Henry Heth (1825 - 1899)

Born 16 Dec 1825 in Chesterfield County, Virginia

Ancestors

Died 27 Sep 1899 at age 73 in Washington, District of Columbia

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Biography

Henry Heth is Notable.

Henry Heth was born at Black Heath in Chesterfield County, Virginia, son of United States Navy Captain John Heth, and Margaret L. Pickett. He was a cousin of George Pickett. He usually went by "Harry," the name also preferred by his grandfather, American Revolutionary War Colonel Henry Heth, who had established the Heth family in the coal business in the Virginia Colony after emigrating from England about 1759.

He went to West Point on 1 July 1843 and graduated 1 July 1847 and was promoted to Brevet 2nd Lieutenant, 1st United States Infantry.^[1] He spent the Mexican-American War garrisoned at Jefferson Barracks. He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant, 6th United States Infantry, on 22 Sept. 1847. On 9 June 1853, he made 1st Lieutenant in the 6th Infantry, and on 24 Nov. 1854 he became it's quartermaster. He was appointed Captain in the 10th United States Infantry on 3 March 1855, and became Company E's Captain after personally meeting then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis for the first time.^[2] He was the initial Captain of Company E at the outbreak of the Civil War, but he resigned his commission on 25 April 1861, and joined the Confederacy.

Heth's division made history by inadvertently starting the Battle of Gettysburg. Marching east from Cashtown on July 1, 1863, Heth sent two brigades ahead in a reconnaissance in force. His memoirs referred to sending them in a search of shoes in Gettysburg, but some historians consider this an apocryphal story; they say Heth knew that Jubal A. Early had been in Gettysburg a few days earlier and any available shoes would have been taken at that time. They also consider sending two brigades on such a mission would have been wasteful. The brigades made contact with Union cavalry under Brig. Gen. John Buford and spread out into battle formation.

Lee had ordered A.P. Hill to avoid a general engagement with the enemy before he could assemble his full army, but Heth's actions had now rendered that order moot. They were engaged and Union reinforcements started arriving quickly. Heth's decision to deploy his two brigades before the arrival of the rest of his division was an error as well; they were repulsed in hard fighting against an elite division of the Army of the Potomac's I Corps, including the famously tenacious Iron Brigade. After a lull in fighting, Heth brought two more brigades into the fray in the afternoon and the Union forces were driven back to Seminary Ridge, but principally because the XI Corps' right flank was crushed by Richard S. Ewell's corps coming in from the north. Finally, Heth attacked again in conjunction with the division of Maj. Gen. Robert E. Rodes and the Union corps were routed, retreating back through town to Cemetery Hill. But Confederate losses were severe; Heth should have better coordinated his attack with the division of Maj. Gen. Dorsey Pender. Heth was wounded during the attack when a bullet struck him in the head. Fortunately for him, he was wearing a hat that was too large and stuffed with papers to make it fit. The papers probably deflected the bullet to avoid a fatal wound, but Heth was knocked unconscious and effectively out of the battle. Parts of his division, under the command of Brig. Gen. Johnston Pettigrew, saw more action two days later in Pickett's Charge and he recovered enough to command during the retreat back to Virginia and the minor engagements of the fall of 1863.

Harry Heth commanded his division through the 1864 Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg. Following the death of Gen. A.P. Hill on April 2, 1865, Heth briefly took over command of the Third Corps. Heth's troops, now led by Gen. John R. Cooke, were pushed back at the Battle of Sutherland's Station. Heth led the remainder of his troops in the retreat of the Appomattox Campaign to Appomattox Court House, where he surrendered with Lee on April 9, 1865.

After the war, Heth worked in the insurance business and later served the government as a surveyor and in the Office of Indian Affairs. He died in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. Heth served as the first Commander of the Centennial Legion of Historic Military Commands when it was founded in 1876.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Heth

Graduating at the very bottom of his 1847 class at West Point, Henry Heth served 14 years on frontier duty before resigning his infantry captaincy on April 25, 1861, to serve his native Virginia. His assignments included: captain, Infantry (spring 1861); colonel, 45th Virginia (1861); brigadier general, CSA January 6, 1862); commanding District of Lewisburg (February 6-May 8, 1862); commanding division, Department of East Tennessee July 3-December 1862); commanding the District, same department (December 1862); commanding the department January 1863); commanding Field's (old) Brigade, A.P. Hill's Division, 2nd Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (March 5-May 2, and late May 1863); major general, CSA (May 24, 1863); commanding the division (May 2-3, 1863) commanding division, 3rd Corps, same army (May 30-July 1 and July 1863-February 1865 and March-April 9, 1865); and commanding the corps (February-March 1865). His initial service came in the Kanawha Valley and the Lewisburg area of western Virginia. He joined Kirby Smith in East Tennessee in the summer of 1862 and commanded a division and briefly the department. At the request of Robert E. Lee, who called the brigadier by his first name, allegedly the only case of Lee doing this with his generals, Heth was transferred to the Army of Northern Virginia. Commanding a Virginia brigade he fought at Chancellorsville and was in command of the division until wounded. Returning to duty he was soon promoted (an October 1862 appointment as major general had not been confirmed), and given a division in the new 3rd Corps. On the first day at Gettysburg he was wounded but recovered to fight at Falling Waters, Bristoe Station, and Mine Run before the end of the year. The next spring, and summer he guided his men through the Overland Campaign and supervised them in the trenches around Petersburg, often sallying forth to defeat Union attempts to cut the railroads and highways into the beleaguered city. Briefly in corps command during the final winter of the conflict, he surrendered with his chief at Appomattox. He was involved in insurance after the peace. (Morrison, James L., ed., The Memoirs of Henry Heth)

Source: "Who Was Who In The Civil War" by Stewart Sifakis

Sources

1. ↑ https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Army/USMA/Cullums_Register/1368*.html
2. ↑ https://www.nps.gov/gett/blogs/a-sojourn-on-the-plains-the-frontier-service-of-henry-heth.htm

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Heth

• "Virginia Marriages, 1785-1940," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XRMC-4P3 : 5 December 2014), Henry Heth and Harriet Christiana Selden, 07 Apr 1857; citing Norwood, Powhatan, Virginia, reference Powh. Image 258; FHL microfilm 2,048,470.

• "United States Civil War Confederate Applications for Pardons, 1865-1867," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V4M6-NGK : 4 December 2014), Henry Heth, 1865 - 1867; from "Case Files of Applications from Former Confederates for Presidential Pardons ('Amnesty Papers'), 1865-1867," database, Fold3.com (http://www.fold3.com : n.d.); citing NARA microfilm publication M1003 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1977), roll 62.

• "United States Census, 1870," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFG7-8QS : 12 April 2016), Henry Heath, Virginia, United States; citing p. 9, family 70, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 553,172.

• "District of Columbia Deaths, 1874-1961," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F7T8-Y9M : accessed 13 October 2017), Henry Heth, 27 Sep 1899, District of Columbia, United States; citing reference ID cn 127177, District Records Center, Washington D.C.; FHL microfilm 2,115,104.

• https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Heth&GSfn=Henry&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=48&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=8337&df=all&