Phil Kearny - the Perfect Soldier?

Philip Kearny entered Union service in 1861 as perhaps the most experienced officer on either side at the outbreak of the conflict. His career, prior to the Civil War, had been incredibly varied. He had served on the western frontier with the 1st US Dragoons; he had studied at the French Cavalry School at Samur and joined the Chasseurs d’Afrique on campaign in Algiers; he had been an aide-de-camp, first to Alexander McComb and then Winfield Scott; he had seen extensive service with the 1st Dragoons in Scott’s Mexican campaign; he would serve in the Pacific North West in the Rogue River campaign; and, as a private citizen, he would volunteer and serve as a staff officer in the French Imperial Guard Cavalry during the Franco-Austrian War.

Why then, with all that experience, did Kearny initially struggle to obtain a commission in the Union Army? How did his breath of experience, of differing scales of warfare on three continents, affect his approach to command in the Civil War? How did Kearny manage to leave his mark on the Union Army after his death? Above all was he the “bravest man and most perfect soldier” as Winfield Scott thought or a commander limited by his “inflexible arrogance and... irresponsible recklessness” as Stephen W. Sears has concluded. Ryan Diamond will discuss all these questions and more…

About the Speaker

Ryan Diamond is a litigator and Northern Irishman currently exiled to Enfield in North London. A lifelong student of military history, his first love has always been the American Civil War. His special area of interest is the early war with a particular focus on the Peninsula Campaign. Aside from the American Civil War Round Table UK, Ryan is also a member of the Victorian Military Society, the Society for Army Historical Research, and the Napoleonic and Revolutionary War Graves Charity.

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