James Wolfe Ripley (December 10, 1794 – March 16, 1870) was an American soldier who served as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1861, he was selected to be the 5th Chief of Ordnance for the United States Army Ordnance Department. He was instrumental in the early days of the war in not modernizing the artillery's ordnance. However, Ripley also delayed the introduction of repeating firearms, particularly the Gatling gun and the Spencer rifle, into U.S. arsenals, an act that has been widely criticized by later historians.