Encyclopedia of Civil War Biography - Boo-Bro
BOOKER, George William, lawyer, born in Patrick County, Virginia, 14 December, 1821; died in Martinsville, Virginia, 4 June, 1883. He studied law and taught school, soon after his admission to the bar became a justice of the peace in Henry County, and from 1857 till 1862 was the presiding justice of Henry County court. During the Civil War he was an unconditional union man. In 1865 he was elected to the house of delegates of the legislature of Virginia, and in 1868 received the nomination of state attorney-general. This office he resigned, and was elected as a conservative to Congress, where he served from 31 January, 1870, till 3 March, 1871. He was elected to the state legislature in November, 1873, and, after serving for two years, retired entirely from public life. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 315.
BOOMER, George Boardman, soldier, born in Sutton, Massachusetts, 26 July, 1832; killed at Vicksburg, Mississippi, 22 May, 1863. He moved to St. Louis at an early age and became a bridge-builder. The town of Osage Rock, on Osage River, was laid out and partly built by him. He was present, as colonel of the 22d Missouri Volunteers, at the surrender of Island No. 10, and distinguished himself at the battle of Iuka, where he was severely wounded. He commanded the second Brigade of General Quinby's division of MacPherson's Corps at the battle of Champion Hills with conspicuous gallantry, and was recommended for promotion. While leading his brigade in an assault upon the works on the east side of the city of Vicksburg he was killed by a sharp-shooter. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 315.
BOORMAN, James, 1783-1866, New York, merchant, philanthropist. Vice President, 1838-1841, of the American Colonization Society. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 316; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 443-444; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)
BOORMAN, James, merchant, born in Kent County, England, in 1783; died in New York City, 24 January, 1866. He accompanied his parents to the United States when about twelve years of age, was apprenticed to Divie Bethune, of New York, and entered into partnership with him in 1805. Afterward, in connection with John Johnston, he formed the firm of Boorman & Johnston, which almost entirely controlled the Dundee trade, and dealt largely in Swedish iron and Virginia tobacco. Mr. Boorman was one of the pioneers in the construction of the Hudson River Railroad, and was for many years its president. He was also one of the founders of the Bank of Commerce. He retired from active business in 1855. The institution for the blind, the Protestant half-orphan asylum, the Southern Aid Society, and the union theological seminary were among the recipients of his bounty. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 316.
BOOTH, Junius Brutus, actor, born in London, 1 May, 1796; died 3 November, 1852. His father, Richard Booth, the son of a silversmith of Bloomsbury, after studying law, having become imbued with republican ideas, embarked with a cousin to volunteer in the cause of American independence, but was taken prisoner and carried back to England. He practised his profession with success, lived in affluence in Bloomsbury, and was known as a scholar, but unpopular on account of his republicanism. It was one of his eccentricities to insist upon his friends paying reverence to a portrait of Washington in his drawing-room. Junius Brutus, the eldest son, received a classical education, essayed painting, sculpture, and poetry, was induced for a time to work in his father's office with a view of becoming a solicitor, and then, evincing a preference for naval life, was commissioned as a midshipman to Captain Blythe's brig “Boxer”; but, when that vessel was ordered to Nova Scotia, the father, unwilling that his son should serve against the United States, dissuaded him from joining the ship. After appearing as an amateur in a small London theatre, he announced his intention of becoming an actor, and, against his father's wishes, made an engagement, and played subordinate parts, in Peckham, Deptford, and in 1814 made a professional tour through Holland and Belgium. A few critics and influential friends, who recognized his talents, seconded his efforts to secure a London engagement; but he was forced to accept an offer to play in the Worthing and Brighton theatres for the season of 1815. He left there in October, having finally secured a contract with the management of Covent Garden theatre. But, as he was announced for inferior parts instead of for Richard III., he returned to Worthing, and gained a triumph as a substitute for Edmund Kean in the character of Sir Giles Overreach, captivating an audience that was at first indignant at the young actor's presumption. He continued to play at Worthing, and found influential admirers, who prevailed upon the manager, Harris, to give him a trial as Richard III. at Covent Garden, where he appeared in that character on 17 February, 1817, and delighted the metropolitan audience. Before the third performance, after a quarrel with the manager, he was induced by Kean, of the Drury lane Company, to enter into an engagement with the rival theatre, where he was announced to play Iago to Kean's Othello; but he soon learned with chagrin that in entrapping him into signing the articles Kean designed only to prevent rivalry by robbing the new favorite of the opportunity to appear in leading parts. Booth, when made aware of this, signed an agreement with the proprietors of Covent Garden theatre, who apprised him of legal flaws in the Drury lane contract. The town was divided into Boothites and Keanites, and Booth's reappearance at Covent Garden as Richard was the occasion of a riotous tumult, which was renewed on subsequent evenings. He played Richard and Sir Giles Overreach alternately, and then Posthumus in “Cymbeline,” appeared as Othello at Woolwich, afterward as Sir Edward Mortimer in “The Iron Chest” at Covent Garden, acted with applause, in July, 1818, at Glasgow and Edinburgh, strolled through the provinces, gave Shylock in the Jewish dialect at Covent Garden during the succeeding autumn, and in the winter entered into an engagement with the Coburg theatre, where he acted Richard, Horatius, and Brutus. In April, 1820, he appeared again at Covent Garden as Lear, which was recognized as one of his finest parts. In August, 1820, he performed with Kean at Drury lane, playing Iago, Edgar in “King Lear,” and Pierre. In the winter, while Kean was in the United States, he acted Lear, Cassius, and the part of an Indian chief at Drury lane theatre. On 18 January, 1821, Mr. Booth married Mary Anne Holmes, and after a wedding tour they sailed for the West Indies, but stopped at Madeira, and took passage thence for the United States, landing at Norfolk, Virginia, 30 June, 1821. On 6 July, Booth appeared in Richmond. His freedom from vanity and calculating self-interest was evinced in his sudden arrival unheralded in the United States. After a triumphant appearance in New York and in southern cities he seriously entertained the idea of retiring from the stage and spending his days in quiet as a light-house keeper. His first appearance in New York was at the Park theatre on 5 October, 1821. In the summer of 1822 he purchased, in Harford County, Maryland, twenty-five miles from Baltimore, a retreat in the midst of woods, to which he always afterward retired when not occupied on the stage, and where he carried on amateur farming with the help of a few slaves. Thither his father, the constant admirer of America, came the same year to pass his remaining days. In 1825 he again visited London with his family, and when the Royalty theatre was burned lost his entire wardrobe. After he returned to the United States he began an engagement at the Park theatre, New York, on 24 March, 1827, in which he acted Selim in the “Bride of Abydos” at his benefit. In June he appeared in the part of Pescara in “The Apostate,” a character written for him by Shiel. In 1828 he undertook the management of the Camp street theatre in New Orleans, and, while playing Richard III. to packed houses, studied French parts, and afterward personated characters in several French dramas, astonishing the audience with the purity of his accent and his familiarity with the peculiarities of French acting. The manager of the Théâtre d'Orléans persuaded him to take the part of Orestes in Racine's “Andromaque,” in which he greatly pleased the French-speaking public. In September, 1831, in New York, he played Pierre in “Venice Preserved,” and Othello to Forrest's Jaffier and Iago. The same year he took the lease of the Adelphi theatre in Baltimore. While his theatre was undergoing repairs he took the Holiday street theatre. During the season he appeared in several new characters, such as Roderick Dhu, Selim, Richard II., Penruddock, Falkland in “The Rivals,” and Luke in “Riches.” In January, 1832, he appeared in the Chestnut street theatre, Philadelphia, in “Sertorius,” a new play, by the Philadelphia lawyer, David Paul Brown. The death of two of his children robbed him for a time of his reason, and after his recovery an engagement, made with the actor Hamblin, for Richmond, was renewed for the Bowery theatre, New York. He next played in New Orleans and Mobile, and on a tour through the west, during which, and from that time forth, his mental disorder, slight attacks of which had occurred in earlier years, returned with increasing frequency and severity. As he grew older his partial insanity was aggravated by intemperance. After playing Shylock for eight nights to crowded houses at the National theatre, New York, and visiting Baltimore and Philadelphia, he sailed, in October, 1836, for Europe with his family, played Richard and Iago at Drury lane theatre, and in Birmingham, where he was prostrated with the news of the death of his favorite son, Henry Byron, in London, from small-pox. He immediately returned to the United States, and in the autumn of 1837 performed at the Olympic in New York, afterward sailed for the south on a professional tour, and during the voyage attempted suicide in a moment of aberration. On the same trip his nose was broken, impairing the beauty of his face and his rich tones of voice; but in the course of two years he regained the strength and scope of his vocal organs. During the last ten years of his life he spent much of his time with his family, residing in Baltimore, and only visiting his farm in the heat of summer. He played when and where he pleased, often in small, out-of-the-way theatres, but made annual visits to New Orleans and Boston, where he was an established favorite. In 1850 and the succeeding season he played at the National theatre, New York, and made his last appearance in that city on 19 September, 1851. In 1851 he performed several parts at the Chestnut street theatre, Philadelphia, and in the spring of 1852, with his son Edwin (Junius Brutus had previously gone thither), he went to California, playing to crowded houses in San Francisco with Edwin in companion characters. Leaving his sons, he returned to the east with the intention of retiring completely from the stage. Arriving at New Orleans in November, he performed six nights with his usual ability, but contracted a cold, and during his passage up the Mississippi River remained in his state-room, suffering from fever and dysentery, and died for lack of medical care. See Asia Booth Clarke's “The Elder and the Younger Booth” in the American Actor Series (Boston, 1882); Genest's “History of the Stage”; and “Booth Memorials,” by his daughter Asia (New York, 1866). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 317-318.
BOOTH, Edwin, actor, born in Bel Air, Maryland, 13 November, 1833; died in New York, 7 June, 1893, was named Edwin Thomas, in compliment to his father's friends, Edwin Forrest and Thomas Flynn. When a boy he received instruction from different teachers near his home; but this tuition was neither continuous nor thorough. He was thoughtful and studious, and made much of his limited opportunities. He was reticent and singular, profound and sensitive, and the eccentric genius of the elder Booth found in him an object of peculiar sympathy. The father and son were fondly attached to each other from the first, and while Edwin was yet very young his father made a companion of him in professional journeys. It was in the course of one of these tours that Edwin Booth made his first regular appearance upon the stage, at the Boston Museum, on 10 September, 1849. The play was Cibber's version of Shakespeare's “Richard III.,” and the youth came forward in the little part of Tressil. At first the elder Booth opposed his son's choice of the stage, but ultimately he relinquished his opposition. The boy persevered, and presently, still acting in his father's train, he appeared at Providence, Rhode Island, at Philadelphia, and at other places, as Cassio in “Othello,” and as Wilford in “The Iron Chest” — the latter impersonation being deemed particularly good. Edwin Booth continued to act with his father for more than two years after the advent at the Boston Museum. His first appearance on the New York stage was on 27 September, 1850, at the National theatre, Chatham street, as Wilford. At the same theatre, in 1851, his father being ill, he suddenly and promptly took the place of the elder tragedian, and for the first time in his life enacted Richard III. This effort, remarkably successful for a comparative novice, was hailed as the indication of great talent and as the augury of a brilliant future. In the summer of 1852 he accompanied his father to San Francisco, where his elder brother, J. B. Booth, Jr., had already established himself as an actor and a theatrical manager, and where the three now acted in company. Other cities were visited by them, and the elder Booth remained in California for about three months. One night, at Sacramento, seeing Edwin dressed for Jaffier in “Venice Preserved,” he said to him: “You look like Hamlet; why don't you play it?” a remark that the younger Booth had good reason to remember, for no actor has ever played Hamlet so often or over so wide a range of territory. Just as the name of Junius Brutus Booth is inseparably associated with Richard III., so the name of Edwin Booth is inseparably associated with Hamlet. In October, 1852, the father and son parted for the last time. The California period of Edwin Booth's professional career lasted from the summer of 1852 till the autumn of 1856, and included a trip to Australia. The young actor at first played parts of all kinds, and he had a severe experience of poverty and hardship. Soon, however, he began to display uncommon merit, and thereupon to attract uncommon admiration. One of his earliest and best successes was obtained as Sir Edward Mortimer in “The Iron Chest.” For a time, indeed, he travelled in California, conveying his wardrobe for this piece in a trunk fashioned and painted to resemble a chest made of iron. His trip to Australia, in 1854, was made with a dramatic company that included the popular actress Miss Laura Keene as leading woman. Previous to this he had, in his brother's theatre at San Francisco, acted Richard III., Shylock, Macbeth, and Hamlet, had made an extraordinary impression, and acquired abundant local popularity. At this time his acting began to receive thoughtful attention from learned and critical authorities. He stopped and acted at the Sandwich Islands on his return voyage from Australia to San Francisco, and reappeared there at the Metropolitan theatre, then (1855) managed by Miss Catherine Sinclair (Mrs. Edwin Forrest, who had left her husband and obtained a divorce from him), and he was then and there the original representative in America of Raphael in “The Marble Heart.” In 1856 he took leave of California, being cheered on his way by several farewell testimonial benefits, organized and conducted by one of his earliest and best friends, Mr. M. P. Butler, of Sacramento, and his steps were now turned toward the cities of the east. He first appeared at the Front street theatre, Baltimore, and then made a rapid tour of all the large cities of the south, being everywhere well received. In April, 1857, he appeared at the Boston theatre as Sir Giles Overreach in “A New Way to Pay Old Debts,” and his great success on this occasion, always regarded by him as the turning-point in his career, determined him to persist in the resolute endeavor to win the first place as a tragic actor. His career since then has been marked by many vicissitudes of personal experience and by fluctuations of fortune, but it has been one of lofty endeavor and of continuous advancement. On 14 May, 1857, he came forward in New York, at Burton's Metropolitan theatre, as Richard III., and in the following August he was again seen there in a round of great characters, all of which he acted with brilliant ability and greatly to the public satisfaction. On 7 July, 1860, he married Miss Mary Devlin, of Troy, New York, an actress, whom he had met three years before at Richmond, Virginia, with whom he shortly afterward made a visit to England. Their only child, a daughter, Edwina, was born in Fulham, 9 December, 1861. After their return to America, Mrs. Booth, sinking under a sudden illness, died at Dorchester, Massachusetts, on 21 February, 1863. While in England, Booth appeared at the London Haymarket theatre, under the management of J. B. Buckstone, enacting Shylock, Sir Giles, and Richelieu. The latter part, with which, almost as much as with Hamlet, his name is identified, he had first assumed at Sacramento, Gal., in July, 1856. His performance of it was much admired in London, and also at Liverpool and Manchester, where he afterward acted. On returning to America, Booth soon became manager of the Winter Garden theatre, New York, which had been Burton's Metropolitan, but which Dion Boucicault had leased, refitted, and renamed. Here Booth appeared on 29 December, 1862, and with this house he was associated until 23 March, 1867, when it was destroyed by fire. A particular record of his proceedings at this theatre would make a volume. Here he effected magnificent productions of “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Richelieu,” and other plays, and here he accomplished the remarkable achievement of running “Hamlet” for one hundred consecutive nights, an exploit that was commemorated by the public presentation to him, on 22 January, 1867, of a gold medal, suitably inscribed, and offered in behalf of leading citizens of New York. In recent days such an artistic feat would not be so difficult of accomplishment; at that time it was an extraordinary exploit. Booth's brother-in-law, the celebrated comedian John S. Clarke, was his partner in the management of the Winter Garden theatre, and they associated with themselves an old journalist and theatrical agent, William Stuart (real name, Edmund O'Flaherty), formerly of Galway, Ireland, but then an exile. Clarke & Booth were also associated in the management of the Walnut street theatre, Philadelphia, from the summer of 1863 till March, 1870, when the interest of the latter was purchased by the former. The hundred-night run of “Hamlet” extended from 21 November, 1864, till 24 March, 1865. On 23 April, 1864, for the benefit of the fund for erecting a Shakespeare monument in Central park, Booth produced “Romeo and Juliet,” and enacted Romeo. In April, 1865, an appalling tragedy compelled Edwin Booth to leave the stage, and it was then his wish and purpose never to return to it; but business obligations constrained him, and he appeared at the Winter Garden on 3 January, 1866, as Hamlet, and was received with acclamation by a great audience. “Richelieu” was revived that year, on 1 February, with much splendor of scenic attire. An equally fine revival was made, on 28 January, 1867, of “The Merchant of Venice.” On 23 March the theatre was burned down. On 8 April, 1868, the corner-stone was laid of Booth's theatre, at the south-east corner of 23d street and 6th avenue, New York, and on 3 February, 1869, Booth opened the new house with “Romeo and Juliet,” Romeo being played by himself and Juliet by Miss Mary McVicker. This lady was the daughter of Mrs. Runnion, who became the wife of James H. McVicker, of Chicago, a prominent actor and manager, and the child's name was changed from Runnion to McVicker. Booth married her on 7 June, 1869, and she died in New York, in 1881, leaving no children. Booth's theatre had a career of thirteen years, and its stage was adorned with some of the grandest pageants and graced by the presence of some of the most renowned actors that have been seen in this century. Its story, however, ended in May, 1882, when it was finally closed, its career ending with a performance of Juliet by Madame Modjeska. After this it was torn down, and a block of stores has been built upon its site. Booth's theatre was managed by Edwin Booth until the spring of 1874, when it passed out of his possession. During his reign therein as manager he accomplished sumptuous and noble revivals of “Romeo and Juliet,” “Othello,” “Hamlet,” “Richelieu,” “The Winter's Tale,” “Julius Cesar,” “Macbeth,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Brutus,” and other plays, and he presented on his stage a series of miscellaneous attractions of an equally reputable order. His stock company at one time included Lawrence Barrett, Edwin L. Davenport, J. W. Wallack, Jr., Mark Smith, Edwin Adams, A. W. Fenno, D. C. Anderson, D. W. Waller, Robert Pateman, Mrs. Emma Waller, Bella Pateman, and others — one of the ablest dramatic organizations ever formed in America. Among the stars who acted at his theatre were Joseph Jefferson, Kate Bateman, James H. Hackett, Charlotte Cushman, John S. Clarke, John E. Owens, and James H. McVicker. Booth's theatre was almost invariably a prosperous house; but it was not economically managed, and for this reason, and this alone, it eventually carried its owner into bankruptcy. Edwin Booth then began his career over again, and in course of time paid his debts and earned another fortune. In 1876 he made a tour of the south, which was in fact a triumphal progress. Thousands of spectators flocked to see him in every city that he visited. In San Francisco, where he acted for eight weeks, he drew upward of $96,000, a total of receipts till then unprecedented on the dramatic stage. In 1880, and again in 1882, he visited Great Britain, and he acted with brilliant success in London and other cities. He went into Germany in the autumn of 1882, and was there received with extraordinary enthusiasm. In 1883 he returned home and resumed his starring tours of America. Booth acted many parts in his day, but of late years his repertory had been limited to Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Iago, Wolsey, Richard III, Shylock, Richard II, Benedick, Petruchio, Richelieu, Payne's Brutus, Bertuccio (in “The Fool's Revenge,” by Tom Taylor), Ruy Blas, and Don Cæsar de Bazan. He published an edition of these plays, in fifteen volumes, the text cut and adapted by himself for stage use, with introductions and notes by William Winter (Boston, 1877-'8). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 318-320.
BOOTH, Sherman M., 1812-1904, Wisconsin, abolitionist leader, orator, politician, temperance activist. Editor of anti-slavery newspaper, the Wisconsin Freeman, in Racine, Wisconsin. Member, Free Soil Party, and helped found the Liberty Party. Published Liberty Party newspaper, American Freedman. Assisted runaway slave Joshua Glover. Was arrested, tried and convicted for violation of Fugitive Slave Law. Booth was acquitted under Wisconsin State law. (Blue, 2005, pp. 6-7, 13, 117-137, 267, 268; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 62, 151; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)
BORDEN, Enoch R., journalist, born in 1823; died in Trenton, New Jersey, 16 May, 1870. For twenty years before his death he was editor of the “Daily State Gazette,” except while serving as aide-de-camp to General Newell and as Secretary to the New Jersey State Senate in 1865–’6. Under the administration of President Fillmore he held an appointment in the public document '' and afterward in the pension agency at Washington. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 321.
BORDEN, Gail, inventor, born in Norwich, New York, 6 November, 1801; died in Borden, Texas, 11 January, 1874. His parents were of New England descent, and in 1814 they emigrated from New York, settling in Covington, Kentucky, and later in Madison, then in the territory of Indiana. In 1822, finding his health impaired, he moved to Mississippi, where he taught, and also filled the positions of county surveyor and U.S. Deputy Surveyor. In 1829 he went to Texas. He was elected delegate to the convention that, in 1833, petitioned the Mexican government for separation, and he was also in charge of the official surveys of the colony, compiling the first topographical map of Texas. The and office at San Felipe was under his charge up to the time of the Mexican invasion. In 1835, with his brother, Thomas H., he established the “Telegraph and Texas Land Register” at San Felipe, which was afterward transferred to Houston, and was the first and only newspaper published in Texas during the war for the independence of that colony. After the establishment of the republic of Texas he was appointed by President Houston first collector of the port of Galveston. That city in 1837 had not been laid out, and its first surveys were made by him. From 1839 till 1857 he was agent of the Galveston City Company, a corporation owning several thousand acres of land on which the city is now built. About 1849 his attention was drawn to the need of more suitable supplies for emigrants crossing the plains, and after some experimenting he produced the “pemmican,” which Dr. Kane carried with him on his Arctic Expedition. The “meat biscuit,” the most simple, economical, and efficient form of portable concentrated food, was invented by him. This article gained for him the “great council medal” at the world's fair, London, 1852, and he was elected an honorary member of the London Society of Arts. Meeting with opposition from the army contractors, he was unsuccessful in the manufacture of his biscuit, and lost his entire means. He then moved to the north and turned his attention to the preservation of milk, and in 1853 applied for a patent for “producing concentrated sweet milk by evaporation in vacuo, the same having no sugar or other foreign matter mixed with it,” but failed of securing it until 1856. Later, the New York Condensed Milk Company was formed, and works were established at Brewster's Station, New York, and at Elgin, Illinois. During the Civil War his condensed milk was extensively used in the army and navy. Condensed meat-juices were then experimented upon, and he produced an extract of beef of superior quality, which at first he made in Elgin, but afterward established his factory at Borden, Texas. Later, he produced excellent preparations of condensed tea, coffee, and cocoa, and in 1862 patented a process by means of which the juice of fruit— such as apples, currants, and grapes—could be reduced to one seventh of its original bulk. Mr. Borden acquired great wealth from his patents, and was very liberal in the use of his money. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 321.
BORDEN, Simeon, inventor, born in Freetown now Fall River, Mass, 29 January 1598; died in Fall River, 28 October, 1856. He acquired a rudimentary education in the district school at Tiverton, L.I., and pursued by himself the study of geometry and applied mathematics. Without serving any apprenticeship, he made himself a thorough work-man in wood and metals. He also practised surveying with success, constructing his own compass. In 1828 he took charge of a machine-shop in Fall River. He devised and constructed, in 1830, an apparatus for measuring the base line of the trigonometrical survey of Massachusetts, which was found to be more accurate and convenient than any instrument of the kind then in existence. The apparatus, fifty feet in length, was enclosed in a tube, and was accompanied by four compound microscopes, the tube and microscopes being mounted on trestles, and adjusted so as to move in any desired direction. Mr. Borden assisted in fixing the base line, and in the subsequent triangulation in 1834 the state authorities appointed him superintendent of the survey, which he completed in 1841. This work, the first geodetic survey accomplished in America, is described in the ninth volume of the “American Philosophical Transactions.” Its accuracy was subsequently established in the U. S. Coast Survey. Mr. Borden was employed as surveyor in the case of Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, tried before the U. S. supreme court in 1844. After the case was decided he surveyed and marked the boundary-line between the two states. He engaged later in the construction of railroads, and in 1851 published a volume entitled “A System of Useful Formulae, adapted to the Practical Operations of Locating and Constructing Railroads.” In 1851 he accomplished the engineering feat of stringing a telegraph wire, suspended on masts 220 feet high, across the Hudson River from the Palisades to Fort Washington a distance of more than a mile. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 321.
