FANNING THE FLAMES

John Taylor Wood had been a reluctant secessionist. Scion of a distinguished military family, with a bloodline that included the likes of James Madison, Richard Henry Lee, and Zachary Taylor, Wood remained uncommitted as war clouds loomed over the nation in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s November 1860 election. Even when Jefferson Davis, his uncle by marriage, became president of the Confederacy in February 1861, Wood did not abandon his position as gunnery instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and head south. In fact, when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, Wood rued in diary, “War that terrible calamity, is upon us, and worst of all among ourselves. This news has made me sick at heart.”

Although Wood’s younger brother, Robert, had joined General Braxton Bragg’s command in Alabama, his father and mother—and most of his relatives—continued to support the Union unconditionally. As historian Royce Gordon Shingleton writes: “Wood wanted to support the Union but could not take up arms against the South, and thus hoped to remain neutral. His diary entries reflect his misery; he felt he belonged to neither side.”

Wood would resign his commission in Alabama.