The Little Gamecock: The rise of Brig. Gen. Evander McIver Law, C.S.A.

By Ronald S. Coddington, with images and artifacts from the Craig and Carol Wofford Collection 

Evander McIver Law focused his piercing blue eyes on the skyline above the Gettysburg countryside. Before him, the heights of Big Round Top, thick with trees, dominated the landscape. As the Confederate brigadier traced the gentle contours of the spurs and ridges to his left, he noted occasional puffs of smoke drifting above the tree canopy. Enemy artillerymen, he reasoned, firing rounds whenever his troops came into view as they moved into an attack position.

Below the guns, in open areas on low ground, Law observed infantrymen, their blue coats reading almost black and bayonets glinting white in the summer sun.

This formidable assemblage of men occupied the end of the left flank of the nearly two-mile long Union front. And on this second day of battle, it fell to Law and his brigade, and the rest of the division commanded by his friend John Bell Hood, to break the enemy line by frontal assault.

If anyone could lead the Confederates to victory, it would be Law. A rising star in the galaxy of Southern generals, the charismatic 26-year-old affectionately known as “The Little Gamecock” radiated confidence far beyond his lean physique. A year earlier along the Virginia Peninsula, he and Hood had smashed the federals at Gaines’ Mill.

A significant challenge lay on the near horizon for both men at Gettysburg—and Law did not like what he saw.

Military bloodlines

Profiles of Law tend to focus on later war events: his actions at Gettysburg, his rivalries with his peers, and his rocky relationship with Gen. James Longstreet.

In this narrative, the focus is on his origins and early war years as a rising star in the Confederate army.

The Law family’s military roots trace to Scotch-Irish colonists in northeastern South Carolina who settled in and around Darlington.

A paternal grandfather, William Law, had served in the ranks of Francis Marion’s Brigade late in the Revolution.

A maternal grandfather and Law’s namesake loomed large in Darlington’s early history. Evander Roderick McIver, Jr., had an honorable career in the Palmetto State militia that began as a sergeant in the War of 1812. He had advanced to colonel by the 1832 Nullification Crisis, a short-lived taxation battle between Columbia and Washington tied to a larger war about the balance of power between federal and state governments. McIver presided over a town hall at Darlington’s courthouse that blasted Washington for overreaching into the state’s rights. Active in politics and entrepreneurial in business, McIver poured his energy and resources into a railroad project and moved to Alabama to oversee construction, bringing some of his 36 enslaved people with him. Death took McIver at age 47 in 1837, leaving the job unfinished. His remains rest in Tuskegee.

Law came into the world a year before his grandfather passed. The eldest son born to Ezekiel Augustus Law and Sarah Elizabeth McIver, Law began his military education at age 16 in 1853 as a cadet at the Arsenal Academy. Located in Columbia, it and the Citadel Academy in Charleston formed a single entity, the South Carolina Military Academy. Law graduated three years later near the top of his class and received an invitation to deliver the last of six orations at commencement exercises. After the cadet selected to present the salutatory address pulled out due to a family health emergency, organizers turned to Law to fill the void. “The youthful substitute, although with but short notice for preparation, acquitted himself in a graceful and highly praiseworthy manner,” reported one newspaper.

In 1857, Law, now a 21-year-old lieutenant, marched into a new role as one of five professors at King’s Mountain Military Academy in Yorkville (today York), S.C. Designed as a preparatory school for the South Carolina Military Academy and opened in 1855, its founders were recent Citadel graduates Micah J. Jenkins and Asbury Coward. They went on to become officers in the Confederate army, where Jenkins and Law served as subordinates to Gen. Longstreet.

Professor Law taught belles-lettres, or the art of literary writing, history and mathematics. He became active in Yorkville society, his blue eyes, jet black beard, ramrod-straight posture and overall military bearing cutting quite the dashing figure. In the summer of 1859, class officers of the Yorkville Female College invited Law to their commencement exercises. Law presented gifts on behalf of the graduating class to the male speakers. “Mr. Law is, for his age, the readiest and the most readily brilliant orator we have ever met; and engaged in such a grateful service, he could not but perform the duty most handsomely,” reported a newspaper correspondent.

One of the senior class members, Jane Elizabeth Allison “Jennie” Latta, numbered among the college’s most beautiful women. At some point a courtship with Law began. They married a few years later.

In early 1860, Law abruptly resigned his professorship. Why he did so is unclear. Young, restless, and early in his career, Law may have outgrown King’s Mountain and Yorkville. Perhaps the best explanation is his ambition and energy, which drove him to seek greater opportunities.

Alabama and first field command in Florida

Law set his sights on Alabama for the next step in his career. Its fertile soil and access to the Gulf of Mexico made it an attractive destination. In the four decades since it had achieved statehood, Alabama’s population increased by double and triple digits with every census enumeration. By 1860, close to a million souls lived there—free Whites barely outnumbering enslaved Black people.

Those lured to Alabama included Law’s grandfather McIver, who sought fortune in the nascent railroad industry in Tuskegee. An uncle, William Cowan McIver, had become a successful Tuskegee attorney.

Law joined his uncle by September 1860. Within a month, Law and a partner established a military academy, a preparatory school that joined the city’s flourishing community of educational institutions. The faculty included Law’s younger brother, Junius Augustus Law.

