page_title: Horatio Wright
section_title: Postbellum
hierarchical_section_title: Horatio Wright / Postbellum
caption_attribution_description: Horatio Wright. Library of Congress description: "Gen. Horatio G. Wright, U.S.A."
context_page_description: Horatio Gouverneur Wright was an engineer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He took command of the VI Corps in May 1864 following the death of General John Sedgwick. In this capacity, he was responsible for building the fortifications around Washington DC, and in the Overland Campaign he commanded the first troops to break through the Confederate defenses at Petersburg. After the war, he was involved in a number of engineering projects, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the completion of the Washington Monument, and served as Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
context_section_description: During Reconstruction, Wright commanded the Army of Texas from July 1865 to August 1866. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel of engineers in November, before leaving volunteer service in September 1866. He was involved in a number of engineering projects including the Brooklyn Bridge and the completion of the Washington Monument. Promoted to colonel in March 1879, Wright was later named Chief of Engineers as a brigadier general in June 1879. He retired at that rank on March 6, 1884, and lived in Washington, D.C., until his death in 1899. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery under an obelisk erected by veterans of the VI Corps, facing the Washington Monument he completed.
  The city of Fort Wright, Kentucky, is named for an earthwork structure (named for Wright) that was planned during the Confederate invasion of Kentucky in the summer of 1862 while Wright was in command of the Department of the Ohio.  Designed to be a five-sided fortification, it was never completed.  The earthwork was destroyed in the 1880s by road construction.
  Fort H. G. Wright on the western tip of Fishers Island, New York, is also named in his honor.
caption: Portrait by Mathew Brady or Levin C. Handy, c. 1873
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