(1828–64). U.S. Army general James B. McPherson was active during the American Civil War (1861–65). After he was killed in action, he was praised as an able commander by both Union and Confederate forces.
James Birdseye McPherson was born on November 14, 1828, in Sandusky county, Ohio. He graduated from West Point in New York at the head of the class of 1849. Afterward, he was commissioned in the U.S. Corps of Engineers and held minor army assignments until the outbreak of the Civil War.
Following several months with General Henry W. Halleck in Missouri, McPherson was assigned to General Ulysses S. Grant’s staff as chief engineer in the Tennessee campaign. After distinguished service at the battles of Shiloh, Tennessee, and Corinth, Mississippi, McPherson was promoted to major general of volunteers. He participated in the second advance on Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863. After the city fell, he was promoted to brigadier general in the regular army. In March 1864 McPherson took command of the Army of the Tennessee, which moved against Atlanta, Georgia, under General William Tecumseh Sherman’s supreme command. Shortly after reporting to Sherman, McPherson was shot and killed by a Confederate skirmisher on July 22, 1864, near Atlanta.
