Lloyd Tilghman Lloyd Tilghman ( January 26 , 1816 - May 16 , 1863 ) was a railroad construction engineer and a Confederate general in the American Civil War , killed at the Battle of Champion Hill . Tilghman is unfortunately remembered for a discredited defense of Fort Henry , Tennessee , in 1862 . Early life . Tilghman was born in " Rich Neck Manor " , Claiborne , Maryland to James Tilghman who was the greatgrand son of Matthew Tilghman , and Ann C . Shoemaker Tilghman . He attended the United States Military Academy and graduated near the bottom of his class in 1836 . He was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 1st U . S . Dragoons , but resigned his commission after three months . He worked as a construction engineer on a number of railroads in the South and in Panama , except for a period in which he returned to the Army as a Captain in the Maryland and Washington , D . C . Volunteer Artillery ( August 1847 to July 1848 ) . In 1852 , he took up residence in Paducah , Kentucky . Civil War . Tilghman was commissioned colonel of the 3rd Kentucky Infantry on July 5 , 1861 , shortly after the start of the American Civil War . He was promoted to brigadier general in the Confederate States Army on October 18 . When General Albert Sidney Johnston was looking for an officer to create defensive positions on the vulnerable Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers , he was unaware of Tilghman ' s presence in his department and another officer was selected . However , the Richmond government pointed out Tilghman ' s engineering background and he was finally chosen for the task . The original sites for Forts Henry and Donelson were selected by another general , Daniel S . Donelson , but Tilghman was then placed in command and ordered to construct them . The geographic placement of Fort Henry was extremely poor , sited on a floodplain of the Tennessee River , but Tilghman did not object to its location until it was too late . ( Afterward , he wrote bitterly in his report that Fort Henry was in a " wretched military position . . . The history of military engineering records no parallel to this case . " ) He also was desultory in managing its needed construction and that of the small Fort Heiman , located on the Kentucky bank of the Tennessee , and quarreled with the engineers assigned to the task . He did manage to do a more credible job on the construction of Fort Donelson , which was sited on dry ground , commanding the river . On February 6 , 1862 , an army under Brig . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant and gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew H . Foote attacked Fort Henry and Tilghman was forced to surrender . ( This was not his first encounter with Grant . Tilghman was in Paducah when Grant captured that city the previous September . ) Prior to doing so , he led the vast majority of his garrison troops on the 12 - mile road to Fort Donelson , and then returned to surrender with a handful of artillerymen who were left defending the fort . The biggest factor in the defeat of Fort Henry was not the naval artillery or Grant ' s infantry ; it was the rising flood waters of the Tennessee , which flooded the powder magazines and forced a number of the guns out of action . ( If Grant ' s attack had been delayed by two days , the battle would have never occurred because the fort was by then entirely underwater . ) Tilghman was imprisoned as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston and was not released until August 15 , when he was exchanged for Union general John F . Reynolds . Tilghman is remembered as brave and gallant in surrendering with his men , but he was derelict in his duty by abandoning the command of his garrison , which was responsible for the defense of both Henry and Donelson . ( He was replaced by Brig . Gen . John B . Floyd at Donelson , whose army fought under poor leadership and was surrendered to Grant on February 16 . ) Returning to the field in the fall of 1862 , Tilghman became a brigade commander in Mansfield Lovell ' s division of Earl Van Dorn ' s Army of the West , following the Second Battle of Corinth . In the Vicksburg Campaign of 1863 , he was hit in the chest by a shell fragment and killed in the Battle of Champion Hill . He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery , New York City . Eye Witness Accounts . " Orderly Sergeant E . T . Eggleston " “ Tilghman came to our position , in an open field , on foot . He was in particular good humor . He wore a new fatigue uniform . When he arrived near our guns our officers were mounted , and were in position prescribed for dress parade , each Lieutenant , George H . Tompkins and Thomas J . Haines , in their positions , and Captain Cowan mounted on a large grey horse , making a conspicuous target for the Federal sharpshooters . We were all tyros in war at that time . The General in a pleasant manner said to our Captain , I think you and your Lieutenants had better dismount . They are shooting pretty close to us , and I do not know whether they are shooting at your fine grey horse or my new uniform . They very promptly obeyed the suggestion . Having to go to headquarters daily with reports , I had become personally acquainted with the affable , gallant , and genial officer . Only a few minutes before his death we were sitting on a log near a strip of woodland discussing the line of battle we then held , comparing it with the one we had shortly before occupied . He got up from the log and went to one of our guns , a 12 - pound Napoleon , Corporal Tommie Johnson , gunner , and remarked to him , I think you are shooting rather too high , and sighted the gun himself . He returned to a little knoll within a few feet of the log on which I was still sitting and was standing erect , his field glasses to his eyes , watching for the effect of the shot from our gun when he received the fatal wound not from a splinter from a shell , however , but from a solid shot . It is true that a horse was killed by the same missile and I noticed that the horse was dead some time before he General ceased to breathe , though he was unconscious . It was some little time after the general fell before his son , a youth , could be found , and I shall never forget the touching scene when the grief and lamentations he cast himself on his dying and unconscious father . Those of us who witnessed this distressing scene shed tears of sympathy , for the bereaved son and of sorrow for our fallen hero , the chivalrous and beloved Tilghman . ” " Private James Spencer , 1st Mississippi Light Artillery " “ General Tilghman and his staff rode up to Capt . Cowan and ordered him to open fire . The General dismounted and said to Capt . Cowan , I will take a shot at those fellows myself , and walked up to field piece No . 