Many of us view Marcus Reno through one lens, the battle of the Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876. And based on our viewpoint, namely our like or dislike of George Custer, we may rate Reno either just above or just below Benedict Arnold on our list of most disliked American military officers. But this is not another Little Big Horn story but rather a Civil War story, that played out almost twelve years to the day before the Little Big Horn.

Upon being graduated by the Military Academy at West Point, Reno had been commissioned as a Bvt 2^nd Lieutenant in the 1^st U.S. Dragoons. In late 1861, he received a promotion to captain in the re-designated 1^st U.S. Cavalry. During the March 17, 1863, fight at Kelly’s Ford, Reno, who had command of 760 men of the 1^st and 5^th US Cavalry regiments, was injured in a fall from his wounded horse, resulting in a hernia. Going home to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to recover, Reno had his leave extended several times, after a supporting truss he had been prescribed opened an abscess on his right thigh.

After three months of medical leave, Reno returned to active duty during the Gettysburg Campaign, serving as chief of staff for Maj. Gen. William F. ‘Baldy’ Smith. At General Meade’s request, Smith led his militia force from the defenses of Harrisburg and joined the Army of the Potomac during the race back to Virginia.

In March 1864, Reno, who had returned to the 1^st U.S., received orders to report to the Cavalry Bureau in Washington. Still assigned there on May 2, orders to immediately return to his regiment found him back in Harrisburg, attending to his sick wife. The War Department denied his requests to delay his return due to the “exigencies of the service.” Back with his regiment by May 27, Reno saw action in the clashes at Haw’s Shop, Matadequin Creek, and Cold Harbor. On June 7, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan led two divisions of his corps, including the Reserve Brigade and the 1^st U.S. Cavalry, on what became known as the Trevilian Raid.

While many readers will be familiar with Marcus Reno, I suspect most are unfamiliar with Lieut. Frederick Callender Ogden. On October 28, 1861, the Bishop of Rhode Island addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, supporting Frederick Ogden’s application for a lieutenancy in the regular army. “Mr. Ogden is a gentleman of distinguished appearance, of courteous manners, of [polished] education, of irreproachable morals, and is in all respects well qualified to fill the station which he seeks with honor to himself and with credit to the service. In entering the army, he is activated only by the purest and most patriotic motives, and his character is such as would elevate and dignify whatever position he might be called to occupy.”

Days later, thirteen leading citizens of New York sent a similar letter to the Secretary, endorsing Ogden’s request. “This young gentleman,” they wrote, “has been well and carefully educated, and is morally and physically well adapted to do credit to the service, and to the position he solicits…he…is in all respects a worthy offspring of a most respectable parentage, and true to the Constitution, the Laws and the Union.”

Frederick Ogden’s appointment came through, effective November 21, 1861. He accepted the appointment in a letter of November 28 and prepared to head for Ft. Leavenworth, “to await further orders” and “an opportunity of joining my Company D in New Mexico.” One can wonder what the eager 22-year-old thought of traversing the country, as armies gathered in Virginia and other points much closer than New Mexico Territory.

Educated at Yale, Ogden had traveled in Europe before the war brought him home. Of his new position in the army, an editor wrote, “He glowed from the start with delight for his profession, rapidly advancing towards eminent knowledge and ability as a soldier, and meeting fatigue, privation and danger as if he were a creature made for hardship and turbulence.”

Lieutenant Ogden never made it to New Mexico. After about a month at Ft. Leavenworth, he advised the Adjutant General on February 9 that his department commander had transferred him to the 4^th U.S. Cavalry and ordered him to Kentucky. Due to the irregular nature of his transfer, Ogden seems to have felt a responsibility to report his position and location to the Adjutant General routinely. April 14 found him in temporary command of Company G at Shiloh, Tennessee. August 15 found him still commanding his company, now stationed at Huntsville, Alabama. In late-September, he reported himself in Louisville, Kentucky. On November 12, and now stationed in Nashville, Tennessee, he asked to be returned to the 1^st U.S. with the Army of the Potomac.

One year later, Captain Reno, in temporary command of the regiment, appointed Lieutenant Ogden to the position of regimental adjutant. Often dismissed as glorified clerks, adjutants held great responsibility within a unit and Reno’s decision reflects his respect for Ogden. On March 3, 1864, and with the regiment at Mitchell’s Station in Culpeper, Virginia, Ogden received a ten-day leave to visit his family in Newport, Rhode Island.

