General Thomas Rosser ... Anti-Aircraft Gunner... ?

[5fish]

General Rosser is from the same class that Custer and some other Civil War notables were from as well... Thomas Rosser first claim to fame was being credited with shooting down an Observation balloon when he commands an artillery unit early in the war.

Brig. Gen. Thomas Rosser’s Laurel Brigade trailed Sheridan’s army as the Yankees burned and destroyed. Rosser, 27, was a West Point classmate and friend of George Custer. Until he was severely wounded in 1862, Rosser was an artillery officer and best known for having shot down a Union observation balloon. Returning to duty, he was given command of a cavalry regiment and quickly made a reputation for daring attacks, much like his former classmate.

Here is this saying no balloons were ever shot down... so what is the truth...

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-ballooning
No. There are recorded attempts by Confederate artillerists to destroy balloons on or near the ground, but all of those attempts failed. Positioned well behind the front lines, and at an altitude of near 1,000 feet, balloons were difficult, if not impossible, targets for opposing militaries.

Link:https://www.historynet.com/burning-shenandoah-valley.htm

Rosser had an impressive carrier as Custer but he is a little less known. The Shenandoah Valley he took on Custer during The Burn... anointed "Savior of the Valley"... The Route of Shame...

The Valley’s Confederate loyalists anointed Rosser the “Savior of the Valley” before his men had even fired a shot—so desperate were they to believe that Sheridan might yet be driven off and their farmsteads preserved. Early demonstrated his confidence in Rosser by giving him Fitzhugh Lee’s two brigades while Lee recovered from wounds suffered at Winchester. With his division of 3,000 men, Rosser skirmished with Sheridan’s rear guard—Custer’s division—near Brock’s Gap on October 6, the day “the Burning” commenced. Operating nearby, but independently, was Early’s other cavalry division, commanded by Brig. Gen. Lunsford Lomax.

Snip... Custer...

As the sun poked above the hills on October 9, Custer’s 3rd Division faced Rosser’s troopers at Tom’s Brook Crossing. Custer rode along his line, making sure his brigades were ready for battle. Then, turning toward where Rosser was watching through his field glasses, Custer raised his hat and made a deep bow to his old West Point friend. The men of both armies cheered loudly.

Snip...

It was open country, ideal for an old-fashioned cavalry fight on horseback with sabers and pistols—as well as for artillery. From Round Top Mountain, Sheridan intently watched the charges and countercharges.
Two hours into the battle, Rosser’s flanks collapsed, and Merritt and Custer mounted a great concerted charge along the entire front. The Rebel cavalry, outnumbered two to one, buckled and sagged. Then there was, as Sheridan triumphantly noted, “a general smashup of the entire Confederate line.” A Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who witnessed the battle wrote, “It was a square cavalry fight in which the enemy was routed beyond my power to describe.”

Snip...

Some Rebel cavalrymen stopped along the way to offer brief, but futile, resistance before continuing their flight—past Woodstock, all the way to Mount Jackson, 20 miles away. Sheridan’s men nicknamed the rollicking pursuit the “Woodstock Races.”

Later he did not surrender with Lee... from wiki...

Rosser was conspicuous during the Appomattox Campaign, capturing a Union general, John Irvin Gregg, and rescuing a wagon train near Farmville. He led a daring early morning charge at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and escaped with his command as Lee surrendered the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia. Under orders from the secretary of war, he began reorganizing the scattered remnants of Lee's army in a vain attempt to join Joseph E. Johnston's army in North Carolina. However, he surrendered at Staunton, Virginia, on May 4 and was paroled shortly afterwards.

Snip... He came to fight the Spanish-American war

On June 10, 1898, President William McKinley appointed Rosser a brigadier general of United States volunteers during the Spanish–American War. His first task was training young cavalry recruits in a camp near the old Civil War battlefield of Chickamauga in northern Georgia. He was honorably discharged on October 31, 1898, and returned home. He died at Charlottesville and is buried at Riverview Cemetery, Charlottesville.

Link: Thomas L. Rosser - Wikipedia

He has a lot of other exploits that I may post later unless others would like to post them...

 

[5fish]

Remember the infamous shade bake while the battle of Five Forks was heating up... It was General Rosser shade bake... I like to point out that Pickett paid the price for Rosser's fish bake...

