Civil War Union Army Officer. He was a farmer residing in Andover, New Jersey when the Civil War started. He enlisted in the Union Army only days after the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, being mustered in as a Private in Company F, 20th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry ("The Scott Legion") on April 30, 1861 (although his family name is "Brodrick", he served under the name "Broderick"). The regiment served in Maryland and Northern Virginia during the 1st Bull Run Campaign, seeing no action. Mustered out on August 6, 1861, Virgil Broderick rejoined the burgeoning Union war effort less than two weeks later, being commissioned as Captain and commander of Company K, 1st New Jersey Volunteer Cavalry on August 14, 1861. He led his company through its battles and engagements in the Spring and Summer 1862, then received a promotion to Major on September 28 of that year. When the regiments Lieutenant Colonel, Joseph Karge, resigned in December 1862 to recruit what would become the 2nd New Jersey Volunteer Cavalry, Major Broderick would eventually be advanced to that rank to fill the vacancy (February 10, 1863). He was in command of the regiment as it partook in the cavalry clashes that marked the beginning of the Gettysburg Campaign in June 1863. In the June 9, 1863 Battle of Brandy Station, Virginia, he was unhorsed while directed a charge of his men on Confederate troopers under General J.E.B. Stuart. As the fighting swirled around him, he was cut down by a Confederate trooper and killed. His body was later found thrown down a well by Confederate soldiers. Buried at the base of the flagpole in what is now Culpeper National Cemetery in Culpeper, Virginia, a cenotaph for him was erected in the family's plot in the Andover Cemetery in Andover.