The Civil War of the United States

April Birthdays

James Fisk, born April 1, 1835

James Fisk, Jr. was born in the hamlet of Pownal, Vermont.  He was 26 years old when the Civil War began.

Thaddeus Stevens, born April 4, 1792
Thaddeus Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont on April 4, 1792.   He was 69 years old when the Civil War began.

Dorothea Dix, born April 4, 1802
Dorothea Lynde Dix was born April 4, 1802, in the town of  Hampden, Maine.   She was 59 years old when the Civil War began. 

Clairborne Fox Jackson, born April 4, 1806
Claiborne Fox Jackson, one of ten children of Dempsey Carroll and Mary Orea "Molly" (Pickett) Jackson, was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, where his father was a wealthy tobacco farmer and slaveholder. He was 55 years old when the Civil War began.


Robert Smalls, born April 5, 1839
Robert Smalls was born in 1839 into slavery, in a cabin behind the house of his master John McKee in Beaufort, South Carolina. He was 22 years old when the Civil War began.


Charles W. Field, born April 6, 1828
Charles William Field was born at the family plantation, "Airy Mount," in Woodford County, Kentucky. He was 33 years old when the Civil War began.

William R. King, born April 7, 1785
William Rufus DeVane King was born in Sampson County, North Carolina, the second son of William King and Margaret DeVane. He died 8 years before the Civil War began.

Anderson Abbott, born April 7, 1837
Anderson Ruffin Abbott was born in Toronto, Canada, the son of Wilson Ruffin Abbott and and Ellen (Toyer) Abbott. He was 24 years old when the Civil War began.

Alexander Kelly, born April 7, 1840

Alexander Kelly was born in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania in 1840. He was 21 years old when the Civil War began.

Allen Allensworth, born April 7, 1842

Born into slavery in Louisville, Kentucky in 1842, Allen was the youngest of thirteen children of Phyllis Starbird and Levi Allensworth. Allen was 19 years old when the Civil War began.

Lew Wallace, born April 10, 1827

Lewis "Lew" Wallace was born in Brookville, Franklin County, Indiana to David Wallace and Esther French (Test) Wallace. He was 33 years old when the Civil War began. 

Henry Villard (Heinrich Hilgard), born April 10, 1835 

He was born and raised as Ferdinand Heinrich Gustav Hilgard in Speyer, in the Rhenish Palatinate of the Kingdom of Bavaria. He was 26 years old when the Civil War began.

Elmer Ellsworth, born April 11, 1837

Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth was born in Malta, New York. Ellsworth celebrated his 24th birthday the day before Fort Sumter was surrendered and the Civil War began. He died six weeks later.

Mary White Ovington, born April 11, 1865
Mary White Ovington was born in Brooklyn, New York a few days before the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. She was born as the Civil War was ending.

Henry Clay, born April 12, 1777

Henry Clay was born on April 12, 1777, at the Clay homestead in Hanover County, Virginia. He was born two years after the Revolutionary War began, and died nine years before the Civil War began.

Grenville Dodge, born April 12, 1831

Grenville Mellen Dodge was born in Putnamville, Massachsetts, to Sylvanus and Julia Theresa Phillips Dodge. He was 30 years old when the Civil War began.

Nella Larsen, born April 13, 1891
Nellallitea Walker was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 13, 1891, the daughter of Marie Hanson, a Danish immigrant, and Peter Walker, a West Indian man of predominantly African descent from Saint Croix. She was born 26 years after the Civil War ended.

John Pierpont Morgan, born April 17, 1837
John Pierpont "J. P." Morgan was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the first child of Junius Spencer Morgan and Juliet Pierpont. He was 24 years old when the Civil War began.

James McCune Smith, born April 18, 1813
James McCune Smith was born free in 1813 in New York City, New York; his mother, Lavinia Smith, was a slave from South Carolina who had been brought to New York by her master. He was 48 years old when the Civil War began; he would die five months after it ended.

Beriah Magoffin, born April 18, 1815
Beriah Magoffin was born on April 18, 1815 in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, the son of Beriah and Jane (McAfee) Magoffin. He was 46 years old when the Civil War began.

Joseph Evan Davis, born April 18, 1859

"Joe" Davis was born on April 18,1859, in Washington, D.C., the son of Senator Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell Davis.  He was 2 years old when the Civil War began; he died 3 years later on April 30, 1864, in a fall at the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia, two weeks after his fifth birthday.

Louis Trezevant Wigfall, born April 21, 1816

Louis Wigfall was born on a plantation near Edgefield, South Carolina, to Levi Durant and Eliza Thomson Wigfall.  He was 45 years old when the Civil War began.

Alexander McCook, born April 22, 1831
Alexander McDowell McCook was born the fifth son of Daniel and Margaret McCook in Columbiana County, Ohio. He was 30 years old when the Civil War began.

Lewis Thornton Powell (aka Lewis Paine or Payne), born April 22, 1844
Lewis Powell was born in Randolph County, Alabama, on April 22, 1844 to a Baptist minister, schoolmaster, farmer, blacksmith and slaveowner, George Cader Powell, and his young wife Patience Caroline Powell, who was a distant cousin. He was 17 when the Civil War began.

Henry Thomas Harrison, born April 23, 1832
Henry Thomas Harrison, the son of Henry Hargrove Harrison and Rebecca Pearson Harrison, was born near Nashville on April 23, 1832.  He was 29 years old when the Civil War began.

Thomas Nelson Page, born April 23, 1853
Thomas Nelson Page was born at Oakland, one of the Nelson family plantations, in Hanover County, Virginia, to John Page and Elizabeth Burwell Nelson. He was eight years old when the Civil War began.

Frederick Law Olmsted, born April 26, 1822
Frederick Law Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on April 26, 1822. He was 39 years old when the Civil War began.