John Gibbon was born in Philadelphia, but his family moved to North Carolina in his youth and became enslavers. Like Thomas, he graduated from the Military Academy and later returned as an instructor, being an expert in artillery.
Three of his brothers chose to fight for the Confederacy, but Gibbon did not. Instead, he commanded the fierce “Iron Brigade” at the battles of Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, where his men bore the brunt of Pickett’s Charge, and where he was wounded. After recovering, he returned to fight in the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, making him a kind of Civil War-era Forrest Gump, everywhere at all the big moments.
The biggest moment came on April 9, 1865, when Gibbon was among the commissioners at the Appomattox courthouse who accepted Lee’s surrender.