Two months later, Lieutenant Ogden, still serving as adjutant, set out with the regiment on May 4, as the Army of the Potomac embarked on the Overland Campaign. When Reno rejoined the regiment later in the month, he may have reported himself to Ogden at regimental headquarters.

On May 30, Capt. Samuel McKee, a man easy to admire, even at the distance of 160 years, and who I have written about here, received a mortal wound in the action at Matadequin Creek. Capt. George Sanford had been standing next to McKee when the bullet shattered his arm and entered his chest. That night, Sanford and Ogden went to see McKee at the field hospital but found him barely conscious following the amputation of his arm. He did not recognize his friends, and, as Sanford later wrote, “We never had another opportunity to go back.” McKee died a few days later.

In his report, Brig. Gen. Alfred Torbert said of McKee, “a more gallant and accomplished soldier has not given his life for his bleeding country.” Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt termed McKee’s loss as “incalculable,” and described him as “A pure, unaffected, modest man, a chivalrous, educated, accomplished soldier, [who] fell at the post of honor doing his duty as but few could, and died a true American soldier with warm words of patriotism and valor on his lips.” Torbert and Merritt wrote their eulogies nearly a month later, during a brief break in the campaign. We will never know what Lieutenant Ogen might have said of McKee.

On June 7, Sheridan set out with two of his three divisions on what has gone down in history as the Trevilian Raid. Late on June 10, Sheridan put his men into camp near Trevilian Station, along the Virginia Central Railroad, after his scouts reported the enemy nearby. The morning brought the beginning of one of the bloodiest cavalry fights of the war, as the two sides slugged each other for two days “in one of the thickest tangles of brush” Captain Sanford had ever seen. Men and officers fell at every turn, and one can envision Merritt alone in his tent two weeks later, writing his report and remembering lost comrades. Among others, he recalled Lieut. Michael Lawless, a former enlisted man, as “a fearless, honest, and eminently trustworthy soldier, ‘God’s truth’ being the standard by which he measured all his actions.”

Charging across a stream and up a hill on foot, the men of the 1^st U.S. encountered a stone wall. As Sanford described, “the enemy rose up from behind this wall and poured in heavy volleys. It was an ugly position. They were well protected, and we had nothing bigger than a blade of grass.” Sanford and Ogden had been together in the initial charge before Ogden headed back to find the regimental commander. Moments later, Sanford’s battalion charged again, driving the enemy from the wall, and advancing up the hill. Finding themselves unsupported, Sanford ordered his men back to the safety of the wall. There he heard, “Ogden is killed.” He thought “it could not have been ten minutes since we had separated…and it seemed impossible that my closet friend was gone.”

Of his friend, Sanford said, “Although without previous military training his great natural ability soon made up any deficiency in that respect, and his many accomplishments, affable manners and unusual personal beauty attracted the attention and won the admiration of all who came in contact with him.” Regarding his appointment as adjutant, Sanford explained, “It is with no intention of saying anything to the disparagement of the many gallant officers who have held that position…that I say I never saw his equal. All who knew him would willingly say the same.” Of his loss, Sanford said mournfully, “The regiment never seemed quite the same afterwards to me.”

That evening, Ogden’s comrades carried his body to a house, where, in the morning, Sanford, George Custer and others paid their last respects. A chaplain then read a service, and, as Sanford recalled, “all the men who could be spared from the regiment were present.” They then buried their comrade near the house and marked the site with a hastily made headboard. Recalling the toll of battle, General Merritt described Ogden as “modest, unaffected, [and] generous…whom to see was to respect, and to know was to admire.”

Before long the battle and the dying resumed. Among the dead on the second day was Lieut. John Nichols. Hours earlier, Nichols had given Ogden’s personal possessions to Sanford. He was then killed, as Sanford recalled, “in exactly the same spot as Ogden had been the day before, and like him fell dead without a sound.”

But what of Captain Reno? He had, almost certainly attended the hasty service for Ogden, and on June 15, he wrote the following letter to the lieutenant’s mother:

“With the deepest sympathy in your bereavement, I announce to you the death of your son Frederick Callender Ogden. A true gentleman and noble soldier. He fell at the head of his Regt…June 11. A lock of his hair and his effects are now in our possession and will be forwarded as soon as it will be safe. His burial place is distinctly marked and his body can be recovered at any time, we have possession of the ground over which the battle was fought.

“Let me assure you that your affliction is shared by a host of officers, among whom, he was always welcomed, with a fraternity of feeling, due only to the brave soldier.

