A Biography of James Torrance Kieran West by Roniyah Gabrielle Caitrin Dovah Bhaer
At his great aunt Detsy's home outside what would become the town of Silver Spring, MD, a second son, their third child was born to Jessamyn Annabeth Roisin Randolph-West and her husband, Stephen Jemison West at 2:02 am on Thursday, July 2cnd, 1840.
Sorry, Dr. Loveless got it wrong, for once. J And Jim was just too well mannered to tell him
As they'd already agreed, this healthy, thriving baby boy was named for Jessy-Anne West's favorite brother, and so was christened James Torrance Kieran West. He had an older sister, age 5, named Meredydd Jean for both their grandmothers, and called "Jeanny', most of the time. The West's had lost an infant son, named David Andrew 'Drew' for both grandfathers two years before, to a severe bronchial infection of a kind that ran in the family.
While the young family lived in Maryland, over the next two years time, most family members called the new arrival 'the baby', or 'Jimmy'. But when they visited his mother's family outside Norfolk, Virginia, a change began to take place, one that would last a lifetime. His namesake uncle, James Randolph, called "Jimmy' by everyone who knew him, lived no more than an eighth of a mile down the hill from the main Randolph family home. And so, the family matriarch, Jean Alys Torrance Morrissey Randolph announced her firm decision.
"One Jimmy is often more than enough to have under this old roof. We'll call Jessy-Anne's little boy Torry." Jean Torrance's decisions had all the weight of law, and in some places, moreso. And so 'Torry' he was, at least amongst his family, throughout Maryland, southern Pennsylvania and Ohio, northern Virginia, the Carolinas, and his father's family, down around San Antonio, for the rest of his life. 'Torry' grew up traveling very often between family member's homes, as was the custom.
The dominant event of his childhood, and as Jim would say himself, in later years, of his whole life, however, was the death of his mother at his grandmother's home outside Norfolk, when Torry was just past his fifth birthday. When a great many relatives were there to celebrate Jean Randolph's birthday, in August of that year, a fire accidentally started in a storage room on the upper level of the rambling old house that wasn't quite a mansion, 'just big and comfortable enough for a lot of folks'. Jessamyn West had left the gathering early, going up to rest as her doctor instructed she should be doing often. Torry's 'momma' was expecting her fourth child.
The West-Randolph family was devastated and greatly changed by this tragedy. Stephen West began a pattern of traveling far and wide, at this time. Many family members believed he could not bear to stay where his beloved 'Annie' perished. Torry/Jim would later admit he believed his father couldn't bear to stay with the young son who everyone said was the image of his mother. Jeanny and Torry stayed with their uncle Jimmy and Aunt Joanna, as did their grandparents, until the old house on the hill was rebuilt. Jean Randolph would not think of living anywhere else, she said, and as noted, her word was law.
James Torrance Kieran 'Jimmy' Randolph was probably the second most influential person in Torry's growing years, following right after Jean Randolph. And the uncle he was named for, without consciously intending to do so over time took on much of the fatherly role Stephen West seemed to abandon. He'd been a great friend to Stephen. But the fire changed that as well. Randolph saw estrangement beginning between Torry and his father, and did nothing to encourage, or to end it. Jimmy Randolph eventually tried for some sort of rapprochement with Stephen West And the elder West eventually made an effort to bridge the gap with his son and daughter. It would be years later before father and son had any closeness, though. Jeanny made up with their father first, and more easily, they were more similar in nature. Torry had already found his father figures and role models, elsewhere.
Torry, like many boys of his era, attended a number of boarding schools from the age of eight on upwards. But the most powerful influence on his school years wasn't schoolmasters, school mates or his classes. Bright as Torry was, he was often bored in school and did his most avid reading whenever a new book of historical or legendary heroes came into his hands. Those old stories, of King Arthur, and Lionheart, of Llewellyn and Henry V, of Charlemagne and Roland and El Cid, of Ulysses, Hercules and Achilles, lit the boy's imagination like wildfire. So did his grandfather's stories from the Revolution. Washington, Lafayette and South Carolina's own Francis Marion were the stuff of both history and wonder to boys of that ear, as much or more than any made up champions. They were genuine, fire-tired heroes. And Torry wanted more than anything to be a bona fide hero!
Another dynamic that formed Torry and his friends, and everyone around them in those school years, was the increasing, more and more violent divisions of the entire nation over the core issue of slavery, it's existence as an institution, and it's expansion into the new, western Territories. It formed and defined 'the national debate', no matter what was done to compromise or otherwise avoid the issue. And it was already dividing every element of the country, from political parties, to churches, to schoolboys on each side of an increasing chasm. Born in Maryland, raised in northern Virginia, Torry/Jim felt this divide as if it lived inside him. Friends and kin he loved were ranged on each side of it. Even places he cherished and memories he wanted to keep forever were colored by the movements for either nation-wide Abolition or Southern secession.