BOREMAN, Arthur Ingraham, governor of West Virginia, born in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, 24 July, 1823. While he was a child his father moved to western Virginia. He received a common-school education, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1845, and began practice at Parkersburg. He was elected to the Virginia house of delegates in 1855, and re-elected for each successive term until the beginning of the Civil War. He was a member of the extra session of the legislature in 1861, and a vigorous opponent of secession. Of the Wheeling Convention of unionists of the northwestern counties, called in June, 1861, for the purpose of reorganizing the government of Virginia, he was made president. In October, 1861, he was elected a judge of the circuit court, and in 1863 governor of the newly constituted state of West Virginia. He was twice re-elected, but during his third term of office resigned, as he had been elected to the U.S. Senate, in which he held a seat from 4 March, 1869, till 3 March, 1875. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 321-322.
BORIE, Adolph E., Secretary of the Navy, born in Philadelphia in 1809; died there, 5 February, 1880. He was a descendant, on the mother's side, of a family of refugees from Santo Domingo, of whom a large number settled in Philadelphia. In 1826 he was graduated at the Pennsylvania University, and went to Paris to complete his education. After spending several years abroad he returned to the United States and entered upon mercantile pursuits, was for many years a member of the firm of McKean, Borie & Company, and acquired a large fortune in the East India trade. In 1862, when the first Union League of the country was formed in Philadelphia, Mr. Borie was one of its founders and its vice-president. He gave large sums toward the enlistment and care of soldiers during the Civil War, but took no part in politics. On 5 March, 1869, he became a member of the cabinet appointed by President Grant, as Secretary of the Navy, which office he resigned, 22 June, 1869. He accompanied General Grant during a part of his tour around the world in 1877-'8. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 322.
BORLAND, Solon, senator, born in Virginia; died in Texas, 31 January, 1864. He was educated in North Carolina, studied medicine, and settled as a physician in Little Rock, Ark. He served in the Mexican War as major in Yell's cavalry, and was taken prisoner with Major Gaines in January, 1847. He was discharged when his troop was disbanded in June of that year, but continued in the service as volunteer aide-de-camp to General Worth during the remainder of the campaign from the battle of El Molino to the capture of the city of Mexico on 14 September, 1847. After his return to Arkansas, Mr. Borland was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Ambrose H. Sevier, and subsequently elected by the legislature to serve through Mr. Sevier's unexpired term. After serving in the Senate from 24 April, 1848, till 3 March, 1853, he was appointed minister to Nicaragua, being also accredited to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Salvador. He received his credentials, 18 April, 1853, and remained in Nicaragua till 17 April, 1854, when he returned home, and on 30 June resigned. At San Juan de Nicaragua, when he was returning to the United States, the authorities of the town attempted to arrest him in May, 1854, for interfering to prevent the arrest of a person charged with murder at Puntas Arenas. He took refuge in a hotel, and while he was engaged in protesting against arrest a man in the # threw a glass bottle and struck the envoy. This insult was the chief ground for the bombardment and destruction of Greytown, or San Juan de Nicaragua, by the sloop-of-war “Cyane,” under Commander Hollins, on 13 July, 1854, under instructions from the U. S. Government. President Pierce offered the post of governor of New Mexico to Mr. Borland after his return, but he declined the appointment and remained at Little Rock in the practice of his profession, taking no part in politics except occasionally to declare himself an adherent of the state-rights doctrines. In the spring of 1861, before the Ordinance of Secession, which was passed 6 May, he organized a body of troops, and, under the direction of Governor Rector, on 24 April at midnight, took possession of the buildings at Fort Smith an hour after the withdrawal of Captain Sturgis with the garrison. He raised the 3d Arkansas Confederate Cavalry and became colonel of that regiment, and was after- ward a brigadier-general in the same service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 322.
BOTTS, John Minor, statesman, born in Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, 16 September, 1802; died in Culpepper, Virginia, 7 January, 1869. Soon after his birth his parents moved to Fredericksburg, and thence to Richmond, where they perished in the great theatre fire in 1811. Young Botts received a good education, began early to read law, and was admitted to the bar at the age of eighteen. After he had practised for six years he retired to a farm in Henrico County, and established himself as a gentleman farmer. In 1833 he was elected as a Whig to represent his county in the legislature, where he at once became prominent, and several times reelected. In 1839 he was elected to Congress, and there stood earnestly and ably by Henry Clay, zealously advocating most of the points of the leader's programme, including a national protective tariff, and the distribution among the states of the proceeds of the public lands. He was one of the few southern members that supported John Quincy Adams in his contest against the regulations of the house infringing the right of petition, adopted by the majority in order to exclude appeals from the abolitionists. After serving two terms, from 2 December, 1839, till 3 March, 1843, he was defeated by Mr. Seddon, but in 1847 re-elected, and sat from 6 December, 1847, till 3 March, 1849. In 1839 he was a delegate to the national Whig Convention, which nominated Harrison and Tyler. He had been a warm personal friend of John Tyler, elected vice-president in November, 1840, and who, by the death of General Harrison, in April, 1841, became president of the United States; but, soon after Mr. Tyler's accession to office, Mr. Botts, in a conversation with him, learned his intention of seceding from the party that had elected him, and he at once denounced him, and opposed him as long as he was president. In the campaign of 1844 he labored earnestly for the election of Mr. Clay. In 1852 Mr. Botts resumed the practice of his profession in Richmond. He earnestly opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854, and was in sympathy with those southern representatives who resisted the passage, in 1858, of the bill admitting Kansas as a state under the Lecompton constitution. On the disruption of the Whig Party, he joined the American Party, and in 1859 an attempt was made by that political organization to nominate him for the presidency. He continued his practice, and remained in Richmond till the beginning of the Civil War; but, being devoted to the union, and having used all his efforts, without avail, to prevent Virginia from seceding, he retired to his farm near Culpepper Court-House, where he remained most of the time during the war, respected by the secessionists yet subjected to a great of trial and inconvenience. One night, in March, 1862, a squad of a hundred men, under the orders of General Winder, came to his house, took him from his bed, and carried him to prison, where he was held in solitary confinement for eight weeks. His arrest was caused by the well-founded suspicion that he was writing a secret history of the war. Search was made for the manuscript, but nothing was found. After the close of the war, this missing manuscript, of which a portion had been, in 1862, confided to the Count de Mercier. French minister at Washington, formed the basis of a volume prepared by Mr. Botts, “The Great Rebellion, its Secret History, Rise, Progress, and Disastrous Failure!” (New York 1866). After his release from prison Mr. Botts returned to his home at Culpepper, where he was continually by the enemy. His farm was repeatedly overrun by both armies, and dug over at various times for military operations. When the war had closed, Mr. Botts again took a deep interest in political matters. He labored earnestly for the early restoration of his state to the union, but without success. He was a delegate to the National Convention of Southern Loyalists in Philadelphia in 1866, and in 1867 signed his name on the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 325-326.
BOURNE, George, 1780-1845, New York City, English-born, author. Presbyterian and Dutch Reform clergyman. Pioneer abolitionist leader. Manager (1833-1839) and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. Founding member of the New York Anti-Slavery Society. One of the first abolitionists to demand immediate emancipation. Wrote The Book of Slavery Irreconcilable (1816); An Address to the Presbyterian Church, Enforcing the Duty of Excluding all Slaveholders from the Communion of Saints; and Man Stealing and Slavery Denounced by the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 93, 175, 348; Mason, 2006, pp. 79, 100, 132-133, 231-232, 285n75; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 34, 105; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 330; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 485; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 254)
BOURNE, George, author, born in England about 1760; died in New York City in 1845. He was educated in his native country, emigrated to the United States, and became a minister of the reformed Dutch Church in 1833. He held no pastorate, but engaged in literary work in New York City. He was an ardent and learned controversialist, and wrote works on Romanism and slavery. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 330.
BOUTWELL, George Sewall, 1818-1905, statesman, lawyer. 20th Governor of Massachusetts. Helped organize the Republican Party. Member of Congress, 1862-1868. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senator. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Secretary of the Treasury under President Ulysses S. Grant. Supported African American citizenship and voting rights during Reconstruction. Important leader serving on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which framed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 331-332; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 489-490; Congressional Globe; Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 348)
BOUTWELL, George Sewall, statesman, born in Brookline, Massachusetts, 28 January, 1818. His early life was spent on his father's farm until, in 1835, he became a merchant's clerk in Groton, Massachusetts He was afterward admitted to partnership, and remained in business there until 1855. In 1836 he began by himself to study law, and was admitted to the bar, but did not enter into active practice for many years. He also began a course of reading, by which he hoped to make up for his want of a college education. He entered politics as a supporter of Van Buren in 1840, and between 1842 and 1851 was seven times chosen as a Democrat to the state legislature, where he soon became recognized as the leader of his party. In 1844, 1846, and 1848 he was defeated as a candidate for Congress, and in 1849 and 1850 he was the Democratic nominee for governor with no better success; but he was finally elected in 1851 and again in 1852 by a coalition with the Free-Soil Party. In 1849-'50 he was state bank commissioner; in 1853 a member of the state constitutional convention. After the repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854 he assisted in organizing the Democratic Party, with which he has since acted. In 1860 he was a member of the Chicago Convention which nominated Lincoln, and in February, 1861, was a delegate to the Washington peace conference. President Lincoln invited him to organize the new department of internal revenue in 1862, and he was its first commissioner, serving from July, 1862, till March, 1863. In 1862 he was chosen a member of Congress from Massachusetts, and twice re-elected. In February, 1868, he made a speech advocating the impeachment of President Johnson, was chosen chairman of the committee appointed to report articles of impeachment, and became one of the seven managers of the trial. In March, 1869, he entered President Grant's cabinet as secretary of the treasury, where he opposed diminution of taxation and favored a large reduction of the national debt. In 1870 Congress, at his recommendation, passed an act providing for the funding of the national debt and authorizing the selling of certain bonds, but not an increase of the debt. Secretary Boutwell attempted to do this by means of a syndicate, but expended more than half of one per cent., in which he was accused of violating the law. The house Committee of ways and means afterward absolved him from this charge. In March, 1873, he resigned and took his seat as a U. S. Senator from Massachusetts, having been chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the election of Henry Wilson to the vice-presidency. In 1877 he was appointed by President Hayes to codify and edit the statutes at large. Mr. Boutwell was for six years an overseer of Harvard, and for five years secretary of the Massachusetts state board of education, preparing the elaborate reports of that body. He afterward opened a law office in Washington, D. C. He is the author of “Educational Topics and Institutions” (Boston, 1859); a “Manual of the United States Direct and Revenue Tax” (1863); “Decisions on the Tax Law” (New York, 1863); “Tax-Payer's Manual” (Boston, 1865); a volume of “Speeches and Papers” (1867); and “Why I am a Republican” (Hartford, Connecticut, 1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 331-332.
BOWDITCH, Henry Ingersoll, 1819-1909, Boston, lawyer, abolitionist, physician. Influenced by William Lloyd Garrison to join the anti-slavery cause. Aided fugitive slaves, and promoted anti-slavery actions in the North. Counsellor, 1843-1850, and Vice president, 1850-1860, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. (Mabee, 1970, pp. 36, 94, 103, 110, 129, 336; Pease, 1965, pp. 343-348; Bowditch, Slavery and the Constitution, Boston: Robert F. Walcutt, 1849, pp. 120-126; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 492-494; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 103-104; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 267; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 334)
BOWDITCH, Henry Ingersoll, physician, born in Salem, Massachusetts, 9 August, 1808, was graduated at Harvard in 1828, took his medical degree there in 1832, and studied in Paris from 1833 to 1835. He was professor of clinical medicine at Harvard from 1859 till 1867, chairman of the state board of health (1869-'79), and member of the national board in the latter year, surgeon of enrollment during the Civil War, president of the American Medical association in 1877, and physician at the Massachusetts general hospital and the Boston City hospital, where he served from 1868 to 1872. To Dr. Bowditch is due the discovery of the law of soil moisture as a potent cause of consumption in New England. He has also proved to the medical profession of this country and Europe that thoracentesis, in pleural effusions, if performed with Wyman's fine trocars and suction-pump, is not only innocuous; but at times saves life or gives great relief. Dr. Bowditch was made an abolitionist by the mobbing of Garrison in 1835, and worked earnestly in the anti-slavery cause. “He was the first in Boston,” says Frederick Douglas, “to treat me as a man.” He is the author of “Life of Nathaniel Bowditch, for the Young” (1841); “The Young Stethoscopist” (Boston, 1846; 2d ed., New York, 1848); “Life of Lieutenant Nathaniel Bowditch” (50 copies, printed privately, 1865); “Public Hygiene in America,” a centennial address at Philadelphia in 1876, and many articles in medical journals and papers read before the State board of health (1870-'8). He has translated “Louis on Typhoid” (2 vols., Boston, 1836); “Louis on Phthisis” (1836); and “Maunoir on Cataract” (1837). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 334.
BOWDITCH, William I., Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist. American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1852-56, Treasurer, 1862-64, Executive Committee, 1863-64.
BOWDEN, Lemuel Jackson, senator, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, 16 January, 1815; died in Washington, D.C., 2 January, 1864. He was graduated at William and Mary, was admitted to the Virginia Bar, and became prominent in his profession. He was three times chosen to the state legislature, was a member of the state constitutional conventions of 1849 and 1851, and was a presidential elector in 1860. When the Civil War began he remained true to the union, and in the early part of the war his estate suffered much at the hands of the Confederate Army. When the national troops were at Williamsburg he did a great deal for their comfort, and when a state government was organized for eastern Virginia, in 1863, Mr. Bowden was chosen U.S. Senator. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 333.
BOWEN, James, soldier, born in New York City in 1808; died in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, 29 September, 1886. His father, a successful merchant, left him an ample fortune. He was the first president of the Erie Railway, and held that office for several years. He was a member of the legislature in 1848 and 1849, and president of the first board of police commissioners under the law of 1855, establishing the present metropolitan police force. At the beginning of the Civil War he raised six or seven regiments, which were formed into a brigade, and took command of them, receiving his commission as brigadier-general of volunteers, 11 October, 1862. After General Butler had left New Orleans, General Bowen went there, and served as provost-marshal general of the Department of the Gulf. He resigned on 27 July, 1864, and on 13 March, 1865, was brevetted major-general of volunteers. His last public office was that of commissioner of charities, to which he was appointed by Mayor Havemeyer, and continued to most acceptably for many years. General Bowen was a member of the Union club, and of the Kent club, where he was an associate of Moses H. Grinnell, Richard M. Blatchford, James Watson Webb, and Thurlow Weed, and was valued for his sound views on literature. These gentlemen were all intimate friends of Daniel Webster. It is related that while Mr. Webster was Secretary of State, General Bowen, at one of his dinners, said: “I want you to do me a favor, Mr. Webster,” to which Webster replied, “To the half of my kingdom.” General Bowen was also an intimate friend of William H. Seward, and a pall-bearer at his funeral. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 336.
BOWEN, John S., soldier, born in Georgia in 1829; died in Raymond, Mississippi, 13 July, 1863. He was graduated at West Point in 1853, and became lieutenant of mounted rifles, serving at the Carlisle, Pennsylvania, cavalry school, and on the frontier. On 1 May, 1856, he resigned and became an architect in Savannah, Georgia, where he was also lieutenant colonel of state militia. He moved his office to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1857, where he was captain in the Missouri militia from 1859 till 1861. He was adjutant to General Frost during the expedition to the border in search of Montgomery, and, when the Civil War began, commanded the second regiment of Frost's brigade. He was acting chief of staff to General Frost when Camp Jackson was captured by General Lyon, and afterward, disregarding his parole, raised at Memphis the 1st Missouri Infantry. He was severely wounded at the battle of Shiloh, where he commanded a brigade in Breckinridge's corps, and stubbornly resisted Grant's advance near Port Gibson in May, 1863. He was in all the battles around Vicksburg, and took a prominent part in the negotiations for its surrender, and his death is said to have been hastened by mortification at that event. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 336.
BOWEN, Ozias, anti-slavery judge, Ohio, freed slaves in court case in 1856. (Dumond, 1961, p. 317)
BOWEN, Thomas M., senator, born in Iowa, near the present site of Burlington, 26 October, 1835. He was admitted to the bar at the age of eighteen, and began practice in Wayne County, where he was elected to the legislature in 1856. In 1858 he moved to Kansas. In June, 1861, he joined the volunteer army as captain, and subsequently he raised the 13th Kansas Infantry and commanded it until the end of the war, receiving the brevet of brigadier general, and having command of a brigade during the last two years of hostilities on the frontier, an afterward with the 7th Army Corps. He was a delegate from Kansas to the National Republican Convention of 1864. After the war he settled in Arkansas and was president of the constitutional convention of that state, and for four years a justice of the state supreme court. In 1871 he accepted the appointment of governor of Idaho territory, but resigned, returned to Arkansas, and was a candidate for U.S. Senator in opposition to S. W. Dorsey, of the same party, who defeated him in an open contest before the legislature. In January, 1870, he moved to Colorado, and resumed the practice of the law. When the state government was organized in 1876, he was elected a district judge, and was four years on the bench. He afterward engaged largely in mining operations. In 1882 he was elected to the state legislature, and served as chairman of the Committee of ways and means, until he was elected to the U. S. Senate, where he took his seat on 3 December, 1883. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 337.
BOWERS, Theodore S., soldier, born in Pennsylvania, 10 October, 1832; killed at Garrison's Station, New York, 6 March, 1866. When very young he moved to Mount Carmel, Illinois, and there learned the printer's trade. When the Civil War began he was editor of the “Register,” a local democratic journal. After the defeat of the national forces in the first battle of Bull Run, he raised a company of volunteers for the 48th Illinois Infantry, declined its captaincy because of the taunts of his former political associates, and went to the front as a private. He was soon sent home on recruiting service, and on his return to his regiment was detailed as a clerical assistant at Brig.-General Grant's headquarters (25 January, 1862). In this capacity he went through the campaigns of Forts Henry and Donelson. He was again offered the captaincy of his old company, but declined on the ground that the first lieutenant deserved the place. He was, however, commissioned first lieutenant, 24 March, 1862, and on 26 April following was detached as aide-de-camp to General Grant, acted as Major Rawlins's assistant in the adjutant's office. On 1 November, 1862, he received the regular staff appointment of captain and aide-de-camp, and was left in charge of department headquarters while the army was absent on the Tallahatchie Expedition. The Confederates under Van Dorn seized the opportunity to make a raid to the rear of the federal advance, and captured the department headquarters at Holly Springs at early dawn of 20 December, 1862. Captain Bowers had but a few moments warning; but, acting with great presence of mind, he made a bonfire of all the department records, and when the raiders burst into his quarters everything of value to them was destroyed. Bowers refused to give his parole, and succeeded in making his escape the same evening. The officer commanding the rear-guard was severely censured by General Grant, while Captain Bowers was highly com£ and was presented with a sword in acknowledgment of his services. He was appointed judge advocate for the Department of Tennessee, with rank of major, 19 February, 1863. After the fall of Vicksburg he was assistant adjutant-general in place of Colonel Rawlins, promoted. His services had become so valuable that General Grant procured his appointment as ' and quartermaster on the regular staff (29 July, 1864), and assistant adjutant general, with the rank of major, U.S. Army, 6 January, 1865. His final promotions as brevet lieutenant colonel and colonel, U.S. Army, are dated 13 March, 1865. He was with General Grant in the field until the surrender of the Confederate forces, and was retained on his personal staff after the close of the war. He was instantly killed while attempting to board a moving train on the Hudson River Railroad. His military career is remarkable since he rose by sheer force of character, having no family influence or special training, from a private of volunteers to one of the highest staff appointments within the gift of the commanding general. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 337.
BOWLES, Samuel, journalist, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, 9 February, 1826; died there, 16 January, 1878. His education was of the usual public-school character, and, after some time spent at the high school, was finished at the private institution of George Eaton, in Springfield At the age of seventeen years he began his work in the printing-office of the Springfield “Republican,” a weekly paper, which his father had established in 1824, of which he was the proprietor. For a year his work consisted in the miscellaneous duties of office-boy, and included everything except the writing of leading editorials. In 1844 he persuaded his father to publish the paper daily, and on 27 March of that year the first daily issue appeared. The principal duties of the management of the new journal fell on young Bowles, but early as the winter of 1844–5 his health gave out, and he was obliged to spend some time in the south. A series of fifteen letters, descriptive of southern experiences, contributed to the paper at this time, were widely read. In December, 1845, the “Republican” became a morning paper, and with the change followed the severe night-work for the editors. The father meanwhile devoted more attention to the counting-room, and the son occupied himself more exclusively with the editorial duties, in which he was ably assisted by Dr. J. G. Holland, who continued with the paper as editor until 1857, and as a contributor until 1864. By 1850 the “Republican” had acquired the largest circulation of any daily paper in New England, outside of Boston, and as fast as the money came in it was expended in increasing the plant. In 1851 the father died, and the entire management devolved on the young Bowles, who was then twenty-five years old. During the years that followed the time was : with incessant work and hard struggles. The paper was steadily growing in reputation and circulation, and its editor becoming known as an industrious, bold, and fearless journalist. He was frequently in opposition to public sentiment. During 1856 he supported Frémont for the presidency, and early in '' he accepted the editorship of the Boston “Traveller,” with which he continued for but a few months. In the autumn of 1857, after a brief rest, he returned to Springfield, and, buying Dr. Holland's interest, resumed editorial control of the “Republican.” From 1857 till 1865 the influence of Mr. Bowles made itself felt, not only during the warm political discussions of Buchanan's administration, but also during the Civil War itself, when his journal had acquired a national reputation. In 1865 he made a journey to the Pacific coast with a large company, and in 1868 travelled as far as Colorado. In 1869 he again crossed the continent. He visited Europe in 1862, and again in 1870, 1871, and 1874; indeed, frequent trips were a necessity to him on account ill heal his constitution having long since been impaired by over-work. In 1872 the “Republican” supported Mr. Greeley in his campaign for the president and it has since continued independent in politics. Mr. Bowles's letters, sent to the paper during his western trips, were collected and published under the titles of “Across the Continent” (Springfield, 1865) and “The Switzerland of America” (1869). These were afterward condensed and sold by subscription as “Our New West” (Hartford, !869). “The Pacific Railroad Open, How to Go, What to See,” was a small col- lection of ' that originally appeared in the “Atlantic Monthly” (Boston, 1869). See “The Life and Times of Samuel Bowles,” by George S. Merriam (New York, 1885). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 228.
