William R . Boggs William Robertson Boggs ( March 18 , 1829 – September 11 , 1911 ) was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . He was noted as a civil engineer who constructed the military fortifications that protected some of the Confederacy ' s most important seaports . Early life and career . Boggs was born in Augusta , Georgia . Comparatively little is known of his early youth , but it is known he studied at the Augusta Academy . Two of his brothers would also serve in the Confederate Army . They spent their summers at the Sand Hills near what is now Summerville , South Carolina , a popular tourist resort . At the age of twenty in July 1849 , he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point as a cadet from Georgia . He graduated four years later among the first five in his class . Among Boggs ' classmates were James B . McPherson , Philip H . Sheridan , and John M . Schofield , later Union generals , and John B . Hood of the Confederate service . On graduation he was brevetted as a second lieutenant and assigned to the Topographical Bureau . He spent some time in the office of the Pacific Railroad Surveys . In 1854 he was transferred to the Ordnance Corps and was made assistant at the Watervliet Arsenal in Troy , New York . In December of the same year he became second lieutenant and in 1856 he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant . While at Watervliet Arsenal , on December 19 , 1855 , he married Mary Sophia , daughter of Col . John Symington , the commandant . To them were born five children – William R . , Jr . , a mining engineer who was murdered in Mexico in 1907 ; Elizabeth McCaw , John Symington , Edith Allston , and Henry Patterson Boggs . ( For some unknown reason a sixth child , Archibald Boggs ( 1860 – 1881 ) was omitted from the biographical data published for General Boggs . ) In 1857 Boggs was transferred to the Louisiana Arsenal at Baton Rouge , Louisiana . In 1859 he became inspector of ordnance at Point Isobel , Texas . On December 14 , 1859 , he took part in an engagement with Cortino ' s Mexican marauders near Fort Brown , for which he was given honorable mention by General Winfield Scott . Soon after , he was transferred to the Alleghany Arsenal at Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , to which his father - in - law Colonel Symington had also been assigned . Civil War service . Boggs resigned from the U . S . Army the very day that the Georgia Convention adopted its ordinance of secession . However , his father - in - law stayed in the Federal service . Early in the war , Boggs was appointed by Governor Joseph E . Brown as the purchasing agent to procure arms , ammunition , and supplies for Georgia ' s state troops . Later , in the Provisional Confederate Army , Boggs ' duties were again as an engineer and ordnance officer , given primarily to staff duty for such officers as Braxton Bragg . He was never given the command of troops in combat , although he commanded all engineers and artillery in Pensacola , Florida . His major accomplishments were to perfect and complete fortifications and supply depots in 1861 ( including the defenses of Charleston , South Carolina , and Pensacola ) ; to engineer Kirby Smith ' s invasion of Kentucky in 1862 ; and to assist Smith ' s military administration west of the Mississippi River from 1863 to 1865 . In 1862 , he was appointed Colonel , Chief Engineer of the State of Georgia . In recognition of his efforts in constructing the fortifications that defended Savannah , Georgia , one of the earthworks was named Fort Boggs . During the Kentucky campaign , Colonel Boggs , by then back in the Confederate national service , won the confidence of his superiors . On General Kirby Smith ' s recommendation , he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and became Chief of Staff under him in the Trans - Mississippi Department in the spring of 1863 . Late in the war , Boggs resigned after a quarrel with Smith . For a short time thereafter , he commanded the District of Louisiana , but was soon superseded by Brig . Gen . Harry T . Hays and he subsequently awaited orders at Shreveport , Louisiana . Early in 1865 he enlisted in an expedition to enter military service in Mexico . Finding that the purpose of its leaders was to fight for Maximilian , rather than Juarez , he withdrew his name and returned to the Confederate army . With the collapse of the Confederate armies in the East , Kirby Smith moved his headquarters to Houston , Texas . The surrender of his army was made by Smith ' s subordinates , in which General Boggs participated , the parole of Boggs being dated June 9 , 1865 . Postbellum career . After the war , Boggs engaged in the profession of engineering , participating to a great extent in railroad construction in the West . In 1875 he was appointed Professor of Mechanics in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute at Blacksburg , a position he held until a reorganization of the faculty in 1881 . One of his colleagues wrote , " He was highly valued by his associates as a man of force and culture ; was esteemed by the student body as an attractive and honest teacher ; by the people of the community as an upright , genial , agreeable gentleman . Politics was alone responsible for his removal . " The later years of his life were spent in Winston - Salem , North Carolina , where he died at the age of eighty - two . He was buried in Salem Cemetery . One of his nephews , Major Archibald Butt , perished in the sinking of the British cruise liner , RMS " Titanic " .