Samuel Gibbs French

Background

Samuel Gibbs was born on November 22, 1818, in Gloucester County, New Jersey, United States. He was the son of Samuel and Rebecca Clark French. His family had been among the founders of New Jersey.

Education

Samuel attended the academy in Burlington, New Jersey, and graduated fourteenth in a class of thirty-nine from the United States Military Academy in 1843.

Career

Samuel Gibbs French accepted a commission into the United States Army as an artillery officer. During the Mexican War, he served under Zachary Taylor as an artillery officer.

Promoted to second lieutenant for his action at Monterrey, he was breveted captain the following year. He also participated in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. In 1856, he resigned his military commission to operate a plantation near Greenville, Mississippi.

When his state seceded from the Union in February 1861, French was made chief of ordnance in the Mississippi army. He entered the Confederate Army as a major of artillery, and in the early months of the war, he fortified Wilmington, North Carolina, and Petersburg, Virginia, blockaded the Potomac River, and built Fort Fisher, North Carolina. After promotion to brigadier general on October 23, 1861, he commanded the Department of Southern Virginia and North Carolina.

In July 1862, Samuel attacked McClellan at the Battle of Malvern Hill during the Seven Days. He was promoted to major general on October 22, 1862, and, in May 1863, he was sent to Mississippi, where he served with General Joseph E. Johnston in the Army of Tennessee. During 1864, his division fought in the Atlanta and Tennessee campaigns, participating most conspicuously at the battles of New Hope Church, Kenesaw Mountain, Franklin, and Nashville.

During the last part of the war, Samuel French was almost blind from an eye infection, and he was on inactive service in Mobile when the war ended. He returned to his Greenville plantation, where he planted cotton, and he helped to rebuild the Mississippi levees in the postwar period.

In 1876, he moved to Columbus, Georgia, and in 1881, he became a planter of orange groves in Winter Park, Florida.

French published his autobiography, "Two Wars," prior to his death in retirement in Florala, Alabama, on April 20, 1910.

Achievements

• Samuel Gibbs French was a Northerner, who became a Confederate General in the Civil War. He was promoted to Major General in August 1862 and was assigned to command a division in the Army of Tennessee, leading his command in the Battles of Jackson, Atlanta, and Nashville.
  
  French's memoirs "Two Wars" contain much information about the 19th century that is not taught in schools.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Two Wars: An Autobiography of General Samuel G. French ... Mexican War; War Between the States, a Diary; Reconstruction Period, His Experience; Incidents, Reminiscences, Etc 1901

Views

Quotations: "New Jersey was a slave state when I was born. In 1820 slavery was abolished, but there were two hundred and thirty-six slaves for life in 1850 in the State because it did not emancipate a slave then in being. It only set free the unborn babes. You see the difference between abolition and emancipation?"

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "French blasts the Yankees for nearly everything wrong in civilization, and the bitter partisanship of many passages mars the work’s credibility... the casualty figures he quotes in many instances are wildly inaccurate. The lengthy appendix, relating French’s ideas on numbers and statistics is worthless. What does remain useful in this work are the author’s diary accounts and recollections of the military campaigns and battles he witnessed." - David J. Eicher

Connections

French had one daughter by his marriage to Eliza Matilda Roberts on April 26, 1853. After his first wife died, he married Mary Fontaine Abercrombie on January 12, 1865. His children were Matilda French, a boy who died in childbirth with his mother, Samuel Gibbs French, Ada Mary French, and Robert Abercrombie French.

Father:

Samuel French

Mother:

Rebecca Clark French

1790-1879

late wife:

Eliza Matilda Roberts French

1825-1857

Wife:

Mary Fontaine Abercrombie French

1837-1900

Daughter:

Matilda French

Son:

Samuel Gibbs French

Daughter:

Ada Mary French

Son:

Robert Abercrombie French

colleague:

Zachary Taylor

References

• Civil War High Commands
  2002
• Who Was Who in the Civil War
  1988
• Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders
  2006
• Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy
  1977