Abner Doubleday

Abner Doubleday was a career United States Army officer and Union major 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.

26 June 1819

Born on the same birth day (26 June): Bernard Berenson • Guðni Th. Jóhannesson • Ingrid Lempereur • Inha Babakova • J. J. Dillon • Jason Kendall • Ogyen Trinley Dorje • Pearl S. Buck • Priscah Jeptoo • Salvador Allende • Zuzana Kučová

Born in the same month (June 1819): Anton Anderledy • Charles Kingsley • Francis V, Duke of Modena • Gustave Courbet • Henry Gardner • Jacques Offenbach • Johan Jongkind • John Couch Adams • Magdalene Thoresen • Thomas Dunn English