Samuel W . Crawford Samuel Wylie Crawford ( November 8 , 1829 – November 3 , 1892 ) was a United States Army surgeon and a Union general in the American Civil War . Transferring to the infantry early in the war , he led a brigade at Cedar Mountain which routed a division that included Stonewall Jackson ’ s unit , though it was later driven back . Severely wounded at Antietam , he was back in action at Gettysburg , where his division drove the Confederates out of ‘ Death Valley ’ beside Little Round Top , with Crawford dramatically seizing the colours and leading from the front . Although this was a relatively minor engagement , Crawford tried for years to become officially acknowledged as the sole saviour of Gettysburg , but without success . The preservation of the battlefield , however , is largely due to his efforts . In the last days of the war , his division went astray at Five Forks , causing his corps commander , Maj . Gen . Gouverneur K . Warren , to miss the attack while searching for them - one of the pretexts used by Sheridan for his controversial sacking of Warren . Early life . Crawford was born in Franklin County , Pennsylvania . He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1846 and the University of Pennsylvania medical school in 1850 . He joined the U . S . Army as an assistant surgeon in 1851 and served in that capacity for ten years . Civil War . Crawford was the surgeon on duty at Fort Sumter , South Carolina , during the Confederate bombardment in 1861 , which represented the start of the Civil War . Despite his purely medical background , he was in command of several of the artillery pieces returning fire from the fort . A month after Fort Sumter , Crawford decided on a fundamental career change and accepted a commission as a major in the 13th U . S . Infantry . He served as Assistant Inspector General of the Department of the Ohio starting in September 1861 . He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on April 25 , 1862 , and led a brigade in the Department of the Shenandoah , participating in the Valley Campaign against Stonewall Jackson , but the brigade saw no actual combat . Its first taste of battle was during the Northern Virginia Campaign , when it was assigned to the Army of Virginia under Maj . Gen . John Pope . At the Battle of Cedar Mountain , Crawford ' s brigade launched a surprise attack upon the Confederate left , routing a division that included the Stonewall Brigade . The Confederates counterattacked , however , and Crawford ' s brigade , which was unsupported by other units , was driven back with 50 % casualties . At the Battle of Antietam , Crawford temporarily commanded his division when Brig . Gen Alpheus S . Williams was elevated to command the XII Corps . Crawford ' s temporary command was short , however , when he was wounded in the right thigh . He stayed on the field until he became weak from loss of blood and had to be carried off . The wound took eight months to heal properly and he was unable to return to the field until May 1863 , when he was given command of the Pennsylvania Reserves Division in the defenses of Washington , D . C . In commanding this division , Crawford was following in the footsteps of two Union Army luminaries : John F . Reynolds and George G . Meade . In June 1863 , the Pennsylvania Reserves Division was added to the Army of the Potomac for the Gettysburg Campaign . Crawford was in a difficult situation . His training was as a surgeon , not an infantry division commander , and although he had experience at the brigade level , his eight - month recuperation meant that his skills were at minimal levels at the start of a critical campaign . Furthermore , the troops of his division had just spent six months on easy garrison duty around Washington and were not fully combat ready . On July 2 , 1863 , Crawford and his division arrived at Gettysburg in the rear of the V Corps , led by Maj . Gen . George Sykes . He was ordered to the front to assist the brigade of Col . Strong Vincent on Little Round Top , but the battle had already petered out by the time his division arrived . Meanwhile , the Confederate troops of Lt . Gen . James Longstreet ' s Corps had swept through the Devil ' s Den , driving the Union defenders back to Plum Run , a stream just to the west of Little Round Top , and an area that became known to the soldiers as " the Valley of Death " . Crawford ' s division swept down the slope of Little Round Top along with the brigades of Colonels William McCandless and David J . Nevin . McCandless ' s brigade led the charge , but Crawford apparently desired some of the glory and seized his own division ' s colors from a surprised sergeant to lead them in the charge , too . The charge was successful , meeting little resistance , and the Confederates were driven from the Valley of Death . Although this was a relatively minor engagement and casualties were light , Crawford spent the remainder of his life basking in the glory of Little Round Top . After the war , Crawford was prominent in preserving the Gettysburg Battlefield and at one point attempted to raise money to cover the hill with a large memorial building and museum dedicated to his division . ( This plan was a failure , and Little Round Top remains close to its original condition , although sprinkled with smaller monuments . ) Crawford also spent considerable effort politicking to get the official records of the war to acknowledge his role as the savior of Little Round Top , but he was also unsuccessful in this quest . Crawford remained in command of the Pennsylvania Reserve Division in the V Corps for the rest of the war . In the Richmond - Petersburg Campaign he also commanded a garrison in the siege that consisted of his first two brigades , a division from the IX Corps , and a few other regiments and artillery units ; his third brigade was temporarily assigned to another V Corps division . On December 12 , 1864 , President Abraham Lincoln nominated Crawford for appointment to the brevet grade of major general , to rank from August 1 , 1864 , and the U . S . Senate confirmed the nomination on February 14 , 1865 . On August 18 , he was wounded at the chest in the action at the Weldon Railroad . He received a brevet promotion to brigadier general in the regular army for the Battle of Five Forks and to major general on March 13 , 1865 . At Five Forks , his division drifted away through heavy woods from the main attack on the Confederate left . Maj . Gen . Gouverneur K . Warren , commander of V Corps , personally rode off to retrieve Crawford ' s division . His absence during the attack was one of the reasons cited by Maj . Gen . Philip Sheridan to relieve Warren . Although Crawford was the senior general in the corps , Sheridan named a more junior officer ( Brig . Gen . Charles Griffin ) to replace Warren . Crawford was present for Robert E . Lee ' s surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 , making him one of the few soldiers to be present at both the beginning and the effective end of the Civil War . Postbellum life . Crawford retired from the Army on February 19 , 1873 , and was given the rank of brigadier general , U . S . Army Retired . He died in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , and is buried there in Laurel Hill Cemetery . He was the author of " The Genesis of the Civil War " , published in 1887 .