Ormsby M. Mitchel

Ormbsy McKnight Mitchel (July 28,1809 – October 30,1862) was an American astronomer and Major General in the American Civil War. He began life as a clerk, but, obtaining an appointment to a cadetship at West Point in 1825, he graduated there in 1829, and acted as assistant professor of mathematics 1829-1832. He was then called to the bar, but in 1836 became professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Cincinnati College. In 1845 he was made director of an observatory established there through his initiative, and also in 1859 superintendent of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, New York.

During the Civil War he became famous when he took the city of Huntsville, Alabama without a shot being fired in 1862, after he led his troops there from Shelbyville, Tennessee in a surprise maneuver. He then was named Commander of the Department of the South at Hilton Head, South Carolina, but died of yellow fever shortly after assuming his post.

A crater on Mars was named in his honor.

External links

• Short biography
• Portrait at Dudley Observatory site

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