Background
GILMER, Jeremy Francis Forbes was born on February 23, 1818 in Guilford County, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Captain Robert Shaw Gilmer, a career officer.
Businessman engineer General military Bureaucrat
GILMER, Jeremy Francis Forbes was born on February 23, 1818 in Guilford County, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Captain Robert Shaw Gilmer, a career officer.
Private school, United States Military Academy.
Army, and his wife Anna (Forbis). He was a brother of John Adams Gilmer who became a Confederate congressman. Gilmer graduated fourth in a class of thirty-one from the U.S. Military Academy in 1839 and entered the Engineering Corps of the army as a second lieutenant.
He was married to Louisa Alexander, daughter of Confederate General Edward P. Alexander. Gilmer was an assistant professor of engineering at West Point in 1840 and assisted in the construction of Fort Schuyler, New York, in 1840-1844. From 1844 to 1846, he was assistant chief of engineers in Washington, D.C. Promoted to first lieutenant in 1845, he was chief engineer for the Army of the West in New Mexico during the Mexican War.
In 1853, he was promoted to captain, and, from 1853 to 1858, he was engaged in the improvement of rivers and fortifications throughout the South. From 1858 to 1861, he supervised the construction of defenses at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. He submitted his resignation to the federal army in June 1861 and entered the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel of engineers.
He was severely wounded at the battle of Shiloh in the spring of 1862. He was promoted to brigadier general on October 4, 1862, and became chief of the Engineering Bureau for the Confederate War Department. In 1863, he was promoted to major general and was named second in command of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
He helped to fortify Atlanta. One of the outstanding military engineers in the Confederacy, his active service ended in early 1865. After the war, Gilmer had railroad and engineering enterprises in Savannah, where he was also president and chief engineer for the Gas Light Company from 1867 to 1883.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.