John Whilden - Return to the Citadel, and First Mannasas

Sent back to the Citadel several weeks later, Johnnie Whilden and his classmates returned to the routine of study and drill. Footnote 16 After the heady experience of firing on the Star of the West, they must have found it difficult to concentrate on their studies, especially as preparations for war were taking place all around them. Settling back into his studies may have been particularly difficult for Johnnie Whilden, who was a good, though not a brilliant, student.

By antebellum standards, Johnnie Whilden had a solid preparatory education, giving him an initial leg up on most of his Citadel classmates. His first school years were spent at the Mount Pleasant Academy, a school established in 1809 by his grandfather, Elias Whilden, Sr., and several other lowcountry planters. Footnote 17 In the mid-1850s, Whilden entered the newly opened King's Mountain Military School at Yorkville, S.C., Footnote 18 where he soon became a favorite pupil Footnote 19 of the principal, Micah Jenkins, Footnote 20 a recent Citadel graduate. Young Whilden's association with Jenkins was to prove eventful during the war.

When Johnnie Whilden applied for admission to the South Carolina Military Academy in 1858, there were about 25 other applicants. Footnote 21 The barracks on Marion Square were crowded and no more Cadets were really desired, so Assistant Professor Ellison Capers footnote 22 set an especially difficult entrance examination. Although none of the applicants passed the examination, Footnote 23/ eventually the faculty determined to admit two of them, Johnnie Whilden and his classmate at Yorkville, Irvine Walker. Footnote 24 Graduating first and second in their class at Yorkville, Footnote 25 Whilden and Walker entered the Citadel in the sophomore or third class, Footnote 26/ thus bypassing the Arsenal Academy in Columbia, S.C., where first year students at the South Carolina Military Academy were educated before the war. Footnote 27/ Getting off to a fast start, at the conclusion of the 1858-9 academic year Johnnie Whilden stood first in the third class. Footnote 28 The following academic year, however, Whilden's overall class standing slipped to fourteenth, but his grades in Drawing and Conduct ranked second among his 29 classmates. Footnote 29 More important, he was appointed Cadet First Sergeant, the highest rank among second class students. Footnote 30 Johnnie Whilden's flair for leadership was again recognized during his first class or senior year when he was appointed Cadet Captain, the highest office in the Corps of Cadets. In a post-war memoir of his student days, Irvine Walker recalled Johnnie Whilden as a "most conscientious and beloved member of the class." Footnote 31 Writing in 1862, a family friend observed that Whilden "graduated with credit, enjoying the respect and esteem of his preceptors as a model of modest and manly virtues." Footnote 32

The character and leadership that Johnnie Whilden first displayed during his students days would later distinguish his service to the Confederacy. Whilden's exceptional personal qualities both reflected and complimented his background and upbringing. Born July 20, 1839 in Charleston, Footnote 33 John Marshall Whilden was the third surviving son of planter Elias Whilden, Jr. and his wife, Mary Jeffords White Whilden. Footnote 34 The boy's roots ran deep into the soil of Christ Church Parish, one of the lowcountry parishes that made up old Charleston District. His great-great-great grandfather, John Whilden, had settled there in 1696. Footnote 35 Before he died in 1706, John Whilden had acquired both land and slaves and established a tradition of gentlemen planters that would continue without interruption until the War Between the States, encompassing six generations of the Whilden family. Footnote 36

Johnnie Whilden grew up on the family rice and cotton plantation in Christ Church Parish and in nearby Mount Pleasant, a village across the Cooper River from Charleston that was popular with lowcountry planters as a summer retreat. Footnote 37 (The Whilden ancestral home in Mount Pleasant, a large, white two-story house with six doric columns across the front and a veranda to catch the sea breeze, still stands on Bennett Street in Mount Pleasant.) Footnote 38 Brought up in the Old School Calvinist faith, Johnnie Whilden worshipped at the Wappetaw Congregational Church in Christ Church Parish that his forefathers had helped to establish prior to 1700. Footnote 39 Related by blood or marriage to many of the other old families of the parish, Johnnie Whilden and his family were firmly entrenched within the kinship network that bound together the area's planter gentry.