Link: https://historica.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_L._Rosser

Rosser was promoted to Major-General in November 1864, and he commanded a cavalry division during the Siege of Petersburg in the spring of 1865. He later hosted a shad bake attended by George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee, but this led to all three men missing the Battle of Five Forks

Here if you want to know what a shade bake is... https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...neral-george-picketts-shad-bake-10132762.html

* In a secluded part of Virginia known as Hatcher's Run, 150 years ago this week, three Confederate generals, George Pickett, Fitzhugh Lee and Thomas L Rosser, enjoyed a local tradition known as a shad bake. This involved attaching shad (a local herring) to boards, sticking them in the ground around a fire, then eating them. It had been a cold, hungry winter, and the shad provided the men with a rare treat. The only problem was that two miles away, Pickett's troops were being annihilated in what became known as the "Waterloo" of the Confederacy.

Snip leads to this... acoustic shadowing is why the three Generals did hear the sounds of battle: You can say The science of acoustics dommed LEE!!!

* "Some time was spent over lunch," recalled Rosser, "during which no firing was heard... We concluded that the enemy was not in much of a hurry to find us as Five Forks." Five Forks was the crucial crossroads which, that morning, Robert E Lee, the general-in-chief, had instructed Pickett to hold at all costs. The feasting generals heard nothing because the wooded area they were lunching in muffled the sound of gunfire.

 

[jgoodguy]

General Rosser is from the same class that Custer and some other Civil War notables were from as well... Thomas Rosser first claim to fame was being credited with shooting down an Observation balloon when he commands an artillery unit early in the war.

Brig. Gen. Thomas Rosser’s Laurel Brigade trailed Sheridan’s army as the Yankees burned and destroyed. Rosser, 27, was a West Point classmate and friend of George Custer. Until he was severely wounded in 1862, Rosser was an artillery officer and best known for having shot down a Union observation balloon. Returning to duty, he was given command of a cavalry regiment and quickly made a reputation for daring attacks, much like his former classmate.

Here is this saying no balloons were ever shot down... so what is the truth...

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-ballooning
No. There are recorded attempts by Confederate artillerists to destroy balloons on or near the ground, but all of those attempts failed. Positioned well behind the front lines, and at an altitude of near 1,000 feet, balloons were difficult, if not impossible, targets for opposing militaries.

Link:https://www.historynet.com/burning-shenandoah-valley.htm

Rosser had an impressive carrier as Custer but he is a little less known. The Shenandoah Valley he took on Custer during The Burn... anointed "Savior of the Valley"... The Route of Shame...

The Valley’s Confederate loyalists anointed Rosser the “Savior of the Valley” before his men had even fired a shot—so desperate were they to believe that Sheridan might yet be driven off and their farmsteads preserved. Early demonstrated his confidence in Rosser by giving him Fitzhugh Lee’s two brigades while Lee recovered from wounds suffered at Winchester. With his division of 3,000 men, Rosser skirmished with Sheridan’s rear guard—Custer’s division—near Brock’s Gap on October 6, the day “the Burning” commenced. Operating nearby, but independently, was Early’s other cavalry division, commanded by Brig. Gen. Lunsford Lomax.

Snip... Custer...

As the sun poked above the hills on October 9, Custer’s 3rd Division faced Rosser’s troopers at Tom’s Brook Crossing. Custer rode along his line, making sure his brigades were ready for battle. Then, turning toward where Rosser was watching through his field glasses, Custer raised his hat and made a deep bow to his old West Point friend. The men of both armies cheered loudly.

Snip...

It was open country, ideal for an old-fashioned cavalry fight on horseback with sabers and pistols—as well as for artillery. From Round Top Mountain, Sheridan intently watched the charges and countercharges.
Two hours into the battle, Rosser’s flanks collapsed, and Merritt and Custer mounted a great concerted charge along the entire front. The Rebel cavalry, outnumbered two to one, buckled and sagged. Then there was, as Sheridan triumphantly noted, “a general smashup of the entire Confederate line.” A Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who witnessed the battle wrote, “It was a square cavalry fight in which the enemy was routed beyond my power to describe.”

Snip...

