In October, the 21st North Carolina was attached to Isaac Trimble's brigade and the following spring, he participated in Stonewall Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign.

Transferred to North Carolina in December, Kirkland assisted in the defense of Fort Fisher by forcing back the Federal advance under the command of Benjamin Butler.

Later, when the Confederates abandoned the fort and withdrew to Wilmington, he commanded the rear guard and directed events in the fighting at Wise's Fork.

After the war, Kirkland settled in Savannah, Georgia, where he worked in the commission business as partner of Noble Hardee, the father of his wife Susan Ann.

Kirkland spent the last years of his life in a soldier's home in Washington, D.C., where he died of kidney disease on May 12, 1915, and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.