Following the reduction of Ft. Sumter, Johnnie Whilden volunteered to serve as a drillmaster of the 5th South Carolina Infantry, Footnote 40 a regiment organized by his Yorkville school master, Micah Jenkins. When the 5th South Carolina was ordered to Virginia in the spring of 1861, Whilden accompanied the regiment as a special aid to Colonel Jenkins. Footnote 41 The young volunteer soon made a favorable impression on his superior officers, and on June 30, 1861, Colonel Jenkins wrote President Davis requesting Whilden's appointment as a second lieutenant in his regiment, noting that "Mr. Whilden has been gratuitously assisting this Regt. since its formation near three months ago, and his services have been very valuable." Brigadier General D. R. Jones, commander of the Third Brigade of the Confederate Army of the Potomac, which included the 5th South Carolina, penned an addendum to Jenkins' letter, pointing out that Whilden had "rendered very efficient service" to the 17th Mississippi Infantry Regiment as well as the 5th South Carolina, and concluding that "[h]e can be of great service to my Brigade. . . ." Evidently the President was persuaded, because the top of the letter carries the notation: "Comply with request. J. D." Footnote 42

Sunday morning, July 21, 1861, found Confederate and Union forces concentrated along opposite banks of Bull Run, a meandering stream about three miles east of Manassas Junction, a railroad terminus only 25 miles from Washington. The Confederate commander at Manassas, General Beauregard, had planned to strike the Union left flank with his own right flank, but the plan was pre-empted when Union Brigadier General Irwin McDowell launched his own attack on the Confederate left early that morning. Had Beauregard's battleplan materialized, Johnnie Whilden would have found himself in the thick of the war's first major battle, as Jones' Brigade was in position on the far right of the Confederate line, near McLean's Ford. Footnote 43

Late in the afternoon, after the battle had raged for most of the day, Jones' Brigade crossed Bull Run and attacked the Union position on Grigsby's hill northeast of Blackburn's Ford. Footnote 44 This was virtually the only, and certainly the final, attack on the south flank during the First Battle of Manassas. In the attack of Jones' Brigade, the 5th South Carolina was on the right of the attacking line and two Mississippi regiments were echeloned to the left and rear of the 5th South Carolina. Jenkins' command came under heavy Federal artillery fire in its assault on the hill, but was damaged more by musketry fire from the Mississippians, who, in the smoke-filled woods, mistook Jenkins' South Carolinians for the enemy. Footnote 45 Unable to silence the Yankee batteries in his front, Jones withdrew his brigade to the east. Had he waited a few minutes he could have taken the hill without opposition, because Federal forces there were also in full retreat as a result of McDowell's general withdrawal order.

Lieutenant Whilden distinguished himself in the fighting on July 21 by his "cool and gallant bearing", as one acquaintance put it. Footnote 46 He was slightly wounded; Footnote 47 the next time he fought over this same ground he would not be so fortunate.

After returning home in the summer of 1861, Whilden set about raising a volunteer company for coastal defense. The company, known as the "Chicora Rifles," was organized on September 25, 1861, Footnote 48/ with Johnnie Whilden as captain and his younger brother, Robert Septimus Whilden, Footnote 49 as a sergeant. The Chicora Rifles were consolidated in November 1861 with several other infantry companies, forming the 23rd Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, sometimes called the "Coast Rangers." Footnote 50

Despite the general shortage of rifle muskets and infantry ordinance, in late January 1862 the Charleston Arsenal issued to the 72 men of the Chicora Rifles new Enfields, cartridge and cap boxes, cartridges, haversacks and other accoutrements. Footnote 51 Though fully equipped for battle, the Chicora Rifles, together with other companies of the 23rd South Carolina, spent the winter of 1861-2 quietly on routine coastal patrol in Christ Church Parish. Footnote 52/ In April 1862, the regiment moved to Morris Island and encamped near the former site of the Citadel Cadet battery. Footnote 53 The next month, when the regiment was reorganized under the Conscription Act, Captain Whilden was elected major, Footnote 54 making him, at age 22, one of the youngest field officers in the Confederate Army and earning him the sobriquet, the "Boy Major." Footnote 55

When Major Whilden finally rejoined his regiment in Virginia, General R. E. Lee had only recently divided the Army of Northern Virginia into two wings, one under Major General T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson and the other under Major General James Longstreet. (Although technically independent, Evans' Brigade was attached to Longstreet's wing. Footnote 60) The division of his army was part of a brilliant, but dangerous, plan that Lee had devised to encircle Union Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia, which threatened Confederate supply lines in central Virginia. Marching far off around Pope's right, Jackson slipped behind him and captured the rich Federal supply base at Manassas Junction on August 27. Footnote 61/ The next day Jackson's command marched north of the Warrenton Turnpike and took up a strong defensive position along an unfinished railroad near the old Manassas battlefield. Footnote 62 Almost daring Pope to give battle, Jackson's line stretched for nearly 3,000 yards from Bull Run on the left to the Warrenton Turnpike on the right.