He commanded an army during the final days of the Civil War, and was instrumental in forcing the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

For example, Saul David concludes that it is generally accepted that the Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert had at least one child and that James Ord would be the most likely candidate.

[4] Edward Ord was considered a mathematical genius and was appointed to the United States Military Academy by President Andrew Jackson.

In January 1847, Ord sailed on the USS Lexington around Cape Horn with Henry Halleck and William Tecumseh Sherman.

Since their military salaries no longer covered living expenses, Ord's commander suggested that the younger officers take on other jobs to supplement their income.

In the fall of 1848, Ord and Sherman, in the employ of John Augustus Sutter, Jr., assisted Captain William H. Warner of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the survey of Sacramento, California, helping to produce the map that established the future capital city's extensive downtown street grid.

Later, Los Angeles officials needed to have a survey of the public lands in order to sell them, and Ord was hired as the surveyor.

Thanks to the efforts of these two men, historians have a fairly good view of what the Pueblo de Los Angeles looked like in the middle of the 19th century.

La Reina De Los Angeles, published in 1929, states that Ord was offered 160 acres of public land and 10 building sites all in the present downtown business district but accepted the $3000 instead.

While assigned to Coast Survey duty, Ord divided his time between San Francisco and Los Angeles and continued to hire on as a land surveyor.

He then served in the Pacific Northwest, in campaigns against Native Americans, at Benicia Barracks, and Fort Monroe, Virginia before returning to California.

Ord penned a letter to his wife on December 2, 1859, from the arsenal, describing the day and a hilltop climb with Colonel Lee.

One of their notable children was Jules Garesche Ord, who was killed in action after reaching the top of San Juan Hill in Cuba.

On May 3, 1862, Ord was promoted to the rank of major general of volunteers and, after briefly serving in the Department of the Rappahannock, was assigned command of the 2nd Division of the Army of the Tennessee.

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent Ord with a detachment of two divisions along with Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans's forces to intercept Sterling Price at the town of Iuka.

Ord likewise missed the fighting at Corinth but engaged the Confederate forces in their retreat at the Battle of Hatchie's Bridge.

In the end, Lincoln directed Grant to decline all such offers unless it was for the explicit purpose of accepting the surrender of Lee's army.

General Sherman said that he "had always understood that [Ord's] skillful, hard march the night before was one of the chief causes of Lee's surrender."

After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, many in the North, including Ulysses S. Grant, wanted strong retribution to be visited upon the Southern states.

In January 1872, Ord was a member of the buffalo hunting excursion with the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia on the plains of southwest Nebraska with American celebrities of the day.