One of the youngest general officers on either side in the American Civil War, Edward Porter Alexander was born in Washington, Georgia on May 26, 1835. He attended the United States Military Academy, graduating third in a class of 38 in 1857.
Prior to the war, Alexander served as an instructor at West Point, as well as on the Utah Expedition against the Mormons in 1857 and 1858. When his native state seceded from the Union prior to the Civil War, Alexander resigned his commission in the U.S. Army to join the Confederacy. He began his career in the CSA as a Captain of Engineers, and would rise to the rank of Brigadier General of Artillery by the end of the war.
Alexander was present at virtually every major battle in the Eastern Theatre, including both first and second Bull Run, the Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Overland Campaign that ultimately led to the siege of Petersburg and Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
Alexander is perhaps best known as the commander of James Longstreet's artillery at the battle of Gettysburg, where he directed the pre-assault bombardment prior to Pickett's Charge. He is also often given credit for telling General Lee at Fredericksburg that "a chicken could not live on that field" in reference to the open ground before Marye's Heights that would become a Union killing ground in the ensuing battle.
Wounded twice during the war, Alexander would be just short of his thirtieth birthday at the time of Appomattox. Following the conflict, he held positions as a professor at South Carolina University, served as president of the Louisville and Nashville railroad, and had several political appointments. He also wrote two memoirs of his experiences in the war, often regarded as some of the most objective first-person accounts of the conflict.
Alexander died on April 28, 1910, and is buried in Augusta, Georgia.
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