Title: Navy Post Assignment for William Alexander Kirkland

Identifier: 0270-b1-fa   (https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/34901)

Description: A typed letter from the Acting Secretary of the United States Navy appointing William Alexander Kirkland as Rear Admiral to command the Naval Force on the European Station. William Alexander Kirkland was born in Hillsborough, N.C., on July 3, 1836, and entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1850 at age fourteen. He served on several ships during and after the Civil War. From 1896 until his death, Kirkland commanded the Mare Island Navy Yard in California. He died on August 12, 1898, and was buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery at Annapolis.