Michael J. Kelly: A Brief Biography of the Civil War Officer (unknown–1867)
By: Pember W. Rocap
Revised by: William V. Scott
Published: February 1, 1995
Updated: April 17, 2025
Michael J. Kelly, military officer, was born in Ireland. Naturalization records of Washington, D.C., list a Michael John Kelly naturalizing on November 6, 1856. He was commissioned a second lieutenant of the First United States Cavalry from Washington, D.C., on May 8, 1861. Kelly was transferred to the Fourth United States Cavalry on August 3, 1861, with the realignment of the cavalry regiments. During the Civil War he was promoted to first lieutenant on July 17, 1862, and brevet captain on December 31, 1862, for gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Stones River, Tennessee, and to brevet major on September 1, 1864, for similar conduct during the Atlanta campaign.
Kelly was promoted to captain on April 21, 1866. On January 4, 1867, Kelly of Company G of the Fourth U.S. Cavalry was transferred to Fort Mason from detached service at Camp Verde; he had arrived at the post on December 24, 1866. Kelly led a scouting party out of Fort Mason from March 13 to April 2, 1867. He was transferred to Fort Chadbourne and was en route to the post on May 15, 1867. He commanded a permanent camp on the Concho River in July 1867 and returned to Fort Chadbourne, where he served until he became ill and died of typhoid fever in the post hospital on August 13, 1867. Kelly was originally buried in the post cemetery at Fort Chadbourne, and his remains were moved to Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., after 1867 when the fort was abandoned.
The permanent camp on the construction site of Fort Concho was named Camp Kelly in his honor for a time in early 1868 until the post was renamed Fort Concho. Capt. George Gibson Huntt described Kelly as the first federal officer to reoccupy Fort Chadbourne since the Federal evacuation of Texas following Gen. David Twiggs’s surrender in 1861.
Bibliography:
J. Evetts Haley, Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier (San Angelo Standard-Times, 1952). John P. Hatch, Subject Folder, Fort Concho National Historical Landmark Files, San Angelo. Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1903; rpt., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). William H. Powell, List of Officers of the Army of the United States from 1779–1900 (New York: Hamersly, 1900).
Time Periods:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Pember W. Rocap Revised by William V. Scott, “Kelly, Michael J.,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/kelly-michael-j.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FKE67
- February 1, 1995
- April 17, 2025
