Ivan Vasilyevich Turchaninov (; December 24, 1822 – June 18, 1901),Civil War Journal: The Legacies by William C. Davis, Brian Pohanka, Don TroianiУкраинец Иван Турчин вошел в историю США как один из героев Гражданской войны, спасший жизнь президенту Линкольну [The Ukrainian Ivan Turchin entered the history of the USA as one of the heroes of the Civil War who saved the life of President Lincoln], 25 July 2017 - "Наследственный казак Иван Турчин родился 1822 на Дону. В то время это были земли так называемого Войска Донского, однако в казачьих станицах продолжали общаться на украинском, все обычаи и обряды также имели украинское происхождение, что и не удивительно.""Gen. John B. Turchin Dead – Hero of Wars of Two Nations Passes Away", Chicago Daily Tribune, June 20, 1901, p. 5; Although numerous books list the date of death as June 19, the report in the Tribune carried a dateline of June 19 from Anna, Illinois, and reported that the general "died last night at the Illinois Southern Hospital". better known by his anglicized name of John Basil Turchin, was a member of the Russian nobility, a military-intelligence Colonel in the Imperial Russian Army, and a personal staff-officer to the future Emperor Alexander II of Russia. He immigrated to the United States in 1856, and after working as a farmer in Long Island and as a railroad official in Chicago, he voluntarily returned to military service in 1861, becoming a Union Army Colonel during the American Civil War.
Turchin was court-martialed for allowing the 19th Illinois Infantry Regiment to unleash total war in the 1862 "Sack of Athens" in retaliation for Alabama civilians firing upon his troops during their earlier retreat from the town. The court-martial found him guilty of all charges and sentenced him to a dishonorable discharge. After listening to the strong urging of Madame Turchin to reinstate her husband (and almost certainly influenced even more so by the court-martial judges' signed request for a reversal of the verdict and sentence), President Abraham Lincoln promoted Turchin to brigadier general on 17 June 1862. This immediately invalidated the court-martial and its verdict, as an officer could only be tried before judges of equal or greater rank.
After his reinstatement, Turchin led two critical charges that saved Union forces at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, for which he received the nickname "The Russian Thunderbolt". He was later one of the first Union commanders to lead his soldiers to the top of Missionary Ridge in November 1863. He was also praised in dispatches as he served under the command of Absalom Baird and William Tecumseh Sherman during the 1864 Atlanta campaign. He resigned from the United States Army in October 1864 due to ill health and returned to Illinois, where he became a leader within the Grand Army of the Republic.
Early life and career Ivan Turchin was born on December 24, 1822, or January 30, 1822, into the Don Cossack Turchaninov family of the nobility of the Russian Empire. He entered the Imperial Russian Army in 1843, and graduated from the Imperial Military Academy in St. Petersburg in 1852. His father was a Major in the Imperial Russian Army, which gained him entry into schools that led to his eventual military commission.Bradley, George C. & Richard L. Dahlen, From Conciliation to conquest: The Sack of Athens & the Court-Martial of Colonel John B. Turchin (University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, 2006), p. 18. While serving as a lieutenant, he took part in the Russian campaign to help Emperor Franz Joseph defeat the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.Bradley, George C. & Richard L. Dahlen, From Conciliation to conquest: The Sack of Athens & the Court-Martial of Colonel John B. Turchin (University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, 2006), p. 19. He later served as a Colonel of Staff in the Imperial Guard and fought in the Crimean War.East, Ernest E. "Lincoln's Russian General", Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 52, no. 1, Lincoln Sesquicentennial (Spring 1959), pp. 106–122
Following his graduation, Turchin was posted to the staff of Imperial Guards in St. Petersburg, under the command of Count F.V. Rudiger.Bradley, George C. & Richard L. Dahlen, From Conciliation to conquest: The Sack of Athens & the Court-Martial of Colonel John B. Turchin (University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, 2006), pp. 21–22. He was promoted to the rank of Colonel and even served on the personal staff of Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich. Thomas P. Lowry, MD (1997), Tarnished Eagles: The Courts-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, Stackpole Books. p. 161.
His military career in Russia, according to Thomas Lowry, was spent in the "État Major", an early military intelligence wing of the Imperial Russian Army, "that collected and prepared maps, interrogated citizens, and made lists of supplies, roads, and bridges". During his 1862 court-martial, Turchin complained that the United States Army had as yet no equivalent to the "État Major" and that he was accordingly, "forced to do such staff work himself, which left him little time to attend to peripheral matters". Thomas P. Lowry, MD (1997), Tarnished Eagles: The Courts-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, Stackpole Books. p. 162.
