James Birdseye McPherson Biography

Dromo's Den

McPHERSON, James Birdseye (1828-64). An eminent American soldier, prominent on the Federal side in the Civil War. He was born in Sandusky, Ohio; graduated first in his class at West Point in 1853, having as classmates such men as Philip H. Sheridan, John B. Hood, and John M. Schofield; and was appointed to the Corps of Engineers, with the rank of brevet second lieutenant. For a year after his graduation he was assistant instructor of practical engineering at the Military Academy, and was next engaged from 1854 to 1857 as assistant engineer upon the defenses of the harbor of New York and the improvement of Hudson River. In 1857 he superintended the building of Fort Delaware, and in 1857-61 was superintending engineer of the construction of the defenses of Alcatraz Island, at San Francisco, Cal. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he was assigned to duty at Boston, where he raised a force of engineers; and in August, 1861; he was promoted to be captain of engineers. The following November he was made aid-de-camp to General Halleck and assistant engineer of the Department of the Missouri, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. From February to April, 1862, he served as chief engineer on the staff of General Grant, taking part in the capture of Fort Donelson and, in the battle of Shiloh. In May, 1862, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and colonel in the regular army. He was with Halleck at the siege of Corinth; and when, after its capture by the Federal forces, the Confederates under Van Dorn and Price attempted to retake it in October, 1862, McPherson succeeded in penetrating their lines and reënforcing Rosecrans, who was holding the place with a force much inferior to that of the Confederates. For his services at Corinth McPherson was made major general of volunteers, Oct. 8, 1862. In December he was put at the head of the Seventeenth Corps, and had a distinguished share in Grant's Mississippi campaign, which terminated in the surrender of Vicksburg. After the fall of Vicksburg McPherson was, upon the recommendation of General Grant, appointed a brigadier general in the regular army and commander of the District of Vicksburg. In February, 1864, he was second in command to Sherman in the latter's expedition to Meridian, and on March 12 was made commander of the Department and Army of the Tennessee. In that command he maintained the reputation he had won in Mississippi, and rendered valuable service, during Sherman's campaign in Georgia. The Army of the Tennessee engaged the Confederates at Resaca May 14 and 15 and at Dallas May 28, 1864; and on June 27 McPherson aided Thomas in an unsuccessful assault upon Johnston's position at Kenesaw Mountain. Shortly thereafter he was engaged in the series of conflicts around Atlanta, in one of which, on July 22, 1864, he was killed while making a reconnoissance. General Grant, in a letter recommending him for promotion in 1863, praised him as "one of the ablest engineers and most skillful generals," and in his Personal Memoirs says: "In the death of McPherson the army lost one of its ablest, purest, and best generals."

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 608-609.