Encyclopedia of Civil War Biography - Sno-Sti
SNOW, Benjamin, Jr., Fitchburg, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1844-1860.
SOULE, Silas Stillman, 1838-1865, Bath, Maine, radical/militant abolitionist, Kansas Territory Jay Hawker, Union Army officer.
SOUTHEBY, William A., Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker. As early as 1696, Southeby condemned the institution of slavery. In 1712, he petitioned Quaker officials to reject and abolish slavery. Wrote a paper opposing slavery and was censured by fellow Quakers in Philadelphia. (Drake, 1950, pp. 19, 28-29, 34, 36, 40, 47, 51, 55; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 9, 11, 93, 94; Soderlund, 1985, pp. 4, 19, 22, 32, 35, 49, 174, 186, 187; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 62-66)
SOUTHER, Samuel, Worcester, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1861-64
SOUTHMAYD, Daniel S., Lowell, Massachusetts. Manager, 1833-1834, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)
SOUTHWICK, Abby, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), Boston, Massachusetts (Yellin, 1994, pp. 353n, 301-302, 307, 316, 333)
SOUTHWICK, Edward, Augusta, Maine, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-1840.
SOUTHWICK, Hannah (Yellin, 1994, p. 289)
SOUTHWICK, Joseph, Maine, abolitionist. Vice president, 1833-1835, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1848. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)
SOUTHWICK, Sarah H. (Yellin, 1994, pp. 50, 62, 273n, 289)
SOUTHWICK, Thankful, leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, 1994, pp. 56, 62, 64, 253n, 280, 289, 292)
SMITH, Preston, soldier, born in Giles County, Tennessee, 25 December, 1823; died in Georgia, 20 September, 1863. He received his early education at a country school, and at Jackson College, Columbia, Tennessee. He studied law in Columbia, and after practising there for several years moved to Waynesboro’, Tennessee, and subsequently to Memphis. He became colonel of the 154th Tennessee Regiment of Militia, which was afterward mustered into the service of the Confederacy, and he was promoted to brigadier-general, 27 October, 1862. He was severely wounded at the battle of Shiloh, and commanded his brigade under General E. Kirby Smith at Richmond, Kentucky. He was killed, with nearly all his staff, by a sudden volley during a night attack at Chickamauga, Georgia. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 584.
SMITH, Richard, journalist, born in the south of Ireland, 30 January, 1823. His father, a farmer of Scottish ancestry, died when Richard was seventeen years old, and the widow and her son emigrated to this country and settled in 1841 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Richard apprenticed himself to a carpenter and builder until he could secure a better opening. On reaching his majority, he gained employment on the “Price Current,” of which he soon became proprietor, and greatly improved it, making it virtually a new publication. He accepted also the agency of the newly organized Associated Press, and was the first man in Ohio to transmit a presidential message over the wires. About 1854 he purchased an interest in the Cincinnati “Gazette,” the oldest daily in the city, which was then in a languishing condition from lack of proper management. Selling the “Price Current,” he concentrated all his energy on the “Gazette,” which became prosperous under his direction, especially during the Civil War. But in 1880 its interests and those of the Cincinnati “Commercial " indicated the financial and political wisdom of their union, and accordingly the first of the following year they were consolidated under the name of the “Commercial Gazette.” Richard Smith is the vice-president of the new company. He exercises much influence, journalistic and political, throughout Ohio. Though he is often jocularly referred to as “Deacon,” he is only a lay member of the Presbyterian Church. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 584.
SMITH, Richard Somers, educator, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 30 October, 1813; died in Annapolis, Maryland, 23 January, 1877. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1834, but resigned from the army in 1836, was assistant engineer of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad Company in 1836-7, of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in 1839–40, and projected several other important railroads. He was reappointed in the U.S. Army in the latter year with the rank of 2d lieutenant, was assistant and afterward full professor of drawing at the U.S. Military Academy in 1846–52, and was then transferred to the 4th U.S. Artillery, becoming quartermaster and treasurer, but in 1856 he again resigned. He was professor of mathematics, engineering, and drawing in Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute in 1855–'9, director of Cooper Institute, New York City, for two years. He was reappointed in the army as major of the 12th U.S. Infantry in 1861, and served as mustering and disbursing officer in Maryland and Wisconsin in 1861–2. He then took part in the Rappahannock Campaign with the Army of the Potomac, participating in the battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, 2–4 May, 1863. He resigned in the same month to become president of Girard College, Pennsylvania, which post he held till 1868. For the next two years he was professor of engineering in the Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania, and from 1870 till his death he was at the head of the department of drawing at the U.S. Naval Academy, Columbia gave him the degree of A. M. in 1857. He published a “Manual of Topographical Drawing ” (Philadelphia, 1854), and a work on “Linear Perspective Drawing” (1857). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 584.