BOWMAN, Alexander Hamilton, soldier, born in Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, 15 May, 1803; died there, 11 November, 1865. He was a son of Captain Samuel Bowman, of the Massachusetts line, who served with distinction in the Revolutionary War. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1825, standing third in his class, was promoted to second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, and became assistant professor of geography, history, and ethics. In 1826 he was appointed assistant engineer in the construction of the defences and in the improvement of harbors and rivers on the gulf of Mexico. He was ordered, in 1834, to superintend the construction of a military road from Memphis, Tennessee, into Arkansas, and further charged with improving the navigation of Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers until 1838. He was promoted first lieutenant, 21 January, 1835, and later was assigned to the charge of the fortifications for the defences of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, where he remained until 1853. Meanwhile he had been made captain, 7 July, 1838. During 1851–2 he was at West Point as instructor of practical military engineering, and subsequently was chief engineer of the construction bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department, and was employed in locating and constructing custom-houses, post-offices, marine hospitals, and similar buildings. On 5 January, 1857, he was made major of engineers, and during the Civil War he was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, with the local rank of colonel, serving as such from 1 March, 1861, until 8 July, 1864. He then became a member of the naval and engineering commission for selecting sites for naval establishments on the western rivers, and from 20 June, 1865, until his death, was a member of the Board of Engineers to improve and preserve the New England sea-coast defences. His regular promotion as a lieutenant-colonel in the Corps of Engineers was received 3 March, 1863. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 339.
BOYCE, James Petigru, clergyman, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1827. He was graduated at Brown in 1847, and studied theology at Princeton from 1849 till April, 1851. He was ordained to the ministry in December of the same wear and settled over the Baptist church at Columbia, South Carolina In 1855, he became professor of theology in Furman University. He was elected a professor in the southern Baptist theological seminary at Greenville, South Carolina, in February, 1858, and entered upon the duties of that office on 1 October, 1859. The operations of the seminary having been practical suspended during the war, he entered the Confederate Army as a chaplain and served in that capacity for six months. He was elected to the legislature of South Carolina in 1862, and re-elected in 1864. In 1863 he devised a plan for extinguishing the Confederate debt, and was appointed a special commissioner to secure its adoption. After the war he gave his attention to the resuscitating and re-establishing the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, and in 1874 secured pledges to the amount of $90,000 for the support of the seminary. He has for several successive years been chosen president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Boyce received the degree of S. T. D. from Columbian University, Washington, D.C., and that of LL.D. from Union University, Tennessee, in 1872. He has contributed liberally to the current literature, and through his sermons and addresses, many of them published in book-form, has attained an influential position at the south. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 340.
BOYD, Linn, statesman, born in Nashville, Tennessee, 28 November, 1800; died in Paducah, Kentucky, 16 December, 1859. While he was a boy his parents moved to Trig County, Kentucky, where he was brought up to work on the farm, and could only attend school in winter. At twenty-six years of age he had a farm of his own in Calloway County, and, notwithstanding his slender education, was elected to represent that county in the legislature for successive terms from 1827 till 1830. Returning to Trigg County, he was then sent to the legislature (1831–2). He was a Democrat in politics, and, after a defeat by a Whig candidate in 1833, was elected to Congress in 1835. He was defeated for the 25th Congress, but elected for the 26th, and from 1839 till 1855 regularly re-elected to the national House of Representatives. His native abilities soon made him prominent in the house, and he became chairman of the Committee on Territories, and on 31 December, 1851, was chosen Speaker, which office he held until 1855. He was lieutenant-governor of Kentucky for a year before with-drawing from political life, and when he finally retired it was with a high reputation for faithfulness in every public trust. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 340-341.
BOYD, Sempronius Hamilton, born 1828, lawyer, soldier. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Colonel, 24th Missouri Volunteers. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, p. 341; Congressional Globe)
BOYD, Sempronius Hamilton, lawyer, born in Williamson County, Tennessee, 28 May, 1828. He received an academic education at Springfield, Missouri, after which he studied law. In 1855 he was admitted to the bar and practised in Springfield, where he became clerk, attorney, and twice mayor. During the Civil War he was colonel of the 24th Missouri Volunteers, a regiment which he raised, and which was known as the “Lyon Legion.” In 1863 he was elected as representative in Congress from Missouri. Afterward, resuming his profession, he was appointed judge of the 14th judicial circuit of Missouri. He was a delegate to the Baltimore Convention in 1864, and in 1868 elected to Congress, serving until 3 March, 1871. Since then he has spent a quiet life in Missouri, devoting his time partly to the practice of his profession and partly to stock-raising. The Springfield wagon factory and the first national bank of Springfield were founded by him. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 341.
BOYDEN, Seth, inventor, born in Foxborough, Massachusetts, 17 November, 1788; died in Middleville, New Jersey, 31 March, 1870. His boyhood was spent in aiding his father in farm work or in attending the com- mon school. Such leisure as he could obtain was devoted to the blacksmith's shop, and at the age of twenty-one years he engaged in manufacturing nails and cutting files with improved machines of his own construction. He then improved the ma- chine originally devised by his father for leather-slitting which he adapted to the splitting of sheep-skins and thin leather for bookbinders' use. About 1813, with his brother, he established a leather-splitting business in Newark, and in 1816 he still further improved his nail machine. He then experimented on the manufacture of patent leather, and in 1819 produced a superior article, which he manufactured and sold until 1831. Meanwhile he had experimented in the production of malleable iron castings, and, succeeding in that, he engaged in their manufacture from 1831 till 1835. During the latter year he became interested in the manufacture of steam-engines. Fitting up a shop for himself, he introduced the cast-iron prome or bed used in stationary steam-engines, and substituted the straight axle in place of the crank in locomotives. is most important invention was the cut-off in place of the throttle-valve, and he connected the same with the governor. In 1849 he closed out his business and sailed for California, but after two years, unsuccessful in gaining a fortune, he returned east, and began experimenting in agriculture. He succeeded in raising new varieties of strawberries of a size and quality hitherto unequalled. The principal invention of his later ears was a “hat-body doming machine,” which is now extensively used. Other inventions have been attributed to him, but they failed of commercial success. As with many inventors, the just compensation of his labors was secured by others, and his life was laborious to the end.—His brother, Uriah Atherton, inventor, was born in Foxborough, Massachusetts, 17 February, 1804; died in Boston, 17 October, 1879. In early life he worked at a blacksmith's forge, and acquired considerable mechanical skill and a thorough knowledge of materials. Later he became an engineer, and was employed in the construction of a railroad from Boston to Nashua. He then turned his attention to hydraulic engineering, and was employed in Manchester, where he found time to make a comprehensive study of the theory of the turbine water-wheel. Mr. Boyden succeeded in improving the construction of turbines so that 95 per cent. of the total power of the water expended was utilized, thereby gaining fully 20 per cent. In 1850 he settled in Boston and devoted himself thenceforward to the study of physics and chemistry. He gave $1,000 to the Boyden Library of Foxborough, where he also established the Soldiers Memorial, Building. In 1874 he placed $1,000 with the Franklin Institute, to be awarded to any resident of North America who should determine by experiment whether all rays of light and other physical rays were or were not transmitted with the same velocity. The “Foxborough Official Centennial Record” (1878) contains a full account of his life and inventions. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 341.
BOYLE, Jeremiah Tilford, 1818-1871, lawyer, anti-slavery advocate, Union Army Brigadier General. Called for gradual emancipation of slaves as a delegate to the Kentucky State Constitutional Convention in 1849. (Warner, Ezra, Generals in Blue, 1964; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 342; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 532)
BOYLE, Jeremiah Tilford, soldier, born 22 May, 1818; died in Louisville, Kentucky, 28 July, 1871. He was graduated at Princeton in 1838, and, after qualifying himself for the law, he was admitted to the bar and began practice in Kentucky. When the slave-states seceded from the union, and Kentucky was in doubt which side to join, he declared in favor of the union, and was appointed a brigadier-general of U. S. volunteers, 9 November, 1861. After distinguished and patriotic services in organizing for defence against the Confederate invasion that was threatened from the south, he was appointed military governor of Kentucky, and retained that office from 1862 till 1864, when he resigned his commission. From 1864 till 1866 he was president of the Louisville City Railway Company, and from 1866 till his death was president of the Evansville, Henderson, and Nashville Railroad Company. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888. p. 342
BOYLE, John Alexander, soldier, born in Baltimore, Maryland, 13 May, 1816; died near Chattanooga, Tennessee, 29 October, 1863. He became a Methodist preacher in 1839, his station being in Philadelphia and vicinity, where he had received his education. After repeated and prolonged trials he was obliged to give up the ministry because of failing health. Removing to Elk County, Pennsylvania, he became a lawyer and afterward an editor. He volunteered in a Pennsylvania regiment at the beginning of the Civil War and soon rose to the rank of major, serving with zeal and honor in Virginia and Tennessee, and was killed in the battle of Wauhatchie. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 342.
BOYLE, Junius J., naval officer, born in Maryland about 1802; died in Norfolk, Virginia, 11 August, 1870. He was appointed midshipman in the U.S. Navy from the District of Columbia in 1823, cruised in the sloop-of-war “Peacock” in the Pacific in 1827, and midshipman in 1829. He was commissioned lieutenant, 21 June, 1832. After nine years of sea duty on board the frigates “Delaware” and “Congress,” most of the time in the Mediterranean, he served from 1843 till 1855 on different store-ships and in the schooner “Bonito” of the Home Squadron. He was commissioned commodore, 16 July, 1862, and was in command of the naval asylum at Philadelphia in 1863–’5. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 342.
BOYNTON, Charles Brandon, 1806-1883, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, lawyer, clergyman, anti-slavery activist. Chaplain, U.S. House of Representatives, 39th and 49th Congress. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 342-343; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, pp. 536-539)
BOYNTON, Charles Brandon, clergyman, born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 12 June, 1806; died in Cincinnati, Ohio, 27 April, 1883. He entered Williams in the class of 1827, but, owing to illness, was obliged to leave college during his senior year. He took up the study of law, and, after filling one or two local offices, was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature. While studying law he became interested in religion, qualified himself for the ministry, and was ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Housatonic, Connecticut, in 1840. Thence, after a stay of three years, he moved successively to Lansingburg, Pittsfield, and in 1846 to Cincinnati, and remained there until 1877, with the exception of his terms of service as chaplain of the House of Representatives in the 39th and 40th Congresses. For a time he was pastor of the Congregational Church at Washington, D. C. He bore an important part in the anti-slavery controversy, which was fiercely waged in Cincinnati during the early years of his pastorate. His published books are “Journey through Kansas, with Sketch of Nebraska” (Cincinnati, 1855); “The Russian Empire” (1856); “The Four Great Powers—England, France, Russia, and America; their Policy, Resources, and Probable Future” (1866); “History of the Navy during the Rebellion” (New York, 1868). He received the degree of D. D. from Marietta College in recognition of his acquirements as a biblical scholar. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 342-343.
BOYNTON, Edward Carlisle, soldier, born in Vermont about 1825. He was graduated at West Point in 1846, assigned to the 2d U.S. Artillery as brevet second lieutenant, and ordered at once to join the army in Mexico. He was with General Taylor at the front of the invading force, and participated in the siege of Vera Cruz and the battles of Contreras and Churubusco, in which last engagement he was severely wounded. He was promoted second lieutenant 16 February, and first lieutenant 20 August, 1847, and was brevetted captain at the same time. He was an instructor at West Point in 1848–'55. In 1855–6, he accompanied the expedition against the remnant of the Seminole Indians in Florida. He resigned 16 February, 1856, and accepted the professorship of chemistry in the University of Mississippi, which he held until dismissed in 1861 for “evincing a want of attachment to the government of the Confederate States.” He declined the colonelcy of a volunteer regiment, and was reappointed to the U.S. Army as captain in the 11th Infantry, 23 September, 1861. He was at once assigned to duty at the Military Academy, first as adjutant and afterward as quartermaster, remaining at that post throughout the war, and receiving at its close the brevet of major for faithful services. He was transferred to the 29th U.S. Infantry, 21 September, 1866. Major Boynton is the author of “History of West Point and its Military Importance during the Revolution, and the £ and Progress of the U.S. Military Academy” (New York, 1863); a “Guide to West Point and the U. S. Military Academy.” (1863); “Register of Cadets admitted to the Military Academy, from its Origin to June 30, 1870.” 1870); “Several Orders of George Washington, Commander-in-Chief, etc., issued at Newburg’” (Newburg, 1883); and of the '' and naval vocabulary in Webster's “Army and Navy Dictionary” (Springfield, 1886). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 343.
BOYNTON, Henry Van Ness, soldier, born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 22 July, 1835, moved to Ohio when a young man, and was graduated at the Woodward High School, Cincinnati, in June, 1855. Thence he went to the Kentucky Military Institute, where he passed through a semi-military course of training that prepared him for subsequent service in the field, ''became a civil engineer. At the beginning of the Civil War he was commissioned major of the 35th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (27 July, 1861). He was promoted lieutenant-colonel, 19 July, 1863, commanded the regiment during the Tennessee Campaigns, and was brevetted brigadier for good conduct at the battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. He is the author of the most notable of the criticisms called out by General William T. Sherman’s “Memoirs,” namely, “Sherman's Historical Raid; the Memoirs in the Light of the Record; a Review based upon Compilations from the Files of the War Office” (Cincinnati, 1875). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 343.
BRACKETT, Albert Gallatin, soldier, born in Cherry Valley, Otsego County, New York, 14 February, 1829. He moved to Indiana in 1846, and, during the war with Mexico, was first lieutenant in the 4th Indiana Volunteers, attached to Lane's brigade, being present at Huamantla, Puebla, and Atlixco. On 16 July, 1848, he was honorably discharged on 3 March, 1855, he became captain in the 2d U.S. Cavalry, and, after raising a company in Indiana and Illinois, served on the Texas frontier, distinguishing himself in actions against the Comanche Indians. He was the first U.S. officer that crossed into Mexico in pursuit of hostile Indians. When General Twiggs surrendered to the Confederates in 1861, Captain Brackett escaped. He commanded the cavalry at Blackburn's Ford and the first battle of Bull Run, and in August, 1861, became colonel of the 9th Illinois Cavalry, serving with credit through the Arkansas Campaign, an being severely wounded at Stewart's Plantation, where he saved a valuable train from falling into the hands of the Confederates. On 28 June, 1862, he was brevetted major in the regular army for services in the Arkansas Campaign, and on 17 July received his full commission as major in the 1st Cavalry. In 1863 he was chief of cavalry in the Department of the Missouri, and in 1864 assistant inspector-general of cavalry, in the Department of the Cumberland. He was engaged in the battles around Atlanta, was brevetted lieutenant-colonel on 1 September, 1864, for his services there, and at the close of the war was brevetted colonel. After that time he served principally against hostile Indians in Nevada, Wyoming, and Arizona. He received his full commission as lieutenant-colonel, 2d U.S. Cavalry, on 9 June, 1868, and on 20 March, 1879, when commanding the District of the Yellowstone, was made colonel of the 3d U.S. Cavalry. He was afterward assigned to the command of Fort Davis, Texas, and in March, 1886, was recommended by the Congressional delegation of Indiana and Texas for promotion to the rank of brigadier-general. He as published “General Lane's Brigade in Central Mexico” (Cincinnati, 1854); “History of the United States Cavalry” (New York, 1865); and has written many magazine and newspaper articles, especially in regard to military affairs and the development of the country. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 345-346.
BRACKETT, Edward Augustus, sculptor, born in Vassalborough, Maine , 1 October, 1819. He began his career in 1838, and has produced portrait busts of Washington Allston, Richard Henry Dana, Bryant, Longfellow, Rufus Choate, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, General Butler, and others. His marble group of the “Shipwrecked Mother and Child” is now the property of the Boston athenaeum.—His brother, Walter M., painter, born in Unity, Maine , 14 June, 1823, began painting in 1843, giving his attention to portraits and ideal heads, and executed likenesses of Charles Sumner, Edward Everett, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. He also painted portraits of the first four secretaries of war, for the War Department at Washington. For some years he has been devoted himself to the painting of game fish, especially of salmon and trout. A series of four of his pictures, representing the capture of a salmon with a fly, was exhibited at the Crystal Palace, London. He now lives in Boston, where he has for some time been president of the art club, of which he was one of the original members. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 346.
BRADBURN, George, 1806-1880, Nantucket, Massachusetts, politician, US Congressman representing the Free Soil Party, newspaper editor, Unitarian clergyman, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, lecturer. Member, American Anti-Slavery Society. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1840-1845. Vice President, Liberty Party. Attended World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in June 1840, where he protested the exclusion of women from the conference. Lectured for the American Anti-Slavery Society with fellow abolitionists William A. White and Frederick Douglass in 1843. Editor, the Pioneer and Herald of Freedom from 1846 to 1849 in Lynn, Massachusetts. (Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 345; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York)
BRADFORD, Augustus W., governor of Maryland, born in Maryland about 1805; died 1 March, 1881. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and became an active Whig politician. He was an earnest unionist during the Civil War. In 1861 he was a delegate to the Peace Congress, and in 1862 was elected governor of the state, serving until 1866. In July, 1864, Confederate raiders burned his house. In 1864 he was influential in securing the adoption of the new constitution of Maryland, by which slavery was abolished, and under President Johnson was Surveyor of the port of Baltimore. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 348.
BRADFORD, Joseph, journalist, born near Nashville, Tennessee, 24 October, 1843; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 13 April, 1886. His real name was William Randolph Hunter. He was appointed to the U. S. Naval Academy in 1859, but did not take a full course. In 1862 he entered the U.S. Navy, and served with distinction until 1864, when he resigned on account of illness. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 348.
BRADFORD, Joseph M., naval officer, born in Sumner County, Tennessee, 4 November, 1824; died in Norfolk, Virginia, 14 April, 1872. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman, 10 January, 1840; became a lieutenant, 16 September, 1855; a commander, 25 July, 1866; retired 5 February, 1872, and was made a captain on the retired list, 16 March, 1872. He was fleet-captain of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from November, 1863, till June, 1865, during which period he saw severe service and performed his difficult duties to the satisfaction of his superior officers. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 348.
BRADLEY, Joseph P., jurist, born in Berne, Albany County, New York, 14 March, 1813. He is of English descent. His earliest ancestor in the United States was Francis Bradley, who was a member of Governor Eaton's family in '' Haven, Connecticut, in 1650, and moved to Fairfield in the same state in 1660. From Francis Bradley the judge is the sixth in line. In 1791 the family moved to Berne. His father was Philo Bradley, and his mother was Mercy Gardiner, of a Newport, Rhode Island, family. The father was a farmer, and had a library containing historical and mathematical works. Joseph was the eldest of eleven children, and worked on the farm until he reached the age of sixteen. His opportunities for obtaining an education consisted principally in his attendance, three or four months in each year, at a country school when he was between the ages of five and fourteen; but he made constant use of his father's library, and his attainments must have been very considerable. He taught a country school every winter from his sixteenth year till his twenty-first. During this period he also practised surveying occasionally for the neighboring farmers. His love of study attracted the attention of the clergyman of the village, who offered to prepare him for college. This invitation he accepted, and at the age of twenty Mr. Bradley entered Rutgers, where he was graduated with honor in 1836, unusually distinguished as a mathematician. After devoting six months to teaching, he began the study of law with Arthur Gifford at Newark, New Jersey, and was admitted to the bar in November, 1839. In May, 1840, he opened an office in Newark, where he continued in practice thirty years, until his appointment to be a justice of the Supreme Court. He was engaged in many of the most important and difficult cases that arose in the New Jersey courts and in the courts of the United States for that district, and his services as a counsellor were sought in a multitude of other business transactions. His professional career was attended throughout with great success. In 1860 he argued the celebrated New Jersey bridge case in the Supreme Court of the United States with a power and cogency that were long remembered. During many years he was a director and principal counsellor of the New Jersey, Trenton, and Philadelphia, and of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Companies, and his influence was exerted to induce those companies to yield, in favor of the public, monopolies granted to them by the legislature, but odious to the community at large. From 1857 till 1863 he was the actuary of the Mutual Benefit Insurance Company of Newark, and from 1865 till 1869 was president of the New Jersey Mutual Life Insurance Company. He was also a director of various other financial institutions. In 1849 he addressed the literary societies of Rutgers College on the subject of “progress,” and he has delivered lectures to the classes on political economy and constitutional law. In 1851 he delivered the annual address before the historical society of New Jersey on “The Perils through which the Federal Constitution has, and which still threaten it,” and in 1865 he delivered an admirable address on the life and character of the Hon. William L. Dayton. In June, 1870, he delivered the centennial address at Rutgers College. He has contributed valuable articles to several cyclopaedias. In 1859 Lafayette College conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. In 1870, he was appointed by President Grant a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and was designated circuit justice for the large southern circuit. Subsequently, on the resignation of Justice Strong, he was assigned to the third circuit, embracing the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. During his member-ship of the Supreme Court a very large number of cases have been brought into it, involving questions arising out of the Civil War, the Reconstruction and other acts of Congress, the constitutional amendments, the difficulties and controversies of railroad companies, and other subjects. In no former equal period have as many cases of supreme importance been decided by that court. Many of them were not only novel, intricate and difficult of solution. In the investigation and decision of all of them Judge Bradley has borne a distinguished part. His mind is remarkably analytical, capable of discovering and appreciating occult though important distinctions. Added to this, his legal learning is so large and accurate, his acquaintance with English and American decisions so extensive, and his habit of looking beyond the rule for the reason or principle upon which it is founded so constant, that his opinions have been of high value. Those opinions appear in more than forty volumes of the supreme court reports, beginning with 9th Wallace. Many of them are notable alike for the importance of the subject discussed and for the manner of the discussion. In patent cases Judge Bradley has exhibited marked ability, his natural aptitude for comprehending mechanical devices qualifying him unusually for such cases. His opinions in maritime cases, in cases relating to civil rights and habeas corpus, in suits upon policies of insurance, and in cases in which statutory or constitutional construction has been required, are especially noteworthy as able and instructive. When in January, 1877, in pursuance of an Act of Congress, an electoral commission was constituted to consider and report upon the controversies that had arisen over the counting of the votes of presidential electors, Judge Bradley was a member, and, as such, concurred in the conclusions reached by the majority of the commissioners, supporting those conclusions by elaborate arguments, which were published with the other proceedings of the commission. Judge Bradley was never what is called a politician, though always holding decided opinions respecting constitutional and other public questions, and occasionally giving those opinions to the press. In his earlier years he was attached to the Whig Party, and later be a Republican. To the government he has uniformly given a steady and efficient support. When the southern states attempted secession, he devoted his power and in- fluence to sustaining the government against disunion, and, as counsel and director of the New Jersey Railroad Companies, he assisted very materially in forwarding troops and military supplies. On several occasions he accompanied new regiments to the field, and addressed them on the pending issues. In 1862, with much reluctance, he accepted the Republican nomination for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District of New Jersey; but so strongly Democratic was the district that he was defeated. In 1868 he headed the New Jersey Republican electoral ticket. He is an accomplished mathematician, familiar with the higher and more abstruse processes of mathematical investigation and not infrequently amuses himself by indulgence in such pursuits. In 1844 he married Mary, daughter of Chief Justice Hornblower, of New Jersey by whom he has two sons and two daughters. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 352-353.
BRADLEY, Luther Prentice, soldier, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 8 December, 1822. He was educated in the common schools of his native city. Entering the army as lieutenant-colonel of the 51st Illinois Volunteers, on 15 October, 1861, he was on recruiting duty until February, 1862, and was afterward engaged at the capture of Island No. 10, New Madrid, Farmington, and Nashville, Tennessee He became colonel of his regiment 15 October, 1862, commanded a brigade, and was in the battles of Stone River, Chickamauga, where he was wounded, Resaca, New Hope Church, Kenesaw Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, and Jonesboro, Georgia. He was made brigadier-general of volunteers, 30 July, 1864, and was in the campaign against General Hood, being wounded at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee. He resigned on 30 June, 1865, and was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 27th U.S. Infantry, 28 July, 1866. He was brevetted colonel in the regular army on 2 March, 1867, for services at Chickamauga, and brigadier-general for services at Resaca. He became colonel of the 3d U.S. Infantry, 20 March, 1879, and on 14 June was transferred to the 13th. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 353.