2 and sighted and ordered it fired and shell from the Federal Battery passed close to him while our gun was being reloaded . Tilghman remarked , They are trying to spoil my new uniform . He then sighted the gun again and as he stepped back to order fire , a Parrott shell struck him in the side , nearly cutting him in twain . Just before he dismounted , he ordered his son , a boy of about 17 years to go with a squad and drive some sharpshooters from a gin house on our left , who were annoying our cannoneers . The son had been gone 10 or 15 minutes on this mission before his father was killed . ” " Emilie Riley McKinley : May 21 , 1863 " Gen . Tilghman was carried to Mrs . Brien ’ s house at night by torchlight . His hair was covered with blood . His son accompanied him . They thought at first of burying him in our churchyard but carried him to Vicksburg . Poor Gen . Tilghman - he was brave to a fault . We little thought a week ago when he passed this place [ probably by boat on the Big Black - a mistake by the 4th Mississippi soldier who was not correct ] that he would in so short a time be dead . I saw him last Fall in Jackson directly after his return from a prison at the North , Fort Warren . He made a speech at the Bowman House [ hotel ] and told us how cruelly he had been treated in prison . And now poor fellow , he is gone , but his name will live forever . He fell bravely defending his fireside and home . May he rest in peace . " Colonel A . E . Reynolds , 26th Mississippi Infantry @ Battle of Baker ’ s Creek Report : May 27 , 1863 " “ At 5 . 20 o ’ clock , Brig . Gen . Tilghman , who up to that time had commanded the brigade with marked ability , fell , killed by a shall from one of the enemy ’ s guns , and the command devolved upon me as the senior colonel present . I cannot here refrain from paying a slight tribute to the memory of my late commander . As a man , a soldier , and a general , he had few if any superiors . Always at his post , he devoted himself day and night to the interests of his command . Upon the battlefield cool , collected , and observant , he commanded the entire respect and confidence of every officer and soldier under him , and the only censure ever cast upon him was that he always exposed himself too recklessly . At the time he was struck down he was standing in the rear of a battery , directing a change in the elevation of one of the guns . The tears shed by his men on the occasion , and the grief felt by his entire brigade , are the proudest tribute that can be given the gallant dead . ” " General William W . Loring : Military Report " “ During this time Tilghman , who had been left with his brigade upon the road , almost immediately after our parting , met a terrible assault of the enemy , and when we rejoined him was carrying on a deadly and most gallant fight . With less than 1 , 500 effective men he was attacked from by 6 , 000 to 8 , 000 of the enemy with a fine park of artillery , but being advantageously posted , he not only haled them in check , but repulsed him on several occasions , and this kept open the only line of retreat left to the army . The bold stand of his brigade under the lamented hero saved a large portion of the army . Quick and bold in the execution of his plans , he fell in the midst of a brigade that loved him well , after repulsing a powerful enemy in deadly fight , struck by a cannon - shot . A brigade wept over the dying hero ; alike beautiful as it was touching . ” Posthumous Commentary . " Maria I . Johnston : Novel published 1869 " At the Battle of Champion ’ s Hill in May 1863 , he was directing artillery fire when he was struck in the chest by a piece of shrapnel and died instantly . The arrival of his body in Vicksburg , transported in a wagon and accompanied by his teenage son , was described in a novel : Stark and stiff lay the brave officer , his clothing and gloves covered with blood . And the gory stream congealing in the dark masses of his tangled hair . Tilghman was buried in the city cemetery , Cedar Hill , but his body was moved to New York City after the war . " CSA President Jefferson Davis , 1878 " “ But neither of those more heroically , more patriotically , more singly served his country , than did Tilghman at Fort Henry , when approached by a large army , an army which rendered the permanent defense of the fort impossible , with a handful of devoted followers went into the fort and continued the defense until his brigade could retire in safety to Fort Donelson ; then when that work was finished , when it was impossible any longer to make a defense , when the wounded and dying lay all around him , he , with the surviving remnants of his little band , terminated the struggle and suffered in a manner thousands of you have been prisoners of war know how to estimate . All peace and honor to his ashes , for he was among those , not the most unhappy , who went hence before our bitterest trials came upon us . ” " F . W . M . published account : July 13 , 1893 @ Plant City , FL " “ General Tilghman directed the gun sergeant to train his gun , a 12 - pound howitzer , and dislodge the enemy from the cabins . He dismounted from his horse and gave some directions about sighting the gun . While this was being done , a shell from one of the enemy ’ s guns on the line exploded about fifty feet to the front . A ragged fragment of this shell struck the General in the breast , passing through him and killing the horse of his Adjutant a little farther to the rear . His death occurred , of course , very soon , and his remains were carried to the rear . That night they were started to Vicksburg , accompanied by his personal staff and son , Lloyd Tilghman , Jr . , and the next evening they were buried in the city cemetery in Vicksburg . The last act of a brave man was to sight a field gun and direct the cutting of a shell fuse , so as to do the best execution upon the invaders of our country . ” In memoriam . Paducah Tilghman High School in Paducah , Kentucky , is named in honor of General Tilghman . It was formerly named by his sons for Augusta Tilghman . The Lloyd Tilghman House and Civil War Museum is located at the Tilghman homestead in Paducah . On May 19 , 1926 , a statue of Tilghman was dedicated at the Vicksburg National Historical Park . Tilghman ' s Effects . A Presentation Confederate Flag and an inscribed sword and sword belt , worn by Tilghman when he was killed were sold by Heritage Auction Galleries on June 26 , 2010 . The effects were descended through his direct lineal descendants for 150 years until sold at auction .