No, this part is definitely not 'canon'
At age 16, getting ready to graduate prep school a year early, Torry, who his schoolmates more often called Jim, began his greatest effort to date, to win an appointment to West Point. His southern friends and cousins were pushing too, for themselves and Jim to attend the justly renowned Virginia Military Institute. His northern professors and classmates shared the young West's enthusiasm for the US Military Academy. And his grandmother Randolph made it clear she'd much prefer Torry attend William And Mary College in Williamsburg instead, to 'read the Law' and try for election to the House of Burgesses there.
Appealing to his namesake, Torry was elated with the results. Using his not inconsiderable influence with friends in the Congress from Maryland, Jimmy Randolph acquired a much sought after political sponsor for his nephew. The rest was up to the boy and he plunged into the work of preparing for the grueling admissions tests at West Point with all his youthful determination and spirit. Working on this goal for a solid year, Jim/Torry won admittance to the USMA class of 1857.
The Academy was already world renowned for the engineering education it gave all it's cadets, the rigorous training in horsemanship, tactics, artillery, languages, and the Classics it provided them, and for the Code of Conduct those cadets swore to follow. What the Regular US Army already knew at this point, and what the country as a whole would soon be learning, was the adamantine force of the bonds their years at West Point formed for the boys who entered and the men who graduated.
Second Lieutenant James Torrance Kieran West graduated 12th of 45 in the May, 1861 class at West Point. They'd already lost a number of classmates to the Southern Cause, and more would soon follow. West Pointers in fact were even suspected of disloyalty in general at the War's beginning. Those who remained strong for the Union, like George H. Thomas of Virginia, and James West, and many others, soon proved those suspicions worthless.
Samuel Nicoll Benjamin of NY actually graduated 12th of 45 in the May 1861 class at West Point No disrespect whatever is intended to that officer, who became Chief of Artillery for the Army of the Potomac! And who, in the fighting around Knoxville, with no good placement for his guns, cut short fuses on 20 lb shells, lit them with a cigar or a brand from a nearby fire, and lobbed them by hand at the Rebels! … hmmm… does that sound familiar?
The new graduates were soon officially inducted into the Regular Army and by October of '61, James West had distinguished himself sufficiently to earn promotion to First Lieutenant. His regiment, the 2cnd Maryland Infantry, was part of the Union 9th Corps. And it was at this point, when the Union Army was still reeling and still reorganizing after First Bull Run, that Jim West was recruited into what would later become the Bureau of Military Information. His years growing up in northern Virginia would soon prove an invaluable asset to the young officer in the espionage work he was now taking on. He knew the countryside, ' the Old Dominion drawl', and the people there, 'like the back of my hand'.
One more somewhat significant event of that first autumn of the War came when Frank Harper introduced Jim West to a fellow soldier and fellow agent, by the name of Artemus Gordon. Whether or not these two hit it off immediately was not recorded in the published letters or journals of either man. What is known is their record for taking on and succeeding brilliantly ' together, separately', at the toughest, thorniest missions the Army could find for them.
The major battles and campaigns of the 9th Corps are as follows:
Roanoke Island; New Berne; Camden; Wilmington Island; James Island; Manassas; Chantilly; South Mountain; Antietam; Fredericksburg; Siege Of Vicksburg; Jackson; Blue Springs; Lenoir Station; Campbell's Station; Fort Sanders; Siege Of Knoxville; Strawberry Plains; Wilderness; Ny River; Spotsylvania; North Anna; Bethesda Church; Cold Harbor; Assault On Petersburg, June 17th; Petersburg Trenches; Petersburg Mine; Weldon Railroad; Poplar Spring Church; Boydton Road; Hatcher's Run; Fort Stedman; Fall Of Petersburg.
When the 9th Corps was detached and sent first to Knoxville and then to Vicksburg, Jim West saw even more action in the 'Western theatre' of the War and won a Captain's rank. Then for a brief time he was given a brevet temporary, field promotion to Major. Which may or may not explain why Dr. Loveless sometimes refers to him as Major West J During the Vicksburg campaign, young Captain West's work as an officer and an agent caught the eye of General Ulysses Grant. Some sources hint that it was actually Captain Artemus Gordon who suggested West for a place on Grant's staff. No contemporary records yet survive to prove or disprove that suggestion. At War's end, Jim West, as usual, knew what he wanted to continue doing. The assassination of Lincoln made it crystal clear to the men who'd served in the Army's Intelligence service that more than a uniformed 'escort' was needed to safeguard the Commander in Chief. No formal organization for such work existed at that time. None would for some time afterwards.
Then something happened that changed the course of the young 'retired' Major's life. A ruthlessly ambitious Federal prosecutor in Norfolk, VA convened a Grand Jury, which in fact issued an indictment against Robert E Lee for treason. The next step would have been to try the former Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in a Federal Court. President Andrew Johnson was ready and wiling to go along with this scheme, despite the terms of the surrender Lee signed at Appomattox.
