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YANKEE-REBEL MATCH: Union General William Birney Wed Rebel Cavalryman's Kin

December 24, 2017       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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Union officer William Birney at the start of his Civil War career.
 

Stories of the offspring of Alabama and Bay City pioneer James G. Birney never seem to end.

And, the tales get better all the time.

Birney's great-great-grandson Topper Birney, a Huntsville, Alabama retired federal arsenal executive and longtime school board member, has been on a quest to overcome old animosities and win recognition for his kin in the heart of the South.

Eight years ago this columnist traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, to witness a historic event: induction of famed abolitionist James G. Birney into the Alabama Lawyer's Hall of Fame.

Topper, who dons and top hat and tails to re-enact his famous relative at Huntsville historical events, is now aiming to have the sons of James G., Union major generals William and David Bell Birney, recognized by the Alabama Military Hall of Fame.

In the course of researching the career of William, some fascinating facts have turned up. For one, the Birneys were prolific: William Birney had seven children with his wife Catherine Hoffman, while his father had nine with Agatha McDowell, only six of whom lived beyond infancy.

Secondly, both father and son re-married after their wives died, Birney Senior to Elizabeth Fitzhugh of New York and William to -- wait for it -- the close kin of Confederate cavalryman Turner Ashby, one Mattie C. Ashby.

Just as amazingly, the hale and hearty William was 72 when he and 26-year-old Mattie wed in 1891!

At that point, the Civil War had been over for a quarter century and perhaps tempers in the Ashby family had cooled to sanction the May and December union of the pair. This strange twist of history put a prominent rebel woman in the marriage with the stalwart Union general whose black troops had harried Robert E. Lee's depleted Army of Northern Virginia until a few days before the surrender at Appomattox.

Genealogical records also include Mattie Ashby on the roll of ancestors of Frank and Jesse James.

The untold story of how William Birney was cashiered on the Appomattox battlefield by Maj. Gen. E.O.C. Ord, who opposed black troops and abolitionists like Birney, has been documented in my 2011 book, "Apostles of Equality: The Birneys, the Republicans and the Civil War," published by Michigan State University Press.

Of course, at that point the firebrand rebel Turner Ashby had been long dead, falling to a Union bullet at the Shenandoah Valley battle of Good's Farm in June 1862. Col. Ashby had won prominence in the Confederate Army as the fearless head of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's cavalry.

Another coincidence was that Col. Ashby was killed in a battle with a New Jersey cavalry unit while William Birney was a captain in the New Jersey Infantry.

Ashby's nomination as brigadier general was never confirmed by the Confederate Senate, leaving him as a colonel short of the rank of general he no doubt deserved.

The younger Birney certainly deserves more literary and historical attention for previously unrecognized exploits documented in the Yale University biographies of non-graduates.

He led 12 men who defended his father's home from anti-abolitionist mob attacks in Cincinnati for three nights in 1834; he aided Salmon P. Chase, later Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, in several famous anti-slavery legal cases.

The Yale yearbook recounts: "In 1847 he went to Europe to prosecute advanced studies. His zeal for liberty led him to join a political society, and in the Revolution against Louis Phillipe in February 1848, he commanded the defenders at a barricade in the Rue St. Jacques."

After winning a professorship of English Literature at the University of France, and serving one year in that capacity, he continued studies in Berlin and Paris, supporting himself as a writer for New York and London journals.

We could go on about his command of black troops in Florida, his seven months in Richmond's Libby Prison and, of course, his escape from Gainesville, Florida, by outrunning members of the Klan bent on his murder.

He fearlessly returned to the Klan escape scene in Alachua County, Florida, and purchased a plantation where he lived four years.

The Yale yearbook commented: "He has no plans for what remains of his life, except to do what duty may come to him and to cross Black River only when he comes to it."

He died of stroke at age 88 in 1907 after chopping down a tree that was blocking his view from his room at a daughter's house in Forest Glen, Maryland, a Washington, D.C. suburb.

I see a movie script in this man's life, don't you? Hollywood, are you listening?

###

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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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