John Pegram

John Pegram, 1861

Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Significance:

Confederate general

Place of Birth:

Petersburg, VA

Date of Birth:

January 24, 1832

Place of Death:

Petersburg, VA

Date of Death:

February 6, 1865

Place of Burial:

Richmond, VA

Cemetery Name:

Hollywood Cemetery

John Pegram was a career United States army officer and West Point graduate who resigned his commission in 1861 to accept an officer's position in the Confederate army. In the summer of 1861, at Rich Mountain, Virginia, he became the first former US Army officer to be captured by Federal forces when he surrendered his entire regiment. Paroled after six months, Pegram returned to the Confederate army and served until his death in February 1865. 

A Rough Start

John Pegram was born January 1832 in Petersburg, Virginia. He graduated from West Point in 1854 and served in various western posts until resigning from the US army in April 1861. Pegram quickly accepted a Captain’s commission in the Confederate army. Pegram was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in June 1861, but soon suffered a military setback at Rich Mountain, Virginia, in July when he surrendered to Federals under Gen. George B. McClellan. Paroled from prison in April 1862, Pegram returned to the Confederate army and was promoted to Colonel. He was soon sent to the war’s western theater and served in the Confederacy’s unsuccessful 1862 Kentucky campaign. Promoted to Brigadier General, Pegram took command of a cavalry brigade in Gen. Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. Pegram and his men participated in the Battle of Stones River and led a cavalry brigade at the Battle of Chickamauga.

Home to Virginia 

Reassignment to the Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, in October 1863 gave Pegram the chance to return home to Virginia. Fighting on the Confederate left flank at the Battle of the Wilderness, May 1864, Pegram was wounded in the leg and spent the next three months recuperating in Richmond. In August 1864, Pegram returned to his brigade, now part of the Army of the Valley under Gen. Jubal Early in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. 

A New Command and Valley Battles 

During the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Pegram fought in several battles. At the Battle of Third Winchester, September 19, 1864. Pegram’s brigade was part of Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur’s division. During the battle, Confederate division commander, Gen. Robert Rodes, had been killed. Early moved Ramseur to command of Rodes’s large division, and promoted Pegram to command of Ramseur’s former, smaller division. Pegram’s division held part of the Confederate center at the Battle of Fisher’s Hill three days later, September 22, 1864. 

At the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, Pegram’s, and four other Confederate infantry divisions, forded Cedar Creek and the Shenandoah River during an early morning surprise attack. Pegram’s division suffered heavy losses as it hit the Federal 6th Corps north of Belle Grove Plantation. 

Disasters at Cedar Creek and Petersburg

The Confederate line broke during the afternoon Federal counterattack at Cedar Creek. Pegram tried to rally his men for an orderly retreat. He yelled, “Men, you must do this in order, firing as you retreat, for your own and the army’s safety demand it.” Despite Pegram’s and other officers’ attempts to stop their soldiers, the Confederates fled and left the Federals in control of the Shenandoah Valley for the remaineder of the war.   

Most of Early’s army, including Pegram’s division, left in December 1864 to reinforce Gen. Lee near Petersburg, Virginia. Pegram’s men occupied miserable, cold, wet trenches through the winter of 1864-1865. It was a desperate, hungry force that held the Confederate lines, but Pegram found time to marry his fiancé in January 1865. Pegram returned to the frontlines, but after only three weeks of marriage, he was killed by musketry at Hatcher’s Run on February 6, 1865, a bullet striking near his heart.