Killed Over A Twenty Year Fight

Confederate General St John Richardson Liddell was killed February 14th 1870 near his home .


St John Richardson Liddell was born September 6th 1815 on his families plantation near Woodville, Mississippi. He attended the local school, where he was a classmate of Jefferson Davis. He received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1837, but resigned before graduating. Liddell set up his own plantation “Llanda” near Harrisonburg, Louisiana.

After the Civil War started and Louisiana secessed, Liddell enlisted in the Confederate Army as a Colonel. During the early part of the war Liddell served as a staff officer for Generals William Joseph Hardee and Albert Sidney Johnston. He was promoted to Brigadier General July 17th 1862 and given command of the Arkansas Brigade in Cleburne’s division of the Army of Tennessee. They saw action during the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro and Chickamauga, where his son was mortally wounded. Liddell turned down a promotion to Major General in hopes of getting a command closer to his plantation. After Chattanooga Liddell was transferred to District of Northeastern Louisiana, where he commanded during the 1864 Red River Campaign. In December 1864 he wrote to Confederate Senator Edward Sarrow suggesting emancipation of slave in order secure foreign assistance with the war. Liddell took on Union Major General Edward R S Canby in the Battle of Spanish Fort, where he was captured April 9th 1865.

After the war Liddell began writing a memoir in 1866 which was critical of Confederate leadership. The memoir was a collection of letters and battlefield records, which he hadn’t brought together at the time of his death. On February 14th 1870 while having dinner on a steamboat, Liddell was shot to death by Confederate Colonel Charles Jones. The murder was the ending to a twenty year real-estate dispute.

The Chief Engineer Of The Confederacy

Chief Engineer of the Confederate Army, Jeremy Francis Gilmer died December 1st 1883.


Jeremy Francis Gilmer was born February 23rd 1818 in Guilford County, North Carolina. He graduated fourth in his class at West Point in 1839, and entered the army corps of engineers as a second Lieutenant. Gilmer started as an assistant professor of engineering at West Point, before being assigned to Fort Schuyler in New York City. During the Mexican - American War he was the Chief Engineer of the United States Army of the West, located in the New Mexico Territory, he also surveyed battlefields near Mexico City. Through 1861 Gilmer was in San Francisco California working on harbor improvements, and fortifications.

Gilmer resigned his commission when the Civil War started, and joined the Confederate army. He was appointed as a Major in engineers. He was quickly promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and worked on the staff of General Albert Sidney Johnston. He was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, and after recovering was promoted in August 1862 to Brigadier General and stationed in Richmond Virginia. In 1863 Gilmer was appointed to the Chief of Engineer Bureau for the Confederacy, overseeing the building and maintance of defenses in Charleston South Carolina. It came along with the promotion to Major General. Gilmer saw that Atlanta was weak and a likely target for the Union, he developed a plan of forts and earthworks that ringed the city. He returned to Richmond Virginia in 1864 and spent the rest of the war there.

When war was over Gilmer was the director of the Georgia Central Railroad, and until his death was the president of the Savannah Gas Company in Savannah Georgia. He died in Savannah December 1st 1883, and is buried the Laurel Grove Cemetery.

Another web site worth a look - Gilmer Civil War Maps