In May 1856, he married Nadezhda Lvova, the daughter of his commanding officer. Later that year, he and his wife emigrated to the United States, where he eventually settled in Chicago and worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. He Americanised his name to John Basil Turchin and his wife did the same, adopting the name Nadine Turchin.
The Turchins' reasons for emigration to the United States remain uncertain, but are believed by some scholars to have been connected to a secret belief in liberal democracy and representative government and possibly also, given his later policy of protecting runaway slaves during the American Civil War, to a likely hostility to serfdom in Russia. If so, these would not have been acceptable positions, particularly following the Decembrist revolt, for any Russian subject, no matter what their place in the class system, to hold during the reign of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. The Tale of Ivan Turchaninov, A Journey through Slavic Culture.
In a letter following his emigration, Turchin wrote:
Civil War Turchin joined the Union army at the outbreak of the war in 1861 and became the colonel of the 19th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
Historian Thomas Lowry has written of Turchin, "He used European methods of discipline with his troops, which soon produced an efficient and tightly run fighting unit. It was also a unit that followed the European tradition in that to victors belong the spoils - the losers could expect pillage and plunder." Thomas P. Lowry, MD (1997), Tarnished Eagles: The Courts-Martial of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, Stackpole Books. p. 161.
Turchin wrote on July 30, 1862, "The more lenient we are to secessionists, the bolder they become and if we do not prosecute this war with vigor, using all the means we possess against the enemy, including the emancipation of the slaves, the ruin of the country is inevitable. The problem before us is grand. Universal freedom is at stake." JOHN BASIL TURCHIN AND THE FIGHT TO FREE THE SLAVES
Having led his regiment in Missouri and Kentucky, he soon found his unit under the command of Major General Don Carlos Buell in the newly organized Army of the Ohio. Buell was impressed by Turchin and promoted him to command a brigade in the Army of the Ohio's Third Division, commanded by Brigadier General Ormsby M. Mitchel. Buell advanced southward into Kentucky and Tennessee in early 1862.
When Buell headed west to support Grant at the Battle of Shiloh, he left Mitchel to hold Nashville. Turchin urged Mitchel to move southward. Mitchel did so, but not because of Turchin. He took Huntsville, Alabama, as part of a plan with the spy James J. Andrews to capture Chattanooga by cutting it off from Confederate reinforcements. Mitchel blocked them from the west by capturing Huntsville. Andrews was to block them from the south by burning bridges on the Western and Atlantic line. Unfortunately, Andrews failed; after the Great Locomotive Chase, all the raiders were captured, and some, including Andrews, were executed. Nonetheless, Mitchell continued to occupy the line westward from Chattanooga throughout much of northern Alabama.
The occupation of northern Alabama by this division of the Union Army led to attack by combined partisan and Confederate cavalry units. One such attack overran one of Turchin's regiments at Athens, Alabama. Frustration had been building among these Union soldiers for weeks over repeated attacks and Buell's clearly stated conciliatory policy of protecting the rights and property of Southerners. The reported involvement of local citizens in the rout at Athens and the humiliation suffered by the Union soldiers led to the sacking of the town when Turchin brought up reinforcements. According to University of New Mexico School of Law professor Joshua E. Kastenberg, Southern civilians had fired on Turchin's men. General Joseph Keifer, who served as an ad hoc judge advocate, stated "Turchin did not believe that war could be successfully waged by an invading army with its officers and soldiers acting as missionaries of mercy."
After reoccupying the town on May 2, 1862, Turchin assembled his men and reportedly told them, "I shut my eyes for two hours. I see nothing." He did in fact leave the town to reconnoiter defensive positions, during which time his men ransacked the business district. The incident was controversial.
When word reached General Buell, a man much detested by the soldiers, he insisted on court-martialing Turchin. The court proceedings received national attention and became a focal point for the debate on the conduct of the war, related to the conciliatory policy as Union casualties in the war mounted.
On February 25, 1862, Buell had issued a general order commanding his soldier "to protect the dignity of civilians". As Professor Kastenberg has noted, while Turchin may not have been concerned with the law or war, he certainly was "on notice" of Buell's order.Joshua E. Kastenberg, Law in War, Law as War: Brigadier General Joseph Holt and the Judge Advocate General's Department in the Civil War and Early Reconstruction, 231-233 Turchin, according to Kastenberg, had another problem at his court-martial. He requested Colonel Carter Gazlay to serve as his defense counsel, which was unusual since defense counsel was not a right at the time, and Gazlay faced his own court-martial for theft of army property. Also, as Kastenberg points out, Brigadier General James Garfield wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, "I cannot sufficiently give utterance to my horror of the ravages, outrages, that have been committed... this town was, by Col Turchin, given up to pillage." Turchin was ultimately spared an ignominious end because Buell was removed from command for his incompetence.