William S. Harney


William Selby Harney was a Tennessee-born cavalry officer in the US Army, who became known during the Indian Wars and the Mexican–American War. One of four general officers in the US Army at the beginning of the American Civil War, he was removed from overseeing the Department of the West because of his Confederate sympathies early in the war although he kept Missouri from joining the Confederacy. Under President Andrew Johnson, he served with on the Indian Peace Commission, negotiating several treaties before spending his retirement partly in St. Louis and partly trading reminiscences with Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant in Mississippi.

Early life

Born on August 27, 1800, in Haysborough, a community on the Cumberland River, Harney attended a local private academy. His father Thomas Harney had been an army officer.

Early military career

In 1817, Harney's brother, Dr. Benjamin F. Harney, an Army surgeon in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, asked Andrew Jackson, a hero of the War of 1812 and the current commander of the Army of the South, to write a letter to the Secretary of the Navy to ask for Harney's acceptance into the Navy, which occurred July 23, 1817. Harney visited his brother and met high-ranking military officers. He so impressed them that they arranged a commission for him as a US Navy second lieutenant, which President James Monroe signed. However, Harney chose to serve under Jackson in the army. His first military assignment under Jackson was in 1818, as a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Infantry. He helped to force the pirate Jean Lafitte to move his operations from the Louisiana Territory to the Spanish Main.
Harney began his many years of interactions with Native Americans on the Great Plains in 1825, when he accompanied Colonel Henry Atkinson and Benjamin O'Fallon on an expedition to sign treaties with the Upper Missouri tribes. In 1832, Harney fought in the Black Hawk War against the Sauk and Fox tribes, serving as General Zachary Taylor's assistant inspector. There he met, fought, and befriended Jefferson Davis, Taylor's son-in-law and a fellow army officer.

Death of Hannah

In June 1834, while he was a major in the Paymaster Corps, Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri), Harney was charged with beating a female slave, Hannah, to death with his cane. On June 30, 1834, the Missouri Republican reported "an inquest was held at the dwelling-house of Major Harney... on the body of Hannah... said slave possibly came to her death by wounds inflicted by William S. Harney." The Missouri Intelligencer and the Cincinnati Journal also reported the incident, the latter labeling Harney as "a monster!" The public outrage, the St. Louis County prosecutor's promised involvement, and a relative's advice on possible mob violence against him caused Harney to flee eastward along the Ohio River to Wheeling, Virginia. In 1835, Harney returned when "the excitement goes off," and on March 24, 1835, he was legally acquitted.

Second Seminole War

During the Second Seminole War, Harney gained a reputation as an Indian fighter for daring and ruthless raids. Harney and troops under his command often fought the Seminole War leader and mystic Sam Jones, also known as Ar-pi-uck-i. During one skirmish, one of Harney's men accidentally shot Itee, the wife of Sam Jones. When that was brought to Harney's attention, he turned down the opportunity to use her as a bargaining chip during treaty negotiations. Instead, Harney ordered Itee comfortably set outside the US Army camp so that her husband and his men could retrieve her that evening.

Mexican–American War

During the Mexican–American War, Harney was appointed colonel and commanded the 2nd Dragoons. They were attached to John E. Wool's command during the Chihuahua Expedition and the Battle of Buena Vista. Harney joined Winfield Scott's Army as senior cavalry officer at the Siege of Veracruz. However, Harney's headstrong and insubordinate temperament caused losses and embarrassment and so when Harney refused to leave Monterrey, despite orders to do so, he was replaced by Major Edwin V. Sumner, and General William J. Worth placed Harney under court-martial, and Harney was ultimately convicted. However, President James K. Polk overrode Scott's judgment to remove Harney from command and concluded that Harney's only fault was in being a Democrat although the incident damaged the relationship between the general and Commander-in-Chief.
Placed in temporary command of the 1st Brigade in David Twiggs's division, Harney fought with distinction at the Battle of Cerro Gordo and received a promotion to brevet brigadier general. He returned to cavalry command during thevBattle of Contreras, the Battle of Churubusco, and the Vattles for Mexico City. However, he was accused of mistreatment of captured prisoners from the St. Patrick's Battalion, which included US Army deserters and escaped slaves. Harney became an original member of the Aztec Club of 1847, which was composed of American officers who had served in Mexico.

