JOHN CLEVELAND ROBINSON

Charles E. Davis Jr. of the 13 Massachusetts Volunteers admitted that, at first, he and his comrades had their doubts about General John C. Robinson. “We were not always just in our estimation of division commanders,” he confessed. “We had an impression for a while that he [Robinson] didn’t like us – this was a mistake.” Robinson didn’t garner the kind of love commanders like General John F. Reynolds or General John Sedgwick did, due to his reticent personality. “He hedged himself with so much strict official dignity, that he concealed many of the good qualities he possessed,” Davis wrote. “It took a long time for us to work up the regard which was natural for us to feel for a brave and gallant officer, such as we knew him to be.” He may not have been the most personable generals in the Army of the Potomac, but he was one of the most dependable.

John Cleveland Robinson, born in 1817 in Binghamton, New York, could trace his lineage back to the Puritans and the Mayflower. His father, Dr Tracy Robinson, was a physician who had moved from