Pemberton, John Clifford

Pemberton, John Clifford

(1814–81) soldier; born in Philadelphia. Although of Quaker ancestry, he served in the Seminole War, the Mexican War, and on the frontier. Married into a Virginia family, he entered the Confederate army after Fort Sumter. By October 1862 he was a lieutenant general and assigned responsibility for the defense of the Mississippi River stronghold of Vicksburg; besieged there by May 1863, he was outgeneraled by Ulysses S. Grant and surrendered on July 4 in one of the decisive Union victories of the Civil War. Because of his roots, Pemberton was criticized by some in the South as having betrayed the Confederacy. He resigned his general's commission and served as a colonel of ordnance for the rest of the war, after which he took up farming in Virginia, eventually returning to Philadelphia.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.