Invalided back to Philadelphia from the front with sickness, Major General David Birney dies at his home

General David Bell Birney, who before the war had practiced law in Philadelphia, had been invalided home from his duties as a Corps commander in the Army of the James.  He had been suffering from dysentery for some time, with the possible involvement of malaria, and was only home a week when he died of a severe intestinal hemorrhage. Medical opinion posits that typhoid was the final cause of death for this very ill soldier.  He was buried with great ceremony in the city.  He was thirty-nine years old.  (By John Osborne)