Brig. Gen Lloyd Tilghman Marker - Vicksburg National Military Park - Specific Veteran Memorials on Waymarking.com

Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman

"Lloyd Tilghman (January 26, 1816 - May 16, 1863) was a Confederate general in the American Civil War.

A railroad construction engineer by background, he was selected by the Confederate government to build two forts to defend the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The location of Fort Henry on the Tennessee was vulnerable to flooding, but Tilghman was slow to spot this, and his surrender of the fort to U.S. Grant in February 1862 was regarded as a disgrace. Taken prisoner and exchanged, he commanded a brigade in the Vicksburg campaign, and was killed by a shell at the Battle of Champion Hill, where he was widely praised for gallantry.

On February 6, 1862, an army under Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and gunboats under Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote attacked Fort Henry and Tilghman was forced to surrender. (This was not his first encounter with Grant. Tilghman was in Paducah when Grant captured that city the previous September.) Prior to doing so, he led the vast majority of his garrison troops on the 12-mile road to Fort Donelson, and then returned to surrender with a handful of artillerymen who were left defending the fort. The biggest factor in the defeat of Fort Henry was not the naval artillery or Grant's infantry; it was the rising flood waters of the Tennessee, which flooded the powder magazines and forced a number of the guns out of action. (If Grant's attack had been delayed by two days, the battle would have never occurred because the fort was by then entirely underwater.) Tilghman was imprisoned as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston and was not released until August 15, when he was exchanged for Union general John F. Reynolds. Tilghman is remembered as brave and gallant in surrendering with his men, but he was derelict in his duty by abandoning the command of his garrison, which was responsible for the defense of both Henry and Donelson. (He was replaced by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd at Donelson, whose army fought under poor leadership and was surrendered to Grant on February 16.)

Returning to the field in the fall of 1862, Tilghman became a brigade commander in Mansfield Lovell's division of Earl Van Dorn's Army of the West, following the Second Battle of Corinth. In the Vicksburg Campaign of 1863, he was hit in the chest by a shell fragment and killed in the Battle of Champion Hill. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City."



Text of Marker:

(Palm frond, inverted crossed torches, shield)
BRIG. GEN. LLOYD TILGHMAN
Commanding 1st Brigade
Loring's Division
Johnston's Army
Killed in the Battle of Champion's Hill
May 16 1863

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