Encyclopedia of Civil War Biography - Bab-Bee
BABBITT, Elihu Burr, soldier, born in Connecticut about 1802; died at Fort Monroe, 10 December 1881. He was appointed to West Point from Indiana, and was graduated in 1826. He became first lieutenant, 3d U.S. Infantry, 31 March, 1834, assistant quartermaster, 10 March, 1836, and captain, 3d U.S. Infantry, 1 July, 1839. He served in the Florida War of 1837-'8, and in the Mexican War during 1847-8. On 30 May, 1848, he was brevetted major " for meritorious conduct while serving in the enemy's country." He was made chief quartermaster of the Department of Oregon 14 November, 1860, and of the Department of the Pacific 13 September, 1861, serving there until 29 July, 1866, when he was retired from active service, being over sixty-two years old. He was brevetted brigadier-general for his services on 13 March, 1865. General Babbitt, notwithstanding his retirement, served as chief quartermaster of the Department of the Columbia from 1866 till 1867, and had charge of the clothing depot of the Division of the Pacific from 1867 till 1869. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 125.
BABBITT, Isaac, inventor, born in Taunton, Massachusetts, 26 July, 1799; died in Somerville, Massachusetts, 26 May, 1862. He was a goldsmith by trade, and early turned his attention to the production of alloys, and in 1824 made in Taunton the first britannia ware manufactured in the United States. As this proved financially unsuccessful, he withdrew, and in 1834 moved to Boston, where he engaged with the South Boston Iron Company, better known as Alger's Foundries. While there employed, in 1839, he discovered the now well-known anti-friction metal that bears his name and is so extensively used in lining boxes for axles and gudgeons. For this invention he received in 1841 a gold medal from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic's Association, and afterward Congress granted him $20,000. He subsequently patented this material in England and in Russia (1847). For some time he devoted his attention to the production of the metal, and he was also engaged in the manufacture of soap. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 125
BABCOCK, Charles A., naval officer, born in New York City, 12 June, 1833; died in New Orleans, 29 June, 1876. He was appointed from Michigan, as a midshipman, 8 April, 1850, became passed midshipman in 1856, lieutenant in 1859, lieutenant-commander in 1862, and commander in l869. From 1862 to 1864 he commanded the steamer " Morse," of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. While co-operating with the array on the James, York, and Pamunkey Rivers, he defeated the Confederates in several actions, and was highly commended by Rear-Admiral Lee, who in, when commanding the Mississippi Squadron, selected Babcock as his fleet-captain. In June, he superintended the erection of an ordnance depot at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. He was afterward attached to the Pensacola Navy-yard, and in 1868-'9 commanded the steamer " Nyack," of the South Pacific Squadron. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 125.
BABCOCK, James Francis, journalist, born in Connecticut in 1809; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 18 June, 1874. He began newspaper work at an early age, and in 1830 became editor of the New Haven " Palladium," which soon began to issue a daily edition and which he conducted for thirty-one years. He controlled the nominations of the Whig Party for many years, and, though hostile to the Free-Soil Party at its inception, he finally gave it a hearty welcome in 1854. He retained his prestige with the Republican Party for some years, took an active part in furthering the national cause during the war, and, shortly after his resignation as editor of the " Palladium," was appointed, by President Lincoln, collector of the port of New Haven. He retained that office under President Johnson, whose policy he supported; and, after the rupture between the president and the Republicans, Mr. Babcock acted with the Democratic Party, and, after an angry and excited contest, was nominated by them for Congress, but was defeated by the Republican nominee. He was elected by the Democrats to the state legislature in 1873. The legislature of 1874 elected him judge of the Police Court of New Haven. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 125.
BABCOCK, Orville Elias, soldier, born in Franklin, Vermont, 25 December 1835 ; drowned in Mosquito Inlet, Florida, 2 June, 1884. He graduated at West Point, and entered the Engineer Corps as 2d lieutenant 6 May, 1861. Promoted, 17 November, 1861, to a first lieutenancy, he constructed, in February, 1862, a pontoon bridge at Harper's Ferry for Banks's movement to Winchester. He was made a captain in the Engineer Corps on 1 June, 1863, and was with the 9th Corps at the surrender of Vicksburg, and in the east Tennessee Campaign, taking part in the battle of Blue Lick Springs and subsequent actions, and at the siege of Knoxville. On 29 March, 1864, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel and appointed aide-de-camp to General Grant, in which capacity he served in the battles of the Wilderness and subsequent operations of the Army of the Potomac. On 13 March, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers. At the surrender of Lee at Appomattox he selected the place where the generals met. He was promoted a colonel in the regular army on 25 July, 1866, and served as aide-de-camp to the general-in-chief until General Grant was inaugurated president, when he was assigned to duty with the president and acted as his secretary. He was appointed superintending engineer of public buildings and grounds in 1871, and supervised the construction of Washington Aqueduct, the Chain Bridge across the Potomac, Anacostia Bridge, and the east wing of the department offices, and also the plans for the improvement of Washington and Georgetown Harbors, in January, 1876, he was indicted by the grand jury of St. Louis for complicity in revenue frauds. He demanded a court martial, but was brought to trial in the civil court in February and acquitted, with the aid of a deposition by President Grant. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 125-126.
BACHE, Alexander Dallas, son of Richard, scientist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19 July, 1806; died in Newport, Rhode Island, 17 February, 1867. He early showed an unusual aptitude for learning, and his first instruction was received at a classical school in Philadelphia. At the age of fourteen he was ap- pointed to the U. S. Military Academy, where, although the youngest member of his class, he was at Its head when graduated in 1825. His failure to receive a demerit during the four years is cited as one of the few instances of that character in the history of the academy, so noted for its rigid discipline. On his graduation he was appointed lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, but was retained at the academy as assistant professor of engineering during 1826, when, until 1829, he served as assistant engineer in the construction of Fort Adams, at Newport, Rhode Island, under Colonel J. G. Totten. Here he met Miss Nancy Clarke Fowler, who afterward became his wife and also his associate in the production of much of his published material. In 1828 he was called to the chair of natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, which he occupied until 1841. His resignation from the army is dated 1 June, 1829. Soon after his arrival in Philadelphia he became a member of the Franklin Institute, and at once participated in work as its “Journal” between 1826 and 1836 abundantly testifies. His most important labor at this time was undoubtedly the investigations relating to the bursting of steam boilers. is valuable researches in various branches of physics and chemistry, published in the “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,” of which he was a prominent member, belong to these years. and his first meteorological investigations date from this period. In 1836 he was intrusted with the organization of Girard College, Philadelphia, became its first president, and was sent to Europe to study the systems of education and methods of instruction and discipline adopted there. On his return in 1839 the results were embodied in a report made to the trustees, which did much to improve the theory and art of education in this country. Owing to the unfinished condition of the college, and in consequence of some delay in the adjustment of its funds, it was not deemed advisable to organize it at once for active operations: therefore Professor Bache offered his services to the municipal government. He became principal of the high school, and during 1841-2 was superintendent of the public schools. The system developed by him while in office has since been generally regarded as a model, and has been introduced in several cities of the union. While in Philadelphia he established, and for some years a magnetic and meteorological observatory, which was largely supported by the American Philosophical Society. In 1842, having satisfactorily completed his labors in the cause of public instruction, he returned to his chair at the university, where he remained until November, 1843, when he was appointed to succeed the late F. R. Hassler as superintendent of the Coast Survey, which place he held until his death. The survey was recommended to Congress by President Jefferson in 1807 was not definitely established until ten years later, when, by the appointment of Mr. Hassler as superintendent, its actual existence began. Under his direction it flourished at times, and the work, though limited in scope, continued until his death; but with the advent of Professor Bache the undertaking assumed larger proportions, and improved plans for extended operations were put into execution. During his able administration the practical value of the survey was thoroughly demonstrated. In the accomplishment of his designs he was not only aided by Congress, but his efforts were likewise greatly encouraged by the approval of scientific societies and their leaders. During the Civil War he greatly assisted the naval and military forces by placing the resources of the Coast Survey at their disposal, and from June to December, 1863, he was chief engineer for devising and constructing the defences of Philadelphia, when it was threatened by the invasion of Pennsylvania. In addition to his work on the Coast Survey, he was ex-officio superintendent of weights and measures, and served, until his death, on the Light-House Board. He was one of the incorporators of the Smithsonian Institute, 1846, and annually during his life was reëlected by Congress. He was active in its direction and in the shaping of its policy. During the Civil War he was elected a vice-president of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, and rendered efficient aid in its work. The University of New York in 1836, the University of Pennsylvania in 1837, and Harvard in 1851, conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.. He served as president of the American Philosophical Society, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was the first presiding officer of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as one of its incorporators and most active members. The Royal Society of London, the Institute of France, the Royal Academy of Turin, the Imperial Geographical Society of Vienna, and many similar organizations, included him among their honorary members. The excellence of his work on the Coast Survey was acknowledged by different foreign governments, and he was the recipient of several medals for his prominence in the field of science. His published papers include more than 150 titles and include various topics in physics, chemistry, and engineering. His most extensive work was the “Observations at the Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory at the Girard College” (3 vols., 1840-’7). His property, to the extent of $42,000, was left in trust to the National Academy of Sciences; the income is to be devoted to physical research. See the “Memoir of Alexander Dallas Bache,” by Joseph Henry, with a list of his papers published in Volume I of the “Biographical Memoirs” of the National Academy of Sciences. This memoir appears in the Smithsonian Report for 1870, and also as a special issue in the publications of the Smithsonian Institute. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 127.
BACH, Benjamin Franklin, great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, surgeon, born in Monticello, Virginia, 7 February, 1801; died in New York City, 2 November, 1881. He was graduated at Princeton in 1819, and at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1823, entered the U. S. Navy as assistant surgeon in 1824, and became surgeon in 1828. From 1832 to 1836 he was stationed at Pensacola U. S. Navy-yard, and, while on leave from 1838 to 1841, he was professor of natural science and natural religion in Kenyon College, Ohio. He was fleet-surgeon of the Mediterranean Squadron in 1841–4, and of the Brazil Squadron in 1847–50. From 1850 to 1854 he was at the New York Naval Hospital, and then organized at New York the laboratory that furnishes all medical supplies to the navy. He was director of this from 1853 to 1871, and in 1861 did great service to the government by restocking the laboratory on his own responsibility. In 1863 he was placed on the retired list, but continued to act as superintendent of the laboratory until 1871, when he was appointed medical director, with the relative rank of commodore, and retired from active service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 128.
BACHE, Hartman, engineer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1797; died there, 8 October, 1872. He was graduated at West Point in 1818, and made brevet captain of staff, and assistant Topographical Engineer. For forty-seven years he was constantly employed on topographical surveys and works of hydrographic and civil engineering, under the direction of the War Department, till 7 March, 1867, when he was placed on the retired list. He became brevet major of engineers, 24 July, 1828; major, 7 July, 1838; lieutenant-colonel, 6 August, 1861; colonel, 3 March, 1863; and on 13 March, 1865, he received the brevet of brigadier-general, the highest grade in the Engineer Corps, for long, faithful, and meritorious services. Among his engineering works of conspicuous merit were the construction of the Delaware Breakwater and the successful application of iron-screw piles for the foundation of light-houses upon sandy shoals and coral-reefs. He was engineer of the 4th Light-House District from 1859, and a member of the Light-House Board from 1862 to 1870. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 128.
BACKUS, Electus, born in New York in 1804; died in Detroit, Michigan., 7 June, 1862 was graduated at West Point in 1824. He was aide to General Hugh Brady from 1828 to 1837, and became captain, October, 1837. In 1838-’40 he served in the Seminole War, and afterward in the Mexican War, being brevetted major on 23 September, 1846, “for gallant and meritorious conduct at Monterey.” In 1847 he was in command of the fortress of San Juan d ’Ulloa. He became major in the 3d Infantry on 10 June, 1850, served in the Navajo Expedition in 1858, was made lieutenant-colonel 19 January, 1859, and colonel 6th Infantry 20 February, 1862. Just before his death, in the early part of the Civil War, he was mustering and disbursing officer at Detroit. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 129.
BACKUS, Franklin T., lawyer, born in Lee, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 6 May, 1813; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 14 May, 1870. He lived on a farm near Lansing, New York, was graduated at Yale in 1836, studied law in Cleveland, and was admitted to the bar in 1839. He was elected prosecuting attorney of the county in 1841, and was sent to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1846, and to the state senate in 1848. He was a delegate to the Peace Congress at Washington in 1861. He supported McClellan for president in 1864, and was a delegate to the national convention that met at Philadelphia in 1866 to form a new party. He gained especial distinction in the early part of his career as prosecuting attorney at the trial of Brooks, who was sentenced to life-long imprisonment for wrecking a train, and as attorney for the Oberlin rescuers, who had assisted in the escape of a slave. In his later years he was much consulted in railroad cases, and was influential in settling the principles governing the Ohio courts regarding railroads. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 129.
BACON, Edwin Munroe, journalist, born in Providence, Rhode Island, 20 October, 1844. He was educated in private schools, finishing his studies in the academy at Foxboro, Massachusetts At the age of nineteen he was appointed on the staff of the Boston “Advertiser,” and has since been connected as reporter, correspondent, managing editor, and editor-in-chief with various journals. He was chief editor of the Boston “Globe” during its career as an independent paper. In May, 1866, he assumed the editorial control of the Boston “Post.” The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Dartmouth in 1879. He has edited several works, among them “King's Hand-Book of Boston ” and “Boston Illustrated,” and written a “Dictionary of Boston ” (Boston, 1883, new ed., 1886). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 131.
BACON, Henry, artist, born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1840. He volunteered in the 13th Massachusetts Infantry for the Civil War, and was wounded. In 1864 he went to Paris and entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts, studying also under Cabanel and Edward Frère. His best-known work is “Boston Boys and General Gage,” which was first exhibited in the Paris salon of 1875 and at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876. His favorite subjects are figures so treated as to tell a story, historical or imaginative, in the most effective manner. His professional residence is for the most part in Paris, and he is a frequent exhibitor at the salon. The titles of some of his more important pictures are “Paying the Scot” (1870); “Franklin at Home” (1876); “Les Adieux” and “Land! Land!” (1878); “In Normandy” (Paris salon, 1878); “The Luck of Roaring Camp’ (1881); and “Lover's Quarrel” (1882); “Le Plainariste.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 131.
BACON, Leonard, Reverend, 1802-1881, Detroit, Michigan, clergyman, newspaper editor, author, opponent of slavery. Original supporter of the American Colonization Society in New England. Editor of the Christian Spectator, 1826-1838. He later edited the Journal of Freedom. Abraham Lincoln read and was influenced by Bacon’s writing on Colonization. Aided the Amistad captives during their trial. Bacon, with Lyman Beecher and William Fiske, founded the American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race, which was supported by abolitionist Arthur Tappan. In 1843, helped establish The New Englander, where he wrote many anti-slavery articles. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 129-130; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 77-79, 119-120, 126, 127, 130-131, 134, 161, 204, 205, 231)
BACON, Leonard, clergyman, born in Detroit, Michigan, 19 February, 1802; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 24 December, 1881. He was graduated at Yale in 1820, and studied theology at Andover. In March, 1825, he was ordained pastor of the 1st Church in New Haven, and continued in this office until his death—fifty-seven years. From 1866, being relieved of the main burden of pastoral work, he occupied the chair of didactic theology in Yale until 1871, and thereafter was lecturer on ecclesiastical polity and American church history. He was a representative of the liberal orthodoxy and historic polity of the ancient New England churches. His life was incessantly occupied in the discussion of questions bearing on the interests of humanity and religion. Probably no subject of serious importance that came into general notice during his long career escaped his earnest and active attention. A public question which absorbed much of his thought after 1823 was that of slavery. His constant position was that of resistance to slavery on the one hand, and of resistance to the extravagances of certain abolitionists on the other; and he thought himself well rewarded for forty years of debate, in which, as he was wont to say of himself, quoting the language of Baxter, that, “where others had had one enemy he had had two,” when he learned that Abraham Lincoln referred to his volume on slavery as the source of his own clear and sober convictions on that subject. He was a strong supporter of the union throughout the Civil War, and took active part in the various constitutional, economical, and moral discussions to which it gave rise. He was influential in securing the repeal of the “omnibus clause” in the Connecticut divorce law. In March, 1874, he was moderator of the council that rebuked Henry Ward Beecher's Society for irregularly expelling Theodore Tilton, and in February, 1876, of the advisory council called by the Plymouth Society. During his later years he was, by general consent, regarded as the foremost man among American Congregationalists. He became known in oral debate, in which he excelled, by his books, and preeminently by his contributions to the periodical press. From 1826 till 1838 he was one of the editors of the “Christian Spectator.” In 1843 he aided in establishing “The New Englander” review, to which he continued to contribute copiously until his death. In that publication appeared many articles from his pen denouncing, on religious and political grounds, the policy of the government in respect to slavery. With Drs. Storrs and Thompson he founded the “Independent” in 1847, and continued with them in the editorship of it for sixteen years. He had great delight in historical studies, especially in the history of the Puritans, both in England and in America. Besides innumerable pamphlets and reviews, He published “Select Works of Richard Baxter,” with a biography (1830); “Manual for Young Church-Members” (1833); “Thirteen Historical Discourses” on the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the 1st Church in New Haven (1839); “Views and Reviews; an Appeal against. Division” (1840); “Slavery Discussed in Occasional Essays” (1846); “Christian Self-Culture” (1862); “Four Commemorative Discourses” (1866); “Genesis of the New England Churches” (1874); “Sketch of Reverend David Bacon” (1876); and “Three Civic Orations for New Haven” (1879). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.
BACON, John Edmund, lawyer, born in Edgefield C. H., South Carolina, 3 March, 1832. He was a grandson of Edmund Bacon, was graduated at South Carolina College in 1851, and studied afterward at Leipsic, Germany. He read law at Litchfield, Connecticut, and soon won distinction at the bar. His aptitude for the languages, ancient and modern, led to his appointment as secretary of legation to St. Petersburg in 1858, and he acted as chargé d'affaires until the arrival of the Hon. F. W. Pickens as U. S. minister. In 1859 he married at St. Petersburg Rebecca Calhoun, youngest daughter of Governor Pickens. While on his wedding tour he heard of the election of Mr. Lincoln and sent his resignation to the Department of State. In 1861 he returned to South Carolina, entered the Confederate Army as a private and rose to the rank of major. In 1866 he was sent with Governor James L. Orr to arrange with President Johnson for the restoration of South Carolina to the union. In 1867 he was elected district judge, but was soon afterward deposed by the federal general then in command of that department. In 1872 he was a Democratic nominee for Congress, but was defeated by R. B. Elliott, the able Negro politician. Judge Bacon has travelled extensively in Russia, and has occupied his leisure time in the collection and preparation of materials for a future history of that country. In 1886 he was appointed chargé d'affaires for the United States in Uruguay and Paraguay. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 131.
BADEAU, Adam, author, born in New York City, 29 December 1831. His education was received through private instruction and at a boarding-school in Tarrytown, New York. He volunteered in the military service of the United States in 1862, and was appointed aide on the staff of Brigadier-General Thomas W. Sherman. In that capacity he served in Louisiana until 27 May, 1863, when he was severely wounded, almost at the same time with his commanding officer, in leading an assault on the Confederate works at Port Hudson. In March, 1864, he was appointed military secretary to General Grant, with the rank, first of lieutenant-colonel and afterward of colonel. On this duty he accompanied the general in the Wilderness and Appomattox Campaigns, and remained on his staff until March, 1869, when he was retired from the army with the full rank of captain and the brevet rank of Brigadier-General. He also received a similar brevet in the volunteer service. From May to December, 1869, he was secretary of legation at London. During 1870 he was sent to Madrid as a bearer of government despatches, and in May returned to London as consul-general, retaining that office until September, 1881. In 1877 and 1878 he was given leave of absence by the State Department to accompany General Grant on his tour round the world. He was consul-general at Havana from May, 1882, until April, 1884, and then resigned because he was not permitted by the State Department to substantiate charges of corruption of which he accused its administration. He had been appointed U. S. minister to Brussels in 1875, and to Copenhagen in 1881, but declined both appointments. He has published " The Vagabond,” a collection of essays (New York, 1859); "Military History of Ulysses S. Grant" (3 vols., 1867-81); “Conspiracy: a Cuban Romance " (1885); "Aristocracy in England" (1886); and "Grant in Peace" (1886). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 132.
BADGER, George Edmund, statesman, born in Newbern, North Carolina, 13 April, 1795; died in Raleigh, North Carolina, 11 May, 1866. He was graduated at Yale in 1813, and studied law in Raleigh. In 1816 he was elected to the state legislature, and devoted the next four years of his life to law and legislation. From 1820 to 1825 he was judge of the North Carolina Superior Court at Raleigh. In 1840 he was a prominent advocate of the election of General Harrison to the presidency, and in March, 1841, was appointed Secretary of the Navy. On the death of President Harrison, and the separation of Mr. Tyler from the Whig Party, Mr. Badger resigned, giving the veto of President Tyler on the second bank bill as his reason. The Whigs of North Carolina returned him at the first opportunity to the Senate. He was elected to fill a vacancy in 1846, and in 1848 reelected for a full term. In 1853 President Fillmore nominated him as a judge of the U. S. Supreme Court, but the Senate refused to confirm the nomination. At the expiration of his senatorial term he retired from public life and devoted himself wholly to his profession. In February, 1861, when the proposition to hold a convention for the purpose of seceding from the union was submitted to the people of his state, he consented to serve as a union candidate if the convention should be called. The proposition was defeated by the people; but when, in May, 1861, the convention was finally called, he served in it as a representative from Wake County. He spoke ably in defence of the union, and after the ordinance of secession was passed was known as a member of the conservative party. Mr. Badger was a vigorous speaker, but wrote little. He excelled in debate and was a man of profound research. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 132
BADGER, Oscar C., naval officer, born in Windham, Connecticut, 12 August, 1823; died in Concord, Massachusetts, 20 June, 1899. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, served on the steamer “Mississippi” on the eastern coast of Mexico during the war with that country, and participated in the attack on Alvarado in 1846. He was made passed midshipman 10 August, 1847, from that time until 1852 was on various ships of the Pacific Squadron, and in 1853-'4 at the Naval Observatory. On 15 September, 1855, he was made lieutenant, and, while attached to the sloop “John Adams” in 1855-'6, he commanded a party that attacked and destroyed the village of Vutia, Feejee Islands. In 1861-'2 he commanded the steamer “Anacostia,” of the Potomac Flotilla, and Lieutenant Wyman, the commander of the flotilla, often mentioned in his reports the precision of fire of Badger's vessel. He was made lieutenant-commander on 16 July, 1862, and commanded the iron-clads “Patapsco” and “Montauk” in the engagements with the forts and batteries in Charleston Harbor in 1863. In the night attack on Fort Sumter, 1 September, 1863, he was on the flag-ship “Weehawken,” as acting fleet captain, when he was severely wounded in the leg by a metallic splinter. After this he was on shore duty until 1866, and on 23 July of that year was made commander. From 1866 to 1867 he commanded the “Peoria,” of the North Atlantic Squadron, and received a vote of thanks from the legislatures of the islands of Antigua and St. Kitts for services rendered to the authorities. From 1868 to 1870 he was at the Portsmouth U.S. Navy-yard. In 1872 he was made captain, and on 15 November, 1881, commodore. In 1885 he was placed on the retired list. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 133.
BAGBY, George William, author, born in Buckingham County, Virginia, 13 August, 1828; died in Richmond, Va., 29 November, 1883. He was educated at Edgehill School, Princeton, New Jersey, and at Delaware College, Newark, Delaware, leaving the latter at the end of his sophomore year. Subsequently he studied medicine and was graduated at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1853 he became editor of the Lynchburg (Virginia) Daily “Express,” and was for some time the Washington correspondent of the New Orleans “Crescent,” Charleston “Mercury,” and Richmond “Dispatch.” From 1859 he was, until its suspension near the end of the war, editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger,” and at the same time associate editor of the Richmond “Whig,” and a frequent contributor to the “Southern Illustrated News.” From 1 January, 1870, to 1 July, 1878, he was state librarian of Virginia. He lectured frequently, and met with success as a humorist in many parts of Virginia and Maryland. He was the author of many humorous articles published under the pen name of “Mozis Addums.” His sketches were collected and published by Mrs. Bagby, as “The Writings of ''Bagby.” (3 vols. Richmond, 1884-'6). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 135.
