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Theodore Safford Peck, U.S.V. |
Adjutant-General Theodore Safford Peck, U.S.V.
Adjutant-General Theodore Safford Peck was born in Burlington, Vermont,
March 22, 1843. He enlisted at the age of eighteen as private in Company
F, First Vermont Cavalry, September 1, 1861; mustered into the United
States service November 1, 1861; transferred to Company K, and discharged
for promotion June 25, 1862; appointed by Colonel George Jerrison Stannard,
regimental quartermaster-sergeant Ninth Regiment Vermont Infantry, June
25, 1862; promoted second lieutenant Company C, January 7, 1863; promoted
first lieutenant Company H, June 10, 1864; acting regimental quartermaster
and adjutant, also acting assistant adjutant-general, aide-de-camp, and
brigade quartermaster Second Brigade, Second Division, Eighteenth Army
Corps; promoted captain and assistant quartermaster U. S. Volunteers March
11, 186,; assigned to First Brigade, Third Division, Twenty-fourth Army
Corps. He served on the staffs of Brevet Major-General George J. Stannard,
Brigadier-General Isaac J. Wistar at Suffolk, Virginia; Brigadier-General
Joseph H. Potter, Brevet Brigadier General Michael T. Donahue, and Brevet
Brigadier-General Edward H. Ripley, in the trenches in front of Petersburg
and Richmond, Virginia.
In the Vermont cavalry he was present in action at Middletown and
Winchester, Va., May 24 and 25, 1862; in the Ninth Regiment, Winchester,
August, and Harper's Ferry, Va., Sept. 13, 14, and 15, 1862 (captured and
paroled); siege of Suffolk, Nansemond, Edenton Road, Blackwater, May,
1863; Yorktown and raid to Gloucester Court-House, Va., July and Aug.,
1863; action of Young's Cross-Roads, Dec., 1863; Newport Barracks, Feb. 2,
1864-, raid to Swansborough and Jacksonville, N. C., May, 1864; Fort
Harrison Sept. 29 and 30, 1864; Fair Oaks, Va., Oct. 29, 1864; eras
present in New York City commanding a battalion, Ninth Vermont Regiment,
in November, 1864, at the second election of President Lincoln. He was
also present in the siege (winter, 1864 and spring, 1865) and capture of
Richmond, Va., and was with the first organized command of infantry (Third
Brigade, Third Division, Twenty-fourth Army Corps) to enter the rebel
capital, at the surrender on the morning of April 3, 186-; his brigade was
also provost-guard of the city for two weeks after its capture. He was
wounded September 29, 1864, in the assault of Fort Harrison, Va. He
received a medal of honor from Congress for gallantry in action at Newport
Barracks, N. C., Feb. 2, 1864, on account of holding the enemy in check,
and burning the county bridge in face of their fire of musketry and
artillery from the opposite side of the Newport River, which is very
narrow at this point. A part of his men was occupied in firing at the
enemy, while with the rest he pulled up the planks and set the bridge on
fire with dead grass which was pulled by hand from the ground. Lieutenant
Peck had been notified that two companies of cavalry would report to him
at this bridge with plenty of turpentine and tar to burn the same, but
they failed to connect, and had not this bridge and one other been
destroyed a serious disaster must have inevitably occurred to the Union
troops, as they had been fighting a force ten times their number all day
long, and these were their only avenues of retreat.
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Adjutant-General Peck was
mustered out of the United States service, on account of the close
of the war, June 23, 1865, having served nearly four years as a
private in the ranks, an officer in the line and on the staff, a
member of the cavalry corps, and also of the First, Fourth, Ninth,
Eighteenth, and Twenty-fourth Army Corps, in the Armies of the
Potomac and the James. The government at the close of the war
offered him two commissions in the regular army, which were
declined.
Upon his return home to Vermont, he was appointed chief of staff,
with rank of colonel, by Governor John W. Stewart; afterwards
colonel of the first and only regiment of infantry of the National
Guard of the State, which position he held for eight years. In 1869,
assistant adjutant-general of the G. A. R., Department of Vermont;
in 1872, senior vice-commander; and in 1876-77, department
commander. |
In 1881 he was appointed adjutant-general, with rank of
brigadier-general, and is on duty in this office at the present time. He
is a charter member of the Vermont Commandery. Military Order of the Loyal
Legion, and is a vice-president-general of the National Society, Sons of
American Revolution. He had four ancestors in the Revolutionary War and
one in the War of 1812. Gen. Peck was appointed by President Harrison a
member of the Board of Visitors at the U. S. Military Academy in 1891. Is
a resident of Burlington, Chittenden County, Vt., following the business
of general insurance.
Source: Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who
served in the Civil War, published by L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1893, 419
pgs.
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