The
Life of Colonel Moses James White
by Paul Branch
(published in
the Spring '04 Ramparts)
On October 5, 1861, a tall
qawky-looking uniformed officer with a gaunt, boyish face stepped from
a boat onto the wharf at Fort Macon and paused to look over his new
command. Twenty-seven year old Moses J. White, newly promoted to
the rank of Colonel of Artillery, had arrived from Kentucky to assume
command of Fort Macon. He would be Fort Macon’s last Confederate
commander. The road that brought him to this moment was one full
of pride and hope for a young man who had devoted his life to service
in the military. The road after he left Fort Macon for the last
time seven months later would be one of suffering, frustration and
finally death.
Moses James White was born August 6, 1835, the eldest of
four children born to Dr. Franklin and Emily White, of Vicksburg,
Mississippi. In his early years, White grew up in Vicksburg to be
a lanky teenager six feet two inches in height. Of his early
schooling, his father would write that the boy’s education “has been by
a combination of manual labor and attention to his studies and I can
say that industry is fixed in him as a habit.” As he progressed
through his teen years, young Moses’ focus centered on the military for
a career, starting with the hope he might attend the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point, N.Y.
In March 1853, White’s father and a number of prominent
citizens of Vicksburg applied to Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War
and himself a Mississippian, to appoint Moses to West Point should a
vacancy occur. Because no vacancy immediately came open,
18-year-old Moses was sent east and began studies at the College of
William and Mary at Williamsburg, VA, on October 13, 1853. After
one year as a student here, Moses’ big opportunity finally came in the
summer of 1854. A vacant West Point cadetship occurred for the
district of Mississippi Congressman G.R. Singleton. Because it
was customary for congressmen to fill such vacancies, Singleton
nominated young Moses.
Thus, Moses J. White left William and Mary and attended
West Point on September 1, 1854. His record at the military
academy was impressive, ranking fifth in his class for his first two
years and second in his last two years. On July 1, 1858, he was
graduated second in his class of 27 members and commissioned in the
U.S. Army as Brevet 2nd Lieutenant of Ordinance. However, there
was a dark cloud over what seemed to be the beginning of an otherwise
promising career. The first manifestation of the disease that
would ultimately kill him, epilepsy, appeared in this same year.
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Nevertheless, White served as Assistant Ordnance Officer
at the Baton Rouge Arsenal in 1859 and went on as commander of the Fort
Union Ordnance Depot, New Mexico, during 1859-60. During 1860-61,
however, he was forced to take a sick leave of absence from his
duties. His health was already beginning to deteriorate.
With the secession of Mississippi from the Union on
January 9, 1861, Lieutenant White decided to follow his home
state. He resigned his commission in the U.S. Army on February 7,
1861, and offered his services to the Confederacy. On March 16,
he was appointed 1st Lieutenant in the Confederate Corps of Artillery,
which he accepted on April 10. On July 1 he was ordered to report
for duty as ordnance officer on the staff of Major General Leonidas
Polk, commanding the military department embracing west Tennessee,
northern Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, and east Arkansas.
Here White participated in early Confederate operations in Missouri and
at Columbus, Kentucky, in August and September.
Hundreds of miles to the east, meanwhile, the fall of
Hatteras Inlet, N.C., to Union forces in August 1861, disclosed many
weaknesses in North Carolina coastal defenses. Among these was a
lack of officers trained in ordnance and artillery in the forts
defending the state’s coast. The last several officers to command
Fort Macon had all been men from civilian pursuits with no formal
military training. Upon the resignation on September 25 of
Lieutenant Colonel John L. Bridges as Fort Macon’s commandant, the need
for an experienced artillery officer to command the fort was
recognized. Accordingly, the Confederate War Department promoted
Lieutenant White to the rank of temporary Colonel on September 30 and
transferred him to the Department of North Carolina to take command of
Fort Macon. He assumed command on October 5.
It was inevitable that Union forces would eventually
return to attack the coast of North Carolina. During February and
March 1862, Union Brigadier General Ambrose E. Burnside’s expedition
swept through the northeast sound region of the state’s coast and then
captured New Bern on March 14. From this point, Burnside
dispatched part of his forces under Brigadier General John G. Parke to
capture Fort Macon and secure Beaufort Harbor. Colonel White and
the fort garrison were now cut off. White had his men conduct
what delaying tactics were possible and withdrew to the safety of the
fort.
Parke’s forces captured Morehead City on March 23 and
Beaufort on March 26. A demand for the fort’s surrender on March
23 was refused by Colonel White. Parke’s forces landed on Bogue
Banks and besieged the fort on Aril 12. They erected emplacements
for siege artillery to bombard the fort into submission.
As the Confederates made their defensive preparations, an
unfortunate incident took place in the fort. Finding one of his
men had been a baker before the war, White ordered that the rations of
flour normally issued to the garrison companies would instead be used
to bake bread for the garrison in the fort’s bake oven as an economy
measure. At first the garrison was in favor of the change.
However, the baker’s bread continuously turned out burned and
inedible. Soon the men were clamoring for the flour ration to be
returned to them. Even the commanders of the garrison’s five
companies and the fort medical officer sided with the men.
Thinking he had the fort’s best interest in hand, White insisted the
bread baking continue. After several days, the discontent among
the men over the bread reached a state of near-mutiny. The
company commanders stated unless White returned the normal issue of
flour to the men they were prepared to seize the flour rations from the
Commissary if necessary. White was furious but found no other
recourse but to rescind the order for baked bread.