BAILEY, Gamaliel, MD, 1807-1859, Maryland, abolitionist leader, journalist, newspaper publisher and editor. Publisher and editor of National Era (founded 1847), of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Co-founded Cincinnati Anti-Slavery Society in 1835. Corresponding Secretary, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, editor of the Cincinnati Philanthropist, the official newspaper of the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society. Assistant and Co-Editor, The Abolitionist newspaper. Liberty Party. Publisher of Liberty Party paper, the Philanthropist, in Ohio. Published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1851-1852.
(Blue, 2005, pp. 21, 25-26, 28, 30, 34, 52, 55, 67, 148-149, 166, 192, 202, 223, 248; Dumond, 1961, pp. 163, 223, 264, 301; Filler, 1960, pp. 78, 150, 194-195, 245, 252; Harrold, 1995; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4, 5, 14, 23, 24, 26, 27, 44, 46, 54, 61, 63, 69, 88-89, 91, 103, 106; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 50, 185; Sinha, 2016, p. 466; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 136; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 496-497; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 1, p. 881; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)
BAILEY, Gamaliel, journalist, born in Mount Holly, New Jersey, 3 December, 1807; died at sea, 5 June, 1859. He studied medicine in Philadelphia, and after obtaining his degree in 1828 sailed as a ship's doctor to China. He began his editorial career in the office of the “Methodist Protestant” in Baltimore, but in 1831 he moved to Cincinnati, where he served as hospital physician during the cholera epidemic. His sympathies being excited on the occasion of the expulsion of a number of students on account of anti-slavery views from Lane Seminary, he became an active agitator against slavery, and in 1836 he associated himself with James G. Birney in the conduct of the “Cincinnati Philanthropist,” the earliest anti-slavery newspaper in the west, of which in 1837 he became sole editor. Twice in that year, and again in 1841, the printing-office was sacked by a mob. He issued the paper regularly until after the presidential election of 1844, when he was selected to direct the publication of a new abolitionist organ at Washington. The first number of the “National Era,” published under the auspices of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, appeared 1 January, 1847. In 1848 an angry mob laid siege to the office for three days, and finally separated under the influence of an eloquent harangue by the editor. The “Era,” in which “Uncle Tom's Cabin” originally appeared, ably presented the opinions of the anti-slavery party. Dr. Bailey died while on a voyage to Europe for his health. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 136.
BAILEY, Guilford Dudley, soldier, born in Martinsburg, New York, 4 June, 1834; killed in action, 31 May, 1862. He was graduated at West Point in 1856, and assigned to the 2d U.S. Artillery. He served on frontier and garrison duty. He was at Fort Leavenworth during the Kansas disturbances of 1857-'9, and at West Point as instructor for a short time in 1859. When the Civil War began he was stationed at Fort Brown, Texas, but, with his immediate superior, Captain Stoneman, refused to surrender when General Twiggs attempted to give up his entire command to the Confederates, and effected his escape into Mexico. Reporting for duty as soon as he could reach the north, he was sent with Hunt’s battery to the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida Returning on account of sickness, he organized and was appointed colonel of the 1st New York Light Artillery Volunteers (25 September, 1861), joined the Army of the Potomac. Bailey was detailed as chief of artillery in General Casey's division during the Peninsular Campaign, and was killed among his guns at the battle of Seven Pines. A monument has been raised to his memory in the cemetery at Poughkeepsie. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 136.
BAILEY, James E., senator, born in Montgomery County, Tennessee, 15 August, 1822. He was educated at Clarksville Academy and at the University of Nashville, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of law at Clarksville in 1843. In 1853 he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives. He served in the Confederate Army, though not an original secessionist. He was a member of the court of arbitration in 1874, by appointment of the governor of Tennessee, and was elected U. S. Senator from Tennessee in place of Andrew Johnson, taking his seat 29 January, 1877. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 137.
BAILEY, James Montgomery, author, born in Albany, New York, 25 September, 1841. He received a common-school education and became a carpenter. In 1860 he moved to Danbury, Connecticut, where he worked at his trade for two years, occasionally contributing to the newspapers, and then enlisted in the 17th Connecticut Regiment, with which he served until the end of the war. After his return he purchased in 1865, the Danbury “Times,” which he afterward consolidated with the “Jeffersonian,” acquired in 1870, under the name of the Danbury “News.” For this paper he wrote short, humorous articles, generally descriptive of every-day mishaps, which were reprinted in other journals throughout the country. In 1873 a demand for his paper was found outside of Danbury, and its circulation rose to 30,000 copies. His first printed book was “Life in Danbury” (Boston, 1873), a collection of articles from his newspaper. The same year he published “The Danbury News Man's Almanac.” In 1874 he visited Europe for his health, and after his return delivered a lecture which was published in a volume in 1878, with the title “England from a Back Window.” He published in 1877 “They All do it,” in 1879 “Mr. Phillips's Goneness,” and in 1880 “The Danbury Boom.’ Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.
BAILEY, Joseph, farmer, born in Salem, Ohio, 28 April, 1827; killed near Nevada, Newton County, Missouri, 21 March, 1867. He entered the military service of the United States 2 July, 1861, as captain in the 4th Wisconsin Infantry. The regiment was ordered to Maryland and assigned to the expedition under General Benjamin. F. Butler, which occupied New Orleans after its reduction by Farragut's fleet, in April, 1862. Bailey was appointed acting engineer of the defences of New Orleans in December, 1862, and while so detailed was promoted to be major (30 May, 1863). A month later (June 24) he became lieutenant-colonel. In August, 1863, the regiment was changed from infantry to cavalry, and Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey was sent home on recruiting service, returning to duty with his regiment in February, 1864, in time to accompany the army of General N. P. Banks in the Red River Campaign. Here occurred the opportunity that enabled Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey to achieve one of the most brilliant feats ever accomplished in military engineering. The Expedition had been carefully timed to coincide with the regular annual spring rise in Red River, in order that the U.S. Navy might coöperate and the river serve as a base of supplies. The army, under General Banks, advanced south of the river, accompanied and supported by a fleet of twelve gun-boats and thirty transports. The advance suffered a defeat at Sabine Cross Roads on 8 April, and retreated to Alexandria, where it was found that the water had fallen so much that it was impossible for the fleet to pass below the falls. Rear-Admiral Porter, commanding the squadron, was reluctantly making preparations to save what stores he could and to destroy his gunboats, preparatory to retreating with the army, as he was advised that the land position was not tenable, when Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey proposed to build a dam and deepen the water in mid-channel so that the gun-boats could pass. The regular engineers condemned the project as impracticable; but Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey persevered, and, in the face of discouraging opposition and indifference on the part of the navy, finally, on 30 April, procured the necessary authority from General Banks. When the work was actually begun, there was no lack of men or of zeal. General Jas. Grant Wilson, then a member of General Banks's staff, strongly advocated the scheme, and aided in the construction of the dam. Details of 3,000 soldiers were kept at work night and day, and several hundred lumbermen from Maine regiments did good, service in felling and moving trees. The fatigue parties relieved one another at regular intervals, all working with remarkable endurance, often up to their necks in water, and under a semi-tropical sun. The rapids to be deepened were about a mile long and from 700 to more than 1,000 feet wide, with a current of ten miles an hour. On the north bank a tree dam was built, while on the south side, there being no timber, a series of heavy cribs were constructed from material obtained by demolishing several old mills, while the brick, iron, and stone required to sink and hold them in place were procured by tearing down two sugar-houses and taking up a quantity of railroad iron buried in the vicinity. The dams, thus built on both sides of the river, left an opening of sixty-six feet. So energetically and systematically was the work pushed that on the morning of 12 May the whole fleet passed safely down the falls without loss. The Mississippi Squadron was saved through the native engineering skill of a Wisconsin farmer. His services received prompt recognition, and on 7 June he was brevetted brigadier-general, and on 30 June was promoted to the full grade of colonel, and subsequently received the formal thanks of Congress. The officers of the fleet presented him with a sword and a purse of $3,000. After this feat General Bailey's military record was highly creditable. In November, 1864, he was promoted brigadier- general of Volunteers, and hail command of the engineer brigade of the military Division of the West Mississippi and of different cavalry brigades until he resigned, 7 July, 1865. After leaving the army he settled as a farmer in Newton County, Missouri, and was elected sheriff, an office which he filled with his accustomed firmness and daring. He met his death at the hands of two desperadoes, whom he had personally served warrants, and whom, with characteristic fearlessness, he was escorting to the county-scat without assistance. It is interesting to know that the main portion of the dam, constructed under such haste, was in place twenty-two years afterward, and bade fair to last indefinitely. It is still known as " Bailey's Dam." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 137-138.
BAILLY, Joseph A., sculptor, born in Paris, France, in 1825. He began his career as a woodcarver, immigrated to Philadelphia in 1825, and pursued his occupation with success. Later he applied himself to marble sculpture, and became a professor in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He has produced a statue of Washington, which was placed in front of the Philadelphia State-House in 1869; a colossal statue of Witherspoon; the companion groups called “The First Prayer” and “Paradise Lost”; portrait busts of General Grant and General Meade; an equestrian statue of President Blanco of Venezuela, and “Spring.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 139.
BAILEY, Rufus William, educator, born in North Yarmouth, Maine , 13 April, 1793; died in Huntsville, Texas, 25 April, 1863. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1813, and taught in the academies at Salisbury, New Hampshire, and Blue Hill, Maine , then studied law with Daniel Webster, but at the end of a year entered Andover Theological Seminary, and on the completion of his studies was licensed, and began preaching at Norwich Plain, at the same time filling the place of teacher of moral philosophy in the military school. In 1824 he was installed pastor of the church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he remained four years. He was then obliged to move to the south for the sake of his health, and subsequently taught for more than twenty years in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, in the latter state travelling at one time extensively as agent of the Colonization Society. In 1854 he was elected professor of languages in Austin College, at Huntsville, Texas, and in 1858 became its president. He was the author of a series of newspaper letters on slavery, subsequently published in a volume under the title of The Issue "; also of a volume of sermons entitled "The Family Preacher"; of letters to daughters, entitled "The Mother's Request"; of a " Primary Grammar," and of a " Manual of English Grammar," used extensively in southern schools. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 138.
BAILEY, Theodorus, senator, born in Dutchess County, New York, 12 October, 1758; died in New York City, 6 September, 1828. He was a representative in Congress from New York from 1793 to 1797. and from 1799 to 1803. In 1803 he was chosen a senator from New York, but resigned in the following year and accepted the postmastership of New York City, which office he held until his death.—His nephew, Theodorus, naval officer (born in Chateaugay, New York, 12 April, 1805; died in Washington, D. C, 10 February, 1877), was appointed a midshipman from New York. 1 January, 1818. and received his commission as lieutenant 3 March, 1827. His first cruise was on board the "Cyane," Captain Trenchard, which captured several slavers on the coast of Africa m 1820-'l. He then made a three years' cruise in the Pacific on the "Franklin." In 1833-36, he sailed on a cruise round the world on board the "Vincennes." After serving on the frigate "Constellation," in which he again sailed round the world, he was placed in command of the store ship " Lexington " in 1840, in which, on the breaking out of the Mexican War, he conveyed to California, by way of Cape Horn, an artillery company and several officers who afterward became famous, including Henry W. Hallock, William T. Sherman, and E. O. C. Ord. Lieutenant Bailey rendered efficient aid to the Pacific Squadron by fitting out and leading numerous expeditions. He made use of his vessel, an old razee, as an armed cruiser, and, after landing the troops at Monterey, blockaded and captured San Blas, and was actively employed with the land forces in the conquest of California. He was commissioned as commander 6 March, 1849, and as captain 15 December, 1855. On 6 September, 1853, he was assigned to the command of St. Mary's,” of the Pacific Squadron, and cruised for three years. Arriving opportunely at Panama during the riots, he took steps to suppress them that were successful and satisfactory alike to the citizens and the government. On the same cruise he was instrumental in restoring friendly relations with the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands. At the beginning of the Civil War he was placed in command of the frigate “Colorado,” of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, and on 2 May, 1861, coöperated with General Harvey Brown in the operations before Pensacola. He reconnoitered the position of the “Judah,” going up to her side in his gig on the night of 13 September, 1861, and matured the plan by which Lieutenant Russell cut out and burned that Confederate privateer a few hours later. Joining Farragut's squadron at New Orleans, as second in command, he led the attack in April, 1862, commanding the right column of the fleet in the passage of the forts St. Philip and Jackson, and leading the fleet in the capture of the Chalmette batteries and of the city. He led the attack in the gunboat “Cayuga,” passing up, ahead of the fleet, through the fire of five of the forts, sustaining unaided the attack of the Confederate vessels, rams, and fire, and passed through them to the city. Admiral Farragut sent Bailey to demand the surrender of New Orleans. Accompanied by Lieutenant George H. Perkins, he passed through the streets in the midst of a hooting mob, who threatened the officers with drawn pistols and other weapons. In his official report of the victory, dated 24 April, 1862, Captain Bailey used the famous phrase: “It was a contest of iron hearts in wooden ships against iron-clads with iron beaks —and the iron hearts won.” The important part actually taken by Bailey was not adequately recognized in the first official account, though Admiral Farragut commended his gallantry and ability in the official report, and sent him to Washington with the despatches announcing the victory. The mistake was afterward rectified by Admiral Farragut, and the correction appended to the report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1869. He was promoted commodore after the capture of New Orleans, receiving his commission 16 July, 1862, and was assigned to the command of the Eastern Gulf Blockading Squadron. Although his health was impaired, he displayed energy and perseverance in breaking up blockade-running on the Florida Coast, and runners were captured through his vigilance. After the war he was commandant of the Portsmouth Navy-yard from 1865 to 1867. On 25 July, 1866, he was commissioned as rear-admiral, and on 10 October, 1866, he was placed on the retired list. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 138-139.
BAILEY, William S., newspaper editor of the Newport News in Newport, Kentucky. In the 1850s, his newspaper office was wrecked and his home burned down by angry mobs. Opposed slavery and said, “The system of slavery enslaves all who labor for an honest living.”
BAIRD, Absalom, 1824-1905, abolitionist leader, Washington Society (Basker, 2005, p. 225; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 504)
BAIRD, Absalom, soldier, born in Washington, Pennsylvania, 20 August, 1824. He was graduated at Washington College in 1841 and studied law. In 1845 he entered the West Point Academy, was graduated in 1849, and served as second lieutenant in the Florida hostilities from 1850 to 1853. He was promoted first lieutenant 24 December, 1853, and from 1853 to 1859 was stationed at West Point as assistant professor of mathematics. In March, 1861, he took command of the light battery for the defence of Washington, and on 11 May was brevetted captain and appointed assistant in the adjutant-general's department. In July, 1861, he served as adjutant-general of Tyler's division in the defence of Washington and in the Manassas Campaign, being present at Blackburn's Ford and at Bull Run. He was promoted captain 3 August, 1861, served as assistant adjutant-general and was promoted major 12 November, 1861, and served as assistant inspector-general and chief of staff of the Fourth Army Corps in the Peninsular Campaign, where he was engaged in the siege of Yorktown and the battle of Williamsburg. He commanded a brigade of the Army of the Ohio from May to September, 1862, and was engaged in the capture of Cumberland Gap. From October, 1862, to June, 1863, he commanded the 3d Division of the Army of Kentucky about Lexington and Danville and in the operations of General Rosecrans in Tennessee, he engaged at Tullahoma, the capture of Shelbyville, Dutch Gap, Pigeon Mountain, and Chickamauga. For gallant and meritorious services in the last action he received the brevet of lieutenant-colonel. In operations about Chattanooga he commanded a division of the 14th Army Corps and gained the brevet rank of colonel. He was engaged in the battle of Missionary Ridge, was in numerous skirmishes in pursuit of the enemy in the invasion of Georgia, and was present at the surrender of Atlanta. He was brevetted major-general of Volunteers for services in the capture of Atlanta, in the pursuit of Hood's Army and the march to the sea, and the capture of Savannah. He participated in the march through the Carolinas, was engaged at Bentonville and Raleigh, and was present at the surrender of Johnston's Army at Durham Station. For his services in the Atlanta Campaign he received the brevet rank of brigadier-general in the regular army on 13 March, 1865, with that of major-general for services during the rebellion. He served as inspector-general of the Department of the Lakes from 1866 to 1868, of the Department of Dakota till 1870, of the Division of the South till 1872, and subsequently as assistant inspector-general of the Division of the Missouri. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 142.
BAIRD, Robert, Reverend, 1798-1863, Princeton, New Jersey, clergyman. Officer, New Jersey auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 142-143; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 511; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 55)
BAIRD, Robert, clergyman, born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 6 October, 1798; died in Yonkers, New York, 15 March, 1863. He was graduated at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1818, and taught a year at Bellefont, where he began his career as a newspaper writer. He studied theology at Princeton, 1819-'22, and taught an academy there for five years, preaching occasionally. In 1827 he became agent in New Jersey for the American Bible Society, engaged in the distribution of Bibles among the poor, and also labored among the destitute churches of the Presbyterian denomination as an agent of the New Jersey Missionary Society. In 1829 he became agent for the American Sunday-School Union, and travelled extensively for the society. In 1835 he went to Europe, where he remained eight years, devoting himself to the promotion of Protestant Christianity in southern Europe, and subsequently to the advocacy of temperance reform in northern Europe. On the formation of the Foreign Evangelical Society, since merged in the American and Foreign Christian Union, he became its agent and corresponding secretary. In 1842 he published “A View of Religion in America” in Glasgow. In 1843 he returned home, and for three years engaged in promoting the spread of Protestantism in Europe. In 1846 he visited Europe to attend the World's Temperance Convention in Stockholm and the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in London, and on his return he delivered a series of lectures on the “Continent of Europe.” In 1862 he vindicated in London before large audiences the cause of the union against secession with vigorous eloquence. Among his other published works are a “View of the Valley of the Mississippi” (1832); “History of the Temperance Societies” (1836); “Visit to Northern Europe” (1841); “Protestantism in Italy” (Boston, 1845); “Impressions and Experiences of the West Indies and North America in 1849 (Philadelphia, 1850), revised, with a supplement, in 1855; “History of the· Albigenses, Waldenses, and Vaudois.” French, Dutch, German, Swedish, Finnish, and Russian translations were made of the “History of the Temperance Societies,” and French, German, Dutch, and Swedish translations of the “View of Religion in America.” See “Life of the Reverend R. Baird,” by H.M. Baird (New York, 1865). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.
BAKER, Edward Dickenson, soldier, born in London, England, 24 February, 1811; killed at the battle of Ball's Bluff, 21 October, 1861. He came to the United States at the age of five with his father, who died in Philadelphia while Edward was yet a youth. The boy supported himself and his younger brother by working as a weaver, and occupied his leisure hours in study. Impelled to seek his fortune in the far west, he moved with his brother to Springfield, Illinois, where he studied and soon began the practice of law. His genius for oratory rapidly gained him distinction and popularity, and, entering the political field as a Whig. He was elected a member of the legislature in 1837, of the state senate in 1840, and representative in Congress in 1844. When the Mexican War began he raised a regiment in Illinois and marched to the Rio Grande. Taking a furlough to speak and vote in favor of the war in the U.S. House of Representatives, he returned and overtook his regiment on the march from Vera Cruz. He fought with distinction in every action on the route to Mexico, and after the wounding of General Shields at Cerro Gordo commanded the brigade and led it during the rest of the war. On his return to Galena, Illinois, he was again elected to Congress; but, becoming interested in the Panama Railroad, he declined a renomination in 1850. In 1851 he settled in San Francisco, where he took rank as the leader of the California Bar and the most eloquent orator in the state. The death of Senator Broderick, who fell in a duel in 1859, was the occasion of a fiery oration in the public square of San Francisco. He received a Republican nomination to Congress, but failed of election. Moving to Oregon, he was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1860 by a coalition of Republicans and Douglas Democrats. The firing upon Fort Sumter prompted him to deliver a passionate address in Union Square, New York, in which he pledged his life and his declining strength to the service of the union. He raised the California regiment in New York and Philadelphia, but declined a commission as general of brigade. In the disastrous assault at Ball's Bluff he commanded a brigade, and, exposing himself to the hottest fire, fell mortally wounded while leading a charge. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 144.
BAKER, Henry Brooks, surgeon, born in Brattleborough, Vermont, 29 December, 1837. He received a common-school education, and studied medicine at the University of Michigan in 1861–2. He served through the Civil War with the 20th Michigan Infantry, and from July, 1864, was its assistant surgeon. He was graduated at Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1866, and then began to practise in Lansing, Michigan, where he has since performed important operations. In 1870 he took charge of the vital statistics of Michigan, and in 1873 he became secretary of the State Board of Health. In his official capacity he has edited and published “Statistics of Michigan” (Lansing, 1870), “Vital Statistics of Michigan,” registration reports (1870–’6), and the “Reports of the State Board of Health” (1872–85). His own papers, which are quite numerous, principally on sanitary subjects, have appeared in various medical journals, chiefly those of Detroit. Dr. Baker has devoted much time to studies relative to the causation of typhoid fever, cholera, and pneumonia. The results thus far obtained have appeared in the “Transactions of the American Public Health Association” and “Transactions of the American Climatological Association,” 1886. He is a member of the American Climatological Association, the Royal Meteorological Society of England, and the French Society of Hygiene. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 145.
BAKER, James H., soldier, born in Monroe, Butler County, Ohio, 6 May, 1829. He was educated at Wesleyan University in Ohio. Subsequently he became a teacher, and took charge of a female seminary at Richmond, Indiana In 1853 he purchased the “Scioto Gazette”, and became its editor. He was elected Secretary of State for Ohio in 1855, and afterward Secretary of State for Minnesota. He served as a colonel in the army in 1862-'3, was appointed a provost-marshal for the Department of Missouri, and served in this capacity until the close of the war, receiving the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers. After the war he was appointed register of public lands at Booneville, Missouri, and retained the office two years, after which he retired to his farm in Minnesota. From 1871 to 1875 he was commissioner of pensions. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 145.
BAKER, Lafayette C. chief of the U.S. Secret Service, born in Stafford, Genesee County, New York, 13 October, 1826; died in Philadelphia, 2 July, 1868. His grandfather, Remember Baker, was one of Ethan Allen's captains. Baker's father inherited the curious baptismal name of the Green Mountain Boy, as well as his adventurous spirit, and in 1839 moved to Michigan and settled where Lansing, the capital, now stands. Young Baker took part in the work of making a home in the wilderness, but in 1848 went to New York and Philadelphia, and in 1853 to San Francisco, in each of these cities working as a mechanic. When the lawless element became dominant in San Francisco in 1856, Mr. Baker joined the vigilance Committee and took an active part in the summary proceedings that restored order in the city. He went to New York on business in 1861, expecting to return at once, but the Civil War intervened, and he went to Washington and offered his services. At the suggestion of General Hiram Walbridge, of New York, he was introduced to General Scott, and, as a result of the interview, he started on foot for Richmond, where, in spite of arrest, imprisonment, and several interviews with Jefferson Davis, while under suspension as a spy, he succeeded in collecting much information and returning to Washington after an absence of three weeks. This was but the first of a series of adventures involving high executive ability and a wonderful talent for tracing conspiracy and frustrating the designs of Confederate spies and agents. As soon as his abilities were demonstrated to the satisfaction of the government, he was placed at the head of the Bureau of Secret Service, with almost unlimited resources at his command, and in February, 1862, the bureau was transferred to the War Department. Mr. Baker was commissioned colonel, and subsequently brigadier-general. His duties naturally made him enemies in influential quarters, and charges of a serious nature were several times preferred against him, but were never substantiated. When President Lincoln was assassinated, Colonel Baker organized the pursuit of the murderer, and was at his capture and death. His agents effected the capture of the other participants in the plot. General Baker published a “History of the United States Secret Service ’’ (Philadelphia, 1868), which is necessarily semi-biographical, and touches authoritatively many disputed passages in the secret history of the Civil War. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 145.
