Joseph Farmer Knipe (March 30, 1823 – August 18, 1901) was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

[2] With the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861 and the subsequent Federal call for troops to put down the rebellion, volunteers flocked to Harrisburg to enlist in Pennsylvania's newly commissioned regiments.

In September 1861, Governor Andrew Curtin commissioned Knipe as a colonel and authorized him to raise the 46th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Suffering from lingering effects from his wounds and a bout with malaria, he temporarily left the Army of the Potomac and returned to Harrisburg.

He took command of a brigade of inexperienced New York militia and led it in pursuit of the retreating Army of Northern Virginia following the Battle of Gettysburg.

He subsequently held a number of political patronage positions the rest of his life, both on the Federal and state level.