Quincy Adams Gillmore came of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His forebears having emigrated to Massachusetts in the early part of 1700.
His grandfather, Edmund Gillmore, moved from Massachusetts to Lorain County, Ohio, in the year 1770, and there his father, Quartus Gillmore, was born in 1790.
At Black River, Lorain County, young Gillmore was born, his mother being Elizabeth Reid.
Gillmore was given the rudiments of an education at home, then in his fourteenth year, he was sent to the Norwalk Academy where he was noted for his proficiency in mathematics.
After teaching school for three years, and attending the Elyria high school for two summers, he won an appointment to West Point through his fine scholarship and was graduated at the head of his class in 1849.
Gillmore was immediately commissioned second lieutenant of Engineers. His early duties included the construction of fortifications at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and service at West Point as assistant instructor of practical military engineering, as well as treasurer and quartermaster of the Academy.
He was also, for a time, in charge of the Engineer District of New York City. He was promoted first lieutenant, July 1, 1856, and captain, August 6, 1861.
Gillmore’s Civil War service was brilliant. He was chief engineer of the Port Royal Expedition, 1861-62, being in the engagement at Hilton Head, South Carolina, November 7, 1861, and in command of the troops investing Fort Pulaski, Georgia, April 10-11, 1862.
For gallant and meritorious services in the capture of this fort, he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel. On April 28, 1862, he was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers, and until April 1863 commanded various areas in Kentucky and West Virginia.
On March 30, 1863, he defeated Gen. Pegram at Somerset, Kentucky, and was brevetted colonel for gallantry. From June 12, 1863, until late in the same year, he commanded the X Army Corps and the Department of the South - having been promoted major-general of volunteers, July 10, 1863; and was engaged in important offensives against Charleston, South Carolina, the reduction of Morris Island, and the taking of Fort Sumter.
Early in 1864, he was transferred with his corps to the James River, where he took part in the engagements near Bermuda Hundred, the battle of Drewry’s Bluff, and the reconnoissances before Petersburg.
In the summer of the same year, while defending the city of Washington against Gen. Early’s raid, Gillmore was seriously injured by a fall from his horse.
During his convalescence, his services were utilized as president of the board of testing Ames’s wrought-iron cannon, and in an inspection of fortifications from Cairo, Illinois, to Pensacola, Florida.
In the following year, he commanded the Department of the South, resigning his volunteer commission on December 5, 1865. For gallant services in the capture of Fort Wagner, he was brevetted brigadier-general, March 13, 1865; and for similar service in the assault on Morris Island, major-general in the regular army.
After the termination of the Civil War, Gillmore served on many important boards and commissions.
He died at Brooklyn, New York, leaving a widow, formerly Mrs. Bragg, and four sons by a former wife, Mary Isabella O’Maher.
Perhaps Gillmore's most important service was as president of the Mississippi River Commission (1879). He was the author of a number of professional books and treatises, most of which were published by the Corps of Engineers. He gained a wide reputation as an artillerist as well as an engineer through his successful use of rifled cannon for breaching masonry walls at Fort Pulaski during the Civil War, causing a sensation throughout the world in proving many modern fortifications vulnerable to artillery. A coal schooner named in his honor, the General Q. A. Gillmore, sank in 1881 in Lake Erie about 45 miles west of Lorain, near Kelleys Island. The shipwreck remains in the shallow waters of the lake. A second ship was launched bearing his name, called the "Q. A. Gillmore. " It was a steam-powered tugboat "Hull #24" built for the Great Lakes Towing Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and launched around 1912-13. It operated on the Great Lakes and participated in rescues of ships during the notable Great Lakes storm of 1913.
Quincy Adams Gillmore was married to Mary Isabella O’Maher.
1 July 1790 - 29 August 1869
11 November 1797 - 13 February 1876
1816 - 1890
Died in August 1845.
7 April 1823 - 9 November 1904
1841 - 12 March 1911
12 December 1826 - 18 March 1914
1821 - 21 January 1861
2 September 1850 - 14 July 1923
1853 - 16 September 1854
