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(1833 - 1867)
Home State: Texas
Education: US Military Academy, West Point, NY, Class of 1853;Class Rank: 49th
Command Billet: Commanding Detachment
Branch of Service: Cavalry
Before Antietam
He was appointed to the US Military Academy at West Point from Texas in 1849, graduated in 1853, and was appointed Brevet 2nd Lieutenant, 7th United States Infantry on 1 July 1853. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, 1st US Cavalry on 3 March 1855 and promoted to First Lieutenant on 16 January 1857. He served as Regimental Quartermaster from 15 April 1858 to 3 May 1861 (at Fort Riley, KS with wife, 3 children, and servants at the US Census of 1860) and was promoted to Captain on that date. His Regiment was renamed the 4th US Cavalry in August 1861, and he commanded Company E.
On the Campaign
He was in command of the Headquarters Escort (cavalry), Army of the Potomac on the Maryland Campaign and also Commanding Officer of Company E, 4th US Cavalry, in that HQ Escort.
The rest of the War
He saw action in the Western Theater - Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama - for the remainder of the war. He was honored by brevet to Major, USA on 10 July 1863 for the cavalry action at Franklin, TN, and Lieutenant Colonel on 25 September 1863 for action near Chickamauga, GA.
After the War
He continued in Regular Army service and was promoted to Major of the 3rd US Cavalry on 28 July 1866. He was first assigned to command Ft. Brown, TX, then Ft. Larned, KS in January 1867. He died there of Phthisis Feutmomlis (possibly a mis-transcription of phthisis pulmonalis, another name for tuberculosis) in May of that year at age 34, and was buried in the Post Cemetery. He was reinterred along with the other remains from that spot to Ft. Leavenworth, probably in 1873.
References & notes
His service from Heitman1 [page online] and Cullum.2 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, and Don Caughey's Fiddler's Green bio sketch (2014). Information about cause of death and burial from a transcribed internment list on the Santa Fe Trail Research site of Larry & Carolyn Mix. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Jane A. Selkirk (c. 1839-1865) in October 1854 and they had 3 children.
Birth
08/14/1833 in TN
Death
5/10/1867; Fort Larned, KS; burial in Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery, Fort Leavenworth, KS
1 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, pg. 669 [AotW citation 842]
2 Cullum, George Washington, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the US Military Academy, 2nd Edition, 3 vols., New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1868-79, Vol. 2, pp. 559-560 [AotW citation 843]