As Principal Law set about building his new academy, the election of Abraham Lincoln as President fueled the spark that ignited secession in Law’s native South Carolina and an explosion of militia companies across the Southern states. Law, with characteristic enterprise, formed the Tuskegee Zouaves and became its captain and commander. The company included some of his students.

Meanwhile, more states left the Union. During the second week of January 1861, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama followed South Carolina. On January 12 in neighboring Florida, armed forces in rebellion demanded and received the surrender of the Pensacola Navy Yard and its garrison without firing a shot.

Fort Pickens “can be taken only at the sacrifice of many lives; but the noble sons of Alabama and Florida gathered there, will count it as an honor to give their blood for the achievement of Southern independence.” —Captain Law, 1861

Two days later, the Tuskegee Zouaves with Law in command left for Pensacola. The company became part of a battalion of Alabamians that included the Wetumpka Light Guards, The Tuskegee Light Infantry and the Metropolitan Guards. All were sent by Alabama officials to support their Florida neighbors.

Law had his first taste of field command.

He and his company were stationed at Fort Barrancas during part of its month-long service. A letter he wrote, published in a newspaper, noted that plans to attack the U.S. garrison of Fort Pickens were under consideration. “This fort, he says, can be taken only at the sacrifice of many lives; but the noble sons of Alabama and Florida gathered there, will count it as an honor to give their blood for the achievement of Southern independence.”

The attack never materialized. The Alabamians returned home in mid-February 1861 with deep tans and received a hero’s reception from throngs of supporters. A Montgomery newspaper editorial proclaimed, “Thrice welcome, say we, to the volunteers of Alabama, who would certainly have distinguished themselves had an opportunity been afforded.”

The opportunity was afforded to armed forces in South Carolina weeks later when the bombardment of the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor opened hostilities.

First Manassas: “He will lead them anywhere, that the honor of battle can be plucked”

In the wake of Fort Sumter, Captain Law reorganized the Tuskegee Zouaves. Before the end of April 1861, it became Company B of the 4th Alabama Infantry. The regiment left for Virginia, where, at Lynchburg on May 7, the rank and file voted for senior officers. They elected Law lieutenant colonel. The captain of Company F, Egbert J. Jones, a prominent Huntsville attorney almost 20 years Law’s senior, became colonel. The 4th left for Harpers Ferry and prepared for active operations.

Two months later, the regiment received orders to move out from its encampment near Winchester, Va., for Manassas Junction in anticipation of fighting.

The 4th broke camp on the evening of July 18 and traveled by foot and rail to its destination, arriving exhausted and hungry on the morning of July 20. Food and sleep revived the officers and men, just in time for the war’s first large-scale battle.

After breakfast the next morning, the Alabamians, part of Brig. Gen. Barnard E. Bee, Jr.,’s force, marched toward the sound of faraway artillery fire. Jones and Law led the men with Bee’s direction to a position near the Henry House as the sight of battle smoke and sound of musketry heightened everyone’s senses.

Other Confederate and Union regiments arrived and the contours of the battle took shape as the Alabamians marched from the vicinity of Henry House across a valley and meandering Young’s Branch to the base of another hill. Here the thunder of fighting and drifts of gunsmoke rose above them. Bee ordered them to rush up the slope to reinforce Confederates commanded by Col. Nathaniel G. “Shanks” Evans who were under heavy attack along the crest. As the Alabama men jumped a fence and double-quicked it up the hill, they met the Louisiana Tigers falling back. Upon their arrival at the crest, Jones, Law, and the rest of the regiment found themselves in the thick of the fray.

“Law, on his mare, darted among the shattered ranks to stem the tide. He kept at it until a bullet tore into his left arm near the elbow and toppled him from his horse. Law managed to get to his feet and keep pace with the retreat, blood streaming along his forearm and down his fingers.”

The Alabamians held their position for an hour or more, repulsing multiple enemy assaults and taking a beating as brother regiments around them melted away and were replaced by fresh troops. Jones and Law, on horseback in the midst of the hailstorm of fire beneath the scorching summer sun, held the men together.

With each passing minute, the casualty list grew. Union lead found Col. Jones, ripping into his hips. By this time, the regiment had been enveloped on three sides. Overwhelmed by superior numbers, the 4th fled towards its first position near the Henry House with the enemy in hot pursuit and muskets blazing. Colonel Jones, visibly bleeding from his wound and holding himself steady by slinging an arm across the saddle of his bay, “Old Battalion,” begged the men not to run. But it was too late.

Law, on his mare, darted among the shattered ranks to stem the tide. He kept at it until a bullet tore into his left arm near the elbow and toppled him from his horse. Law managed to get to his feet and keep pace with the retreat, blood streaming along his forearm and down his fingers. His frightened mare bolted until Robert Thompson Coles, the regiment’s alert sergeant major, spotted her and grabbed the reins. Coles steadied the horse as Law approached, then helped the wounded lieutenant colonel remount.

By the time the Alabamians regrouped, all of their senior officers were down and about 200 of the 558 soldiers who went into battle remained. These men, recalled Sgt. Maj. Coles, followed Bee after he called to them to “Come with me and go yonder where Jackson stands like a stone wall.” They played their part in shifting the momentum of battle that gave Brig. Gen. Thomas Jackson his nom de guerre and cost Bee his life.

The final casualty list of the 4th numbered 40 killed and 170 wounded. Colonel Jones’s wound proved mortal. He lingered until early September. Law recovered and returned to the regiment in October, his injured arm effectively useless.