“On the part of his Regt. I am Madame,

“Sincerely yours, M.A. Reno, Capt. 1^st Cavalry.”

Upon receiving the letter, Edward Ogden, Frederick’s father responded to Reno.

“I beg to thank you in behalf of myself my wife & family, for your kind & empathizing note of the 15^th announcing the death of my son, F. C. Ogden, killed at Trevilian Station. The sad report had reached us through the Herald a day earlier, but unaccompanied by the interesting but melancholy details you have so kindly furnished us.

“You say that ‘his burial place is distinctly marked & that his body can be recovered at any time.’ It was my intention to leave for Washington this evening for the purpose of procuring passes that would carry me to the battle ground in the hope of being able to convey the body to its final resting place in the family fault.

“I am now, by friends, forewarned of many difficulties in the way of the accomplishment of that holy duty at the present moment.

“May I ask of you, as the friend of my son, the favor of advising me in the matter.

1. If the body could be forwarded at once to Newport, by or without my personal intervention – that is by order transmitted to reliable parties at Trevilian?
2. If the place of his burial is so distinctly marked that no difficulty need be apprehended in identifying the spot when the lines are opened.

“I ask these questions because I am led to think it will be difficult to procure the necessary passes at this moment.

“I have hardly heart at this moment to congratulate you & your [comrades] on the brilliant achievements of the Cavalry Corps. Your deeds are on every tongue & undying laurels should cover the graves of those who have fallen so nobly in this noble cause.

“With great regard & respect and very truly yours,”

In truth, the Federals had pulled out on June 13 and fallen back behind the army to rest and refit. When Reno wrote his letter the Federals did not hold the field and Edward Ogden would have had difficulty recovering his son’s body. If George Sanford’s memory holds true, Brig. Gen. Ranald MacKenzie, Ogden’s cousin on his mother’s side, recovered the body and saw it home to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1865.

What to make of this story and, more specifically, Marcus Reno and his letter to his friend’s parents? Connecting the two letters took many years, as they are in different repositories. Even after finding Edward Ogden’s letter to Reno, I was slow to make the connection as Reno’s letter lay forgotten in my files.

But as I read the heart-felt thoughts from George Sanford, Alfred Torbert, Wesley Merritt, and Marcus Reno, I cannot help but be struck by their words and their struggle to honor their lost friends and to make sense of the staggering toll the war continued to take, not just on them but on the country as well.

The two-day chaotic fight at Trevilian Station must have scarred the survivors, not just in the days to follow but in the years to follow, especially when one considers the overall toll of the previous five weeks. While Sheridan, Merritt, Torbert, and Custer wrote their reports, men like Reno wrote to their friend’s parents and loved ones. We will never know how many letters he wrote in the wake of the fighting. Nor can we ever appreciate the scars such a task took on him, but I cannot help but consider Reno with a bit more empathy.

Remembering young men like Samuel McKee, Michael Lawless, Frederick Ogden, and John Nichols, General Merritt struggled to encapsulate the larger loss to the nation, as well as his personal loss. “Our satisfaction at our success,” he wrote is alloyed by the sad reflection that we lost so many brave soldiers and gallant comrades,” who, “while they fell battling in the cause of right, have left vacancies which, in too many cases, can never be filled; young officers who were just commencing a career of usefulness, of which the present offered such brilliant promise; others whose present services added fresh luster to the glories already won – all met the death of brave soldiers unflinchingly, leaving memories that cannot die.”

The fight at Trevilian Station is sometimes referred to as ‘Custer’s First Last Stand,’ a remark I find disrespectful and have never used, until now. Still, the battles of Trevilian Station and Little Big Horn happened almost exactly twelve years apart. Did Reno remain haunted by his memories from the Civil War and especially Trevilian Station? Did he remain haunted by the letters he had written to grieving families? And did those undying memories come flooding back as he rode into the Valley of the Little Big Horn that hot day in June 1876? If so, did the memories of lost comrades affect his actions that day?

As someone wrote following Frederick Ogden’s death, “Would to God that Americans in this crisis, and in this its greatest moment, would think and act worthy of their dead, worthy of him and of such as him…Let us lay no offering on these early graves of words or of tears merely, but of deeds, in some measure worthy of the inestimable lives which have been offered for us.”

Sources:

Documents from the National Archives and Fold3

Marcus Reno to Madame, June 15, 1864, Christopher Gore Callender Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society

The Newport Mercury

The Official Records

E. R. Hagemann, editor, Fighting Rebels and Redskins, Experiences in Army Life of Colonel George B. Sanford