AVERELL, William Woods, general, was born in Bath, New York, on November 5, 1832. He graduated from West Point in 1855, was commissioned in the cavalry, and was engaged in operations (in one of which he was severely wounded) against the Indians in the Southwest. Averell's Civil War career began with his appointment on August 23, 1861, as colonel of the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry. As the head of an untrained, undisciplined regiment, Averell instituted drills in horsemanship and in such basic cavalry duties as picketing, scouting, and acting as rear guard. In his first five months with the regiment, he forced the resignation of sixteen officers he considered incompetent. His was one of eight regiments of cavalry in the Peninsula campaign, in which it was joined to the III Corps.
Averell was promoted to brigadier general of Volunteers in September 1862, and upon General Joseph Hooker's (q.v.) grouping of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac into brigades and divisions, he was given command of the 2nd Cavalry Division. He led 2,100 of his men in a fight against Confederate cavalry at Kelly's Ford on March 17, 1863, an inconclusive affair that received far more postwar glorification than it deserved. Transferred to West Virginia on May 8, 1863, presumably because in Hooker's opinion he had not measured up to the requirements of high command, Averell was placed at the head of the Fourth Separate Brigade of cavalry and mounted infantry, and later of the 2nd Division. He engaged in numerous skirmishes and in two major efforts to break the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad in order to disrupt General James Longstreet's communications with the eastern seaboard.
In the spring of 1864, Averell defeated the Confederate cavalry that had burned Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, an action for which he was breveted major general in the Regular Army. On August 7, 1864, Philip Sheridan (q.v.) was given the Shenandoah Valley command. Included in his forces were four divisions and an extra brigade of cavalry, overall command of which, for reasons not to be found in the records, was given not to Averell but to the modestly competent Alfred T.A. Torbert (q.v.), his junior in rank. In the operations preceding the battle of the Opequon, Averell incurred Sheridan's ill will by an apparent misunderstanding of orders, but he played a creditable role in the battle itself. Still, he had given Sheridan reason to think that the elevation of Torbert over him had made Averell a balky, unreliable subordinate.
Following the Union victory at Fisher's Hill, on September 22, and acting without orders, Averell halted his division's pursuit of the beaten and demoralized enemy. He and Sheridan quarreled over Averell's apparent lack of energy in pressing the enemy retreat. Later that day Sheridan learned that Averell, again acting without orders, had gone into camp, and at once relieved him of his command. For the remaining months of the war, Averell remained unemployed, and he resigned from the army in May 1865. He died in Bath on February 3, 1900. Starr, Union Cavalry, vols. 1, 2.
Stephen Z. Starr
Source: Hubbell, John T. and Geary, James W., eds. Biographical Dictionary of the Union: Northern Leaders of the Civil War. Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1995.