Gustavus W. Dorsey (1839-1911)
MSA SC 3520-17165
Biography:
Born Gustavus Warfield Dorsey on April 25, 1839, near Brookeville, Montgomery County, Maryland. Son of Mary Riggs Dorsey and Samuel Owings Dorsey. Married Margaret Owen (1841-1909), 1866. No children. Died on September 6, 1911, near Brookeville, Maryland.
A farmer and life-long resident of the Brookeville, Maryland area, Gustavus W. "Gus" Dorsey was best known as a cavalry officer during the Civil War. Dorsey was renowned as a brave and skilled combat commander, and noted for his devotion to the care of his men. He enlisted with the First Virginia Cavalry Regiment (CSA) in May, 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, and progressed steadily through the ranks, receiving promotions to sergeant (by August, 1861); lieutenant (1862); and captain, leading Company K (1863). In 1864, his company was transferred to the First Maryland Cavalry Regiment (CSA), and he was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Dorsey and his men fought in a large number engagements, including major battles and campaigns of First Bull Run (1861); Peninsula Campaign (1862); Seven Days' Battles (1862); Second Battle of Bull Run (1862); Battle of Antietam (1862); Battle of Fredericksburg (1862); Battle of Chancellorsville (1863); Battle of Brandy Station (1863); Battle of Gettysburg (1863); Wilderness Campaign (1864); Siege of Petersburg (1864-1865); Shenandoah Valley Campaign (1864); Appomattox (1865). They also took part in a final attack against Union forces a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, before retreating to Lynchburg and demobilizing at the end of the month.
Fred L. Pitts, one of Dorsey's soldiers, wrote of his commander "Gallant old Captain Dorsey, our beau ideal of a dashing cavalryman, was the finest soldier I ever saw." Dorsey was wounded at least five times in combat, sustaining a broken arm and several bullet wounds. He was with legendary Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart at his death in 1864 at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, near Richmond, Virginia. Dorsey later gave an account of the battle and Stuart's death:
I was stationed on the right of our line near the telegraph road with my company (K), numbering about seventy men dismounted, and the first I knew of our troops being whipped and driven back on the left was when General Stuart came down to my position to order me back, and just as he rode up to the company the Yanks charged. He halted a moment and encouraged the men with the words (his saber above his head): ‘Bully for old K. Give it to them, boys!’ And just as K had repulsed them he was shot through the stomach, reeled on his horse, and said, ‘I am shot,’ and then said, ‘Dorsey, save your men!’ I caught him and took him from his horse. He insisted that I should leave him and save my men. I told him we would take him with us; and calling Corporal Robert Bruce and Private Charley Wheatley, we sent him to the rear. No other troops were near General Stuart when he was shot that I saw. When we were in those heated battles, a fellow had not much time to look around.
After the war, Dorsey returned to private life as a farmer. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Montgomery County, 1909-1911. A plaque in his honor was placed in the Montgomery County Circuit Court in 1927. It reads: "To commemorate the valor and efficiency as a soldier and the personal worth as a citizen of Gustavus W. Dorsey, lieutenant colonel, commanding the First Maryland cavalry, C.S.A., born 1832 [sic], died 1911, this tablet is erected by the survivors and the daughters and the sons of the deceased soldiers of his command."
Return to Gustavus W. Dorsey's Introductory Page
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