A Man of Splendid Ability: Alfred T.A. Torbert

When Civil War erupted in the spring of 1861, most made their choices as to whether they would fight either for the Union or the Confederacy. Those in the border states, which included Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Delaware, however, had close ties with both sides. One Union soldier, who hailed from one of the border states, earned the distinction of being listed on both rolls as an officer in their divided armies. However, he only ever fought for the Union. He was Alfred T. A. Torbert.

Alfred Thomas Archimedes Torbert was born on July 1, 1833 in Georgetown, Delaware, the county seat of Sussex County. His parents were Jonathan Torbert, a devoted Methodist minister, and his wife, the former Catherine Milby. From an early age, the younger Torbert showed great interest and aptitude for his studies – decisively earning his cognomen, Archimedes. Additionally interested in all things martial, he secured an appointment to West Point Military Academy in 1851. He graduated in the middle of his class in 1855 and immediately was dispatched to frontier duty. Torbert was tall with gray eyes and dark hair, “a man of splendid physique and fine appearance and was…very popular.” One of his closest friends was fellow West Point classmate Alexander Webb. Their friendship lasted all their lives.¹

Torbert spent six years on duty for his country, including stations in Texas, Florida, Utah, and New Mexico. He was in New Mexico when he heard of the onset of war, and immediately returned to enlist in the Union cause.²

Because Torbert hailed from Delaware, and because he had remained on good terms with all his friends and acquaintances from West Point, the Confederate government believed he would be sympathetic to their cause and offered him a command in their military forces. However, Torbert, having taken the oath of allegiance as a Federal officer, never considered serving any other cause than the Union’s. He declined the Confederate offer, although his name remained for a short time on their rolls. For this reason, General Torbert has earned the historic distinction of being a commanding officer on both Union and Confederate army rolls simultaneously.³

In April 1861, Torbert enlisted and earnestly began recruiting in New Jersey, as it provided the closest Union recruitment station to his hometown in Delaware. He was chosen as Colonel of the First New Jersey Volunteer Infantry on September 16, 1861. He served with distinction in the Peninsular Campaign, including the Battles of Yorktown and Gaines Mill. His gallantry in battle earned him accolades from his superiors, including the renowned Philip Kearny, who was his brigade commander. When Kearny was promoted to division command, he was succeeded by George Taylor to command the First New Jersey Brigade. Soon, however, another battle would change that.⁴

At the Battle of Second Manassas in August 1862, Kearny was killed and Taylor was mortally wounded. Alfred T. A. Torbert, then, received the command of the First New Jersey Brigade. He led the brigade with the rank of colonel through South Mountain and Antietam, doing so with great skill. In November, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.

Torbert led his brigade through the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and, incredibly, was not wounded in any of the engagements, in spite of the storm of lead and projectiles that flew about him and his troops. He was continuously commended for “meritorious conduct” during these fights.⁵

At the Battle of Gettysburg, Torbert and his Jersey boys arrived late in the day of July 2, 1863, as part of General John Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps. As the Sixth Corps arrived mostly after the fighting on the Union left had settled down, Torbert and his men deployed on Weikert Hill, across from the George Weikert Farm on the southern portion of Cemetery Ridge. 

While the men were ever ready, the fighting for the third day was farther toward the center of the Union line for the final assault by the Confederate troops upon the Union. While Torbert’s brigade suffered some casualties during the cannonade that preceded Pickett’s Charge, they came away from Gettysburg largely unscathed.⁶

After Gettysburg, with the need to adjust commanders and recruit more troops, the Army of the Potomac sent Torbert and David McMurtry Gregg to command cavalry divisions under the dynamic and irascible General Phil Sheridan. They arrived in time to participate in Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign toward Richmond in the spring of 1864. Torbert demonstrated his alacrity in switching from infantry command to cavalry command. He was engaged in many cavalry engagements, including Yellow Tavern, against former West Point friend Jeb Stuart, who was killed in that fight. In the fall, Torbert went with Sheridan to the Shenandoah Valley, where the troops engaged in burning farms, mills, crops, and anything that would sustain the Confederate soldiers. Jubal Early’s mounted troops pursued and finally caught up with the Union cavalry at Tom’s Brook on October 9, 1864. The Union cavalry outnumbered Early’s men and fought with ferocity. They routed Early’s troops, and captured a substantial number of artillery pieces and weaponry. One colonel in gray lamented that it “was the greatest disaster that ever befell our cavalry during the whole war.” Shortly afterward, Torbert was engaged in the Battle of Cedar Creek where Sheridan arrived and urged the flailing Union infantry onward, turning the tide of the fight.⁷