First Sioux War

On May 14, 1849, on the death of Brevet Major General William J. Worth, Harney assumed command of Military Department Number Five, which comprised almost all of the settled portion of Texas. He was assigned to control Indian raids, which led to the First Sioux War, although Harney actually commanded Military Department No. 5 for only three short periods, having been replaced by Col. George N. Brooke on July 7, 1849; after Brooke's death from March 9 until September 15, 1851 when he was replaced by Colonel Persifor N. Smith, and then from December 3, 1852 until he was again relieved by Smith on May 11, 1853.
Recalled from leave after he had attempted to visit his family in Paris in 1854, Harney led a punitive expedition against the Sioux after they killed a small US Army detachment in Nebraska Territory, an event called the Grattan Massacre. He led attacks against the Brulé Lakota, who were involved in conflicts with immigrant travelers on the Oregon Trail. In the Battle of Ash Hollow, on September 2 and 3, 1855, Harney's troops routed Little Thunder's village at Blue Water Creek, in western Nebraska, killing about half of the 250 band members, including women and children who had hidden in a cave into which cannons were fired under the mistaken pretense that they were warriors, given the lack of anthropological awareness of US troops at the time, hence an alternate name of the "Harney Massacre." Harney earned a Lakota name translated as "Mad Bear" because after the attack, he marched across the Badlands to Fort Pierre, the largest trading post in Dakota Territory, and challenged the Lakotas to a winter fight. The success of the campaign encouraged Harney to suggest that mobile units might replace permanent army posts.
Harney briefly commanded troops during the Utah War and was again recalled and placed in command of troops sent to deal with the guerrilla warfare of Bleeding Kansas.
Next, he was assigned command of the Department of Oregon. Harney sent Captain George E. Pickett and troops to San Juan Island, precipitating the Pig War with British forces. The Army recalled Harney to St. Louis after the altercations with the British.
Promoted to brigadier general on June 14, 1858, Harney was, at 61, the youngest of the four general officers in the regular army at the time,.

Civil War

As the Civil War began, Harney was still in command of the Army's Department of the West based at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, and his wife's family was prominent in the area. General Twiggs accepted a Confederate commission to head the Department of Louisiana and was accordingly dismissed from the US Army and replaced by Edwin V. Sumner. Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson was pro-secession, but the majority of Missourians favored Union. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln called for troops to suppress the rebellion. Jackson refused and began plotting with Confederate authorities to bring about Missouri's secession by a military coup.
On May 10, 1861, Captain Nathaniel Lyon, commander of the St. Louis Arsenal, led a force of unofficial Unionist "Home Guards" to capture a force of state militia that were poised to seize the Arsenal by acting without any authorization from Harney, his nominal superior. The Camp Jackson Affair resulted in a bloody riot in St. Louis, which horrified Harney.
The state legislature responded by reorganizing the militia as the Missouri State Guard and authorizing it to resist an "invasion" by federal troops. Harney tried to calm the situation and agreed to the Price–Harney Truce with Guard Commander Sterling Price, who was married to Harvey's wife's niece. They agreed that the State Guard would control most of Missouri while federal troops stayed near St. Louis. The deal also involved Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson, who favored secession but swore allegiance to the Union.
That was not acceptable to Unionist leaders in Missouri, including the Republican leader Francis Preston Blair, Jr., since Price did nothing to prevent the organization of pro-Confederate forces or to protect Unionists in his territory. Worsening matters was Harney's Tennessee heritage, which made his loyalty to the Union suspect. Blair reported all to the Lincoln administration in Washington, DC, and was authorized to replace Harney with Lyon, which Blair did on 30 May.
Recalled to Washington to discuss the situation, Harney was captured by Confederates at Harper's Ferry on April 25, 1861. He was offered a command by Confederate General Robert E. Lee but turned down the offer. However, because he was a Tennessean, his captors graciously released him and allowed him to continue on to Washington.
Harney remained in Washington and served in various administrative positions. When it became clear that he would not receive another field command, he retired in 1863 and lived in St. Louis. In recognition of his long and distinguished career, he was awarded and breveted to major general in 1865.