SMITH, Charles Ferguson, soldier, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 24 April, 1807; died in Savannah, Tennessee, 25 April, 1862, was the son of Dr. Samuel Blair Smith, assistant surgeon, U. S. Army. His maternal grandfather, Ebenezer Ferguson, of Pennsylvania, was a colonel in the Continental Army. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1825, became 2d lieutenant in the 2d U.S. Artillery, and was promoted 1st lieutenant, 30 May, 1832, and captain, 7 July, 1838, in the same regiment. He served at the Military Academy from 1829 till 1842, as assistant instructor of infantry tactics in 1829-'31, adjutant in 1831-'8, and as commandant of cadets and instructor of infantry tactics till 1 September, 1842. He was with the army of General Zachary Taylor in the military occupation of Texas in 1845-'6, and was placed in command of four companies of artillery, acting as infantry, which throughout the war that followed was famous as "Smith's Light Battalion." When in March, 1846, General Taylor crossed Colorado River, the passage of which, it was believed, would be disputed by the Mexicans, this battalion formed the advance. He was present at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and for "gallant and distinguished conduct" in these two affairs he received the brevet of major. At the battle of Monterey, Major Smith was in command of the storming party on Federation hill, which, in the words of General Worth, was "most gallantly carried." For his conduct in the several conflicts at Monterey he received the brevet of lieutenant-colonel. He was present at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, San Antonio, and Churubusco, and in these operations he commanded and directed his light battalion with characteristic gallantry and ability. For his conduct in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco he received the brevet of colonel, 20 August, 1847. He was present at the storming of Chapultepec and the assault and capture of the city of Mexico, and was again honorably mentioned in despatches. In 1849-51 he was a member of a board of officers to devise a complete system of instruction for siege, garrison, sea-coast, and mountain artillery, which was adopted, 10 May, 1851, for the service of the United States. He was promoted major of the 1st U.S. Artillery. 25 November. 1854, and in 1855, on the organization of the new 10th Regiment of Infantry, he was made its first lieutenant-colonel. He commanded the Red River Expedition in 1856, engaged in the Utah Expedition in 1857-'61, and for a time was in command of the Department of Utah. At the beginning of the disturbances that preceded the Civil War he was placed in charge of the city and department of Washington, D. C. On 1 August, 1861, he was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, and ordered to Kentucky. The next month he became colonel of the 3d U.S. Infantry, and was placed in command of the National forces then at Paducah. He acquired reputation as an adroit tactician and skilful commander in the operations about Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. In the severe fight for the possession of Fort Donelson he commanded the division that held the left of the National investing lines, and, lead it in person, he stormed and captured all the high ground on the Confederate right that commanded the fort. He was then ordered to conduct the new movement up Tennessee River, arrived at Savannah, about 13 March, with a large fleet, took command of that city, and prepared the advance upon Shiloh. On 22 March, 1862, he was promoted major-general of volunteers, but the exposure to which he had been already subjected aggravated a chronic disease, which ended his life soon after his arrival in Savannah. General William T. Sherman says of him in his “Memoirs”: “He was adjutant of the Military Academy during the early part of my career there, and afterward commandant of cadets. He was a very handsome and soldierly man, of great experience, and at the battle of Donelson had acted with so much personal bravery that to him many attributed the success of the assault.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 585-586.
SMITH, Roswell, publisher, born in Lebanon, Connecticut, 30 March, 1829. He was educated at Brown, in 1850 married Miss Ellsworth, granddaughter of Chief-Justice Oliver Ellsworth, studied law, and for nearly twenty years practised in Lafayette, Indiana. Mr. Smith came in 1870 to New York City, where, in connection with Dr. Josiah G. Holland and Charles Scribner, he established “Scribner's Monthly ” (now the “Century Magazine"). In 1873 he began the publication of “St. Nicholas,” a magazine for children. The first organization was under the firm-name of Scribner and Company, which subsequently became the Century Company, with Mr. Smith as president. Under his direction these magazines have enjoyed great popularity and an extensive circulation on both sides of the Atlantic. The Century Company is engaged in the publication of miscellaneous books, and an elaborate “Dictionary of the English'' under the editorship of Professor William, D. Whitney. It will be five octavo volumes and about 6,000 pages. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 586.
