Isaac R. Trimble

Isaac Ridgeway Trimble (May 15, 1802 – January 2, 1888) was a United States Army officer, a civil engineer, a prominent railroad construction superintendent and executive, and a Confederate general in the American Civil War. He was born in Virginia, lived in Maryland for much of his adult life, and returned to Virginia in 1861 after Maryland did not secede. Trimble is most famous for his role as a division commander in the assault known as Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. He was wounded severely in the leg during that battle, and was left on the field. He spent most of the remainder of the war as a prisoner, and was finally paroled on April 16, 1865, one week after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia following the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Youth, education, building railroads Trimble was born in Frederick County, Virginia, to John and Rachel Ridgeway Trimble, and his family moved to Culpeper County, Virginia shortly thereafter. As a young boy, Trimble's mother and father both died of fever within a short period of time, and he was sent to live with his half-brother in Kentucky. He was nominated by U.S. Representative Henry Clay to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from which he graduated in 1822, 17th in a class of 42. Although he excelled academically in engineering, he was commissioned as a brevet second lieutenant of artillery. He served for ten years as a lieutenant in the 3rd and 1st U.S. Artillery regiments, and left the U.S. Army in May 1832, along with five of his West Point classmates, to pursue the emerging business of railroad construction. Trimble was married twice: first, in 1831 to Maria Cattell Presstman of Charleston, South Carolina, who died in 1855; second, to her sister, Ann Ferguson Presstman. By his first marriage he had two sons, David Churchill Trimble and William Presstman Trimble, who survived him. Soon after leaving the Army, Trimble moved to Maryland at the urging of his wife, and he subsequently considered it his home state. He helped survey the route of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He was a construction engineer for the Boston and Providence Railroad.