a mortal gunshot wound to the abdomen at Fisher's Hill as he tried to check an advance on the Confederate front. Buried near the battlefield, his body was later exhumed and sent to his family in Lexington, Virginia. On October 24, 1864, his parents and his wife of 9 months attended his reburial near Jackson's grave. One month later his only child, a son, was born.