Abner Doubleday

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Abner Doubleday
Abner Doubleday, Major General USA
Born (1819-06-26)June 26, 1819
Ballston Spa, New York
Died January 26, 1893(1893-01-26) (aged 73)
Mendham, New Jersey
Place of burial Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Army
Union Army
Years of service 1842–1873
Rank Union Army major general rank insignia.svg Major General
Commands held I Corps
35th U.S. Infantry
24th U.S. Infantry
Battles/wars Mexican–American War
Seminole Wars
American Civil War
American Indian Wars

Abner Doubleday (June 26, 1819 – January 26, 1893) was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter, the opening battle of the war, and had a pivotal role in the early fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg was his finest hour, but his relief by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade caused lasting enmity between the two men. In San Francisco, after the war, he obtained a patent on the cable car railway that still runs there. In his final years in New Jersey, he was a prominent member and later president of the Theosophical Society. Doubleday has been historically credited with inventing baseball, although this is untrue.[1][2]

Early years[edit]

Doubleday, the son of Ulysses F. Doubleday and Hester Donnelly, was born in Ballston Spa, New York, in a small house on the corner of Washington and Fenwick streets. As a child, Abner was very short. The family all slept in the attic loft of the one-room house. His paternal grandfather, also named Abner, had fought in the American Revolutionary War. His maternal grandfather joined the army at 14 and was a mounted messenger for George Washington. His father, Ulysses F. Doubleday, fought in the War of 1812, published newspapers and books, and represented Auburn, New York for four years in the United States Congress.[3] Abner spent his childhood in Auburn and later was sent to Cooperstown to live with his uncle and attend a private preparatory high school. He practiced as a surveyor and civil engineer for two years before entering the United States Military Academy[4] in 1838. He graduated in 1842, 24th in a class of 56 cadets, and was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery.[5] In 1852, he married Mary Hewitt of Baltimore.[6]

Military career[edit]

Early commands and Fort Sumter[edit]

Doubleday photo displayed at Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston harbor
Fort Sumter Medal bearing the likeness of Major Robert Anderson which was presented to Abner Doubleday

Doubleday initially served in coastal garrisons and then in the Mexican–American War from 1846 to 1848 and the Seminole Wars from 1856 to 1858. In 1858 he was transferred to Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor serving under Colonel John L. Gardner. By the start of the Civil War, he was a captain and second in command in the garrison at Fort Sumter, under Major Robert Anderson.[3] He aimed the cannon that fired the first return shot in answer to the Confederate bombardment on April 12, 1861. He subsequently referred to himself as the "hero of Sumter" for this role.[4]

Brigade and division command in Virginia[edit]


Doubleday again led the division, now assigned to the I Corps of the Army of the Potomac, after South Mountain, where Hatch was wounded again. At Antietam, he led his men into the deadly fighting in the Cornfield and the West Woods, and one colonel described him as a "gallant officer ... remarkably cool and at the very front of battle."[4] He was wounded when an artillery shell exploded near his horse, throwing him to the ground in a violent fall. He received a brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel in the regular army for his actions at Antietam and was promoted in March 1863 to major general of volunteers, to rank from November 29, 1862.[8] At Fredericksburg in December 1862, his division mostly sat idle. During the winter, the I Corps was reorganized and Doubleday assumed command of the 3rd Division. At Chancellorsville in May 1863, the division was kept in reserve.[4]


Birthplace in Ballston Spa
Doubleday and his wife, Mary



Doubleday's indecision as a commander in the war resulted in his uncomplimentary nickname "Forty-Eight Hours."[5]



Postbellum career[edit]

After the Civil War, Doubleday mustered out of the volunteer service on August 24, 1865, reverted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and became the colonel of the 35th U.S. Infantry in September 1867. He was stationed in San Francisco from 1869 through 1871 and he took out a patent for the cable car railway that still runs there, receiving a charter for its operation, but signing away his rights when he was reassigned. In 1871 he commanded the 24th U.S. Infantry, an all African-American regiment with headquarters at Fort McKavett, Texas.[6] He retired in 1873


Doubleday spent much of his time writing. He published two important works on the Civil War: Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie (1876), and Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882), the latter being a volume of the series Campaigns of the Civil War.[5]


In the summer of 1878 Doubleday lived in Mendham Township, New Jersey, and became a prominent member of the Theosophical Society. When two of the founders of that society, Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, moved to India at the end of that year, he was constituted as the president of the American body. Another prominent member was Thomas A. Edison.[10]


Doubleday's tombstone in Arlington National Cemetery

Doubleday died of heart disease. Doubleday's body was laid in state in New York's City Hall and then was taken to Washington by train[4] from Mendham Township, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.[5]


Main article: Doubleday myth

Although Doubleday achieved minor fame as a competent combat general with experience in many important Civil War battles, he is more widely remembered as the supposed inventor of the game of baseball, in Elihu Phinney's cow pasture in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839.


