Edmund
Kirby-Smith was born
in St Augustine, Florida, on 16th May, 1824. He studied at the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point and
after graduating in 1845 saw action in the Mexican
War (1846-48) and against Native Americans.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War
Kirby-Smith joined the Confederate Army
and by June had reached the rank of brigadier general. In July, 1861,
Abraham Lincoln sent Major General Irvin
McDowell to take Richmond, the new
base the Confederate government.
On 21st July McDowell engaged the Confederate
Army at Bull Run. The Confederate
troops led by Joseph E. Johnston, Thomas
Stonewall Jackson, James Jeb Stuart,
Jubal Early, Braxton
Bragg and Pierre T. Beauregard,
and Kirby-Smith easily defeated the inexperienced Union
Army.
Kirby-Smith and his Confederate Army made progress in Kentucky and
reached Covington in September but was halted by Union troops led
by General Don Carlos Buell. He fought
at Perryville (October, 1862) and
Stones River (January, 1863) in February
was given command of the Trans-Mississippi Department.
In July, 1863 Ulysses S. Grant captured
Vicksburg. The western Confederacy
was now completely isolated from the eastern Confederacy and the Union
Army had total control of the Mississippi River.
Kirby-Smith was now isolated and saw little action except defeating
the Union Army led by Nathaniel
Banks at Red River in April, 1864. He formally surrendered his
forces at Galveston, Texas, on 2nd June, 1865.
After the war Kirby-Smith was president of the University of Nashville
(1870-75) and taught mathematics at the University of the South (1875-93).
Edmund Kirby-Smith died in Sewanee, Tennessee, on 28th March, 1893.
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