Hugh Judson Kilpatrick (January 14, 1836 – December 4, 1881) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War, achieving the rank of brevet major general.

Nicknamed "Kilcavalry" (or "Kill-Cavalry") for using tactics in battle that were considered as recklessly disregarding the lives of soldiers under his command, Kilpatrick was both praised for the victories he achieved, and despised by Southerners whose homes and towns he devastated.

[1] Kilpatrick was the first United States Army officer to be wounded in the Civil War, struck in the thigh by canister fire while leading a company at the Battle of Big Bethel, June 10, 1861.

[3] By September 25 he was a lieutenant colonel, now of the 2nd New York Cavalry Regiment, which he helped to raise, and it was the mounted arm that brought him fame and infamy.

He raided the Virginia Central Railroad early in the campaign and then ordered a twilight cavalry charge the first evening of the battle, losing a full squadron of troopers.

In the Chancellorsville Campaign in May, Stoneman's cavalry was ordered to swing deeply behind Gen. Robert E. Lee's army and destroy railroads and supplies.

At the beginning of the Gettysburg Campaign, on June 9, 1863, Kilpatrick fought at Brandy Station, the largest cavalry battle of the war.

He received his brigadier general's star at the age of 27 on June 13, fought at Aldie and Upperville, and assumed division command three days before the Battle of Gettysburg commenced.

On the second day of the Gettysburg battle, July 2, 1863, Kilpatrick's division skirmished against Wade Hampton five miles northeast of town at Hunterstown.

That fall, he took part in an expedition to destroy the Confederate gunboats Satellite and Reliance in the Rappahannock River, boarding them and capturing their crews successfully.

Defenses around the city were too strong however and numerous squads of Confederate militia and cavalry nipped at their heels the whole way, including some of General Wade Hampton's troopers dispatched from the Army of Northern Virginia.

The survivors reported that they had made a nightmarish journey through the countryside around Richmond in darkness and a sleet storm, the woods filled with enemy troops and hostile civilians at every turn.

Papers found on the body of Dahlgren shortly after his death described the object of the expedition, apparently indicating that he intended to burn and loot Richmond and assassinate Jefferson Davis and the whole Confederate cabinet.

Kilpatrick's men had cut a swathe of destruction across the outskirts of Richmond, destroying tobacco barns, boats, railroad cars and tracks, and other infrastructure.

They also deposited a large number of pamphlets in and around homes and other buildings offering amnesty to any Southern civilian who took the oath of loyalty to the United States.

General Braxton Bragg denounced the papers as "fiendish" and Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon proposed that the Union prisoners be hanged.

Robert E. Lee agreed that they made for an atrocious document, but urged calm, saying that no actual destruction had taken place and the papers might very well be fakes.

In addition, Lee was concerned because some Confederate guerrillas had just been captured by the Army of the Potomac, which was considering hanging them, and execution of Dahlgren's men might set off a chain reaction.

The city was garrisoned with African-American troops, and one stopped to inform a cavalryman that only persons on active duty were allowed to ride horses through the streets.

He had considerable success raiding behind Confederate lines, tearing up railroads, and at one point rode his division completely around the enemy positions in Atlanta.

On two occasions his coarse personal instincts betrayed him: Confederate cavalry under the command of Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton raided his camp while he was in bed.

Walsh fired six shots from his revolver at the approaching General and his staff while several citizens of Raleigh begged him not to, fearing the destruction of the city which had surrendered days earlier.

Kilpatrick accompanied Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman to the surrender negotiations held at Bennett Place near Durham, North Carolina, on April 17, 1865.

As American Minister to Chile, Kilpatrick was involved in an attempt to arbitrate between the combatants of the Chincha Islands War after the Valparaiso bombardment (1866).

In Chile he married his second wife, Luisa Fernandez de Valdivieso (1836-1928), a member of a wealthy family of Spanish origin that had emigrated to South America in the 17th century.

[13] Kilpatrick was the author of two plays, Allatoona: An Historical and Military Drama in Five Acts (1875) and The Blue and the Gray: Or, War is Hell (posthumous, 1930).