Abner Doubleday

Abner Doubleday 1819-93, once credited as originator of baseball and Union general in the American Civil War, b. Saratoga co., N.Y., grad. West Point, 1842. The A. G. Mills commission (1905-8) investigated the origin of baseball and, based upon a single, unsubstantiated letter from an elderly man who later died in an insane asylum, declared that in 1839 Doubleday invented the game at Cooperstown, N.Y. In fact, Doubleday's obituary described him as a man who did not care for outdoor sports, and scholars since have effectively discredited the Cooperstown myth. Doubleday served in the Mexican War and in the Civil War. He saw action at Fort Sumter (where he fired the first shot in defense), Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg.

Doubleday, Abner (1819–93) Union army officer and graduate of West Point, born in Ballston Spa, New York. Doubleday served at Monterrey (1846) and Buena Vista (1847) during the Mexican War (1846–48) and also participated in military campaigns against the Apaches in the Southwest and the Seminoles in Florida. Doubleday claimed to have aimed and ordered the first retaliatory shot from Fort Sumter at the time of its bombardment (1861). His brigade saw action at the Second Battle of Bull Run and he led his division in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg (all 1862). A brigade under his command at Gettysburg (1863), his last major battle, played a key role in repelling the final Confederate assault. He held administrative duties in Washington for the remainder of the war, and retired from the military in 1873.

Although Doubleday is popularly recognized as the inventor of baseball, scholars of the game have largely discredited the claim.