#battle of antietam

General John B Gordon(Confederate)

War is no laughing matter, but the photographic evidence suggests John B Gordon was a stern, unsmiling sort of fellow, even by the standards of the age. Just look at the dark hair, dark eyes, and that impressively dark and bushy goatee.

Soldiers with professional military experience were at a premium when the Civil War broke out, and Gordon didn’t have any. Not that it mattered. A lawyer and businessman from Georgia, he joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and rose through the ranks impressively, finishing the war as a major general. His aggressive style saw him personally wounded several times, including at Antietam where he was hit in the legs, arm, shoulder and then face, almost drowning in his own blood. A prominent Southern politician and white supremacist after the war, he served as Governor of Georgia and twice in the US Senate, as well as, according to some sources, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.