Civil War Union Army Officer. A classmate of future Civil War Generals Philip Sheridan, John Bell Hood, and James B. McPherson, he ranked second in the United States Military Academy class of 1853 and was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers. After working on several Atlantic coast forts, he taught engineering at the Military Academy from 1859 to 1862. A Virginian who stood for the Union, he was division and department engineer during the Civil War and worked on the defenses of Pittsburgh, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New York. In 1862 he published the “Army Officer’s Pocket Companion: A Manual for Staff Officers in the Field”, a work that greatly aided the many citizen-soldier Union Army officers who had no previous military training prior to the Civil War. After the end of the conflict, he superintended construction of defenses at Baltimore Harbor and Hampton Roads. He headed the engineering office in Baltimore from 1870 to 1895, overseeing river and harbor work in Maryland and parts of Virginia and North Carolina. When the Corps of Engineers began to build locks and dams on the Great Kanawha River in West Virginia in 1875, he assumed charge there as well. He completed the first moveable wicket dams in the United States after visiting France to study their use. He was appointed Chief of Engineers by President Grover Cleveland in 1895 and retired two years later with the rank of Brigadier General.
Civil War Union Army Officer. A classmate of future Civil War Generals Philip Sheridan, John Bell Hood, and James B. McPherson, he ranked second in the United States Military Academy class of 1853 and was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers. After working on several Atlantic coast forts, he taught engineering at the Military Academy from 1859 to 1862. A Virginian who stood for the Union, he was division and department engineer during the Civil War and worked on the defenses of Pittsburgh, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New York. In 1862 he published the “Army Officer’s Pocket Companion: A Manual for Staff Officers in the Field”, a work that greatly aided the many citizen-soldier Union Army officers who had no previous military training prior to the Civil War. After the end of the conflict, he superintended construction of defenses at Baltimore Harbor and Hampton Roads. He headed the engineering office in Baltimore from 1870 to 1895, overseeing river and harbor work in Maryland and parts of Virginia and North Carolina. When the Corps of Engineers began to build locks and dams on the Great Kanawha River in West Virginia in 1875, he assumed charge there as well. He completed the first moveable wicket dams in the United States after visiting France to study their use. He was appointed Chief of Engineers by President Grover Cleveland in 1895 and retired two years later with the rank of Brigadier General.
Bio by: George Seitz
Family Members
Siblings
Advertisement
See more Craighill memorials in:
Records on Ancestry
Advertisement