Later years

President Andrew Johnson appointed Harney to the Indian Peace Commission and so he returned to the Great Plains in 1865 and 1867 to negotiate treaties. In part because Harney urged the US Congress to honor past treaties, the Sioux called him the "man-who-always-kept-his-word." He helped secure the Little Arkansas Treaty with the Comanche and Kiowa in 1865, the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867 and the Fort Laramie Treaty with the Brule Sioux in 1868. In 1868, Harney received a temporary assignment to establish three Sioux agencies on the Missouri River, which he did at Whetstone Creek, Cheyenne River, and Grand River.
Harney then retired to Pass Christian, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast and often reminisced with his old friend Jefferson Davis about their old service at Fort Crawford, including their near duel; they forgot their opposite service during the Civil War. After Davis's death, Harney moved to Orlando, Florida, where he died.

Personal life

In 1833, in St. Louis, he married Mary Mullanphy, one of seven daughters of John Mullanphy, an Irish immigrant who became a wealthy merchant in Baltimore and St. Louis' first millionaire. Harney converted to Catholicism, and they had three children including John Mullanphy Harney. However, Harney only saw his wife twice after 1850, and she would relocate to France with their children in 1853, where she died in 1860. Her children would return to St. Louis, and their granddaughter Marie Antoinette Harney Beauregard would marry the son of Confederate general Pierre Beauregard. In 1884, Harney remarried again, this time to Mary St. Cyr, who survived him.

Death and legacy

Harney died at his home near Orlando, Florida, in 1889, just months after Harney County, Oregon was named for him. He was interred in the officer's section at Arlington National Cemetery, as would be his widow in 1907. His handwritten will, witnessed by Ulysses S. Grant and filed in St. Louis, gave his son "John Hearney" and daughter "Eliza Hearney" $5 each, and the rest of his property, wherever located, to his widow.. Harney is an intriguing figure representing perhaps an individualist standing apart, in an age of rough dichotomies. One time "Indian Fighter", later "Indian Defender" known by the Sioux as "Man Who Keeps His Word" for trying to keep initial peace treaty-terms as they were written and opposing the reneging of said terms, by later officials.
After that, Harney was known among the Sioux as "Woman Killer." due to his actions at an Indian village in 1855 at Blue Water Creek, south of the Black Hills: "While engaged in a delaying parley with Chief Little Thunder" Harney's troops "circled undetected" toward the village, "where the infantry opened fire and forced the Indians toward mounted soldiers, who inflicted terrible casualties. 86 Indians were killed, 70 women and children were captured, and their tipis were looted and burned." https://www.sleuthsayers.org/search/label/Woman%20Killer?m=1man A man whose second marriage was into a larger land-owning family, yet who did not join the Confederacy. A friend to both Grant and Davis. Though contemporary history often tries to parse out the "good" and the "bad", the "friend" and the "foe" from the present perspective, perhaps accurate histories, like Mr. Harney's life events perhaps, present us with, at times, portraits of humanity in a sea of factional strife.

Historic site

The Maj. Gen. William S. Harney Summer Home in Sullivan, Crawford County, Missouri, is privately owned by the Harney Mansion Foundation. The Sullivan Chamber of Commerce cooperates with the foundation and can arrange visits to the home, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Places named for William Harney

Harney, Maryland