Ruggles, Daniel, 1810-1897

Daniel Ruggles was a Confederate general during the Civil War. Born in Barre, Massachusetts, on January 31, 1810, Ruggles grew up in the north and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. After graduating from West Point in 1833, he served at a variety of U.S. Army posts in the west and south, and participated in the Second Seminole War in Florida. He was promoted to captain in 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and fought in several battles, including at Vera Cruz, Chapultepec, and Mexico City. He remained in the army during the 1850s, taking part in a military campaign against Mormon settlers over governance of Utah Territory, before taking leave due to health reasons.

When the Civil War erupted in early 1861, Ruggles resigned his commission. Although he was from Massachusetts, he had married Richardetta Barnes Mason Hooe, from Virginia, and sympathized with the secessionist cause. He received a commission with the Virginia militia and assisted in the defense of Chesapeake Bay from U.S. Navy activity. Appointed brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the summer of 1861, Ruggles was sent to command a brigade in General Braxton Bragg’s Army of Pensacola. He had been placed in charge of a division within Bragg’s army when it moved into Mississippi to join General Albert Sidney Johnston’s Army of Mississippi.

On April 6, 1862, Johnston’s Confederates attacked Union soldiers under Ulysses S. Grant at Pittsburgh Landing along the Tennessee River in southwest Tennessee. The battle became more popularly known as Shiloh, due to a nearby church by that name. The Confederate assault was initially successful, pushing the Union soldiers back toward the river. However, some federal troops managed to hold a defensive position against repeated attacks. The scene was called the ”Hornets Nest” due to the intensity of the fighting. Ruggles called for every Confederate cannon to assemble and fire into the Union position. The result was a line of 62 Confederate cannons—the largest concentration of artillery in North America at the time—nicknamed “Ruggles’s Battery,” firing for hours into the “Hornets Nest” until the Union soldiers retreated. Despite the Confederate success the first day, Albert Sidney Johnston was mortally wounded and Grant’s troops rallied the following day to force the southern soldiers back, resulting in a Union victory.

Following Shiloh, Ruggles battled Union soldiers in Mississippi and Louisiana. He participated in an unsuccessful campaign to recapture Baton Rouge from federal forces and a failed Confederate attempt to secure the town of Corinth, Mississippi. Although southern defeats, Ruggles had performed well. He spent the rest of the war in administrative positions, including being appointed head of the prison system, overseeing the final exchange of Union prisoners when the war ended.

After the Civil War, Ruggles moved to Virginia where he took up farming and real estate business. He died in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on June 1, 1897, and is buried in the Confederate City in that town. He and his wife Richardetta had four sons, three of which survived to adulthood. (Wikipedia; FindaGrave)