The Four fought for with the Blue and the Gray

5fish

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Col Donald Chester Stith (1829-1920)
He was one of four West Point men who fought for the union and then for the Confederacy... last in his class 1850...

https://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=1545

The others were Manning M. Kimmel, William T. Magruder, and Richard Kidder Meade.


When the American Civil War erupted, Stith was serving with the 5th Infantry in New Mexico. In late June or early July 1861, Confederate troops captured him near Guadalupe, Mexico, while he was on a mission to deliver a letter, dated June 23, from Major Edward R. Canby to the Governor of Chihuahua. Stith was taken to Fort Bliss, arriving there on July 18. Two days later, Stith wrote to Canby that Colonel John R. Baylor had paroled him.

Snip...

. On August 8, 1861, he was promoted to captain with the 5th Infantry of the U.S. Army. One month later, a letter from William Byrd, Adjutant-General of Texas, to Colonel H.E. McCulloch, Commanding Department of San Antonio, Texas, Provisional Army of the Confederate States, dated September 9, 1861, makes reference to Stith as a captain and assistant adjutant-general in the Confederate Army. On September 25, 1861, Stith was dismissed from the U.S. Army.

Snip...

By 1862, Stith had been promoted to major in the Rebel army. A report written by Major General Earl Van Dorn mentions, "members of my staff, Majors Kimmel and Stith, Assistant Adjutant Generals." An after-action report filed by Major General Stephen D. Lee (CSA) in January 1863 states that, "Maj. Donald C. Stith, Brigade Inspector, behaved with gallantry and coolness under fire, and did good service" during the Vicksburg Campaign. In 1863, Stith was promoted to colonel, the rank at which he finished the war.

 
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5fish

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I found his grave he was a Turk.... born in Turkey... to Americans... if he worked for Gen. S. Lee than it was not in the AoNV...

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10798687/donald-chester-stith



Added by David M. Habben

Col Donald Chester Stith
BIRTH 21 Jul 1829
Izmir, İzmir, Turkey
DEATH 18 Mar 1920 (aged 90)
Austin, Travis County, Texas, USA
BURIAL
Texas State Cemetery
Austin, Travis County, Texas, USA
PLOT Section:Republic Hill, Section 1 Row:Q Number:9
MEMORIAL ID 10798687 · View Source


STITH, DONALD CHESTER
(1829~1920)
Donald Chester Stith, Confederate veteran, was born in present day Smyrna, Turkey (then a part of the Ottoman Empire) on July 21, 1829, to American parents. Upon his return to the United States, he graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1850, and was in the United States Army until the outbreak of the Civil War. During the War, Stith served as a colonel on the staff of General S. D. Lee of northern Virginia.
Upon coming to Texas in 1877, he settled in Johnson County where he was a teacher and an Episcopalian. On June 18, 1894, he was admitted to the Confederate Men's Home in Austin, Travis County, Texas. The Medical Board released him from the Home on May 15, 1895, but he was readmitted on November 5, 1896. Stith died March 18, 1920, at the age of 91, and was buried that same day in the Texas State Cemetery.
 

5fish

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Here one of the other guys that changed side interesting first days of the war... he was second in his class...

Richard Kidder Meade was born on August 1835 - July 31, 1862

https://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=1552

Richard Kidder Meade was born August 1835,
near Petersburg, Virginia. He was the first of two sons born to Richard Kidder Meade and Julia Edmunds (Haskins) Meade. Meade's father was a two-time Congressman from Virginia and a United States Minister to Brazil.


Snip...

On the night of December 27, 1860, Colonel James Johnston Pettigrew led three companies of South Carolina militiamen to Castle Pinckney located on a small island in Charleston Harbor. After scaling the walls of the stronghold unopposed, Pettigrew confronted Meade, who along with one other federal soldier was overseeing a small civilian work crew making repairs to the facility. Pettigrew demanded that Meade surrender the fort to the governor of South Carolina. Meade replied that he did not recognize the authority of the governor of South Carolina within the federal facility. Nonetheless, having no means of resistance, Meade and his party boarded a row boat and crossed to Fort Sumter, leaving Castle Pinckney to the South Carolinians.

