Brig General. William Loring, St Augustine, Fla - Obelisks on Waymarking.com

Few officers resigned from the US Army to enter the Confederate service with a richer experience than General William Wing “Old Blizzards” Loring. In May, 1861, he was six months past his 42nd birthday and had been soldiering since he was 14. He had been in Seminole Wars in Florida at a time when most of his later associates were learning parade-ground tactics on the fields of West Point. Later Loring studied law and graduated from Georgetown College; when Florida became a state, he sat in the state legislature. Loring distinguished himself in the battles at Cerro Gordo, Contreras and Churubusco; at Mexico City, he led an assault on Belen Gate and lost an arm. Thereafter, his empty sleeve bore its eloquent testimony to his courage and gallantry. At 38, he was the youngest line colonel of the United States Army. When Loring entered the Confederate service, even his enemies bore him tribute: a man of “unflinching honor and integrity”, said the Federal officer who replaced him in western command before the War in 1861.
Confederate General William Wing Loring resigned his commission in Santa Fe on May 13, 1861 in approval of states rights, although not in favor of secession.
After the war he was a New York banker and a Wall Street financial advisor before going to serve the Khedive of Egypt as brigadier general in 1869. In command of the defenses of Alexandria and the entire Egyptian coast, he led a division in the Abyssinian campaign (this campaign was marred by transportation and supply difficulties, and the Egyptian army was almost wiped out during the initial battle), earned decorations and promotion, and was made a pasha before returning to the U.S. in 1879. For the last seven years of his life the veteran officer lived in New York and Florida. He wrote newspaper and magazine articles and a book on his war experiences (" A Confederate Soldier in Egypt" (1884). Loring died on December 30, 1886 in New York, after a brief bout of pneumonia, and was buried in St. Augustine, Florida.

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