Wife of Union General Gouverneur Kemble Warren

Emily Forbes Chase was born on September 16, 1840. On Valentine's Day 1862, Emily met Gouverneur Warren at a party in Baltimore, and fell in love. She was twenty at the time, the oldest of four children of a prosperous dry-goods merchant, Algernon Sydney Chase, who had settled in Baltimore in 1850.


General Gouverneur Warren

Gouverneur Kemble Warren was born on January 8, 1830, in Cold Spring, New York. He was named for Gouverneur Kemble, a prominent local Congressman, diplomat, and industrialist. At the age of sixteen, Warren entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, which was across the Hudson River from his hometown. He graduated second in a class of 44 in 1850, and was assigned to the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers.

From 1850 to 1853, Warren served on several important survey expeditions, including surveys of the lower Mississippi delta in 1850-1851 to explore means of flood prevention, and of the upper Mississippi rapids in 1853 to facilitate navigation of this vital trade route.

From 1853 to 1855, he assisted in a government study to determine the best possible transcontinental railroad route, examining reports of all explorations west of the Mississippi back to Lewis and Clark. As part of this analysis, Warren began work on the first comprehensive map of the trans-Mississippi United States.

In 1855, Warren served as chief topographical officer in General William S. Harney's expedition against the Sioux in southern Nebraska Territory (in present-day Nebraska and South Dakota). His topographical report of the region won him much acclaim before Congress and led to greater responsibility in future explorations. In 1856, Warren commanded a successful survey mission in northern Nebraska Territory along the Missouri River and sixty miles up the Yellowstone.

This was followed in 1857 with a dangerous survey of the the Niobrara River and the Sioux-occupied Black Hills. These three expeditions were integral both to the Pacific Railroad report and to the building of military roads into the Nebraska Territory.

Warren spent the following year in Washington, DC, compiling his findings into official reports and completing his Map of the United States from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, which accompanied Secretary of War Jefferson Davis' final report to Congress on the results of the transcontinental railroad route investigation. From 1859 to 1861, he served as an assistant mathematics professor at West Point.

The Civil War
In May 1861, Warren was given a leave of absence from the Academy to become lieutenant-colonel of the 5th New York Regiment. By the end of the month, Warren and his regiment were stationed outside Fortress Monroe, Virginia, seeing their first action at the Battle of Bethel Church on June 9. Warren spent the remainder of the year drilling his regiment and utilizing his engineering skills in the construction of the Baltimore and Washington defenses. In October he was promoted colonel of volunteers and given full command of his regiment.

In the spring of 1862, Warren joined the Army of the Potomac, serving in General George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, and at Yorktown his regiment formed part of the siege-train under the command of the chief of artillery. He was given a brigade in the V Corps in May, with which he covered the extreme right of the army and took part in the capture of Hanover Court House, the pursuit of Confederate cavalry under General J.E.B. Stuart, the Battle of Gaines' Mill, at Malvern Hill, and the skirmish at Harrison's Landing.

On August 30, Warren commanded a brigade under Fitz John Porter at Second Bull Run, earning praise for a strategic holding maneuver in which he lost over fifty percent of his command. Understrength, his brigade was held in reserve at Antietam in September and Fredericksburg in December. On September 26, 1862, Warren was promoted to brigadier general.

During the winter months of 1862-63, he did individual work in reconnoitring and correcting maps, and on February 2, 1863, General Warren was appointed Chief Topographical Engineer, and served mainly as an advisor to General Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville in early May. There, Warren took part in the action on Orange Pike, the storming of Marye's Heights, and the battle of Salem Church. On May 12, he was named Chief Engineer, Army of the Potomac.

Emily Chase married Gouverneur Warren on June 17, 1863, and they had a son, Sydney, and a daughter, Emily. Two weeks later, he was in Pennsylvania.

At the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, General Warren, the chief engineer on General George Meade's staff, was sent by Meade to survey the left flank of the army that afternoon. Climbing to the summit of Little Round Top, a rocky hill at the southern end of Cemetery Ridge, Warren was surprised to see that General Daniel Sickles had not anchored the Federal left on this hill as ordered.