Snip... he was at Ft. Sumter on the Union side...

Meade remained with the garrison of Fort Sumter and was present during the Confederate bombardment that touched off the American Civil War in April 1861. Throughout the ordeal, Meade served Anderson and the Union loyally. Nonetheless, when Meade's home state of Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, three days after the evacuation of Fort Sumter, the young lieutenant sided with the Confederacy. On May 1, 1861, Meade resigned his commission in the U.S. Army.

Snip...

When his work in North Carolina was complete, Meade was transferred to the Army of Northern Virginia, where he served briefly as an engineering officer on the staff of Major General James Longstreet beginning on June 9, 1862. Just a few weeks later, Meade contracted typhoid fever and died at Petersburg, Virginia on July 31, 1862. He was buried at Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg.




 

5fish

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I found his grave...

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11930185/richard-kidder-meade



Civil War Confederate Officer. A devoted son of United States Congressman Richard Kidder Meade, he was a member of the 1857 graduating class of the United States Military Academy at West Point. As an engineer officer in the United States Army, he was assigned to Charleston, South Carolina, the epicenter of the growing crisis of 1860-1861. With the nation on the edge of war, he played a pivotal role in the relocating of Major Robert Anderson’s command from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter on December 26, 1860 and was commanding Castle Pinckney at the time that future Confederate General James Johnston Pettigrew demanded its surrender. The blunt Meade interrupted Pettigrew’s reading of South Carolina Governor Francis Pickensorders stating that he will not recognize the authority of the Governor. The Lieutenant subsequently declined Pettigrew’s “parole” offer and returned to Fort Sumter. There, he witnessed the January 9, 1861 firing on the “Star of the West” and would command an artillery gun crew during the opening shots of the war on April 12th. Loyal to his native state of Virginia, he pledged allegiance to her and resigned from the United States Army. The Southerner offered his services to the newly formed Confederacy and was commissioned a Major in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS) to rank from March 16, 1861. He served on the staffs of Generals John B. Magruder and James Longstreet respectively. On July 31, 1862, a disease ended his life in Petersburg, Virginia.
 

5fish

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Here one more of the four...

Manning Marius Kimmel born October 25, 1832 - February 27, 1916)

https://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=1551

Manning Marius Kimmel (also known as Marius Manning Kimmel)
was born in Perry County, Missouri, on October 25, 1832. He was the second of two children of Joseph Singleton Husband Kimmel and Caroline Monica (Manning) Kimmel. His father was a successful merchant and a member of the St. Louis City Council between 1840 and 1850. Kimmel never knew his mother, who died during his birth. Kimmel had three step-brothers and sisters, the product of his father's marriage to Sarah Gorgas in 1836.


Snip... At the first Battle of Bull Run on the Union side...

With the onset of the American Civil War, the 2nd Cavalry was recalled to the East in defense of Washington, DC. On July 21, 1861, Kimmel and the 2nd Cavalry were engaged during the Union debacle at the Battle of Bull Run I. After returning to the defenses of Washington, Kimmel resigned his commission in the U.S. Army on August 14, 1861 and joined the Confederate army with the rank of major.

Snip... if you are a general and he works for you, you are going to die...

Kimmel's first assignment in the Rebel army was as adjutant-general on Brigadier-General Ben McCulloch's staff until McCulloch was killed during the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas on March 7, 1862. Kimmel was next assigned as assistant adjutant-general on the staff of Major General Earl Van Dorn, until a jealous husband killed Van Dorn on May 7, 1863. After serving briefly as the Confederate adjutant-general of Missouri, Kimmel finished the war as acting assistant and inspector-general on the staff of Major General J. B. Magruder.

Snip... He son was in command on the Dec 7, 1941 of Pearl Harbor...