Though the 4th felt humiliated after leaving the field, the press celebrated the regiment for putting up a stiff resistance in the jaws of death. Law emerged a hero. “He will lead them anywhere, that the honor of battle can be plucked,” stated one newspaper correspondent.

Upon his recuperation and return to active duty in the autumn of 1861, Law advanced to colonel. The regiment and the rest of the army soon went into winter quarters. The Alabamians named their camp for Law.

In April 1862, along the Virginia Peninsula near Yorktown, the regiment’s one-year enlistment expired. The 4th reorganized, reenlisted for the rest of the war, and elected 25-year-old Law to his same rank—a vote of confidence by the men.

By this time, the Union Army of the Potomac marched along the Peninsula in a bid to capture Richmond and end the war. Major General George B. McClellan, moving with characteristic caution against Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s Army of Northern Virginia. Johnston, acting to defend the capital, conducted a series of tactical withdrawals in the face of the larger advancing enemy. On May 31, on the outskirts of Richmond near Seven Pines, Johnston took the initiative and attacked. Seriously wounded early in the fight, Gen. Robert E. Lee replaced him.

Other leadership changes in the immediate aftermath of Lee’s advancement directly impacted the 4th. Its division commander, the capable Maj. Gen. Gustavus W. “Gus” Smith, was relieved due to illness and replaced by Maj. Gen. William H.C. Whiting, who led the brigade to which the Alabamians belonged. The other regiments in the brigade were the 2nd and 11th Mississippi and the 6th North Carolina infantries. Law, as senior colonel, replaced Whiting.

Thus was born Law’s Brigade.

Gaines’ Mill: “Then we had our innings”

Gun smoke blanketed the field through which Law’s Brigade prepared to charge at Gaines’ Mill early in the evening of June 27, 1862. Law recalled its sulfurous source on high ground on the opposite side of the field, about a quarter mile distant: “The fringe of woods along the Federal line was shrouded in smoke, and seemed fairly to vomit forth a leaden and iron hail.”

The enemy guns were supported by a line of infantry. Halfway down the elevation, a second line of infantry dug in behind freshly chopped logs. A third line entrenched at the base of the hill. In front of them, a marshy ravine provided a natural layer of defense.

Coles, now adjutant of the 4th, described it as a “perfect Gibraltar.” This impregnable position marked the center of the Union line held by Maj. Gen. Fitz-John Porter’s 5th Corps.

Law formed his brigade in two attacking lines, the 11th Mississippi and 4th in the front and the 2nd Mississippi and 6th North Carolina behind them. On Law’s left, a brigade of Texans and Georgians prepared to join them in the assault. The man leading the Lone Star State troops, Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood of Kentucky, had graduated from West Point in 1853 and proven his abilities on the Western frontier before turning in his resignation to fight for his adopted Texas.

The brigades would not go it alone. General Lee, his army’s back against the gates of Richmond, amassed 16 brigades to attack the Union army’s rear guard after McClellan ordered a withdrawal to a more secure base of operations.

The attack went off about 6:30 p.m. Law and Hood, under explicit orders from their division commander, Maj. Gen. Whiting, marched their brigades rapidly across the field towards a slight rise ahead of the ravine. Adjutant Coles recalled the drifts of gunsmoke limiting visibility to ten feet as the men braved a withering storm of lead whizzing and hissing and popping around them. They reached the rise and continued down towards the ravine.

Union infantrymen squeezed the triggers of their muskets and blasted the oncoming Confederates. Their brother artillerymen pumped round after round at the gray attackers.

Alabamians, Mississippians, Texans and Georgians fell with every passing second. The sights and sounds of bullets and shrapnel thumping into bodies through the misty fog of smoke took a thousand or more Southern soldiers out of action.

And still they advanced.

Law recalled after the war, “The two gray lines swept silently and swiftly on; the pace became more rapid every moment; when thirty yards of the ravine, and the men could see the desperate nature of the work in hand, a wild yell answered the roar of Federal musketry, and they rushed for the works. The Confederates were within ten paces of them when the the Federal in the front line broke cover, and leaving their log breastworks, swarmed up the hill in their rear, carrying away their second line with them in their rout. Then we had our ‘innings.’ As the blue surged up the hill in our front, the Confederate fire poured into it with terrible effect. The target was a large one, the range short, and scarcely a shot fired into that living mass could fail of its errand.”

Law’s and Hood’s brigades shattered the federal center. Only the cover of night allowed Porter’s mauled 5th Corps to rejoin McClellan’s main army. Lee won the day, and his first significant tactical victory since being named commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. On the U.S. side, the loss prompted the hesitant McClellan to withdraw his army from the Peninsula without achieving the goal of capturing Richmond.

The tandem assault by the brigades of Law and Hood made success at Gaines’ Mill possible.

Official reports of the engagement provided the first draft of history. Major General Whiting praised Law and Hood for their achievements, and called out the Texans for being the first to break the enemy line. Stonewall Jackson, to whom Whiting’s Division temporarily reported, and other senior commanders echoed Whiting in emphasizing Hood’s performance. Hood’s concise report detailed the gallantry and sacrifice of his officers and men.

There is no after-action report by Law in the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion to compare to the timely writings of Hood and senior commanders. The lack of a report resulted in no formal recognition of the deeds of his men, and no detailing of his command decisions and other particulars. Law’s performance, arguably his best of the war, was left to his peers and superiors to evaluate and contextualize. It was not the last time Law failed to file.