Some Rebel cavalrymen stopped along the way to offer brief, but futile, resistance before continuing their flight—past Woodstock, all the way to Mount Jackson, 20 miles away. Sheridan’s men nicknamed the rollicking pursuit the “Woodstock Races.”

Later he did not surrender with Lee... from wiki...

Rosser was conspicuous during the Appomattox Campaign, capturing a Union general, John Irvin Gregg, and rescuing a wagon train near Farmville. He led a daring early morning charge at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and escaped with his command as Lee surrendered the bulk of the Army of Northern Virginia. Under orders from the secretary of war, he began reorganizing the scattered remnants of Lee's army in a vain attempt to join Joseph E. Johnston's army in North Carolina. However, he surrendered at Staunton, Virginia, on May 4 and was paroled shortly afterwards.

Snip... He came to fight the Spanish-American war

On June 10, 1898, President William McKinley appointed Rosser a brigadier general of United States volunteers during the Spanish–American War. His first task was training young cavalry recruits in a camp near the old Civil War battlefield of Chickamauga in northern Georgia. He was honorably discharged on October 31, 1898, and returned home. He died at Charlottesville and is buried at Riverview Cemetery, Charlottesville.

Link: Thomas L. Rosser - Wikipedia

He has a lot of other exploits that I may post later unless others would like to post them...

Very interesting.

 

[jgoodguy]

Remember the infamous shade bake while the battle of Five Forks was heating up... It was General Rosser shade bake... I like to point out that Pickett paid the price for Rosser's fish bake...

Link: https://historica.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_L._Rosser

Rosser was promoted to Major-General in November 1864, and he commanded a cavalry division during the Siege of Petersburg in the spring of 1865. He later hosted a shad bake attended by George Pickett and Fitzhugh Lee, but this led to all three men missing the Battle of Five Forks

Here if you want to know what a shade bake is... https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...neral-george-picketts-shad-bake-10132762.html

* In a secluded part of Virginia known as Hatcher's Run, 150 years ago this week, three Confederate generals, George Pickett, Fitzhugh Lee and Thomas L Rosser, enjoyed a local tradition known as a shad bake. This involved attaching shad (a local herring) to boards, sticking them in the ground around a fire, then eating them. It had been a cold, hungry winter, and the shad provided the men with a rare treat. The only problem was that two miles away, Pickett's troops were being annihilated in what became known as the "Waterloo" of the Confederacy.

Snip leads to this... acoustic shadowing is why the three Generals did hear the sounds of battle: You can say The science of acoustics dommed LEE!!!

* "Some time was spent over lunch," recalled Rosser, "during which no firing was heard... We concluded that the enemy was not in much of a hurry to find us as Five Forks." Five Forks was the crucial crossroads which, that morning, Robert E Lee, the general-in-chief, had instructed Pickett to hold at all costs. The feasting generals heard nothing because the wooded area they were lunching in muffled the sound of gunfire.

I remember reading that some bourbon was involved too.

 

[5fish]

Battle of Tom Brook... the reason Rosser got beat down was his got too far ahead of the Confederate infantry when the more numerous Union cavalry turned a struck them him... in this all cavalry on cavalry melee...

The " savior of the valley" got whipped after a good fight against greater odds... https://www.shenandoahatwar.org/history/battle-of-toms-brook/

snip...

The all-cavalry Battle of Tom’s Brook was a decisive Union triumph that reflected the growing dominance of Union horse soldiers in the Shenandoah Valley. The outnumbered Confederate cavalry, eager for revenge on Federal troops carrying out the destruction of The Burning, had advanced far beyond their infantry support, leaving them vulnerable when the Federals turned to attack on October 9, 1864. The resulting Union rout of the southerners became known as “The Woodstock Races.”

snip...

As Union cavalry carried out “The Burning” in early October 1864, Confederate cavalry followed close behind, ordered by Confederate commander Gen. Jubal A. Early “to pursue the enemy, to harass him, and to ascertain his purposes.” Among the cavalry were reinforcements sent from Petersburg, the “Laurel Brigade” under Gen. Thomas Rosser, called by some the “Savior of the Valley.” Many members of his brigade were Valley natives, and the Federal destruction left them “blinded with rage at the sight of their ruined homes.” Eager for vengeance, they hammered relentlessly at the Federals on October 6-8, forcing them back “in one continuous running fight” – and, as one southern officer remembered, “in many cases [taking] no prisoners.”

