John McAllister Schofield

He Led the Charge Into Fire at Wilson’s Creek

John McAllister Schofield was born on September 29, 1831, in Gerry, New York. His family later moved west, and the young Schofield eventually received an appointment to the United States Military Academy. He graduated from West Point in 1853 and entered the Regular Army as an artillery officer, beginning a military career that would span more than four decades and eventually carry him to the highest levels of the United States Army.

During his early service, Schofield served with artillery units in the South before returning to West Point as an instructor in natural and experimental philosophy. His abilities as both a soldier and scholar would remain important throughout his career. By 1860 he was teaching physics in St. Louis, Missouri, but the secession crisis and the outbreak of the Civil War quickly returned him to active military responsibilities.

Missouri was one of the most politically and militarily divided states in the nation. Union and Confederate sympathies competed for control, and violence erupted even before the larger armies of the war were fully organized. Schofield became involved in organizing Union forces in Missouri and served as a Major of the 1st Missouri Infantry.

His defining act of personal battlefield courage came during one of the earliest major engagements of the Civil War.

On August 10, 1861, Union and Confederate forces clashed near Wilson’s Creek in southwestern Missouri. Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon led the Federal force against a numerically stronger Confederate and Missouri State Guard army. Schofield served closely with Lyon during the campaign while holding his rank as Major in the 1st Missouri Infantry.

The fighting at Wilson’s Creek became intense and confused. Units struggled for possession of key ground as infantry and artillery exchanged fire at close range. During the battle, Schofield distinguished himself by personally leading a regiment in a successful charge against the enemy.

It was an act that placed an officer directly at the center of the fighting rather than safely behind the line.

His conduct was later summarized in his Medal of Honor citation as conspicuous gallantry in leading a regiment in a successful charge against the enemy.

Wilson’s Creek was costly for the Union force. General Lyon was killed during the battle, becoming the first Union general to die in combat during the Civil War. Although the Federal army ultimately withdrew, the battle demonstrated how fiercely control of Missouri would be contested.

Schofield survived the engagement, and his responsibilities expanded rapidly as the war continued.

In November 1861 he became a brigadier general of volunteers. He subsequently commanded forces in Missouri and the surrounding region, where military operations were complicated by conventional Confederate forces, irregular warfare, divided local loyalties, and the constant need to protect strategically important territory.

By 1862 he had risen to major general of volunteers. He commanded the Army of the Frontier and later the Department of the Missouri, taking on responsibilities far beyond those he had held as a Major at Wilson’s Creek.

In 1864 Schofield assumed command of the Department and Army of the Ohio. His troops participated in Major General William T. Sherman’s campaign against Atlanta, one of the decisive Union offensives of the war. Schofield’s forces fought through the difficult advance across northern Georgia as Sherman’s armies maneuvered against Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and later General John Bell Hood.

After the fall of Atlanta, Hood moved north into Tennessee in an attempt to disrupt Union operations and threaten Federal positions. Schofield became a central figure in the campaign that followed.

At Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864, Schofield’s army occupied defensive positions while Hood launched a massive Confederate assault. The fighting became extraordinarily violent as Confederate troops repeatedly struck the Union line. Schofield’s forces held long enough to inflict devastating losses before withdrawing toward Nashville.

Two weeks later, Union forces under Major General George H. Thomas defeated Hood’s army at the Battle of Nashville. Schofield and his troops participated in the operation, helping bring the Confederate offensive in Tennessee to a disastrous conclusion.

By this stage of the war, Schofield had progressed from the Major who personally led a charge at Wilson’s Creek to one of the Union Army’s senior field commanders.

In early 1865 he was transferred east and given responsibility for operations in North Carolina. His forces captured Wilmington and then advanced inland, eventually cooperating with Sherman during the final campaigns of the war.

The Civil War ended with Schofield firmly established as an important Regular Army officer. His broader wartime service was later represented by the Civil War Campaign Medal, commemorating his extensive service during the conflict. That service had included Missouri, the Atlanta Campaign, Franklin and Nashville, and the closing operations in North Carolina.

The single act for which he received the nation’s highest decoration, however, remained his leadership at Wilson’s Creek.

Recognition for that action came much later.

On July 2, 1892, more than thirty years after the battle, John McAllister Schofield received the Medal of Honor for his gallantry on August 10, 1861. The long interval between the action and the award reflected the fact that many Civil War deeds were reviewed and formally recognized decades after the conflict.

The Medal of Honor had been established during the Civil War, with the Army decoration authorized in 1862. By the time Schofield received his medal in 1892, he had already built one of the longest and most distinguished senior careers in the postwar Army.

After the war, Schofield undertook important military and governmental assignments. In 1865 he was sent to France on a sensitive diplomatic mission connected with French intervention in Mexico. He later commanded the Department of the Potomac.

In 1868, Schofield entered the highest level of civilian military administration when he became Secretary of War. He served from June 1868 until March 1869, bridging the final months of Andrew Johnson’s presidency and the beginning of Ulysses S. Grant’s administration.

After leaving the War Department, Schofield continued his Regular Army career. He was promoted to major general and commanded major military departments across the United States.

From 1876 to 1881 he served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Returning as superintendent to the institution where he had once been a cadet and instructor represented another remarkable stage in his career. His responsibilities now involved preparing a new generation of officers for service in the Army.

Schofield later commanded several of the Army’s major geographic divisions. His combination of extensive combat experience, administrative ability, and long Regular Army service eventually brought him to the senior uniformed position in the Army.

In August 1888, he became Commanding General of the United States Army.

He remained in that position for more than seven years, overseeing the Army during a period of professional reform and institutional change. His tenure came decades after Wilson’s Creek, yet the officer directing the entire Army was the same man who had once personally led soldiers forward in a charge during one of the first major battles of the Civil War.

In February 1895, Congress authorized his advancement to Lieutenant General. The promotion made Lieutenant General the highest verified rank of his military career.

Schofield retired from active service on September 29, 1895, his sixty-fourth birthday. His military career had begun with his graduation from West Point in 1853 and extended through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Indian Wars era, major administrative commands, service as Secretary of War, leadership of West Point, and finally command of the United States Army.

He spent his remaining years in retirement and died on March 4, 1906, in St. Augustine, Florida. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

John McAllister Schofield left behind a career far larger than a single battlefield action. He commanded armies, helped shape military policy, served as Secretary of War, led West Point, and eventually became Lieutenant General and Commanding General of the Army.

Yet the Medal of Honor returned his story to an earlier moment.

Before the great commands, before Atlanta and Franklin, before the War Department and West Point, and long before he became the Army’s senior officer, he had been a Major on a chaotic Missouri battlefield.

At Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861, he moved forward with the soldiers and personally led a regiment in a successful charge against the enemy.

More than thirty years later, that act of conspicuous gallantry was recognized with the Medal of Honor, permanently linking one of the Army’s most accomplished senior commanders with the courage he had shown near the beginning of the Civil War.