Hugh Judson Kilpatrick - Later Life

Later Life

Kilpatrick became active in politics as a Republican and in 1880 was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Congress from New Jersey.

In 1865, Kilpatrick was appointed Minister to Chile by President Andrew Johnson, and he was continued in that office by President Grant. As American Minister to Chile, he was involved in an attempt to arbitrate between the combatants of the Chincha Islands War after the Valparaiso bombardment (1866). The attempt failed, as the chief condition of Spanish admiral Méndez Núñez was the return of the captured Covadonga. Kilpatrick asked the American naval commander Commander John Rodgers to defend the port and attack the Spanish fleet. Admiral Méndez Núñez famously responded with, "I will be forced to sink, because even if I have one ship left I will proceed with the bombardment. Spain, the Queen and I prefer honor without ships than ships without honor." ("España prefiere honra sin barcos a barcos sin honra.")

Kilpatrick was recalled in 1870. The 1865 appointment seems to have been the result of a political deal. Kilpatrick had been a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor of New Jersey but lost out to Marcus Ward. Due to his service in helping Ward, Kilpatrick was rewarded with the post in Chile. Due to the Grant administration recalling him, Kilpatrick supported Horace Greeley in the 1872 presidential election. By 1876, Kilpatrick returned to the Republicans and supported Rutherford B. Hayes for the presidency.

In Chile he married, as his second wife, Luisa Fernandez de Valdivieso, a member of a wealthy family of Spanish origin that had emigrated to South America in the 17th century. Artist and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt (born 1924) is Hugh Judson Kilpatrick's great-granddaughter. Another prominent descendant is CNN newsman Anderson Cooper, Kilpatrick's great-great-grandson.

In March 1881, in recognition of Kilpatrick's service to the Republicans in New Jersey as well as a consolation prize for his defeat for a House seat, President James Garfield appointed Kilpatrick again to the post of Minister to Chile, where he died shortly after his arrival in the Chilean capital Santiago. His remains returned to the United States in 1887 and were interred at the West Point Cemetery in West Point, New York.

Kilpatrick was the author of two plays, Allatoona: An Historical and Military Drama in Five Acts (1875) and The Blue and the Gray: Or, War is Hell (posthumous, 1930).