- Date:
- 1863
- Original Format:
- Photographic Print
- Item#:
- MES05756
Abner Doubleday (1819-1893)
Abner Doubleday graduated 24th in the West Point class of 1842 and served in the Seminole and Mexican Wars. He was stationed at Fort Sumter and is reported to have fired the first gun in defense of the fort. He served in the Union army as a Brigadier and Major General and took command of a corps at the first days fighting in Gettysburg after General Reynolds was killed. Doubleday was reported to have invented the game of baseball in Cooperstown, New York, but most baseball scholars have dismissed this as a myth.