Promoted to brigadier general: “He has won his spurs by dint of merit alone”

The summer of 1862 provided new opportunities for Law to hone his skills as a brigade commander in some of the hardest fighting with the heaviest losses up to this point in the war.

On July 1 at Malvern Hill, the last of the Seven Days fights, Law and Hood repeated the tandem assault, but it failed. Before the end of the month, Hood advanced to command of the division when Maj. Gen. Whiting retired. Hood’s Division was reassigned to Longstreet’s Corps.

At Second Manassas in August, the brigades of Law and Hood played a leading role in Longstreet’s counterattack that crumbled the left flank of Maj. Gen. John Pope’s Union army. Law suffered a slight wound during the early part of the fight and remained in command.

During the Maryland Campaign in September, Law’s Brigade found itself in the thick of the fray at Antietam. Paired again with the Texas brigade now commanded by Col. William T. Wofford, initial gains against enemy forces in the Cornfield unraveled when a significant number of Union reinforcements arrived on the scene.

Law did write an after-action report for the Battle of Antietam—a rare exception to his normal practice. In it, he explained that by this time “our ammunition was expended; the men had been fighting long and desperately and were exhausted from want of food and rest. Still, they held their ground, many of them using such ammunition as they could obtain from the bodies of our own and the enemy’s dead and wounded. It was evident that this state of affairs could not long continue. No support was at hand. To remain stationary or advance without it would have caused a useless butchery, and I adopted the only alternative—that of falling back to the wood from which I had first advanced.”

Law’s Brigade returned to action later that day, positioned near the Dunker Church, where it endured a thundering cannonade.

The casualty list for the brigade totaled 454 wounded and killed. “The good conduct of my brigade in this battle had not been surpassed by it in any previous engagement,” Law noted. He added, “Weak and exhausted as they were, and fighting against fearful odds, the troops accomplished and endured all that was within the limits of human capacity.”

I “have had the best of opportunities to judge of his qualifications as an officer, both in camp and on the battlefield, and I take great pleasure in stating that I know of no officer more worthy of promotion, than Col. Law.” —Major General John Bell Hood, 1862

Law received a promotion to brigadier general a month later. Adding a wreath to the trio of stars on his collar was the culmination of his own efforts plus lobbying by members of Congress, senior officers, and members of his brigade. Hood, who had served alongside Law since late 1861, wrote to Secretary of War George W. Randolph, I “have had the best of opportunities to judge of his qualifications as an officer, both in camp and on the battlefield, and I take great pleasure in stating that I know of no officer more worthy of promotion, than Col. Law.”

Back in Alabama, news of Law’s promotion received praise in the press.“No officer in the service has been more efficient, capable and gallant—no one has been more oftener in battle or led a more gallant regiment in the field. He has won his spurs by dint of merit alone. Alabama may be well proud of E.M. Law.”

The near constant campaigning through much of 1862 ended with the Battle of Fredericksburg. Law’s Brigade played a minor part in the fighting, during which the newly-minted brigadier’s horse was shot from beneath him.

In January 1863, Law’s Brigade became an all-Alabama force composed of the 4th, 15th, 44th, and 47th infantries. This change acted on a belief that brigades unified by state experienced higher morale and thus fought better. But the move dissolved the esprit de corps forged in the crucible of battle by the Alabamians, Mississippians and North Carolinians.

From this point forward, the four regiments would be known as Law’s Alabama Brigade, Hood’s Division, Longstreet’s Corps.

Law and his command eased into the new organization in the vicinity of Suffolk, Va., in February 1863. Longstreet’s Corps was charged with protecting Richmond, gathering supplies, capturing the Union garrison and coming to Lee’s aid if needed. Law’s Alabama Brigade and their comrades saw light skirmishing.

Law took a leave of absence for personal business in March. He traveled to Columbia, S.C., and married Jennie.

By the time Longstreet’s Corps rejoined Lee in May, the Battle of Chancellorsville had been fought and won, and Stonewall Jackson had suffered an accidental wound by his own men that proved mortal.

Gettysburg: “You hear the order?”

On July 1, 1863, the men of Law’s Alabama Brigade arrived at the Pennsylvania hamlet of New Guilford. Officially on outpost duty, their unofficial orders were feasting on apple butter and bread. Those that could whiled away the daylight hours until darkness and sleep overtook them.

For many, it was their last full day on Earth.

During the wee hours of July 2, orders arrived from Longstreet to report to Gettysburg. By 3 a.m., Law’s Brigade broke camp and marched eastward across the South Mountain range as the cool night yielded to a broiling day. The heat took a toll as the men trekked about two dozen miles. The vanguard reached the outskirts of Gettysburg around noon and joined Hood’s Division. By 3 p.m. the rest of the men had arrived.

They were greeted by sights of field hospitals and stretcher bearers carrying in desperately wounded men along the Emmitsburg Road bordered by wheat fields and a peach orchard and dotted by farms.

Longstreet, under pressure from Lee to attack the enemy and worried that chances for success against the formidable foe in front of him were low, had delayed the assault to allow Hood’s Division to come up.

Now all of his forces had arrived and he could no longer delay.

Law and his brigade, withered by the heat and without ample water, formed for an attack under Hood’s orders. They occupied the extreme right of the Confederate army—the end of a six-mile front in the shape of a fish hook.