BRADY, James Topham, lawyer, born in New York City, 9 April, 1815; died there, 9 February, 1869. His education was obtained under the direction of his father, Thomas S. Brady, subsequently an eminent lawyer and jurist, who at that time was engaged in preparing students for college. At the age of sixteen Brady had acquired a good knowledge of law, and frequently acted the part of junior counsel to his father. In November, 1836, he was admitted to the bar in New York, where he immediately opened an office for himself. Early in his practice he was called upon to secure the release of Sarah Coppin, a young English girl, whose parents had died on the voyage to this country. After her arrival in New York she was robbed of her money, turned into the street, and afterward bound out by the authorities. Her brother obtained the legal services of Mr. Brady, who was successful in liberating the girl. The great skill with which he conducted this case, his eloquence, his success, and the ability of the opposing counsel, brought him reputation at once. He was conspicuous for his knowledge in all departments of the law, winning verdicts from judges and jurors alike in great patent cases, like that of Goodyear v. Day; cases involving questions of medical juris- prudence, like the Allaire and Parish will cases, and the moral insanity plea in the case of the forger Huntington or the homicide Cole; divorce cases, like that of Mrs. Edwin Forrest, and also in civil cases of all sorts. But his special power was seen to the best advantage in criminal cases, where he usually undertook the defence. At one time he successfully defended four clients charged with murder in a single week, and all without fee or reward. In 1843 he was appointed district attorney of New York during the temporary absence of Matthew C. Patterson, and two years later he became corporation attorney for the city. In 1859 he was selected by Daniel E. Sickles to be one of the counsel in his trial for the assassination of Philip Barton Key, and made the opening address for the defence to the jury, which was one of his most notable efforts as a criminal lawyer. Mr. Brady was retained as counsel, on one side or the other, in many of the important criminal and civil cases of his time. His success as an advocate was due to a clear statement of the case and a skilful and courteous cross-examination of witnesses. His arguments were put with such tact, his statements of facts so lucid and candid, and his appeals were so eloquent and impressive, that he almost invariably carried judge and jury with him. It has been said that he never lost a case in which he was before a jury for more than a week; in that time they saw everything through his eyes. He was naturally a political leader, and was frequently urged to accept office, but invariably re- fused unless the place was in the line of his profession. Prior to the Civil War he was an ultra-state-rights man, and supported Breckinridge in the canvass of 1860, in which year he was candidate for governor on the “hard-shell” or pro-slavery Democratic ticket. During Mr. Lincoln's administrations he supported the war measures generally and made speeches on national questions, some of which produced a strong impression. In his address before the Seymour Association of New York in October, 1862, he said: “The south, in leaving us at the particular time she did, did so without the slightest pretext of justification or excuse.” Near the close of the war he was appointed a member of a commission to inquire into the administration of the department of the gulf under Generals Butler and Banks; but the report, notwithstanding the public interest in the subject at that time, has not been published. Mr. Brady was never married. In the days of the old “Knickerbocker Magazine” he was one of its frequent contributors. “A Christmas Dream,” published originally in “The New World” in 1846, was subsequently put into a small volume, exquisitely illustrated. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 354-355.
BRAGG, Braxton, soldier, born in Warren County, North Carolina, 22 March, 1817; died in Galveston, Texas, 27 September, 1876. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1837, standing 5th in a class of fifty. Among his classmates were Generals Benham, Townsend, Sedgwick, and Hooker on the national side, and Early and Pemberton on the Confederate side. He was appointed lieutenant of artillery, and served mainly in Florida until 1843, during the war with the Seminoles; from 1843 till 1845 he was stationed at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston Harbor, and just before the war with Mexico was ordered to Texas. In May, 1846, he was made captain by brevet for gallant conduct in the defence of Fort Brown, Texas, and in June was promoted captain of artillery. He was present at the battle of Monterey, 21–23 September, and was brevetted major for gallant conduct there. In 1847 he was brevetted lieutenant colonel for gallantry at the battle of Buena Vista. From 1848 till 1855 he was engaged in frontier service at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, Fort Gibson, and Washita. In March, 1855, he was appointed major of cavalry, but declined and received leave of absence. In January, 1856, he resigned his commission and retired to his plantation at Thibodeaux, Louisiana In 1859–’61 he was commissioner of the board of public works of the state of Louisiana. When the Civil War began he was appointed brigadier-general in the Confederate Army in 1861, and was in command at Pensacola, Florida. In February, 1862, he was promoted major-general and ordered to join the Army of the Mississippi. He took part in the battle of Shiloh, 6–7 April, and was promoted general in place of Albert S. Johnston, who was killed. After the evacuation of Corinth he succeeded General Beauregard in command of the department. In August he led a formidable force, 45,000 strong, into Kentucky, but, after the battle of Perryville, 8 October, he retreated, carrying with him a vast quantity of supplies. He was moved from his command and placed under arrest, but was soon restored, and resumed command of the force opposed to the National Army under Rosecrans. He was worsted by Rosecrans in the protracted contest of Stone River or Murfreesboro, 31 December, 1862, and 2 January, 1863; again encountered and defeated him at Chickamauga, 19 and 20 September, 1863; but was decisively defeated by General Grant at Chattanooga, 23–25 November About 2 December he was relieved from command and called to Richmond, where for a time he acted as military adviser to Mr. Davis, with whom he was a favorite. In the autumn of 1864 he led a small force from North Carolina to Georgia to operate against Sherman, but without success. After the war he became chief engineer for the state of Alabama, and superintended the improvements in MobileBay, but with these exceptions his life was in comparative retirement.—His brother, Thomas, governor of North Carolina, born in Warrenton, Warren County, North Carolina, in 1810; died in Raleigh, 21 January, 1872. He was educated at the Military Academy at Middletown, Connecticut, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1831, and began practice at Jackson, North Carolina He was chosen to the state legislature in 1842, and in 1854 was elected governor of North Carolina, holding that office until 1858. He was elected U. S. Senator in 1859, but withdrew in 1861 after the secession of his state. Jefferson Davis made him attorney-general in his cabinet, 22 February 1861, and he acted in that capacity two years. Having lost all his means by the war, Governor Bragg resumed the practice of his profession and also re-entered political life, becoming chairman of the state Democratic Committee. He was active in the impeachment proceedings against Governor Holden. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 355-356.
BRAGG, Edward Stuyvesant, soldier, born in Unadilla, New York, 20 February 1827. He studied three years at Geneva, now Hobart, College, left at the end of the junior year, and studied law in the office of Judge Noble, in Unadilla. He was admitted to the bar in 1848, and soon after moved to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. In 1854 he was elected district attorney for Fond du Lac County, and served two years. He was a Douglas Democrat, and a delegate to the Charleston Convention in 1860. At the beginning of the Civil War he entered the military service of the United States as captain, 5 May, 1861, and held all the intermediate grades to and including that of brigadier-general, with which rank he was mustered out, 8 October, 1865. He participated in all the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac except the Peninsular, Gettysburg, and Five Forks. In 1866 he was a delegate to the Philadelphia union Convention. In 1867 he was elected to the state senate, and served one term. In 1868 he was a delegate to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Convention in New York, which nominated Horatio Seymour for president. In 1872 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in Baltimore, which nominated Horace Greeley for president. He was elected to Congress for three successive terms, beginning with the 45th Congress. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1884, and, as chairman of his delegation, seconded the nomination of Grover Cleveland for the presidency. The same year he was elected to the 49th Congress. During his Congressional career he was regarded as one of the most dangerous antagonists in debate in the whole house. Small of stature and belligerent in bearing, he was perpetually in the thick of the fight, and had few equals in his power of acrimonious retort and invective. Although he was intensely a Democrat in a partisan sense, he never could be counted upon to vote steadily with his party. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 356.
BRAINE, Daniel Lawrence, naval officer, born in New York City, 18 May, 1829. He was appointed to the U.S. Navy from Texas as a midshipman, 30 May, 1846, and during the Mexican War was in the actions at Alvarado, Tabasco, Laguna, Tuspan, Tampico, and Vera Cruz. He was made midshipman, 8 June, 1852, master in 1855, and lieutenant, 15 September, 1858. At the beginning of the Civil War he was selected by the union defence Committee to command the steamer “Monticello,” fitted out in forty-eight hours to provision Fortress Monroe. The “Monticello” was afterward attached to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and on 19 May, 1861, participated in the first naval engagement of the war, with a battery of five guns, at Sewall's Point, Virginia In October, 1861, he attacked the Confederate gun-boats above Cape Hatteras and dispersed two regiments of Infantry, sinking two ": filled with soldiers, and rescuing the 20th Indiana Regiment, who were cut off from Hatteras inlet by the enemy. On 15 July, 1862, he received his commission as lieutenant commander, and from that time till 1864 was in numerous engagements, commanding the “Pequot” in the attacks on Fort Fisher, Fort Anderson, and the forts on Cape Fear River. For “cool performance of his duty” in these fights he was recommended for promotion by Rear-Admiral Porter in his despatch of 28 January, 1865, and on 25 July, 1866, was commissioned as commander. He had charge of the equipment department of the Brooklyn U.S. Navy-yard from 1869 till 1872, and commanded the “Juniata,” of the Polaris Search Expedition, in 1873. In the latter part of that year he demanded and received the “Virginius” prisoners at Santiago de Cuba, and brought them to New York. He became captain on 11 December, 1874, commodore, 2 March, 1885, and president of the naval board of inspection at New York on 1 July, 1885. He was appointed acting rear admiral on 12 August, 1886, and ordered to the command of the South Atlantic Squadron. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 357.
BRAINERD, Lawrence, 1794-1870, anti-slavery activist, temperance activist, capitalist, statesman, U.S. Senator, elected 1854, member of the Liberty and Free Soil Parties. Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833-1839. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 358; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 594)
BRAINERD, Lawrence, senator, born in 1794; died in St. Albans, Vermont, 9 May, 1870. He was active in forwarding the political, commercial, and railroad interests of Vermont, and was for several years candidate for governor. After the death of Senator Upham, Mr. Brainerd was chosen to the Senate as a Free-Soiler for the remainder of the term, serving from 5 December, 1854, till 3 March, 1855. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 358.
BRAMLETTE, Thomas E., governor of Kentucky, born in Cumberland County, Kentucky, 3 January, 1817; died in Louisville, Kentucky, 12 January, 1875. He was educated in the schools of his native county, was admitted to the bar in 1837, became attorney for the state in 1848, and in 1850 resigned, to devote himself to his private practice. In 1856 he was chosen judge of the Sixth Judicial District, and in 1861 resigned and entered the National Army. He raised the 3d Kentucky Infantry, and became its colonel. He was elected governor of his state, as a union man, in 1863, and, by re-election, remained in office until 1867, and afterward was a successful lawyer in Louisville. He was also U.S. District Attorney for some time. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 358.
BRANCH, O'BRIAN, Lawrence soldier, born in Halifax County, North Carolina, 7 July, 1820; killed at Antietam, 17 September, 1862. Was graduated at Princeton in 1838, studied law, and began practice at Raleigh. He was chosen to Congress for three successive terms, serving from 3 December, 1855, till 3 March, 1861. After the secession of his state in May, 1861, he entered the Confederate Army, and became a brigadier-general in November of that year. He commanded at Newbern, North Carolina, when it was captured by Burnside, and afterward, took part in several battles in that state and on the Peninsula. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 358.
BRANCH, John, 1782-1863, Raleigh, North Carolina, statesman, political leader, Secretary of the Navy, Governor of North Carolina. President, Raleigh auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 358; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, p. 594; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 71)
BRANCH, John, Secretary of the Navy, born in Halifax, North Carolina, 4 November, 1782; died in Enfield, North Carolina, 4 January, 1863. After graduation at the University of North Carolina in 1801, he studied law, became judge of the superior court, and was a state senator from 1811 till 1817, in 1822, and again in 1834. He was elected governor of his state in 1817, and from 1823 till 1829 was U. S. Senator, resigning in the latter year, when he was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Jackson. He held this office till 1831, when the cabinet broke up, more on account of social than political dissensions, as was commonly thought. A letter from Secretary Branch on the subject is published in Niles's “Register” (vol. xli.). Judge Branch was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 1831. In 1838 he was defeated as Democratic candidate for governor of his state, and in 1844-'5 was governor of the Territory of Florida, serving until the election of a governor under the state constitution. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 358
BRANDEGEE, Augustus, 1828-1904, lawyer, jurist, abolitionist. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Elected to Connecticut State House of Representatives in 1854. There, he was appointed Chairman of the Select Committee to pass a “Bill for the Defense of Liberty,” which was to prevent the Fugitive Slave Law from being enforced in the state. (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; Congressional Globe)
BRANNAN, John Milton, soldier, born in the District of Columbia in 1819. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1841, and served at Plattsburg, New York, during the border disturbances of 1841—'2, and in the Mexican War as first lieutenant of the 1st U.S. Artillery. He was at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, La Hoya, Contreras, and Churubusco, and for his conduct in the two actions last named was brevetted on 20 August, 1847. On 13 September he was severely wounded at the Belen Gate in the assault on the city of Mexico. After this he served on garrison duty in various forts, and against the Seminoles in 1856-'8. On 28 September, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers, commanded the Department of Key West, Florida, in 1862, and served in the Department of the South from June, 1862, till 24 January, 1863. During this time he commanded the St. John's River Expedition of 25 September, 1862, receiving the brevet of lieutenant-colonel for his services at the battle of Jacksonville, was engaged at Pocotaligo, South Carolina, 24 October, 1862, and twice temporarily commanded the department. In the Tennessee Campaign of 1863 he was at Hoover's Gap, Tullahoma, Elk River, and Chickamauga, winning two brevets. From 10 October, 1863, till 25 June, 1865, he was chief of artillery of the Department of the Cumberland, and was engaged at Chattanooga until May, 1864, in arranging the armament of its defences. He was in the battle of Missionary Ridge, 23–25 November, 1863, and from 4 May till 1 October, 1864, took part in the Georgia Campaign, being engaged at Resaca, Dallas, Kenesaw Mountain, and the siege and surrender of Atlanta. On 23 January, 1865, he was brevetted major-general of volunteers, and on 13 March, 1865, received the brevet of brigadier-general in the regular army for his services at Atlanta, and that of major-general for his services during the war. In 1870 he commanded the troops at Ogdensburg at the time of the threatened Fenian raids into Canada, and in 1877 at Philadelphia during the railroad riots. He was made colonel of the 4th U.S. Artillery, 15 March, 1881, and was retired from active service on 19 April, 1882. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 359.
BRAYMAN, Mason, soldier, born in Buffalo, New York, 23 May, 1813. He was brought up as a farmer, but became a printer, edited the Buffalo “Bulletin” in 1834—'5, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1836. In 1837 he moved to the west, was city attorney in Monroe, Michigan, in 1838, and became editor of the Louisville “Advertiser,” in 1841. In 1842 he opened a law-office in Springfield, Illinois. The year following he was appointed a special commissioner to adjust Mormon troubles, and in 1845–6 acted as special attorney to prosecute offences growing out of the Mormon difficulties, and to negotiate a peace between the followers of Joseph Smith and their enemies in Nauvoo. In published the statutes of Illinois under the appointment of the governor and the authority of the legislature. He afterward became interested in railroad enterprises. He was attorney of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1851–5, and then president and organizer of railroads in Missouri and Arkansas till the beginning of the war. In 1861 he joined the volunteer army as major of the 29th Illinois Regiment, of which he became colonel in May, 1862, having been promoted brigadier-general of volunteers for bravery in action, and at the close of the war received the brevet of major-general. He commanded the U.S. forces at Bolivar, Tennessee, from November, 1862, to June, 1863, and repelled Van Dorn’s attack on that place. He afterward reorganized about sixty Ohio regiments at Camp Dennison, Ohio, was president of a court of inquiry to investigate General Sturgis’s conduct, commanded at Natchez, Mississippi, from July, 1864, to the spring of 1865, and then presided over a commission in New Orleans to examine and report upon southern claims against the government. After the war he was engaged for several years in reviving railroad enterprises in the south, edited the “Illinois State Journal” in 1872-‘3, moved to Wisconsin in the latter year, was appointed governor of the territory of Idaho in 1876, served a term of four years, and then returned to Wisconsin and practised law in Ripon. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 362-363.
BRECK, Samuel, soldier, born in Middleborough, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 25 February, 1834. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1855, and served in the Florida War of 1855–6, was assistant professor of geography, history, and ethics in the Military Academy in 1860–1, and served in the Civil War as assistant adjutant-general of General McDowell's division in the beginning of 1862, and afterward of the 1st Army Corps, and of the Department of the Rappahannock, being engaged in the occupation of Fredericksburg and the Shenandoah Valley Expedition, and from 2 July, 1862, till 5 June, 1870, was assistant in the adjutant-general's department at Washington, in cha of rolls, returns, and the preparation of the “Volunteer Army Register.” He was brevetted brigadier-general, for faithful services, on 13 March, 1865. From 1870 until 1877 he was stationed in San Francisco, California, and from 24 December, 1877, served as assistant in the adjutant-general's office at Washington, and at departmental headquarters in California, New York, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 364.
BRECKRIDGE, Robert Jefferson, clergyman, born in Cabell's Dale, Kentucky, 8 March, 1800; died in Danville, 27 December, 1871, studied at Princeton, Yale, and Union Colleges successively, graduating at Union in 1819, read law, was admitted to the bar of his native state in 1823, and practised eight years. For four successive years he was a member of the legislature. In 1829 he made a profession of religion, and determined to be a preacher. As a politician he had advocated the emancipation of the slaves, and when the public sentiment of his state turned in favor of slavery, he was the more inclined to abandon the political career. After studying theology privately, he was licensed to preach in 1832, and soon afterward became pastor of the 2d Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, in which place he remained thirteen years. In 1845 he was president of Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, and at the same time took charge of a Presbyterian Church in a neighboring village. After two years in the presidency of the college, he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he became pastor of the 1st Presbyterian Church, and also superintendent of public instruction for the state. He was the principal author of the public-school system of Kentucky. In 1853 he was elected professor of didactic and polemic theology in the new theological seminary at Danville, which chair he held until his death. He published “Travels in France, Germany,” etc. (Philadelphia, 1839); a volume on “Poland " in 1841; “Memoranda of Foreign Travel.”, 1845); the “Internal of Christianity,” in 1852; and “The Knowledge of God Objectively Considered” (New York, 1857), followed by “The Knowledge of God Subjectively Considered,” two parts of an elaborate work on theology as a science of positive truth. While in Baltimore he edited a “Literary and Religious Magazine” and the “Spirit of the Nineteenth Century,” in which he carried on discussions with the Roman Catholics on questions of theology and history. He also edited at Danville, Kentucky, while professor there, the “Danville Review,” in which he not only defended his theological views, but gave utterance to his patriotic sentiments during the war. In the discussions and controversies that receded the disruption of the Presbyterian Church e was the champion of the old-school party. He was largely instrumental in actuating the managers of the American Bible Society to recede from their resolution to adopt the revised version of the Bible. Previous to the Civil War he had been inclined to conservatism, though disposed to deprecate slavery; but when the war came he was from the first intensely loyal, though one of his sons, and his nephew, John C. Breckinridge, went over to the confederacy. He presided over the National Republican Convention at Baltimore in 1864, which renominated Mr. Lincoln for the presidency. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 365.
BRECKENRIDGE, William Campbell Preston, born in Baltimore, Maryland, 28 August, 1837, was graduated at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, in 1855, entered the Confederate Army as a captain in 1861, became colonel of the 9th Kentucky Cavalry, commanded the Kentucky Cavalry Brigade when it surrendered, was an editor for two years, afterward professor of equity jurisprudence in Cumberland University, Tennessee, and in 1884 was elected as a Democrat, without opposition, to the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 365.
BRECKENDIDGE, Joseph Cabell, soldier, born in Baltimore, 14 January, 1842, was graduated at the University of Virginia in 1860, and volunteered in the U.S. Army in August, 1861. He was engaged in the campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee, ending with the advance on Corinth, was appointed second lieutenant in the 2d U.S. Artillery in April, 1862, for gallantry at the battle of Mill Spring, promoted first lieutenant in August, 1863, and served in Florida, and then the Atlanta Campaign with his battery until July, 1864, when he was taken prisoner before Atlanta, Georgia. In September following he was released, and was on mustering, staff, and recruiting duty during the remainder of the Civil War. He was promoted captain, 17 June, 1874. On 19 January, 1881, he was transferred to the inspector-general's department with the rank of major, promoted lieutenant-colonel in that department, 5 February, 1885, and colonel 22 September the same year. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 365-366.
BRECKENRIDGE, John Cabell, Vice-President of the United States, born near Lexington, Kentucky, 21 January, 1821; died in Lexington, Kentucky, 17 May, 1875. He was a grandson of John Breckenridge, U. S. Senator and Attorney-General, was educated at Centre College, Danville, studied law at the Transylvania Institute, and, after a short residence in Burlington, Iowa, settled at Lexington, where he practised his profession with success. At the beginning of the war with Mexico, in 1847, he was elected major in a regiment of Kentucky volunteers, and while on duty in Mexico he was employed by General Pillow as his counsel in his litigation with his associates and superiors. On his return, he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives. In 1851 he was elected to Congress, and was reelected in 1853. He declined the Spanish mission tendered him by President Pierce. In the presidential election of 1856 he was chosen Vice-President of the United States, with Mr. Buchanan as President. In 1860 he was the candidate for president as the representative of the slave-holding interest, nominated by the southern delegates of the Democratic Convention who separated from those that supported Stephen A. Douglas. In the Electoral College he received 72 votes, to 180 cast for Lincoln, 39 for Bell, and 12 for Douglas, all the southern states voting for him excepting Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. In the same year he was elected U.S. Senator as the successor of John J. Crittenden, and took his seat in March, 1861. At the beginning of the Civil War he defended the southern Confederacy in the Senate, soon afterward went south, entered the Confederate Army, and was expelled from the Senate on 4 December, 1861. On 5 August of the following summer he was appointed a major-general. He commanded the Confederate reserve at Shiloh, 6 April, 1862; was repelled in the attack on Baton Rouge in August, 1862; commanded the right wing of Bragg's army at Murfreesboro, 31 December, 1862; was at Chickamauga, 19 and 20 September, 1863; and Chattanooga, 25 November 1863; defeated General Sigel near Newmarket, 13 May, 1864; then joined General Lee's army, and was at the battle of Cold Harbor, 3 June, 1864; commanded a corps under Early, and was defeated by General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley in September, 1864; defeated General Gillem in east Tennessee, 12 November, 1864; and was in the battle near Nashville, 15 December, 1864. He was Secretary of War in Jefferson Davis's cabinet from January, 1865, till the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston in April. He left Richmond for Charlotte. North Carolina, with Mr. Davis and the other officers of the Confederate Government, and, after it was decided to abandon the contest, left the party at Washington, Georgia, made his escape to the Florida Keys, and thence embarked for Cuba, and sailed from Havana for Europe. He returned in 1868 determined to take no further part in politics, and to devote himself to his profession. As vice-president he was the youngest man that had ever held that office. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 366.
