Contrary to some statements, Winfield Scott
Hancock was never stationed at the Drum Barracks, nor was he
an early commander there. He was transferred to the East in August,
1861. However his influence during his time in Los Angeles and
his friendship with Phinneas Banning undoubtedly had a lot to
do with the establishment of the Drum Barracks.
Hancock and his twin brother were born
in 1824 in Landsdale, Pennsylvania. Rather prophetically for
his lifelong vocation, his parents named him for the famous war
hero of the War of 1812.
Winfield began his Army career as a cadet
at West Point in 1840. When he graduated with the class of 1844,
he was only eighteenth among his class of twenty-five. Because
of his low standing in the class, he was assigned to the Infantry
as a second lieutenant. He served in various assignments in the
Sixth Infantry, and when war was declared with Mexico in 1847,
he was part of the army of 10,000 men serving under his namesake,
General Winfield Scott.
Hancock’s first taste of combat was
at Churubusco, where he received a minor wound in a bayonet charge.
After recovering from his wound, his regiment was part of the
force assigned to nine months of occupation duty. It was during
this time in Mexico he became lifelong friends with Henry Heth
and Lewis Armistead, who would later serve opposite Hancock for
the Confederacy.
After his service in Mexico, Hancock was
appointed regimental quartermaster and proceeded to Jefferson
Barracks in St. Louis. While there, he was introduced to Almira
Russell and they were married in January 1850. Their first child,
Russell, was born in late 1850 and their daughter, Ada, in 1857.
Hancock served as assistant adjutant general
for the Department of the West until November 1855, when he was
promoted to Captain of the Quartermaster Department. In 1859
he was ordered to Los Angeles to establish a one-man quartermaster
depot for the Military District of Southern California.
In Los Angeles, he was headquartered in
an office on Main Street near Third and was in charge of all
government property in Southern California, including Fort Yuma
on the west bank of the Colorado River. It was during his time
in Los Angeles that he became part of a close knit circle of
business and political leaders, including Mayor Benjamin D. Wilson
and Phineas Banning. He was a partner in a Banning enterprise,
the Pioneer Oil Company, which was unsuccessful in drilling for
oil in the San Fernando Valley.
As the Civil War broke out in April, 1861,
Hancock found himself and his one-man garrison the sole representative
of the Federal government in an area which was overtly pro-secession.
In May 1861, at the urging of Capt. Hancock, Major Carleton and
his dragoons from Fort Tejon were sent to Los Angeles to provide
a pro-Union presence.
As many of his lifelong friends were resigning
their commissions and offering their services to the Confederacy,
Hancock remained steadfast in his support for the Union. It was
in the early summer of 1861 that the famous farewell party, noted
in Almira Hancock’s memoirs and the movie "Gettysburg,"
was held at the Hancock home in Los Angeles. Close friends like
Albert Sidney Johnston, Richard Garnett and Lewis Armistead bid
their final goodbyes to the Hancocks. Johnston would be killed
at Shiloh, and Garnett and Armistead would later battle Hancock’s
forces at Gettysburg.
Hancock had requested a transfer to the
East, and in August he received orders to proceed to Washington.
Before his departure, in the course of their many business meetings,
he and Banning discussed the need for a major army post at the
harbor and Banning had pledged to donate land for this purpose.
The discussions turned into firm plans by the end of 1861.
His Civil War career gave him the battlefield
command he sought, and he rose to prominence. In a dispatch General
McClellan stated, "Hancock was superb today." Picked
up by the press, he became "Hancock the Superb" for
the rest of his life. He fought at Chickamauga and Antietam,
and was promoted to major general at Fredericksburg. Hancock’s
forces held the line at Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg,
the high water mark of the Confederate assault on the third day.
Hancock was wounded in that same charge,
and was sent to his parents’ home to recover. It was nine
months before he returned to active duty as commander of the
Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He served out the remainder
of the war and by war’s end was a brevet major general.
The remaining years of his life were full
ones. Hancock was in charge of arranging the executions of the
Lincoln conspirators, and served a term as the reconstruction
commander of New Orleans. He also served as commander of the
Department of Dakota, where he strictly enforced the terms of
all treaties with the Indians, and commander of the Department
of the Atlantic.
Winfield Scott Hancock was the Democratic
candidate for President in 1880, losing to James A. Garfield
by only 7,000 popular votes.
Hancock died on February 9, 1886, from
an undiagnosed case of diabetes. His funeral in New York brought
a crowd of 3,000, many of them Union veterans. He was buried
in his home town of Norristown, Pennsylvania.
By Janet Whaley, Drum Barracks Volunteer
