William Mahone (December 1, 1826 - October 8, 1895), of Southampton County, Virginia, was a civil engineer, teacher, soldier, railroad executive, and a member of the Virginia General Assembly and U.S. Congress. Small of stature, he was nicknamed "Little Billy". As a civil engineer, he helped build Virginia's roads and railroads in the antebellum and postbellum (Reconstruction) periods of the 19th century.

Henry Clay Pleasants (February 16, 1833 - March 26, 1880) was a coal mining engineer and a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He is best known for organizing the building of an underground tunnel filled with explosives under the Confederate lines outside Petersburg, Virginia, resulting in the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864, an opportunity for Union troops to break the defense of Petersburg.

Gilbert Moxley Sorrel (February 23, 1838 - August 10, 1901) was a Confederate States Army officer and historian of the Confederacy. Sorrel was the son of one of the wealthiest men in Savannah, Georgia, Francis Sorrel. In 1861, Moxley left his job as a Savannah bank clerk, taking part in the Confederate capture of Fort Pulaski as a private in the Georgia Hussars. With letters of introduction from Colonel Jordan, from Gen.

William Calvin Oates (either November 30 or December 1, 1833 - September 9, 1910) was a Confederate colonel during the American Civil War and later the Democratic Governor of Alabama from 1894 to 1896. William C. Oates was born in Pike County, Alabama to William and Sarah (Sellers) Oates, a poor farming family. At the age of 17, he believed that he had killed a man in a violent brawl and left home for Florida.

Patrick Kelly (ca. 1822 - June 14, 1864) was an Irish-American military officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He led the famed Irish Brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg. Kelly was born in Castlehacket, County Galway, Ireland, and emigrated to the United States, landing in New York City. His wife Elizabeth was another Irish immigrant. He enlisted in the Union army with the outset of the Civil War, …

Ambrose Ransom Wright (April 26, 1826 - December 21, 1872) was a lawyer, Georgia politician, and a Confederate general in the American Civil War. Wright, known by the nickname "Rans", was born in Louisville, Georgia. He read law under the tutelage of Governor and Senator Herschel V. Johnson, who later became his brother-in-law, and was admitted to the bar.

James Hewett Ledlie (April 14, 1832 - August 15, 1882) was a civil engineer for American railroads and a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He is best known for his dereliction of duty at the Battle of the Crater during the Siege of Petersburg.

Henry Alexander Wise (December 3, 1806 - September 12, 1876) was an American statesman from Virginia. Gen. Wise was born in Drummondtown, Accomack County, Va., to a family of wealthy planters; was privately tutored until his twelfth year and then entered Margaret Academy, near Pungoteague, in Accomack County and graduated from Washington College, Pa., now Washington and Lee University, in 1825. He was admitted to the bar in 1828, and settled in Nashville, Tenn., …

Timothy H. O'Sullivan (c. 1840 - January 14 1882) was a photographer prominent for his work on subjects in the American Civil War and the Western United States. O'Sullivan was born in either Ireland or New York City. As a teenager, he was employed by Mathew Brady. When the Civil War began in early 1861, he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Union Army and, over the next year, fought in Beaufort, Port Royal, Fort Walker, and Fort Pulaski.

Dr. John Herbert Claiborne (March 16, 1828 - 1905) was a prominent Virginia politician and a leading medical administrator commanding a series of hospitals serving wounded Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Born in 1828 in Virginia, Claiborne completed his medical studies in Philadelphia in 1851. That same year, he estasblished a practice in Petersburg and served later as a House of Delegates representative and senator in the Virginia state government.

John Grubb Parke (September 22, 1827 - December 16, 1900) was a U.S. Army engineer and a Union general in the American Civil War. Parke was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1849 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. As an engineer, he determined the boundary lines between Iowa and the Little Colorado River, surveyed routes for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, …

John Caldwell Tidball (January 25, 1825 - May 15, 1906) was a career military officer, noted for his service in the horse artillery in the cavalry in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he served as the Commander of the Department of Alaska (in effect, the governor of the region). Tidball was born near Wheeling, West Virginia, and grew up on a farm in eastern Ohio.

Dennis Hart Mahan (April 2, 1802 - September 16, 1871) was a noted American military theorist and professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was the father of American naval theorist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan. A native of New York City, Mahan graduated from West Point in 1824. He started teaching at the academy soon after and was sent to Europe to study. In 1830 he was promoted to professor of civil and military engineering.

