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Abner Doubleday

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ABNER DOUBLEDAY (1819-1893), American soldier, was born at Ballston Spa, New York, on the 26th of June 1819, and graduated from West Point in 1842. He served in the U.S. artillery during the Mexican War, being present at the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista. He was second in command at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina, when it was bombarded and taken by the Confederates in 1861, and later in the campaign of that year he served in the Shenandoah valley as a field officer. In February 1862 he was made a brigadier-general of volunteers and employed in the lines of Washington. He commanded a division in the Army of the Potomac in the second Bull Run campaign and at Antietam, becoming major-general U.S.V. in November 1862. He continued to command his division in the Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville campaigns, and on the first day of the battle of Gettysburg he led the I. corps, and for a time all the Union forces on the field, after the death of General Reynolds. In the latter part of the war he was employed in various administrative and military posts; in July 1863 he was breveted colonel, and in March 1865 brigadier-general and major-general U.S.A. General Doubleday continued in the army after the war, becoming colonel U.S.A. in 1867; he retired in 1873. He published two important works on the Civil War, Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie (1876) and Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882), the latter being a volume of the series "Campaigns of the Civil War." He died at Mendham, New Jersey, on the 26th of January 1893.

His younger brother, Ulysses Doubleday (1824-1893), fought through the Civil War as an officer of volunteers, was breveted brigadier-general U.S.V. in March 1865, and commanded a brigade at the battle of Five Forks (1st April) .