And when he found about this, Ulysses Grant who gave Lee those surrender terms was utterly livid. This Federal Grand Jury's potential secret indictment would abrogate that document entirely and break Grant's sworn word! Grant was now "General of the Armies" and as such he started protesting and seeking to find out the facts of the matter. He sent for the best pair of former soldier-agents he knew of, Artemus Gordon and James West. Their new assignment, which would have to be even more covert than any wartime mission, was to find out who was really pushing for Lee to go on trial, and proof of what would happen to the barely reunited country if he did!
Both young men eagerly took on the General's mission. Jim used every contact he had in Virginia and the Carolinas. Artie used every trick of their mutual espionage trade and then invented some more. As during the War the two men worked exceptionally well together. As before they found out information no one else could. Armed with their findings, and his own huge public approval Grant went to Johnson and sternly informed the President he would be not only losing his 'General of the Armies' if he allowed Lee's trial to go forward, he would be re-igniting the War! And on top of all that, the two agents confirmed a report Grant already had, Lee was terminally ill. Any such technically legal 'kangaroo court' set up against him would be trying a dying man! Gordon and West were a successful team once again. And both men agreed they much preferred this type of occupation, helping their former Commander do something that also protected the country at large
The United States Secret Service, whose main work was against counterfeiters, was developing a small corps of agents who would, when necessary, take on tougher, more complicated assignments. James West signed on for those duties with his customary confidence and enthusiasm. When Ulysses Grant became President, in March of 1869, he changed West's duties … exponentially, based on the younger man's record and proven loyalty. And to Jim's pleased surprise, the President teamed him once more with Artemus Gordon. That team proved themselves more than worthy of the President's own adamantine loyalty. For fifteen years afterwards, they stopped one plot, enemy and conspiracy after another that would have otherwise damaged, divided or destroyed the nation they gladly served with Honor.
Throughout the summer of 1885, Jim was at Saratoga Springs, NY with his old mentor and model, Ulysses Grant, during the great man's last battle, one he would not win, with throat cancer. Deeply moved by this fresh evidence of the President's tremendous courage, West would later write that he 'only hoped for the same valor under extreme circumstances'. When veterans from the Army of the Potomac marched at Grant's funeral parade alongside veterans of the renowned 'Stonewall Brigade' James West found it the most moving expression of respect for the lost hero he could imagine.
During this period James West also began taking on ' just a handful' of teaching assignments at West Point, and occasionally at the Service' Academy, too. It pleased the 1861 West Point graduate no end to help the plebes and older cadets tackle his own favorite subjects: Tactics, Armaments, Equestrian Training, The Rules of Engagement and Military History. And when he could find other graduates to help the boys struggling as he once had with Statistics, Natural Science, Calculus and Latin, it seemed to please Jim even more. Most of all he watched with tremendous joy and pride as the same bonds grew between these youngsters as he'd formed in the same environment, decades ago.
By this time, James West also was deeply involved in working with and for Union and Confederate veterans. That work: writing, touring and speaking for veterans services, hospitals and rights, would take his whole strength, his whole focus and all his efforts for the next thirty two years. He called them all, north and south alike his 'brothers in arms'. And nothing gave him more satisfaction than seeking and gaining the respect, the care and the honor they'd truly earned.
Then in the winter of 1896-97, a very different challenge was presented to the former West Pointer, soldier and agent. Through a tragedy not unlike the one in his early years, Jim gained an entirely new and unexpected role. A hurricane swept up the south eastern coast that season with murderous force. A number of small towns, fishing villages and resorts were completely destroyed, with great loss of life. One of those towns happened to be Wilmington, on the North-South Carolina border. And it was in Wilmington that Jim's cousins Dan and Ginny Morrissey had their summer home. They would normally never be there in the winter months. But now they were lost, along with two of their five young children, and a great many more family members. Grieving and shocked, Jim made a swiftly compassionate decision, and acted on it as quickly as he could. He adopted the three remaining children, to make sure they would always be safe and protected, in every way that he possibly ensure.
And there was another memorable event in his life, James West recorded in his journal on July, 1913, at Gettysburg, PA. On the same farmlands they'd fought over fifty years before, veterans from south and north held an emotional reunion. Standing once more on either side of the stonewall where Pickett's famous Charge ended, these white haired, weathered old men stood and embraced each other as brothers. No one who saw that sight would ever forget it or them, Jim West heard someone saying, and then realized he was the speaker.
At his grandmother's rambling, often repaired and rebuilt home on a hill outside Norfolk, on Tuesday, August 14th, 1927, while working on a new lecture series about the last war in Europe, James West died peacefully, surrounded by long time friends and many, many cousins. A long since diagnosed heart murmur had finally made good on its hidden threat to his health, mitral stenosis, only a few years before. He was survived by his best friend's son, Elisha James Gordon, his sister Jeanny, her family, and his adopted children, Jemison Adam Morrissey West, Sarah Elisabeth Morrissey West Madsen, and Jessamyn Lynne Morrissey West Alexander, along with their children and spouses. He was laid to rest with full military honors not far from the final resting place of his friend and partner, Artemus Gordon in Arlington National Cemetery, three days later. James Torrance Kieran West was 87.