Warren realized that Little Round Top, which commanded a view of the entire Union left flank, offered a natural position from which to defend this important end of the Union line. When southern batteries opened fire at 4 o'clock, Warren spotted CSA General John Bell Hood's Confederates as they emerged from the cover of Warfield Ridge, moving toward the Round Tops.

Realizing they could easily flank the Union line at Devil's Den and capture Little Round Top, Warren sent aides to other commanders requesting troops to solidify the left flank. Colonel Strong Vincent was marching his soldiers toward the Peach Orchard when he was approached by one of General Warren's staff officers. As the aide explained his mission, Vincent immediately realized the desperate situation at the hill.

Despite his orders to go to the aid of Sickles, Vincent led his infantrymen to Little Round Top, where he posted his four regiments on the rock-strewn south side of the hill, just as General Hood's Division were prepared to attack the southern end of the Union line. This led to Joshua Chamberlain's heroic charge down Little Round Top and the routing of Alabama troops who had threatened the hill. For his actions, General Warren is considered the savior of Little Round Top.


General Warren Monument
A statue was erected on Little Round Top on August 8, 1888, the sixth anniversary of General Warren's death. The monument by sculptor Karl Gerhardt was unveiled during ceremonies at Gettysburg National Military Park. General Warren is portrayed looking over the battlefield as he did on July 2, 1863, holding binoculars in his right hand. The sculpture rests on a boulder near where the Union line was that day.

On August 11, 1863, Warren was promoted to major general and given temporary command of the wounded General Winfield Scott Hancock's II Corps. Warren repulsed a heavy Confederate attack at Bristoe Station in mid-October. However, his last-minute cancellation of an assault at Mine Run on November 30 began to raise doubts about his willingness to act offensively.

Warren's next important service was during the march on Centerville in October, 1863, when he was attacked by CSA General A.P. Hill, and, although his force was about one half that of the Confederates, he held his position until he was reinforced by the V Corps.

When the Army of the Potomac was reorganized into three corps, Warren was given command of the V Corps on March 23, 1864, in time for General Ulysses S. Grant's Spring 1864 Overland Campaign in Virginia. Warren and his new corps were engaged at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor in May and June, losing over 12,000 of the 28,000 troops in a forty-three day period.

Warren's naturally lively imagination and the engineer's inbred habit of caution worked against him. He was at his best when the military situation depended on his exercising his initiative, as on May 3, 1864, at the Battle of the Wilderness, in which his action saved the army. Warren was at his worst as on May 10 at Spotsylvania Court House, after which both Generals Grant and Meade threatened to relieve him of his command, and General Andrew Humphreys, Meade's chief of staff, was sent to control the movements of the V corps.

On June 18, 1864, Warren was involved in the unsuccessful initial assaults on Petersburg, Virginia, then took part in the long siege which followed. On July 30, Warren's corps was one of those scheduled to participate in the assault which was to follow the explosion of a huge mine placed in a seventy-five-foot tunnel under the Confederate lines.

Although his enemies tried to implicate him in the failure of this plan, Warren showed conclusively that he could not make his assault because the IX Corps was in his way. In August and December, Warren earned distinction with his independent commands against the Weldon Railroad, a vital supply line to Petersburg.

Friction developed between Generals Grant and Warren because of their conflicting ideas on the handling of troops. Grant, aware of his great numerical superiority over the Confederate army, constantly took the offensive without regard for casualties, because he knew that he could afford to take more losses than the Confederate Army could. Warren, on the other hand, was unwilling to attack unless he could be reasonably sure of victory, without the loss of a large number of his men.

At the beginning of the Appomattox Campaign, cavalryman General Philip Sheridan, one of General Grant's key subordinates, requested that the VI Corps be assigned to accompany him in his pursuit of Lee's army, but Grant insisted that Warren's V Corps was better positioned.

