{"id":151292,"date":"2023-12-29T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T13:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=151292"},"modified":"2023-12-29T09:39:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T14:39:59","slug":"valor-friday-257","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=151292","title":{"rendered":"Valor Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Then-First Lieutenant Peter Conover Hains, circa 1862<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I briefly mentioned Peter Conover Hains last week as we explored men who spent more time in the service than is normal. Hains was the only confirmed American veteran of both the Civil War and World War I, though he didn\u2019t see overseas service in the latter conflict. Canadian John Boucher<\/a> is said to also be a veteran of both, having been with the 25th Michigan Infantry and then lying about his age (he was 72 and claimed to be 48) when he enlisted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force, going to France in WWI.<\/p>\n

Hains was born in 1840 in Pennsylvania. He attended West Point in the fateful Class of 1862. When the Civil War began in 1861, the class\u2019s graduation was moved up to 1861. The 34 cadets became the Class of June 1861, matriculating just a month after the original Class of \u201861.<\/p>\n

Among these cadets, three joined the Confederacy. Most famously, the bottom-ranked cadet was the only one of the class to become a general. That last place finish at West Point belied a record of bravery that led George Armstrong Custer to the rank of brevet major general during the war and an ignominious end at The Little Big Horn. Three other former cadets of the class would die in action at Gettysburg, including First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing. Cushing would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor in 2014.<\/p>\n

With the Civil War requiring a massive increase in the size of the Union Army, Hains and his contemporaries were rapidly promoted. Before the end of June 1861, he was already a first lieutenant in the Artillery Branch. In July he was commanding Battery M of the US Horse Artillery Brigade, ordering the first shots to be fired at the First Battle of Bull Run.<\/p>\n

Hains soon transferred to the Engineering Corps, where he would remain for the rest of his very long career. He received a brevet promotion to captain, a common award for valorous and (sometimes) meritorious service to officers, in 1862. In 1863, during the Siege of Vicksburg, he was again breveted, to major, for services as the chief engineer of XIII Corps. By war\u2019s end, he had been substantively promoted to captain in the regular Army and received a third brevet to lieutenant colonel.<\/p>\n

Remaining in the Army post-war, Hains became a skilled engineer. Mostly he designed lighthouses, but he designed the very successful Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. This was the literal draining of the swamp that was D.C., leading to an unpleasant marsh odor throughout the district.<\/p>\n

Hains was a brigadier general of Volunteers during the Spanish-American War, having risen to full colonel in 1895. Just after the war he was promoted to the rank in the Regular Army. In 1904 he reached the mandatory retirement age of 64. Before retiring, Hains successfully lobbied for Panama as the prime location for a canal to cross the American continent.<\/p>\n

In 1916, in recognition of his more than 40 years of quality service, Hains was advanced to major general on the retired list. This was a somewhat common honor afforded such distinguished officers. In the time before medals such as the Distinguished Service Medal, this was how senior officers were rewarded. In fact, a week and a half after Hains’s promotion to major general, another long-serving contemporary of Hains, John Clem<\/a>, received the same honor.<\/p>\n

When the US joined World War I, Hains was recalled to active duty. He spent about a year on duty, heading the Eastern Department of the Corps of Engineers before resuming his retirement. He died in 1921 at the age of 81.<\/p>\n

Hains\u2019s retirement years weren\u2019t without scandal. His sons, Peter C. Hains, Jr. and Thornton Jenkins Hains, would stand trial for murder. Peter Jr. would, while his brother acted as lookout, in 1908 would shoot the man having an affair with his wife. He did so in broad daylight outside a Brooklyn yacht club, leading the event to be dubbed the “Murder at the Regatta\u201d by the press.<\/p>\n

Peter Junior had attended the US Naval Academy without graduating, but was a captain on active duty in the Army at the time of the murder. His subsequent trial and conviction interestingly didn\u2019t preclude his military service continuing. It wasn\u2019t until Congress passed a law allowing the dismissal of those convicted in civilian courts did he resign, in 1911. He\u2019d been convicted of manslaughter in 1909. After lobbying from General Hains, the Governor of New York was pardoned in 1911.<\/p>\n

The separate trial of Thornton ended without conviction. A well known author of sea stories, the very public trial nearly destroyed his career, forcing him to use a pen name.<\/p>\n

Peter Junior had a son in 1901, named Peter Conover Hains III. He too would follow in the family tradition of military service. Graduating from West Point in 1924, he would rise to the rank of major general in the Army. He received the Silver Star and three Legions of Merit for service in World War II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I briefly mentioned Peter Conover Hains last week as we explored men who spent more time … Valor Friday<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":151293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,10,389,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-army","category-historical","category-valor","category-we-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/151293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}