Amiel Weeks Whipple (15 October 1818 – 7 May 1863) was a Major-General of the US Army during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Amiel Weeks Whipple was born in Greenwich, Massachusetts in 1818, and he graduated from West Point in 1841. He served as a US Army surveyor and helped with mapping out the First Transcontinental Railroad and with writing a botanical description of cactus. Whipple served under Irvin McDowell when the American Civil War broke out in 1861, and he was promoted to Brigadier-General in 1862, fighting at Fredericksburg. Whipple was wounded by a sharpshooter while leading the 3rd Division, III Corps, Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, and he was promoted to Major-General before dying from his wounds on 7 May 1863.