A staunch believer in the cause, in 1861 Ruggles wrote that his countrymen must “make each house a citadel, and every rock and tree positions of defense” were he and his men to drive out the “insolent invader.” Ruggles had no sympathies with the abolitionists of the North. Lee for example, before he joined the Confederacy. When the Civil War broke out, Ruggles, despite his Massachusetts heritage, suffered none of the uncertainty that plagued some officers, such as Robert E. The couple married and had four boys, two of whom served in the Confederate Army. While there, he married Richardetta Barnes Mason Hooe, a niece of Virginia Founding Father George Mason. In 1859, he was sent to Fredericksburg, Va., to recover from an illness. Part of the reason, however, was personal. Given his long United States service and his deep Yankee roots, it seems mystifying that he ended up siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War. In the 1850s, Ruggles served on posts along the Mexican border, Utah, and Texas. In the Mexican War, Ruggles was twice breveted for bravery, won a promotion to captain, and fought with General Winfield Scott’s forces as they captured Mexico City. After leaving West Point, he was stationed in Wisconsin Territory, and then saw his first action in Florida during the Seminole Wars of the late 1830s. His years at West Point, however, began a military career that lasted 32 years and took him all over the United States. A mediocre student, he finished 34th in a class of 43 cadets. Ruggles followed in the family military tradition. Ruggles took part in beating off a Union Navy landing party trying to establish a shore battery on the Potomac River June 27, 1861. USS Gunboats Pawnee and Freeborn firing on Mathias Point in Virginia. His great uncle was Edward Ruggles, a “Minuteman,” who fought at the Battle of Lexington in 1775 and, a few years after the Revolution, helped put down Shays’ Rebellion in western Massachusetts. He was named after his grandfather, the Honorable Daniel Ruggles, who hailed from neighboring Hardwick and served as a lieutenant in the American Revolution and as a justice of the peace afterward. Ruggles was born on January 31, 1810, in Barre, Mass.-still a small town in the central part of the state-to a family with a colorful military background. How and why did a man from the state considered the cradle of abolition come to fight for the Southern cause? The general avoided Yankee bullets, outlasted political and military opponents in the Confederacy, and died in Fredericksburg in 1897 at the age of 87. He was one of only three men born in Massachusetts to become a general in the Confederate Army. General Daniel Ruggles turned his back on his Yankee roots to fight for the Confederacyĭaniel Ruggles was unusual. Rebel General from Abolitionist Enclave Massachusetts Close
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