The link above has the last couple of paragraphs about how the Union was able to outflank the Confederate and cause a route after hours of fighting...

 

[O' Be Joyful]

I remember reading that some bourbon was involved too.

On CWT @diane once said that she had always wondered what would have happened if Jeb Stuart had been at 5 Forks, I replied with Pickett saying, "Hey Jeb, pass the tartar sauce, will ya."

 

[jgoodguy]

On CWT @diane once said that she had always wondered what would have happened if Jeb Stuart had been at 5 Forks, I replied with Pickett saying, "Hey Jeb, pass the tartar sauce, will ya."

A fish and booze party for the generals, who were very tired and needed a break goes wrong. I wonder if that sound inversion was real or wishful thinking.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

A fish and booze party for the generals, who were very tired and needed a break goes wrong. I wonder if that sound inversion was real or wishful thinking.

What if Stonewall had been at Five Forks?

"Pass the vinegar please, General Asshole...Sir."

 

[jgoodguy]

Come to think of it, if Stonewall was able to come to that shad bake party, he'd be alive at Gettysburg and the party would have been an oyster and crab bake in Washington DC just before the push northwards.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Come to think of it, if Stonewall was able to come to that shad bake party, he'd be alive at Gettysburg and the party would have been an oyster and crab bake in Washington DC just before the push northwards.

And he would have stunk worse than the left over shells. And think of the poor horse than would have had to carry him and the out of date cock-tail sauce, although horseradish preserves well.

 

[5fish]

I found Rosser's tale of shooting down a balloon... it interesting the question did he shoot it down.... it's a link to a book page worth a page of reading... The first anti aircraft fire in history...

https://books.google.com/books?id=j...tain rosser's shots at union balloons&f=false

 

[5fish]

Has anyone read the link above and learn about the first anti aircraft attack... On a balloon...

 

[5fish]

Here he has a book...

https://www.amazon.com/Custers-Gray...Thomas+Rosser&qid=1571178154&s=audible&sr=8-1

Summary:

Tom Rosser served in nearly every battle of the Army of Northern Virginia. The lanky officer, known as much for his temper as his fighting abilities, resigned from West Point two weeks prior to graduation when Virginia seceded from the Union. He began the war in the artillery, transferred to the cavalry, and ended the fight under a cloud of some disgrace―even after helping win the last victory in Virginia. Sheridan Barringer's Custer's Gray Rival: The Life of Confederate Major General Thomas Lafayette Rosser tells his story in the first serious biography of this important officer.

The Virginia native won success as part of the famed Washington Artillery of New Orleans before General Jeb Stuart convinced Rosser to transfer to his cavalry command as colonel of the 5th Virginia Cavalry. Rosser soon became Stuart's protégé and friend, and the dashing general did all he could to further his career. The only person who could derail Rosser, however, was Rosser, whose ability to take umbrage at the slightest offense was matched by his impatience and an oversized ego.

Rosser, who believed Stuart was conspiring to keep him from making general, finally achieved that rank in October of 1863 and went on to lead the famous Laurel Brigade in a number of campaigns. In 1864 after Stuart's death, he accused his new commander, General Wade Hampton, of blocking his promotion to major general.

The cavalryman's most prominent service arrived in the Shenandoah Valley under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early in the fall of 1864, where Rosser led daring raids and achieved success in furnishing the army with valuable intelligence, livestock, and other supplies. His embarrassing failure in the Confederate debacle at Tom's Brook on October 9 against his former classmate and rival George Custer, combined with his absence from the front at a shad bake at Five Forks during the war's final days, cast a dark cloud over his otherwise solid record.

Author Barringer mined manuscript collections, first-person accounts, and scores of letters and other memoranda written by Rosser himself to pen what is surely the most complete monograph of the gray cavalryman. Rosser, who looked upon life as a series of contests, loved the glory of combat. He continued fighting rivals, gray and blue, after the war by means fair and foul, unable to check his ego and short temper. He ended his military career "in the most unlikely fashion"―as a general in the United States army in the Spanish-American War. Custer's Gray Rival is a long overdue study of one of American's most interesting characters.