Episode Details

Oliver Otis Howard, born in Leeds, Maine, in 1830, lost his father at nine, graduated from Bowdoin College and finished fourth in the West Point class of 1854. While stationed in Florida during the Seminole Wars he underwent an evangelical conversion and nearly resigned to become a minister, but the Civil War intervened and he became known as the Christian General. After losing his right arm at Fair Oaks in June 1862, Philip Kearny, who had lost his left arm years earlier, joked that the two could now shop for gloves together.

Commanding the largely German 11th Corps, Howard left his flank unentrenched at Chancellorsville, where Stonewall Jackson's 12-mile flank march routed it, and at Gettysburg his corps broke again, though he placed a reserve division on Cemetery Hill. Sent west, he performed well at Chattanooga and Sherman gave him the Army of the Tennessee over John A. Logan. From 1865 to 1874 he ran the Freedmen's Bureau, clashing with Andrew Johnson, then went west, where he negotiated peace with Cochise and fought the Nez Perce War.

• Hooker warned that Howard's position at Chancellorsville was in the air, and many of his men were cooking dinner when Jackson attacked.
• At Gettysburg, Howard argued with Winfield S. Hancock over command and blamed Abner Doubleday's I Corps, a claim historians later found false.
• Asked by Sherman as a Christian gentleman, Howard let Logan lead the Army of the Tennessee in the Grand Review.
• He helped found Howard University in 1867 and served as its president, and also helped found Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee.
• Chief Joseph blamed Howard for the Nez Perce War, saying he refused the tribe time to gather their livestock before moving.