Abner Doubleday Abner Doubleday ( June 26 , 1819 – January 26 , 1893 ) was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War . He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter , the opening battle of the war , and had a pivotal role in the early fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg . Gettysburg was his finest hour , but his relief by Maj . Gen . George G . Meade caused lasting enmity between the two men . In San Francisco , after the war , he obtained a patent on the cable car railway that still runs there . In his final years in New Jersey , he was a prominent member and later president of the Theosophical Society . Doubleday is often mistakenly credited with inventing baseball . Early years . Doubleday was born in Ballston Spa , New York , in a small house on the corner of Washington and Fenwick streets . The family all slept in the attic loft of the one - room house . His paternal grandfather , also named Abner , had fought in the American Revolutionary War . His maternal grandfather joined the army at 14 and was a mounted messenger for George Washington . His father , Ulysses F . Doubleday , fought in the War of 1812 , published newspapers and books , and represented Auburn , New York for four years in the United States Congress . Abner spent his childhood in Auburn and later was sent to Cooperstown to live with his uncle and attend a private preparatory high school . He practiced as a surveyor and civil engineer for two years before entering the United States Military Academy in 1838 . He graduated in 1842 , 24th in a class of 56 cadets , and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 3rd U . S . Artillery . One of the persistent myths of baseball history is that Doubleday invented the game in 1839 , although he was in West Point at the time . Doubleday never claimed to have invented baseball . Neither his letters nor his diaries nor his " New York Times " obituary ever mentions the game . In 1852 , he married Mary Hewitt of Baltimore . Military career . Early commands and Fort Sumter . Doubleday initially served in coastal garrisons and then in the Mexican - American War from 1846 to 1848 and the Seminole Wars from 1856 to 1858 . In 1858 he was transferred to Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor serving under Colonel John L . Gardner . By the start of the Civil War , he was a captain and second in command in the garrison at Fort Sumter , under Major Robert Anderson . He aimed the cannon that fired the first return shot in answer to the Confederate bombardment on April 12 , 1861 . He subsequently referred to himself as the " hero of Sumter " for this role . Brigade and division command in Virginia . Doubleday was promoted to major on May 14 , 1861 , and commanded the Artillery Department in the Shenandoah Valley from June to August , and then the artillery for Major General Nathaniel Banks ' s division of the Army of the Potomac . He was appointed brigadier general of volunteers on February 3 , 1862 , and was assigned to duty in northern Virginia while the Army of the Potomac conducted the Peninsula Campaign . His first combat assignment was to lead the 2nd Brigade , 1st Division , III Corps of the Army of Virginia during the Northern Virginia Campaign . In the actions at Brawner ' s farm , just before the Second Battle of Bull Run , he took the initiative to send two of his regiments to reinforce Brigadier General John Gibbon ' s brigade against a larger Confederate force , fighting it to a standstill . ( Personal initiative was required since his division commander , Brig . Gen . Rufus King , was incapacitated by an epileptic seizure at the time . He was replaced by Brigadier General John P . Hatch . ) His men were routed when they encountered Major General James Longstreet ' s corps , but by the following day , August 30 , he took command of the division when Hatch was wounded , and he led his men to cover the retreat of the Union Army . Doubleday again led the division , now assigned to the I Corps of the Army of the Potomac , after South Mountain , where Hatch was wounded again . At Antietam , he led his men into the deadly fighting in the Cornfield and the West Woods , and one colonel described him as a " gallant officer . . . remarkably cool and at the very front of battle . " He was wounded when an artillery shell exploded near his horse , throwing him to the ground in a violent fall . He received a brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel in the regular army for his actions at Antietam and was promoted in March 1863 to major general of volunteers , to rank from November 29 , 1862 . At Fredericksburg in December 1862 , his division mostly sat idle . During the winter , the I Corps was reorganized and Doubleday assumed command of the 3rd Division . At Chancellorsville in May 1863 , the division was kept in reserve . Gettysburg . At the start of the Battle of Gettysburg , July 1 , 1863 , Doubleday ' s division was the second infantry division on the field to reinforce the cavalry division of Brigadier General John Buford . When his corps commander , Major General John F . Reynolds , was killed very early in the fighting , Doubleday found himself in command of the corps at 10 : 50 am . His men fought well in the morning , putting up a stout resistance , but as overwhelming Confederate forces massed against them , their line eventually broke and they retreated back through the town of Gettysburg to the relative safety of Cemetery Hill south of town . It was Doubleday ' s finest performance during the war , five hours leading 9 , 500 men against ten Confederate brigades that numbered more than 16 , 000 . Seven of those brigades sustained casualties that ranged from 35 to 50 percent , indicating the ferocity of the Union defense . On Cemetery Hill , however , the I Corps could muster only a third of its men as effective for duty , and the corps was essentially destroyed as a combat force for the rest of the battle ; it would be decommissioned in March 1864 , its surviving units combined into other corps . On July 2 , 1863 , Army of the Potomac commander Maj . Gen . George G . Meade replaced Doubleday with Major General John Newton , a more junior officer from another corps . The ostensible reason was a false report by XI Corps commander Major General Oliver O . Howard that Doubleday ' s corps broke first , causing the entire Union line to collapse , but Meade also had a long history of disdain for Doubleday ' s combat effectiveness , dating back to South Mountain . Doubleday was humiliated by this snub and held a lasting grudge against Meade , but he returned to division command and fought well for the remainder of the battle . He was wounded in the neck on the second day of Gettysburg and received a brevet promotion to colonel in the regular army for his service . He formally requested reinstatement as I Corps commander , but Meade refused , and Doubleday left Gettysburg