BAKER, Nathaniel Bradley, governor of New Hampshire, born in Hillsborough (now Henniker), New Hampshire, 29 September, 1818; died in Des Moines, Iowa, 11 September, 1876. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College, being graduated in 1839, studied law in the office of Franklin Pierce, and admitted to the bar in 1842. For three years he was joint proprietor and editor of the “New Hampshire Patriot." In 1845 he was appointed clerk of the court of common pleas, and in 1846 clerk of the superior court of judicature for Merrimac County. He was elected to the legislature in 1851, was chosen speaker of the house, and served two terms. He was a presidential elector in 1852, and in 1854 was elected governor of the state on the Democratic ticket. His term expired in 1855, and in 1856 he moved to Clinton, Iowa, and engaged in the practice of law. He was elected to the legislature in 1850, and acted with the Republicans in the session of 1860 and the extra session of 1861. In July, 1861, he was appointed adjutant-general of Iowa, which office he held until the time of his death. In this capacity he was noted for his efficiency during the war, and was very popular with the soldiers, to whose comfort and welfare he greatly contributed. When grasshoppers devastated large portion of the northwest, and many families were threatened with starvation, General Baker's measure for their relief were energetic and effective. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 145-146.
BALCH, George B., naval officer, born in Tennessee, 3 January, 1821. He became a midshipman, by appointment from Alabama, 30 December, 1837, and was assigned to the sloop “Cyane,” of the Pacific Squadron. He was promoted to passed midshipman, 29 June, 1843, and remained on special duty until the war with Mexico, when he was assigned to active duty, and engaged in the first attack on Alvarado by Commodore Connor, 1 November, 1846. Throughout this war he was with the naval squadron, serving at the successful attack upon Vera Cruz and in the “mosquito fleet” under Commodore Tatnall. In 1849–50 he was at the Naval Observatory, Washington, and was promoted lieutenant, 16 August, 1850. While with the sloop “Plymouth,” in the Pacific Squadron, he was wounded during a fight between Chinese imperialists and rebels, and from this date until the outbreak of the Civil War he was on duty with the various home and foreign squadrons. In 1860, while in command of the frigate “Sabine,” he fell in with the U.S. transport “Governor” in a sinking condition, and rescued nearly 400 marines under Lieutenant-Colonel Reynolds, the transport sinking just after the transfer was made. In 1861–’2 he was in command of the “Pocahontas,” in the south Atlantic Squadron, and volunteered to command boats taking possession of Tybee Island. Commissioned as commander, 16 July, 1862, he was actively engaged along the South Atlantic Coast, and effectively coöperated with the land forces on various occasions, especially on 16 July, 1862, when, in command of the “Pawnee,” he repelled an attack by two batteries of artillery. In this affair the “Pawnee” was struck forty-six times. While in command of this vessel, Commander Balch captured two Confederate guns, and was engaged in the combined operations of the U.S. Navy under Rear Admiral Dahlgren and the army under General Foster in Stone River, and on 9 February, 1865, with two other vessels ascended Togoda Creek, South Carolina, and silenced three batteries. On 25 July, 1866, he was promoted captain. He was with the North Atlantic Squadron in 1868–'9, and on shore duty at Washington until 1872. He became commodore 13 August, 1872, rear admiral 5 June, 1878, and was superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy until 1880, when he went on his last cruise, terminating in January, 1883, and was placed on the retired list, having attained the limit of age for active service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 147.
BALDWIN, Charles H., naval officer, born in New York City, 3 September, 1822. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman 24 April, 1839, and became passed midshipman 2 July, 1845. In the war with Mexico he served on the frigate "Congress," and was in two shore engagements near Mazatlan while that place was occupied by the U. S. forces. In November, 1853, he was made lieutenant, and on 28 February, 1854, he resigned. He reentered the service in 1861, and commanded the steamer "Clifton," of the mortar flotilla, at the passage of forts Jackson and St. Philip, 24 April, 1862, and at the first attack on Vicksburg, 28 June, 1862. On 18 November, 1862, he became commander, and in 1868 and 1869 was fleet-captain of the North Pacific Squadron. He was made captain in 1869, and in 1869 and 1871 was ordnance inspector at Mare Island, California on 8 August, 1870, he was made commodore, and from 1876 to 1879 was a member of the board of examiners. On 31 January, 1883, he was raised to the rank of rear admiral, and assigned to the command of the Mediterranean Squadron. He attended officially the coronation of the Emperor of Russia, and in 1884 was placed on the retired list Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 148.
BALDWIN, John Denison, 1809-1883, journalist, clergyman, Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Editor of the anti-slavery journal, Republican in Hartford, Connecticut. Owner, editor of Free-Soil Charter Oak at Hartford, Connecticut. In 1852 became editor of the Commonwealth in Boston. Supported Negro causes. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 148-149; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 537; Congressional Globe)
BALDWIN, John Denison, journalist, born in North Stonington, Connecticut, 28 September, 1809; died in Worcester, Massachusetts, 8 July, 1883. He supported himself from the age of fourteen, pursued academical, legal, and theological studies in New Haven, and received the honorary degree of master of arts from Yale College. He was licensed to preach in 1833, was pastor of a church in North Branford, Connecticut, for several years, and made a special study of archaeology. He became editor of the “Republican,” an anti-slavery journal, published in Hartford, and subsequently of the “Commonwealth,” published in Boston. From 1859 he owned and edited the “Worcester Spy.” He was elected to Congress in 1863, and reelected twice. He published “Raymond Hill,” a collection of poems (Boston, 184 7); “Prehistoric Nations” (New York, 1869, and “Ancient America” (1872). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 148-149.
BALDWIN, Mathias William, 1795-1866, abolitionist, American inventor, machinery manufacturer, industrialist. Founder, Baldwin Locomotive Works. Founder, Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Strong supporter of the abolition movement in the United States. (Brown, 1995; Kelly, 1946; Westing, 1966; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. p. 149; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 542)
BALDWIN, Matthias William, manufacturer, born in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, 10 December, 1795; died in Philadelphia, 7 September, 1866. Having a natural inclination for mechanical contrivances, he was apprenticed at the age of sixteen to a firm of jewelers in Frankford, Pennsylvania. On the expiration of his service he became a journeyman, and in 1819 he established his own business. While thus occupied he devised and patented a process for plating with gold, which has since been universally adopted. He then undertook the manufacture of book-binders' tools and calico-printers' rolls, and his factory was the first to render this country independent of foreign supply. About 1828 his attention was directed to the manufacture of steam-engines, and at this time he constructed a five-horse-power engine, which was employed in his own works. The commendations that the new engine received induced him to enter into the manufacture of stationary engines, and his business became extensive and profitable. In the latter part of 1830 he was permitted to see a locomotive which had just been received from England, and after four months' labor he succeeded in producing a beautiful model, which was exhibited in Philadelphia. His first locomotive, called the “Ironsides,” was made for the Philadelphia and Germantown Railway, and was placed on the road 23 November, 1832. It was a success, and “Paulson's American Advertiser” of that period contains the following notice: “The locomotive-engine, built by M. W. Baldwin, of this city, will depart daily, when the weather is fair, with a train of passenger-cars. On rainy days horses will be attached.” During the next three years he received orders for nine or ten locomotives, and in 1835 he moved to the corner of Broad and Hamilton Streets. His inventions and improvements in the construction of locomotives are very numerous, and among these perhaps the most important was the flexible truck locomotive, patented in August, 1842. His works have acquired a world-wide reputation, and his locomotives have been sent to nearly every foreign country. It is estimated that over 1,500 locomotives left these works completed prior to his death. Mr. Baldwin was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1837, and in 1853 of the state legislature. He was also for several years president of the Horticultural Society of Philadelphia. An extended sketch of his life, by the Reverend Wolcott Calkins, has been privately printed. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 149.
BALDWIN, Roger Sherman, jurist, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 4 January, 1793; died there, 19 February, 1863. He affords an admirable instance of all that is best in the intellectual and moral life of New England. By descent and education he was of genuine Puritan stock. His father. Simeon Baldwin, was descended from one of the original New Haven colonists, and his mother was the daughter of Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, both families being from the earliest times identified with the cause of civil and religious liberty. Roger Sherman Baldwin entered Yale at the age of fourteen, and was graduated with high honors in 1811. Beginning his legal studies in his father's office, he finished them in the then famous law school of Judges Reeve and Gould, at Litchfield, Connecticut. By the time that he was ready for admission to the bar, in 1814, he had developed a mastery of the principles of law that was considered very remarkable in so young a man. His habits of concentration, his command of pure and elegant English, the precision and definiteness of his methods, soon brought him into prominence in his profession, and at a comparatively early age he attained distinction at the bar. His preference was for cases involving the great principles of jurisprudence rather than those that depended upon appeals to the feelings of jurymen. Nevertheless, he commanded rare success as a jury lawyer, being gifted with a certain dignified and lofty eloquence that carried conviction and sustained the current belief that he would not undertake the defence of a cause of whose justice he was not personally convinced. One of the most famous cases in which he was engaged was that of the "Amistad captives" (1839), now well-nigh forgotten, but which assumed international importance at the time. A shipload of slaves, bound to Cuba, had gained possession of the vessel. They were encountered adrift on the high seas by an American vessel and brought into New York where they were cared for. The Spanish authorities claimed them as the property of Spanish subjects, and the anti-slavery party at the north, then becoming a formidable element in national politics, interested itself in their behalf. The ease was first tried in a Connecticut District court, decided against the Spanish claim, and carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. The venerable John Quincy Adams and Mr. Baldwin were associated as counsel, the latter practically conducting the case. His plea on this occasion showed such a grasp of the legal technicalities involved, that such men as Chancellor Kent rated him with the leading jurists of the time. After serving his own state in assembly and senate (1837- '41), he was elected governor in 1844, and reelected for the following term. In 1847 he was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Jabez W. Huntington as U. S. Senator. He at once took a leading place among the statesmen of the period, was reelected for a second term, and always advocated the cause of equal rights for all during the heated controversies preceding the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1860 he was one of the two electors "at large" for the choice of Mr. Lincoln, and in 1860 was appointed by Governor Buckingham a member of the Congress, said: "Connecticut, comes, I doubt not, in the spirit of Roger Sherman, whose name, with our very children, has become a household word, and who was in life the embodiment of that sound, practical sense which befits the great lawgiver and constructor of governments." The labors of the Congress came to naught, owing mainly to the precipitancy with which some of the southern states passed ordinances of secession. This was the last public service undertaken by Mr. Baldwin other than the personal assistance which every patriotic citizen lent to his country during the early years of Civil War. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 149-150.
BALL, Charles, born 1780, escaped slave, wrote Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, 1837, a pre-Civil War slave narrative. (Mason, 2006, p. 169; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 185-186, 428, 574-575)
BALL, Ephraim, inventor, born in Greentown, Ohio, 12 August, 1812; died in Canton, Ohio, 1 January, 1872. His education was of the most rudimentary character, and from his fifteenth year he supported himself, following the trade of carpentry. In 1840 he directed his energies toward the establishment of a foundry for making plough-castings and a shop for stocking ploughs. He had invented a plough, which later, under the name of “Ball's Blue Plough,” met with a large sale. But his first invention was a turn-top stove, which he himself made in Greentown and sold during several years. In 1851, having become associated with Cornelius Aultman and Lewis Miller, the little shop at Greentown was abandoned, and the great firm of Ball, Aultman & Company established their factories at Canton. “The Ohio Mower” was invented by Mr. Ball in 1854, and afterward he devised the “World Mower and Reaper,” and in 1858 the “Buckeye Machine” was brought out, all of which have sold extensively. Afterward the firm dissolved, and from 1858 Mr. Ball devoted his attention principally to the manufacture of his “New American Harvester,” which attained great popularity. In 1865 it was estimated that 10,000 of these machines were produced annually. During the later years of his life, although his inventions were used extensively, Mr. Ball was financially embarrassed, while the owners of his patents acquired great wealth. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 151
BALL, Thomas, sculptor, born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, 3 June, 1819. In early life he was a singer of basso parts in oratorios, and a portrait painter in Boston. About 1852 he devoted himself to modelling, and made a miniature bust of Jenny Lind, another of Daniel Webster, and a life-size statue of the statesman. He studied in Europe for several years, executing there “Truth,” “Pandora,” and the “Shipwrecked Sailor-Boy,” and after his return to Boston made a bust of Rufus Choate, statuettes of Webster and Clay, and an equestrian statue of Washington. His later works are the statue of Forrest as “Coriolanus,” of heroic size; “Eve”; a statuette of Lincoln; a bust of Edward Everett; statues of Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, Webster, Sumner, Josiah Quincy, and the group called “Emancipation,” the original of which is in Washington, and a replica in Boston. His statue of Webster, in the Central Park, is his noblest work. It was placed there at an expense of about $60,000, through the munificence of a New York merchant. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 151.
BALL, Lucy, Boston, Massachusetts, leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, 1994, pp. 45, 56-57, 56n, 57n, 60-61, 63-64n, 263, 280)
BALL, Martha Violet, leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, 1994, pp. 45, 56-57n, 60-61, 63-64n, 263, 280)
BALL, Mason, Amherst, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1836-38
BALLARD, Charles, Worcester, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Executive, Committee, 1859
BALLARD, James, Bennington, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-35, Manager, 1835-37
BALLOU, Adin, 1803-1890, Universalist and Unitarian, clergyman, reformer, temperance proponent, advocate of pacifism, writer, founder of Hopedale Community, opposed slavery. President of the New England Non-Resistance Society. Supporter of abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison. Anti-slavery lecturer in Pennsylvania and New York, 1846-1848. Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1838-1840, 1840-1860. (Ballou, 1854; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 556-557; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 48-50; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 83)
BALLOU, Maturin Murray, journalist born in Boston, Massachusetts, 14 April, 1820), was fitted for college in the Boston High School, and passed his entrance examination at Harvard, but did not join his class. In early life he was for five years a clerk in the Boston Post-Office, and subsequently for five years in the U. S. Treasury Department. In 1838 he became connected with the "Olive Branch," a weekly publication, and was remarkably successful in this and other literary undertakings. He was editor and proprietor of " Gleason's Pictorial" and "Ballou's Monthly." He became largely engaged in building operations in the business quarter of Boston. These undertakings included the St. James Hotel, at the time one of the most costly structures in Boston, and several of the finest stores on Winter Street. He has travelled extensively in both of the American continents, and in Africa, China, India, Japan, the Pacific Islands, and in the summer of 1886 undertook a voyage to the polar regions. In the intervals of travel his literary and journalistic labors have been unremitting. He became in 1872 one of the original proprietors, and was for many years chief editor, of the "Boston Daily Globe." He edited and owned, either in part or altogether, "Ballou's Pictorial," "The Flag of our Union," and the "Boston Sunday Budget." His connection with the Boston press has lasted more than forty years. He is the author of "Due West," "Due South," "The History of Cuba" (Boston, 1854); "Biography of the Reverend Hosea Ballou," and "Life Story of Hosea Ballou." He has edited and compiled "Pearls of Thought" (Boston, 1881); "Notable Thoughts about Women"; and "Edge Tools of Speech" (1886). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 152.
BANCROFT, Eleazer, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)
BANCROFT, George, born 1800, Hampshire County, historian. Member of the Hampshire County auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 154-156; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 196)
BANCROFT, George, historian, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 3 October, 1800. He is a son of the Reverend Aaron Bancroft. He was prepared for college at Exeter, New Hampshire, was graduated at Harvard in 1817, and went to Germany. At Göttingen, where he resided for two years, he studied German literature under Benecke; French and Italian literature under Artaud and Bunsen; Arabic, Hebrew, and Scripture interpretation under Eichhorn; history under Planck and Heeren; natural history under Blumenbach; and the antiquities and literature of Greece and Rome under Dissen, with whom he took a course of Greek philosophy. In writing from Leipsic, 28 August, 1819, to Mrs. Prescott, of Boston, Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell remarks: “It was sad parting, too, from little Bancroft. He is a most interesting youth, and is to make one of our great men.”
In 1820 Bancroft was given the degree of Ph. D. by the University of Göttingen. At this time he selected history as his special branch, having as one of his reasons the desire to see if the observation of masses of men in action would not lead by the inductive method to the establishment of the laws of morality as a science. Removing to Berlin, he became intimate with Schleiermacher, William von Humboldt, Savigny, Lappenberg, and Varnhagen von Ense, and at Jena he made the acquaintance of Goethe. He studied at Heidelberg with the historian Schlosser. In 1822 he returned to the United States and accepted for one year the office of tutor of Greek in Harvard. He delivered several sermons, which produced a favorable impression; but the love of literature proved the stronger attachment. His first publication was a volume of poems (Cambridge, 1823). In the same year, in conjunction with Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell, he opened the Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts; in 1824 published a translation of Heeren’s “Politics of Ancient Greece” (Boston), and in 1826 an oration, in which he advocated universal suffrage and the foundation of the state on the power of the whole people. In 1830, without his knowledge, he was elected to the legislature, but refused to take his seat, and the next year he declined a nomination, though certain to have been elected, for the state senate. In 1834 he published the first volume of his “History of the United States” (Boston). In 1835 he drafted an address to the people of Massachusetts at the request of the young men’s Democratic Convention, and in the same year he moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he resided for three years, and completed the second volume of his history. In 1838 he was appointed by President Van Buren collector of the port of Boston. In 1844 he was nominated by the Democratic Party for governor of Massachusetts, and received a very large vote, though not sufficient for election. After the accession of President Polk, Mr. Bancroft became Secretary of the Navy, and signalized his administration by the establishment of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and other reforms and improvements. This institution was devised and completely set at work by Mr. Bancroft alone, who received for the purpose all the appropriations for which he asked. Congress had never been willing to establish a naval academy. He studied the law to ascertain the powers of the secretary, and found that he could order the place where midshipmen should wait for orders; he could also direct the instructors to give lessons to them at sea, and by law had power to follow them to the place of their common residence on shore. With a close economy, the appropriation of the year for the naval service would meet the expense, and the Secretary of War could cede an abandoned military post to the navy. So when Congress came together they found the midshipmen that were not at sea comfortably housed at Annapolis, protected from the dangers of idleness and city life, and busy at a regular course of study. Seeing what had been done, they accepted the school, which was in full operation, and granted money for the repairs of the buildings. Mr. Bancroft was also influential in obtaining additional appropriations for the Washington observatory and in introducing some new professors of great merit into the corps of instructors, and he suggested a method by which promotion should depend, not on age alone, but also on experience and capacity; but this scheme was never fully developed or applied. While Secretary of the Navy Mr. Bancroft gave the order, in the event of war with Mexico, to take immediate possession of California, and constantly renewed the order, sending it by every possible channel to the commander of the American Squadron in the Pacific; and it was fully carried into effect before he left the Navy Department. No order, so far as is known, was issued from any other department to take possession of California. See “Life of James Buchanan,” by G. T. Curtis, vol. i. During his term of office he also acted as Secretary of War pro tem. for a month, and gave the order to march into Texas, which caused the first occupation of Texas by the United States. From 1846 to 1849 Mr. Bancroft was minister to Great Britain, where he successfully urged upon the British ministry the adoption of more liberal laws of navigation and allegiance. In May, 1867, he was appointed minister to Prussia; in 1868 he was accredited to the North German confederation, and 1871 to the German empire, from which he was recalled at his own request in 1874. While still minister at Berlin he rendered important services in the settlement with Great Britain of the northwestern boundary of the United States. In the reference to the king of Prussia, which was proposed by Mr. Bancroft, the argument of the United States, and the reply to the argument of Great Britain, were written, every word of them, by Mr. Bancroft. Great Britain had long refused to concede that her emigrants to the United States, whether from Great Britain or Ireland, might throw off allegiance to their mother country and become citizens of the United States. The principle involved in this question Mr. Bancroft discussed with the government of Prussia, and in a treaty obtained the formal recognition of the right of expatriation at the will of the individual emigrant, and negotiated with the several German states a corresponding treaty. England watched the course of negotiation, resolving to conform herself to the principles that Bismarck might adopt for Prussia, and followed him in abandoning the claims to perpetual allegiance. After the expiration of the English mission in 1849, Mr. Bancroft took up his residence in the city of New York and continued work on his history. The third volume had appeared in 1840, and volumes 4 to 10 at intervals from 1852 to 1874. In 1876 the work was revised and issued in a centenary edition (6 vols., 12mo, Boston). Volumes 11 and 12 were published first under the title “History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States” (New York, 1882). The last revised edition of the whole work appeared in six volumes (New York, 1884-'85).
Mr. Bancroft has been correspondent of the royal Academy of Berlin, and also of the French Institute; was made D. C. L. at Oxford in 1849, and Doctor Juris by the University of Bonn in 1868, and in September, 1870, celebrated at Berlin the fiftieth anniversary of receiving his first degree at Göttingen. His minor publications include “An Oration delivered on the 4th of July, 1826, at Northampton, Massachusetts” (Northampton, 1826); “History of the Political System of Europe,” translated from Heeren (1829); “An Oration delivered before the Democracy of Springfield and Neighboring Towns, July 4. 1836” (2d ed., with prefatory remarks, Springfield, 1836); “History of the Colonization of the United States” (Boston, 1841, 12mo, abridged); “An Oration delivered at the Commemoration, in Washington, of the Death of Andrew Jackson, June 27, 1845”; “The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of the Progress of the Human Race”; “An Oration delivered before the New York Historical Society, November 20, 1854” (New York, 1854); “Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia, 1619; Communicated, with an Introductory Note, by George Bancroft”; “Collections of the New York Historical Society,” second series, vol. iii., part i. (New York, 1857); “Literary and Historical Miscellanies” (New York, 1855); “Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at the request of both Houses of the Congress of America, before them, in the House of Representatives at Washington, on the 12th of February, 1866” (Washington, 1866); and “A Plea for the Constitution of the United States of America, Wounded in the House of its Guardians,” by George Bancroft, Veritati Unice Litarem (New York, 1886). Among his other speeches and addresses may be mentioned a lecture on “The Culture, the Support, and the Object of Art in a Republic,” in the course of the New York Historical Society in 1852; one on “The Office, Appropriate Culture, and Duty of the Mechanic”; and to the “American Cyclopædia” Mr. Bancroft contributed a biography of Jonathan Edwards. Among those the least satisfied with the historian have been some of the descendants of eminent patriots (Greene, Reed, Rush, and others), whose merits have not, in the opinions of his censors, been duly recognized by Mr. Bancroft. That there should be entire agreement as regards the accuracy and candor of the narrator of the events of so many years, and of those years full of the excitement of party faction, is not to be expected. The merits of the work are considered at length in a biography of Mr. Bancroft by the present writer (see Allibone’s “Dictionary of Authors”), where the following opinions of eminent critics are quoted: Edward Everett says: “A history of the United States by an American writer possesses a claim upon our attention of the strongest character. It would do so under any circumstances; but when we add that the work of Mr. Bancroft is one of the ablest of that class which has for years appeared in the English language; that it compares advantageously with the standard British historians; that as far as it goes it does such justice to its noble subject as to supersede the necessity of any future work of the same kind, and, if completed as commenced, will unquestionably forever be regarded both as an American and as an English classic, our readers would justly think us unpardonable if we failed to offer our humble tribute to its merit.” Professor Heeren writes: “We know few modern historic works in which the author has reached so high an elevation at once as an historical inquirer and an historical writer. The great conscientiousness with which he refers to his authorities, and his careful criticism, give the most decisive proofs of his comprehensive studies. He has founded his narrative on contemporary documents, yet without neglecting works of later times and of other countries. His narrative is everywhere worthy of the subject. The reader is always instructed, often more deeply interested than by novels or romances. The love of country is the muse which inspires the author, but this inspiration is that of the severe historian which springs from the heart.” William H. Prescott says: “We must confess our satisfaction that the favorable notice we took of Mr. Bancroft’s labors on his first appearance has been fully ratified by his countrymen, and that his colonial history establishes his title to a place among the great historical writers of the age. The reader will find the pages of the present volume filled with matter not less interesting and important than the preceding. He will meet with the same brilliant and daring style, the same picturesque sketches of character and incident, the same acute reasoning and compass of erudition.” George Ripley writes: “Mr. Bancroft is eminently a philosophical historian. He brings the wealth of a most varied learning in systems of thought and in the political and moral history of mankind to illustrate the early experiences of his country. He catalogues events in a manner which shows the possession of ideas, and not only describes popular movements picturesquely, but also analyzes them and reveals their spiritual signification.” Baron Bunsen says: “I read last night Bancroft with increasing admiration. What a glorious and interesting history has he given to his nation of the centuries before the independence!” Von Raumer remarks: “Bancroft Prescott, and Sparks have effected so much in historical composition that no living European historian can take precedence of them, but rather might be proud and grateful to be admitted as a companion.” Mr. Bancroft’s last address was given at the opening of the third meeting of the American Historical association, of which he was president, at Washington, 27 April, 1886. It was printed in the “Magazine of American History” for June. In a letter to the author of this article, dated Washington, D. C., 30 May, 1882, he wrote: “I was trained to look upon life here as a season for labor. Being more than fourscore years old, I know the time for my release will soon come. Conscious of being near the shore of eternity, I await without impatience and without dread the beckoning of the hand which will summon me to rest.” Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.
