Alfred Thomas Archimedes Torbert

He graduated from the USMA in 1855, serving on frontier duty, in the Seminole war, and on the Utah expedition. By February 1861 he was a 1st Lt. in the 5th US Infantry, amd in September was appointed Colonel of the 1st New Jersey Regiment which saw action on the Peninsula campaign. He then led the 1st ("1st New Jersey") Brigade /1st Division/VI Corps at Second Bull Run after its commander, Brig. Gen. George Taylor, was mortally wounded at that battle.

He commanded the First Brigade of the First Division of the Sixth (VI) Army Corps, and was wounded at Crampton's Gap during the bayonet charges of his Brigade.

In November 1862 he was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers with command of the Brigade at Gettysburg. He then led the 1st Division of the Cavalry Corps in the Overland campaign, and commanded the Cavalry Corps on the Shenandoah Valley campaign and at Cedar Creek.

He continued his Army career, resigning in 1866. He then was a minor diplomat and businessman.

He was drowned at sea in the wreck of the steamer Vera Cruz off Cape Canaveral, Florida, while on his way to Mexico as president of a mining company.

Source: Heitman, Francis Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, Washington, US Government Printing Office, 1903; and
Source: Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889

7/1/1833; Georgetown, DE

8/29/1880; at sea, off Florida coast; burial in Methodist Episcopal Cemetery, Milford, DE