Manning Marius Kimmel

Manning Marius Kimmel (October 25, 1832 February 27, 1916), also known as Marius Manning Kimmel, was a military officer who served on both sides of the American Civil War. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1853 and graduated in 1857. After initially fighting for the Union, he switched sides to the Confederacy, one of four West Point graduates to fight on both sides during the war. In the Confederate Army, he served as adjutant general and assistant adjutant general on the staff of generals Benjamin McCulloch and Earl Van Dorn, and as inspector general on John Magruder's staff. He was the father of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, who commanded the United States Pacific Fleet during the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Early life Born on October 25, 1832, at Apple Creek in Perry County, Missouri, Kimmel was the second child of Joseph Singleton Husband Kimmel and Caroline Monica (née Manning) Kimmel. His father was a prosperous merchant and a member of the St. Louis City Council between 1840 and 1850, and his mother died during Kimmel's birth. Joseph Kimmel remarried four years later to Sarah Gorgas, and had three stepchildren.

He attended Princeton University, but was dismissed in his junior year, according to family legend, for organizing a protest meeting against a faculty warning against students using a local billiard-saloon. Kimmel then obtained an appointment to the United States Military Academy, entering on July 1, 1853, and graduating with the Class of 1857 on July 1 of that year. He was ranked 22nd out of 38 cadets in his class. During the battle, Kimmel led a detachment of dismounted skirmishers from G Company.

From 1859 to 1860, Kimmel was stationed at Fort Inge, and in 1860 he participated in the regiment's march to Brownsville, from which they operated against Mexican guerrillas led by Juan Cortina in the Cortina Troubles until the outbreak of the Civil War. Kimmel and future Union cavalry commander George Stoneman led two companies from the regiment alongside Rip Ford's Texas Rangers in April 1860 when Ford made an incursion into Mexico at Reynosa, which was suspected of giving aid to Cortina.

Civil War At the beginning of the Civil War, the regiment was sent east to defend the capital via Indianola, Texas, and Carlisle, and fought in the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, during which Kimmel was commended for gallant conduct. The 2nd Cavalry retreated to the Washington defenses, after which Kimmel resigned his commission on August 14, at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky, and joined the Confederate Army with the rank of Major. This made him one of the four West Point graduates to serve on both sides in the war, along with William T. Magruder, Donald C. Stith, and Richard K. Meade. Kimmel became adjutant-general on the staff of Brigadier-General Benjamin McCulloch, until the latter was killed on March 7, 1862, in the Battle of Pea Ridge. Kimmel then became the assistant adjutant-general on the staff of Major General Earl Van Dorn, McCulloch's superior. After Van Dorn was shot by an angry husband on May 7, 1863, Kimmel briefly was the Confederate adjutant-general of Missouri, and later became acting assistant and inspector-general on Major General John B. Magruder's staff, in which capacity he ended the war. He married Sibbella Lambert on December 28, 1868, and moved to Henderson, Kentucky, in 1872, where he worked as a civil engineer and superintendent for the Saint Bernard Mining Company at St. Charles. Kimmel had seven children, including Husband E. Kimmel (born 1882), A state historical marker was later placed at his home in Henderson, at 512 North Green Street.