Torbert took leave at the end of the year and into 1865. When he returned, he took charge of the cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley as Sheridan pressed toward Five Forks and Appomattox Court House. Torbert was still in the Shenandoah when Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, although his 1^st New Jersey Brigade had been witnesses to Lee’s surrender.⁸

Torbert ended the war as a Brevet Major General, in time for his 32^nd birthday. The following year he married Mary Elizabeth (Mollie) Curry, a socialite from Milford, Delaware and the daughter of a state senator. The wedding was opulent, “on a scale of unusual magnificence”, with many guests, including Alexander Webb, George Meade, and other veterans and celebrities from Philadelphia. The marriage produced no children.⁹

After the war, Alfred Torbert served in the Ulysses S. Grant administration as U.S. Consul General. He was an ambassador to Paris and Cuba. In 1878 he retired to his Delaware farm and worked in the railroad business.

In the late summer of 1880, Torbert joined a group of businessmen and government officials to board the steamer Vera Cruz from New York City. They planned on meeting with Mexican officials to procure permission to build a railroad through northern Mexico that would reach from the Gulf to the Pacific.¹⁰

The steamer, with seventy passengers, encountered a storm off the coast of Florida on August 28, 1880. The gale soon grew into a hurricane, with enormous waves soaking the decks and the engine room. The water doused the steam, rendering the ship unable to continue, and it soon was at the mercy of the waves. All available passengers and crew “labored painfully for some hours in a heavy sea” throughout the night. At 5:30 a.m., “the sea ran high and…each succeeding wave tore away pieces of her upper works.” Some of the crew were washed overboard, and then “with one tremendous lurch the steamer suddenly sank into the sea.” The ship was just off the coast of Cape Canaveral.¹¹

Torbert was seen climbing upon some of the wreckage in an attempt to stay afloat. One survivor struggled to reach him, but a colossal wave washed over Torbert, and he disappeared into the deep. The next day, his body washed ashore. He was easily identified, as he was so well known to the other passengers, of which only thirteen survived.¹²

Torbert was buried under a palm tree, and remained there for two months, as a typhoid fever epidemic in Florida required a lengthy quarantine. In November, Torbert’s family made the sorrowful journey to Florida to retrieve the 47-year-old veteran of the war. He was buried with full military honors in the Milford Cemetery. Alexander Webb and George McClellan were among his pallbearers.¹³

Though he survived the storms of war, in the end he succumbed to the forces of nature.

Alfred T.A. Torbert was one of countless men who answered the call to duty, putting his life on the line for the nation. His name is immortalized at Gettysburg, as are the men with whom he fought, atop the wooded Weikert Hill, on the First New Jersey Brigade memorial. Dedicated on June 30, 1888, a day shy of what would have been their commander’s 55^th birthday, this monument depicts a large castle watchtower – a fitting emblem of what General Torbert and his New Jersey brigade did for Gettysburg, and for the nation.¹⁴ 

Sources: 1^st New Jersey Memorial, Gettysburg, PA. American Battlefield Trust. “Tom’s Brook”, battlefields.org/toms-brook. Bilby, Joseph G. and William C. Goble. “Remember You Are JerseyMen”: A Military History of Jersey’s Troops in the Civil War. Hightstown, NJ: Longstreet House, 1998. Cemetery Records, Milford Cemetery, Milford, DE. Ancestry.com. Hawthorne, Frederick W. Gettysburg: Stories of Men and Monuments. Published by The Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides. Hanover, PA: Sheridan Press, 1988. The Smyrna Times, Nov. 24, 1880. “The Wreck: How Gen. Torbert Died”, The Delaware Gazette & State Journal, Sep. 9, 1880.   Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders. Baton Rouge & London: The Louisiana State University Press, 1964. Historic newspapers accessed through newspapers.com.

End Notes: 

1. Warner, p. 508. The Delaware Gazette & State Journal, Sep. 9, 1880. 

2. Ibid. 

3. Cemetery Record, Milford Cemetery, DE. 

4. Bilby, p. 5. 

5. Warner, p. 508. 

6. 1^st New Jersey Memorial, Gettysburg. 

7. American Battlefield Trust, “Tom’s Brook”, battlefields.org. Warner pp. 508, 666. 

8. Cemetery Records, Milford, DE. 1^st New Jersey Memorial, Gettysburg. 

9. The Delaware Gazette & State Journal, Sep. 9, 1880. 

10. Ibid. 

11. Ibid. 

12. Ibid. 

13. The Smyrna Times, Nov. 24, 1880. 

14. Hawthorne, p. 78.