BRECKINRIDGE, Robert Jefferson, 1800-1871, Kentucky, lawyer, clergyman, state legislator, anti-slavery activist. Supported gradual emancipation. Opponent of slavery and important advocate for colonization and the American Colonization Society (ACS). He argued emancipation was the goal of African colonization and it was justified. He worked with ACS agent Robert S. Finley to establish auxiliaries. (Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, p. 10; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 144-145, 183, 231)
BREESE, Kidder Randolph, naval officer, born in Philadelphia, 14 April, 1831; died 13 September, 1881. He was appointed a midshipman from Rhode Island in 1846, and served during the Mexican War in the “Saratoga,” Commander Farragut, on the coast of Mexico. As passed midshipman he served in Commodore, Perry's Japan Expedition and was on the “Macedonian,” which visited the northern end of Formosa to search for coal and inquire into the captivity of Americans on that island. He also served in Preble's Paraguay Expedition, from which he returned in September, 1859, with isthmus fever. He next served on the “San Jacinto,” which captured 1,500 slaves on the coast of Africa, and took Mason and Slidell from on board the “Trent" in November, 1861. He was ordered to Porter's mortar flotilla in December, 1861, and took part in the attacks on New Orleans and Vicksburg in 1862. Promoted lieutenant-commander, on 16 July, 1862, at the time of the establishment of that grade, he joined Porter's Mississippi Squadron in October, 1862, took command of the flag-ship “Black Hawk,” and participated in the important operations in the Mississippi and the Red River. When Admiral Porter was placed in command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in September, 1864, he selected Breese as his fleet-captain, in which capacity he served until hostilities came to an end in May, 1865. He was engaged at the Fort Fisher fights and in the attack on Fort Anderson; and in the naval assault on Fort Fisher, on 15 January, 1865, he commanded the storming party, which gained the parapet, but was unable to maintain the position, owing to lack of support from the marines. He was recommended for promotion for services on that occasion, promoted commander 25 July, 1866, and captain, 9 August, 1874. After the war he was employed in the testing of breech-loading arms, and in other ordnance duties, and commanded the “Plymouth,” of the European Squadron, and afterward the “Pensacola.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 366-367.
BREESE, Samuel Livingston, naval officer, born in Utica, New York, in 1794; died at Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, 17 December, 1870. He was appointed a midshipman, 10 September, 1810, and was present at the battle of Lake Champlain, received his commission as lieutenant, 27 April, 1816, as captain, 8 September, 1841, and on the frigate “Cumberland,” of the Mediterranean Squadron, in 1845. He was in the Pacific during the Mexican War, and was present at the capture of Tuspan and Tobasco, and of Vera Cruz. In 1853-'5 he was commandant of the Norfolk Navy-yard, in 1856–’8 commanded the Mediterranean Squadron, and in 1859–’61 the Brooklyn Navy-yard. On 16 July, 1862, he was commissioned as commodore and placed on the retired list, and on 3 September, 1862, was made a rear-admiral on the retired list. He served in 1862 as light-house inspector, and in 1869 was port-admiral at Philadelphia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 367.
BREESE, Sidney, jurist, born in Whitesboro, New York, 15 July 1800; died in Pinckneyville, iii. 2; June, 1878. He was graduated at Union in 1818, moved to Illinois, and in 1821 was admitted to the bar. He became assistant Secretary of State, and was state attorney from 1822 till 1827, when he was appointed U.S. Attorney for Illinois. In 1829 he published the first volume of supreme court reports in that state. He served in the Black Hawk War as a lieutenant-colonel of volunteers. In 1835 he was elected a circuit judge, and in 1841 to the Supreme Court. From 1843 to 1849 he was a senator of the United States, having been elected as a Democrat to succeed Richard M. Young. He was a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution during the administration of President Polk, and served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Lands, in which capacity he made a report in favor of a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific. In 1850 he was speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. He was one of the originators of the Illinois Central Railroad. He again became a circuit judge in 1855, and was made chief of the court. In 1857 he was elected a justice of the Supreme Court, and in 1873 he became Chief Justice, in which office he continued till the time of his death. In 1869 he published a work on Illinois and one treating of the “Origin and History of the Pacific Railroad.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 367.
BREWERTON, Henry, soldier, born in New York City; died in Washington, D.C., 17 April, 1879. He was at the head of the 2d class in the U. S. Military Academy when the 1st class was about to graduate in 1819. He obtained leave to essay the examination with the advanced class, and was graduated fifth from its head, thus completing the usual four years' course in three years. At the same time three of his classmates obtained similar permits and passed the ordeal successfully, though not with so high grade. But these irregularities of administration were found to be detrimental to the general good of the cadets, and were not mitted under the stricter discipline established soon after this time. Brewerton was at once commissioned second lieutenant of engineers, and, after a temporary detail to aid in determining the 45th parallel of latitude at Rouse's Point, New York, he was in September, 1819, assigned to duty as an instructor at the Military Academy. He was promoted first lieutenant of engineers, 1 January, 1825; captain, 21 September, 1826; major, 23 August, 1856; and lieutenant-colonel, 6 August, 1861. During these years he was continuously active on important engineering works, such as Fort Adams, Newport, Fort Jackson, Louisiana, the defences of Charleston Harbor, on the light-house board, and as a member of various boards and commissions appointed to improve the defences of the United. In 1847 he received the degree of LL.D. from Dickinson College. During the early years of the Civil War, from 1861 till 5 November, 1864, he was superintending engineer of the fortifications and improvements Baltimore Harbor, Maryland. On 22 April, 1864, he was promoted colonel of engineers. The winter of 1864–5 he passed in the neighborhood of Hampton Roads, superintending the construction of defensive works, and thence he was transferred to the defences of New York. He was brevetted brigadier-general, “for long, faithful, and meritorious services,” 13 March, 1865, and retired 7 March, 1867, in compliance with the law, “having been borne on the army register more than forty-five years.”—His son, George Douglas, soldier, born about 1820. He joined Stephenson's Regiment of “California Volunteers,” in 1846, as second lieutenant, became second lieutenant, 1st U. S. Infantry, 22 May, 1847, and first lieutenant in June, 1850. He is the author of “The War in Kansas: A Rough Trip to the Border among New Homes and a Strange People” (New York, 1856): “Fitzpoodle at Newport” ; and “Ida Lewis, the Heroine of Lime Rock” (Newport, 1869). He has published also, through a New York firm, “The Automaton Regiment” (1862), “The Automaton Company," and “The Automaton Battery." (1863). ' devices for the instruction of military recruits were brought out when hundreds of thousands of untrained soldiers were eagerly studying the rudiments of the art of war, and were extensively used in connection with the regular books of tactics. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 370-371.
BREWSTER, Henry, LeRoy, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40
BREWSTER, J. M., Pittsfield, Massachusetts, abolitionist. Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1842-45.
BREWSTER, William R., soldier, died in Brooklyn, New York, 13 December, 1869. He was a colonel in the Excelsior Brigade, organized by Daniel E. Sickles in 1861, and after the promotion of that officer was made a brigadier-general of volunteers. At the time of his death he held a place in the U. S. Internal Revenue Department. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 372
BRICE, Benjamin W., soldier, born in Virginia in 1809. He was appointed to the U. S. Military Academy from Ohio, was graduated in 1829, served as a lieutenant of infantry in an expedition against the Sac Indians in 1831, and on 13 February, 1831, resigned from the army. He was brigade major in the Ohio militia in 1835–'9, became a lawyer, and was a judge of common pleas in 1845, and adjutant-general of the state in 1846. At the beginning of the Mexican War he re-entered the army with the rank of major on the staff, on 3 March, 1847, and served as paymaster at Cincinnati and in the field. He was discharged on 4 March, 1849, but was reappointed on 9 February, 1852, and served in the pay District of Kansas and the Territories in 1861-1862. He had charge of the pay district of and of that of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware in 1862-'4, and on 29 November, 1864, was appointed paymaster-general with the rank of colonel. On 13 March, 1865, he was brevetted major-general in the U.S. Army for faithful, meritorious, and distinguished services. He was continued in charge of the pay department at Washington, was promoted brigadier-general on 28 July, 1866, and on 1 January, 1872, was retired from active service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 372.
BRIDGE, Horatio, naval officer, born in Augusta, Maine, 8 April, 1806. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1825. Among his classmates were Nathaniel Hawthorne, George B. Cheever, John S. C. Abbott, and Henry W. Longfellow. After the usual three years' course of study he was admitted to the bar in 1828, and practised for ten years, at first in Showhegan, and afterward in Augusta. In 1838 he was appointed a paymaster in the U.S. Navy. He was assigned to the “Cyane,” and cruised in her until 1841, when, after an interval of shore duty, he was ordered to the “Saratoga,” and in her visited the African Coast. After his return he published “The Journal of an African Cruiser” (New York, 1845), the authorship of which is usually accredited to his classmate, Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book was, in fact, edited by Hawthorne from Bridge's notes. In 1846–’8 he cruised in the Mediterranean and off the African Coast in the frigate “United States.” From 1849 till 1851 he was stationed at Portsmouth Navy-yard. Near the close of 1851 he sailed for the Pacific in the “Portsmouth,” and while on this cruise was ordered home and assigned to duty as chief of the bureau of provisions and clothing, the duties of which he faithfully performed for nearly fifteen years, covering the whole period of the Civil War, and involving transactions and disbursements to the amount of many millions of dollars. In July, 1869, he resigned this place, and was assigned to duty as chief inspector of provisions and clothing until he reached the legal limit of age for active duty, when he was retired with the rank of commodore. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 373-374.
BRIDGES, George Washington, lawyer, born in Athens, McMinn County, Tennessee, 9 October, 1821; died there, 16 March, 1873. After working several years at the tailor's trade, he made enough money to educate himself, and, having graduated at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He became attorney-general of the state in 1848, and held the office until 1859, when he resigned it. He held also the places of bank attorney and railroad director, and was a presidential elector on the Douglas ticket of 1860. In August, 1861, he was elected to Congress as a unionist, but was arrested by the Confederate authorities while on his way to Washington, and taken back to Tennessee, where he was kept a prisoner for over a year. Finally escaping, he took his seat in the house, 25 February, 1863, and served until 3 March. He was commissioned as lieutenant-colonel of the 10th Tennessee Cavalry in 1864, and in 1865 was elected judge of the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Tennessee. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 373.
BRIGGS, Henry Shaw, soldier, born 1 August, 1824, was graduated at Williams in 1844, and became a lawyer. At the beginning of the Civil War he joined the army as colonel of the 10th Massachusetts Volunteers, and distinguished himself at the battle of Fair Oaks, where he was wounded. On 17 July, 1862, he was made a brigadier-general. At the close of the war he was a member of the general court-martial in Washington, D.C. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 375.
BRIGGS, Charles Frederick, author, born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. in 1804; died in Brooklyn, New York, 20 June, 1877. He moved to New York early in life, and was there connected with the press many years. He began the publication of the "Broadway Journal” in 1844, and in the following year Edgar A. Poe became his associate editor. From 1853 till 1856, in connection with George William Curtis and Parke Godwin, he was an editor of “Putnam's Magazine,” and was also an editor of the new series begun in 1869. He was also connected with the “New York Times” and the “Evening Mirror,” in which he published a series of humorous letters signed “Fernando Mendez Pinto.” He was afterward employed in the custom-house, and in 1870 joined the editorial staff of the Brooklyn “Union,” of which he was chief editor in 1874. In the latter part of 1874 he became an attaché of the New York “Independent,” where e continued till his death. He published “Harry Franco; a Tale of the Great Panic” (1839); “The Haunted Merchant” (1843); “Working a Passage, or Life on a Liner" (1844); “Trippings of Tom Pepper” (1847); and, in connection with A. Maverick, “History of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable” 1858). These works are largely humorous, and deal with life in New York city. Mr. Briggs also wrote a few pieces of poetry, some of which appeared in “Putnam's Magazine,” and others in a volume of selections entitled “Seaweeds from the Shores of Nantucket” (Boston, 1853). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 357.
BRIGGS, George Nixon, governor of Massachusetts, born in Adams, Massachusetts, 13 April, 1796; died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 12 September, 1861. His father served under Stark and Allen at Bennington. In 1809 he was apprenticed to a hatter at White Creek, New York, but was taken from the shop in 1811 by an elder brother and given a year's schooling. He then began the study of law, and in October, 1818, was admitted to the bar of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he soon became prominent, practising in Adams, Lanesborough, and Pittsfield. In 1827, by his defence of a Stockbridge Indian, who was tried for murder at Lenox, he established his reputation as one of the best criminal lawyers in the state. From 1824 till 1831 he was register of deeds for his county, and in 1830 was elected to Congress as a Whig, serving six successive terms, and being at one time chairman of the post-office committee. He was known as an eloquent debater. From 1843 till 1851 he was governor of Massachusetts. During his administration the murder of Dr. Parkman by Professor Webster occurred, and the most extraordinary efforts were made to induce the governor either to pardon the offender or to commute his sentence; but, believing that the good of the community required the execution of the murderer, he refused to interpose. Governor Briggs was appointed one of the judges of the court of common pleas in 1851, which office he continued to fill till the reorganization of the courts of the state in 1856. In 1853 he was a member of the state constitutional convention. In 1861 he was one of a commission to adjust the claims between the United States and New Granada; but his death, which resulted from the accidental discharge of a fowling-piece, occurred before he had entered upon his duties. He had taken a deep interest in the great struggle which the nation had just entered, and one of his last public acts was to address a regiment of Massachusetts volunteers, of which his son was the colonel. Governor Briggs had taken through life an active interest in religious and benevolent enterprises, and at the time of his death was president of the American Baptist Missionary Union, of the American Tract Society at Boston, the American Temperance Union, and the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Union, and director in several other benevolent societies. He was also, for sixteen years, a trustee of Williams College. A memoir of him, with the title “Great in Goodness,” was published by the Reverend William C. Richards (Boston, 1866) Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 375.
BRIGHT, Jesse D., senator, born in Norwich, Chenango County, New York, 18 December, 1812; died in Baltimore, Maryland, 20 May, 1875. He was taken to Indiana by his parents in 1820, received an academic education there, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1831, and began practice in Madison, Indiana. He was elected judge of the probate court of Jefferson County in 1834, was sent to the legislature in 1836, and in 1841 became lieutenant-governor of the state. He had also served as circuit judge and U. S. marshal. He was sent to the U. S. Senate as a Democrat in 1845, and was twice re-elected, serving several times as its President Pro Tempore. While in Congress he voted persistently with the southern Democrats on all questions involving the restriction of slavery. In 1857 it was claimed by the Republicans that his election was fraudulent, and his seat was contested. He was victorious, however, and held it until 1862, him, the chief evidence being a letter addressed to the end of his life. when a charge of disloyalty was brought against “His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederation of States,” recommending a friend who had an “improvement in fire-arms” of which he wished to dispose. The Senate Committee on the Judiciary reported, five to two, that this did not constitute sufficient evidence against Mr. Bright. In a speech in his own behalf, he said that in March, 1861 (the date of the letter), he had no idea that there would be war, and that he wrote it to rid himself of the inventor's importunities. Nevertheless, strong speeches against him were made by Charles Sumner and others, and on 5 February, 1862, he was formally expelled from the Senate, by a vote of 32 to 14. He afterward moved, with his family, to Carrollton, Kentucky, and then to Covington, where he was elected to the Kentucky legislature in 1866. In 1874 he moved to Baltimore, where he remained till his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 376.
BRIGHT, Marshal H., journalist, born in Hudson, New York, 18 August, 1834. He received an academic education, and took a course at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard in 1852–3. In 1854 he became assistant editor of the Alban “Argus,” and was a reporter in the New York State Senate. He was appointed on the staff of General Robert Anderson in October, 1861, and afterward served on the staffs of Generals William T. Sherman, Don Carlos Buell, William S. Rosecrans, and George H. Thomas. He was brevetted major for his services during the war, and, after resigning his commission at its close, engaged in silver-mining in Nevada. In 1873 he became managing editor of the “Christian at Work,” New York and in 1880 its editor-in-chief. He has contributed to periodicals on theological, scientific, and philosophical subjects, and delivered public addresses. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 376.
BRINKERHOFF, Jacob, jurist, born in New York in 1810; died in Mansfield, Ohio, 19 July, 1880. He moved early to Plymouth, Ohio, and was elected to Congress as a Democrat, serving from 4 December, 1843 till 3 March, 1847. While in Congress he was author of the original draft of the celebrated Wilmot proviso. From 1856 to 1871 he was a judge of the supreme court of Ohio. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 377.
BRINTON, Daniel Garrison, ethnologist, born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 13 May, 1837. He was graduated at Yale in 1858 and at the Jefferson Medical College in 1861. After which he spent a year in Europe in study and in travel. On his return he entered the army, in August, 1862, as acting assistant surgeon. In February of the following year he was commissioned surgeon, and served as surgeon-in-chief of the second Division, 11th Corps. Brinton was present at the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and other engagements, and was appointed medical director of his corps in October, 1863. In consequence of a sunstroke received soon after the battle of Gettysburg, he was disqualified for active service, and in the autumn of that year he became superintendent of hospitals at Quincy and Springfield, Illinois, until August, 1865, when, the Civil War having closed, he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel and discharged. He then settled in Philadelphia, where he became editor of “The Medical and Surgical Reporter,” and also of the Quarterly “Compendium of Medical Science.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 377-378.
BRISBANE, Abbott Hall, military engineer, born in South Carolina; died in Summerville, South Carolina, 28 September, 1861. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1825, and appointed second lieutenant of the 3d U.S. Artillery, serving on topographical duty in the city of Washington, a' afterward with the engineer, Bernard, on the South Atlantic Coast until the close of the year 1827, when he resigned. He served in the Florida War against the Seminole Indians in 1835–6 as colonel of South Carolina volunteers, and was engaged in the skirmish of Tomoka, 10 March, 1836. After the war he turned his attention, as engineer, to a projected railroad from Charleston, South Carolina, to Cincinnati, Ohio, having especially intrusted to him the examination of the mountain-passes through which it was to run. He received the appointment of constructing engineer of the projected road, which place he held from 1836 till 1840. He was also chief engineer of the Ocmulgee and Flint Railroad, Georgia, in 1840–4. In 1847-8 he was superintending engineer of an artesian well for the supply of water to the city of Charleston, and he then accepted the chair of belles-lettres and ethics in the South Carolina Military Academy, occupying the place from 1848 till 1853, after which he retired to his plantation near Charleston. He was the author of a critical romance, “Ralphton, or the Young Carolinian of 1776.” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 378.
BRISBANE, William Henry, 1803-1878, South Carolina, physician, abolitionist leader. Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Clergyman, Baptist Church in Madison, Wisconsin. Chief Clerk of the Wisconsin State Senate. He inherited slaves, however he realized slavery was wrong. In 1835, Brisbane freed 33 of his slaves, bringing them to the North where he helped them settle. As a result, he was criticized by his family and friends. He moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked for the abolitionist cause. He founded the Baptist Anti-Slavery Society in 1841. He was fired for being too anti-slavery. Leader in the Liberty Party in the Cincinnati area in early 1840s. He was active with Levi Coffin in the Underground Railroad. He was publisher of the Crisis, an abolitionist newspaper, which was widely distributed. He wrote two anti-slavery books. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 93, 286; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 378)
BRISBANE, William H., clergyman, born about 1803; died in Arena, Wisconsin, in 1878. He inherited a large number of slaves, but became convinced that slavery was wrong, and in 1835 brought thirty-three of them to the north, manumitting them and aiding them to settle in life. In consequence of this, he was obliged to take rank among the poor men of the country. Making his home in Cincinnati, he became the associate of prominent abolitionists, and a constant worker in their cause. In the early days of the anti-slavery agitation he was among its foremost advocates. In 1855 he moved to Wisconsin, was chief clerk of the state senate in 1857, became pastor of the Baptist Church in Madison, and early in the Civil War was tax commissioner of South Carolina. In June, 1874, he took an active part in the reunion of the old abolition guards in Chicago. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 378.
BRISBIN, James S., soldier, born in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, about 1838. He received a liberal education, taught school, became known as an anti-slavery orator, and at the beginning of the Civil War enlisted as a private in a Pennsylvania regiment, and in April, 1861, he was appointed second lieutenant of the 1st U.S. Dragoons. At the battle of Bull Run, 21 July, 1861, he was twice wounded. He was promoted captain in the 6th U.S. Cavalry, 5 August, served with his regiment in the Penninsular Campaign of the Army of the Potomac (1862), and, under General Alfred Pleasanton, accompanied the expedition to the Blue Ridge mountains in 1863. He was appointed colonel of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry, 1 March, 1864, and was engaged in the Red River Expedition in the Department of the Gulf in April and May, 1864. Later in the same year he was on recruiting service in Kentucky, and chief of staff to General Burbridge. He was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers, 13 March, 1865, for gallant conduct at the battle of Marion, Virginia, 16–19 December, 1864, and was promoted to the full rank of brigadier-general of volunteers, 1 May, 1865. He received the brevet of major-general of volunteers, 15 December, 1865. In the meantime he had received brevets of major and lieutenant-colonel in the regular service for gallantry at Beverly Ford, 9 June, 1863, and at Marion, Virginia He was brevetted colonel in the regular army, 13 March, 1865, for “meritorious services during the war.” He was transferred to the 9th U.S. Colored Cavalry in July, 1866, and was promoted major, 2d U.S. Cavalry, 1 January, 1868, and lieutenant-colonel, 9th U.S. Cavalry, 6 June, 1885. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 378.
BRISTOW, Benjamin Helm, statesman, born in Elkton, Todd County, Kentucky, 20 June, 1832. He was graduated at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, in 1851, studied law, and was admitted to the bar of Kentucky in 1853. He began practice at Elkton. whence he moved to Hopkinsville in 1858. At the beginning of the Civil War, at a time when the state was wavering between loyalty and secession, he entered the union Army as lieutenant-colonel of the 25th Kentucky Infantry, and was engaged at the capture of Fort Donelson and at the battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded. He afterward became colonel of the 8th Kentucky Cavalry, and served throughout the war with distinction. While still in the field he was elected to the state senate for four years, but resigned at the end of two years, serving only from 1863 until 1865. He was U. S. District attorney for the Louisville District from 1865 until 1870. The ability with which he filled these offices led to his appointment as solicitor-general of the United States on the organization of the Department of Justice in October, 1870. In 1872 he resigned to become attorney of the Texas Pacific Railroad, but soon returned to the practice of law at Louisville. He was nominated attorney-general of the United States in December, 1873, but not confirmed. President Grant appointed him secretary of the treasury on 3 June, 1874, and this office he filled acceptably until the end of June, 1876, when he resigned, owing to the demands of his private business. At the Republican National Convention of that year, held in Cincinnati, Ohio, he was a leading candidate for the presidential nomination, receiving 113 votes on the first ballot. Since 1876 he has practised his profession in New York City. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 380.
