GENERAL ORDERS, 
No. 205. 
WAR DEPARTMENT, 
Adjutant General’s Office, 
Washington, Dec. 12, 1862. 
The General-in-Chief announces to the Army the death of Brevet 
Brigadier General Sylvester Churchill, late Inspector General. 
He died in this city on the 7th instant, at the advanced age of 
eighty. 
General Churchill may well be called a soldier of the Old School. 
He entered the Army in March, 1812; was retained in the Artillery at 
the reduction, in 1815; appointed Inspector General in 1841; and was 
brevetted Brigadier General for gallant and meritorious conduct in the 
battle of Buena Vista, February 23, 1847. Between 1836 and 1841, 
he was employed as Acting Inspector General in the Creek and Florida 
wars; and was then commended by the Government for extraordinary 
vigilance and judgment. He was an exact disciplinarian, and an 
upright man; and the effect of his discipline and example, while com- 
manding part of the column under General Wool on the march from 
San Antonio to Monclova, was conspicuous in his troops in the mem- 
orable battle which followed soon after, and in which he was personally 
so distinguished. 
He has survived but a brief period the retirement from active service 
to ivhich he was forced by the infirmities of age; a necessity which 
his patriotic and martial spirit deplored as coming in the time of his 
country’s need. 
In respect to the memory of the deceased, the officers of the Inspector 
General’s Department will wear the usual badge of mourning for 
thirty days. 
By command of Major General Halleck: 
E. D. TOWNSEND, 
Assistant Adjutant General.