The Daily Dispatch: March 29, 1865., [Electronic resource]

The late General Whiting.

The death of Major-General Whiting deserves more than a passing notice.--Born in a garrison, the son of an eminent officer of the old army, the graduate, with distinguished honor, of the first military school on this continent, he was peculiarly qualified, by education and association, to render his country marked service. Constantly on active and varied duty whilst an officer of the United States army, he was enabled, by experience, to improve a mind already well practiced in his profession, and cultivate a taste for that arm, of which, at an early age, he was regarded as a brilliant ornament. On the secession of Mississippi, his native State, he promptly resigned his commission, and, offering his services to the Provisional Government at Montgomery, was appointed major of engineers in the regular Confederate army. Assigned as chief engineer officer at Charleston, his engineering skill was recognized as of essential benefit in the operations which reduced Fort Sumter. Transferred to Virginia, he was selected by General J. E. Johnston as chief of staff, and, after the first battle of Manassas, received the merited promotion to the rank of brigadier general. The commander of a splendid division in the Army of Northern Virginia, he served in the campaign of 1861 and 1862 with conspicuous credit. In the seven days battles around Richmond his command did gall ant service, contributing, in a large measure, to our successes. The ability evinced on these occasions by General Whiting, in the disposition and handling of his troops, combined with his coolness and self-possession, elicited the highest praise, the President himself, an eye witness, bearing cheerful testimony to his worth and valor.

But it was not in the field only that General Whiting's abilities and talent were displayed. Assigned to the command of the defences of the Cape Fear, he exhibited, in the works which constituted those defences, a genius and skill as an engineer which won the unstinted praise of every military judge — a praise even accorded by the enemy. His administrative capacity was of the highest order — a perception wonderfully quick; familiar with all the details of his command; thoroughly conversant with its wants; always accessible; prompt in the dispatch of business; firm, yet courteous, in his intercourse; reconciling, with unusual facility, conflicting interests; establishing, with great success, regulations for a trade requiring commercial rather than military knowledge; harmonizing the civil and military authority in his department, he possessed the entire confidence of the community in which he was stationed. Placed in a subordinate position in the department which he had so long and ably commanded, and the successful defence of which was his hope and pride, he was doomed to witness the great disaster of the war, unable, by protest or remonstrance, to change the tactics which, in his opinion, induced the fall of Wilmington. In command of Fort Fisher, sharing the privations and dangers of its garrison, twice wounded in leading it against the assaults of the enemy, captured with his troops, he died a prisoner, cut off from those kindnesses which affection can only prompt and love alone offer.

General Whiting possessed those rare personal qualities most to be appreciated in the intimate associations and familiar intercourse of private life.

Unpretending in the observance of the duties of the church, of which he was a strict communicant; aiming to be just, without fear and without prejudice; sincere in his friendships; frank, generous, who "felt a dream of meanness like a stain" his character was the embodiment of truth and honor. Of the noble sacrifices made for the cause, of the gallant dead who have fallen in its defence, the name of none will be more inseparably interwoven with its history than that of William Henry Chase Whiting.

‘ "How sweet his sleep beneath the dewy sod
Who dies for fame, his country, and his God."

’