Loring, William W.

Born: 1818-12-04 Wilmington, North Carolina

Died: 1886-12-30 New York, New York

Loring moved with his family from his native state to the Florida Territory as a child. When the Second Seminole War began in December 1835, Loring, age seventeen, enlisted in the Florida Militia and fought in several skirmishes with the Seminoles. At age nineteen, he was a second lieutenant in the Florida Militia. After his stint in the militia, Loring attended Episcopal Academy in Alexandria, Virginia and Georgetown College, the latter from which he graduated in 1842 with a degree in law. He earned admittance to the Florida bar, and Florida voters elected him to the Florida Territorial Legislature, where he served three years. In May 1846 at the commencement of the Mexican War, he received a commission into the U.S. Army as a captain in the newly created Mounted Riflemen. In February 1847, he received promotion to major and participated in General Winfield Scott's expedition from Veracruz to Mexico City. He led a battalion at the Battle of Contreras, and at Chapultepec, he suffered a severe wound, losing his left arm. For his courage and gallantry, he was breveted lieutenant colonel on August 20, 1847 and colonel on September 13. In 1849, Loring crossed the continent over the Oregon Trail with his regiment from Fort Leavenworth to the Pacific--a trip of 2,500 miles--to take charge of the new Department of Oregon, a post he held until 1851. From 1851 to 1856, he was posted in Texas and New Mexico, where he fought Comanches and Kiowas. In September 1856, he transferred to the Department of New Mexico, and in December, he received promotion to colonel, becoming the youngest colonel in the army. In 1858, he and his regiment participated in the Mormon War. After a year's leave during which time he studied the militaries of Egypt, Europe, and the Ottoman Empire, Loring returned to the United States in the secession winter of 1860-61. In March 1861, he received command of the Department of New Mexico. Though not sympathetic to secession, Loring believed in states' rights, and in May 1861, he resigned his commission and offered his services to the Confederacy. On May 20, President Jefferson Davis commissioned him brigadier general in the Confederate Army. After the disastrous campaign in the Shenandoah Valley in the winter of 1861-62, the Confederate War Department reassigned Loring to the Department of Norfolk. In February 1862, Davis promoted Loring to major general. After the Confederates evacuated Norfolk, Loring took command of the Department of Southwestern Virginia. In December 1862, he transferred to the Army of the Mississippi, leading a division until the capture of Vicksburg. From July 1863 until the end of the war, Loring commanded a division in the Army of the Tennessee, fighting first in Tennessee and Georgia before transferring to the Carolinas in January 1865. He was the senior major general on duty when General Joseph Johnston surrendered in April. Paroled on May 2, Loring became a banker in New York City and, in 1869, joined the army of the Khedive of Egypt as a brigadier general.

Gravestone, Loring Cemetery, Saint Augustine, FL; E. C. Bearss, "Loring, William Wing," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 13:927-29; Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959), 193-94.