While there, he proudly refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States in exchange for his freedom because he would not, as the oath read, have done so “freely and voluntarily.” When Union authorities finally agreed to strike that clause in July 1865, Simmons and eighty-one other rebel officers swore loyalty and were released. Simmons was interred at Fort Delaware, the so-called “Andersonville of the North,” for the remainder of the war. The following month, he led his troops to the Shenandoah Valley, where he was ultimately captured at the Battle of Guard Hill. When the 3rd Georgia’s ranking officer was wounded at Petersburg in July 1864, Simmons became the battalion’s acting commander. The following February, he convinced his fellow sharpshooters to reenlist for the remainder of the war and, two months later, he was promoted to the rank of major, though he did not learn of his advancement until after the protracted fighting of the 1864 Overland Campaign. Most historians will find Byrd’s description of Confederate sharpshooter battalions to be the most useful part of this book.Īs a freshly minted sharpshooter, Simmons participated in the bloody engagements at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, the siege of Chattanooga, and the failed assault on Fort Sanders (Knoxville) in November 1863. As a sign of their distinction, these “trained skirmishers” were exempted from performing routine camp duties (80). Rather, they were a light infantry battalion that conducted scouts, guarded pickets, and protected the army’s front and rear. Although the sharpshooters were skilled marksmen, long-range sniping was not their primary function. Ability, not seniority, led to membership in this elite group. In spring 1863, Simmons was chosen to serve in the newly created 3rd Georgia Sharpshooters Battalion. As an infantry lieutenant, Simmons fought at Malvern Hill, Crampton’s Gap (where he coolly led his company in a narrow escape), Antietam, and Fredericksburg. In May 1861, Simmons enlisted in the Gwinnett Volunteers, a company that eventually mustered into the 16th Georgia Infantry Regiment. Breckenridge and became an early advocate for separation. Douglas in the 1860 presidential election and eventually became a reluctant secessionist, Will (and his newspaper) enthusiastically endorsed John C.
The son of a prominent lawyer in Lawrenceville, Georgia (northeast of Atlanta), he graduated from Emory College in 1858 and, at age eighteen, moved back home to edit and publish a newspaper. Simmons’s early life was similar to other southern elites who came of age in the antebellum era.
In fact, it is surprising how infrequently Simmons appears in this book, as most of its quotations come from the major’s comrades, and most of its stories are about his regiment and battalion’s actions, not Maj. While he did not aim to write a history of the military units in which his uncle served, he has largely succeeded in doing just that. It is clear that Byrd deeply admires Simmons’s character and achievements.
Byrd, IV, an independent historian and Simmons’s great-great nephew, used the major’s personal diary, an unpublished biography (written in the 1960s by Simmons’s great nephew and law partner), and a number of published and archival sources to tell his ancestor’s story. Kershaw’s) division in the Army of Northern Virginia. Simmons, a rebel infantryman and sharpshooter who served in Gen. $35.00.Ĭonfederate Sharpshooter is a military biography of Major William E. Simmons: Through the War with the 16th Georgia Infantry and the 3rd Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters by Joseph P. Confederate Sharpshooter: Major William E.
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