Lawrence Kip

A clergyman's son, he was appointed to the US Military Academy from California on 1 July 1853 and was there to May 1854. He did not graduate, but was appointed 2nd Lieutenant, 4th US Artillery on 30 June 1857, and transferred to the 3rd Artillery on 27 August. He was promoted First Lieutenant on 14 May 1861, and served as Regimental Adjutant from 27 September to 30 November. He was appointed Major of Volunteers and Aide de camp on 20 August 1862.

He was an aide to Major General Edwin Sumner on the campaign and spent his 26th birthday at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He resigned from the Volunteer service on 15 August 1863 and continued in the Regular Army, serving on General Philip Sheridan's staff. He was honored by brevets to Captain (June 1864) for Trevillian Station, Major (March 1865) for the Cavalry Campaign from Winchester to Petersburg, and Dinwiddie Courthouse, and Lieutenant Colonel (April 1865) for Five Forks.

He continued in Regular Army service, being promoted to Captain, 3rd US Artillery on 13 August 1866, but resigned his commission on 1 November 1867.

By 1870 he was a banker in New York City, and he was there to at least 1880. He was noted as a prominent sportsman and raised show horses.

His service basics from Heitman.1 Personal details from family genealogists, at least one of whom has his birth in Morristown, NJ (probably from his obituary in the New York Times), and the US Census of 1870 & 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture here from a group portrait taken of General Sumner and his staff at Warrenton, VA in November 1862, now at the Library of Congress.

He married Eva Lorillard (1847-1903) in April 1867 and they had 3 children, 2 of whom survived to adulthood.

His Army Life on the Pacific; a journal of the expedition against the northern Indians, the tribes of the Coeur dÁlenes, Spokans, and Pelouzes, in the summer of 1858 (1859) is online from the Hathi Trust.

09/17/1836 in NY

11/17/1899; Manhattan, NY; burial in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY