Person

Ormsby Macknight Mitchel (Cincinnati, Ohio, major general (U.S.A.))

b. 1809-08-28 d. 1862-10-30

Cincinnati, Ohio, soldier. Morganfield, Kentucky native. Married to Louisa Clark Trask Mitchell in 1831. Father of Harriet MItchel, Frederick A. Mitchel, Virginia Mitchel, Edwin Mitchel, Francis Mitchel, Louisa Mitchel, and Ormsby Mitchel. Graduate of West Point in 1829. Assistant professor of mathematics at West Point from 1829 to 1832. Second lieutenant of artillery in Florida territory in 1831. Lawyer in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1833. Assistant Professor at Cincinnati College in 1836. Chief engineer of the Little Miami Railroad, Ohio, from 1836 to 1837. Adjutant General of the state of Ohio from 1841 to 1848. Director of Cincinnati Observatory from 1845 to 1859. Chief engineer of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad from 1848 to 1849 and from 1852 to 1853. Employed Henry Twichel as assistant astronomy, John Corry as a laborer, Mary Stapleton, and Thomas Trask as a porter in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1850. Astronomer of the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York from 1859 to 1861.

Enlisted on August 9, 1861 as brigadier general (U.S.A.). Commanded Department of the Ohio from September to November 1861. Led Andrew's Raid or Great Locomotive Chase on April 12, 1862. Promoted to full major general on April 11, 1862. Assigned command of Department of the South and X Corps at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina on September 17, 1862. Died from yellow fever in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina on October 30, 1862.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Ohio, Hamilton, Cincinnati Ward 1, p. 3B.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, New York, Albany, Ward 7, p. 880.

Christine Dee, "Mitchel, Ormsby Macknight (1809 1862)" Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History edited by David S. Heidler, and Jeanne T. Heidler (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2000), (accessed May 3, 2019).

James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography Vol.IV (New York: D. Appleton * Company, 1888), p. 341-342.

The Union Army Vol. 8., (Madison: Federal Publishing Company, 1908), p. 177-178.

Find A Grave, " Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel (July 20th, 1809-October 30th, 1862)," Memorial #4767, http://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4767 (accessed June 11, 2019).

Citation

Mitchel, Ormsby Macknight. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32214759 (November 12, 2026).

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