Captain Rodney Kimball
To the Executive Committee of the State Normal School:Thus on July 28, 1862, Professor Kimball formally submitted his resignation. "Laying aside his worthy calling to follow the flag and share with his students the vicissitudes of war." (2) The Executive Committee promptly accepted the resignation, and Kimball began recruiting a company of Normal School students. At the age of twenty-seven, he was formally mustered into service, on September 6, 1862. He received a captain's commission, and led the "new" Company E which was to be formed from Normal School students. (3)Gentlemen,
Believing it to be every man's duty to do what he can to end the war which is in our midst, I think it my duty to urge the Normal students to take up arms in the cause of liberty. As I cannot do this and still hold my position in the school as Professor of Mathematics I hereby tender my resignation of the Professorship. I thank you for the confidence which you expressed by conferring the appointment upon me, and for the many personal favors which I have received. Regretting sincerely the necessity which compels me to leave a school in which I have spent so many years,
I Remain Your Obedient Servant,
Rodney G. Kimball (1)
Kimball graduated from the New York Free Academy (now New York City College) in 1855.
Upon graduation he took a position as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Albany Normal
School, and was appointed to a full Professorship in 1859. (4)
Captain Kimball's command of Company E was brief. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, Kimball was "hit by two spent balls, but without resulting in serious injury." (5) He departed the regiment on "sick leave" on February 4, 1863, and never returned. The dismissal of General McClellan, his near death at Fredericksburg, and a severe cold that he caught at the same place all disillusioned him toward the war.
According to James Woodworth, a Company E private, Kimball's illness and disability were of dubious veracity. To Woodworth, Kimball was:
only a man, not the soul of honor that many of us believed him to be. But his pupils are the ones who feel the deception the keenest. He is an unfeeling, tyrannical villain to any one who is so unfortunate as not to be a favorite, and if there is enough of the company spared to form a Corporal's guard when it is mustered out of service, and Captain Kimball survives the wreck of cherished hopes I will predict for him a coat of tar and feathers." (6)Woodworth, and the other soldiers, saw Kimball renew his furlough "as fast as it expired on account of 'delicate health.'" He hoped and prayed that Kimball would never come back, and was concerned that he might be forced to return, as the company had heard that his resignation had been refused because "'disease of shell fever' is curable." Almost all soldiers during this period had a bleak outlook on the war, but the enlisted men were not allowed to quit. (7)
Kimball's career as a soldier ended with an honorable discharge and a "Surgeon's Certificate of Disability," on April 16, 1863. (8) After his discharge, he attempted to regain the position of Professor of Mathematics at the Normal School. The Executive Committee of the Normal School received a letter from Kimball stating:
that by reason of ill health he had been obliged to resign his commission in the Army, but that it is now so far restored that he will be able to resume his professional labors, and that if desired by the committee he will be gratified to return to his former position in the Normal School." (9)Kimball returned to his Professorship at the expense of Professor Charles Lawrence, who had been provisionally appointed to Kimball's position with the understanding that Kimball could return to it after his military service was completed. (10)
Professor Kimball remained at the Normal School as Professor of Mathematics until June 30, 1869
when he resigned to take a similar position at the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute,
which had just become a degree granting institution. He served as Professor of Applied
Mathematics in Brooklyn until his death April 25, 1900. (11) The school was founded in 1854, and
underwent a name change in 1889, becoming the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Referred to
simply as "The Poly" by students, the school exists today as the Polytechnic University of New
York.
Kimball was highly regarded as a professor. "It was Professor Kimball whom some considered the best teacher in the school. A keen and friendly person, he was not one to be fooled with, though. He was the mildest mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat." (12) During his tenure, Kimball was selected as "Fairest Marker" in 1887,'88 and '90; "Most Rigid Disciplinarian" in 1887, '88 and '90; "Favorite Professor" in 1888 and '90; and "Lowest marker" in 1899. (13)
Upon his death in April 1900, Professor Kimball was remembered in the "Polywog," a student publication, as having:
...endeared himself to his pupils in many ways. Faithful in his duties until compelled by disease to cease his labors; just to the utmost degree; kind and sympathetic to all; a true gentleman in every sense; his memory will ever live in the hearts of his former pupils inspired by the example of his noble life. (14)1. Executive Committee Minutes of the State Normal School at Albany, Volume 1. Transcription, 285. 2. Eugene Arus Nash, A History of the Forty-Fourth Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War, 1861-1865 (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside Bookshop, 1988), 108.
3. Ibid.
4. Polywog , 1900. Yearbook of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, 145.
5. Nash, 321.
6. James Woodworth Papers, Lawrence Hotchkiss Collection, William Clements Library, University of Michigan. 7. Ibid.
8. Nash, 321.
9. Executive Committee, 290.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 334.
12. Miles Mervin Kastendieck, The Story of Poly (Harvey Matthews and Company, 1940), 53.
13. Polywog, various years and pages.
14. Polywog, 1900, 145.