Choosing sides wasn’t an easy task
for these prominent military officers

Whose side are you on – the North or the South?

It was a difficult choice for many during the Civil War, but, perhaps, particularly difficult for six prominent military leaders. George Thomas, John C. Breckinridge, Bushrod Johnson, Samuel Cooper, David Farragut and John Pemberton were among those who switched sides. Breckinridge was a native Kentuckian and Thomas and Johnson led troops at the Battles of Mill Springs and Perryville, respectively.

Their families and native states often were surprised by their choices and others branded them as disloyal. But, for whatever reason, these six military officers distinguished themselves.

Union Gen. George Thomas

According to some historians, one of the greatest and most skilled Union generals may have been southerner George Thomas. A native of Southampton County, Va., Thomas was a career soldier who had served with distinction in the Mexican-American War and later taught at West Point. But despite his strong southern roots – he’d grown up on a plantation and even owned slaves – Thomas refused to break his oath to the U.S. Army and remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

His decision sent shock waves through the South. J.E.B. Stuart, a former pupil of Thomas’ at West Point, said he deserved to be hanged as a traitor. Even his own sister disowned him, writing that he had been, “false to his state, his family, and to his friends.”

Thomas nevertheless went on to become one of the Union’s most successful generals in the war’s western theater. After winning a crucial early victory at the Battle of Mill Springs, he led a heroic defensive stand at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, and later crushed Gen. John Bell Hood’s forces at the Battles of Franklin and Nashville. The Virginian ended the war with an unparalleled record, but his relationships with some of his family members never recovered. When they were sent supplies on Thomas’ behalf shortly after Lee’s surrender, his sisters are said to have refused the offering, saying they had no brother.

Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge

Many prominent politicians supported the Confederacy, but few were as loathed in the North as Kentucky Sen. John C. Breckinridge.

Although he was a pro-slavery Democrat, Breckinridge favored the peaceful preservation of the Union, and in the late 1850s and early 1860s, he regularly spoke out on the Senate floor against the march to war. He remained in the U.S. Senate even after the start of hostilities, and often acted as the lone dissenting vote against many of Lincoln’s military policies.

Breckinridge returned to Kentucky in September 1861 to argue in favor of neutrality, but when Kentucky’s government backed the Union, he abruptly fled to Virginia to avoid arrest as a Confederate sympathizer.

A few months later, his fellow legislators denounced him as a traitor and expelled him from the U.S. Senate by unanimous vote.

Breckinridge won a commission as a brigadier general, was promoted to major general, and later served at key battles including Shiloh, Chickamauga and New Market. At the war’s end, Breckinridge once again found himself a marked man, and he fled the country to avoid prosecution as a turncoat.

He lived in exile in Cuba, Europe and Canada until 1868 when President Andrew Johnson’s general pardon of Confederates allowed him to return to Kentucky.

Confederate Gen. Bushrod Johnson

Bushrod Johnson took an unlikely path to become a Confederate general. Born in Ohio to a family of abolitionist, pacifist Quakers, Johnson attended West Point against his parents’ wishes and later fought in both the Seminole and Mexican-American Wars.

His military career came to a sudden end in 1847 when he was caught setting up a scheme to sell contraband government equipment. Forced to resign from the army, he spent several years working as a professor at military schools in Kentucky and Tennessee.

When the Civil War broke out, Johnson had reinvented himself as an unrepentant southerner. After sending his young son to live with his relatives in the North, he joined the Army of Tennessee as a colonel and quickly rose to the rank of brigadier general. He earned a reputation as a fierce fighter at the Battles of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Perryville and Chickamauga and later was appointed a major general.

However, his division was destroyed at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek in April 1865, only a few days before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. After the war, Johnson returned to academia and eventually moved back to the North, settling in Illinois.

Confederate Adjutant Gen. Samuel Cooper

Samuel Cooper was a New York native who forged an illustrious career in the armed forces, and by the 1850s, he attained the rank of adjutant general  – the army’s chief administrative officer. Cooper was married to the daughter of a prominent Virginia general and also was a close friend of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

In March 1861, he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and switched sides to the Confederacy. Ironically, one of his last acts as adjutant general involved authorizing the dismissal of David E. Twiggs, an officer who had willingly surrendered his command to the rebels.

Cooper was immediately appointed the adjutant general of the Confederate Army and later became one of only a few Southern officers to attain the rank of full general. Cooper’s extensive experience proved invaluable in organizing the Confederate Army and he remained the South’s chief military officer for the rest of the war.

Although he had little influence on field strategy, Cooper still earned his share of enmity from those in the North. While building defenses near Washington, D.C., Union forces demolished his home and used its bricks to build a fort dubbed “Traitor’s Hill” in Cooper’s honor.

Union Rear Admiral David Farragut

David Farragut, a career Naval officer with an exemplary record, was a Tennessee native who had resided in New Orleans and Virginia and married a Southern woman. Many U.S. officials questioned his loyalty to the Union cause, and for most of 1861, he languished in a post on the Naval Retirement Board.

Farragut, who had seen his first action at the age of 12 during the War of 1812, finally got his chance at glory in 1862 when he took command of a Union blockading squadron in the Gulf of Mexico. That April, he led his ships on a daring course past two Confederate forts before taking the city of New Orleans, his boyhood home.

Promoted to rear admiral in July 1862, Farragut would later see action at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, but his greatest achievement came at the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864. While leading a fleet past several Confederate forts and ironclads, Farragut lashed himself to the rigging of his flagship to get a better view of the battle.

When he saw that some of his ships were slow to advance because of mines in the waters, he urged them forward with the immortal line, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” Farragut’s fleet survived the treacherous crossing and he later captured the forts and successfully closed the port at Mobile Bay.

Confederate Gen. John Pemberton

John C. Pemberton was one of the few figures regarded as a turncoat by both the North and the South.

A native of Philadelphia, Pemberton attended the University of Pennsylvania before graduating from West Point and embarking on a distinguished military career. He later married a Virginia woman, and after the attack at Fort Sumter, he was forced to choose between taking up arms against his home state or that of his wife.

Despite pleas from both his family and his former commander, Winfield Scott, Pemberton reluctantly resigned his post and joined the Confederacy after Virginia seceded.

Although considered a traitor in the North, Pemberton also was viewed with suspicion by many of his new Confederate colleagues. Nevertheless, he quickly climbed through the ranks and by October 1862, he had earned a promotion to lieutenant general. That same month, he was given a command that contained Vicksburg, Miss., a crucial transportation hub along the Mississippi River.

Pemberton had orders to hold Vicksburg at all costs, but by May 1863, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had cut his way through Mississippi and pinned the Confederates within the city’s fortifications. Following a brutal six-week siege, Pemberton finally surrendered his starved and exhausted army on July 4.

The defeat gave the Union dominion over the Mississippi River, effectively cutting the Confederacy in two.

Southerners were quick to turn against Pemberton and some speculated that his northern background had influenced his decision to surrender.

Speaking of one of the defeats that led to the siege, one even argued that Pemberton was “… either a traitor or the most incompetent officer in the Confederacy.” Disgraced, Pemberton voluntarily resigned his general’s commission and spent the remainder of the war as an artillery officer.