Their marriage, which lasted forty-eight years, produced seven children. Among them was Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

 
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5fish

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I found his grave too...

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11794437/manning-marius-kimmel

Maj Manning Marius Kimmel, Sr
BIRTH 25 Oct 1832
Apple Creek, Perry County, Missouri, USA
DEATH 27 Feb 1916 (aged 83)
Henderson County, Kentucky, USA
BURIAL
Fernwood Cemetery
Henderson, Henderson County, Kentucky, USA Show Map
MEMORIAL ID 11794437 · View Source



Civil War Major.Graduated from West Point in 1857 .He fought for both the North and South during the Civil War.Fought for the Union at 1st Manassas as a Lieutenant of the 2nd US Cavalry. Ordnance Officer on the staff of General Ben McCulloch and the Assistant Adjutant General for General Earl Van Dorn and Magruder. Son of Joseph Singleton Husband Kimmel an early politician in Missouri and father of Husband Edward Kimmel,United States Naval Admiral,World War Two.
 

5fish

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The last of the four...

William Thomas Magruder (born 1829- July 3, 1863)

https://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=1553

William Thomas Magruder was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland during the 1820s. He was the son of Fielder and Matilda Magruder.

S
nip...

As sectional tensions mounted and states began to leave the Union, Magruder was promoted to captain with the 1st Dragoons on January 8, 1861. Soon after the American Civil War began, Magruder commanded a company at the Battle of Bull Run I (July 21, 1861). In 1861, the 1st Dragoons was re-designated as the 1st U.S. Cavalry, and Magruder was appointed as a captain in that regiment on August 3.

Snip... fights again for the union...

Magruder served with the 1st Cavalry during Major General George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign from July 1 to August 3, 1862, when he was granted a leave of absence. While away on leave, he changed his allegiance and resigned his commission on October 1, 1862 to join the Confederate Army. Magruder was one of four Union officers educated at West Point to switch sides after the Civil War began. The others were Manning M. Kimmel, Richard K. Meade, and Donald C. Stith.

Snip... Pickett Charge... body lost?

Upon joining the Confederate Army, Magruder was commissioned as a captain, and he served as a staff officer with Brigadier-General Joseph R. Davis's Brigade, in Major General Henry Heth's Division of the 3rd Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. On July 3, 1863, Magruder was killed in action while trying to rally the men of his brigade during Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. The disposition of his remains is unknown.


 

5fish

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Did I find something? more of a memorial page, sad ...

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39427821/william-thomas-magruder


William Thomas Magruder
BIRTH 1829
Prince George's County, Maryland, USA
DEATH 3 Jul 1863 (aged 33–34)
Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania, USA
BURIAL Body lost or destroyed, Specifically: William died in a war, location of burial is unknown
MEMORIAL ID 39427821 · View Source

William T. Magruder, of Prince George's County, Md., was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg on 3 July 1863, in his 34th year. Capt. Magruder was a graduate of West Point and spent several years in honorable service on the frontier previous to the present war. (tribute follows)
7/29/1863
Baltz, Geo. E. & Shirley V.
PGC Marr. & Deaths

William Magruder was a graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1850. He resigned his commission with the U. S. Army in October, 1862 and joined the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. He died in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.

"A large double case watch and link chain belonging to Capt. W. T. Magruder, CSA, who was killed at Gettysburg, July and thought to have been placed in possession of Capt. W.D. Vay, Co. B., 11th Miss. Regt., who died July 13th at 1st Army Corps, 2nd Division Hospital, and who, it is supposed, gave it to someone previous to is death for safe keeping. The full value of the watch will be given for its return and the information gratefully received.
Apply to Mrs. Mary C. Magruder, 64 Courtland St., Baltimore."

Ref. Wasted Valor
Gregory A. Coco
August 2002


Magruder's name did not make it to any burial records of Confederates interred in the field. It is possible that Mrs. Magruder was able to secure his remains shortly after the battle.
 
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