Law did not like what he saw. “Round Top rose like a huge sentinel guarding the Federal left flank, while the spurs and ridges trending off to the north of it afforded unrivaled positions for the use of artillery. The puffs of smoke rising at intervals along the line of hills, as the federal batteries fired upon such portions of our line as became exposed to view, clearly showed that these advantages had not been neglected,” he recalled years later.

Thick foliage prevented Law from understanding where the enemy line ended and its exact location. By contrast, a year earlier at Gaines’ Mill, he had had the advantage of clearly seeing the positions of enemy infantry and artillery and gauging the difficulty of the terrain.

Law dispatched a six-man scout to find out where the Union troops were located in proximity to Round Top. There was no time to lose. The scout soon brought back intelligence, and prisoners who confirmed that the green dome was unoccupied. Behind it lay Union trains—an open door to roll up the enemy’s flank and very possibly win the day, the battle and maybe the war.

Armed with this intelligence, Law dashed off and found Hood on a nearby ridge line. He shared the information and made the case that the movement needed to be pursued by the right flank. Hood agreed, but noted he had orders to attack in front.

Law entered a formal protest with all the courage of his convictions. He argued that the outcome of a frontal assault was uncertain at best, the cost in blood would be too high, a right flank maneuver was easy, and that such a move would force the enemy to attack them in a much better position. In short, a flank attack would shift momentum in the Confederate army’s favor.

Hood wavered. He called in one of his aides and had Law repeat his protest. Law did and the aide rode off to report to Gen. Longstreet.

The aide returned about ten minutes later, accompanied by one of Longstreet’s staff. Law remembered the exchange:

“General Longstreet orders that you begin the attack at once,” said the corps commander’s staffer to Hood and within earshot of Law.

Hood turned and looked in Law’s direction. “You hear the order?”

The Round Tops: Lee “made his attack precisely where his enemy wanted him”

General Longstreet’s Corps advanced after 4 p.m. into the baking heat low on water and high on adrenaline. Major General Lafayette McLaws’s Division was positioned on the left flank and Hood the right. Law’s Alabama Brigade occupied the extreme right of Hood’s Division and led the attack.

Alert Union sharpshooters and artillery peppered the advance. Minutes into the movement shrapnel hit Hood in his left forearm as he descended a slope toward a wheatfield near the Slyder House and the muddy, meandering Plum Run. Aides carried him from the field insensible.

Division command passed to Law in as seamless a transition as might be expected considering the timing at the very outset of the fight. Hood’s staff apprised Law of the general’s condition. Law, already briefed on the attack plans, kept tabs on a rapidly changing situation, and remained in regular communication with his division through aides and his own movements. Law preferred to stay close to the action, as evidenced by postwar accounts by himself and others noting his presence at various points.

On the left, the division advanced through largely open ground, into the Triangular Field, where it met fierce resistance and a brutal fight along the edge of the field and among the boulders of Devil’s Den. Law sent in reinforcements to assist and McLaws took the rocky hillside and a few pieces of artillery at a high cost in dead and wounded. Law noted that less than an hour had elapsed to gain this position.

In the center and on the right, the division continued to take heavy fire as the men crossed Plum Run and marched through the valley. As the advance continued, Law rode over to the far right of his brigade and found Col. William C. Oates of the 15th Alabama Infantry. Oates recalled that Law “informed me that I was then on the extreme right of our line and for me to hug the base of Great Round Top and go up the valley between the two mountains, until I found the left of the Union line, to turn it and do all the damage I could.”

Oates, the dependable lawyer-soldier, vigorously pursued the attack. He and the rest of the brigade swept overt the northern face of Big Round Top. Oates recalled the view: “I saw Gettysburg through the foliage of the trees. Saw the smoke and heard the roar of battle which was then raging at the Devil’s Den, in the peach orchard, up the Emmitsburg road, and on the west and south of the Little Round Top. I saw from the highest point of rocks that we were then on the most commanding elevation in that neighborhood.”

After a pause to refresh and reform, the Alabamians turned left and advanced on Little Round Top. Here they clashed with Union forces hastily formed along the ridge and slopes. The advance ground to a halt among the rocky landscape as Law’s Brigade clashed with a Union counterpart commanded by another able soldier-lawyer, Col. Strong Vincent.

Law’s Alabama Brigade withdrew to the northwestern slope of Big Round Top. Hood’s Division occupied a line that extended from here down to Devil’s Den. Both sides sent out search parties to recover wounded and dead comrades and dug in for the night. Law lamented the loss of about a quarter of the division, about 2,000 officers and men.

The next day, Law faced a significant threat on his right by enemy cavalry commanded by Maj. Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick. Law’s series of timely moves during heavy skirmishing through the morning and into the afternoon ended with a repulse of the blue troopers. The most often mentioned single act of this fighting in this sector is the charge of Capt. Elon J. Farnsworth that ended with his death.

In a repeat of Gaines’ Mill, Law left behind no Gettysburg after-action report. He explained the omission by citing the constant motion of the army, delayed receipt of reports from brigade commanders, and his own neglect. Colonel Oates called him out after the war: “The truth is that General Law never made many reports beyond the usual casualties of battle. Although a brave man and a good fighter, he was very negligent in such matters.” He added, “Failure to make full and accurate reports of the operations of his splendid brigade was General Law’s greatest fault as an officer. Justice required that they be made.”