on July 7 for Washington . Doubleday ' s indecision as a commander in the war resulted in his uncomplimentary nickname " Forty - Eight Hours . " Washington . Doubleday assumed administrative duties in the defenses of Washington , D . C . , where he was in charge of courts martial , which gave him legal experience that he used after the war . His only return to combat was directing a portion of the defenses against the attack by Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal A . Early in the Valley Campaigns of 1864 . Also while in Washington , Doubleday testified against George Meade at the United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War , criticizing him harshly over his conduct of the Battle of Gettysburg . While in Washington , Doubleday remained a loyal Republican and staunch supporter of President Abraham Lincoln . Doubleday rode with Lincoln on the train to Gettysburg for the Gettysburg Address and Col . and Mrs . Doubleday attended events with Mr . and Mrs . Lincoln in Washington . Postbellum career . After the Civil War , Doubleday mustered out of the volunteer service on August 24 , 1865 , reverted to the rank of lieutenant colonel , and became the colonel of the 35th U . S . Infantry in September 1867 . He was stationed in San Francisco from 1869 through 1871 and he took out a patent for the cable car railway that still runs there , receiving a charter for its operation , but signing away his rights when he was reassigned . In 1871 he commanded the 24th U . S . Infantry , an all African - American regiment with headquarters at Fort McKavett , Texas . He retired in 1873 . In the 1870s , he was listed in the New York business directory as lawyer . Doubleday spent much of his time writing . He published two important works on the Civil War : " Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie " ( 1876 ) , and " Chancellorsville and Gettysburg " ( 1882 ) , the latter being a volume of the series " Campaigns of the Civil War " . Theosophy . In the summer of 1878 Doubleday lived in Mendham , New Jersey , and became a prominent member of the Theosophical Society . When two of the founders of that society , Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott , moved to India at the end of that year , he was constituted as the president of the American body . Another prominent member was Thomas A . Edison . Death . Doubleday died of heart disease . Doubleday ' s body was laid in state in New York ' s City Hall and then was taken to Washington by train . in Mendham , and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington , Virginia . Baseball . Although Doubleday achieved minor fame as a competent combat general with experience in many important Civil War battles , he is more widely remembered as the supposed inventor of the game of baseball , in Elihu Phinney ' s cow pasture in Cooperstown , New York , in 1839 . The Mills Commission , chaired by Abraham G . Mills , the fourth president of the National League , was appointed in 1905 to determine the origin of baseball . The committee ' s final report , on December 30 , 1907 , stated , in part , that " the first scheme for playing baseball , according to the best evidence obtainable to date , was devised by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown , New York , in 1839 . " It concluded by saying , " in the years to come , in the view of the hundreds of thousands of people who are devoted to baseball , and the millions who will be , Abner Doubleday ' s fame will rest evenly , if not quite as much , upon the fact that he was its inventor . . . as upon his brilliant and distinguished career as an officer in the Federal Army . " However , there is considerable evidence to dispute this claim . Baseball historian George B . Kirsch has described the results of the Mills Commission as a " myth " . He wrote , " Robert Henderson , Harold Seymour , and other scholars have since debunked the Doubleday - Cooperstown myth , which nonetheless remains powerful in the American imagination because of the efforts of Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown . " At his death , Doubleday left many letters and papers , none of which describe baseball , or give any suggestion that he considered himself a prominent person in the evolution of the game . Chairman Mills himself , who had been a Civil War colleague of Doubleday and a member of the honor guard for Doubleday ' s body as it lay in state in New York City , never recalled hearing Doubleday describe his role as the inventor . Doubleday was a cadet at West Point in the year of the alleged invention and his family had moved away from Cooperstown the prior year . Furthermore , the primary testimony to the commission that connected baseball to Doubleday was that of Abner Graves , whose credibility is questionable ; a few years later , he shot his wife to death and was committed to an institution for the criminally insane for the rest of his life . Part of the confusion could stem from there being another man by the same name in Cooperstown in 1839 . Despite the lack of solid evidence linking Doubleday to the origins of baseball , Cooperstown NY became the site of what is today the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 1937 . Namesakes and honors . There is a monument to Doubleday at Gettysburg erected by his men , admirers , and the state of New York . There is a obelisk monument at Arlington National Cemetery where he is buried , located about behind the Lee Mansion . There was a movement to petition the postmaster general to issue a U . S . postage stamp for him in 2011 , commemorating the 150th anniversary of Fort Sumter . Doubleday Field is a minor league baseball stadium named for Abner Doubleday , located in Cooperstown , New York , near the Baseball Hall of Fame . It hosted the annual Hall of Fame Game , an exhibition game between two major league teams that was played from 1940 until 2008 . The Auburn Doubledays are a minor league baseball team based in Doubleday ' s hometown of Auburn , New York . Doubleday Field at West Point , New York , where the Army Black Knights play at Johnson Stadium , is named in Doubleday ' s honor . The Abner Doubleday Little League and Babe Ruth Fields in Ballston Spa , New York , the town of his birth . The house of his birth still stands in the middle of town and there is a monument to him on Front Street . Doubleday ' s purported invention of baseball was such a widely accepted belief in the late 19th century , that the legend was recorded on a Civil War monument in Maryland in 1897 . The Doubleday Hill Monument , erected in Williamsport , Maryland to commemorate Doubleday ' s occupation of a hill there during the Civil War , claims he invented the game in 1835 . Mendham Borough , NJ held a municipal holiday known as " Abner Doubleday Day " for numerous years in the General ' s honor and commissioned a plaque near the sight of his home in the borough in 1998 .