Before the Battle of Five Forks, Sheridan expressed to Grant his dissatisfaction with General Warren's habit of criticizing the acts and orders of his superior officers. Sheridan was still angry that Warren and his corps had supposedly obstructed roads after the Battle of the Wilderness and his cautious actions during the Siege of Petersburg. Grant gave Sheridan written permission to relieve Warren if he felt it was justified "for the good of the service."

Grant later wrote in his Personal Memoirs:

I was so much dissatisfied with Warren’s dilatory movements in the Battle of White Oak Road and in his failure to reach Sheridan in time, that I was very much afraid that at the last moment he would fail Sheridan. He was a man of fine intelligence, great earnestness, quick perception, and could make his dispositions as quickly as any officer, under difficulties where he was forced to act.

But I had before discovered a defect which was beyond his control, that was very prejudicial to his usefulness in emergencies like the one just before us. He could see every danger at a glance before he had encountered it. He would not only make preparations to meet the danger which might occur, but he would inform his commanding officer what others should do while he was executing his move.

At Five Forks, when the V Corps advanced according to General Sheridan's orders, General Warren found that the indicated point of attack was too far to the right. This error was corrected by Warren, who led the charge that closed the battle and secured the Union victory. At this moment, he received an order relieving him from the command of his corps.

In reply to these charges, General Warren answered that his first order to relieve General Sheridan on March 31 was received from General George Meade at 9:17 pm, when he had already accomplished General Sheridan's relief by sending troops to his assistance without orders, on his own responsibility, earlier than 5 pm; also that he carried out his orders to General Meade's entire satisfaction and joined General Sheridan sooner than General Meade had expected; that the only lack of skill was that of General Sheridan, who delivered the attack of the V Corps at a point three-quarters of a mile distant from the point intended.

After his removal, General Warren was assigned by General Grant to the charge of the defenses of the Petersburg and the Southside Railroad, and then to the command of the Department of the Mississippi.

Humiliated by Sheridan, Warren resigned his commission in the volunteer army and returned to duty as a major in the Corps of Engineers. From then until his death, Warren was employed in various parts of the country in making surveys and in other works connected with his department. He was made lieutenant colonel on March 4, 1879.

Warren spent 1866 and 1867 conducting surveys of the Mississippi River system. In 1869, he planned and built the Rock Island Bridge over the Mississippi. Throughout the 1870s, he engaged in extensive bridge-building and harbor-improvement projects on the Mississippi, along the Atlantic Coast, and in the Great Lakes. On March 4, 1879, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of engineers.

Throughout the post-war period, Warren had never ceased in his efforts to obtain an investigation into his removal from command at Five Forks. Numerous requests were ignored or refused during Ulysses S. Grant's presidency. Finally, in December 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered a Court of Inquiry, which convened in January 1880 and closed in July 1881 to consider a verdict, after hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses over 100 days.

General Gouverneur Warren died on August 8, 1882, of acute liver failure related to diabetes, at Newport, Rhode Island. He was buried there at his request in civilian clothes, without military honors.

In November 1882, the verdict from the Court of Inquiry exonerated Warren of the major accusations related to the Battle of Five Forks:
1. That General Warren, after the receipt of General Meade's first order, should have moved his main force sooner than he did.
2. It did not find that his handling of the corps was unskillful.
3. That there was no unnecessary delay in this march of the V Corps, and that General Warren took the usual methods of a corps commander to prevent delay.
4. That by continuous exertions of himself and staff he substantially remedied matters; and the court thinks "that this was for him the essential point to be attended to, which also required his whole efforts to accomplish."


Emily Chase Warren Grave
Island Cemetery
Newport, Rhode Island
Her date of death is unknown.

SOURCES
Little Round Top
Gouverneur K. Warren
Gouverneur Kemble Warren
Battle of Boydton Plank Road
Wikipedia: Gouverneur K. Warren
The Passing of an American Soldier
Gouverneur Kemble Warren 1830 - 1882
General Gouverneur Warren & Little Round Top