Law again left the storytelling to others. Oates and peers and superiors on both sides recounted their experiences in the postwar years. The most provocative narrative, by one of the colonels in Vincent’s Brigade, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine Infantry, emerged as the dominant account of the fighting at Little Round Top.

A quarter century after the war, Law broke his silence in an essay in the Battles and Leaders of the Civil War series by The Century Magazine. He did not shy away from stating the facts as he understood them and assigning blame to those he held accountable for failure. His boldness may be explained by his outspoken nature, and fueled by an awareness that this might be his last and best opportunity to set the record straight and clear his own name as veterans on both sides debated command decisions in the media.

Law’s essay, “The Struggle for ‘Round Top,’” detailed the second and third days of the fight on the right. He laid blame squarely on the shoulders of the overall commander: “General Lee failed at Gettysburg on the 2d and 3d of July because he made his attack precisely where his enemy wanted him to make it and was most fully prepared to receive it. Even had he succeeded in driving the Federal army from its strong position by a general and simultaneous assault along the whole front (which was the only possible chance of success in that direction), he would have found his army in very much the same condition in which Pyrrhus found his, when, after driving the Romans from the field of Asculum, he exclaimed, ‘Another such victory, and I am undone!’”

Turning Point

In the immediate aftermath of Gettysburg, Law’s reputation remained as strong as ever among the troops. They appreciated that he stepped in and directed the division at a critical moment and led a vigorous assault against significant odds.

Law also received support from military and political leaders.

Hood wrote in the autobiography published posthumously a year after his 1879 death, “General Law, after I was wounded, assumed command of the division, and proved himself, by his courage and ability, fully equal to the responsibilities of the position.”

In August 1863, Brig. Gen. Jerome Bonaparte Robertson, who had succeeded Hood in command of the Texas Brigade, recommended Law to replace Hood as permanent head of the division with the rank of major general. Robertson assumed Hood would be promoted to higher rank and command after he recuperated from his wound. Robertson stated of Law, “I believe him one of the best officers we have. His long and faithful services entitle him to the promotion and he would give general satisfaction. His capacity will not be doubted by any who know him and under him as our own major general we would not feel the change.”

The man to whom Robertson wrote, Alabamian and C.S. Attorney General Thomas Hill Watts, endorsed the recommendation and sent it along to Secretary of War James A. Seddon.

Law himself applied for a major general’s commission. In early October 1863, Alabama’s governor approved it. John Gill Shorter noted, “Alabama looks with pride upon her gallant son and we therefore take great pleasure in recommending Genl. Law for the position he desires.”

In postwar writings, “Law understated his participation, making it difficult to appreciate his contributions. He shied away from defending his own actions, and leaned into offering honest  appraisals of his superiors.”

By this time, Longstreet’s Corps had been dispatched to the Western Theater to reinforce the Army of Tennessee. At Chickamauga, Law again commanded the division as Hood, who had returned on the eve of battle, had been elevated to lead the corps while Longstreet commanded a wing of the Army of Tennessee. Law contributed to victory, remaining in temporary division command after Hood suffered another wound, this time in his right leg that required amputation.

Following the fight, Longstreet endorsed Hood for a promotion to lieutenant general and assigned command of the division to Brig. Gen. Micah Jenkins, Law’s fellow Citadel alumnus and King’s Mountain Military School colleague. Jenkins ranked Law as brigadier general by only a few months. He had, like Law, distinguished himself on the Peninsula in 1862.

Longstreet’s decision to bring in a general unfamiliar to the division had immediate and unfortunate consequences. Law turned malcontent, protesting the decision and plying every military and political channel in an effort to overturn it. Tensions between Jenkins and Law exacerbated the situation. Events culminated in Law’s resignation, his arrest by Longstreet for insubordination, and efforts to untangle the mess that made its way up the chain of command to Robert E. Lee and leaked into the press.

The internal strife marked Law’s turning point. His star waned.

Law was not the only general to get tangled in professional jealousies and rivalries. Longstreet’s reputation suffered for more than a century at the hands of postwar writers who assigned blame to him for Gen. Lee’s military setbacks. In recent decades, reassessments of Longstreet’s decisions and actions during and after the war have shown a positive light on him.

Law did not rise high enough in the army’s command structure to be criticized on the same level as Longstreet. One modern historian, however, offered an analysis of Law that counters the positive view of Hood and others. In a 2003 thesis, Maj. Kyle J. Foley pointed to piecemeal attacks by Law at Gettysburg and Chickamauga. Foley concluded that Law “was not adequately prepared to command a division.”

Law never had the opportunity to mature his leadership abilities as a division commander. Neither did Jenkins, whose tenure ended a few months later after Longstreet appointed Maj. Gen. Charles W. Field to command Hood’s Division. Field proved a steady hand and capable leader through the rest of the war.

Law’s staunchest supporters remained firm in their belief of his high value as a military commander and as a man. One of them, identified as “A Soldier,” defended Law in an open letter published in The Daily Selma Reporter on April 20, 1864: “I cannot bear the thought that my leader should be lightly spoken of. At the lonely outpost and amid the storm of battle I have learned to love him. The Spartan simplicity of his character—his lowly tent and frugal board; his courteous manner to the private soldier; his considerate care for all his followers—these qualities, blended with subtlety in council and heroism in strife, have won my admiration, and I wield by feeble pen in his justification because I believe that in the native nobility of his soul he would scorn to vindicate himself from an aspersion on his military character save by giving renewed evidence, on the field, that he is indeed a man.”