BANKHEAD, John Pine, naval officer, born in South Carolina, 3 August, 1821; died near Aden, Arabia, 27 April, 1867. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman 6 August, 1838, and became lieutenant in 1852. During the Civil War he was on duty on the “Susquehanna,” and at the capture of Port Royal, 7 November, 1861. He commanded the “Pembina,” and also the “Florida” at the capture of Fernandina, 3 May, 1862. In the same year was made commander, and commanded the famous “Monitor” when she foundered off Cape Hatteras on the morning of 31 December, 1862, on which occasion he displayed much courage. The vessel was filling rapidly, and Bankhead ordered the crew to leave on the “Rhode Island's" boat, which was approaching. While the sea was breaking over the “Monitor's" deck, already partially submerged. Bankhead held the painter until the boat was full of men, and did not leave the vessel so long as he could do anything for the safety of the crew. He was made captain in 1866, and after the war commanded the “Wyoming,” of the East India Squadron. In March, 1867, ill-health compelled him to resign, and he died on board the steamer that was bringing him home. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 158.
BANKS, Nathanial Prentiss, 1816-1894, Waltham, Massachusetts, statesman, anti-slavery political leader. Republican U.S. Congressman and Speaker of the House of Representatives. Union General. Governor of Massachusetts. Member of the Free Soil and, later, Republican parties. He was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. He was also opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, as this repeal favored the slave power. Banks was called, “the very bone and sinew of Free-soilism” (Scribner’s, 1930, p. 578) (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. 1, pp. 158-159; Scribner’s, 1930, pp. 577-580; Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 348)
BANKS, Nathaniel Prentice, statesman, born in Waltham, Massachusetts, 30 January, 1816; died there, 1 September, 1894. He was early employed in a cotton factory, of which his father was superintendent, and learned the trade of a machinist. He was ambitious to fit himself for a wider field of work, and studied diligently during his leisure hours, securing engagements to lecture before meetings and assemblies at an early age. He became editor of the local paper at Waltham, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and in 1849 was selected to represent his native town in the legislature of Massachusetts. At this time the ancient power of the Whig Party was waning in New England, and the Free-Soil Party was making its influence felt. Mr. Banks advocated a coalition between the Democrats and the new party, and was elected speaker of the state assembly in 1851 and re-elected in 1852. In 1853 he was a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, and was selected to be its chairman. On the tide of success that attended this political combination, he was in 1853 elected to Congress as a Coalition-Democrat. During this term of service he withdrew from the Democratic Party and identified himself with the American or “Know Nothing” Party, and by an overwhelming vote, as against the Whig and Democratic candidates in his district, he was re-elected to Congress. In the preceding Congress he had demonstrated his ability, and he was now nominated for speaker of the House of Representatives. A contest lasting more than two months followed, and he was elected by a small majority on the 133d ballot, when the dead-lock had been broken by the adoption of the plurality rule. The American Party went out of existence, and Mr. Banks was elected to the 35th Congress as a Republican by a larger majority than before, and served until 4 December, 1857, when, having been elected governor of Massachusetts, he resigned his seat in Congress. He was re-elected governor in 1858 and 1859. In 1860 he accepted the presidency of the Illinois Central Railroad, succeeding General (then Captain) George B. McClellan in that capacity, but gave up the office when the Civil War began in the following year, and was commissioned a major-general of volunteers and assigned to the command of the 5th Corps in the Army of the Potomac. For this duty he was in a degree qualified by experience in the state militia. His first active service was on the upper Potomac and in the Shenandoah valley, where a part of his corps acquitted itself well at the battle of Winchester, 23 March, 1862. He was left in April and May to guard the Shenandoah with two divisions. The exigencies of the service caused the withdrawal of one of these (Shields's), and General Banks was left with about 8,000 men. Upon this force “Stonewall” Jackson made one of his sudden onslaughts with his whole corps, and the command only escaped capture by rapid and well-ordered marching and stubborn fighting. Through good generalship the bulk of the army crossed the Potomac at Front Royal on 26 May, and the Confederate leader failed to realize his apparently reasonable expectation of capturing the entire force. General Pope was placed in command of the Army of Virginia, 27 June, 1862, and concentrated his forces in the neighborhood of Culpepper Court-House early in August. General Banks's corps was ordered to the front on 9 August, and late in the afternoon of that day a severe fight took place, known as the battle of Cedar Mountain, which lasted well into the night. Banks's corps held the position against a largely superior force, was strengthened during the night, and before the morning of August 11th the Confederates retreated to the Rapidan. After participating in General Sigel's campaigns in September, General Banks was placed in command of the defences of Washington while preparations were secretly made to despatch a strong expedition by sea to New Orleans. He was assigned to the command of this expedition, which sailed from New York in November and December, and on reaching New Orleans he succeeded General Benjamin F. Butler in command of the department. Baton Rouge was occupied with a strong force, and during the winter rcconnoissances were made toward Port Hudson and other points in the vicinity. Early in April of 1863 he led the army up the Têche country, encountering no very formidable opposition, as far as the Red River. Thence he crossed the Mississippi and invested Port Hudson in connection with the fleet under Farragut. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to storm the works, involving heavy losses to the assaulting columns. In July the news of the surrender of Vicksburg was received, and on the 9th of that month the garrison of Port Hudson, 6,000 strong, capitulated, and the Mississippi River was once more open to the sea. No military movements of great importance were undertaken in the department until the succeeding spring, when General Banks's army, supported by a powerful fleet, was sent up the Red River with the intention of regaining control of western Louisiana. At the same time General A. J. Smith with 10,000 men descended the Mississippi, reaching the rendezvous first, and was joined by General Banks, who assumed command of the whole force at Alexandria. The army advanced along the south bank of Red River as far as Sabine Cross-Roads, when it suffered a defeat by the Confederates under General Richard Taylor, and was obliged to fall back to Pleasant Hill, having sustained heavy losses in men and material. Here on the following day the Confederates renewed the attack, but were repelled with great loss, and the national army retreated without further serious molestation to Alexandria, where a new complication arose in consequence of the subsidence of the Red River after the spring freshets. The gun-boats were unable to descend the river owing to shoal water, and were only saved by the engineering skill of Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey (q. v.). The whole force then retreated to the Mississippi. General Banks has been censured for the failure of this expedition, but it was undertaken contrary to his advice and in spite of his protest. During his command of the Department of the Gulf he endeavored to reorganize the civil government of Louisiana, but did not accomplish it in a manner satisfactory to the inhabitants. He was relieved of his command in May, 1864, resigned his commission, and, returning to Massachusetts, was elected to Congress from his old district. He was reëlected to the successive Congresses until 1877, failing only in 1872, when he was active in behalf of Horace Greeley, the liberal-Democratic candidate for president. He served for a long time as chairman of the committee on foreign relations. He was again elected to Congress in 1888, and in 1891 he received a pension.—His daughter, Maud, after a course of study and training at the New York school of acting, went upon the stage in 1886, making her first appearance at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the character of Parthenia in “Ingomar.”—His brother, Gardner, soldier, born in Waltham, Massachusetts; died there, 9 July, 1871. At the beginning of the Civil War he raised a company for the 16th Massachusetts Regiment, in which he rose to the rank of colonel in 1862. He was with his regiment at Fair Oaks, Glendale, Malvern Hill, Kettle Run, Chantilly, and Fredericksburg. Lieutenant Hiram H Banks, his brother, was killed by his side in the second Bull Run battle. General Hooker said, in a letter to Governor Andrew: “There is no doubt but at Glendale the 16th Massachusetts saved the army.” From constant exposure Colonel Banks contracted an inflammatory rheumatism, which completely disabled him for active service. The battle of Fredericksburg was the last he shared with his comrades of the 16th. In 1864, after an illness of several months at Waltham, he went as a planter to Louisiana, where he remained until his return home four days before his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 158-159.
BARBADOES, James G., 1796-1841, Boston, Massachusetts. African American abolitionist, community activist. Helped organize the Massachusetts General Colored Association (MGCA). Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Newman, 2002, pp. 100-102, 105, 114, 115, 126; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 161; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 127; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 1, p. 362)
BARKER, Joseph, 1806-1875, English clergyman, author, controversialist, lecturer, abolitionist. Supporter of abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison. Vice President of the Anti-Slavery Party, 1852-1859. Moved permanently to the United States in 1857. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, opposed slavery in the House. (Larsen, 2006; Locke, 1901, pp. 93, 150; Annals of Congress; Dictionary of National Biography, London, 1885-1900)
BARKSDALE, William, soldier, born in Rutherford County, Tennessee, 21 August, 1821; died at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 2 July, 1863. He was educated at Nashville University, studied law in Columbus, Mississippi, and was admitted to the bar before he was of age. He soon became a successful practitioner, and was prominent as an advocate of state rights. He became editor of the Columbus "Democrat," and ably set forth his political views in its columns. His first military experience was as a member of the non-commissioned staff of the 2d Mississippi Volunteers in the Mexican War. In 1851 he served as a member of the state convention held to consider the compromise measures then before the country. Two years afterward he was elected to Congress, and at once became prominent among the pro-slavery Democrats. When Preston S. Brooks made his assault upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber, Mr. Barksdale was present, and prevented the interference of bystanders. When his state seceded he left his seat in Congress and accepted the command of the 13th Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers, participated in the Campaigns of Virginia, and rose to the rank of brigadier in the Confederate service. He commanded the 3d Brigade of Early's division, during the second day's fight at Gettysburg, and fell while leading his men in the assault on the national left. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 165.
BARLOW, Francis Manning, soldier, born in Brooklyn, New York, 19 October, 1834. He was graduated at the head of his class at Harvard in 1855, studied law in the office of William Curtis Noyes, New York, and began practice in that city. For a time he was on the editorial staff of the "Tribune." In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 12th Regiment New York State National Guard, and went to the front on the first call for troops to defend the capital. At the end of the three months' term of service he had been promoted lieutenant. He at once reentered the service as lieutenant-colonel of the 61st New York Volunteers, was promoted colonel during the siege of Yorktown, and distinguished himself at the battle of Fair Oaks or Seven Pines (31 May and 1 June, 1862), for which he was afterward (19 September) promoted brigadier-general. He brought his regiment in good form through the trying "change of base" from the Chickahominy to the James River. At Antietam (17 September) his command captured two sets of Confederate colors and 300 prisoners, but he was severely wounded, and carried apparently dead from the field. At Chancellorsville (2 May, 1863) he commanded a brigade in the 11th Corps, but was not involved in the discreditable surprise of its commanding officer, having been detached early in the day to harass "Stonewall" Jackson in his flank movement on the national right. At the battle of Gettysburg (1 July, 1863) he was severely wounded and taken prisoner during the first day's fight; but he was exchanged, and recovered in time to take the field again the following spring. At Spottsylvania Court-House, 12 May, 1864, the 2d Corps (General Hancock's) was ordered to storm the Confederate works at dawn. General Barlow commanded the 1st Division, which, with the 3d, formed the advance line. The works were carried with a rush, and 3,000 prisoners captured, comprising almost an entire division, with two general officers, D. M. Johnson and G. H, Stewart. This opened one of the most sanguinary and stubbornly contested engagements of the Civil War, and was the first substantial success won during the campaign. General Barlow participated in the final campaigns of the Potomac Army under General Grant, was present at the assault on Petersburg, and at the surrender of the Confederate forces in April, 1865, and was mustered out of the military service on the conclusion of peace. He was elected secretary of the state of New York in 1865, and served until 1868, when president Grant appointed him U. S. Marshal of the Southern District of the state. He resigned in October, 1869. In November, 1871, he was elected attorney-general of the state, serving through 1872-3. Since that date he has practised law in New York City. General Barlow married Miss Arabella Griffith, who, while her husband was in the field, was highly efficient in the hospitals as a member of the U. S. Sanitary Commission. She died 27 July, 1864, of fever contracted in the hospitals of the Army of the Potomac His second wife is a daughter of Francis G. Shaw. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 166.
BARNARD, John Gross, soldier, born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, 19 May, 1815; died in Detroit, Michigan, 14 May, 1882. He was graduated at West Point in 1833, standing second in a class of forty-three members, was ordered to duty at Newport, Rhode Island, as brevet second-lieutenant of the Corps of Engineers, and was soon sent to the Gulf Coast, where, as assistant and principal engineer, he was engaged on the fortifications of Pensacola and New Orleans. He was also employed on various harbor improvements, and had reached the grade of captain of engineers when the war with Mexico called him to active service. He superintended the construction of the defences of Tampico, and surveyed the battle-fields about the city of Mexico. For these services he was brevetted major 30 May, 1848. Two years afterward he was appointed by the president chief of a scientific commission to survey the isthmus of Tehuantepec, with a view to the construction of a railroad from ocean to ocean. His report of this commission, edited by J. T. Williams, was the first full topographical account of the isthmus. In 1852 he was engaged in surveying the mouths of the Mississippi River with a view to their permanent improvement. He was superintendent of the U. S. Military Academy from 1855 to 1856, and was then placed in charge of the fortifications of New York Harbor. He was promoted major of engineers 13 December, 1858. The foregoing list of his services before the Civil War includes only the more prominent; he was constantly detailed on minor works of importance—too many for enumeration here. At the outbreak of the war General Barnard served as chief engineer of the Department of Washington from April to July, 1861, and then as chief engineer to General McDowell in the first Bull Run Campaign. Next, with the rank of brigadier- general, he acted as chief engineer to the Army of the Potomac in the Virginia Peninsular Campaign of 1862. When the Confederate Army advanced into eastern Virginia, he was appointed chief engineer of the defences of Washington, and was promoted lieutenant-colonel of engineers 31 March, 1863. In January, 1864, he was appointed chief engineer, and was on the staff of General Grant in the Richmond Campaign. At the end of the war he was made brevet major-general, U.S. Army, “for gallant and meritorious services in the field,” and was promoted colonel of the Corps of Engineers 28 December, 1865. The president nominated him, on the death of General Totten, to succeed the latter as brigadier-general and chief of engineers in April, 1864; but, at General Barnard's request, the nomination was withdrawn before it came up for confirmation by the Senate. He was made a member of the joint board of army and navy officers on harbor defences, torpedoes, etc., and served as senior member of the Board of Engineers for Permanent Fortifications, as a member of the U. S. Lighthouse Board, and on other important duties connected with the engineering branch of the service, until shortly before his death. General Barnard was not only a brave soldier, but, like his brother, the president of Columbia College, an accomplished mathematician and author. The University of Alabama conferred the degree of A. M. in 1838, and in 1864 he received that of LL.D. from Yale. He was one of the original corporators of the National Academy of Sciences appointed by Act of Congress, 3 March, 1863. His works include “Survey of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.” (1852); “Phenomena of the Gyroscope” (1858); “Dangers and Defences of New York” (1859); “Notes on Sea-Coast Defence” : “The Confederate States of America and the Battle of Bull Run” (1862); “Reports of the Engineer and Artillery Operations of the Army of the Potomac" (1863); ' on General Totten” (1866); and many scientific and military memoirs and reports. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 169.
BARNES, James, soldier, born about 1809; A m Springfield, Massachusetts, 12 February, 1869. He was graduated at West Point in 1829, standing fifth in his class. Among his classmates were Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, O. McKnight Mitchell, Thomas Swords, and a dozen others distinguished in afterlife. He remained in the army seven years, advancing to the rank of first lieutenant of the 4th U.S. Artillery, when he resigned and became a railroad engineer and superintendent on the Western Railroad of Massachusetts from 1836 to 184S, and chief engineer of the Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad from 1848 to 1852. He also constructed, either wholly or in part, the Rome and Watertown, the Sackett's Harbor and Ellisburg, the Buffalo, Coming, and New York, the Terre Haute, Alton, and St. Louis, and the Potsdam and Watertown Railroads, between 1848 and 1857. During the Civil War he was colonel of the 18th Massachusetts Volunteers from 26 July, 1861, to 29 November, 1862, participating in most of the battles of the Army of the Potomac during that period. He was promoted to be brigadier-general of volunteers 29 November, 1862, and was at Chancellorsville, the skirmishes of Aldie and Upperville, and the battle of Gettysburg, where he commanded a division and was severely wounded. Subsequently he was on court-martial duty or in command of posts until the close of the war, and was brevetted major-general of volunteers 13 March, 1865. He was mustered out of the service 15 January, 1866. His health was permanently impaired by wounds and exposure, and, though he interested himself somewhat in railroad affairs, he was never able to engage regularly in any business. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 170-171.
BARNES, Joseph K., surgeon-general U.S.A., born in Philadelphia, 21 July, 1817; died in Washington, D.C., 5 April, 1883. After preliminary schooling at Dr. Cogswell's “Round Hill” school at Northampton, he entered the academic department at Harvard, but was obliged, on account of his health, to leave college. He began his medical studies under Surgeon-General Harris, U.S.N., and was graduated in the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1838, practicing for two years in his native city. In 1840 he was appointed an assistant surgeon in the army, and assigned to duty at West Point. At the close of the year he was transferred to Florida, where for two years he was with General Harney's expedition against the Seminoles. Thence, in 1842, he went to Fort Jessup, Louisiana, where he served four ears. When the Mexican War began, Surgeon Barnes was appointed chief medical officer of the cavalry brigade, and he was in active service throughout the war. He was assigned to duty again at West Point in 1854, and remained there for several years. At the beginning of the Civil War he was in Oregon, and was among the first summoned to Washington. In 1861 he was assigned to duty in the office of the surgeon-general, where his experience in field and hospital service was of great value. Two years later he was appointed to a medical inspectorship, with the rank of colonel, and in September, 1863, he was promoted at the request of the Secretary of War to fill a vacancy in the surgeon-general's department, with the rank of brigadier-general. In 1865 he was brevetted major-general. For the position of chief medical officer of the army he had been fitted by twenty years of experience under all the conditions afforded by our military service. Under his care the medical department, then organized on a gigantic scale, attained an admirable degree of efficiency and discipline. It was at his suggestion and through his influence that the army medical museum and the library of the surgeon-general's office were established, and the “Medical and Surgical History of the War” was compiled. He was present at the death-bed of Lincoln, attended Secretary Seward when he was wounded by the knife of a Confederate assassin, and attended Mr. Garfield through his long confinement. He was a trustee of Peabody educational fund, a commissioner for the Soldiers' Home, and the custodian of other important public trusts. The royal medical societies of London and Paris and Moscow made him an honorary member, as did also many of the other important European schools. He was buried at Oak-Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, D.C., with the military honors befitting his rank. He was placed on the retired list the year before his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 171.
BARNUM, Henry A., soldier, born in Jamesville, Onondaga County, New York, 24 September, 1833. He was educated in Syracuse, and in 1856 became a tutor in the Syracuse Institute. He then studied law and was admitted to the bar. He enlisted as a private in the 12th New York Volunteers in April, 1861, was elected captain of Company I, and went to the front with his regiment, which was the first under fire at Blackburn's Ford in the fighting preliminary to the battle of Bull Run. He was promoted to major in October, 1861, and, after being for a short time on General Wadsworth's staff, rejoined his regiment and served through the Peninsular Campaign. When on General Butterfield's staff at Malvern Hill, he received a wound from which he has never fully recovered, and was left for dead on the field. A body, supposed to be his was buried, and a funeral oration was delivered at his home. He was taken to Libby Prison, where he remained till 18 July, 1862. He was on leave till the following December, when he was commissioned colonel, and led his regiment at Gettysburg and at Lookout Mountain, where he was wounded again, and where his regiment captured eleven battle-flags. He was again wounded in the Atlanta Campaign, commanded a brigade on Sherman's march to the sea, and was the first officer to enter Savannah. He was brevetted major-general on 13 March, 1865. On 9 January, 1866, he resigned, having declined a colonelcy in the regular army, and became inspector of prisons in New York. He was deputy tax commissioner from 1869 till 1872, and was for five years harbor-master of New York. In 1885 he was elected as a Republican to the state assembly. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 172.
BARNUM, Phineas Taylor, exhibitor, born in Bethel, Connecticut, 5 July, 1810. His father was an innkeeper and country merchant, who died in 1825, leaving no property, and from the age of thirteen to eighteen the son was in business in various places, part of the time in Brooklyn and New York City. Having accumulated a little money, he returned to Bethel and opened a small store. Here he was very successful, especially after taking the agency for a year of a lottery chartered by the state for building the Groton Monument, opposite New London. When the lottery charter expired he built a larger store in Bethel, but through debts the enterprise proved a failure. After his marriage in 1829 he established and edited a weekly newspaper entitled “The Herald of Freedom,” and for the free expression of his opinions he was imprisoned sixty days for libel. In 1834 he moved to New York, his property having become much reduced. He soon afterward visited Philadelphia, and saw there on exhibition a colored slave woman named Joyce Heth, advertised as the nurse of George Washington, one hundred and sixty-one years old. Her owner exhibited an ancient-looking, time-colored bill of sale, dated 1727. Mr. Barnum bought her for $1,000, advertised her extensively, and his receipts soon reached $1,500 a week. Within a year Joyce Heth died, and a post-mortem examination proved that the Virginia planter had added about eighty years to her age. Barnum thus acquired a taste for the show business, Mr. Barnum travelled through the south with small shows, which were generally unsuccessful. In 1841, although without a dollar of his own, he purchased Scudder's American Museum, named it Barnum's Museum, and, by adding novel curiosities and advertising freely, he was able to pay for it the first year, and in 1848 he had added to it two other extensive collections, besides several minor ones. In 1842 he first heard of Charles S. Stratton, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, then less than two feet high and only sixteen pounds, who soon became known to the world, under Mr. Barnum's direction, as General Tom Thumb, and was exhibited in the United States and Europe with great success. In 1849 Mr. Barnum, after long negotiations, engaged Jenny Lind to sing in America for 150 nights at $1,000 a night, and a concert company was formed to support her. Only ninety-five concerts were given; but the gross receipts of the tour in nine months of 1850 and 1851 were $712,161 upon which Mr. Barnum made a large profit. In 1855, after being connected with many enterprises besides those named, he retired to an oriental villa in Bridgeport, which he had built in 1846. He expended large sums in improving that city, built up the city of East Bridgeport, made miles of streets, and therein planted thousands of trees. He encouraged manufacturers to move to his new city, which has since been united with Bridgeport. But in 1856–7, to encourage a large manufacturing company to remove there, he became so impressed with confidence in their wealth and certain success that he endorsed their notes for nearly $1,000,000. The company went into bankruptcy, wiping out Mr. Barnum's property; but he had settled a fortune upon his wife. He went to England again with Tom Thumb, and lectured with success in London and other English cities, returning in 1857. His earnings and his wife's assistance enabled him to emerge from his financial misfortunes, and he once more took charge of the old museum on the corner of Broadway and Ann street, and conducted it with success till it was burned on 13 July, 1865. Another museum which he opened was also burned. He then, in the spring of 1871, established a great travelling museum an menagerie, introducing rare equestrian and athletic performances, which, after the addition of a representation of the ancient Roman hippodrome races, the great elephant Jumbo, and other novelties, he called “P. T. Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth.” Mr. Barnum has been four times a member of the Connecticut legislature, and mayor of Bridgeport, to which city he presented a public park. His other benefactions have been large and numerous, among them a stone museum building presented to Tufts College near Boston, Massachusetts, filled with specimens of natural history. He has delivered hundreds of lectures on temperance and the practical affairs of life. He has published his autobiography (New York, 1855; enlarged ed., Hartford, 1869, with yearly appendices), “Humbugs of the World” (New York, 1865); and “Lion Jack,” a story (1876). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 172-173.
BARNUM, William H., senator, born in Connecticut, 17 September, 1818. He was educated at the public schools, and in 1836 went into business. He was for many years engaged in the manufacture of car-wheels, and in the production of iron from the ore. He was elected to the state legislature in 1852, was a delegate to the Union National Convention at Philadelphia in 1866, was sent to Congress as a Democrat in 1866, and retained his seat by successive reëlections till 1876, in which year he was elected to the U. S. Senate to fill the term of Orris S. Ferry, deceased, ending 4 March, 1879. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 173.
BARNUM, Zenas, capitalist, b, near Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, 9 December, 1810; died in Baltimore, Maryland, 5 April, 1865. He was a civil engineer, but became proprietor of Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore, in the management of which he acquired a large fortune. Later he became president of the Baltimore Central Railroad, and devoted his entire energies to its reorganization, a task in which he was thoroughly Successful. Mr. Barnum was largely interested in the development of the telegraph, and was the first president of the American Telegraph Company. He was also president of the Magnetic Telegraph Company at the time of his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 173.
BARNWELL, Robert Woodward, statesman, in Beaufort, South Carolina, 10 August, 1801; died in Columbia, South Carolina, 25 November, 1882. After graduation at Harvard in 1821, he studied law, and practised in his native state. He was a representative in Congress from 1829 till 1833. In 1835 he was elected president of the South Carolina College. He resigned, on account of his health, in 1841. He declined reelection, but was appointed U. S. Senator in place of F. H. Elmore, deceased, and in this capacity he served in 1850-'51. In December, 1860, after the passage of the ordinance of secession by South Carolina, he was appointed one of the commissioners to go to Washington to treat with the national government for U. S. property within the state. He was a delegate to the convention of the seceding states at Montgomery, Alabama, and his was the casting vote that made Jefferson Davis president of the southern confederacy. He was also a member of the Confederate Senate. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 173-174.
BARRETT, Edward, naval officer, born in Louisiana in 1828; died in March, 1880. When thirteen years old he joined the sloop “Preble” as a mid-shipman, and served on foreign stations until February, 1846, when he was ordered to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis (established in 1845), and was graduated in August of the same year, in time to participate in the war with Mexico as a passed midshipman. He was present at the operations about Vera Cruz, took part in the expedition to Laguna, and was sent as master with a valuable prize to New Orleans. In 1848 he was placed in command of the sloop “Jamestown” and sent to the African Coast. In 1854 he acted as flag lieutenant to Commodore Breeze, was promoted lieutenant 14 September, 1855, and after further service on the African Coast and in the East Indies was appointed instructor of gunnery. In 1862 he was tried by court-martial for disloyalty, but was fully exonerated alike by the court and the reviewing authority. In July, 1862, he was promoted lieutenant-commander, and in 1863-'4 commanded the gun-boat “Massasoit.” In 1864–’5 he commanded the monitor “Catskill,” and captured the “Deer,” the only blockade-runner captured by a monitor. He was in the first expedition that ascended the Yang-Tse-Kiang River as far as Hangkow, and took the first man-of-war through the Eads jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 175.
BARRIGER, John Walker, soldier, born in Shelby County, Kentucky, 9 July, 1832. he was graduated at West Point in 1856, and was commissioned second lieutenant of artillery. He participated in the Manassas Campaign in 1861, receiving the brevet of captain for gallantry at Bull Run, and subsequently served as chief of commissariat for Indiana and for West Virginia, and from 17 November, 1863, to 15 August, 1865, as chief commissary of the Army of the Ohio, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the staff of the volunteer army. On 13 March, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier-general for faithful and meritorious services. From 1867 to 1873 he served as chief of commissariat in the Department of the Platte, and subsequently as assistant commissary-general in Washington, with the rank of major. He is the author of "Legislative History of the Subsistence Department of the United States Army from June 16, 1875, to August 15, 1876." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 176
BARRINGER, Daniel Moreau, diplomatist, born in Cabarras County, North Carolina, in 1807; died at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, 1 September, 1873. He was graduated at the University of North Carolina in 1826, and admitted to the "bar in 1829. The same year he was elected to the state house of commons, and returned for several successive terms. He was a member of the state constitutional convention in 1835, and elected for three successive terms to Congress, 1843-'9. He received the appointment of minister to Spain from President Taylor in 1849, and served until 4 September, 1853, when he returned home and was reelected to the state legislature. In 1855 he declined renomination and retired to private life until chosen to represent his state at the Peace Congress in Washington (1861). Alter the war he was sent as a delegate to the national union Convention in Philadelphia, August, 1866. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 176.
BARRON, Samuel, naval officer, born in Virginia about 1802. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman in 1812. attained the rank of lieutenant 3 March, 1827, of commander 15 July, 1847, and of captain in 1855. He was appointed chief of the bureau of detail in the Navy Department when the southern fates seceded, but had already accepted a commission as commodore in the Confederate Navy. He superintended the defences of North Carolina and Virginia. Being present at the attack upon Forts Clark and Hatteras, 28 August, 1861, he assumed direction of the defence by request of the officers of the forts, and, after the surrender, was a prisoner of war in New York until exchanged in 1862. He then went to England, where he engaged in fitting out blockade-runners and privateers. After the war he became a farmer in Virginia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 179.
BARROW, Washington, Congressman, born in Davidson County, Tennessee, 5 October, 1817; died in St. Louis, Missouri, 19 October, 1866. He received a classical education, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He was American charge d'affaires in Portugal from 16 August, 1841, to 24 February, 1844, and was elected to Congress from Tennessee as a Whig, serving from 1847 to 1849. He edited the Nashville "Banner," was a state senator in 1860-'l, and was a member of the commission that on 4 May, 1861, negotiated a military league with the southern confederacy. He was arrested, 28 March, 1862, by order of Andrew Johnson, governor of Tennessee, on the charge of disloyalty, and was imprisoned in the penitentiary at Nashville, but was released in the following week, by the order of President Lincoln. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 179.
BARRY, Henry W., soldier, born in New York City; died in Washington, D.C., 7 June, 1875. He was self-educated in the city of his birth, and so improved his opportunities that in early manhood he became principal of the Locust Grove Academy, Kentucky. He then studied law and was graduated at the Columbian Law College, Washington, D. C. He entered the Union Army as a private early in the Civil War, and organized the first regiment of colored troops raised in Kentucky. He commanded a brigade, and for a time a division, and was brevetted major-general of volunteers. As a member of the state constitutional convention of Mississippi in 1867, he was active during the reconstruction period and was chosen state senator in 1868, and elected to Congress the same year. Reelected for successive terms by the votes of the colored Republicans of Mississippi, he retained his seat in Congress until his death. During his last term he was chairman of the Committee on Postal Expenditures. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 180
BARRY, John S., governor of Michigan, born in Vermont in 1802; died in Constantine, Michigan 14 January, 1870. He was educated in the schools of his native state, and, when a young man, went to Atlanta, Georgia, where he lived until 1832, and then moved to Michigan. He had studied law, but became a merchant at Constantine, Michigan, and was active in politics there. On the admission of Michigan into the union, in 1836, he was a member of the constitutional convention, and was also chosen a state senator, an office which he again held until 1840. In the latter year he became interested the cultivation of the sugar-beet, and went to Europe to study the best methods of preparing the sugar. He was elected governor in 1841, and as twice reelected, serving from 1842 to 1846 and from 1850 to 1852. He was again a candidate in 1860, but was defeated. In his successful campaign he sustained the “Wilmot Proviso,” intended to prohibit slavery in the territories. During the Civil War he was in sympathy with the ultra-wing of the Democratic Party, and was a member of the Chicago Convention of August, 1864, which nominated General McClellan to the presidency. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 180-181
BARRY, William Farquhar, soldier, born in New York : 3 August, 1818; died in Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland, 18 July, 1879. He was graduated at West Point in 1838, and in that year assisted Major Ringgold to organize the first battery of light artillery formed in the U.S. Army. After doing garrison duty at different stations, he went with the army to Mexico, remaining there from 1846 to 1848. He was in the battle of Tampico, and served in General Patterson's division, and also as aide-decamp to General Worth. From 1849 to 1851 he was stationed at Fort McHenry, and was made a captain in the 2d U.S. Artillery on 1 July, 1852. He served in the war against the Seminoles in Florida in 1852–’3, and during the Kansas disturbances of 1857–’8 was stationed at Fort Leavenworth. During 1858 he was a member of the board to revise the system of light artillery practice, and the revision was adopted on 6 March, 1860. On the breaking out of the Civil War, he went into active service, assisting in the defence of Fort Pickens, Florida, as major of the 5th U.S. Artillery. He was chief of artillery in the Army of the Potomac from 27 July, 1861, to 27 August, 1862, and organized its artillery. On 20 August, 1861, he was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, took a '' part in the Virginia Peninsular Campaign until August, 1862, being in the siege of Yorktown, at the battle of Gaines's Mill, the skirmish of Mechanicsville, the battle of Charles City Cross-Roads, the Malvern Hill contest, and at Harrison's Landing. From the end of that campaign until 1864 he was chief of artillery of the defences of Washington, D.C., having been appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 1st U.S. Artillery on 1 August, 1863. He was assigned to the command at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and Wheeling, West Virginia, against a threatened cavalry raid in May 1863, and was next appointed chief of artillery on General Sherman's staff, commanding the Military Division of the Mississippi from March, 1864, to June, 1866. From May to September, 1864, he was with the Army in Georgia, and took part in the siege of Atlanta, and also in the northern Georgia, Alabama, and Carolina Campaigns. On 1 September, 1864, he was made brevet major-general of volunteers, and colonel by brevet for gallant conduct at Rocky-Faced Ridge. On 13 March 1865, he was made brevet brigadier-general, U. S. Army, for his services in the campaign ending with the surrender of the army under General Joseph E. Johnston, and on the same day was made brevet major-general for gallant conduct in the field. On 11 December, 1865, he was appointed colonel in the 2d U.S. Artillery, and was in command of the northern frontier pending the Fenian raids of 1866. On 15 January of that year he was mustered out of the volunteer service. He served on the northern frontier to September, 1867, and then commanded the artillery school of practice at Fortress Monroe to 5 March, 1877, when he was appointed to the command at Fort McHenry. During the labor riots of 1877 he rendered valuable service at Camden Station. He was the author, in conjunction with General Barnard, of “Reports of the Engineer and Artillery Operations of the Army of the Potomac from its Organization to the Close of the Peninsular Campaign" (New York, 1863). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 181.
BARRY, William Taylor, statesman, born in Lunenburg, Virginia, 5 February, 1785; died in Liverpool, England, 30 August, 1835. He went to Kentucky in 1796, was graduated at William and Mary College in 1807, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised at Lexington, Kentucky, where his eloquence soon brought him into notice. He served in both branches of the Kentucky legislature, and, in December, 1810, was elected to Congress to fill a vacancy, serving until 3 March, 1811. In the war of 1812 he was aide to Governor Shelby, and was present at the battle of the Thames, 5 October, 1813. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate, in February, 1815, to fill a vacancy, and resigned, in 1816, to become a judge of the Kentucky Supreme Court. He was afterward lieutenant-governor, state secretary, and chief justice of the state. On 9 March, 1829, he was appointed Postmaster-General. The incumbent of this office was not then a cabinet minister. President Jackson elevated him to that rank in order to gratify his friend Major Barry. Much dissatisfaction was expressed with his management of the department, and he was severely denounced on the floor of the house by William Cost Johnson, of Maryland, and others. A son of Major Barry, then a lieutenant in the army, challenged Johnson, but the challenge was withdrawn after its acceptance. On 10 April, 1835, he resigned, to accept the office of minister to Spain, and died on his way to that country. His remains were brought home by order of the Kentucky legislature, and buried at Frankfort, 8 November, 1854. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 181-182.
BARRY, William Taylor Sullivan, lawyer, born in Columbus, Mississippi, 10 December, 1821; died there, 29 January, 1868. He was graduated at Yale in 1841, then studied law, and practised in Columbus for a few years. From 1849 to 1851 he was a member of the legislature. He owned plantations in Oktibbeha and Sunflower Counties, and in 1853 moved to the latter place. He was elected to Congress as a Democrat, serving from 5 December, 1853, to March, 1855. On 18 December, 1854, he made an effective speech against the “Know-Nothing” Party. After the expiration of his term he devoted himself to his law practice in Columbus, and was again sent to the legislature, being speaker of the house in 1855. He was a member of the Charleston Democratic National Convention in April, 1860, and was one of those that withdrew because the convention did not expressly deny in its platform the power of the federal government to legislate against slavery. In 1861 he presided over the Mississippi Secession Convention, and was a member of the Provisional Confederate Congress until 1862, when he resigned to enter the army. In the spring of that year he raised the 35th Mississippi Regiment which he led until captured at Mobile, 9 April, 1865. Colonel Barry's regiment took an active part in the defence of Vicksburg, where it was surrendered, and afterward in the Georgia Campaign. After the war he practised law in Columbus until his death. See Lynch’s “Bench and Bar of Mississippi.” (New York, 1881). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 182.
BARSTOW, William A., governor of Wisconsin, born in 1811; died in Leavenworth, Kansas, 14 December, 1865. He was governor of Wisconsin from January, 1854, to January, 1856. When the Civil War began he called upon General Frémont, then commander of the Western Department, and offered to raise a cavalry regiment in Wisconsin. After raising it he was made colonel, and the regiment served with credit in the southwest; but, owing to the failing health of Colonel Barstow, during most of his military term he was sitting on courts-martial at St. Louis, where he rendered valuable service. On 13 March, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier general of volunteers. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 182.
BARSTOW, Wilson, soldier, born in 1830; died in New York City, 16 March, 1869. During the early part of the Civil War he was successively on the staffs of Generals Dix and Hooker, and subsequently chief commissary of musters of the Department of the East. He served from the first year of the war until its close with zeal and ability, entering the service as a lieutenant, and, passing through the successive grades, attained the brevet rank of brigadier-general on 13 March, 1865. When mustered out he was appointed assistant appraiser of the port of New York under Mr. McElrath. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 182.
BARTHOLDI, Frederic Auguste, French sculptor, born in Colmar, Alsace, 2 April, 1834. He studied painting with Ary Scheffer in Paris, but afterward turned his attention to sculpture, which has since exclusively occupied him. Among his works are “Francesca da Rimini” (1852); “Monument to Martin Schongauer” (1863): “Le Vigneron ” (1870); and “Vercingetorix” (1872). His statue of “Lafayette arriving in America” was executed in 1872, and in 1876 was placed in Union square, New York. He was one of the French commissioners in 1876 to the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, and there exhibited bronze statues of “The Young Vine-Grower”; “Génie Funèbre”; “Peace”; and “Genius in the Grasp of Misery,” for which he received a bronze medal. “Liberty Enlightening the World,” the colossal statue on Bedlow's Island, in New York Harbor, is his work. Soon after the establishment of the present form of government in France, the project of building some suitable memorial to show the fraternal feeling existing between the two great republics was suggested, and in 1874 the “French-American Union” was established. Among its members were Laboulaye, De Rémusat, Wad '' Henri Martin, De Lesseps, De Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Bartholdi. The plan of Bartholdi having been approved, more than 1,000,000 francs were raised by subscription throughout France for the building of the statue. On 4 July, 1880, it was formally delivered to the American minister in Paris, the event being celebrated by a great banquet. Meanwhile the United States had set apart Bedlow's Island as a site for the monument, and funds were collected throughout this country for the building of the pedestal, about $300,000 being raised. In October, 1886, the structure was presented to the nation as the joint gift of the French and American people. This statue is 151 feet and 1 inch high, and the top of the torch will be at an elevation of 305 feet 11 inches from mean low-water mark. It is the largest work of its kind that has ever been completed. The famous “Colossus of Rhodes,” according to the proportions which the legends attribute to it, was but a miniature in comparison. The “Lion of Belfort,” a colossal statue, erected in commemoration of the siege sustained by that city during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, was made by Bartholdi and exhibited in plaster at the salon of 1878. His “Gribeauval,” exhibited in the same year, is the property of the French nation, from whom he has received the cross of the legion of honor. See “Bartholdi and the Great Statue” (New York, 1886). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 182-183.
BARTHOLOW, Roberts, physician, born in Howard County, Maryland, 18 November, 1831. He Was graduated at Calvert College in 1850, and received his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1852. Shortly after graduation he entered the regular army, where he remained until 1864. He served at the different army stations in the west, and during the Civil War was in charge of general hospitals in Baltimore, Washington, and elsewhere. After his resignation he settled in Cincinnati, where he practised, and also filled various chairs in the Medical College of Ohio from 1864 to 1878. In 1878 he became professor of materia medica and therapeutics in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. He is a member of various medical societies, among which are the American Medical Association, the Ohio State Medical Society, and the Cincinnati Academy of medicine. Dr. Bartholow's Medical works include the following: “Materia Medica and Therapeutics” (New York, 1874); “Practice of Medicine” : “Hermatic Medication” (1882); “Medical Electricity” (1881); and “Antagonism between Medicines and between Remedies. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 183.
BARTLETT, John, editor, born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, 14 June, 1820. He was educated in his native town, and began business life as a publisher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1836, succeeding to the management of the business there in 1849, and conducting it for ten years. He was appointed volunteer paymaster in the U. S. Navy in November, 1862, and served until July, 1863. A business connection was formed with the Boston publishing to the latter (1888). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 183-184.
BARTLET, John Russell, born 26 September, 1843, was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy from Rhode Island in 1859, and in 1861 was attached to the steam sloop " Mississippi," in which he served at the passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the capture of New Orleans, and the attack on Vicksburg in June, 1862. He became ensign 8 September, 1863, and lieutenant 22 February, 1864. While attached to the steam sloop "Susquehanna" he took part in both attacks on Fort Fisher, was one of the assaulting party of 15 January, 1865, and was specially mentioned in the reports of Commodore Godon and Lieutenant Commander Blake, he was commissioned as lieut.-commander 25 July, 1866, and spent two more years at the U.S. Naval Academy, from 1867 to 1869. He became commander on 25 April, 1877, and was afterward attached as hydrographer to the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, D. C. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 184.
BARTLETT, Joseph J., soldier, born about 1820. He was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers 4 October, 1, was brevetted major-general 1 August, 1864, and was mustered out 15 January, 1866. From 1867 till 1869 he was U. S. minister to Sweden and Norway. He is now employed in the pension-office at Washington, D.C. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 185.
BARTLETT, William Francis, soldier, born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, 6 January, 1840; died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 17 December, 1876. Mr. Bartlett was a student at Harvard when the first call of the president came for troops in 1861. He at once left college, enlisted in the 4th Battalion of Massachusetts Volunteers, and learned his manual of arms and company drill in Fort Independence, Boston Harbor. Turning to college for a brief period, he was offered a captaincy in the 20th Massachusetts Volunteers. In September the regiment was in camp in front of Washington, and on 21 October the young captain was for the first time under fire at Ball's Bluff. His aptitude for military service was so evident that he was soon an acting field officer. In the spring of 1862 he was severely wounded at Yorktown, and suffered amputation of his leg. He recovered sufficiently to be present with his class when it graduated, and received a degree. In September, 1862, he accepted the duty of organizing the 49th Massachusetts Volunteers recruiting at Pittsfield, and was soon made its colonel in spite of his disability. The regiment was ordered to Louisiana with General Banks's expedition. Colonel Bartlett was obliged, owing to the loss of his leg, to remain mounted whenever his regiment needed his presence, and exposed himself on all occasions with the most reckless daring. It is even said that the Confederate officers, in admiration of his bravery, endeavored to prevent their men from aiming at him. He was, nevertheless, twice wounded in the assault on Port Hudson, 27 May. Returning to the north, he organized the 57th Massachusetts Volunteers in time to lead it in the Wilderness Campaign, where he was again wounded. He was promoted brigadier-general, and was in the field again as soon as he could sit his horse, but, exposing himself with his usual recklessness, was taken prisoner after the explosion of the mine before Petersburg, 30 July, 1864. After several weeks of suffering in Libby Prison and elsewhere, he was exchanged in September, placed in command of the 1st Division of the 9th Corps, and in 1865 was brevetted major-general. His military career is among the most brilliant on record. His frequent wounds testified to his bravery, and the success with which he managed his men so long as he remained unhurt marked him as a born leader. After the war he engaged for a time in business with the Tredegar Iron Works at Richmond, Virginia, but eventually returned to the north, and married a lady whose acquaintance he had formed while recruiting his regiment at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In that city he engaged in business, and made his residence. In 1875 he won a sudden and deserved reputation as an orator by an address delivered at the battle-field of Lexington, on the centennial anniversary of the fight. See “Memoir of William Francis Bartlett,” by F.W. Palfrey (Boston, 1878). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 185
BARTLEY, Mordecai, governor of Ohio, born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 16 December, 1783; died in Mansfield, Ohio, 10 October, 1870. He attended school, and worked on his father's farm until 1809, when he moved to Ohio. In the war of 1812 he served in the northwest, under General Harrison, as captain and adjutant. He settled in Richland County in 1814, and remained there till 1834, when he moved to Mansfield and engaged in mercantile pursuits. Mr. Bartley was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1817, and in 1818 was chosen, by the legislature, registrar of the land-office of Virginia Military District school lands. He resigned his registrar ship in 1823, having been elected member of Congress, where he remained until 3 March, 1831. In 1844 he was elected governor of Ohio on the Whig ticket. During the Mexican War, when the president issued his call for troops, Governor Bartley, though opposed to the war, promptly responded, superintending their organization in person. In 1846 he retired to private life, declining a renomination. He remained a Whig until the disruption of that party, and subsequently acted with the Republicans. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 187.
BARTON, Clara, philanthropist, born in Oxford, Massachusetts, about 1830. She is the daughter of Captain Stephen Barton, and was educated in Clinton, New York Early in life she became a teacher, and founded a free school in Bordentown, New Jersey. When this was opened it was attended by only six pupils; but when Miss Barton left it the attendance numbered more than 600. She entered the patent office as a clerk in 1854, and remained there until the war began, when she determined to devote herself to the care of wounded soldiers on the battlefield. In 1864 she was appointed by General Butler “lady in charge” of the hospitals at the front of the Army of the James. In 1865 she went to Andersonville, Georgia, to identify and mark the graves of the union prisoners buried there, and in the same year was placed by President Lincoln in charge of the search for the missing men of the union armies. She lectured during the years 1866 and 1867 on her war experiences, and afterward went to Switzerland for her health. At the beginning of the Franco-German War, in 1870, she assisted the grand duchess of Baden in the preparation of military hospitals, and gave the Red Cross Society much aid during the war. At the joint request of the German authorities and the Strasburg “Comité de Secours,” she superintended the supplying of work to the poor of that city in 1871, after the siege, and in 1872 had charge of the public distribution of supplies to the destitute people of Paris. At the close of the war she was decorated with the golden cross of Baden and the iron cross of Germany. In 1881, on the organization of the American Red Cross Society, she became its president. The treaty granting protection to red cross agents was signed 16 March, 1882. The American Society is modelled after its European namesake, and its object is stated by the constitution to be “to organize a system of national relief, and apply the same in mitigating suffering caused by war, pestilence, famine, and other calamities.” In 1884, as official head of the society, Miss Barton had charge of the expedition for the relief of the sufferers from the flood in the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and in the same year she was the representative of the government at the Red Cross Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1883 Governor Butler appointed her superintendent, treasurer, and steward of the Reformatory Prison for Women at Sherborn, Massachusetts. Miss Barton was also delegate to the International Peace Convention at Geneva in 1884, and was special commissioner for foreign exhibits at the New Orleans Exhibition. In 1883, by request of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, she prepared a “History of the Red Cross,” which was published at the government printing-office, Washington. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 187-188.
