Is this General Richard Garnett?

Virtual Tour of Gettysburg National Military Park

Is This General Richard Garnett?

(Generals in Gray)

Long thought to be a photograph of Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett, this image may actually be that of his cousin, Robert Seldon Garnett, who was also a brigadier general in the Confederate Army in Virginia. Robert Garnett was mortally wounded in July 1861 while his cousin Richard went on to command the famous "Stonewall Brigade", which had taken its name from its first commander, "Stonewall" Jackson. Lt. James Langhorne, adjutant of the 4th Virginia Infantry, described the general as, "a man about 42-3 years old(,) light hair, blue ey(e)s and lig(h)t complexion, and has rather a pleasant face." Garnett commanded the Stonewall Brigade until General Jackson ordered him placed under arrest soon after the Battle of Kernstown, Virginia, in 1862. Though Jackson ordered Garnett to be court-martialed, he was never tried and was re-assigned that summer to command a brigade in General George E. Pickett's Division, the same one he led up to that final charge at Gettysburg.

Many years after the Civil War had ended, this photograph was published and identified as General Richard Brooke Garnett. Two additional versions of this picture surfaced including one with Confederate general's insignia painted on the officer's collar. In 1908, a member of the Garnett family contested the identity of the soldier in the photograph, writing that it could be "vouched for by any member of (the Garnett) family as an authentic likeness of Robert S. Garnett, and not Richard..." of whom he concluded that no photograph had ever been taken or preserved. Though the issue was apparently settled at that time, the announcement was largely passed over as more books about the Civil War and Gettysburg continued to use the image and identify it as General Richard Garnett. The subject again came to light in 1986 when descendants of the Garnett family went to court over labels on two portraits hanging in the Essex County, Virginia, courthouse where the Garnetts were born, one being the purported image of General Richard Garnett. Even among the family members, though, there is not a universal agreement on the positive identity of the officer in this photograph.

Perhaps one day the identified photograph of Richard B. Garnett will be discovered, and, much like the sword that was almost lost forever, restored to the Garnett family and Americans fascinated with this brave general who perished near the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy."