Robert Garlick Hill Kean

"Garlick" Kean, an 1853 University graduate, young lawyer, and member of the Home Guard in Lynchburg, Virginia, was mustered into the 11th Virginia Infantry Regiment ten days after the firing on Fort Sumter. His scholarly and legal attainments and family connections did not go unnoticed and he soon landed on the staff of his uncle-in-law, Confederate Secretary of War George Wythe Randolph, Jefferson's grandson and himself a University alumnus. A week later Kean was appointed Head of the Bureau of War.

From his well-placed position inside the Confederate bureaucracy, Kean observed the inner workings of the Confederate government and recorded characterization of many of the chief men in his diary. Stonewall Jackson was a "character of antique beauty, simple and severe." Braxton Bragg had the "repulsive traits" of "prying, indiscretion, vindictiveness, and insincerity." Jefferson Davis, though "honest, pure, and patriotic," was "the worst judge of men in the world." Robert E. Lee frustrated Kean by keeping mechanics in the army when they were needed on the railroads. Joseph E. Johnston was "morbidly jealous" of Lee but showed a "mastery of the situation, a sagacity in anticipating the future, and a comprehensive view" when facing Sherman in Georgia.

Robert Garlick Hill Kean. Diary. 1861-63.

On July 7, 1863, Kean wrote that Lee had captured 40,000 of the enemy at Gettysburg but remained skeptical as there was no official news. The next day, he recorded the truth. "The week just ended has been one of unexampled disaster since the war began." Vicksburg had surrendered and Gettysburg was "a virtual if not an actual defeat."