BASCOM, Henry Bidleman, Bishop, 1796-1850, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, clergyman. Methodist pastor educator, former President of Madison College in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Successful Agent for the American Colonization Society in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Kentucky and Tennessee. Wrote Methodism and Slavery, 1847. Chaplain of Congress. President of Madison College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Agent, Colonization Society, 1829-1831. (Henkle, Life of Bascom, 1856; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 189-190; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 30-32; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 136, 141-142, 146)
BASCOM, Henry Bidleman, M. E. bishop, born in Hancock, Delaware County, New York, 27 May, 1796; died in Louisville, Kentucky, 8 September, 1850. He was descended from a Huguenot family. He had but little education, but before the age of eighteen he was licensed to preach, and admitted to the Ohio Conference, where he did hard work on the frontier, preaching in one year 400 times, and receiving a salary of $12.10. His style being too florid to suit the taste of those to whom he preached, he was transferred, in 1816, to Tennessee; but, after filling appointments there and in Kentucky, he returned to Ohio in 1822, and in 1823 Henry Clay obtained for him the appointment of chaplain to Congress. At the close of the session of that body he visited Baltimore, where his fervid oratory made a great sensation. He was first president of Madison College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1827-'8, and from 1829 till 1831 was agent of the American Colonization Society. From that time until 1841 he was professor of moral science and belles-lettres at Augusta College, Kentucky He became president of Transylvania University, Kentucky, in 1842, having previously declined the presidency of two other colleges. Dr. Bascom was a member of the general conference of 1844, which suspended Bishop Andrew because he refused to manumit his slaves; and the protest of the southern members against the action of the majority was drawn up by him. In 1845 he was a member of the Louisville Convention, which organized the Methodist Church South, and was the author of its report; and he was chairman of the commission appointed to settle the differences between the two branches of the church. In 1846 he became editor of the “Southern Methodist Quarterly Review,” and in 1849 he was chosen bishop, being ordained in May, 1850, only a few months before his death. Dr. Bascom was a powerful speaker, but was fond of strong epithets and rather extravagant metaphors. He was the author of “Sermons from the Pulpit,” “Lectures on Infidelity,” “Lectures on Moral and Mental Science,” and “Methodism and Slavery.” A posthumous edition of his works was edited by Reverend T. N. Ralston (Nashville, Tennessee, 1850 and 1856). See “Life of Bishop Bascom,” by Reverend Dr. M. M. Henkle (Nashville, 1854). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 189-190.
BASHFORD, Coles, governor of Wisconsin, born near Cold Spring, Putnam County, New York, 24 January, 1816; died 25 April, 1878. He was educated at the Wesleyan Seminary (now Genesee College), Lima, New York, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He was elected district attorney for Wayne County, in 1847, and in 1850 resigned and moved to Algonia, now a part of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He was a member of the Whig State Convention in 1851, and in 1852 was chosen for the state senate, from which he resigned in 1855. He was the first Republican governor of the state, serving from 1855 to 1857, and declining a renomination. He practised law in Oshkosh till 1863, when he moved to Tucson, Arizona. From 1864 till 1867, he was president of the First Territorial Convention, and in 1866 was elected delegate and was attorney-general of the territory to Congress, serving from March, 1867, to March, 1869. He was appointed secretary of the territory in 1869, and served till 1876, when he resigned, and resumed the practice of his profession. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 190
BATCHELHER, Samuel, inventor, born in Jaffrey. New Hampshire, 8 June, 1784; died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 5 February, 1879. His early life was spent in New Ipswich, whither his parents had moved, and in 1808 he became interested in a cotton factory at this place, which was the second that was erected in New Hampshire. In 1825 he moved to Lowell, where he superintended the erection of the Hamilton Company's Mills. In 1831 he was called on to undertake the erection of a cotton-mill for the York Manufacturing Company in Saco, Maine, and to superintend its operations. The mills under his management were very successful, and the plant and capital were greatly enlarged. In 1846 he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he continued to reside, and, although a representative in the Massachusetts state legislature, he yet for many years continued his relations with the mills, being president of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, the Appleton Company, the Essex Company, the Everett Mills, the York Manufacturing Company, and the Exeter Manufacturing Company—having an aggregate capital of about $5,000,000. About 1832 no devised the first stop-motion to the drawing-frame, which has since been used in this country and England. In 1832 he patented the steam-cylinders and connections now universally used in dressing-frames for drying yarns. His greatest invention was the dynamometer used for ascertaining the power for driving machinery. It was first used in the York Mills in 1837, and was considered preferable to any known apparatus for determining the power actually used in driving machinery. In early life he contributed to the "Boston Monthly Anthology" and to the "Port Folio." and he was the author of the "Responsibilities of the North in Relation to Slavery” (Cambridge, 1856), and "Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in the United States" (Boston, 1863). A sketch of his life was published in pamphlet form (Lowell, 1885). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 191.
BATES, Edward, 1793-1869, Virginia, statesman, lawyer, Society of Friends, Quaker. Congressman. U.S. Attorney General, Lincoln’s cabinet. Member, Free Labor Party, Missouri. Anti-slavery activist. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 193; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 48-49)
BATES, Edward, statesman, born in Belmont. Goochland County, Virginia, 4 September, 1793; died in St. Louis, Missouri, 25 March, 1869. He was of Quaker descent, and received most of his education at Charlotte Hall, Maryland, finishing under the care of a private tutor. In 1812 he received a midshipman's warrant, and was only prevented from going to sea by his mother's influence. From February till October, 1813, he served in the Virginia Militia at Norfolk. His elder brother, Frederick Bates, having been appointed secretary of the new territory of Missouri, Edward emigrated thither in 1814, and soon entered upon the practice of law. As early as 1816 he was appointed prosecuting attorney for the St. Louis Circuit, and in 1820 was elected a delegate to the state constitutional convention. Toward the close of the same year he was appointed attorney-general of the new state of Missouri, which office he held for two years. He was elected to the legislature in 1822, and in 1824 became state attorney for the Missouri District. About this time he became the political friend of Henry Clay. In 1826, while yet quite a young man, he was elected a representative in Congress as an anti-democrat, serving but one term. For the next twenty-five years he devoted himself to his profession, but served in the legislature again in 1830 and 1834. In 1847 Mr. Bates was a delegate to the convention for internal improvement, held in Chicago, and here made a favorable impression upon the country at large. In 1850 President Fillmore offered him the portfolio of Secretary of War, which he declined. Three years later he accepted the office of judge of the St. Louis Land Court. In 1836 he presided over the Whig Convention held in Baltimore. When the question of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was agitated, he earnestly opposed it, and thus became identified with the “free-labor” party in Missouri, opposing with them the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. Mr. Bates became more and more prominent as an anti-slavery man, until in 1859 he was mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. He was warmly supported by his own state, and for a time it seem that the opposition to Governor Seward might concentrate upon him. In the National Republican Convention of 1860 he received 48 votes on the 1st ballot; but when it became apparent that Mr. Lincoln was the favorite, his name was withdrawn. When Mr. Lincoln, after his election, decided upon selecting for his cabinet the leading men of the Democratic Party, including those who had been his principal competitors, Mr. Bates was appointed Attorney-General. In the cabinet he played a dignified, safe, and faithful, but not conspicuous, part. In 1864 he resigned his office and returned to his home in St. Louis. From this time he never again entered into active politics. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 193.
BATES, Joshua H., soldier, born in Massachusetts about 1817. He was graduated at West Point in 1837 and served as a lieutenant of artillery in the Florida War, in removing the Cherokees to the west in 1838, and at Cleveland, Ohio, during the Canada border disturbances of 1839–41. He resigned his commission, 20 July, 1842, and became a lawyer in Cincinnati. In the beginning of the Civil War he was commissioned a brigadier-general of volunteers, on 27 April, 1861, and organized the Ohio volunteers in Camps Harrison and Dennison, until mustered out of the service on 27 August, 1861. He was a member of the Sanitary Commission, and when Cincinnati was threatened by the Confederates in 1863, he commanded a division. After his discharge from the army he practised law in Cincinnati, and in 1864 was elected a member of the Ohio State Senate. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 194.
BATES, Martin, senator, born in Salisbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut, 24 February, 1787; died in Dover, Delaware, 1 January, 1869. He was educated for a physician, and taught school for a time, but afterward studied law and moved to Delaware, where he practised in Dover. He served several terms in the legislature, and was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1850. After the death of John M. Clayton he was chosen to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, and served from 6 December, 1858, until 3 March, 1859, acting as a member of the Committee on Pensions. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 194.
BATTELLE, Gordon, clergyman, born in Newport, Ohio, 14 November, 1814; died in camp, 7 January, 1862. He was graduated at Alleghany College in 1840, and licensed as a Methodist preacher in 1842. From 1843 to 1851 he was principal of the Academy at Clarksburg, Virginia. During this time he was, in 1817, ordained deacon, and in 1849 elder, in the Methodist Church. As preacher and presiding elder he occupied most of his time from 1851 to 1880, and was a member of the general conference of 1856 and 1860. His influence in western Virginia was very great, and at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 he was appointed an official visitor to the military camps. The needs of the time demanding attention to the political situation, he became a member of the convention that met 24 November, 1861, and framed the constitution of the new state of West Virginia. To him, more largely probably than to any other man, was due the abolition of slavery in that region. In November, 1861, he was chosen chaplain of the 1st Virginia Regiment, and so continued till his death of typhoid fever after a service of but a few weeks. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 195.
BAXTER, Elisha, governor of Arkansas, born in Rutherford County., N. C., 1 September, 1827. He was educated in the common schools of his native county, and moved to Arkansas, where he was mayor of Batesville in 1853. He was a member of the legislature in 1854 and 1858, and in 1863 served as colonel of the 4th Arkansas Mounted Infantry in the national army. He was elected U. S. Senator in 1864, but not allowed to take his seat, on the ground that the state had not been legally reconstructed. From 1868 till 18?2 he was judge of the Third Judicial District Court of Arkansas. In the spring of 1872 Mr. Baxter was nominated for governor by the wing of the Republican that approved President Grant's administration, the liberal, or Greeley wing, nominating Joseph Brooks. The Democrats made no nomination, but favored Brooks. On 6 January, 1873, the vote was canvassed by the general assembly, and Baxter was declared elected. Meanwhile Brooks had alleged fraud at the polls, and after unsuccessfully applying to the U. S. Circuit Court, the legislature, and the state supreme court, brought suit against Baxter in a state circuit court, and on 15 April, 1874, Baxter's counsel being absent, obtained judgment in his favor, and proceeded at once forcibly to eject Baxter from office. It was claimed by Baxter that the taking up of the case in the absence of his counsel was in violation of an express agreement. Both Brooks and Baxter now issued proclamations and each had armed adherents. There was some bloodshed, and more was prevented only by the presence of federal troops. Both parties appealed the president, but he refused to interfere until 15 May, when, acting on an elaborate opinion of Attorney-General Williams, he recognized Baxter as governor, and Brooks immediately disbanded his forces. In a message to Congress on 8 February, 1875, however, President Grant expressed the opinion that Brooks had been legally elected. Baxter continued to hold the governorship until the adoption of a new state constitution in the autumn of 1874. By this the term of office was reduced from four to two years, and the re- publicans condemned Baxter" for giving up his office before the expiration of the term for which he had been elected— His brother, John, judge of the U. S. Circuit Court for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, died in Hot Springs. Arkansas, 2 March, 1866. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 196.
BAXTER, Henry, soldier, born in Sidney Plains, Delaware County, New York, 8 September, 1821; died in Jonesville, Hillsdale County, Michigan, 30 Dec, 1873. He received an academic education, and in 1849 went to California with a company of thirty men, with ox-teams, and was chosen as their captain. He volunteered as a private early in 1861, and was active in raising a company, of which he was elected captain, and which was mustered into the 7th Michigan Infantry in August. He was made lieutenant-colonel 22 May, 1862, and while in command of his regiment, at Fredericksburg, volunteered to cross the river and dislodge a company of Confederate sharp-shooters. Colonel Baxter was shot through the lung in the attempt to cross, but the movement was successful, and he was promoted to brigadier-general on 12 March. 1863. He participated in most of the battles of the Army of the Potomac, and was wounded at Antietam, and again in the Wilderness, where two horses were killed under him. For gallantry at the Wilderness, Dabney's Mills, and Five Forks, he was brevetted major-general 1 April, 1865. From 1868 till 1869 General Baxter was U. S. minister to Honduras. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 196.
BAXTER, William, clergyman, born in Leeds, England, about 1823. He came to the United States with his parents in 1828, was graduated at Bethany College in 1845, entered the Baptist ministry and preached for several years in various places in Mississippi and Arkansas, until he became president of Arkansas College, in Fayetteville. During the Civil War the college was destroyed. In 1863 he moved to Cincinnati and devoted himself to preaching and literary work. He published a volume of poems in 1852, contributed largely to periodical literature, and has also aided in the preparation of several books, one of the most important being a large volume, "The Loyal West in the Times of the Rebellion." Of his "Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, or Scenes and Incidents of the War in Arkansas," several editions were issued. His "War Lyrics," appearing originally in "Harper's Weekly”, became widely known and were recited at mass meetings by Murdoch and other popular elocutionists. His hymn ' Let Me Go" appeared in many hymnbooks and collections of sacred music. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 196
BAYARD, George Dashiell, soldier, born in Seneca Falls, New York, 18 December, 1835; died 14 December, 1862. His parents moved to Iowa in his early youth, and he attended a military school kept by Major Dorn. He learned fencing from Colonel Korponay, an exiled Hungarian soldier, and from him acquired the military spirit that led him to seek an appointment as a cadet. After graduation at the U. S. Military Academy in 1856 he was assigned to the 1st U.S. Cavalry. Four years were passed in frontier and garrison duty. He was severely wounded in a fight with the Kiowa Indians. In 1861 he was cavalry instructor at West Point, and on 10 March of that year was promoted to first lieutenant in the 3d U.S. Cavalry; captain 4th U.S. Cavalry, 20 August, and was granted leave of absence, to become colonel of the 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry Volunteers. 14 September, 1861. He became brigadier-general of volunteers 28 April, 1862, and served in the arduous campaigns of the Shenandoah, northern Virginia, and on the Rappahannock, distinguishing himself by the dash and bravery of his reconnaissance. He was mortally wounded at Fredericksburg, 13 December, 1862, and died the following day. He was buried with military honors at Princeton, New Jersey. A memorial volume by his father, Samuel J. Bayard, was published in New York in 1874. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 196.
BAUMFREE, Isabella, see Truth, Sojourner
BAXTER, Porter, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)
BAYARD, Thomas Francis, statesman, son of James A. Bayard, born in Wilmington, Del., 29 October, 1828. He was educated chiefly in the Flushing school established by the Reverend Dr. V. L. Hawks, and, being intended for mercantile life, was placed in a business house in New York City. After the death of his elder brother in 1848, he re-turned to Wilmington, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1881. He was appointed U. S. District Attorney for Delaware, but resigned in the following year. In 1855 he moved to Philadelphia, where he became the partner of William Shippen and practised for two years, but then returned to Wilmington and continued in the practice of the law until he was elected in 1868 to succeed his father in the U. S. Senate. In 1861, at a public meeting in Dover, he delivered a memorable speech in favor of peace with the south. He took his seat 4 March, 1889, and, being re-elected for a second term in January, 1875, and again in 1881, served continuously until he became Secretary of State, 4 March, 1885. On the day on which he was elected to the Senate for a full term his father was also re-elected a senator from Delaware to serve for the unexpired part of his original term. This is the only case of a father and son being voted for by the same legislature to fill the senatorial office. In the Senate he served on the committees on finance, judiciary, private land claims, library, and revision of laws, in October, 1881, he was elected President Pro Tempore of the Senate. He was a member of the Electoral Commission of 1876-'7, and a conspicuous upholder in Congress of democratic doctrines and state rights, and was voted for in national convention as a candidate for the presidency in 1880 and again in 1884. In appointing his cabinet in March, 1888, Mr. Cleveland selected Mr. Bayard for the post of Secretary of State. Including his great -grandfather, Governor Bassett, he is the fifth member of his family who have occupied seats in the U. S. Senate. See "Public Life and Services of Thomas F. Bayard." by Edward Spencer (New York, 1880). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 199.
BAYLES, James C., journalist, born in New York city, 3 July, 1845. He pursued a course of technical studies until 1862, when, shortly after the beginning of the Civil War, he entered the U. S. service as a lieutenant of artillery. His health having been impaired by exposure and injuries, he resigned in 1864 and turned his attention to journalism. He was editor of the New York "Citizen" in 1865-7, of the New York "Commercial Bulletin" in 1868-'9. In 1870 he became editor of "The Iron Age," and in 1874 established "The Metal Worker," of which he also became editor. Mr. Bayles has devoted much time and careful study to the special topics of which his journals treat, and has made numerous varied and successful experiments in electro-metallurgy, and also in the microscopic analysis of metals, the results of which have appeared in different technical journals, notably in a paper on " Microscopic Analysis," which was published in the "Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers." He was among the first to examine health problems from an American standpoint, and his study of sanitary conditions in New Jersey, where he resides, made him prominent as an authority on such subjects. He has delivered lectures on sanitary topics in New York, and in all of the prominent first efforts was to cities of the union, and is the author of the first South Orange, in 1856. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 199-200.
BAYARD, James Asheton, statesman, born in Wilmington, Delaware, 15 November, 1799; died there, 13 June, 1880. He was a son of the preceding, and the younger brother of Richard Henry Bayard. He received a classical education, studied law, and in Wilmington, taking a high rank in is profession. During the administration of President Van Buren was U.S. Attorney for Delaware. In 1851 he was elected by the Democrats a U. S. Senator to succeed John Wales, a Whig, and was re-elected in 1857, and again in 1862. In 1863, on taking his seat in the Senate, when required to take the “iron-clad” oath, he resented it as an indignity and an invasion of the sovereign rights of the states; but, after uttering a protest against its constitutionality, he took the oath, and immediately resigned his seat. George R. Riddle, who was elected in his place, died soon afterward, and Mr. Bayard consented to serve through his own unexpired term, from 1 April, 1867, to 3 March, 1869. In 1869 his son, Thomas F. Bayard, succeeded him as senator from Delaware. After his retirement from public life he resided in Wilmington. Mr. Bayard was for a long time chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary in the Senate. He was eminent as a constitutional lawyer, and was highly esteemed for his refined sense of public honor, which was manifested in a noted instance upon his receiving an offer of stock of the Crédit Mobilier in 1868, in reply to which he wrote: “I take it for granted that the corporation has no application to make to Congress on which I should called upon to act officially, as I could not, consistently with my views of duty, vote upon a question in which I had a pecuniary interest.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 197.
BEACH, Moses Yale, inventor, born in Wallingford, Connecticut, 7 January, 1800; died there, 19 July, 1868. In early life he displayed mechanical ability, and at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in Hartford, and by his industry he succeeded in purchasing his freedom before the expiration of his time. He then established himself in the cabinet business in Northampton, but was unsuccessful, and moved to Springfield. There he endeavored to manufacture a gunpowder engine for propelling balloons; but this enterprise was also a failure. He next attempted to open steam navigation on Connecticut River between Hartford and Springfield, and would have succeeded if financial difficulties had not obliged him to cease operations before his steamer was completed. Mr. Beach then invented a rag-cutting machine, which has since been generally used in paper-mills, but from which he received no pecuniary benefit on account of his delay in procuring a patent. He then settled in Ulster County, New York, where he became interested in an extensive paper-mill, and was at first successful, but after seven years was compelled to abandon it. About 1835 he moved to New York, where he acquired an interest in the “Sun,” the pioneer of the penny press, of which he soon he made himself sole proprietor. During the Mexican War, President Polk sent him to Mexico to arrange a treaty of peace; but the negotiations were broken off by a false report announcing the defeat of General Taylor by Santa Anna. In 1857 he withdrew from active business, and until his death continued to reside in his native town, where he liberally aided every plan for the improvement of the place, and was interested in all efforts tending toward its intellectual and moral advancement. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 203.
BEACH, William Augustus, lawyer, born in Saratoga Springs, New York, 13 December, 1809; died in Tarrytown, 28 June, 1884. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, began practice in his native town, and in 1840 was elected district attorney of Saratoga County. In 1855 he moved to Troy, and continued active in his profession until 1870, when he settled in New York. Here he established the law firm of Beach & Brown, and attained a high reputation, becoming one of the most prominent advocates of his time. He was engaged in many notable cases, was counsel for Colonel North in his trial by court-martial during the Civil War, and later was counsel for Theodore Tilton in his celebrated suit against Henry Ward Beecher. He defended Judge Bar- nard during his trial for impeachment, and was associated in the trial of E. S. Stokes for the murder of James Fisk, Jr., and in the Vanderbilt will case. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 203.
BEADLE, William Henry Harrison, educator, born in Liberty, Indiana, 1 January, 1838. He was graduated at the University of Michigan in 1861, entered the army as first lieutenant in the 31st Indiana Infantry, served continuously during the Civil War, and in 1864 was brevetted brigadier general. He was graduated at the law department of the University of Michigan in 1867, practised for two years in Wisconsin, and in 1869 was appointed surveyor-general of Dakota. Since then he has devoted his attention to the development of the resources of that territory. From 1879 to 1885 he was superintendent of public instruction of Dakota, and under his direction the entire school system was organized. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 203.
BEAL, George Lafayette, soldier, born in Norway, Maine, 21 May, 1825. He left Portland, on 6 October, 1861, as colonel of the 10th Maine Regiment. He was appointed by the president brigadier-general of volunteers, 30 November, 1864, and was mustered out of the service on 15 January, 1866. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 203.
BEALE, Edward Fitzgerald, soldier, born in Washington, D. C., 4 February, 1822. His father and grandfather were officers in the U. S. Navy, and both of them received Medals of Honor from Congress. His education was begun in Georgetown College, where he remained until he was appointed a cadet at the U. S. Naval Academy, and was graduated in 1842. During the war with Mexico he distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry, and was presented with a sword by his brother officers, in recognition of his services as a bearer of despatches through the enemy's lines. For the same act he was officially complimented by Commodore Stockton. At the conclusion of the war with Mexico he resigned his commission and was appointed Superintendent of Indian affairs for California and New Mexico. At the request of Major General Wool, he was commissioned brigadier-general and deputed to terminate an Indian war in California. During the decade preceding the Civil War he conducted many important explorations in the far west, and in 1861 was appointed surveyor-general of California by President Lincoln, but offered his services in a military capacity as soon as the war of secession began. In 1876 he was appointed U. S. minister to Austria by President Grant. In 1877 he resigned, and he has since then personally superintended his large sheep and cattle ranch in Southern California. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 204.
