Alexander Hays

Alexander Hays, born in Franklin, Pa., in 1819, attended Allegheny College and graduated from West Point, along with his good friend and classmate, Ulysses S. Grant. He served in the Mexican War and, returning to Pittsburgh, married Annie McFadden of Sewickley, daughter of a Pittsburgh jeweler. After a failed venture in iron, he followed the gold rush to California. Not finding success there, he returned to Pittsburgh and became an engineer. Hays re-entered the military during the Civil War and quickly gained respect as a leader. Although arriving at Gettysburg a newly appointed division-level commander and not knowing his two brigades, he rallied his men to collect discarded rifles and reload them, enabling some soldiers to have as many as four ready. As Hays rode up and down the front of his troops exhorting them to “stand fast and fight like men,” his division broke Pickett’s final charge. A year later, in 1864, he was shot and killed at the Battle of the Wilderness. Historian Bruce Catton recorded that, “Grant took the news quietly, saying that he was not surprised to learn that Hays had been in the front line of action when he was killed.” Later, visiting Hays’ tomb in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Cemetery, Grant is said to have wept.