Hugh Judson Kilpatrick Hugh Judson Kilpatrick ( January 14 , 1836 – December 4 , 1881 ) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War , achieving the rank of brevet major general . He was later the United States Minister to Chile , and a failed political candidate for the U . S . House of Representatives . Known as " Kilcavalry " ( or " Kill - Cavalry " ) for using tactics in battle that were considered as a reckless disregard for lives of soldiers under his command , Kilpatrick was both praised for the victories he achieved , and despised by southerners whose homes and towns he devastated . Early life . Hugh Judson Kilpatrick , more commonly referred to as Judson Kilpatrick , the fourth child of Colonel Simon Kilpatrick and Julia Wickham , was born on the family farm in Wantage Township , near Deckertown , New Jersey ( now Sussex Borough ) . Civil War . Kilpatrick graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1861 , just after the start of the war , and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st U . S . Artillery . Within three days he was a captain in the 5th New York Infantry ( " Duryée ' s Zouaves " ) . Kilpatrick was the first United States Army officer to be wounded in the Civil War , struck in the thigh by canister fire while leading a company at the Battle of Big Bethel , June 10 , 1861 . By September 25 he was a lieutenant colonel , now in the 2nd New York Cavalry , which he helped to raise , and it was the mounted arm that brought him fame and infamy . Assignments were initially quiet for Lt . Col . Kilpatrick , serving in staff jobs and in minor cavalry skirmishes . That changed in the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862 . He raided the Virginia Central Railroad early in the campaign and then ordered a foolish twilight cavalry charge the first evening of the battle , losing a full squadron of troopers . Nevertheless , he was promoted to full colonel on December 6 . Kilpatrick was aggressive , fearless , ambitious , and blustery . He was a master , in his mid - twenties , of using political influence to get ahead . His men had little love for his manner and his willingness to exhaust men and horses and to order suicidal mounted cavalry charges . ( The rifled muskets introduced to warfare in the 1850s made the historic cavalry charge essentially an anachronism . Cavalry ' s role shrank primarily to screening , raiding , and reconnaissance . ) The widespread nickname they used for Kilpatrick was " Kill Cavalry " . He also had a bad reputation with others in the Army . His camps were poorly maintained and frequented by prostitutes , often visiting Kilpatrick himself . He was jailed in 1862 on charges of corruption , accused of selling captured Confederate goods for personal gain . He was jailed again for a drunken spree in Washington , D . C . , and for allegedly accepting bribes in the procurement of horses for his command . In February 1863 , Maj . Gen . Joseph Hooker created a Cavalry Corps in the Army of the Potomac , commanded by Maj . Gen . George Stoneman . Kilpatrick assumed command of the 1st Brigade , 2nd Division . In the Chancellorsville Campaign in May , Stoneman ' s cavalry was ordered to swing deeply behind Gen . Robert E . Lee ' s army and destroy railroads and supplies . Kilpatrick did just that , with gusto . Although the corps failed to distract Lee as intended , Kilpatrick achieved fame by aggressively capturing wagons , burning bridges , and riding around Lee , almost to the outskirts of Richmond , Virginia . Gettysburg Campaign . At the beginning of the Gettysburg Campaign , on June 9 , 1863 , Kilpatrick fought at Brandy Station , the largest cavalry battle of the war . He received his brigadier general ' s star on June 13 , fought at Aldie and Upperville , and assumed division command three days before the Battle of Gettysburg commenced . On June 30 , he clashed briefly with J . E . B . Stuart ' s cavalry at Hanover , Pennsylvania , but then proceeded on a wild goose chase in pursuit of Stuart , rather than fulfilling his mission of intelligence gathering . On the second day of the Gettysburg battle , July 2 , 1863 , Kilpatrick ' s division skirmished against Wade Hampton five miles northeast of town at Hunterstown . He then settled in for the night to the southeast at Two Taverns . One of his famous brigade commanders , Brig . Gen . George A . Custer , was ordered to join Brig . Gen . David McM . Gregg ' s division for the next day ' s action against Stuart ' s cavalry east of town , so Kilpatrick was down to one brigade . On July 3 , after Pickett ' s Charge , he was ordered by army commander Maj . Gen . George G . Meade and Cavalry Corps commander Alfred Pleasonton to launch a cavalry charge against the infantry positions of Lt . Gen . James Longstreet ' s Corps on the Confederate right flank , just west of Little Round Top . Kilpatrick ' s lone brigade commander , Brig . Gen . Elon J . Farnsworth , protested against the futility of such a move . Kilpatrick essentially questioned his bravery and allegedly dared him to charge : " Then , by God , if you are afraid to go I will lead the charge myself . " Farnsworth reluctantly complied with the order . He was killed in the attack and his brigade suffered significant losses . Kilpatrick and the rest of the cavalry pursued and harassed Lee during his retreat back to Virginia . That fall , he took part in an expedition to destroy the Confederate gunboats " Satellite " and " Reliance " in the Rappahannock River , boarding them and capturing their crews successfully . The Dahlgren Affair . Just before the start of Lt . Gen . Ulysses S . Grant ' s Overland Campaign in the spring of 1864 , Kilpatrick conducted a raid toward Richmond and through the Virginia Peninsula , hoping to rescue Union prisoners of war held at Belle Isle and in Libby Prison s in Richmond . Kilpatrick took his division out on February 28 , sneaking past Robert E . Lee ' s flank and driving south for Richmond . On March 1 , they were within 5 miles of the city . Defenses around the city were too strong however and numerous squads of Confederate militia and cavalry nipped at their heels the whole way , including some of General Wade Hampton ' s troopers dispatched from the Army of Northern Virginia . Unable to get at Richmond or return to the Army of the Potomac , Kilpatrick decided to bolt down the Virginia Peninsula where Ben Butler ' s Army of the James was stationed . Meanwhile , the general was dismayed to find out that Ulric Dahlgren ' s brigade ( detached from the main force ) had not made it across the James River . Eventually 300 of the latter ' s troopers stumbled into camp , Dahlgren and the rest seemingly vanished into thin air . The survivors reported that they ' d made a nightmarish journey through the countryside around Richmond in darkness and a sleet storm , the woods filled with enemy troops and hostile civilians at every turn . Dahlgren and the 200 cavalrymen he was accompanying had been told by a slave of a place where the James was shallow and could be forded . When they got there , the river was swelled up and cresting . Convinced he ' d been tricked , Dahlgren ordered the slave hanged . They went back north and found that Kilpatrick was gone and they were alone in a hostile country . The troopers battled their way to the Mattaponi River , crossed , and appeared to be safe from danger , but in the dark they ran into a Confederate ambush . Dahlghren was shot dead along with many of his men , the rest being taken prisoner . His body was then displayed in Richmond as a war trophy . Papers found on the body of Dahlgren shortly after his death which described the object of the expedition , and they were apparently altered to read that he wanted to burn and loot Richmond and assassinate Jefferson Davis and the whole Confederate cabinet . The raid had resulted in 324 cavalrymen killed and wounded , and 1000 more taken prisoner . In addition , Kilpatrick ' s men had cut a swathe of destruction across the outskirts of Richmond , destroying tobacco barns , boats , railroad cars and tracks , and other infrastructure . They also deposited a large number of pamphlets in and around homes and other buildings offering amnesty to any Southern civilian who took the oath of loyalty to the United States . The discovery and publication of the Dahlgren Papers sparked an international controversy . General Braxton Bragg denounced the papers as " fiendish " and Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon proposed that the Union prisoners be hanged . Robert E . Lee agreed that they made for an atrocious document , but urged calm , saying that no actual destruction had taken place and the papers might very well be fakes . In addition , Lee was concerned because some Confederate guerrillas had just been captured by the Army of the Potomac , which was considering hanging them , and execution of Dalghren ' s men might set off a chain reaction . The Confederate general sent the papers to George Meade under a flag of truce and asked him to provide an explanation . Meade wrote back that no burnings or assassinations had been ordered by anyone in Washington or the army . Meanwhile , newspapers and politicians in the North and South exchanged blows . The former condemned the use of Ulrich Dahlgren ' s corpse as a carnival attraction and the latter accused Lincoln ' s government of wanting to conduct indiscriminate pillage and slaughter on Virginia civilians , including the claim that Kilpatrick wanted to free Union prisoners and turn them loose on the women of Richmond . Northern papers also cheered the destruction caused by the raid and took pleasure in describing the ravaged condition of the Virginia countryside . After reaching Ben Butler ' s base at Fort Monroe , Kilpatrick ' s men took a steamship