BROCKETT, Linus Pierpont, author, born in Canton, Connecticut, 16 October, 1820. He studied at Brown, but left, on account of delicate health, before graduation, taught for some time, studied medicine in Washington, D.C., the College of physicians and surgeons in New York, and Yale Medical College, and was graduated as M. D. at the last in 1843. After practicing his profession for several years he devoted himself to literary pursuits in Hartford, Connecticut From 1847 till 1857 he was engaged in the publishing business in that city. In 1854 he was appointed by the legislature a commissioner to investigate idiocy in Connecticut, in which task he spent two years. Since 1856 he has been connected with several religious papers, and has contributed to cyclopedias, magazines, and reviews. He has been at different times editor of the magazines called the “Brooklyn Monthly,” the “Brooklyn Advance,” and “Descriptive America.” Besides these labors he has published forty-six distinct works on geographical, biographical, historical, religious, professional, social, and literary subjects. is works include a “History of Education ” 1859); “Philanthropic Results of the Civil War” 1864); “Our Great Captains” (1865); with S. M. Schmucker, a “History of the Civil War” (1866); in collaboration with Mrs. M. C. Vaughan, “Woman’s Work in the Civil War ” ''. 1867); “Men of Our Day” (Philadelphia, 1868; revised ed., 1872); “Woman: Her Rights, Wrongs, Privileges, and Responsibilities” (Hartford, 1869); “The Year of Battles, a History of the Franco-German War of 1870-1” (1871); “Epidemic and Contagious Diseases" (1873); and “The Silk Industry in America” (1876). p. 382
BRODERICK, David Colbreth, 1820-1859, Washington, DC, forty-niner, political leader, elected to the California State Senate in January 1851. Elected U.S. Senator from California in 1857. Member of the Free-Soil Party. He was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and the admission of Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution. He left the Democratic Party on the issue of slavery in 1858. California had much pro-slavery sentiment, and this affected Broderick’s career. Broderick was killed in a dual with California Supreme Court Chief Justice David S. Terry. Terry was a leader of the pro-slavery movement in California. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 382. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. III, pp. 61-62; Lynch, Jeremiah, A Senator of the Fifties, 1911)
BRODERICK, David Colbreth, senator, born in Washington, D.C., 4 February, 1820; died near Lake Merced, California, 16 September, 1859. His father, who had emigrated from Ireland, was employed in cutting stone for the capitol. In 1823 the family moved to New York, where young Broderick received a public-school education, after which he was apprenticed to learn the stone-cutter's trade. He became actively connected with the volunteer fire department of New York, and at the same time acquired considerable political influence. In 1846 he was defeated as a Democratic candidate for Congress from New York. Three years later he went to California, where he at once became prominent in politics. In 1849 he was a member of the California constitutional Convention. He was elected to the state senate in 1850 and again in 1851, when he became the presiding officer of that body. In 1856 he was elected U. S. Senator from California, serving from 4 March, 1857, until his death. He was eminent as a debater, the admission of Kansas as a state under the Lecompton constitution, and became separated from the Democratic Party on the slavery question in 1858. His death resulted from a wound received in a duel fought with David S. Terry, chief justice of the supreme court of California. Political differences and personal abuse in public speeches, of which Terry and Broderick were about equality, led to the duel. Judge Terry was the challenger. Mr. Broderick fell at the first fire, his own pistol being discharged before he could level it. . Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 382.
BRODESS, Henry Bishop, 1830-1881, Ashland, Kentucky, abolitionist, mayor, jurist, newspaper publisher. Published anti-slavery newspaper, the American Union. Served as an officer in the Fourteenth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry.
BROADHEAD, Thornton F., soldier, born in New Hampshire in 1822; died in Alexandria, Virginia, 31 August, 1862. He studied law at Harvard, and practised in Detroit, Michigan He served through the Mexican War as an officer in the 15th U.S. Infantry, and was twice brevetted for bravery. Resuming the practice of his profession after the war, he was elected to the state senate, and in 1852 appointed postmaster of Detroit. At the beginning of the Civil War he raised the 1st Michigan Cavalry Regiment, at the head of which he served under Generals Banks, Frémont, and Pope. He died of wounds received at the second battle of Bull Run. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 383.
BROOKE, Abraham, 1806(8?)-1867, physician, radical reformer, abolitionist, Quaker, from Maryland, later moved to Ohio. Strong supporter of William Lloyd Garrison and immediate abolition of slavery in the U.S. Leader in Ohio American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Organized the Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform in October 1842. Active supporter of women’s rights. Leader in Western Anti-Slavery Society. (American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 602)
BROOKE, John R., soldier, born in Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the 4th Pennsylvania Infantry in April, 1861, became captain at the organization of the regiment, and on 7 November was made colonel of the 53d Pennsylvania Infantry. He was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers 12 May, 1864, and brevetted major-general of volunteers 1 August, 1864. In the regular service he takes rank from 28 July, 1866, when he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 37th U.S. Infantry, one of the new regiments, created by Congress at that time. He was transferred to the 3d U.S. Infantry 15 March, 1869 —the 37th U.S. Infantry being consolidated with that corps and discontinued by Act of Congress. He was promoted colonel, 13th U.S. Infantry, 20 March, 1879, and re-transferred to the 3d U.S. Infantry 14 June, 1879. In the regular army he received brevets as colonel and brigadier-general for gallantry in several battles—Cold Harbor (27 June, 1862); Gettysburg (1–3 July, 1863); Spottsylvania Court-House; and Tolopotomy (May, 1864). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 385.
BROOKE, Walker, senator, born in Virginia, 13 December 1813; died in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 19 February 1869. He was graduated at the University of Virginia in 1835, studied law, emigrated to Kentucky, where he taught school two years, and then began to practice law in Lexington, Mississippi He was elected a senator in Congress in place of Henry S. Foote, who had resigned in order to accept the governorship, and served from 11 March, 1852, till 3 March, 1853. He was a member of the Mississippi Seceding Convention of 1861, elected a member of the Provisional Confederate Congress, in which he sat on 18 February, 1861, till 18 February, 1862, and was a candidate for the Confederate Senate, but defeated by James Phelan. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 385.
BROOKS, James, journalist, born in Portland. Maine , 10 November, 1810; died in Washington, D.C., 30 April, 1873. His father, a sea-captain, was lost at sea while James was yet a child, and the family were left destitute. He was sent to a public school in Portland, and at eleven years of age be- came a clerk in Lewiston, Maine , then a frontier town. His employer, observing the fondness of the boy for learning, offered to release him from his apprenticeship and to aid him in obtaining an education. He at once entered the academy at Monmouth, taught school at ten dollars a month and board, and was graduated at Waterville in 1831. Returning to Portland, he began to study law, teaching meanwhile a Latin school in that city. He contributed to the Portland “Advertiser,” and in 1832 went to Washington as its correspondent, thus introducing the fashion of regular Washington letters. After that he travelled through the south, writing letters from the Creek, Cherokee, and Choctaw country in Georgia and Alabama, at the time when those tribes were compelled to move west. His correspondence at this period was a revelation in journalism. In 1835 he was a member of the Maine Legislature, and introduced the first proposition for a railroad from Portland to Montreal and Quebec. After the adjournment he sailed for Europe, and travelled on foot over Great Britain and the continent, writing letters descriptive of his travels. In 1836 he came to New York and established the “Express,” of which, for a time, both a morning and an evening edition were published, and, although he met with discouragement at first, the paper soon became a success. Mr. Brooks made political speeches in Indiana for Harrison in 1840. In 1841 he married Mrs. Mary Randolph, a widow, of Richmond, Virginia, whom he was required to manumit three or four slaves before the wedding. In 1847 he was elected to the New York legislature, and two years later to con where he remained two terms, 1849-53. He took ground in 1850 in favor of the compromise measures, in 1854 became identified with the American Party and after 1861 with the Democratic Party. He was elected to Congress again in 1865, and, by repeated re-elections, served till 1873. He made two later trips to Europe, and acquired four languages. In 1867 he was a member of the state constitutional convention, and in 1869 was one of the government directors of the Union Pacific Railway. In February, 1873, the house censured Mr. Brooks “for the use of his position of government director of the Union Pacific Railroad, and a member of this house, to procure the assignment to himself or family of stock in the Crédit Mobilier. Mr. Brooks believed that this was undeserved, and the mortification it caused him probably hastened his death. In 1871–2 Mr. Brooks, in pursuit of health, made a voyage around the world, and gave the results of his observations first in letters to the “Express,” and afterward in “A Seven Months' Run, Up and Down and Around the World” (New York, 1872). His valuable library was sold at auction in New York in June, 1886.—His brother, Erastus, journalist, born in Portland, Maine , 31 January, 1815. When eight years old he was clerk for a Boston grocer, who taught him to sand the sugar and water the milk, attending an evening school at the same time. He afterward became a printer, and edited and published a newspaper, called the “Yankee,” at Wiscasset, Maine , acting as his own compositor, press-boy, and carrier. Leading articles, essays, and stories were composed as he set the types, without the intervention of manuscript. In addition to this work he began to prepare himself for college, teaching school at the same time. After studying for some time at Brown, he took charge of a grammar school at Haverhill, Massachusetts, and at the same time became editor and part proprietor of the Haverhill “Gazette,” which he finally sold to John G. Whittier. In 1836 he was engaged as Washington correspondent of the New “Daily Advertiser,” and of several New England papers, and in the same year became joint editor and proprietor, with his brother, of the New York “Express,” retaining the place until 1877. He acted as Washington correspondent of the “Express” during sixteen successive sessions of Congress, and in 1843 went abroad as one of its foreign correspondents. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 1853, and again in 1855. His support of the bill divesting Roman Catholic bishops of the title to church property in real estate involved him in a controversy with Arch-Bishop Hughes, which was afterward published in two rival volumes (New York, 1855). In 1856 he was nominated for governor of New York by the American Party, but was not elected, though leading his party vote by several thousand. He subsequently joined the Democratic Party. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1867, and in 1871 was appointed a member of the constitutional commission. In 1878, 1879, and 1881 he was elected to the assembly, and in each of these years was the Democratic candidate for speaker, and the leading Democratic member on the committee of ways and means. In May, 1880, Mr. Brooks became a member of the State Board of Health. In April, 1886, he delivered before the New York Legislature, by its invitation, a eulogy on his friend Horatio Seymour. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 386-87.
BROOKS, Joseph, 1821-1877, abolitionist, clergyman, newspaper editor, Union Army chaplain, political leader. In 1856, moved to St. Louis and was editor of the Central Christian Advocate, a Methodist anti-slavery newspaper. He was an ardent abolitionist and supporter of women’s suffrage. In 1863, Brooks recruited and organized African American regiments. He was appointed Chaplain of Fifty-Sixth U. S. Colored Infantry. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 387).
BROOKS, Joseph, clergyman, born in Butler County, Ohio, 1 November, 1821; died in Little Rock, Arkansas, 30 April, 1877. He was graduated at Indiana Asbury University, and in 1840 entered the Methodist ministry. He moved to Iowa in 1846, and in 1856 became editor of the St. Louis “Central Christian Advocate,” the only anti-slavery paper published on slave soil west of the Mississippi. When the Civil War began, he became chaplain of the 1st Missouri Artillery, Colonel Frank P. Blair's regiment. He afterward aided in raising the 11th and 33d Missouri Regiments, and was transferred to the latter as chaplain. Early in the war Mr. Brooks urged the enlistment of colored troops, and, when it was decided to employ them, he was offered a major-general's commission if he would raise a division, but he declined. He afterward became chaplain of the 3d Arkansas colored Infantry. After the war Mr. Brooks became a planter in Arkansas, and was a leader in the state constitutional Convention of 1868. During the presidential canvass of that year an attempt was made to assassinate Mr. Brooks and Congressman C. C. Hines, which resulted in the death of the latter and the wounding of Mr. Brooks. He moved to Little Rock in the autumn of 1868, and was elected state senator in 1870. In 1872 he was a candidate for governor, and, when his opponent was declared to be elected by the legislature, he claimed that the election was fraudulent, and, relying on the decision of a state court in his favor, took forcible possession of the state-house, 13 April, 1874, and held it till dispossessed by proclamation of President Grant, 23 May, 1874. (See BAXTER, ELISHA.) Mr. Brooks was appointed postmaster at Little Rock in March, 1875, and held the office till his death. He was a man of great will-power and a strong speaker. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888. Vol. I p. 387.
BROOKS, Horace, soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 14 August, 1814, was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy, through the influence of Lafayette, whom his mother met abroad, and was graduated there in 1835. He served in the Seminole War of 1835–'6, receiving, 31 December, 1835, the brevet of first lieutenant for gallantry and good conduct. He was assistant professor of mathematics in the U.S. Military Academy from November, 1836, till August, 1839, and served on garrison and recruiting duty at various places till the Mexican War. On 18 June, 1846, he became captain in the 2d U.S. Artillery, and served through Scott's campaign. For his services during the war he received two brevets—that of major, 20 August, 1847, for Churubusco and Contreras, and that of lieutenant- colonel, 8 September, 1847, for Molino del Rey. From this time until the Civil War he was stationed in various forts, taking part in the Utah Expedition of 1855 and in quelling the Kansas disturbances of 1860–1. On 28 April, 1861, he became major in the Second Artillery, and on 1 August, lieutenant-colonel. He served in defence of Washington from February till March, 1861, at Fort Pickens, Florida, until October, and at Fort Jefferson, Florida, until March, 1862. From September, 1862, till September, 1863, at the time of the Morgan raid, he was chief mustering and pay officer for the state of Ohio, under Governor Todd, and during the year $1,000.000 passed through his hands without an error in his accounts. After this he served on various military boards at Washington and else-where, becoming colonel on 1 August, 1863, and brevet brigadier-general at the close of the war. From 1866 till 1868, and from 1869 till 1872, he commanded a regiment at Fort McHenry, Maryland, being at the head of the Department of Washington in the interim. From 18 November, 1872, till 10 January, 1877, he commanded the Presidio at San Francisco, and on the latter date was retired from active service, being over sixty-two years of age. He is now a resident of Baltimore, Maryland Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 388.
BROOKS, Preston Smith, Congressman, born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, 4 August, 1819; died in Washington, D.C., 27 January, 1857. He was graduated at the South Carolina College in 1839, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1843. He divided his time between the practice of law and planting. In 1844 he was elected to the state legislature. During the Mexican War he served as captain in the Palmetto Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, and on his return he gave his exclusive attention to planting. He was elected a representative from South Carolina to Congress, as a state-rights Democrat, in 1853, and was re-elected twice. On 22 May, 1856, Senator Sumner having incensed the members from South Carolina by expressions in his speech on “the crime against Kansas,” Mr. Brooks entered the Senate-chamber after that body had adjourned, approached Mr. Sumner from behind, the senator was still seated at his desk, and struck him repeatedly on the head with a cane, till Mr. Sumner fell insensible to the floor. Friends of Mr. Brooks, among them Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, accompanied him, and with drawn revolvers prevented any interference. Subsequently a committee of the house reported in favor of Mr. Brooks's expulsion; but in the final action on the report there were 121 votes in favor and 95 opposing it, which, being less than the requisite two thirds, prevented the house from agreeing to the resolution. Afterward, during a debate in the house, words were passed between Anson Burlingame, then a member from Massachusetts, and Mr. Brooks, in consequence of which the former was challenged to a duel. The challenge was accepted, Canada chosen as the place of meeting, and rifles as the weapons; but Mr. Brooks failed to appear, giving as his reason that he would have to “pass through the enemy's country” to get there. The poet Bryant celebrated the event some verses in the “Evening Post,” in which the refrain was, “Bully Brooks is afraid.” Mr. Brooks resigned his seat, and was unanimously reelected by his constituents. He also received numerous costly canes and other testimonials from different parts of the south. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 389-390
BROOKS, Thomas Benton, engineer, born in Monroe, Orange County, New York, 15 June, 1836. He was graduated at the engineering department of Union in 1858. During the Civil War he was captain in the 1st New York Volunteer Engineers, afterward becoming major and aide on the general staff of the army. As such he served under General Gillmore in the reduction of Fort Pulaski and Fort Wagner and before Charleston. His reports are given in full in General Gillmore's “Siege and Reduction of Fort Pulaski” (New York, 1862), and in his “Operations against the Defences of Charleston Harbor” (1863). At the time of his resignation he held the brevet rank of colonel. From 1869 till 1879 he was assistant geologist in charge of the Surveys of the Lake Superior iron regions. In this connection he was associated with Raphael Pumpelly, and prepared “Geological Survey of Michigan” (vols. i. and ii., New York, 1873, also “Geology of Wisconsin.” (part of vol. iii., Madison, 1879). is health having failed, in 1879 he turned his attention to farming, and now resides at Newburg, New York Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 390.
BROOKS, William Thomas Harbaugh, soldier, born in New Lisbon, Ohio, 28 January, 1821; died in Huntsville, Alabama, 19 July, 1870. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1841 and served in Florida in 1841–’2. In 1843–’5. He was on frontier duty in Kansas, and in 1845–6 served in the military occupation of Texas, becoming first lieutenant in the 3d U.S. Infantry, 21 September, 1846. He was in nearly all the battles in the Mexican War, was brevetted captain, 23 September, 1846, for his conduct at Monterey, and major, 20 August, 1847, for services at Contreras and Churubusco. In 1848–51 he was aide-de-camp to General Twiggs, and on 10 November, 1851, became captain in the 3d U.S. Infantry. From this time until the Civil War he served in various forts. In 1854 and again in 1858 he was on scouting duty, and from 1858 till 1860 was given sick leave. On 28 September, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers, and served in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, being engaged at Yorktown, Lee's Mills, Golden's Farm, Glendale, and Savage Station, where he was wounded. In September, 1862, during the Maryland Campaign, he was in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, being wounded in at the latter place. In October and November 1862, on the march to Falmouth, Virginia, he commanded a division, and again in the Rappahannock Campaign, December, 1862, to May, 1863. From 11 June, 1863, until 6 April, 1864, he commanded the Department of the Monongahela, and in the operations before Richmond in 1864 was at the head of the 10th Army Corps, being at Swift's Creek, Drury's Bluff, Bermuda Hundred, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. His health failing on account of wounds and exposure, he resigned on 14 July, 1864, and in 1866 went to a farm in Huntsville, Alabama, where he remained until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 390.
BROOMALL, John M., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)
BROOME, John L., soldier, born in New York City, 8 March, 1824. He was appointed second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, 12 January, 1848; promoted first lieutenant, 28 September, 1857; captain, 26 July, 1861; major, 8 December, 1864; and lieutenant-colonel, 16 March, 1879. During the war with Mexico he served with his corps. In 1862 he commanded the marine guard of the “Hartford,” Farragut's flag-ship, and was present at the passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip (24 April), and in the various engagements at Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, which resulted in wresting the Mississippi River from the Confederate forces. He was twice wounded during the war, and at its close received the brevets of major and lieutenant-colonel for gallant and meritorious services. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 390.
BROSS, William, journalist, born in Montague, Sussex County, New Jersey, 4 November, 1813. He was fitted for college at Milford Academy, Pennsylvania, and was graduated at Williams in 1838, after which he taught school for ten years. He then went to Chicago, where, from 1849 till 1851, he was a dealer in books, and published the “Prairie Herald.” He formed a partnership with J. L. Scripps in 1852, and established the “Daily Democratic Press,” which was consolidated with the Chicago “Tribune,” 1 July, 1858. For several years he was president of the “Tribune” Company. During 1855 and 1856 he was a member of the Chicago City Council. He was lieutenant-governor of Illinois from 1865 till 1869. He has travelled extensively in America and Europe, and has published in the “Tribune” many letters from abroad, and from almost every part of this country. He became a member of the American Society for the Advancement of Science in 1853, and has read papers before that association, as well as before the Chicago Historical Society and the Academy of Sciences. He was identified with the Republican Party from the first, and took a prominent part in its campaigns as a public speaker. He is the author of several publications in book or pamphlet form, including “A History of Chicago” (Chicago, 1876); “A Compilation of Editorials from the Chicago Tribune” and “Immortality” (1877); “A History of Camp Douglas” (1878); “Punishment” and “Chicago and the Sources of her Future Growth” (1880); “The Winfield Family” (1882); and “Illinois and the Thirteenth Amendment” (1884). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 391.
BROUGH, John (bruff), governor of Ohio, born in Marietta, Ohio, in 1811; died in Cleveland, 29 August, 1865. At the age of twelve, and with only the rudiments of a common-school training, he became an apprentice in the office of the Marietta “Gazette.” Here he stayed for two years, but all the time sought opportunities for education, and in 1825 secured a place in the office of the Athens “Mirror,” within reach of the Ohio University, then in its infancy. He entered at once as a student, and so improved his time that he more than made good his lack of early advantages. At the same period he was so successful in business that in 1831 he became proprietor of the “Washington County Republican,” a Democratic paper published in Marietta. This journal he sold in 1833, and, in company with his brother, Charles Henry Brough, purchased the Lancaster “Eagle,” and soon made its influence felt as a democratic organ throughout the state. In 1835 Mr. Brough was elected clerk of the Ohio Senate, which office he held until 1838, when he was elected to the state legislature from Fairfield and Hocking Counties. During this period (1835–6), he was member of a joint commission to adjust the boundary between Virginia and Ohio. He was elected state auditor in 1839, and entered upon the duties of his office at a time when the whole country still felt the effects of the panic of 1837, and when the state of Ohio was peculiarly burdened with liabilities for which there appeared to be no adequate relief. Mr. Brough devoted himself to reconstructing the whole financial system of the state, and retired from office in 1846 with a high reputation as a public officer. In partnership with his brother Charles he undertook the management of the Cincinnati “Enquirer,” which was soon one of the most powerful democratic journals in the west. At the same time he opened a law office in Cincinnati. Personally, Mr. Brough took an active part in politics, and became the most popular democratic orator in the state. He retired from active political life in 1848, and in 1853 was elected president of the Madison and Indianapolis Railway, then one of the great lines of the west. He moved his residence to Cleveland, and, when the Civil War began in 1861, he was urged to become a candidate of the Republican Union Party for governor. This honor he declined, although his position as a “war Democrat” was always distinctly understood. The canvass of 1863 was held under very difficult conditions. The Civil War was at its height, a large proportion of the loyal voters were in the army, and southern sympathizers, led by Clement L. Vallandigham, were openly defiant. Vallandigham was arrested for disloyal utterances, tried by court-martial, and banished from the United States. He was sent within the Confederate lines, and subsequently received the regular Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio. There was apparently some anger that he would actually be elected by the “peace” faction of the party. At this crisis Mr. Brough made a patriotic speech at Marietta, declaring slavery destroyed by the act of rebellion, and earnestly appealing to all patriots, of whatever previous political affiliations, to unite against the southern rebels. He was immediately put before the people by the Republican Union Party as a candidate for governor, and the majority that elected him (101,099) was the largest ever given for a governor in any state up to that time. In the discharge of his duties as chief magistrate he was laborious, patriotic, far-sighted, clear in his convictions of duty, firm in their maintenance, and fearless in their execution. He was distinctly the “war governor” of Ohio. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 391.
BROWN, Aaron Venable, statesman. B. 1795 He moved with his parents to Tennessee in 1815, studied law, and when admitted to practice became the partner of James K. Polk. From 1821 till 1832 he was almost continuously a member of the state legislature. He was elected to Congress in 1839, and re-elected in 1841 and 1843. On retiring from Congress, in 1845, he was chosen governor of Tennessee, serving until 1847. He was a delegate to the Southern Convention at Nashville in 1850, and is the author of "The Tennessee Platform," brought forward at that time, a document that aroused much comment. In 1852 he was a delegate to the Democratic Convention in Baltimore, and reported the platform that was adopted. The last office held by Mr. Brown was that of Postmaster-General in President Buchanan's cabinet. Among the measures adopted during his administration of this office was the establishment of a new and shorter oceanic mail-route to California by way of Tehuantepec, and of the transcontinental mail-routes from St. Louis west-ward, prior to the construction of the railroads. He was for twenty years one of the most trusted leaders of the Democratic Party. A volume of his speeches was published in Nashville in 1854. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 393.
BROWN, Albert Gallatin, statesman, born in Chester District, South Carolina, 31 May, 1813; died near Jacksonville, Mississippi, 12 June, 1880. His parents moved to Mississippi while he was a child. He took a boyish interest in military affairs, and was made a brigadier-general in the state militia when only nineteen years of age. He adopted the law as a profession, gaining admission to the bar in 1834, and was a member of the state legislature from 1835 till 1839, and member of Congress from Mississippi in 1840-'l. He was also a judge of the circuit superior court in 1841-'3; governor of Mississippi on successive re-elections from 184 till 1848; again member of Congress from 1848 till 1854; and U. S. Senator from 1854 till 1858. He was re-elected for six years, beginning 4 March, 1859, but resigned in 1861 to join in the rebellion. His colleague in the U. S. Senate at the time was Jefferson Davis, and they both attended the caucus of seceding senators, held in Washington 6 January, 1861. He was an uncompromising adherent of the Democratic Party in the south. A volume of his speeches was published in 1859. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 393-394.
