John George Walker

Commanding Walker's Division during the Vicksburg campaign.

Library of Congress

Born in 1821 in Missouri, John George Walker’s family were politically connected all the way up through the White House. A relative of the seventh president Andrew Jackson on his maternal side and two of his father’s brothers in Congress, Walker had considerable political clout on his side.

Graduating from Jesuit College (present-day St. Louis University), Walker received an army commission as a first lieutenant in the Mounted Rifle regiment. He served with distinction during the Mexican-American War, being severely wounded at the Battle of Molino del Ray, in 1847. Walker spent the 1850s serving in the southwest and fighting against the Comanche.

Resigning his army commission in July 1861, Walker had been made a major of cavalry in the Confederate service the previous March. He was involved in the organization of a Texas cavalry regiment in December 1861, and participated in the Battle of Rowlett’s Station, in Kentucky, before being promoted to brigadier general and sent to Virginia. Walker commanded both a brigade, then division in the Army of Northern Virginia. Promoted to major general in November, he was transferred west to the Trans-Mississippi Department.

During the Vicksburg campaign, John G. Walker commanded a division of elite western Confederate troops known as “Walker’s Greyhounds.” Lieutenant general John C. Pemberton, attempting to prevent Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee from capturing Vicksburg, requested assistance from Confederate troops throughout the southern states. Walker’s division was ordered to join major general Richard Taylor’s forces and attack Grant’s supply depots.

Walker split his division and attacked both Young’s Point and Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana. At Milliken’s Bend, Walker’s troops fought a desperate struggle with newly recruited, inexperienced African American regiments. Initially successful, the Confederate forces were driven back by a determined stand of the slaves turned soldiers and naval support.

For the rest of the war, Walker served in the western outreaches of the Civil War. He rose to command the District of Western Louisiana in 1864, then commanded the District of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. At the end of the war, Walker took over the command of John Horace Forney’s division. Fearing retribution, Walker to Cuba through Mexico, after the war.
John George Walker returned to the United States I 1868. He worked as a life insurance agent, in a railroad company in Texas, before being selected as US consul to Bogata, Columbia, during the Grover Cleveland administration. Walker died in Washington, D.C. in 1893, of a stroke.