Gouverneur Kemble Warren (January 8, 1830 – August 8, 1882)

At the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865, Sheridan judged that the V Corps had moved too slowly into the attack, and criticised Warren fiercely for not being at the front of his columns. Warren had been held up, searching for Samuel W. Crawford’s division, which had gone astray in the woods. But overall, he had handled his corps efficiently, and their attack had carried the day at Five Forks, arguably the pivotal battle of the final days. Nevertheless, Sheridan relieved Warren of command on the spot. He was assigned to the defenses of Petersburg and then briefly to command of the Department of Mississippi.

 

Post-war
Humiliated by Sheridan, Warren resigned his commission as major general of volunteers in protest on May 27, 1865, reverting to his permanent rank as major in the Corps of Engineers. He served as an engineer for 17 years, building railroads, with assignments along the Mississippi River, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1879. But the career that had shown so much promise at Gettysburg was ruined. He urgently requested a court of inquiry to exonerate him from the stigma of Sheridan's action. Numerous requests were ignored or refused until Ulysses S. Grant retired from the presidency. President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered a court of inquiry that convened in 1879 and, after hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses over 100 days, found that Sheridan's relief of Warren had been unjustified. On November 21, 1881 President Chester Alan Arthur directed that the findings be published; no other action was taken.  Unfortunately for Warren, these results were not published until after his death.

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Warren's last assignment in the Army was as district engineer for Newport, Rhode Island, where he died of complications from diabetes on August 8, 1882.[16] He was buried in the Island Cemetery in Newport in civilian clothes and without military honors at his own request. His last words were, "The flag! The flag!"

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Legacy
A bronze statue of Warren stands on Little Round Top in Gettysburg National Military Park. 

Another bronze statue was erected in the Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, New York. It depicts Warren standing in uniform, with field binoculars on a granite pedestal, made of stone quarried at Little Round Top.

 

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