Wittenberg University Journals

Petrilli, Rebecca

English

How the Illuminated Manuscripts of the Italian Renaissance  Helped Shape the Culture of the Period and Bartoloeo  Sanvito’s Illumination of Petrarch’s “I Trionfi”

Strong, Edward

  Vol. XXXL, Spring 2011  •  1
  The entire flank had been crushed and his 
division was in full panic.  He must have seemed 
terribly out of place, commanding general of the 
4th division of the V Corps riding with his aide 
Lieutenant Rogers1 trying to reorganize his troops 
to make a stand.  A man who only a few days 
before had been nominated for promotion to 
Major General2 now galloped along the front lines 
of the chaotic inferno that was the Battle of the 
Wilderness, rallying his men to stand and fight.  He 
was beginning to feel his age and at fifty-six, he was 
nearly a decade older than any other officer in the 
Union Army.3  He was on his third horse, the first 
two having been shot out from under him.4  The 
summer’s humidity could be felt even through the 
dense shade of the vast wilderness which he found 
himself in.  His mind raced as he turned to see an 
advancing column through the smoke and dust; their 
grey uniforms merely confirmed the fact that had 
been slowly dawning on him, retreat was the only 
option.  His thoughts oddly turned to home as he 
turned his horse, his sprawling estate in the peaceful 
Genesee Valley of upstate New York.  Images of the 
home he had built and family he had raised passed 
through his mind and then, darkness.  He likely 
did not here the shot but the ball entered into the 
back of his skull and smeared blood onto Lt. Roger’s 
chest.  Dazed and blood soaked, Rogers desperately 
fell to his generals side but, with the enemy closing 
on them fast he was forced to abandon him and flee.
  Wadsworth had always been a rebel in his 
own right and unafraid to fight for what he believed 
in.  The staunch abolitionist had supported and 
campaigned both the Free Soil and Republic parties.  
Despite his age and wealth, he offered his services in 
whatever capacity the Federal government wished 
upon the outbreak of the war.  It is not surprising 
then, that he would fight for every second of life 
that he could.  There he lay, passed over and left for 
dead by the rebels as they gave chase to his fleeing 
brigades.  What he must have thought and dreamed 
of for hours before he was discovered by a passing 
confederate officer.  Thinking back on the glory his 
division had won at Gettysburg or perhaps his loss 
in the New York Gubernatorial Race of 18625.  But 
more than likely his thoughts must have turned 
to his family, to his son James who at that very 
moment was also fighting for his father’s cause of 
Union and abolition.
  Confederate surgeon James Claiborne6 was 
the first to treat him and immediately determined 
the wound to be mortal.  Claiborne did all he could 
to ensure that he was comfortable, dressing the 
wound and giving him water and morphine.  The 
dying general lay resting against a tree, conscious 
but unable to speak or move.  After being identified 
by Union prisoners, his presence received great 
curiosity from the many passing Confederates.  He 
was reputed to have more money than the entire 
Confederate government.7  Union prisoners spoke of 
a man who refused pay for his entire military service 
and spent his own money to shelter and supply his 
troops.  He would linger on for another two days 
before finally succumbing to his wounds.  His body 
was returned to the Union army and transported 
home to be buried in his family plot in the town he 
and his brother had founded, Geneseo.  
  His family, community, and country deeply 
mourned his loss but took heart from his convictions 
to duty and public service. His son and Grandson 
would both go on to become United States 
Senators; his great-grandson Jeremiah became a 
United Nations Ambassador.  But it was Jeremiah’s 
daughter, Alice Hay Wadsworth who would marry 
a young man who had just been discharged from 
the Army Air Force following World War II by the 
Hartje Paper:
Dying for the Cause: General James Wadsworth 
and his Legacy
Edward Trowbridge Strong
“No man has given himself up to the war with such self-sacrificing patriotism as Gen. Wadsworth”
        ~ John Hay
2  •  The Wittenberg History Journal
name of Trowbridge Strong.  They would have 
five children together, the oldest named Michael.  
Michael would go to law school, as General 
Wadsworth had, and met a woman there whom 
Krumviede, John F.  Old Waddy’s Coming The Military 
Career of Brigadier General James S. Wadsworth.  
Baltimore: Butternut and Blue, 2002.
1  John F. Krumviede, “Old Waddy’s Coming” The 
Military Career of Brigadier General James S. Wadsworth 
(Baltimore: Butternut and Blue, 2002), 110.
2   Krumviede, 119.
Works Cited
Endnotes 
Foote, Shelby.  The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. III.  New 
York: Random House, 1974.
3   Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative Vol. III (New 
York: Random House, 1974), 171-172.
4  Krumviede, 107.
5   Foote, 172.
6  Krumviede, 111.
he married and had four children.  The youngest 
of those four was named for his two grandfathers, 
Edward Trowbridge Strong and grew up in the 
house the general built in Geneseo, New York.


Hartje Paper: Dying for the Cause: General James Wadsworth  and his Legacy

Higgins, Loren

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Illingworth, Greer

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Newman, Melissa

The Pictorial Stylings of Louis Raemaekers and David  Low: A Comparison of Anti-German Cartoons from  World War I to World War I

Langa, Jenna

The Power of Medieval Queenship: Eleanor of  Aquitaine and Blanche of Castile

McLaughlin, Meghan

Desegregating Schools in the North:  The Cincinnati Board of Education and the NAACP

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How the Illuminated Manuscripts of the Italian Renaissance Helped Shape the Culture of the Period and Bartoloeo Sanvito’s Illumination of Petrarch’s “I Trionfi”

Hartje Paper: Dying for the Cause: General James Wadsworth and his Legacy

Defective Men: Shell-Shock and the Individual British Soldier During World War I

Hartje Paper: Watching the World Burn: Nero and the Great Roman Fire

The War Poet and His Shell Shock: The Journey that Spoke for the Great War

Ideology & MANIPULATION: A Comparative Study into What Seperated Saigo Takamori and Yamagata Aritomo in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877

"Dyin\u27 to Make a Livin’": The Battle of Blair Mountain- Appalachia’s Moment in the Labor Movement

The Pictorial Stylings of Louis Raemaekers and David Low: A Comparison of Anti-German Cartoons from World War I to World War I

The Power of Medieval Queenship: Eleanor of Aquitaine and Blanche of Castile

Desegregating Schools in the North: The Cincinnati Board of Education and the NAACP

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