OCT 2: Plump Generals of the Past
Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took offense at the physical condition of some of America’s leading generals and admirals. During the Civil War, a few of the Union’s and Confederacy’s leading military men were, ahem, on the portly side.
Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott. (Credit: Library of Congress)
Take, for instance, Lieutenant General Winfield Scott. Born in 1786, by the time the Civil War began Scott was 74 years of age. According to Dr. James Robertson, Jr., “The hero of two wars, he was, by 1861, so fat and infirm that he could not mount a horse to inspect soldiers, much less lead them into battle. His great reputation and his stout old heart were all that he could place at the government’s disposal.” Scott retired later that year.
Another heavyweight, literally, was Union General Ambrose E. Burnside. Born in an Indiana log cabin in 1824, Burnside managed to get a West Point education, but most of his pre-Civil War years were spent in the railroad business, according to Robertson.
Burnside served with little distinction, but kept being promoted, ultimately to heading the Army of the Potomac. In appearance, Robertson wrote, Burnside was a large man. “He compensated for his pre-mature baldness with a fantastic set of whiskers that made a double parabola from in front of his ears, down over his jaws, and up across his mouth. The whiskers were so unique that the syllables of Burnside’s name were reversed and the fashion thereafter called ‘sideburns.’”
Union General Benjamin F. Butler was described by one staff officer as cutting “an astounding figure on a horse! Short, fat, shapeless; no neck, squinting, and very bald headed.”
Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside. (Credit: Library of Congress)
The Confederates struggled with shortages of guns and ammo, but food at a general’s table was probably very adequate. James Longstreet, a lieutenant general who led Confederate assaults on July 2-3 at Gettysburg, was, reportedly, physically powerful and heavy set, earning him nicknames like “Old Pete” and “the old bulldog.” He was a large man with a firm seat in the saddle.
