John B. Turchin

Ivan Vasilyevich Turchaninov (Russian: Иван Васильевич Турчанинов); December 24, 1822 – June 18, 1901) better known by his Anglicised name of John Basil Turchin, was a member of the Russian nobility, a military-intelligence Colonel in the Imperial Russian Army, and a personal staff-officer to the future Emperor Alexander II of Russia. He immigrated to the United States in 1856, and after working as a farmer in Long Island and as a railroad official in Chicago, he voluntarily returned to military service in 1861, becoming a Union Army Colonel during the American Civil War.

Turchin was court-martialed for allowing the 19th Illinois Infantry Regiment to unleash total war in the 1862 "Sack of Athens" in retaliation for Alabama civilians firing upon his troops during their earlier retreat from the town. The court-martial found him guilty of all charges and sentenced him to a dishonorable discharge. After listening to the strong urging of Madame Turchin to reinstate her husband (and almost certainly influenced even more so by the court-martial judges' signed request for a reversal of the verdict and sentence), President Abraham Lincoln promoted Turchin to brigadier general on 17 June 1862. This immediately invalidated the court-martial and its verdict, as an officer could only be tried before judges of equal or greater rank.

After his reinstatement, Turchin led two critical charges that saved the day at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, for which he received the nickname "The Russian Thunderbolt". He was later one of the first Union commanders to lead his soldiers to the top of Missionary Ridge in November 1863. He was also praised in dispatches as he served under the command of Absalom Baird and William Tecumseh Sherman during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. He resigned from the United States Army in October 1864 due to ill health and returned to Illinois, where he became a leader within the Grand Army of the Republic and lived to the ripe old age of 79.