J. H. Hobart Ward

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John Henry Hobart Ward (June 17, 1823 – July 24, 1903) was a career soldier in the United States Army and the New York state militia, as well as a Union general during the American Civil War. His troops played a prominent role during the Battle of Gettysburg, where they held the left flank of the Union III Corps line on Devil's Den and Houck's Ridge.

Ward was born in New York City to a family of military veterans. His grandfather John Ward had fought in the American Revolutionary War and had suffered a disabling wound, as had his father, James Ward, during the War of 1812. Hobart Ward was educated at Trinity College and enlisted at the age of 18 in the 7th U.S. Infantry. He was promoted several times over the next four years, reaching the rank of sergeant major. Ward saw considerable combat action during the Mexican-American War, fighting in the siege of Fort Brown and being wounded at the Battle of Monterrey. He recovered in time to participate in the capture of Veracruz.

Ward returned to his native New York and served as assistant commissary general from 1851 until 1855, when he became the state's commissary general, a post he held until 1859.

Responding to President Lincoln's call to arms at the outbreak of the Civil War, Ward recruited the 38th New York Infantry and was appointed its first colonel. He led his regiment at the July 1861 First Battle of Bull Run, as well as in the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. Ward continued to perform well during the Northern Virginia Campaign, seeing more action at Second Bull Run and Chantilly. For his efforts, he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on October 4, 1862, and assigned command of a brigade in the III Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

He commanded the brigade at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. During the Gettysburg Campaign, Ward's brigade was assigned on July 2 by Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles to hold a large area from the Wheatfield Road to Devil's Den. Stretched thin with little reserves, Ward's brigade nevertheless held their ground stubbornly before finally being driven back by determined Confederate attacks. Ward, by then in temporary command of the division was wounded in action the following day. He was again wounded later that summer in fights at Kelly's Ford and Wapping Heights.

During the Overland Campaign in the spring of 1864, Ward was yet again wounded, this time at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. He was honorably mustered out on July 18, 1864.

After the war, he was a civil employee of New York City, serving as a clerk in the Superior Court from 1871 to 1896. At the age of eighty, he died in Monroe, New York, after being struck by a passing train. He was buried in Monroe in the Community Cemetery.