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Josiah Harlan; the most ridiculously strange “General” of the Civil War.
Josiah Harlan might be the most ridiculous ranking officer of the Civil War, for however short his tenure was.
But before we get there, we must explain some other bits of his past.
After having his heart broken by his betrothed when she married another woman, he went to Asia and swore he would never return to the United States.
He first enlisted as a surgeon in the East India Company and briefly fought in Burma.
After his service had ended he wound up going into Pakistan or what was then known as the Raj’s frontier.
Now the Brits had a policy of no foreigners on the frontier because they kind of believed he would get himself killed, and since he had served amongst them, they made an exception so long as he worked as a spy for them.
Oh, and also he was in the service of an exiled Mad Mullah named Shah Shujah who mutilated servants who displeased him.
So into the Frontier he fled meeting all sorts of strange people including two deserters from the Company. He took them on and eventually he found service in the court of Ranjit Sigh with whom he found favor.
Eventually though, he fell out of favor with Ranjit and he was forced to move further into the frontier or slink back to the Raj a failure.
So, he resolved to go into the frontier and into the court of the man who deposed Shah Shujah, Dost Muhammad Khan. In the court he spied for both the Brits and Shujah and even suggested they team up to depose DMK.
The Brits roundly ignored him and ordered their personnel to ignore and deny him, being as he was American and all.
So, he turned cloak and began really working with the King. The King then utilized him on a campaign against several Warlords in North Afghanistan who were capturing and enslaving people.
Eventually, Harlan fought off this slaving Warlord, a Tajik named Muhammad Murad Beg.
In reward for his victory Dost Muhammad gifted him a Princedom in Ghor Province, “in perpetuity,” however his victory was short lived and the Brits marched in with Shah Shujah and they deposed DMK, and Harlan left in disgust and frustration, hoping to get Russian backing for Dost Muhammad to return.
When the Russians ignored him, he returned to the United States. For a while he sold memoirs on his travels, which never caught on, and then he tried to sell Afghan fruit and Camels to the US. He even met with Jeff Davis to this end.
In 1861 the war started and he wrote to Edwin Stanton the Sec. of the War Department and offered his services as “General” despite never having learned modern combat or holding a command.
"The man who had trained the Afghan army and humbled the slaving warlord Murad Beg saw no reason why he should not go into battle, once more, with a private army. Bizarrely, nor did the authorities in Washington, and permission was duly granted for the formation of "Harlan's Light Cavalry". Harlan had no formal rank, no experience of the American army, and had no knowledge of modern warfare. He was also sixty-two years old, but gave his age as fifty-six"
He was not given the rank general but instead was allowed to enlist and regiment and be their colonel, which he did.
The officers hated him. He was often rude, obtuse and probably suffering from early-mid stage TB.
This led to a Court Marshal after his men refused to serve under him.
He was found to have been wrong-headed in his actions but ultimately found not guilty.
When serving in Virginia, he was invalided out of the Army after suffering a particularly bad case of diarrhea thus ended his military career.
He ended up moving to San Fransisco for the dryer climate to help with his TB and eventually died while working as a doctor there in 1871, never reclaiming his Princedom.
A truly sordid tale.
#history
Josiah Harlan might be the most ridiculous ranking officer of the Civil War, for however short his tenure was.
But before we get there, we must explain some other bits of his past.
After having his heart broken by his betrothed when she married another woman, he went to Asia and swore he would never return to the United States.
He first enlisted as a surgeon in the East India Company and briefly fought in Burma.
After his service had ended he wound up going into Pakistan or what was then known as the Raj’s frontier.
Now the Brits had a policy of no foreigners on the frontier because they kind of believed he would get himself killed, and since he had served amongst them, they made an exception so long as he worked as a spy for them.
Oh, and also he was in the service of an exiled Mad Mullah named Shah Shujah who mutilated servants who displeased him.
So into the Frontier he fled meeting all sorts of strange people including two deserters from the Company. He took them on and eventually he found service in the court of Ranjit Sigh with whom he found favor.
Eventually though, he fell out of favor with Ranjit and he was forced to move further into the frontier or slink back to the Raj a failure.
So, he resolved to go into the frontier and into the court of the man who deposed Shah Shujah, Dost Muhammad Khan. In the court he spied for both the Brits and Shujah and even suggested they team up to depose DMK.
The Brits roundly ignored him and ordered their personnel to ignore and deny him, being as he was American and all.
So, he turned cloak and began really working with the King. The King then utilized him on a campaign against several Warlords in North Afghanistan who were capturing and enslaving people.
Eventually, Harlan fought off this slaving Warlord, a Tajik named Muhammad Murad Beg.
In reward for his victory Dost Muhammad gifted him a Princedom in Ghor Province, “in perpetuity,” however his victory was short lived and the Brits marched in with Shah Shujah and they deposed DMK, and Harlan left in disgust and frustration, hoping to get Russian backing for Dost Muhammad to return.
When the Russians ignored him, he returned to the United States. For a while he sold memoirs on his travels, which never caught on, and then he tried to sell Afghan fruit and Camels to the US. He even met with Jeff Davis to this end.
In 1861 the war started and he wrote to Edwin Stanton the Sec. of the War Department and offered his services as “General” despite never having learned modern combat or holding a command.
"The man who had trained the Afghan army and humbled the slaving warlord Murad Beg saw no reason why he should not go into battle, once more, with a private army. Bizarrely, nor did the authorities in Washington, and permission was duly granted for the formation of "Harlan's Light Cavalry". Harlan had no formal rank, no experience of the American army, and had no knowledge of modern warfare. He was also sixty-two years old, but gave his age as fifty-six"
He was not given the rank general but instead was allowed to enlist and regiment and be their colonel, which he did.
The officers hated him. He was often rude, obtuse and probably suffering from early-mid stage TB.
This led to a Court Marshal after his men refused to serve under him.
He was found to have been wrong-headed in his actions but ultimately found not guilty.
When serving in Virginia, he was invalided out of the Army after suffering a particularly bad case of diarrhea thus ended his military career.
He ended up moving to San Fransisco for the dryer climate to help with his TB and eventually died while working as a doctor there in 1871, never reclaiming his Princedom.
A truly sordid tale.
#history
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