SMITH, Xanthus, born in Philadelphia, 26 February, 1839, is known as a marine and landscape painter. He served during the Civil War under Admiral Samuel F. DuPont, and has painted many of the naval engagements of the war. [Son of artist Russell Smith]. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 586.
SMITH, Samuel Francis, clergyman, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 21 October, 1808. He attended the Boston Latin-school in 1820–’5, and was graduated at Harvard in 1829 and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1832. He was ordained to the ministry of the Baptist Church at Waterville, Maine, in 1834. occupied pastorates at Waterville in 1834–42, and Newton, Massachusetts, in 1842–54, and was professor of modern languages in Waterville College (now Colby University) while residing in that city. He was editor of “The Christian Review” in Boston in 1842-'8, and editor of the various publications of the Baptist Missionary Union in 1854-69. In 1875–6 and 1880–2 he visited the chief missionary stations in Europe and Asia. He received the degree of D.D. from Waterville College in 1854. Dr. he has done a large amount of literary work, mainly in the line of hymnology, his most noted composition being the national hymn, “My Country, “Tis of Thee,” which was written while he was a theological student and first sung at a children's celebration in the Park Street Church, Boston, 4 July, 1832. The missionary hymn, “The Morning Light is Breaking,” was written at the same place and time. He translated from the German most of the pieces in the “Juvenile Lyre" (Boston, 1832), and from the “Conversations Lexicon" nearly enough articles to fill an entire volume of the “Encyclopaedia Americana” (1828–32). His collections of original hymns and poetry and poetical translations have been published under the titles of “Lyric Gems” (Boston, 1843): “The Psalmist,” a noted Baptist hymn-book (1843); and “Rock of Ages” (1866; new ed., 1877). He has also published a “Life of Reverend Joseph Grafton ” (1848); “Missionary Sketches” (1879; 2d ed., 1883): “History of Newton, Massachusetts” (1880); “Rambies in Mission-Fields” (1884); and contributions to numerous periodicals. His classmate, Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his reunion poem entitled “The Boys,” thus refers to him : “And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith; Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith ! But he chanted a song for the brave and the free— Just read on his medal, ‘My country, of thee!’” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 588.
SMITH, Elizabeth Oakes (Prince), author, born in North Yarmouth, Maine, 12 August, 1806, was educated in her native town, married Mr. Smith early in life, and aided him in the editorship of several papers. For three years she was in charge of the "Mayflower," an annual published in Boston, Massachusetts. She moved with her husband to New York City in 1842, and engaged in literary pursuits. She was the first woman in this country that ever appeared as a public lecturer. She also preached in several churches, and at one time was pastor of an independent congregation in Canastota, Madison County, New York. Her books include 'Riches without Wings" (Boston, 1838); "The Sinless Child" (New York, 1841); "Stories for Children" (Boston, 1847); "Woman and her Needs" (1851); "Hints on Dress and Beauty" (1852): "Bald Eagle, or the Last of the Ramapaughs" (London, 1867); "The Roman Tribute," a tragedy (1850); and "Old New York, or Jacob Leisler" a tragedy (1853). [Wife of Seba Smith, journalist]. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 589.
SMITH, Thomas Church Haskell, soldier, born in Acushnet, Massachusetts, 24 March, 1819. He was graduated at Harvard in 1841, was admitted to the bar of Cincinnati in 1844, engaged in the establishment of the Morse Telegraph System in the west and south, and was president of the New Orleans and Ohio Telegraph Company. At the beginning of the Civil War he became lieutenant-colonel of the 1st Ohio Cavalry, served under General John Pope in Virginia, and became brigadier-general of volunteers in September, 1862. He was placed in command of the District of Wisconsin in 1863 to quell the draft riots, became inspector-general of the Department of the Missouri in 1864, and while commanding that district dealt with the disturbances that arose from the return of 1,800 Confederate soldiers to their homes after the surrender. He carried out General Pope's policy of withdrawing government troops from Missouri, and restored the state without delay to its own civil control. He was mustered out of the volunteer service in 1866, and in 1878 entered the regular army as major and paymaster. In 1883 he was retired. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 590.
