Roswell Sabine Ripley (14 March 1823-29 March 1887) was a Brigadier-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Roswell Sabine Ripley was born in Worthington, Ohio in 1823, and he graduated from West Point in 1843, placing 7th in a class of 39 cadets. He served on the staffs of generals Zachary Taylor and Gideon Johnson Pillow during the Mexican-American War, becoming a captain after the Battle of Cerro Gordo and a major after the Battle of Chapultepec. In 1849, he fought against Seminole Native Americans in Florida, and he became a supporter of states' rights after becoming a businessman in South Carolina, where his wife lived. Ripley sided with his wife's state when the Confederate States of America seceded from the Union, serving in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He became a Brigadier-General after fighting at Fort Sumter in 1861, and he led the Second Military District of Southern South Carolina from December 1861 to May 1862. He served in the Army of Northern Virginia during its major battles and was wounded in the neck at Antietam, and he was sent to Charleston after his poor performance at Antietam. He defended the city from a US Navy blockade and a US Army siege, and he defended the city until its 1864 evacuation. After the war, Ripley lived in England for twenty years, as his wife and daughter left him. In the late 1880s, he returned to United States and died of a stroke in New York City in 1887.