Law’s star sets

The early months of 1864 found Law in Richmond on a leave of absence as he awaited resolution of his case.

An anecdote from this period reveals Law’s patriotic impulses and bias towards action even as an uncertain future hung over him. During the raid upon the capital by U.S. cavalry led by Brig. Gen. Hugh Judson Kilpatrick and Col. Ulric Dahlgren in late February and early March, Law raised two companies to defend the city.

The case against Law ended with his restoration to command and he rejoined his brigade after the Battle of The Wilderness. His tenure did not last long. His first battle, Cold Harbor on June 2, resulted in a wound after a shell fragment struck him in his head and fractured his left eye socket near the brow.

Law took medical leave and traveled to South Carolina to recuperate. His head healed, but the anger in his heart against Longstreet had hardened into hate. Law made up his mind to no longer serve under Longstreet and embarked on a campaign to have his brigade transferred.

In the end, senior leadership lined up behind Longstreet. A special order issued on Jan. 7, 1865, severed Law’s connection to the brigade. The officer who had temporarily replaced him, Col. William F. Perry of the 44th Alabama Infantry, received a promotion to brigadier general and permanent command. Perry’s Brigade remained in Longstreet’s Corps through Appomattox.

Law spent the final months of the war in the Carolinas attached to Lt. Gen. Wade Hampton’s cavalry in a futile attempt to slow the advance of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s forces. Surrendered as part of the negotiations between Sherman and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Law signed the Oath of Allegiance in Charlotte, N.C., on May 25, 1865.

Postwar

Law returned to Yorkville and reunited with Jennie. Despite having an inheritance, he struggled to rebuild life in challenging economic conditions in the wake of the war. Law bounced between South Carolina and Alabama, engaging in familiar pursuits of agriculture, railroads and military education. In the early 1880s, he returned to King’s Mountain Military Academy to serve a stint as associate principal.

In 1893, Law and his family moved to Florida and settled in Bartow. Two years later, Law brought his passion as a military educator to bear as founder of the South Florida Military and Educational Institute, modeled on The Citadel. Accredited in 1903 and renamed the South Florida Military College, state authorities closed it in 1905 as part of a consolidation of higher education institutions. Law remained involved in education as a trustee of a private school and on the Polk County Board of Eduction. He also edited a local newspaper, the Courier Informant.

Active in veteran’s organizations, he attended many reunions. He also wrote, to a limited extent, about the war. His most notable contributions, in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War and The Southern Bivouac, offer strategic context, operational details and command-level decisions, and anecdotes to describe key moments or to illustrate the fighting qualities of the men. Law understated his participation, making it difficult to appreciate his contributions. He shied away from defending his own actions, and leaned into offering honest appraisals of his superiors.

Law ranked as one of the oldest surviving generals when he passed away in Bartow on Oct. 31, 1920, following a stroke. He was 84 years old. He outlived Jennie, who had died four months earlier. Three sons and a daughter survived him. Much of Bartow’s citizenry hailed him as a hero and closed its businesses on the day of his funeral as a show of respect.

Among the few writings Law left behind was a speech that looked to the future. On May 28, 1890, he delivered the keynote address at the annual reunion of the Army of Northern Virginia. In the hall of Virginia’s House of Delegates, Law stepped to the podium to present “The Confederate Revolution” to an audience dominated by gray-bearded veterans. In classic form, Law took a lofty, long view of the topic. He traced the country’s progress in fits and starts from its founding. He acknowledged slavery in terms of economics, and the issue of race as an ominous problem that could only be settled in the South. He recognized the advantages of the strong central government that arose from the war being a bulwark against national problems then facing the country, namely social and political corruption and unrest caused by uneven wealth distribution.

Law concluded, “The true strength of that government in the future must be as the head of a mighty phalanx of harmonious and indestructible States which will bear it up on their shields and carry its banner triumphantly through every peril. To this great end the States of the South stand ready to pledge ‘their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.’ This Union has been cemented by blood too precious to have been shed in vain. Let that blood atone for all the errors of the past.”

Ronald S. Coddington is Editor and Publisher of MI.

