Buckner, Simon Bolivar

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Simon Bolivar Buckner
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    South
    Origins
    Slave State
    Family
    Aylett Hartswell (father), Elizabeth Ann Morehead (mother), Mary Jane Kingsbury (first wife), Delia Claiborne (second wife), Lily Buckner (daughter), Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. (son)
    Education
    West Point (US Military Academy)
    Occupation
    Military
    Businessman
    Educator
    Journalist
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Political Parties
    Democratic
    Government
    Governor
    Military
    US military (Pre-Civil War)
    Confederate Army

    Simon Bolivar Buckner (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Buckner considered Union actions in Kentucky to be violations of the U.S. Constitution and of states' rights, so in September 1861 he went to Nashville, where he accepted Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston's offer of a brigadier generalship. Johnston ordered Buckner to Fort Donelson, where a terribly confused situation left him in command. The Union forces enveloped that position, and in February 1862 Buckner surrendered the fort on the now-famous "unconditional surrender" terms of General Ulysses S. Grant. Buckner remained a prisoner for more than five months. After being exchanged he was promoted to major general and served capably in a number of battles, notably Perryville and Chickamauga. In 1864 Buckner joined the trans-Mississippi forces of General E. Kirby Smith and in September received promotion to lieutenant general.
    Bennett H. Wall, "Buckner, Simon Bolivar," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00098.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Buckner, Simon Bolivar," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5258.