The “Bread Incident” left many feelings of discontent and
ill-will at a time when the garrison needed to focus full attention on
the enemy. White’s inflexible sense of duty was a product of
being a West Point-educated professional soldier of the old Regular
Army where orders were obeyed without question. As such, he had
run headlong into the unpredictable, fiercely independent spirit of
green, nonprofessional volunteer, citizen-soldiers with all their
suspicions about fussy “West Pointers.” Such culture clashes were
not limited to Fort Macon, but would appear elsewhere many times,
especially in the early part of the war.
One other problem of White’s leadership during the siege
was his reluctance to freely use the fort’s superior armament against
the Union forces as they prepared their siege works. With a
limited supply of powder and ammunition on hand, and a definite need to
conserve what he had for a potentially lengthy siege, White kept a
tight rein on the use of the fort’s guns to shell the Union
positions. His was a difficult situation, weighing the need to
conserve with the need to impede the progress of the enemy. When
it was clear the fort’s desultory fire was having little effect, White
and his company commanders met on April 21. At their insistence,
he allowed them to use the fort’s guns at their discretion to
vigorously shell the Union positions. For the remainder of the
siege the fort’s cannonades were more effective, but by this time most
of the work to the Union siege batteries was nearing completion.
On April 23, General Burnside himself arrived to witness
the final stage of the siege. He offered White another chance to
surrender, which was refused. However, White accepted the offer
of a parley on Shackleford Banks with Burnside the following
morning. At this meeting, Burnside personally tried to persuade
White to give up, but the Colonel resolved to fight.
Just after dawn on April 25, the Union batteries opened
fire on the fort. The fort soon returned fire and the bombardment
raged almost eleven hours. During the morning Colonel White was
very active. Unmindful of his own safety, he visited every gun,
shouting encouragement and reminding his men of their duty to state and
country. He even visited the exposed batteries on the fort’s
outer wall several times to check on his men and encourage them.
By early afternoon, however, his frail health was exhausted. He
was forced to turn command of the fort over to the senior captain at 1
pm and retire to his quarters to regain his strength.
As the afternoon wore on, it was clear the fort could not
hold out. White and his company commanders met and decided
surrender was their only option. Accordingly, about 4:30 pm a
flag of truce was displayed. A suspension of hostilities was
granted for the night until General Burnside decided surrender
terms. The following morning of April 26, Burnside decided to
release the garrison on parole of honor with their personal effects and
belongings. Colonel White came aboard Burnside’s flagship early
to sign the terms. During the subsequent surrender of the fort,
White was so mortified in having lost the fort that Burnside graciously
forbade his troops from cheering to spare the young colonel’s feelings.
After returning to Confederate lines on parole, White
returned to Mississippi to visit his family. After being
exchanged, he was ordered on September 22, 1862, to report to Major
General T.H. Holmes, commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, as
Chief of Artillery and Ordnance. Unfortunately, White’s health
was in rapid decline. General Holmes noted on October 26 that
White had reported for duty but “the painful disease with which he is
afflicted disqualified him from any trust at all commensurate with his
rank. His mind, I think, is seriously impaired. I have
appointed Maj. G.H. Hill chief of ordnance and artillery, Colonel White
assuring me that his health would not permit him to act in that
capacity.”
On November 27, White was then ordered to Pocahontas,
Arkansas, to organize a brigade of cavalry. White duly commanded
a brigade containing the 3rd and 4th Missouri Cavalry regiments but was
unable to lead it in a raid in January 1863. The brigade was
subsequently broken up.
White apparently spent most of 1863 on sick leave.
In November 1863, he spent some time in a hospital at Richmond,
Va. During his return to the Trans-Mississippi Department, the
epileptic attacks were so bad he sent in his resignation on December 2,
believing he would never be fit for duty again. Three days later,
however, he withdrew his resignation and continued on sick leave.
He had no choice but to remain in the Army. The confiscation of
his personal property by Union authorities in Mississippi left him
dependent on his Army pay for support.
In 1864, White leaned of a doctor in London specializing
in the treatment of epilepsy. It was his last hope. He
succeeded in securing assignment to duty on December 2, 1864, with the
Confederate Purchasing Department in London. By the time these
orders bypassed Union-held territory to reach him in Mississippi, it
was January 1865. With all ports of the Confederacy now in Union
hands, he started off as a private citizen for New Orleans, apparently
hoping to secure passage on a steamer for Europe.
He never reached his destination. While passing
through Natchez, Mississippi, White’s health evaporated. At one
of the homes there, he lay dying. Word of this somehow reached
his family in Vicksburg. His sister, Lucy E. White, was able to
obtain permission from Union authorities to pass through the lines to
nurse him back to health (family legend says General U.S. Grant made
the arrangement). Her efforts were in vain. Moses died at
Natchez at age 29 on January 29, 1865. Reverent J.B. Stratton of
the Natchez Presbyterian Church conducted the funeral two days
later. Unfortunately, no record has been found of the location of
his grave. Even the alumni records of his beloved West Point
incorrectly list the year of his death as 1864.
During his brief, tormented life, White did not
marry. During the siege of Fort Macon, General Burnside’s
secretary noted that White had “a lady love” living in Beaufort.
He name is not known, and doubtless he never saw her again after
leaving Fort Macon.
Moses James White thus passed into history. His
frail health robbed him of the duty and service he sought so hard to
offer. His life stands as yet another tragic story that was part
of the most tragic period in American history.
Paul Branch is the Ranger/Historian at
Fort Macon.