References: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. III; Foley, John Bell Hood’s Division in the Battle of Chickamauga: A Historical Analysis; Hood, Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate States Armies; Thomas, The History of the South Carolina Military Academy; The Charleston Mercury, Dec. 25, 1832, and March 12, 1864; Bailey and Cooper, Biographical Directory of the South Carolina House of Representatives; The Charleston Daily Courier, Dec. 7, 1852, and Nov. 24, 1856; Yorkville Enquirer, June 23, 1859; Catalogue of The Officers and Pupils of The Yorkville Female College, Yorkville, S.C.; interview with Craig Wofford, March 23, 2024; Baldwin, A Biography of the Struck Eagle: Brigadier General Micah Jenkins; Jacques, The Rural Carolinian; Thomas, The History of the South Carolina Military Academy; Feliz, Elyce. “Evander McIver Law, born August 7, 1836,” civilwaref.blogspot.com/2013/08/evander-mciver-law-born-august-7-1836.html; United Daughters of the Confederacy, Treasured Reminiscences; Yorkville Enquirer, Feb. 7, 1861; The Weekly Advertiser, Montgomery, Ala., Feb. 27, 1861; Stocker, ed., From Huntsville to Appomattox: R.T. Coles’s History of the 4th Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry; Yorkville Enquirer, Aug. 8, 1861; The Weekly Advertiser, Nov. 16, 1862; Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America; Official Records of the War of the Rebellion; Law, E.M. “The Fight for Richmond in 1862,” The Southern Bivouac (April 1887); Laine and Penny, Law’s Alabama Brigade in the War Between the Union and the Confederacy; The Weekly Advertiser, Nov. 12, 1862; Hodge, Robert Lee. “Yellowhammers and Environmentalism: Following the Path of Law’s Alabama Brigade to Gettysburg (part two),” emergingcivilwar.com/2019/08/13/yellowhammers-and-environmentalism-following-the-path-of-laws-alabama-brigade-to-gettysburg/; 4th Alabama, “Need help identifying uniforms of 4th Alabama Staff,” civilwartalk.com/threads/need-help-identifying-uniforms-of-4th-alabama-staff.121788/; Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Vol. IV; National Archives military service records; Oates, The War Between the Union and the Confederacy; Houghton and Houghton, Two Boys in the Civil War and After; Polly, Hood’s Texas Brigade: Its Marches, Its Battles, Its Achievements; Foley, Kyle J. “John Bell Hood’s Division in the Battle of Chickamauga: A Historical Analysis”; The Daily Selma Reporter, April 20, 1864; Southern Historical Society Papers, January-December 1889.

Portrait of Brig. Gen. Law and his military family

Law wears a brigadier’s insignia, his extended left arm hanging at his side a visible reminder of his First Manassas wound. Four soldiers surround him, including men on his left and right with collar stars.

The image is a half-plate ambrotype passed through the Law family to the general’s great-granddaughter, Anne “Annie” Daves Johnston Storm (1899-1970) of Winter Haven, Fla. In 1995, this image and other items, including Law’s field glass, were offered through a private auction in Bartow, Fla. Collector and dealer Craig Wofford placed the winning bid and is the caretaker of these artifacts.

A glass plate negative of this ambrotype is part of the George Smith Cook Studio Collection at the Valentine Museum in Richmond. Cook, active as a photographer in Charleston, S.C., during the war, amassed a significant collection of Confederate portraits during the postwar period until his death in 1902. The Valentine acquired this collection of more than 10,000 negatives and prints in 1954.

According to the Valentine’s description, etched along one side of the Cook negative is “Common soldiers from Chas. City Co.” A summary note states that the image is “showing a group of five Confederate soldiers posing in uniform; possibly General Evander M. Law (center) and staff; from Charles City County, Virginia,” and dates the image to 1861-1865.

The Valentine image has sparked theories about the date and identity of the individuals.

A cropped version was reproduced in Coles’s 1996 history of the 4th, From Huntsville to Appomattox, edited by Jeffrey D. Stocker. It is captioned “Colonel Evander M. Law, taken either late 1861 or early 1862, with other unidentified members of the 4th Alabama.” The view of Law’s head and his beard obscures much of his collar insignia, and reproductions of the untinted black and white negative make it hard to read. A close examination of the original color-tinted ambrotype reveal stars that support his rank as colonel. However, the barely wreath visible beneath the stars indicates he is a general.

A 2019 post by Robert Lee Hodge on the Emerging Civil War blog describes the officers as Law’s staff, probably photographed in late 1862. This date is consistent with Law’s promotion to brigadier.

A 2016 discussion thread on CivilWarTalk.com raised possible names and photo comparisons to identify the men based on a late 1862 date. One comment, by Laura Elliott, opened up the possibility that the men sat for the portrait later in the war. She observed that the man at the bottom right wears dark cuffs and collar consistent with a medical officer. She surmised that he is Dr. Charles Thomas Taliaferro (1833-1902) of the 4th. Another commenter followed up with a postwar portrait of Taliaferro that resembles the man in the portrait.

If Taliaferro is the medical officer, the star on his collar indicates he ranked as a surgeon (major). Taliaferro’s military service record lists only his appointment as assistant surgeon (captain) in August 1862. Muster rolls in the Alabama Department of Archives and History list him as being promoted to full surgeon in 1864. No month is listed.

The shift to a later war date opens up the possibility that this portrait pictures Law and his military family in the summer of 1864. The young, clean-shaven man wearing a nine-button shell jacket is his younger brother, John Kolb Law (1841-1913), who served as a volunteer aide and suffered a wound at Antietam, and went on to become an enrolling officer in Virginia. The officer standing next to him is Mims Walker (1838-1903), who started his service in Company D of the 4th. Law detailed him as a courier and unofficial aide during the Peninsula Campaign, and Walker served in this capacity until he received a promotion to first lieutenant and aide in June 1864. Seated on the left is Leigh Richmond Terrell (about 1835-1864), who served as captain and assistant adjutant general on Law’s staff until June 1864, when he received an appointment as lieutenant colonel of the 47th Alabama Infantry. He is pictured here at this rank. Terrell suffered a mortal wound at the Second Battle of Darbytown Road on Oct. 13, 1864. Walker and Terrell were close confidants to Law. Surgeon Taliaferro sits on the right. The men may have posed in the gallery of an unidentified photographer in the Richmond area, possibly southeast of the capital in Charles City County as mentioned in the Valentine Museum description.

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