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 maj gen rank insignia.jpg 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 is often mistakenly credited with inventing baseball.[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. 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]

One of the persistent myths of baseball history is that Doubleday invented the game in 1839, although he was in West Point at the time. Doubleday never claimed to have invented baseball. Neither his letters nor his diaries nor his New York Times obituary ever mentions the game. 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, and 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]




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]





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. 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.

Namesakes and honors[edit]

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.[13]


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

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. 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. ^ "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
July 1, 1863 – July 2, 1863
Succeeded by
John Newton (engineer)