Full Name:
- Quincy Adams Gillmore
Birth Date:
- February 28, 1825
Birth Location:
- Lorain County, Ohio
Parents:
- Quartus and Elizabeth Smith Gillmore
Education:
- United States Military Academy (1849)
Occupation:
- Military officer
- engineer
Career Summary:
- Colonel U.S. Army
- Major General, U.S. Volunteer Army
Spouses:
- Mary Isabella O’Maher
- Laura Merrifield
Place of Death:
- Brooklyn, New York
Date of Death:
- April 8, 1888
Place of Burial:
- United States Military Academy Post Cemetery
- Quincy Adams Gillmore was named after President John Quincy Adams.
- Quincy Gillmore was one of eight children born to Quartus and Elizabeth Smith Gillmore.
- Quincy Gillmore’s grandfather, Edmund Gillmore, was a founder of Black River, present-day Lorain, Ohio, just east of Cleveland.
- Quincy Gillmore attended the Norwalk Academy and Elyria High School.
- Quincy Gillmore attended the U.S. Military Academy from July 1, 1845 until July 1, 1849.
- Quincy Gillmore graduated first in his class of forty-three cadets at the U.S Military Academy on July 1, 1849.
- Following his graduation from the U.S. Military Academy, Quincy Gillmore was brevetted to the rank of second lieutenant and assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers.
- Quincy Gillmore wed Mary Isabella O’Maher in 1850.
- Quincy Gillmore and Mary Isabella O’Maher were the parents of four sons and one daughter.
- From 1852 to 1856, Quincy Gillmore returned to West Point as an assistant instructor of practical military engineering.
- Quincy Gillmore was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant on September 5, 1853.
- Quincy Gillmore was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant on July 1, 1856.
- After the Civil War erupted, army officials promoted Quincy Gillmore to captain on August 6, 1861, and deployed him to Hilton Head Island as the chief engineer of the Port Royal Expeditionary Corps.
- Quincy Gillmore is credited with the reduction of Fort Pulaski in 1862.
- Following the reduction of Fort Pulaski, Quincy Gillmore was acclaimed at home and abroad as the first officer to use rifled artillery to reduce masonry fortresses that were formerly thought to be impregnable.
- Quincy Gillmore was brevetted to lieutenant colonel in the regular army, to date from April 11, 1862, for “for Gallant and Meritorious Services in the Capture of Ft. Pulaski, Ga.”
- Quincy Gillmore was promoted to brigadier general in the volunteer army on April 28, 1862.
- During the campaign against Fort Pulaski, Quincy Gillmore contracted malaria.
- In 1863, the army transferred Quincy Gillmore to the Western Theater where he served in Kentucky.
- Although he was known as an artillery expert, Quincy Gillmore led a mixed force of cavalry and mounted infantry to victory at the Battle of Somerset on March 31, 1863.
- Quincy Gillmore was brevetted to colonel in the regular army, to date from March 30, 1863, “for Gallant and Meritorious Services at the Battle of Somerset, Ky.”
- Quincy Gillmore was promoted to major in the regular army with the Corps of Engineers on June 1, 1863.
- On June 3, 1863, the War Department issued Special Orders, No. 249 announcing that Quincy Gillmore was returning to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to replace Major General David Hunter as commander of the Department of the South.
- On July 2, 1863, the U.S. Senate confirmed Quincy Gillmore’s promotion to major general of volunteers. The jump in grade, effective July 10, 1863, was formally announced over a year later when the War Department issued General Orders, No. 256 on September 15, 1864.
- On July 16, 1863, the War Department issued General Orders, No. 218 stating that “Brigadier General Quincy A. Gillmore is appointed to command the Tenth Army Corps, in place of Major General David Hunter, to date from June 12, 1863.”
- Almost immediately after assuming command of the Department of the South and the Tenth Army Corps, Gillmore began developing plans to capture the City of Charleston, South Carolina, the cradle of the southern rebellion.
- On July 18, 1863, Confederate defenders fended off Quincy Gillmore’s attack on Fort Wagner, located on Morris Island in Charleston Harbor, during the Battle of Fort Wagner.
- Despite several months of shelling, Quincy Gillmore failed to capture Fort Sumter or force the surrender of Charleston.
- Quincy Gillmore commanded the Department of the South from June 12, 1863, to April 1864.
- On April 4, 1864, the Army transferred Quincy Gillmore to Virginia where he served with the Army of the James under Major General Benjamin F. Butler during the Bermuda Hundred Campaign.
- During the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, Major General Benjamin F. Butler blamed Quincy Gillmore for the Union loss at the Battle of Petersburg I (aka the Battle of Old Men and Young Boys) on June 9, 1864.
- On June 14, 1864, Major General Benjamin F. Butler issued a special order relieving Quincy Gillmore of his command and ordered him to report to Fortress Monroe.
- On June 17, 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant issued Special Orders, No 36 relieving Quincy Gillmore of command of the Tenth Army Corps “at his own request.”
- Quincy Gillmore commanded the 10th Army Corps from July 16, 1863 to June 17, 1864.
- On July 11, 1864, the adjutant general’s office issued General Orders, No. 228 announcing that Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had assigned Gillmore “to the temporary command of the part of the Nineteenth Corps in the Department of Washington.”
- Quincy Gillmore commanded the northeast line of fortifications surrounding Washington, D.C., during the Union victory at the Battle of Fort Stevens (July 11–12, 1864).
- On July 14, 1864, Quincy Gillmore fell from his horse and sustained serious injuries to his foot and ankle, taking him out of commission.
- On January 30, 1865, Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck wrote to Gillmore informing him that Secretary of War Stanton had ordered him to South Carolina to resume command of the Department of the South.
- During Quincy Gillmore’s tenure as commander of the Department of the South, he received brevet promotions to brigadier general and major general in the regular army on March 13, 1865, for “Gallant and Meritorious Services in the Capture of Ft. Wagner, S. C.” and “in the Assault on Morris Island, S. C., July 10, 1863, and the Bombardment and Demolition of Ft. Sumter.”
- On April 14, 1865, Quincy Gillmore joined General Robert Anderson, the commander who surrendered Fort Sumter to Confederate forces exactly four years earlier, in raising the American flag over the cradle of the insurrection.
- Quincy Gillmore commanded the Department of the South for the second time from January 30, 1865, until November 17, 1865.
- Quincy Gillmore mustered out of the volunteer army on December 5, 1865.
- Following the Civil War, Gillmore remained in the regular army serving with the Corps of Engineers.
- Quincy Gillmore was promoted to lieutenant colonel on June 3, 1864.
- Quincy Gillmore was promoted to colonel on February 20, 1883.
- Gillmore died on April 7, 1888, in Brooklyn, New York, leaving behind his second wife, Laura Merrifield, and four sons from his first marriage to Mary Isabella O’Maher.
- One of Gilmore’s sons and grandsons, also named Quincy Gillmore, later became generals in the U.S. Army.