Don Carlos Buell

Don Carlos Buell was born March 23, 1818, in what is now Lowell, Ohio. He spent most of his youth in Lawrenceburg, Indiana living with an uncle. In 1837, he was appointed to West Point and, in 1841, graduated thirty-second in a class of fifty-two. He served with the 3rd Infantry in the Seminole and Mexican Wars. While serving in the Mexican War, he was wounded at Churubusco and was awarded brevets of captain and major. Buell spent the next thirteen years in the adjutant general’s office and was a lieutenant colonel working as an adjutant of the Department of the Pacific when the Civil War broke out. Buell was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers on May 17, 1861. In September 1861, he assisted in organizing the Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan and commanded a division. He was then transferred to Ohio and placed in command of the army for operations into East Tennessee. With the doubts of President Lincoln and General McClellan, he then proceeded to Nashville. Because General U. S. Grant was advancing on Forts Henry and Donelson at the same time, Buell had little opposition when he and his fifty thousand men reached Nashville. Buell was also a participant in the battle of Shiloh. Arriving late in the day with his troops, he and his men were able to reverse the tide of battle and turn what appeared to be a Confederate victory into one for the Union. Buell served in the battle of Corinth under Henry W. Halleck and was promoted on March 22, 1862, to major general of volunteers. He later led four divisions towards Chattanooga along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad repairing its lines as they advanced. The Confederate cavalry destroyed his supply line, and Buell’s advance was at a standstill. Buell then went to Kentucky in an effort to repel the invasion of Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith. He managed to occupy Louisville and saw action in the battle of Perryville, but his progress was deemed too slow, and he was forced to give up his command. A military commission investigated him, but no recommendations were made. Don Carlos Buell then returned to Indianapolis where he spent more than a year awaiting orders that would never arrive. He was mustered out of volunteer service May 23, 1864, and resigned his regular commission nine days later. After the war, Don Carlos Buell operated a Kentucky ironworks and coal mine; he served as a government pension agent from 1885 to 1889. On November 19, 1898, Buell died at his home in Airdrie, Kentucky and was buried in St. Louis at Bellefontaine Cemetery.

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