Civil War Confederate Brigadier General. The son of Irish immigrants, he entered the United States Military Academy in 1841, graduating 25th in his class. Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Dragoons-United States Regular Army, he served under Captain Philip Kearny in the Mexican War. On March 16, 1848, he was brevetted for gallantry and meritorious conduct at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Rosales and in 1851 was commissioned 1st Lieutenant. Promotion to Captain followed in 1856. Except for 2 years as a recruiting officer, he completed his United States Army career on frontier duty at Fort Crook, California, where he resigned on May 31, 1861. He traveled to New York City, where he learned that General Winfield Scott had ordered the arrest of Regular Army officers suspected of resigning to join the Confederacy. Evading capture, he went to Tenneessee, enlisted in the Confederate army as a Captain of Cavalry, and was placed in command at Memphis. By May 1862 he had advanced to Colonel and by December to Brigadier General, assuming command of Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman's Mississippi infantry brigade after Tilghman's death in May 1863. He served under General Joseph E. Johnston during the campaign to relieve Vicksburg, then joined Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk in Mississippi, marching with him to Resaca, Georgia, where he was transferred to the Army of Tenneessee. His brigade served in the advance during most of General John B. Hood's campaign to force Major General William T. Sherman northward after the fall of Atlanta, and he received commendation for his valiant service. He remained with Hood during the Franklin and Nashville Campaign, serving briefly under Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was severely wounded in the right arm early in the Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864, but refused to leave the field. Later that day he was killed leading his regiment in a determined but unsuccessful assault on the Union lines. He was one of six Confederate Generals killed during the battle.