Open main menu
Open main menu
E. A. Kimball
(1822 - 1863)
Home State: Vermont
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 9th New York Infantry
see his Battle Report
Before Antietam
He was a Mexican War veteran, having served in the 9th US Infantry as a Captain in 1847. Before the War he was a printer, and proprietor and editor of The Age, a liberal Democratic newspaper published in Woodstock, Vermont. He mustered into 9th NY as Major, May 4, 1861; promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, February 14, 1862.
On the Campaign
Col Hawkins was home in New York on a leave of absence, so Kimball led the Regiment. They made an excellent charge on Confederate positions below Sharpsburg on the afternoon of the 17th, taking fearsome losses.
The rest of the War
Killed April 12, 1863 at Suffolk, Virginia ...
" ... an excited BGen M. Corcoran who reports, 'It being reported that the enemy was advancing against this place, I immediately repaired to my front and had all the troops placed under arms and ready for action.' At 3 a.m., Corcoran heads to the front to inspect his lines when he is accosted by 'an officer, whose rank I could not recognize.' The officer in question is Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Kimball, commander of Hawkins' Zouaves, who insists that Corcoran give the countersign before he will be allowed to pass. The confrontation escalates until [the drunken ?] Kimball begins to wave his sword and Corcoran shoots him in the neck and kills him. Corcoran describes the incident, 'He...put himself in a determined attitude to prevent my progress, and brandishing his sword in one hand, and having his other on a pistol, as I then supposed, made a movement toward me with the evident design of using them, making an impolite statement that I should not pass. It was at this point that I used my weapon.' "A court of Inquiry, requested by General Corcoran, later found that Kimball had not been on duty or at a picket post and had no business challenging the General. It also believed he had been drunk, used "abusive language", and threatened violence with his sword - that General Corcoran had acted in self-defense.
(quoted from This Week in the Civil War)
References & notes
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
Birth
6/13/1822; Pembroke, NH
Death
4/12/1863; Suffolk, VA; burial in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY