Horatio Gates Gibson


Horatio Gates Gibson was a career artillery officer in the United States Army, and colonel in the American Civil War. In 1866, he was nominated and confirmed for appointment as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers to rank from March 13, 1865.

Biography

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Gibson attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and graduated seventeenth in the Class of 1847. Commissioned into the 3rd Regiment of Artillery, he rose slowly through the peacetime army, eventually earning his captaincy at the outbreak of the Civil War.
During the war, he commanded Battery C, 3rd U.S. Artillery, and was part of the famed U.S. Horse Artillery Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. Cited for gallantry, he was awarded brevet promotions to major and lieutenant colonel. By 1863, he accepted a commission in the U.S. Volunteers and commanded the 2nd Ohio Artillery as a lieutenant colonel and colonel. At the end of the war, Gibson was awarded a brevet appointment as colonel in the Regular Army. On January 13, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Gibson for appointment to the grade of brevet brigadier general of volunteers, to rank from March 13, 1865, and the United States Senate confirmed the appointment on March 12, 1866.
Mustering out of the volunteers in August 1865, Gibson returned to his permanent rank of captain in the 3rd Artillery in the regular army. He remained in the army, and was promoted to major in 1867, lieutenant colonel in 1882, and colonel in 1883. He retired from the service on May 22, 1891.

Time Magazine's obituary of him cited the following:

Died. Brigadier General Horatio Gates Gibson, 97, "oldest living West Pointer"; in Washington. He entered just as Ulysses S. Grant graduated. Due to his slight stature, he was nicknamed "Agnes"—an appellation which clung to him through life. When he was a lieutenant at the battle of Fredericksburg, his sword was cut from his side by a shell; at the end of the Civil War he was a captain in the regulars. A nonagenarian at his daughter's house in Washington, he smoked from six to ten cigars daily.