David Bell Birney (May 29, 1825 – October 18, 1864) was a businessman, lawyer, and a Union general in the American Civil War.

Following his graduation from Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts,[1] David Birney entered business, studied law, and was admitted to the bar.

Birney entered the Union army just after Fort Sumter as lieutenant colonel of the 23rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, a unit he raised largely at his own expense.

He was promoted to colonel on August 31, 1861, and to brigadier general on February 17, 1862, clearly benefiting from political influences, not military merit.

There, he once again encountered military discipline problems, this time for allegedly refusing to support Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's division's attack on the left flank of the Union line.

However, he was complimented in III Corps commander Maj. Gen. George Stoneman's official report for "the handsome manner in which he handled his division" on that same day and for a second time he escaped punishment.

Hood and Lafayette McLaws slammed into the III Corps, and Birney's division, hit on three sides, was completely demolished in the fighting with severe casualties.

"[2] Sickles had his leg shattered by an artillery shell and Birney assumed temporary command of the corps, despite having received two minor wounds himself.

After good service in the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House (where he was wounded by a shell fragment), and Cold Harbor battles, on July 23, 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant gave Birney command of the X Corps in the Army of the James.

Theodore Lyman of Meade's staff wrote of Birney:[3] He was a pale, Puritanical figure, with a demeanor of unmoveable coldness; only he would smile politely when you spoke to him.