Abner Doubleday

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Abner Doubleday
Birthplace in Ballston Spa

Abner Doubleday (born June 26, 1819 in Ballston Spa , Saratoga County , New York , USA , † January 26, 1893 in Mendham , Morris County , New Jersey , USA) was a General of the Union Army in the Civil War and theosophist .

Life

Doubleday attended schools in Auburn and Cooperstown before settling at the United States Military Academy in West Point enrolled, which he in 1842 as a lieutenant (Second Lieutenant) of the artillery left. In 1846/48 he took part in the Mexican-American War and in 1855 in the 3rd campaign against the Seminoles . In the Civil War, Doubleday fired the Union's first shot when the Confederates opened war with the attack on Fort Sumter . In the course of the war he took part in several skirmishes and reached the rank of major general on November 29, 1862, the high point of his military career . Wounded during the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, he took over administrative duties at the War Department in Washington after his recovery . In 1873 he left the army. After his death on January 26, 1893, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Doubleday also became known as the alleged inventor of baseball in Cooperstown in 1839. However, this has now been refuted and Alexander Cartwright is now considered the father of baseball . Nonetheless, the Baseball Hall of Fame is now in Cooperstown, as this so-called “Doubleday legend” was still widely believed when the Hall of Fame was founded in the 1930s.

In 1878 he joined the Theosophical Society (TG) and became temporarily president of the society after Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott left for India in December 1878. After Olcott had moved the headquarters of the TG to Mumbai in the spring of 1879 , Doubleday was president of the American TG. He held this function until May 1884, when he was replaced by the American Board of Control appointed by Olcott . During this time, William Quan Judge reported to him as secretary. In 1883 Doubleday became vice president of the Aryan Theosophical Society of New York founded by Judge , a lodge of the TG.

Works

  • Chancellorsville and Gettysburg . Longmeadow Press, Stamford 1996, ISBN 0-681-21631-X (repr. Of New York 1882 edition)
  • Gettysburg made plain. A succinct account of the campaign and battles, with the aid of one diagram and twenty-nine maps . The Century Co., New York 1909
  • My life in the old army. The reminiscences of Abner Doubleday . Texas Christian University Press, Fort Worth 1998, ISBN 0-87565-185-2 (repr. Of New York 1890 edition)
  • Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 . Nautical & Aviation Pub. Co. of America, Baltimore, Md. 1998, ISBN 1-877853-54-2 (Repr. Of the New York 1876 edition)

literature

  • Dunham, Montrew: Abner Doubleday, boy baseball pioneer . Patria Press, Carmel, NY 2005, ISBN 1-882859-49-9
  • John H. Eicher, David J. Eicher: Civil War High Commands . Stanford University Press, Stanford, Calif. 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3
  • Dan Gutman: Abner & me. A baseball card adventure . Harper Collins, New York 2005, ISBN 0-06-053443-5
  • Robert S. Holzman: General "Baseball" Doubleday. The story of baseball and of its inventor . Longmans Green, New York 1955

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hall of Baseball: Alexander Cartwright
personal data
SURNAME Doubleday, Abner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American soldier and theosophist
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Ballston Spa , New York, USA
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1893
Place of death Mendham, New Jersey, USA