However, there is considerable evidence to dispute this claim. Baseball historian George B. Kirsch has described the results of the Mills Commission as a "myth". He wrote, "Robert Henderson, Harold Seymour, and other scholars have since debunked the Doubleday-Cooperstown myth, which nonetheless remains powerful in the American imagination because of the efforts of Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown." At his death, Doubleday left many letters and papers, none of which describe baseball or give any suggestion that he considered himself a prominent person in the evolution of the game, and his New York Times obituary did not mention the game at all. Chairman Mills himself, who had been a Civil War colleague of Doubleday and a member of the honor guard for Doubleday's body as it lay in state in New York City, never recalled hearing Doubleday describe his role as the inventor. Doubleday was a cadet at West Point in the year of the alleged invention and his family had moved away from Cooperstown the prior year. Furthermore, the primary testimony to the commission that connected baseball to Doubleday was that of Abner Graves, whose credibility is questionable; a few years later, he shot his wife to death and was committed to an institution for the criminally insane for the rest of his life.[1] Part of the confusion could stem from there being another man by the same name in Cooperstown in 1839.[12]

Despite the lack of solid evidence linking Doubleday to the origins of baseball, Cooperstown, New York became the new home of what is today the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 1937.

There may have been some relationship to baseball as a national sport and Abner Doubleday. While the modern rules of baseball were formulated in New York during the 1840s, it was the scattering of New Yorkers exposed to these rules throughout the country, that spread not only baseball, but also the "New York Rules", thereby harmonizing the rules, and being a catalyst for its growth. Doubleday was a high-ranking officer, whose duties included seeing to provisions for the US Army fighting throughout the south and border states. For the morale of the men, he is said to have provisioned balls and bats for the men.[13]

Namesakes and honors[edit]

Abner Doubleday monument in Ballston Spa

There is a monument to Doubleday at Gettysburg erected by his men, admirers, and the state of New York. There is a 7-foot (2.1 m) obelisk monument at Arlington National Cemetery where he is buried, located about 130 feet (40 m) behind the Lee Mansion. There was a movement to petition the postmaster general to issue a U.S. postage stamp for him in 2011, commemorating the 150th anniversary of Fort Sumter. Doubleday Field is a minor league baseball stadium named for Abner Doubleday, located in Cooperstown, New York, near the Baseball Hall of Fame. It hosted the annual Hall of Fame Game, an exhibition game between two major league teams that was played from 1940 until 2008.[14]

The Auburn Doubledays are a minor league baseball team based in Doubleday's hometown of Auburn, New York.

Doubleday Field at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where the Army Black Knights play at Johnson Stadium, is named in Doubleday's honor.

The Abner Doubleday Little League and Babe Ruth Fields in Ballston Spa, New York, the town of his birth. The house of his birth still stands in the middle of town and there is a monument to him on Front Street.

A sign at the Doubleday Hill Monument, erected in Williamsport, Maryland to commemorate Doubleday's occupation of a hill there during the Civil War, claims he invented the game in 1835.

Mendham Borough, NJ and Mendham Township, NJ held a municipal holiday known as "Abner Doubleday Day" for numerous years in the General's honor and commissioned a plaque near the sight of his home in the borough in 1998, even though the borough was known as Mendham Township back then.

In 2004 the Abner Doubleday Society erected a monument to Doubleday in Iron Spring Park, Ballston Spa, near his birthplace.

In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS Abner Doubleday was named in his honor.

In popular culture[edit]

In the movie The Ridiculous 6, Doubleday is portrayed by John Turturro. The character organizes the first game of baseball between the six main characters and a group of Chinese immigrants, creating the rules as he goes, primarily to allow him to win.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b Kirsch, pp. xiii-xiv.
  2. ^ "The Doubleday myth is Cooperstown's gain: Pastoral village has become the heart of baseball folklore". National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Archived from the original on September 26, 2014. Retrieved September 20, 2012. 
  3. ^ a b c Beckenbaugh, pp. 611-12.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Tagg, pp. 25-27.
  5. ^ a b c d e Eicher, p. 213.
  6. ^ a b Texas Handbook
  7. ^ Langellier, pp. 43, 45, 49.
  8. ^ Eicher, p. 703.
  9. ^ Coddington, pp. 690-91.
  10. ^ Gomes, Theosophy article
  11. ^ Kirsch, pp. xiii.
  12. ^ Morris, Peter. But Didn't We Have Fun. Ivan R. Dee Publishing. 2008
  13. ^ Bats,Balls, and Bullets Essay by George B. Kirsch Civil War Times Illustrated: May 1998 pages 30-37
  14. ^ "Hall of Fame schedules replacement game for 2009". USA Today. November 18, 2008. 


Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

Military offices
Preceded by
John F. Reynolds
Commander of the I Corps (Army of the Potomac)
July 1, 1863 – July 2, 1863
Succeeded by
John Newton