Grenville Mellen Dodge[1] (April 12, 1831 – January 3, 1916) was a Union army officer on the frontier and pioneering figure in military intelligence during the Civil War, who served as Ulysses S. Grant’s intelligence Chief in the Western Theater. He served in several notable assignments, including command of the XVI Corps during the Atlanta Campaign.
He later served as a U.S. Congressman, businessman, and railroad executive who helped direct the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. Historian Stanley P. Hirshon suggested that Dodge, “by virtue of the range of his abilities and activities,” could be considered “more important in the national life after the Civil War than his more famous colleagues and friends, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan.”[1][2]
Civil War
Dodge joined the Union Army in the Civil War. At the beginning of the war, Dodge was sent by the Governor of Iowa to Washington, D.C., where he secured 6,000 muskets to supply Iowa volunteers.[4] In July 1861, he was appointed Colonel of the 4th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was wounded in the left leg, near Rolla, Missouri, when a pistol in his coat pocket discharged accidentally.[5]
He commanded the 1st Brigade, 4th Division in the Army of the Southwest at the Battle of Pea Ridge, where he was wounded in the side and hand.[5] For his services at the battle, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and placed in command of forces based in Corinth, where his intelligence operation was based.[4]
His commands were known variously as the Central District (Department of the Mississippi); 4th Division (District of West Tennessee); District of Mississippi (Department of Mississippi); 4th Division (District of Jackson, Army of the Tennessee); 4th Division (XIII Corps, Army of the Tennessee); District of Corinth (XVII Corps, Army of the Tennessee); District of Corinth (XVI Corps), Army of the Tennessee; and finally as the 2nd Division (XVI Corps).[5]
Following Confederate General Van Dorn’s repulse at the Second Battle of Corinth in October 1862, Dodge’s command fought successful engagements near the Hatchie River and then turned to West Tennessee where they captured a band of Confederate guerrillas near Dyersburg.[6][7] On February 22, 1863, troops from Dodge’s command attacked Tuscumbia and the rear column of Van Dorn’s column, capturing a piece of artillery, 100 bales of cotton, 100 prisoners and Van Dorn’s supply train.[8] He then served as Grant’s intelligence Chief through the Vicksburg campaign.
Dodge was later appointed by General Grant as commander of a Division in the Army of the Tennessee, where his troops aided Grant and William T. Sherman by “rapidly repairing and rebuilding the railroads, bridges, and telegraph lines destroyed by the Confederates,” and defeating or capturing the Confederate guerrillas who had been ripping up the track and destroying railroad bridges by employing techniques such as building two-story blockhouses near the bridges.[9]
In 1863, he was summoned to Washington DC by President Abraham Lincoln, and although Dodge thought he was being called before a court of inquiry for his aggressive recruitment of black soldiers, the President was instead interested in Dodge’s railroad expertise, and asked him to divine a location along the Missouri River where the Union Pacific Railroad’s transcontinental railroad should have its initial point.[10][11] The location provided by Dodge was later established by Executive Order as the starting point in 1864.[12] Following the Vicksburg campaign, his own troops joined General Grant and Iowa Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood in petitioning for Dodge’s promotion.[13][14]
Dodge led an expedition to Northern Alabama from April 18, 1863 to May 8, 1863 that screened the advance of Streight’s Raid.[15] While Dodge’s portion of the expedition was successful, Streight’s incursion was disastrous.[16] His command performed various engagements thereafter in northwestern Mississippi and West Tennessee.[17] In December, his forces engaged in a skirmish near Rawhide, twelve miles north of Florence, Alabama that resulted in the capture of 20 prisoners.[18]
He was promoted to major general in June 1864 and commanded the XVI Corps during William T. Sherman’s Atlanta campaign. At the Battle of Atlanta, the XVI Corps was held in reserve, but it happened to be placed in a position which directly intercepted John B. Hood’s flank attack. During the fighting Dodge rode to the front and personally led Thomas W. Sweeny’s division into battle.
This action outraged the one-armed Sweeny so much that he got in a fistfight with Dodge and fellow division commander John W. Fuller.[4] Sweeny received a court-martial for this action while Dodge continued to lead the corps at the Battle of Ezra Church. During the ensuing siege of Atlanta, while looking through an eyehole in the Union breastworks a Confederate sharpshooter spotted him and shot him in the head. After, he was to complete the war as commander of the Department of the Missouri.
Also during the war, he provided information to Thomas Clark Durant who consequently made a fortune[19] smuggling contraband cotton from the Confederate States to fund his intelligence efforts. He would later come into conflict with Durant.
After the war, Dodge joined the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States and was assigned insignia number 484.
Content retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenville_M._Dodge.