back to Washington . More trouble followed when they were granted a few days ' rest in Alexandria , Virginia before rejoining the Army of the Potomac . The city was garrisoned with African - American troops , and one stopped to inform a cavalryman that only persons on active duty were allowed to ride horses through the streets . This trooper found it insulting to take orders from a black man and promptly struck him down with his sword . Kilpatrick ' s division was punished by being forced to immediately embark for the Rapidan River without resting or drawing new uniforms . The " Kilpatrick - Dahlgren " expedition was such a fiasco that Kilpatrick found he was no longer welcome in the Eastern Theater . He transferred west to command the 3rd Division of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Cumberland , under Maj . Gen . William Tecumseh Sherman . Final campaigns through Georgia and the Carolinas . Summing up Judson Kilpatrick in 1864 , Sherman said " I know that Kilpatrick is a hell of a damned fool , but I want just that sort of man to command my cavalry on this expedition . " Starting in May 1864 , Kilpatrick rode in the Atlanta Campaign . On May 13 , he was severely wounded in the thigh at the Battle of Resaca and his injuries kept him out of the field until late July . He had considerable success raiding behind Confederate lines , tearing up railroads , and at one point rode his division completely around the enemy positions in Atlanta . Kilpatrick continued with Sherman through his March to the Sea to Savannah and north in the Carolinas Campaign . He delighted in destroying Southern property . On two occasions his coarse personal instincts betrayed him : Confederate cavalry under the command of Maj . Gen . Wade Hampton raided his camp while he was in bed with a young Southern woman he had met while going through Columbia , and , at the Battle of Monroe ' s Crossroads , he was forced to flee for his life in his underclothes until his troops could reform . Kilpatrick accompanied Maj . Gen . William T . Sherman to the surrender negotiations held at Bennett Place near Durham , North Carolina , on April 17 , 1865 . Kilpatrick later commanded a division of the Cavalry Corps in the Military Division of the Mississippi from April to June 1865 , and was promoted to major general of volunteers on June 18 , 1865 . Later life . Kilpatrick became active in politics as a Republican and in 1880 was an unsuccessful candidate for the U . S . Congress from New Jersey . In 1865 , Kilpatrick was appointed Minister to Chile by President Andrew Johnson , and he was continued in that office by President Grant . As American Minister to Chile , he was involved in an attempt to arbitrate between the combatants of the Chincha Islands War after the Valparaiso bombardment ( 1866 ) . The attempt failed , as the chief condition of Spanish admiral Méndez Núñez was the return of the captured " Covadonga " . Kilpatrick asked the American naval commander Commander John Rodgers to defend the port and attack the Spanish fleet . Admiral Méndez Núñez famously responded with , " I will be forced to sink [ the US ships ] , because even if I have one ship left I will proceed with the bombardment . Spain , the Queen and I prefer honor without ships than ships without honor . " ( " " España prefiere honra sin barcos a barcos sin honra " . " ) Kilpatrick was recalled in 1870 . The 1865 appointment seems to have been the result of a political deal . Kilpatrick had been a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey but lost out to Marcus Ward . Due to his service in helping Ward , Kilpatrick was rewarded with the post in Chile . Due to the Grant administration recalling him , Kilpatrick supported Horace Greeley in the 1872 presidential election . By 1876 , Kilpatrick returned to the Republicans and supported Rutherford B . Hayes for the presidency . In Chile he married , as his second wife , Luisa Fernandez de Valdivieso , a member of a wealthy family of Spanish origin that had emigrated to South America in the 17th century . Artist and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt ( born 1924 ) is Hugh Judson Kilpatrick ' s great - granddaughter . Another prominent descendant is CNN newsman Anderson Cooper , Kilpatrick ' s great - great - grandson . In March 1881 , in recognition of Kilpatrick ' s service to the Republicans in New Jersey as well as a consolation prize for his defeat for a House seat , President James Garfield appointed Kilpatrick again to the post of Minister to Chile , where he died shortly after his arrival in the Chilean capital Santiago . His remains returned to the United States in 1887 and were interred at the West Point Cemetery in West Point , New York . Kilpatrick was the author of two plays , " Allatoona : An Historical and Military Drama in Five Acts " ( 1875 ) and " The Blue and the Gray : Or , War is Hell " ( posthumous , 1930 ) .