BROWN, Benjamin, abolitionist, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1841-1842.
BROWN, Benjamin Gratz, 1826-1885, lawyer, soldier. Anti-slavery activist in Missouri legislature from 1852-1859. Opposed pro-slavery party. Commanded a regiment and later a brigade of Missouri State Militia. U.S. Senator 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 105; Congressional Globe)
BROWN, David Paul, 1795-1872, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lawyer, orator, playwright, abolitionist leader. President of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society (PASS). Worked with prominent lawyers to prosecute cases of wrongful enslavement. Worked with the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS). Argued the case of fugitive slave Basil Dorsey. (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 156; Sinha, 2016, pp. 119-120, 122, 248, 387, 511-512)
BROWN, Egbert Benson, soldier, born in Brownsville, Jefferson County, New York, 24 October, 1816. He obtained the rudiments of education in a log school- house in Tecumseh, Missouri; but when he was thirteen years old he began work with such diligence and success that in twenty years (1849) he was chosen mayor of Toledo, Ohio. In the meanwhile he had half round the world on a whaling voyage spending nearly four years in the Pacific Ocean. £. From 1852 until 1861 he was a railway manager, but resigned his place when Civil War was imminent, and organized a regiment of infantry at St. Louis in May, 1861. He was instrumental in saving that city from falling into the hands of the secessionists, and was appointed brigadier of Missouri volunteers in May, 1862. After the battle of Springfield, 8 January, 1863, where he was severely wounded, he was appointed brigadier-general of U. S. volunteers. He served through the Civil War, mainly in Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, and left the army with one shoulder almost wholly disabled and a bullet in his hip. The legislature of Missouri officially complimented the troops of his command for their conduct at the battle of Springfield. From 1866 till 1868 he was U. S. pension-agent at St. Louis. He retired to a farm at Hastings, Calhoun County, Illinois, in 1869, and has since resided there, serving, however, on the state board of equalization from 1881 till 1884. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 398.
BROWN, Frederick, radical abolitionist, son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859, was killed during the raid. (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 206; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)
BROWN, George, naval officer, born in Indiana, 19 June, 1835. He was appointed midshipman from his native state, 5 February, 1849, was attached to the frigate “Cumberland,” and in 1851 to the “St. Lawrence,” cruising in both vessels. He was promoted to passed midshipman, and afterward to master, in 1856. On 2 June, 1856, he became lieutenant, and served in the Brazilian and African Squadrons until 1860, when he was ordered to special service on the steam sloop “Powhatan,” and in 1861 transferred to the “Octorora” gun-boat, which was attached, as flag-ship, to Commodore Porter's mortar-boat flotilla. He participated in the hazardous ascent of the Mississippi River under Farragut, and in the first attack on Vicksburg in June, 1862, and for his conduct on this occasion was commended in the official report. The fleet dropped down the river to avoid the season of low water, and the “Octorora” was ordered to blockading duty off Wilmington, North Carolina Lieutenant Brown was promoted lieutenant-commander 16 July, 1862, and shortly afterward placed in charge of the “Indianola" iron-clad, of the Mississippi Squadron. The batteries at Vicksburg and Warrenton were successfully passed 14 February, 1863. An engagement took place near upper Palmyra Island, on 24 February, 1863, between the “Indianola” and four Confederate gun-boats, manned by more than a thousand men. The fight lasted an hour and twenty-seven minutes, and Lieutenant-Commander Brown, severely wounded, surrendered, with his ship in a sinking condition. The officers and crew were a few months afterward, and Lieutenant Brown was assigned to the steam gun-boat “Itasca,” of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, which he commanded in the action of 5 August, 1864, in Mobile Bay, and in the naval operations against Spanish Fort and the defences of Mobile, in March and April, 1865. He was promoted commander, 25 July, 1866, and stationed at the Washington Navy-yard until 1867, when he was granted leave of absence to serve as agent for the Japanese government in command of an iron-clad man-of-war purchased from the United States. He was promoted captain 25 April, 1877, and placed in command of the U.S. Navy-yard at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1886. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 399.
BROWN, Harvey, soldier, born in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1795; died in Clifton, New York, 31 March, 1874. After graduation, at the U.S. Military Academy, in 1818, he joined the light artillery, and served on garrison and staff duty until, on the reorganization of the army in 1821, he was assigned to the 1st and shortly afterward to the 4th U.S. Artillery, when he was promoted first lieutenant. After ten years' service in this grade he was promoted captain. He was in the Black Hawk Expedition in 1832, but saw no actual fighting. After four years in garrison he was ordered to Florida, in 1836, and took part in the arduous campaigns against the Seminole Indians. He was again in Florida in 1838-’9, and later in 1839 was ordered to the northern frontier, to quell expected disturbances on the Canadian Border. He was major of the artillery battalion, in the Army of Occupation in Mexico, and was present at many battles of the campaign. For gallantry on these occasions he received successive brevets, including that of colonel, 13 September, 1847, and was promoted to the full grade of major, 9 January, 1851. He was superintendent of recruiting in New York in 1851–2, and was in Florida fighting the Seminoles in 1852-’3, and still again in 1854–6. After an interval of garrison and recruiting duty, he was placed in command of the artillery school for practice at Fort Monroe, remaining there, with brief details on other duty, until the Civil War began, in 1861. He commanded the regulars in the defences of Washington until 4 April, 1861, when he was ordered to Fort Pickens, in Pensacola Harbor, Florida, and on 28 April was promoted lieutenant-colonel. He repelled the Confederate attack of 9 October, and in turn bombarded their works, with partial success, 22–23 November, and again 1 January, 1862. For these services he was brevetted brigadier in the regular service, and promoted colonel, 5th U.S. Artillery, 14 May, 1861; but he declined a command as brigadier in the volunteers. He was in command of the forces in New York City during the formidable draft riots of 12–16 July, 1863, and was brevetted major-general, U.S.A., for distinguished services at that time. He was retired from active service 1 August, 1863, having been borne on the army register more than forty-five years, and having passed the legal limit of age for active duty. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 399-400.
BROWN, Benjamin Gratz, lawyer, born in Lexington, Kentucky, 28 May, 1826; died in St. Louis, Missouri, 13 December, 1885, was graduated at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, in 1845, and at Yale in 1847, was admitted to the bar in Louisville, Kentucky, and soon afterward settled in St. Louis. He was a member of the Missouri legislature from 1852 till 1859, and in 1857 made there a remarkable anti-slavery speech, which is said to have been the beginning of the Free-Soil movement in that state. He edited the “Missouri Democrat,” a journal of radical Republican principles, which had for its most violent political opponent “The Missouri Republican,” a Democratic sheet of the most uncompromising character. For five years (1854–'9) he constantly opposed the pro-slavery party, and was often threatened with personal violence, on one occasion being wounded by a pistol-shot. In 1857 he was the Free-Soil candidate for governor, and came within 500 votes of election. At the beginning of the Civil War, in 1861, he gave all his influence to the support of the union, and was in close consultation with General Lyon when he planned the capture of Camp Jackson and broke up the first secession movement in St. Louis. Brown commanded a regiment of militia on that occasion, and afterward, during the invasion of the state by Confederate generals Price and Van Dorn, commanded a brigade. He was a member of the U.S. Senate from 1863 till 1867, and lent his powerful influence in 1864 to favor the passage of the ordinance of emancipation by the Missouri state Convention. In 1871 he was elected governor of Missouri, on the liberal Republican ticket, by a majority of 40,000. In 1872 he was the candidate for vice-president on the Democratic ticket with Horace Greeley, and after the election, which resulted in the defeat of the Democrats and the election of the Republican candidate, General Grant, he resumed his law practice. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 403
BROWN, Henry Kirke, sculptor, born in Leyden, Massachusetts 24 February 1814; died in Newburg, New York 16 July, 1886. In early boyhood he evinced a talent for painting, and when about fourteen years old, without any instruction, and before he had ever seen a work of art, he executed a creditable portrait of an old man. At the age of seventeen he began to study with Chester Harding, a portrait-painter of Boston. The summers from 1836 till 1839 were spent in surveying on the Illinois Central Railroad, and the winters in Cincinnati painting and modelling in clay. His first finished work in this line was an ideal female head. After a winter in Boston he moved first to Troy and soon afterward to Albany, New York, where he devoted himself to sculpture, executing portrait busts of many gentlemen of Albany and the neighboring cities. Among these are the Reverend William B. Sprague, D. D., Erastus Corning, Dr. Eliphalet Nott, and Silas Dutcher. He also produced two ideal statues, “Hope,” and a discobolus. Accompanied by his wife, he went to Italy in 1842 and remained there until 1846. During this period he executed “Ruth." a group representing a boy and a dog, now owned by the Historical Society of New York, a “Rebecca, and a “David,” which was destroyed. On his return to the United States he opened a temporary studio in New York, brought over skilled workmen from Europe, and did some preliminary work in bronze casting, the first attempted in this country. In 1848 he went among the Indians and modelled many interesting subjects, some of which were reproduced in bronze. About this time he made the altar-piece for the church of the Annunciation in New York, and modelled portrait busts of William Cullen Bryant and Dr. Willard Parker, both of whom were his warm personal friends. About 1850 he built a studio in Brooklyn, and for two years was engaged with the statue of De Witt Clinton for Greenwood cemetery. This was the first bronze statue cast in this country. During these years and until 1855 he was at work on the fine equestrian statue of Washington in Union Square, New York. In 1857 he was invited by the state of South Carolina to undertake the decoration of the state-house in Columbia, which current rumor made the capital of the then projected confederacy. The principal design was a group for the main pediment, a colossal ideal figure of South Carolina, with Justice and Liberty on either hand, while the industries were represented the slaves at work in cotton-and rice-fields. The figure of South Carolina was nearly finished when the Civil War began, and Sherman's soldiers, regarding it as the typical genius of secession, destroyed it when they passed through Columbia in 1865. Mr. Brown made many friends during his residence in the south, was strongly urged to cast his lot with the seceding states, and remained in fulfilment of his professional contract until hostilities actually began. During 1859 and 1860 he served on an art commission appointed by President Buchanan, and wrote a report, submitted 9 March, 1860, which to some extent disseminated correct ideas about art among members of both houses of Congress. During the Civil War he was an active officer of the Sanitary Commission. Mr. Brown's average work undeniably suffers by comparison with the highest standards; but his best efforts evince earnestness and dignity and no small degree of artistic talent. The equestrian statues are particularly good, a result doubtless due to his love for horses. His artistic career will always be noteworthy as covering the whole period of American sculpture from its very beginning until a time when our sculptors had worked their way to the foremost rank of contemporary artists. The following-named statues are among his principal works: “Dr. Geo. W. Bethune,” in Packer institute, Brooklyn New York “Lincoln,” in Prospect Park Brooklyn (1866); “General Nathanael Greene,” or the state of Rhode Island, presented to the national gallery in the capitol at Washington (1867); “Lincoln,” in Union Square, New York “Equestrian Statue of General Scott,” for the U. S. government (begun in 1871), considered his best work: “General George Clinton,” for presentation to the U.S. government by the State of New York (1873); “General Philip Kearny,” in Newark, New Jersey, also “Richard Stockton,” for the state of New Jersey (1874); “An Equestrian Statue of General Nathanael Greene,” for the national government (1875-'7); “The Resurrection” (1877). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, pp. 400-401.
BROWN, Henry "Box," c. 1815-1878, former slave, author, orator, abolitionist, wrote Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written from a Statement of Fact by Himself (1849), published by abolitionist Charles Stearns. (Brown, 2002; Mabee, 1970, pp. 388-389; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 52, 184, 204-205, 464, 489; Ruggles, 2003; Stearns, 1848)
BROWN, John, 1800-1859, (known as “Old Brown of Osawatomie”), radical abolitionist leader, wrote Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States (1858); condemned slavery; led raid against the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859. He was captured, tried and convicted and was executed on December 2, 1859 along with four of his co-defendants. (De Caro, 2002; Drake, 1950, pp. 189, 192, 200; Du Bois, 1909; Oates, 1970; Quarles, 1974; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 58, 59, 61, 62, 138, 153, 198, 205-207, 226, 264, 327-329, 338, 422, 427, 478, 675-676; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, pp. 131-134; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 690; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 307-308)
BROWN, John, of Osawatomie, abolitionist, born in Torrington, Connecticut, 9 May, 1800; executed in Charlestown, Virginia, 2 December, 1859. His ancestor, Peter Brown, came over with the historic party in the “Mayflower” in 1620. Peter was unmarried, by trade a carpenter, and drew his house-lot in Plymouth with the rest; but he moved soon afterward, with Bradford, Standish, and Winslow, to the neighboring settlement of Duxbury. He was twice married, and died early. One of his descendants in the main line was a Captain John Brown, of the Connecticut militia, who died of disease in the revolutionary service in 1776. This revolutionary captain married Hannah Owen, of Welsh origin; and their son, Owen Brown, married Ruth Mills, who was of Dutch descent; so that John Brown of Osawatomie, their son, had a mingling of the blood of three races in his veins, resulting in a corresponding mixture of strong qualities. Owen Brown left a brief autobiography, which begins by saying: “My life has been of little worth, mostly filled up with vanity.” Then he goes on to describe, with some fulness, this career of frivolity, which will seem to most readers grave and decorous to the last degree. The most interesting entry is the following: “In 1800, May 9, [my son] John was born, one hundred years after his great-grandfather; nothing else very uncommon”; and he adds, in tranquil ignorance of the future: “We lived in peace with all mankind, so far as I know.” How far the parent would have approved the stormy career of the son is now matter of inference only; but we have it in Owen Brown's own declaration that he was one of that early school of abolitionists whom Hopkins and Edwards enlightened; and he apparently took part in the forcible rescue of some slaves claimed by a Virginia clergyman in Connecticut in 1798, soon after that state had abolished slavery. The continuous anti-slavery devotion of the whole family, for three generations, was a thing almost unexampled. Mr. Sanborn has preserved verbatim a most quaint and graphic fragment of autobiography, written by John Brown, of Osawatomie, in 1859. In this he records with the utmost frankness his boyish pursuits and transgressions; how at the age of four he stole three brass pins, and at the age of five moved with his parents to Ohio, where he grew familiar with the Indians, who were then dwelling all around them. He says of himself: “John was never quarrelsome; but was exceedingly fond of the harshest and roughest kind of plays; and could never get enough [of] them. Indeed, when for a short time he was sometimes sent to school, the opportunity it offered to wrestle and snow-ball and run and jump and knock off old seedy wool hats, offered to him almost the only compensation for the confinement and restraint of school.” In this boyish combativeness, without personal quarrelsomeness, we see the quality of the future man. He further records that in boyhood his great delight was in going on responsible expeditions, and by the age of twelve he was often sent a hundred miles into the wilderness with cattle. This adventurous spirit took no military direction; he was disgusted with what he heard of the war of 1812, and for many years used to be fined for refusing to do militia duty. He was very fond of reading, and familiar with every portion of the Bible; but he never danced, and never knew one card from another. Staying in a house where there was a slave-boy almost his own age, and seeing this boy ill-treated—even beaten, as he declares, with an iron fire-shovel—he became, in his own words, “a most determined abolitionist,'” and was led “to declare, or swear, eternal war with slavery.” From the fifteenth to the twentieth years of his age he worked as a farmer and currier, chiefly for his father, and for most of the time as foreman. He then learned surveying, and followed that for a while, afterward gratifying his early love for animals by becoming a shepherd. Mean-while he married, as he says, “a remarkably plain, but neat, industrious, and economical girl, of excellent character, earnest piety, and good practical common sense,” who had, he asserts, a most powerful and good influence over him. This was Dianthe Lusk, a widow, and they had seven children. His second wife was Mary Anne Day, by whom he had thirteen children, and who survived him twenty-five years, dying in San Francisco in 1884. She also was a woman of strong and decided character; and though among the twenty children of the two marriages eight died in early childhood, the survivors all shared the strong moral convictions of their father, and the whole family habitually lived a life of great self-denial in order that his purposes might be carried out.
The contest for Kansas in 1855-'6 between the friends of freedom and those of slavery was undoubtedly, as it has since been called, the skirmish-line of the Civil War. It was there made evident—what an anti-slavery leader so conspicuous as Joshua R. Giddings had utterly refused to believe—that the matter was coming to blows. The condition of affairs was never better stated than in the Charleston “Mercury” by a young man named Warren Wilkes, who had commanded for a time a band of so-called southern “settlers” in Kansas. He wrote in the spring of 1856: “If the south secures Kansas, she will extend slavery into all territories south of the fortieth parallel of north latitude to the Rio Grande; and this, of course, will secure for her pent-up institution of slavery an ample outlet, and restore her power in Congress. If the north secures Kansas, the power of the south in Congress will be gradually diminished, and the slave property will become valueless. All depends upon the action of the present moment.” Here was a point on which young Wilkes on the one side, and John Brown on the other, were absolutely agreed; and each went to work in his own way to save Kansas to his side by encouraging immigration from their respective regions. We can, at this distance of time, admit that this was within the right of each; but the free-state men went almost wholly as bona-fide settlers, while numbers of those who went from Missouri, Virginia, and South Carolina viewed the enterprise simply as a military foray, without intending to remain. It was also true that the latter class, coming from communities then more lawless, went generally armed; while the free-state men went at first unarmed, afterward arming themselves reluctantly and by degrees. The condition of lawlessness that ensued was undoubtedly demoralizing to both sides; it was to a great extent a period of violence and plunder—Civil War on a petty scale; but the original distinction never wholly passed away, and the ultimate character of the community was fortunately shaped and controlled by the free-state settlers. However it might be with others, for John Brown the Kansas contest was deliberately undertaken as a part of the great war against slavery. He went there with more cautious and far-reaching purposes than most others, and he carried out those purposes with the strength of a natural leader. As early as 1834, by a letter still in existence, he had communicated to his brother Frederick his purpose to make active war upon slavery, the plan being then to bring together some “first-rate abolitionist families” and undertake the education of colored youth. “If once the Christians of the free states would set to work in earnest teaching the blacks, the people of the slave-holding states would find themselves constitutionally driven to set about the work of emancipation immediately.” This letter was written when he was postmaster under President Jackson, at Randolph, Pennsylvania, and was officially franked by Brown, as was then the practice. When we consider what were Jackson's views as to anti-slavery agitation, especially through the mails, it is curious to consider what a firebrand he was harboring in one of his own post-offices. It appears from this letter and other testimony that Brown at one time solemnly called his older sons together and pledged them, kneeling in prayer, to give their lives to anti-slavery work. It must be remembered that Prudence Crandall had been arrested and sent to jail in Connecticut, only the year before, for doing, in a small way, what Brown now proposed to do systematically. For some time he held to his project in this form, removing from Pennsylvania to Ohio in 1835-'6, and from Ohio to Massachusetts in 1846, engaging in different enterprises, usually in the wool business, but always keeping the main end in view. For instance, in 1840 he visited western Virginia to survey land belonging to Oberlin College, and seems to have had some plan for colonizing colored people there. At last, in 1846, on the anniversary of West India emancipation, Gerrit Smith, a great land-owner in New York state, offered to give a hundred thousand acres of wild land in northern New York to such colored families, fugitive slaves, or others as would take them in small farms and clear them. It was a terribly hard region into which to invite those children of the south; six months of winter and no possibility of raising either wheat or Indian corn. Brown convinced himself, nevertheless, that he could be of much use to the colored settlers, and in 1848-'9 purchased a farm from Mr. Smith and moved the younger part of his family to North Elba, which was their home until his death. His wife and young children lived there in the greatest frugality, voluntarily practised by them all for the sake of helping others. He, meanwhile, often absented himself on anti-slavery enterprises, forming, for instance, at Springfield, Massachusetts, his former home, a “League of Gileadites,” pledged to the rescue of fugitive slaves. In one of his manuscript addresses to this body he lays down the rule, “Stand by one another and by your friends while a drop of blood remains; and be hanged if you must, but tell no tales out of school.” This was nearly nine years before his own death on the scaffold.
In 1854 five of Brown's sons, then resident in Ohio, made their arrangements to remove to Kansas, regarding it as a desirable home, where they could exert an influence for freedom; but they were so little prepared for an armed struggle that they had among them only two small shot-guns and a revolver. They selected claims eight or ten miles from Osawatomie, and their father, contrary to his previous intention, joined them there in October, 1855. In March of that year the first election for a territorial constitution had taken place. Thousands of Missourians, armed with rifles, and even with cannon, had poured over the border, and, although less than a thousand legal votes were thrown in the territory, more than six thousand went through the form of voting. This state of things continued through that year and the next, and the present writer saw an election precisely similar in the town of Leavenworth, in the autumn of 1856. Hostilities were soon brought on by the murder and unlawful arrest of men known to be opposed to slavery. The Brown family were mustered in as Kansas militia by the Free-State Party, and turned out to defend the town of Lawrence from a Missourian invasion, which was compromised without bloodshed. A few months later Lawrence was attacked and pillaged. Other murders took place, and a so-called grand jury indicted many free-state men, including in the indictment the “Free State Hotel” in Lawrence. Two of Brown's sons were arrested by United States cavalry, which, at this time, Pierce being president, acted wholly with the pro-slavery party. John Brown, Jr., the oldest, was driven on foot at the head of a cavalry company, at a trot, for nine miles to Osawatomie, his arms being tied behind him. This state of things must be fully remembered in connection with the so-called “Pottawatomie massacre,” which furnishes, in the opinion of both friends and foes, the most questionable incident in Brown's career. This occurrence took place on 25 May, 1856, and consisted in the deliberate assassination of five representatives of the pro-slavery party at night, they being called from their beds for the purpose. It was done in avowed retribution for the assassination of five free-state men, and was intended to echo far beyond Kansas, as it did, and to announce to the slave-holding community that blood for blood would henceforth be exacted in case of any further invasion of rights. It undoubtedly had that effect, and though some even in Kansas regarded it with disapproval, it is certain that leading citizens of the territory, such as Governor Robinson, themselves justified it at the time. Robinson wrote, as late as February, 1878: “I never had much doubt that Captain Brown was the author of the blow at Pottawatomie, for the reason that he was the only man who comprehended the situation, and saw the absolute necessity of some such blow, and had the nerve to strike it.” Brown himself said, a few years later: “I knew all good men who loved freedom, when they became better acquainted with the circumstances of the case, would approve of it.” It is, nevertheless, probable that the public mind will be permanently divided in judgment upon this act; just as there is still room, after centuries have passed, for two opinions as to the execution of Charles I. or the banishment of Roger Williams. Much, of course, turns upon the actual character of the five men put to death—men whom the student will find painted in the darkest colors in Mr. Sanborn's life of John Brown, and in much milder hues in Mr. Spring's “History of Kansas.” The successive phases of sentiment on the whole subject may be partly attributed to the fact that the more pacific Kansas leaders, such as Robinson and Pomeroy, have happened to outlive the fighting men, such as Brown, Lane, and Montgomery; so that there is a little disposition just now to underrate the services of the combatants and overrate those of the noncombatants. As a matter of fact, there was in the territory at the time no noticeable difference of opinion between those two classes; and it is quite certain that slavery would have triumphed over all legal and legislative skill had not the sword been thrown into the balance, even in a small way. The largest affairs in which Brown and his sons took part, “Black Jack” and “Osawatomie,” for instance, seem trifling amid the vast encounters of the Civil War; but these petty skirmishes, nevertheless, began that great conflict.