BEALE, Richard L. T., soldier, born in Hickory Hill, Westmoreland County, Virginia, 22 May, 1810. He was educated at Northumberland Academy and Dickinson College, was graduated at the law school of the University of Virginia, and admitted to the bar in 1839. He served in Congress as a Democrat from 6 December, 1847, till March. 1849, but declined a re-election. He was a delegate to the state reform convention of 1850, and in 1857 a member of the state senate. At the beginning of the Civil War he entered the Confederate Army, and in 1863 was colonel of the 9th Virginia Cavalry. In February, 1865 he commanded a brigade in Lee's cavalry division. Army of Northern Virginia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 204
BEALL, Benjamin Lloyd, soldier, born in the District of Columbia, about 1800; died in Baltimore. Maryland 16 August, 1863. He was a son of Major Beall of Maryland, and appointed a cadet at West Point in 1814, but did not graduate. He was made captain of the Washington City Volunteers in June, 1836, in a regiment raised for the Florida Indian War; captain of 2d U.S. Dragoons 8 June, 1836; brevetted major 15 March, 1837, for gallantry in the Florida Campaign; and appointed major 1st U.S. Dragoons 16 February, 1847. He took part in the Mexican War, and on 16 March, 1848, was brevetted lieutenant-colonel for bravery at the battle of Santa Cruz de Royales. He became lieutenant-colonel of the 1st U.S. Dragoons 3 March, 1855, and served for several years on the western frontier. He was in command as general in California after its annexation to the United States, and while so serving built all the forts from the western frontier of Texas to the Pacific, He also served for two years at Vancouver's Island. When the Civil War began he was ordered to Baltimore as a mustering officer, was commissioned colonel 1st U.S. Dragoons in May, 1861, and was placed on the retired list 15 February, 1862, because of his long and arduous service. He had two sons in the National Army and one in the Confederate. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 204.
BEALL, John Young, guerilla, born in Virginia, 1 January, 1835; died on Governor's Island, New York Harbor, 24 February, 1865. He was of good family and received a classical education. Joining the navy of the Confederate States, he was appointed acting master, 3 March, 1863. On 16 December, 1864, he was arrested in the railroad station at Suspension Bridge, New York. Charges and specifications were drawn up, reciting in substance that he was acting in the twofold capacity of a spy and guerilla, carrying on irregular warfare against the United States. A military commission, with Brigadier-General Fitz Henry Warren as president and Major John A. Bolles as judge-advocate, was convened at Fort Lafayette for his trial. James T. Brady acted as counsel for the accused. It appeared from the testimony that Beall, in company with other men in the dress of civilians, boarded the Lake Erie steamer " Philo Parsons" on 19 September, 1864, in the character of passengers; that at a signal they produced arms, and, acting under the orders of the accused and others, they seized the boat, driving all hands below as prisoners. They then captured and subsequently sank another boat, the "Island Queen." It also" appeared that Beall was engaged with others in an attempt to wreck a railway train near Buffalo on the night of his arrest The defence was based on the declaration of the accused that he was engaged in legitimate warfare under specific instructions from the Confederate under specific instructions government, and he was permitted to correspond with the authorities at Richmond to procure evidence to this effect, A proclamation was issued by Jefferson Davis under date of 24 December, 1864, certifying that the Confederate government assumed "the responsibility of answering for the acts and conduct of any of its officers engaged in said expedition," namely, that in which Beall was concerned. It was proved that he had perpetrated acts of war within the jurisdiction of the United States, wearing at the time no visible badge of military service. Among civilized nations the penalty for such acts is death, and Beall was hanged in accordance with the finding of the court. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 204
BEALL, Samuel Wootton, lawyer, born in Montgomery, Maryland, 26, September, 1807; died in Helena, Montana, 26 September, 1868. He was graduated at Union in 1827, and studied law at Litchfield. During the same year he married Miss Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper, and, through the Influence of Chief-Justice Taney, a personal friend of the family, was appointed, in" 1827, receiver for the sale of public lands in the northwest, having his office in Green Bay, Wis. He returned to Cooperstown in 1884, and lived for some years in a beautiful residence called " Woodside," gathering around him a brilliant circle of cultured and refined society, prominent among whom were J. Fennimore Cooper, Washington Irving, James Watson Webb, and the English ballad-singer Henry Russell. Later he returned to Wisconsin, and was engaged in agriculture, being the first to introduce blooded cattle into the northwest. About this time his mother died in Maryland, leaving him over thirty slaves and some slight property. Southerner though he was, and straitened in circumstances in comparison with his earlier life, the spirit of the free west led him to liberate his slaves. He further devoted the entire proceeds obtained from the sale of the property to the support of these slaves as long as the means lasted, or until they were able to earn a living for themselves. In 1848 he was elected to the constitutional convention from the county of Marquette, and was prominent in the organization of the state government. Again, in 1847-'8, he served similarly in the convention then assembled, and in 1850 became lieutenant-governor of the state, serving for two years. He then became Indian agent, and was among the first to take chiefs of tribes under his care to Washington. Among these were the Sachems of Munsees and Stockbridge tribes. One chief of the latter tribe, John Quincey, created much interest and wonder by the delivery of an eloquent speech, now recorded in history as a sample of remarkable power and pathos. This speech was written by Mr. Beall, and taught word by word to the chief, even to the questions, who proved an apt scholar to so able a teacher. The original manuscript is still carefully preserved among the family possessions. In 1859 he led a party to Pike's Peak, and while on this expedition with others located the city of Denver. This place immediately started into rapid growth, and during the following winter Mr. Beall was sent to Washington to obtain a charter for the city. He resides in Denver until 1861, when he returned to Wisconsin. At the beginning of the Civil War he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 18th Wisconsin Regiment, and he was in the various engagements from Shiloh, to Vicksburg. Having been severely wounded, he was then transferred to the Invalid Corps. Shortly after the war he settled at Helena, where he was shot during an altercation. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 204-205.
BEAMAN, Fernando, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)
BEARD, Frank, the third son of artist William Beard, was a special artist for Harper & Brothers during the Civil War. He devotes himself particularly to character- sketches, in the production of which he has attained remarkable facility. He lectures on various topics, accompanying himself with crayon sketches on the blackboard. He was for a time professor of the fine arts in Syracuse University. He has published “The Blackboard and the Sunday School” (New York, 1880). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 206.
BEARD, George Miller, physician, born at Montville, Connecticut, 8 May, 1830; died in New York. 28 January, 1883. His father was a clergyman. The son studied at Phillips Andover Academy, and was graduated at Yale in 1862. He studied a year in the medical department of Yale, and in 1866 obtained his medical degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. For eighteen months, in 1863-'4, he was assistant surgeon on the gun-boat "New London," in the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron. In 1865 he settled in New York and made diseases of the nervous system his specialty. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 206-206.
Beard, Harry, the second son of artist William Beard , entered the national army as a boy in 1861, and was a captain in the 30th Missouri Volunteers at twenty-one years of age. He paints genre subjects in oils and water-colors, and makes the designs for many of Prang's Publications. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 206.
BEARDSLEY, Samuel Raymond, lawyer, eldest son of Levi, born in Cherry Valley, Otsego County, New York, 31 December, 1814; died in Stevensburg, Virginia, 28 December, 1863. He was graduated at Union in 1836, studied law, and practised in Albany and in Oswego, New York. He afterward engaged in milling, owning the Premium Mills in Oswego. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 48th New York Militia in 1851, and colonel in 1854. He was elected mayor of Oswego in 1852; appointed postmaster in 1853, and was defeated as a candidate for the assembly in 1858. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the 24th New York Volunteers in 1861, was wounded at Chancellorsville, and was promoted to the colonelcy in 1863. When the regiment was mustered out in 1863, he was appointed adjutant-general on General Meade's staff. He died of disease contracted in the service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 207.
BEATTY, John, soldier, born near Sandusky, Ohio, 16 September, 1828. He received a common-school education and entered on a business career in a banking-house at an early age. He took an active banking-house at an early age. He took an active part in public affairs, and was identified with Free-Soil Party until it was merged in the Republican. In 1860 he was a Republican presidential elector. In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 3rd Ohio Infantry, and was appointed successively captain and Lieutenant-Colonel. He took part in the early western Virginia Campaigns, became a colonel in 1862, and commanded a brigade in the fight at Stone River, 31 December 1862, to 2 January, 1863. In 1863 he was commissioned a brigadier general and served through the Tennessee and Chattanooga Campaigns. He was elected to the Fortieth Congress and was twice re-elected. In 1884 he was Republican presidential elector at large. In 1886 he was a member of the board of state charities. He has written "The Citizen Soldier" (Cincinnati. 1876) and "The Belle o' Becket's Une" (Philadelphia. 1882). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 208-209.
BEATTY, Samuel, soldier, born in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, 16 December 1820; died in Jackson, Stark County, Ohio, 26 March, 1885. He moved with his father, a native of Ireland to Jackson, Ohio, in 1827, received a limited education in the common schools, and became a farmer. He served nearly two years in the Mexican War as 1st lieutenant in the 3d Ohio Volunteers, was elected sheriff of his county in 1857, reelected in 1859. On 16 November, 1861, he became colonel of the 19th Ohio Volunteers. He was made brigadier-general of volunteers on 29 November, 1862, commanded a division in the battle of Stone River, and was brevetted major-general on 13 March, 1865. In 1866 he returned to his farm in Jackson, where he spent the rest of his life. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 209.
BEAUMONT, John G., naval officer, born in Pennsylvania, 27 August, 1821; died 2 August, 1882. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman, 1 March, 1838, and obtained promotion as master, 30 August, 1851; lieutenant, 29 August, 1855; commander, July, 1862; captain, 1872. He participated as commander of the steamer “Aroostook,” of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, in the severe engagement with the Confederate batteries at Fort Darling, was attached to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in 1862-3, was engaged as commander of a monitor in attacks on the fortifications in Charleston Harbor, and took a prominent part in the capture of Fort Wagner. He commanded the steamer “Mackinaw,” of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, in the two attacks on Fort Fisher, when his vessel was badly injured by the shot and shell from the enemy's batteries. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 210.
BEAUREGARD, Pierre Gustave Toutant, soldier, born near New Orleans, Louisiana, 28 May, 1818. He was graduated second in class rank at West Point in 1838. Among his classmates were the future Confederate generals Hardee and Sibley and the federal generals Barry, Nichols, Granger, and McDowell. He was assigned first to the artillery and then to the engineers, and in 1838-’9 was assistant in the construction of Fort Adams, Newport. He was on engineering duty at Barataria Bay, Louisiana, in 1840-1, at the passes of the Mississippi in 1841–4, and at Fort McHenry, Maryland, in 1844–5. At the beginning of the war with Mexico, he was engaged in the construction of defences at Tampico (1846-'7) siege operations at Vera Cruz (9 to 29 March, 1847), Cerro Gordo (April 17, 18), Contreras (August 19,20), Chapultepec (September 13), and city of Mexico (September 13, 14), where he was twice wounded. Shortly afterward he was brevetted major. He attained the full rank of captain of engineers, 3 March, 1853, for fourteen years of continuous service as lieutenant. Returning to the United States, he was assigned to duty in the vicinity of New Orleans, superintending the construction and repair of fortifications in Mobile Harbor and on the Mississippi River, also of harbor construction in Lake Pontchartrain, and as constructing engineer of the custom-house in New Orleans. His supervisory duties extended over the Gulf Coast from Florida to the Rio Grande. On 23 January, 1861, he was detailed as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, but held the place only a few days, resigning his commission 20 February, 1861. This ends his record as a military officer of the United States. He at once offered his services to the southern confederacy, then organizing to resist the authority of the federal government, and was placed in command of the defences of Charleston, South Carolina On the refusal of Major Robert Anderson to evacuate Fort Sumter, he opened fire soon after daylight on the morning of 12 April, 1861. After a cannonade of several hours, during which, according to the official reports, not a single life was lost on either side, Fort Sumter, with ammunition and provisions nearly exhausted, capitulated to General Beauregard, and the garrison marched out, with the honors of war. Beauregard was almost immediately ordered to Virginia, where he was practically in command at the battle of Bull Run (July 21), though superseded at the last moment by General Joseph E. Johnston. Here he was again victorious. In the spring of 1862 he was ordered to Tennessee, as second in command to General Albert S. Johnston, and when that officer was killed at the battle of Shiloh, April 6, Beauregard took command and nearly succeeded in routing the northern army. The next day, however, the federals having been re-enforced, he was compelled to retreat by General Grant, falling back in good order to Corinth, Mississippi, where he made a successful defence until 29 May, when he evacuated the place, destroying all his stores, and retreating southward along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. General Beauregard's health failed after this campaign, and he was on leave of absence until August, when, with the full rank of general, he was again placed in command at Charleston, which for a year and a half (September, 1862, till April, 1864) he defended against the formidable siege operations under General Gillmore and Admirals ' and Dahlgren. In May, 1864, when General Grant was closing in upon the approaches to Richmond, Beauregard re-enforced Lee, defeated Butler at Drury's Bluff, and held Petersburg against the federal advance. In October he was commander of the Military Division of the west, and sent to Georgia to resist the march of the federals under Sherman. The attempt proved futile, and, joining forces with General Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, he surrendered with that officer to General Sherman in April, 1865. After the war he became president of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Mississippi Railroad, adjutant-general of the state, and manager of the Louisiana State Lottery. See “Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War between the States, 1861–’5,” by Colonel Alfred Roman (New York, 1884). General Beauregard is the author of “Principles and Maxims of the Art of War” (Charleston, 1863), and “of the Defence of Charleston” (Richmond, 1864). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 210-211.
BEAVER, James Addams, soldier, born in Millerstown, Perry County, Pennsylvania, 21 October, 1837. The founders of the family came from Alsace in 1740–Huguenots seeking religious liberty in America. They settled in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and became leaders in the affairs of the infant commonwealth. They have furnished soldiers for every American war since the middle of the last century, and in times of peace have been among the most highly respected and influential families of the state. James was educated by his mother (his father having died in 1840) until 1846, when the family moved to Belleville, Mifflin County, and he was sent to school. In 1852 he entered Pine Grove Academy, and in 1854 joined the junior class in Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania After graduation in 1856 he read law in the office of H. N. McAllister, at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, and was taken into partnership by him almost as soon as he was of age. During this period of his life he joined a local military company—the “Bellefonte Fencibles,” under Captain Andrew G. Curtin, afterward war governor of Pennsylvania. He made a thorough study of tactics, and, when the president called for volunteers to suppress the rebellion in 1861, he was second lieutenant of the company, which promptly marched for the defence of the national capital. On the organization of the 45th Pennsylvania Volunteers, he became its lieutenant-colonel, and first saw active service in the neighborhood of Hilton Head and Port Royal, South Carolina A new call for volunteers was issued in 1862, and Lieutenant-Colonel Beaver was commissioned colonel of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers, recruited in the vicinity of his home. He had by this time developed his qualities as a disciplinarian, and his men made it their boast that they were often mistaken for regulars. The regiment joined the Army of the Potomac just after the battle of Fredericksburg, was assigned to Hancock's Corps, and first met the enemy at the battle of Chancellorsville (2 and 3 May, 1863), where it held an advanced position, and lost very heavily, Colonel Beaver being among the wounded. He had not recovered when the third call for troops was issued; but, at his own request, he was placed on recruiting service, in command of Camp Curtin. He was able to rejoin his regiment just before the battle of Gettysburg, but, still weak from his wound, was not permitted to take command during the fight. He led his regiment throughout the Wilderness Campaign in May, 1864, and took part in the successful assault upon the Confederate works at Spotsylvania Court-House, his regiment being among the first to scale the earthworks. At the battle of Cold Harbor (3 June, 1864) he was left in command of the brigade, General Brooke being wounded, and later he was himself slightly wounded, but not disabled, and remained at his post during the rest of the day, holding an advanced position close to the enemy's works, and constantly under fire. On 16 June, 1864, he was again wounded while leading his brigade in the first assault upon the works at Petersburg. Returning to duty before his wound was fairly healed, he rode to the battle-field of Ream's Station in an ambulance, and had scarcely reached the front and assumed command at the advanced line when his right leg was shattered by a rifle-ball. Amputation followed, and, although his life was saved, he was no longer capable of active military service. He was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers, 10 November, 1864, and mustered out of service at his own request on 22 December of that year, refusing to remain in the army on light duty as he was urged to do. He repeatedly declined promotion that would have taken him away from his own regiment, feeling bound to remain with the men whom he had enlisted. In civil life General Beaver has attended closely to his practice at the bar. He was elected a member of the board of trustees of the Pennsylvania State University, in 1873, and was been very influential in increasing its usefulness and prosperity. He has taken active part as a speaker in the campaigns of the Democratic Party, and at the state convention of June, 1882, was nominated as its candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, and again nominated for the same office in 1886. He is a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic. See "Life of James A. Beaver," by Frank A. Burr (Philadelphia, 1882). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 212-213.
BECKLEY, Guy, Northfield, Vermont, Methodist clergyman. Anti-slavery agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Lectured in New Hampshire, Vermont and Michigan. Co-edited antislavery newspaper, Signal of Liberty, with Theodore Foster, the newspaper of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society. He was excluded from Methodist churches because of his anti-slavery work. (Dumond, 1961, p. 187)
BECKWITH, Amos, soldier, born in Vermont about 1830. He was graduated at West Point in 1850, and served in the Seminole War. During the Civil War he was chief depot-commissary in Washington, chief of commissariat of the Military Division of the Mississippi, on the staff of General Sherman in the Atlanta Campaign, and, after the war, chief commissary of the Department of the Gulf. He was brevetted brigadier-general in the U. S. Army on 13 March, 1865, and promoted lieutenant colonel on the general staff, 23 June, 1874. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 214.
BECKWITH, Edward Griffin, soldier, born in Cazenovia, New York, 25 June, 1818; died in Clifton, New York, 22 June, 1881. He was graduated at West Point in 1842, served in the war with Mexico at Tampico and Vera Cruz, and was employed in Pacific Railroad reconnaissance in 1853- 4, the records of which survey were published by Congress. In the Civil War he served as chief of commissariat of the 5th Army Corps, and of the Army of Virginia, and in fitting out General Banks's Louisiana Expedition. He was provost-marshal-general of the Department of the Gulf in 1863, in command of the defences of New Orleans from 25 August, 1863, till 12 January, 1864, also for a time chief commissary of the department, was made major on 8 February, 1864, and received the brevet rank of brigadier-general, U. S. Army, on 13 March, 1865, for faithful and meritorious services during the war. After the war he was employed in the subsistence department. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 214.
BECKWITH, George C, clergyman, born in 1800; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 12 May, 1870. He was a Congregational minister, who devoted himself to the service of the American Peace Society, of which he was for thirty-three years corresponding secretary. He also edited its magazine, "The Advocate of Peace," and wrote the appeals issued in its name, in favor of Peace Congresses and the arbitration of international disputes. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 214
BECKWITH, John Watrus, P. E. bishop, born in Raleigh, North Carolina, 9 February, 1831. He was graduated at Trinity College, Hartford. in 1852, ordained deacon 24 May, 1854, and priest in Mav, 1855. He entered upon work in Wadesboro, North Carolina, but soon moved to Anne Arundel County, Maryland. At the beginning of the Civil War he moved to Mississippi and thence to Alabama, where he became rector of Trinity Church in Demopolis. At the close of the war he became rector of Trinity Church, New Orleans, and while there was elected bishop of Georgia. He received the degree of S. T. D. from Trinity in 1867. He was consecrated bishop in St. John's Church, Savannah, 2 April, 1808. It is largely due to his untiring labors that the Episcopal Church in Georgia has steadily gained in influence and strength. He is a most eloquent and powerful preacher, and in this respect has no superior in the church of which he is a member. He has published several sermons and addresses. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 214.
BEDEL, John, soldier, born in the Indian Stream territory, northern New Hampshire, 8 July, 1822; died in Bath, New Hampshire, 26 February, 1875. His father was General Moody Bedel. The son enlisted as a private in the Mexican War in 1847, and became captain in 1849. He was admitted to the bar in 1850, and practised in Bath until 1853, when he entered the treasury department at Washington, and remained there until the beginning of the Civil War. He was then appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 3d New Hampshire Volunteers, 27 June, 1862, was wounded, 10 July, 1863, and captured at Fort Wagner, 18 July, 1863. He was promoted colonel of that regiment, while a prisoner of war, 6 April, 1864, and paroled on 9 December He was made brigadier-general of U. S. volunteers, by brevet, dating from 13 March, 1865, for gallant and meritorious services, and was mustered out of service 20 July, 1865. He represented the town of Bath in the legislature, and was several times the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 214.
BEE, Bernard E., soldier, born in Charleston, South Carolina, about 1823; killed in the battle of Bull Run, 21 July, 1861. He was graduated at West Point in 1845, and served as a lieutenant in the military occupation of Texas and in the war with Mexico, being wounded at Cerro Gordo, and receiving the brevet of captain for gallantry at Chapultepec. He served as captain on frontier duty in Minnesota, on the Utah Expedition, and in Dakota until 3 March, 1861, when he resigned and entered the Confederate service. He held the rank of brigadier general, and commanded a brigade of South Carolina troops at Bull Run. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 216.
BEECHER, Charles, 1815-1900, clergyman, anti-slavery activist, author. Opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Wrote The Duty of Disobedience to Wicked Laws. It argued there was a “higher law” that must be followed. The Constitution’s fugitive slave clause was morally wrong in that it legally condoned kidnapping. Son of abolitionist Lyman Beecher, brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Edward Beecher, and Henry Ward Beecher. (Appletons, 1888, Vol. 1, p. 220; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 126-129; Dumond, 1961, pp. 273, 310; Mabee, 1970, pp. 298)
BEECHER, Edward, 1803-1895, clergyman, abolitionist leader, writer, social reformer. President, Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois. Pastor, Salem Street Church, Boston. Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Friend of abolitionist leader Elijah J. Lovejoy. Co-founded Anti-Slavery Society in Illinois. Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1842. Son of abolitionist Lyman Beecher, brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Charles Beecher, and Henry Ward Beecher. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 153-154, 288; Merideth, 1968; Pease, 1965, pp. 268-272; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 40, 187-188; Rugoff, 1981; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 219-220; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 128)
BEECHER, Edward, clergyman, born in East Hampton, Long Island, 27 August, 1803. He was graduated at Yale in 1822, studied theology at Andover and New Haven, became tutor in Yale in 1825, and then moved to Boston to take charge of the Park street congregation. Here he remained from 1826 till 1830, when he was elected president of Illinois College, Jacksonville. In 1844 he returned to Boston, as pastor of Salem Street Church, and in 1855 he became pastor of the Congregational Church at Galesburg, Illinois, where he remained until1870. For some years he was professor of exegesis in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1872 he retired from the ministry and moved to Brooklyn, New York. The title of D. D. was conferred on him by Marietta College in 1841. He has been a constant contributor to periodicals, was senior editor of “The Congregationalist” for the first six years of its existence, and after 1870 was a regular contributor to the “Christian Union.” His two works on the “Ages” gave rise to much discussion, and have modified doctrinal statements as to the origin of human depravity. The central idea presented is, that man's present life upon earth is the outgrowth of a former life as well as the prelude to a future one; that during the ages a conflict has been going on between good and evil, which will not be terminated in this life, but that sooner or later all the long strifes of ages will become harmonized into an everlasting concord. He has published “Address on the Kingdom of God” (Boston, 1827); '”Six Sermons on the Nature, Importance, and Means of Eminent Holiness throughout the Church” (New York, 1835); “History of Alton Riots” (Cincinnati, 1837); “Statement of Anti-Slavery Principles and Address to People of Illinois” (1837); “Baptism, its Import and Modes” (New York, 1850); “Conflict of Ages” (Boston, 1853); “Papal Conspiracy exposed” (New York, 1855); “Concord of Ages” (1860); “History of Opinions on the Scriptural Doctrine of Future Retribution” (1878).—Another son, George, clergyman, born in East Hampton, Long Island, 6 May, 1809; died in Chillicothe, Ohio, 1 July, 1843, was graduated at Yale in 1828, after which he studied theology. Subsequent to his ordination in the Presbyterian church he filled pulpits at Rochester, New York, and afterward at Chillicothe, Ohio. His death was caused by an accidental discharge of a gun while shooting birds in his own garden. See the “Memoirs of George Beecher,” by his sister Catherine (New York, 1844). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 219-220.
