Hometown: Clyde, OH
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: Army of the Tennessee
Date of Sacrifice: July 22, 1864 - KIA in Atlanta, Georgia 
Age: 35
Conflict: Civil War, 1861-1865

His Scotch-Irish father, William McPherson, was a blacksmith who became too weak to work when James was 13 years old. Young James found work as a clerk with Mr. Robert Smith, the storekeeper and postmaster in their hometown of Clyde, Ohio, where the family lived on a 160-acre farm.

Helping to support his mother, Cynthia (Russell) McPherson, and his three younger siblings—Emeline, Russell, and Billy—James worked for Mr. Smith for six years. Demonstrating responsibility and an agile mind, at age 19 James received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Because his work to support the family limited his educational opportunities, McPherson deferred his appointment and spent a year of preparation at Norwalk Academy, 25 miles east of his home. His studies paid off, as McPherson would graduate first in West Point’s class of 1853.

After graduation, McPherson spent a year as Assistant Instructor of Practical Engineering at the Academy. Assignments to large military construction projects followed—first working on defenses in New York harbor and improvements of the Hudson River, followed by the construction of Fort Delaware in the Delaware River, and fortifications on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, California.

In Professional Memoirs, Corps of Engineers, author Amos A. Fries lists McPherson’s next military assignments:

He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1858 and, in 1861, was ordered to Massachusetts, where he was engaged in organizing engineer troops for duty in the Civil War. In August of that year he was promoted to be captain of Engineers, and in November was chosen as an aide-de-camp by General Halleck. In addition to his duties as aide-de-camp he was Assistant Engineer of the Department of the Missouri with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

With the outbreak of the Civil War (1861-1865), more promotions followed. McPherson would rise to the rank of Major General, U.S. Volunteers, and later was selected as Chief Engineer on the staff of General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant.

Maj. Gen. McPherson served under Grant through many major battles of the war—beginning with Forts Henry and Donelson, and including Shiloh, the Siege of Corinth, the second Battle of Corinth, and the strategically critical Battle of Vicksburg.

After a 47-day siege, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Gen. Grant on the 4th of July, 1863. Grant’s victory gave the Union control of the Mississippi River—the primary supply and communications line for the South—and essentially divided the Confederacy in two.

McPherson was given command of Vicksburg, where he remained until March of 1864. From there, he directed successful raids into Louisiana and Mississippi. He also participated in Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s innovative campaign to destroy Confederate war-making capabilities at Meridian, Mississippi.

In early May, 1864, Maj. Gen. McPherson and his Army of the Tennessee joined Gen. Sherman for the Atlanta Campaign—the beginning of Sherman’s famous “March to the Sea.”

Leading one of three armies under Sherman’s command, McPherson approached the city of Atlanta from the east in July 1864. As McPherson rode horseback to inspect his troops’ positions, he unexpectedly encountered a line of rebel skirmishers. Confederate Captain Richard Beard reported:

He [McPherson] came upon us suddenly…I threw up my sword as a signal for him to surrender. He checked his horse, raised his hat in salute, wheeled to the right and dashed off to the rear in a gallop. Corporal Coleman, standing near me, was ordered to fire, and it was his shot that brought General McPherson down.

On July 22, 1864, at age 35, Major General James Birdseye McPherson was killed on the battlefield. Gen. Grant and Gen. Sherman took McPherson’s death as a terrible loss—personally and for the Union cause.

Grant called him one of the army’s “ablest, purest, and best generals.” Sherman wrote:

The Army and the Country have sustained a great loss by the death of McPherson. I had expected him to finish the war. Grant and I are likely to be killed or set aside after some failure to meet public expectation and McPherson would have come into chief command at the right time to end the war. He had no enemies.

Another General who mourned the loss of McPherson was his adversary in the Battle for Atlanta—Confederate General John Bell Hood, McPherson’s boyhood friend and West Point classmate. Hood wrote:

I will record the death of my classmate and boyhood friend, General James B. McPherson, the announcement of which caused me sincere sorrow…Neither the years nor the difference of sentiment that had led us to range ourselves on opposite sides in the war had lessened my friendship; indeed the attachment formed in early youth was strengthened by my admiration and gratitude for his conduct toward our people in the vicinity of Vicksburg. His considerate and kind treatment of them stood in bright contrast to the course pursued by many Federal officers.

McPherson was the only commander of a Union army to die in the field. The many tributes and memorials to Gen. McPherson include McPherson Square in the nation’s capital, and Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sources
Card Photo: Mathew Brady via The Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwpb-07051, public domain (digitally restored)
National Park Service: James B. McPherson
James B. McPherson IB World School: Our Namesake: James B. McPherson
Professional Memoirs, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, and Engineer Department at Large: Maj. Gen. James Birdseye McPherson
Ohio Civil War Central: James Birdseye McPherson
American Battlefield Trust: James B. McPherson
American Battlefield Trust: Death of McPherson
Burial Site: Find a Grave