The purpose that finally took John Brown to Virginia had doubtless been many years in his mind, dating back, indeed, to the time when he was a surveyor in the mountains of that state, in early life. Bishop Meade says, in his “Old Churches and Ministers of Virginia,” that he wrote the book in view of a range of mountains which Washington had selected as the final stronghold of his revolutionary army, should he be defeated in the contest with England; and it was these same mountains which John Brown regarded as having been designed by the Almighty, from all eternity, as a refuge for fugitive slaves. His plan for his enterprise varied greatly in successive years, and no doubt bore marks of the over-excited condition of his mind; but as he ordinarily told it to the few with whom he had consulted outside of his own band, there was nothing incoherent or impracticable about it; it was simply the establishment on slave soil of a defensible station for fugitive slaves, within the reach of the Pennsylvania border, so that bodies of slaves could hold their own for a time against a superior force, and could be transferred, if necessary, through the free states to Canada. Those who furnished him with arms and money at the north did so from personal faith in him, and from a common zeal for his objects, without asking to know details. He had stated his general plan to Douglass and others in 1847, and in 1857 had established at Tabor, in Iowa, a town peculiarly friendly to the free-state men during the Kansas troubles, a sort of school of military drill under the direction of a Scottish adventurer, Hugh Forbes, who attempted to betray him. He afterward had a similar school at Springfield, Iowa, and meanwhile negotiated with his eastern friends for funds. He had already in his hands two hundred rifles from the national Kansas Committee; and although these were really the property of George L. Stearns, of Medford, Massachusetts, representing a small part of the $10,000 which that gentleman had given to make Kansas free, yet this was enough to hamper in some degree the action of his Boston allies. Their position was also embarrassed by many curious, rambling letters from his drill-master, Forbes, written to members of Congress and others, and disclosing what little he knew of the plans. This led the eastern allies to insist—quite unnecessarily, as it seemed to one or two of them—on a postponement for a year of the whole enterprise. On 3 June, 1858, Brown left Boston, with $500 in gold and with liberty to keep the Kansas rifles. Most of his friends in the eastern states knew nothing more of his movements until it was announced that he had taken possession of the U. S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia A few, however, were aware that he was about to enter on the execution of his plans somewhere, though they did not know precisely where. Late in June, 1859, Brown and several of his men appeared in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, and soon afterward hired a small farm, which they occupied. Then his daughter Anne, a girl of fifteen, together with his daughter-in-law, wife of Oliver Brown, appeared upon the scene and kept house for them. There they lived for many weeks, unsuspected by their neighbors, and gradually receiving from Ohio their boxes of rifles and pistols, besides a thousand pikes from Connecticut. In August he was visited by Frederick Douglass, to whom he disclosed his plan of an attack on Harper's Ferry, which Douglass opposed, thinking it would not really be favorable to his ultimate object of reaching the slaves. But he persevered, and finally began his operations with twenty-two men, besides himself. Six of these were colored; and it may be added that only six of the whole party escaped alive, and only one of these is now (September, 1886) living—Owen Brown.
On Sunday evening, 16 October, 1859, Brown mustered eighteen of his men—the rest having been assigned to other duties—saying: “Men, get on your arms; we will proceed to the Ferry.” It was a cold, dark night, ending in rain. At half-past ten they reached the armory-gate and broke it in with a crow-bar, easily overpowering the few watchmen on duty. Before midnight the village was quietly patrolled by Brown's men, without firing a gun, and six men had been sent to bring in certain neighboring planters, with their slaves. He had taken several leading citizens prisoners, as hostages, but had allowed a rail way train to go through northward, which of course carried the news. The citizens of the town gradually armed themselves, and some shots were exchanged, killing several men; and before night Brown, who might easily have escaped, was hopelessly hemmed in. Colonel Robert E. Lee, afterward well known in history, arrived from Washington at evening with a company of U.S. Marines, and all was practically over. Brown and his men, now reduced to six, were barricaded in a little building called the engine- house, and were shot down one by one, thousands of bullets, according to a Virginia witness, having been imbedded in the walls. Brown constantly returned the fire, refusing to surrender; but when some of his men aimed at passers-by who had taken no part in the matter, he would stop them, according to the same Virginia witness, Captain Dangerfield, saying: “Don't shoot! that man is unarmed.” Colonel Washington, another Virginia witness, has testified to the extraordinary coolness with which Brown felt the pulse of his dying son, while holding his own rifle with the other hand, and encouraging his men to be firm. All this time he was not recognized, until Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart, who had known him in Kansas, called him by his name. When he was finally captured, his two sons were dead, and he himself was supposed to be dying.
No one will ever be able exactly to understand that mood of John Brown's mind which induced him to remain in Harper's Ferry to certain death. His reason for taking possession of the town and arsenal was undoubtedly a desire to alarm the country at large, and not merely secure arms, but attract recruits to his side, after he should have withdrawn. Why did he remain? Those who escaped from the terrible disaster could not answer. Brown himself is reported as saying that it was preordained; that if he had once escaped, he knew the Virginia mountains too well to be captured; but that he for the first time lost command of himself and was punished for it. Governor Wise, of Virginia, with several hundred men, reached Harper's Ferry by the noon train of 18 October, and Brown held conversations, which have been fully reported, with him and others. Governor Wise said of him: “They are mistaken who take Brown to be a madman. He is a bundle of the best nerves I ever saw; cut and thrust and bleeding and in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude, and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected, indomitable; and it is but just to him to say that he was humane to his prisoners, and he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth.” This opinion, coming from the man whose immediate duty it was to see him tried and executed as a felon, may be regarded as a final and trustworthy estimate.
John Brown was tried before a Virginia court, legal counsel going to him from Massachusetts. All thought of a rescue was precluded by strong messages of prohibition sent by him. The proposal to send his wife to him, this being planned partly in the hope that she might shake his determination, was also refused, and she did not see him until after his trial. He was sentenced to death by hanging, and this sentence was executed 2 December, 1859. On the day of his death he handed to one of his guards a paper on which he had written this sentence: “Charlestown, Virginia, December 2, 1859. I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.” Within eighteen months this prophecy was fulfilled, and many a northern regiment, as it marched to the seat of war, sang that which will always remain, more than any other, the war-song of the great conflict:
“John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on.”
His bearing on the scaffold, under exceptionally trying circumstances, evinced wonderful fortitude. After the sheriff had told him that all was ready, and had adjusted the rope and the cap, ten or fifteen minutes passed, while the military escort formed a hollow square. During this painfully long interval, John Brown, blindfolded, stood alone erect, like a statue unsupported. An eyewitness who was very near him could not detect a tremor. A further delay occurred while the sheriff descended the steps of the scaffold, but Brown never wavered, and died apparently with muscles and nerves still subject to his iron will. His career is remarkable for its dramatic quality, for the important part he played in events preliminary to the great Civil War, and for the strong and heroic traits shown in his life and death. He belonged to a class of men whose permanent fame is out of all proportion to their official importance or contemporary following; and indeed he represents a type more akin to that seen among the Scottish covenanters of two centuries ago than to anything familiar in our own days. With John Brown were executed Copeland, Green, Cook, and Coppoc, of his company. Stephens and Hazlett were put to death in the same way later. An effort for their rescue, organized in Boston, with men brought mainly from Kansas, under Captain Montgomery as leader, proved abortive.
In regard to the bearing of John Brown's enterprise upon subsequent history, it is enough if we recall the fact that a select Committee of the U. S. Senate investigated the whole affair, and the majority, consisting of John M. Mason, Jefferson Davis, and Graham N. Fitch, submitted a report in which occurs the following passage: “The invasion (to call it so) by Brown and his followers at Harper's Ferry was in no sense of that character. It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the sanction of no public or political authority—distinguishable only from ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them, and by the fact that the money to maintain the expedition, and the large armament they brought with them, had been contributed and furnished by the citizens of other states of the union, under circumstances that must continue to jeopard the safety and peace of the southern states, and against which Congress has no power to legislate. If the several states, whether from motives of policy or a desire to preserve the peace of the union, if not from fraternal feeling, do not hold it incumbent on them, after the experience of the country, to guard in future by appropriate legislation against occurrences similar to the one here inquired into, the committee can find no guarantee elsewhere for the security of peace between the states of the union.” It is a sufficient commentary on the implied threat with which this report concludes, to point out that two of its three signers, within the year following, became leaders of the movement for a forcible division of the union. In view of this fact, it is impossible to doubt that the enterprise of John Brown was an important link in the chain of historical events. The life of Captain Brown has been at least three times written—by James Redpath, by Richard D. Webb, of Dublin, and by Frank B. Sanborn. The last named is the fullest work, and has the approval of John Brown's family; it is the result of much personal research, and is, with some defects of arrangement, a mine of information in regard to one of the most remarkable men of his time.
BROWN, John B., politician, born in Richfield, New York, 16 July, 1807; died in Washington, D. C., 9 December, 1867. In 1849 he moved to Virginia, where he became prominent in politics in that state. In 1856 he was one of the electors for Frémont, and in 1860 a delegate to the Chicago Convention, where Lincoln was nominated. On his return to Virginia he was arrested and thrown into prison on the charge of circulating incendiary documents. At the beginning of the Civil War the Confederate authorities offered a reward of $1,000 for his apprehension. He subsequently received an appointment in Washington. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 407.
BROWN, John Calvin, soldier, born in Giles County, Tennessee, 6 January, 1827. He was graduated at Jackson College, Tennessee, in 1846. He entered the military service of the Confederate States at the beginning of the Civil War, and was successively promoted to colonel, brigadier-general, and major-general. Left nearly penniless by the war, he found employment as a railroad surveyor at a small salary, but proved so efficient a manager that he was made president of the Nashville Railroad. After constructing several small lines in Tennessee, he entered the service of the Texas Pacific Railroad and had charge of it during its extension westward to the Rio Grande and eastward to New Orleans. Later he was appointed receiver of the entire property. He was president of the constitutional convention of Tennessee, and was twice governor of the state—in 1870 and 1875. He has travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.—His brother, Neil S., died in February, 1888, was governor of Tennessee in 1847 and 1849, and was U. S. minister to Russia under Taylor's administration. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 407-408.
BROWN, John L. was sentenced to hang in South Carolina for aiding a female enslaved person to escape. This event set off a protest among abolitionists. A memorial was signed by Reverend William Jay in England and was published. The memorial was addressed from churches and benevolent societies in Lancashire, England. The memorial was then sent to churches in South Carolina and throughout the United States. The memorial was signed by 1,300 prominent clergymen in England, including Thomas Clarkson. (Wilson, 1872, p. 565)
BROWN, John Mifflin, 1817-1893, educator, clergyman, African American, eleventh Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, abolitionist. (Angell, 1992; Murphy, 1993; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 42, 207-208; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 138)
BROWN, Joseph Emerson, statesman, born in Pickens County, South Carolina, 15 April, 1821. When fifteen years old he moved with his father to Georgia, and, after being educated at Calhoun Academy, taught school at Canton, Georgia, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in August, 1845. He was graduated at Yale law-school in 1846, and began practice at Canton, Georgia, was elected to the state senate in 1849, chosen a presidential elector on the Pierce ticket in 1852, and in 1855 became judge of the superior courts of the Blue Ridge circuit He was elected governor by the Democrats in 1857, and was re-elected by increased majorities in 1859, 1861, and 1863. He was an active secessionist, seizing Forts Pulaski and Jackson, near Savannah, on 3 January, 1861, sixteen days before his state seceded, and taking possession of the U. S. Arsenal, Augusta, five days after the passage of the ordinance. During the war he was a vigorous supporter of the Confederate Government, but disputed with Mr. Davis the constitutionality of the conscription measures. During Sherman's invasion he put into the field an army of 10,000 men, made up of state officers, youth, aged men, and others usually exempt from military duty, but refused to send them out of the state when requisition for them was made by the Confederate Government. In October, 1864, he refused General Sherman's request for a conference, denying that he had power to act without the permission of the legislature. On his release from the prison, where he had been confined by the national authorities at the conclusion of the war, he resigned the governorship, and, after a visit to Washington, in 1866, strongly advised his state to accept the situation and comply with the terms of reconstruction. This position made him unpopular, and for a time he acted with the Republicans, supporting General Grant in 1868. and being the defeated Republican candidate for U. S. Senator in the same year. After his defeat he was appointed chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, which office he resigned in December, 1870, and temporarily left public life. Since that time he has been president of the Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, and of several other large corporations, and has promoted the development of the resources of his state. Since 1872 he has acted with the Democrats, and in 1880 was chosen U. S. Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of General Gordon. In 1884 he was re-elected, with but a single opposing vote, for the term ending in March, 1891. After his election in 1880 he made a speech before the assembly, justifying his course in 1866, and declaring that the results of the war must be accepted as final; that the sentiments of the former slave-holding aristocracy must be rejected; and that the Negroes must be assured absolute civil and political equality. See " Life and Times of Joseph E. Brown, by H. Haifa (Springfield, Massachusetts, 1883). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 408-409.
BROWN, Josephine, 1839-1874, abolitionist, daughter of William Wells Brown.
BROWN, Moses, 1738-1836, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island, abolitionist, industrialist, philanthropist, educator, Quaker. A slaveholder who released his own slaves in 1773. His brothers continued to own slaves. One of Rhode Island’s principal abolitionists. Helped lobby bill before U.S. Congress to outlaw the provisioning of slave ships at any U.S. port. Vice president and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. Co-founder of Brown University. Co-founded Providence Society for Abolishing the Slave Trade in 1789. (Appletons, 1888, Vol. 1, p. 409; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 146; Bruns, 1977, pp. 308-313, 492-493, 515; Drake, 1950, pp. 79-80, 89, 97, 102, 123; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 2, 7, 17, 60, 87, 111; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 107, 120-121, 156, 157; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)
BROWN, Moses, born in Providence, Rhode Island, 23 September, 1738; died there, 6 September, 1836. He was brought up in the family of his uncle, Obadiah Brown, whose daughter he married, and a portion of whose estate he inherited by will. In 1763 he became engaged in business with his three brothers, but, after ten years' active experience, withdrew to follow more congenial interests. Although brought up in the Baptist faith, he became, subsequent to severe domestic affliction, a member of the Society of Friends, and remained until his death a firm adherent to the doctrines of that society. He exerted a strong influence in all its concerns, and filled many of its important offices with dignity and usefulness. The Friends' boarding-school in Providence was founded by him, and his donations to its support were frequent and liberal. In 1773 he manumitted his slaves, and was one of the founders of the Abolition Society of Rhode Island. He was also an active member and liberal supporter of the Rhode Island Peace and Bible Societies. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 409.
BROWN, Nathan, 1807-1886, New Ipswich, New Hampshire, American Baptist clergyman, Bible translator, abolitionist. Brother of abolitionist William Brown.
BROWN, Oliver, radical abolitionist, son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859, was killed during the raid (Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 206, 327, 328; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)
BROWN, Owen, 1771-1856, Torrington, Connecticut. Father of abolitionist John Brown. Owen Brown co-founded the Western Reserve Anti-Slavery Society (Western Reserve College).
BROWN, Owen, 1824-1889, radical abolitionist, third son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859; he escaped capture by the U.S. Marines. He later served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War. (Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 206, 327; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)
BROWN, Salmon, radical abolitionist, son of abolitionist John Brown, accompanied his father on the raid on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859, was killed during the raid (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 206; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 404-407; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 2, pp. 131-134)
BROWN, William G., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)
BROWN, William Wells, 1814-1884, African American, abolitionist leader, author, historian, former slave, anti-slave lecturer, temperance activist. Wrote Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, 1847, also The American Fugitive in Europe, 1855. Lecturer for Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, Massachusetts and American Anti-Slavery Society. Wrote anti-slavery plays, “Experience; or How to Give a Northern Man a Backbone,” “The Escape; or A Leap for Freedom,” 1856. (Brown, 1856; Brown, 1847; Farrison, 1969; Greenspan, 2008; Mabee, 1970, pp. 52, 61, 65, 96-98, 137, 140, 145, 159, 161, 203, 221, 252, 258, 265, 333, 371, 390; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 29, 50, 55, 57, 61, 72, 179, 208-209, 246; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. II, Pt. 1, p. 161; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 3, p. 751; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 2, p. 325)
BROWNE, Francis Fisher, editor, born in South Halifax, Vermont, 1 December, 1843. His father, William Goldsmith Browne, born in Vermont in 1812, is the author of the popular song "A Hundred Years to Come," and other poems, Francis was educated at the high school of Chicopee, Massachusetts, which he left to enlist in the 46th Massachusetts Volunteers in 1862, serving till its discharge. He studied law in Rochester, New York, and at the University of Michigan (1866-'7). He edited the "Lakeside Monthly," Chicago, from 1869 till 1874; afterward was literary of the "Alliance"; and in 1880 became editor of the Chicago "Dial." He has compiled and edited "Golden Poems, by British and American authors " (Chicago, 1881); "The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose" (St. Louis, 1883); and "Bugle Echoes," a collection of poems of the Civil War, both National and Confederate (New York, 1886). He has written "The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln" (St. Louis, 1886). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 413.
BROWNELL, Henry Howard, author, born in Providence, Rhode Island, 6 February 1820; died in East Hartford, Connecticut, 31 October, 1872. He was a nephew of Bishop Brownell, was graduated at Trinity College, Hartford, in 1841, studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but became a teacher, and settled in Hartford. Early in the Civil War he turned into £ verse the “General Orders” issued by Farragut for the guidance of his fleet in the attack on the defences of New Orleans. This piece of verse, floating through the newspapers, came to Farragut's notice, and so pleased him that he made inquiry for the author. In a correspondence that ensued, Brownell expressed a strong desire to witness a naval battle, and Farragut promised to gratify him, a promise that was fulfilled in Brownell's appointment as acting ensign on the flag-ship “Hartford,” and his participation in the battle of Mobile Bay. “The River Fight” and “The Bay Fight,” describing the naval actions at New Orleans and Mobile, are his longest and finest poems. Oliver Wendell Holmes said of them: “They are to all the drawing-room battle-poems as the torn flags of our victorious armadas to the stately ensigns that dressed their ships in the harbor.” After the war he accompanied Admiral Farragut on his cruise in European waters. He published “Poems.” (New York, 1847); “The People's Book of Ancient and Modern History” (Hartford, 1851); “The Discoverers, Pioneers, and Settlers of North and South America” (Boston, 1853); “Lyrics of a Day, or Newspaper Poetry, by a Volunteer in the U.S. Service” (New York, 1864); and a revised edition of his poems, containing all that he cared to preserve (Boston, 1866). See “Our Battle Laureate,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the “Atlantic Monthly" for May, 1865. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 414.
BROWING, Orville Hickman, senator, born in Harrison County, Kentucky, in 1810; died in Quincy, Illinois, 10 August, 1881; He moved to Bracken County, Kentucky, early in life, and received a classical education at Augusta College, being at the same time employed in the county clerk's office. He afterward studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1831, and began practice in Quincy, Illinois. He served in the Black Hawk war of 1832, and was a member of the state senate from 1836 till 1840, when he was elected to the lower branch of the legislature and served till 1843. At the Bloomington Convention he assisted Abraham Lincoln to organize the Republican Party of Illinois. He was a delegate to the Chicago Convention of 1860, which nominated Lincoln for the presidency, and was an active supporter of the government during the Civil War. In 1861 he was appointed by Governor Yates to the U.S. Senate, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Stephen A. Douglas, and served till 1863. On 18 July, 1861, he spoke in the Senate, declaring in favor of the abolition of slavery, should the south force the issue, and on 25 February, 1862, took an active part in the debate on the Confiscation Bill, speaking in opposition to it. While in Washington he practised law with Jeremiah Black and Thomas G. Ewing. Mr. Browning was an active member of the Union Executive Committee in 1866, and in the same year was Secretary of the Interior by President Johnson, serving till 3 March, 1869. After March, 1868, he also acted as Attorney-General. In 1869 he was a member of the state constitutional convention, and from that time till his death practised his profession at Quincy, Illinois. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 414.
BROWNLOW, William Gannaway, journalist, born in Wythe County, Virginia, 29 A'. 1805; died in Knoxville, Tennessee, 29 April, 1877. He was left an orphan at the age of eleven, but, having earned enough by hard work as a carpenter to give himself a fair English education, he entered the Methodist ministry in 1826, and labored for ten years as an itinerant preacher. He began to take part in politics in 1828 by advocating, in Tennessee, the reelection of John Quincy Adams to the presidency; and while travelling the South Carolina circuit, in which John C. Calhoun lived, made himself unpopular by publicly opposing nullification. He afterward published a pamphlet in vindication of his course. He became editor of the Knoxville “Whig” in 1838, and from his trenchant mode of expression became known as “the fighting parson.” He was a candidate for Congress against Andrew Johnson in 1843, and in 1850 was appointed by President Fillmore one of several commissioners to carry out the provisions made by Congress for the improvement of navigation on the Missouri. Although an advocate of slavery, he boldly opposed the secession movement, taking the ground that southern institutions were safer in the union than out of it. His course subjected him to much persecution. For a time his house was the only one in Knoxville where the union flag was displayed; but all efforts to make him haul it down were unsuccessful. His paper was finally suppressed by the Confederate authorities, and in the last issue, that of 24 October, 1861, he published a farewell address to his readers, in which he said that he preferred imprisonment to submission. Refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate government, he was at last persuaded by his friends to leave Knoxville for another district. During his absence he was accused of burning railway bridges in east Tennessee, and a company of troops was sent out with orders to shoot him on sight; but he escaped by secreting himself among the loyalists on the North Carolina border. He was finally induced, by the promise of a free pass to Kentucky, to return to Knoxville, but was arrested there, 6 December, 1861, on charge of treason, and thrown into jail, where he was confined without fire, and suffered much during his imprisonment. He was released at the close of the month, but was detained at his own house under guard. Hearing that Judah P. Benjamin had called him a “dangerous man,” and had wished him out of the confederacy, Brownlow wrote him a characteristic letter, in which occur the words, “Just give me my port, and I will do more for your confederacy t'. the devil has ever done—I will leave the country.” Benjamin advised his release, to relieve the government from the odium of having entrapped him. Brownlow was taken at his word '' sent inside the union lines at Nashville, on 3 March, 1863. After this he made a tour through the northern states, speaking to immense audiences in the principal cities, and at Philadelphia was joined by his ally, who had also been expelled from Knoxville. He returned to Tennessee in 1864, and, on the reconstruction of the state in 1865, was elected governor, serving two terms. In his me of October, 1865, he advocated the removal of the Negro population to a separate territory, and declared it policy to give them the ballot. In that of November, 1866, he reiterated these sentiments, but recognized the fact that the blacks had shown greater aptitude for learning than had been expected, and, although confessing to “caste prejudice,” said he desired to act in harmony with the great body of loyal people throughout the union. In 1867 Governor Brownlow came into conflict with Mayor Brown, of Nashville, over the manner of appointing judges of election under the new franchise law. The U.S. troops were ordered to sustain the governor, and the city authorities finally submitted. During the ku-klux troubles Governor Brownlow found it necessary to proclaim martial law in nine counties of the state. In 1869 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and resigned the office of governor. In 1875 he was succeeded in the Senate by ex-President Johnson. After the close of his term he returned to Knoxville, bought a controlling interest in the “Whig,” which he had sold in 1869, and edited it until his death. He published “The Iron Wheel Examined, and its False Spokes Extracted,” a reply to attacks on the Methodist Church (Nashville, 1856); “Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated?” a debate with Reverend A. Prynne, of New York, in which Mr. Brownlow took the affirmative (Philadelphia, 1858); and “Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, with a Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels” (1862). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 415-416.