Cornelia Hancock (1839 - 1926) was a celebrated civilian nurse serving the injured and infirmed of the Union Army during the American Civil War. Hancock was born a Quaker in New Jersey. She began her Civil War nursing career auspiciously when she arrived with other women volunteers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in July 1863, shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg. At the time, the army was looking for older women to be nurses, and, at 23, …

Galusha Pennypacker (June 1, 1844 - October 1, 1916) was a Union general during the American Civil War. He is to this day the youngest person to hold the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army, at the age of 20, the only general who was ineligible by age to vote for the president who appointed him. Pennypacker was born in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. His father had fought in the Mexican-American War, his grandfather in the American Revolutionary War.

Clement Anselm Evans (February 25, 1833 - July 2, 1911) was a Confederate infantry general in the American Civil War. He was also a noted politician, preacher, historian and prolific author. Evans was born in Stewart County, Georgia. He studied at the Augusta Law School and was admitted to the bar at the age of 18. By 21, he was a county judge, and a state senator at 25. With the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Evans organized a company of militia.

Joseph Warren Keifer (January 30, 1836-April 22, 1932) was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and a prominent U.S. politician during the 1880s. He served in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican from Ohio from 1877 to 1885 and from 1905 to 1911. From 1881 to 1883, he was also Speaker of the House. Keifer was born in Clark County, Ohio. He began his law practice in Springfield, Ohio, January 12, 1858.

Thomas Alfred Smyth (December 25, 1832 - April 9, 1865) was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was the last Federal general killed in the war. Smyth was born in Ballyhooly in Cork County, Ireland, and worked on his father's farm as a youth. He immigrated to the United States in 1854, settling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was employed as a wood carver and coach and carriage maker. In 1858, he moved to Wilmington, Delaware.

Nora Fontaine Maury- Davidson (1836-1929) was an American schoolteacher in Petersburg, Virginia. She is credited with the first Memorial Day ceremony in Petersburg, and as the inspiration for the USA's National Memorial Day today. Mrs. John A Logan's autobiography that documents this history is referenced below. In 1866, Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg contained the graves of veterans of six wars, …

Elwell Stephen Otis (1838 - 1909) was a United States of America general who served in the Philippines late in the Spanish-American War and during the Philippine-American War. Otis was born in Frederick, Maryland on March 25, 1838. He attended the University of Rochester, where he was a member of the (now defunct) Iota Chapter of the Fraternity of Delta Psi.

Newton Martin Curtis (May 21, 1835 - January 8, 1910) was a Union brigadier general during the American Civil War and a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. Curtis was born in De Peyster, New York. Upon graduating from the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary, Curtis became a teacher, lawyer, and postmaster of De Peyster. In the year prior to the Civil War, he was working as a farmer.

Samuel Baldwin Marks Young (January 9, 1840 - September 1, 1924) was a United States Army general. He also served as the first president of Army War College between 1902 and 1903. He then served from 1903 until 1904 as the first Chief of Staff of the United States Army. Young was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to John Young Jr. and Hannah Scott Young. He was educated at Jefferson College (now Washington & Jefferson College) and married Margaret McFadden in 1861.

Luigi Palma di Cesnola (July 29 1832-November 21 1904), an Italian American soldier and amateur archaeologist, was born near Turin. Having served in the Austrian and Crimean Wars, in 1860 he went to New York, where he taught Italian and French and founded a military school for officers. He took part in the American Civil War as colonel of a cavalry regiment, serving under the name Louis P. di Cesnola.

Pleasant Riggs Crump (December 23, 1847 - December 31, 1951) was a Confederate soldier, believed by some to be the last living American Civil War veteran who fought for the Confederacy. Although survived by several claimants of questionable status (such as Thomas Riddle, William Lundy, John B. Salling and Walter Williams), only Pleasant's status has been conclusively confirmed.

Aaron Simon Daggett (June 14,1837 - May 14,1938) was the last surviving Union General of the American Civil War when he died at the age of 100. Daggett was born in Maine in 1837. He attended Bates College (then called the Maine State Seminary) in Lewiston, Maine, in 1860. Daggett enlisted as a private in the 5th Maine Volunteers on April 1861, and became a second lieutenant in May 1861. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run, and became a captain in August 1861.