Edmund Kirby

Edmund Kirby (March 11, 1840 – May 28, 1863) was a United States Army artillery officer who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Biography

Kirby was born in Brownville, New York, to Colonel Edmund Kirby (1794–1849), a United States Army paymaster and veteran of the Mexican–American War, and Eliza Brown. He was a second cousin of Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith, and his mother was the daughter of Major General Jacob Brown, who previously served as the Commanding General of the United States Army. Kirby's uncle, Nathan W. Brown, served as Paymaster-General of the United States Army.

Kirby was a member of the United States Military Academy Class of May 6, 1861 (the first of two West Point classes graduated in that year, which also included notable members Henry A. du Pont, Orville E. Babcock, Adelbert Ames, Emory Upton, and Judson Kilpatrick), graduating shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War. Commissioned as a second lieutenant of Battery I, 1st U.S. Artillery in the Union Army of the Potomac, he was promoted to first lieutenant just eight days later. He served with Battery I at the First Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Ball's Bluff, and assumed command of the battery during the Peninsula Campaign in March 1862. ), but he returned to duty following the Maryland Campaign and was present in command of his battery at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Kirby was promoted to the rank of brigadier general of United States Volunteers by President Abraham Lincoln on May 28, 1863.