Jasper A . Maltby Jasper Adalmorn Maltby ( November 3 , 1826 – December 12 , 1867 ) was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War . He participated in two important campaigns in the Western Theater , including the Vicksburg Campaign in 1863 . A talented gunsmith , Maltby was the inventor of one of the first telescopic sights . Early life and career . Maltby was born in 1826 in rural Kingsville , Ohio , where he was educated in the common schools . He participated in the Mexican War as a private in the 15th U . S . Infantry . He was wounded in action on September 20 , 1847 , during the Battle of Chapultepec . He was honorably discharged from the service on August 3 , 1848 , and settled in Chicago . He subsequently moved to Galena , Illinois , and became a gunsmith , living in a room above the shop with his wife and son . Civil War service . With the outbreak of the Civil War , Maltby enlisted as a private in the 45th Illinois Infantry ( known as the " Lead Mine Regiment " ) on December 26 , 1861 . He was elected as the regiment ' s lieutenant colonel that same day . He participated in the 1862 attack on Fort Donelson in Tennessee , and was wounded in the elbow and both thighs . He was eventually shipped home to Galena to recuperate . After his recovery , he was promoted to colonel . The following year he commanded his Illinois troops in Ulysses S . Grant ' s operations against the Confederate defenses of Vicksburg , Mississippi . Maltby was again wounded during an attack on Fort Hill on June 25 . Union troops had tunneled under the 3rd Louisiana Redan and packed the mine with 2 , 200 pounds of gunpowder . The resulting explosion blew apart the Confederate lines , while troops from John A . Logan ' s division of the XVII Corps followed the blast with an infantry assault . Maltby ' s 45th Illinois charged into the diameter , deep crater with ease , but were stopped by recovering Confederate infantry . The Union soldiers became pinned down while the defenders rolled artillery shells with short fuses into the pit with deadly results . Maltby suffered severe injuries to his head and right side and never fully recovered , but was able to continue in the army . He was promoted to brigadier general on August 4 , 1863 . On September 8 , he took command of the 3rd Brigade , 3rd Division , of the XVII Corps in the Army of the Tennessee . For much of 1864 , his brigade was in the 1st Division of the Department of Vicksburg , but for part of summer was temporarily commanded by Colonel John H . Howe while Maltby recovered from complications from his Vicksburg wounds . Maltby ' s Brigade remained in Vicksburg throughout the year while much of the army fought in northern Georgia and later in Tennessee . Postbellum career . When the war ended in 1865 , Maltby remained in Vicksburg in the Regular Army . He served as the city ' s military governor from September 6 , 1867 , until December 12 when he stepped down due to illness . Maltby died ten days later in Vicksburg from either yellow fever or a cardiac arrest . His body was returned to Galena and buried there in Greenwood Cemetery . His brother William H . Maltby was the captain of a Confederate artillery battery and was taken as a prisoner of war in a skirmish on Mustang Island along the Texas Gulf Coast . Jasper Maltby used his influence to get his brother released and sent to Vicksburg until he could be exchanged .