BEECHER, George, Clinton County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-38.
BEECHER, Reverend Henry Ward, 1813-1887, social reformer, clergyman, abolitionist leader. Supported women’s suffrage and temperance movements. Opposed compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act. Supported early Republican Party and its candidate for President, John C. Fremont. Son of abolitionist Lyman Beecher, brother of author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Charles Beecher, and Edward Beecher. (Applegate, 2006; Filler, 1960, pp. 155, 196, 241; Hibben, 1942; Mabee, 1970, pp. 140, 240, 241, 298, 300, 318, 320, 337, 365; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 380, 656-657; Rugoff, 1981; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 218-219; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 128-135; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 64-66)
BEECHER, Henry Ward, clergyman, born in Litchfield, Connecticut, 24 June, 1813; died in Brooklyn, New York, 8 March, 1887. At an early age he had a strong desire for a seafaring life, which he renounced in consequence of a deep religious impression experienced during a revival. He studied at the Boston Latin-school, in Mount Pleasant Institute, was graduated at Amherst in 1834, and then studied theology at Lane seminary, under the tuition of his father, who was president of the institution. He first settled as a Presbyterian minister in Lawrenceburgh, Indiana, in 1837, and married Eunice White, daughter of Dr. Artemas Bullard; then moved to Indianapolis in 1839, where he preached until 1847. In that year he received a call from Plymouth Church, a new Congregational society in Brooklyn, New York, and almost from the outset he began to acquire that reputation as a pulpit orator which he maintained for more than a third of a century. The church and congregation under his charge were among the largest in America. The edifice has a seating capacity of nearly 3,000. Mr. Beecher discarded many of the conventionalities of the clerical profession. In his view, humor had a place in a sermon, as well as argument and exhortation, and he did not hesitate sometimes to venture so near the comic that laughter was hardly to be restrained. He was fond of illustration, drawing his material from every sphere of human life and thought, and his manner was highly dramatic. Though his keen sense of humor continually manifested itself, the prevailing impression given by his discourses was one of intense earnestness. The cardinal idea of his creed was that Christianity is not a series of dogmas, philosophical or metaphysical, but a rule of life in every phase. He never hesitated to discuss from the pulpit the great social and political crimes of the day, such as slavery, intemperance, avarice, and political abuses. In 1878 he announced that he did not believe in the eternity of punishment. He now held that all punishment is cautionary and remedial, and that no greater cruelty could be imagined than the continuance of suffering eternally, after all hope of reformation was gone; and in 1882 he and his congregation formally withdrew from the association of Congregational churches, since their theology had gradually changed from the strictest Calvinism to a complete disbelief in the eternity of future punishment. His sermons, reported by stenographers, for several years formed a weekly publication called the “Plymouth Pulpit.” He early became prominent as a platform orator and lecturer, and as such had a long and successful career. His lectures came to be in such demand, even at the rate of $500 a night, that he was obliged to decline further engagements, as they interfered with his ministerial duties, and for a long time he refused all applications for public addresses except for some special occasion. In January, 1859, he delivered an oration at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the birthday of Robert Burns, which is considered one of his most eloquent efforts. He became a member of the Republican Party on its formation, and delivered many political sermons from his pulpit, also addressing political meetings, especially in 1856, when he took an active part in the canvass, not only with his pen but by speaking at meetings throughout the northern states. During the presidential canvass of 1884, Mr. Beecher supported the Democratic candidate, and by his action estranged many of his political admirers. In the long conflict with slavery he was an early and an earnest worker. In 1863 he visited Europe, and addressed large audiences in the principal cities of Great Britain on the questions involved in the Civil War then raging in the United States, with a special view to disabuse the British public in regard to the issues of the great struggle. His speeches exerted a wide influence in changing popular sentiment, which previously had been strongly in favor of the southern Confederacy, and were published in London as “Speeches on the American Rebellion” (1864). In April, 1865, at the request of the government, he delivered an oration at Fort Sumter on the anniversary of its fall. In 1878 he was elected chaplain of the 13th Regiment, N. G. S. New York, and appeared on parade in the customary uniform. In 1871 one of his parishioners, Henry W. Sage, founded a lectureship of preaching, called “The Lyman Beecher Lectureship,” in Yale College divinity school, and the first three annual courses were delivered by Mr. Beecher. In the summer of 1874, Theodore Tilton, formerly Mr. Beecher's associate, afterward his successor, in the editorship of the “Independent,” charged him with criminality with Mrs. Tilton. A committee of Plymouth Congregation reported the charges to be without foundation; but meanwhile Mr. Tilton instituted a civil suit against Mr. Beecher, laying his damages at $100,000. The trial lasted six months, and at its close the jury, after being locked up for more than a week, failed to agree on a verdict. They stood three for the plaintiff and nine for the defendant. Mr. Beecher was of stout build, florid, and of strong physical constitution. He was fond of domestic and rural life; a student of nature; a lover of animals, flowers, and gems; an enthusiast in music, and a judge and patron of art. He owned a handsome residence at Peekskill on the Hudson, which he occupied during a part of every summer. In 1886 he made a lecturing tour in England, his first visit to that country after the war. During his theological course in 1836, for nearly a year Mr. Beecher edited the “Cincinnati Journal,” a religious weekly. While pastor at Indianapolis he edited an agricultural journal, “The Farmer and Gardener,” his contributions to which were afterward published under the title “Plain and Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming” (New York, 1859). He was one of the founders and for nearly twenty years an editorial contributor of the New York “Independent,” and from 1861 till 1863 was its editor. His contributions to this were signed with an asterisk, and many of them were afterward collected and published as “Star Papers; or, Experiences of Art and Nature” (New York, 1855), and as “New Star Papers; or, Views and Experiences of Religious Subject” (1858). The latter has been republished in England under the title of '”Summer in the Soul.” On the establishment of the “Christian Union” in 1870, he became its editor-in- chief. To a series of papers in the '”New York Ledger” he gave the title “Thoughts as they Occur,” by “One who keeps his eyes and ears open,” and they were afterward published under the title of “Eyes and Ears” (Boston, 1864). In addition to the foregoing, Mr. Beecher published “Lectures to Young Men on Various Important Subjects” (Indianapolis, 1844, revised ed., New York, 1850); “Freedom and War: Discourses suggested by the Times” (Boston, 1863); “Aids to Prayer” (New York, 1864); “Norwood; or, Village Life in New England” (1867); “Overture of Angels” (1869), being an introductory installment of “Life of Jesus the Christ; Earlier Scenes” (1871); “Lecture-Room Talks: A Series of Familiar Discourses on Themes of Christian Experience” (1870); “Yale Lectures on Preaching” (3 vols., 1872-'4); “A Summer Parish: Sermons and Morning Services of Prayer” (1874); “Evolution and Religion” (1885). Also, numerous addresses and separate sermons, such as “Army of the Republic” (1878); “The Strike and its Lessons” (1878); “Doctrinal Beliefs and Unbeliefs” (1882); “Commemorative Discourse on Wendell Phillips” (1884); “A Circuit of the Continent,” being an account of his trip through the west and south (1884); and “Letter to the Soldiers and Sailors” (1866, reprinted with introduction, 1884). He edited “Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes” (New York, 1855), and “Revival Hymns” (Boston, 1858). Numerous compilations of his utterances have been prepared, among which are: “Life Thoughts” (New York, 1859), by Edna Dean Proctor; “Notes from Plymouth Pulpit” (1859), by Augusta Moore; both of the foregoing have been reprinted in England; “Pulpit Pungencies” (1866); “Royal Truths” (Boston, 1866), reprinted from a series of extracts prepared in England without his knowledge; “Prayers from Plymouth Pulpit” (New York, 1867); “Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher: Selected from Published and Unpublished Discourses,” edited by Lyman Abbott (2 vols., 1868); “Morning and Evening Devotional Exercises,” edited by Lyman Abbott (1870); “Comforting Thoughts” (1884), by Irene Ovington. Mr. Beecher had completed the second and concluding volume of his “Life of Christ,” which is to be published this year (1887), with a re-publication of the first volume. His biography has been written by Lyman Abbott (New York, 1883). A new life, to be written by his son, William C. Beecher, will include an unfinished autobiography. Mr. Beecher was buried in Greenwood cemetery, and a movement was immediately begun for a monument, to be paid for by popular subscription. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 218-219.
BEECHER, Lyman, 1775-1863, abolitionist leader, clergyman, educator, writer. Active in the Cincinnati, Ohio, auxiliary of the American Colonization Society, founded in Washington, DC, December 1816. Co-founder, American Temperance Society. President, Lane Theological Seminary. Major spokesman for the anti-slavery cause in the United States. Father of notable abolitionists, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Edward Beecher and Charles Beecher. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 216-217; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 135; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 134, 140, 196, 231)
BEECHER, Lyman, clergyman, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 2 October, 1775; died in Brooklyn, New York, 10 January, 1863. His ancestor in the fifth ascent emigrated to New England, and settled at New Haven in 1638. His father, David Beecher, was a blacksmith. His mother died shortly after his birth, and he was committed to the care of his uncle Lot Benton, by whom he was adopted as a son, and with whom his early life was spent between blacksmithing and farming. But it was soon found that he preferred study. He was fitted for college by the Reverend Thomas W. Bray, and at the age of eighteen entered Yale, where, besides the usual classical course, he studied theology under President Dwight and was graduated in 1797. After this he continued his studies until September, 1798, when he was licensed to preach by the New Haven West Association, entered upon his clerical duties by supplying the pulpit in the Presbyterian Church at East Hampton, Long Island, and was ordained in 1799. Here he married his first wife, Roxana Foote. His salary was $300 a year, after five years increased to $400, with a dilapidated parsonage. To eke out his scanty income, his wife opened a private school, in which the husband also gave instruction. Mr. Beecher soon became one of the foremost preachers of his day. A sermon that he delivered in 1804, on the death of Alexander Hamilton, excited great attention. Finding his salary wholly inadequate to support his increasing family, he resigned the charge, and in 1810 was installed pastor of the Congregational Church in Litchfield, Connecticut Here he remained for sixteen years, during which he took rank as the foremost clergyman of his denomination. In his autobiography he says this pastorate was “the most laborious part of his life.” The vice of intemperance had become common in New England, even the formal meetings of the clergy being not unfrequently accompanied by gross excesses, and Mr. Beecher resolved to take a stand against it. About 1814 he delivered and published six sermons on intemperance, which contain eloquent passages hardly exceeded by anything in the English language. They were sent broadcast through the United States, ran rapidly through many editions in England, and were translated into several languages on the continent, and have had a large sale even after the lapse of fifty years. His eloquence, zeal, and courage as a preacher, and his leading the way in the organization of the Bible, missionary, and educational societies, gave him a high reputation throughout New England. During his residence in Litchfield arose the Unitarian controversy, in which he took a prominent part. Litchfield was at this time the seat of a famous law school and several other institutions of learning, and Mr. Beecher (now a doctor of divinity) and his wife undertook to supervise the training of several young women, who were received into their family. But here too he found his salary ($800 a year) inadequate. The rapid and extensive defection of the Congregational Churches in Boston and vicinity, under the lead of Dr. Channing and others in sympathy with him, had excited much anxiety throughout New England; and in 1826 Mr. Beecher received a call to become pastor of the Hanover Street Church in Boston. At the urgent request of his clerical brethren, he took the charge for the purpose of upholding the doctrines of Puritanism, and remained in this church six years and a half. His sermons at this time were largely controversial; he flung himself into the thickest of the fray, and was sustained by an immense following. About this time the religious public had become impressed with the growing importance of the great west; a theological seminary had been founded at Walnut Bills, near Cincinnati, O., and named Lane Seminary, after one of its principal benefactors, and a large amount of money was pledged to the institution on condition that Dr. Beecher accept the presidency, which he did in 1832. He retained the place for twenty years, and his name was continued in the seminary catalogue, as president, until his death. He was also, during the first ten years of his presidency, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. Soon after his removal thither he startled the religious public in the east by a tract calling attention to the danger of Roman Catholic supremacy in the west. The French revolution of 1830, the agitation in England for reform and against colonial slavery, and the punishment by American courts of citizens who had dared to attack the slave-trade carried on under the American flag, had begun to direct the attention of American philanthropists to the evils of American slavery, and an abolition convention met in Philadelphia in 1833. Its president, Arthur Tappan, through whose liberal donations Dr. Beecher had been secured to Lane seminary, forwarded to the students a copy of the address issued by the convention, and the whole subject was soon under discussion. Many of the students were from the south; an effort was made to stop the discussions and the meetings; slaveholders went over from Kentucky and incited mob violence; and for several weeks Dr. Beecher lived in a turmoil, not knowing how soon the rabble might destroy the seminary and the houses of the professors. The board of trustees interfered during the absence of Dr. Beecher, and allayed the excitement of the mob by forbidding all further discussion of slavery in the seminary, whereupon the students withdrew en masse. A very few were persuaded to return and remain, while the seceders laid the foundation of Oberlin College. For seventeen years after this, Dr. Beecher and his able coworker, Professor Stowe, remained and tried to revive the prosperity of the seminary, but at last abandoned it. The great project of their lives was defeated, and they returned to the eastern states. In 1835 Dr. Beecher, who had been called “a moderate Calvinist,” was arraigned on charges of hypocrisy and heresy by some of the stronger Calvinists. The trial took place in his own church; and he defended himself, while burdened with the cares of his seminary, his church, and his wife at home on her death-bed. The trial resulted in acquittal, and, on an appeal to the general synod, he was again acquitted; but the controversy engendered by the action went on until the Presbyterian church was rent in twain. In the theological controversies that led to the excision of a portion of the general assembly of the Presbyterian church in 1837-'8, Dr. Beecher took an active part, adhering to the new school branch. In 1852 he resigned the presidency of Lane Seminary, and returned to Boston, purposing to devote himself mainly to the revisal and publication of his works. But his intellectual powers began to decline, while his physical strength was unabated. About his eightieth year he suffered a stroke of paralysis, and thenceforth his mental powers only gleamed out occasionally with some indications of their former splendor. The last ten years of his life were passed in Brooklyn, New York, in the home of his son, Henry Ward Beecher. Dr. Beecher was a man of great intellectual power, though not a profound scholar. His sermons were usually extemporaneous, as far as form was concerned, but were carefully thought out, often while he was engaged in active physical exercise; but his writings were elaborated with the utmost care. He stood unequalled among living divines for dialectic keenness, pungent appeal, lambent wit, vigor of thought, and concentrated power of expression. He possessed intense personal magnetism, and an indomitable will, and was thoroughly devoted to his chosen work. The sincerity and spirituality of his preaching were generally acknowledged, and were attended by tangible results. He was bold to the point of audacity, and it was this feature of his character, probably more than any positive errors, that made him a subject of anxiety to the more conservative class of the theologians of his own denomination. His great boldness in denouncing laxity in regard to the standard of the Christian orthodoxy made a deep impress on the public mind. The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Yale in 1809, and that of D. D. by Middlebury College in 1818. When he became president of Lane Seminary, he took also the chair of sacred theology. He was the author of a great number of printed sermons and addresses. His published works are: “Remedy for Duelling” (New York, 1809); “Plea for the West,” “Six Sermons on Temperance,” “Sermons on Various Occasions,” (1842), “Views in Theology,” “Skepticism,” “Lectures on Various Occasions,” “Political Atheism.” He made a collection of those of his works which he deemed the most valuable (3 vols., Boston, 1852). He was three times married—in 1799, 1817, and 1836—and had thirteen children. Most of his children have attained literary or theological distinction. All his sons became Congregational clergymen, viz., William Henry, Edward, George, Henry Ward, Charles, Thomas Kinnicut, and James Chaplin. The daughters are Catherine Esther, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Beecher Perkins, and Isabella Beecher Hooker. He was proverbially absent-minded, and after having been wrought up by the excitement of preaching was accustomed to relax his mind by playing “Auld Lang Syne” on the violin, or dancing the “double shuffle” in his parlor. His autobiography and correspondence was edited by the Reverend Charles Beecher (New York, 1863). See also “Life and Services of Lyman Beecher,” by the Reverend D. H. Allen (Cincinnati, 1863). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 216-217.
BEECHER, Catherine Esther, educator, born in East Hampton, Long Island, 6 September, 1800; died in Elmira, New York, 12 May, 1878. The death of her mother when Catherine was about sixteen years of age brought upon her domestic responsibilities that lasted until her father's second marriage, two years later. Her education was received in the seminary at Litchfield. She was betrothed to Professor Fisher, of Yale, who was lost with the “Albion” off the coast of Ireland, while on a voyage to Europe, and she never married. Her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, says the shock was so great that it nearly destroyed her religious faith, and her only consolation was in a life of earnest activity. In 1823 she opened a school for young ladies in Hartford, Connecticut, with such success that, under her supervision, with the assistance of her sister, Harriet (afterward Mrs. Stowe), it numbered 160 pupils. It was maintained for ten years. Comprehending the deficiencies of existing text-books, she prepared, primarily for use in her own school, some elementary books in arithmetic, a work on theology, and a third on mental and moral philosophy. The last was never published, although printed and used as a college text-book. The gist of her theories on the subject of teaching was that the physical and moral training of her pupils was quite as important as the development of their intellectual powers. She also claimed that a housekeeper is responsible for the health of all the inmates of her family, especially of children and servants who have not the needful knowledge and discretion. She was constantly making experiments, and practicing them upon the girls, weighing all their food before they ate it, holding that Graham flour and the Graham diet were better for them than richer food. Ten of her pupils invited her to dine with them at a restaurant. She accepted the invitation, and the excellent dinner changed her views. Thereafter they were served with more palatable food. In 1832 Miss Beecher went to Cincinnati with her father, who had accepted the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary, and in that city she opened a female seminary, which, on account of failing health, was discontinued after two years. She then devoted herself to the development of an extended plan for the physical, social, intellectual, and moral education of women, to be promoted through a national board; and for nearly forty years she labored perseveringly in this work, organizing societies for training teachers; establishing plans for supplying the territories with good educators; writing, pleading, and travelling with persistent energy and earnestness. Her object, as described by herself, was, “to unite American women in an effort to provide a Christian education for 2,000,000 children in our country” who were destitute of schools. She made her field of labor especially in the west and south, and sought the aid of educated women throughout the land. She was for many years engaged with ex-Governor Slade, of Vermont, in a scheme for introducing woman teachers into the west. The name given to the organization was “The National Board of Popular Education”; and it was claimed that hundreds of the best teachers the west received went there under the patronage of this system. To a certain extent the plans succeeded, and were found beneficial; but the careers of the teachers were mostly short, for they soon married. She had a mind full of original vigor, but without much imagination; it was perhaps the want of this that made some of her schemes impracticable. She had a great deal of racy humor and mother-wit, with patience, magnanimity, and unbounded good-nature. Her conversation was full of fresh comments on persons and things, without the least bitterness or malice. It was her rule to make her own common sense the standard of judgment, and she doubted the value of anything not commended by that. She continued in her old age the accomplishments of her youth, singing, and playing the piano and the guitar; but her performances were those of a past generation, as she had no belief in modern or classic music. She believed that what she could not comprehend could not exist. It was so also in art. The work of the masters and mediæval art had no meaning for her. She spoke of a house where rare specimens of art were collected as “full of Virgins and Son,” with “a picture of Christ all rubbed out,” “a Psyche with the top of her head knocked in,” and “Venus without arms.” She occasionally wrote verses, and was sometimes an attendant at women's conventions and Congresses. For many years she suffered from lameness and weakness of nerve and body, and all her work was carried on under great bodily difficulties. In early life she was Calvinistic in belief, but in her later years became a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Miss Beecher's published works include “Letters on the Difficulties of Religion” (Hartford, 1830); “The Moral Instructor” (Cincinnati, 1838); “Treatise on Domestic Economy” (Boston, 1842); “Housekeeper's Receipt-Book” (New York, 1845); “Duty of American Women to their Country” (1845); “True Remedy for the Wrongs of Women, with a History of an Enterprise having that for its Object” (Boston, 1851); “Letters to the People on Health and Happiness” (New York, 1855); “Physiology and Calisthenics” (1856); “Common Sense applied to Religion” (1857), a book containing many striking departures from the Calvinistic theology; “An Appeal to the People, as the Authorized Interpreters of the Bible” (1860); “Religious Training of Children in the School, the Family, and the Church” (1864); “Woman's Profession as Mother and Educator, with Views in Opposition to Woman Suffrage” (Philadelphia, 1871); “Housekeeper and Healthkeeper” (New York, 1873); and with her sister, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The American Woman's Home” (New York, 1869); “Principles of Domestic Science as applied to the Duties and Pleasures of Home” (1870); and also a “Domestic Receipt-Book,” of which numerous editions have been sold. Apart from the books relating to her special educational purpose, she wrote memoirs of her brother, George Beecher (1844); and “Truth Stranger than Fiction” (Boston, 1850), an account of an infelicitous domestic affair in which some of her friends were involved. She left an autobiography nearly completed. [daughter of Lyman Beecher; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 217-218
BEECHER, James Chaplin, clergyman, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 8 January, 1828; died in Elmira, New York, 25 August, 1886, was graduated at Dartmouth in 1848, studied theology at Andover, and on 10 May, 1856, was ordained a Congregational clergyman. Until 1861 he was chaplain of the Seamen's Bethel in Canton and Hong Kong, China. During the Civil War he was chaplain of the 1st New York Infantry (1861-'2); lieutenant-colonel of the 141st (1862-'3); colonel of the 35th U. S. colored troops (1863-'6), and was mustered out of service in 1866 as brevet brigadier-general. Later, he held pastorates in Owego, New York. (1867-'70); Poughkeepsie (1871-'3); and Brooklyn (1881-'2). After three years of acute suffering because of incurable hallucinations, the shadows of which had been hovering about him since 1864, he died by his own hand at the Water Cure in Elmira. [son of Henry Ward Beecher; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 221.
BEECHER, Frederick Henry, soldier, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, 22 June, 1841; died on the upper Republican River, Kansas, 17 September, 1868. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1862, immediately entered the military service, and became successively sergeant, second and first lieutenant. He was in the battles of the Army of the Potomac from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg; was twice severely wounded, but could not be persuaded to remain away from his command. The severe nature of his wounds necessitated his transfer to the 2d Battalion Veteran Reserve Corps, where he served as lieutenant and acted as adjutant-general under General E. Whittlesey of the Freedmen's Bureau, until commissioned in the regular army in 1864. He was transferred to the 3d U.S. Infantry in November, 1864, and made first lieutenant in July, 1866. He served with distinction on the western borders, and was killed by the Indians while on a scouting party some distance from Fort Wallace. [son of Charles Beecher;] Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 221.
BEERS, Ethel Lynn, author, born in Goshen, Orange Co., New York, 13 January, 1827; died in Orange, New Jersey, 10 October, 1879. Her maiden name was Ethelinda Eliot, and she was a descendant of John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians. Her earliest writings bore the pen-name of "Ethel Lynn," and after her marriage with William H. Beers she wrote her name as it is now known. Her most noted poem is " All Quiet along the Potomac," suggested by an oft-repeated despatch during the first year of the Civil War. Its authorship was warmly disputed; but, as is usual in such cases, only one of the claimants had written other verses of equal merit. That was Mrs. Beers, and there is now no further doubt as to the genuineness of her title. The lines originally appeared in " Harper's Weekly " for 30 November, 1861, with the caption " The Picket Guard." Mrs. Beers says in a private letter: "The poor' Picket' has had so many authentic claimants and willing sponsors, that I sometimes question myself whether I did really write it that cool September morning, after reading the stereotyped announcement' All Quiet,' etc., to which was added in small type ' A Picket Shot.'" The most popular of her other pieces are "Weighing the Baby," " Which shall it be?" and "Baby looking out for Me." She had long had a premonition that she would not survive the printing of her collected poems, and she died the same day the volume was issued, "All Quiet along the Potomac, and other Poems" (Philadelphia, 1879). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 222.