SMITH, Thomas Kilby, soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 23 September, 1820; died in New York City, 14 December, 1887. His father, George, was a captain in the East Indian trade for many years, but moved to Ohio about 1828, and settled on a farm in Hamilton County. Thomas was graduated at Cincinnati College in 1837, read law with Salmon P. Chase, was admitted to the bar in 1845, and practised till 1853, when he became bureau and special agent in the Post-Office Department in Washington, D. C. He was U. S. Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio in 1855-'6. and subsequently deputy clerk of Hamilton County, Ohio. He became lieutenant-colonel in the 54th Ohio Infantry in September, 1861, was promoted its colonel in October, and commanded the regiment at Pittsburg Landing, the advance on Corinth, and the Vicksburg Campaign. He was assigned to the 2d Brigade, 2d Division of the 15th Army Corps, in January, 1863, was on a court of inquiry, and on staff duty with General Ulysses S. Grant from May till September, 1863, and was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers in August of that year. He commanded brigades in the 17th Army Corps, and led a division of artillery, cavalry, and infantry in the Red River Expedition. His special duty being to protect the gun-boats when the main body of the army at Sabine cross roads, endeavoring to reach Shreveport, fell back, General Smith was left with 2,500 men to protect the fleet in its withdrawal down the river. He accomplished the task in the face of opposing armies on both banks of the stream. Subsequently he commanded the 3d Division detachment of the Army of the Tennessee, and then had charge of the District of Southern Alabama and Florida and the District and port of Mobile. He was compelled to resign field duty in July, 1864, on account of the failure of his health, was brevetted major-general of volunteers, 5 March, 1865, and in 1866 became U. S. consul at Panama. He moved to Torresdale, Pennsylvania, in 1865, and resided there until his death. In the spring of 1887 he became engaged in the business department of the "Star," New York City. He was an active member of the Loyal Legion, and was at one time junior vice-commander of the Pennsylvania Commandery. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 590-591.
SMITH, Richard Penn, soldier, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 9 May, 1837; died in West Brighton, Staten Island, New York, 27 November, 1887, was educated at West Chester College, Pennsylvania. Immediately after leaving college he settled in Kansas, and successfully engaged in business there, but returned to Philadelphia in 1860, became lieutenant in the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteers, and rose to the rank of colonel. He was engaged in the battles of Yorktown, Fair Oaks, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hill, covered the retreat at second Bull Run, was wounded at Antietam, and at Gettysburg did good service by bringing guns into use against General George Pickett's charge. He was mustered out of service in 1864, and engaged in business in New York City. On 3 July, 1887, he delivered an address at Gettysburg on the unveiling of the monument erected in honor of Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing and the 4th U.S. Artillery by the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteers. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 593.
SMITH, William, governor of Virginia, born in King George County, Virginia, 6 September, 1796; died in Warrenton, Virginia, 18 May, 1887. He was educated at classical schools in Virginia and Connecticut, began to practise law in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1818, and engaged in politics. After serving the Democratic Party in a dozen canvasses as a political speaker, ne was chosen state senator in 1830, served five years, and in 1840 was elected to Congress, but was defeated in the next canvass, his district having become strongly Whig. He then moved to Fauquier County, where in December, 1845, he was one day addressed as Governor Smith. He then heard for the first time that, without consulting him, the Virginia legislature had chosen him governor for the term beginning 1 January, 1846. He moved to California in 1850, was president of the first Democratic Convention that was held in that state, returned to Virginia the same year, and in 1853-'61 was a member of Congress, during which service he was chairman of the Committee on the Laws of Public printing. In June, 1861, he became colonel of the 49th Virginia Infantry, and he was chosen soon afterward to the Confederate Congress, but he resigned in 1862 for active duty in the field. He was promoted brigadier-general the same year, and severely wounded at Antietam. He was re-elected governor in 1863, served till the close of the war, and subsequently sat for one term in the state house of delegates. Although he was never a student of statesmanship, he was a marvellously adroit politician, and few members of the Democratic Party were furnished with so large a number of ingenious pleas. As a soldier he was noted, on the contrary, for valor rather than tactical skill. Throughout his long career he was a familiar figure in many legislative bodies, and his eccentricities of habit and his humor endeared him to his constituents. In early manhood he established a line of post-coaches through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, on which he contracted to carry the U. S. Mail. His soubriquet of "Extra Billy," which clung to him throughout his life, grew out of his demands for extra compensation for that service. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 594.
SMITH, William Waugh, educator, born in Warrenton, Fauquier County Virginia, 12 March, 1845, was educated at the University of Virginia and at Randolph Macon College, entered the Confederate service at seventeen years of age. He fought through the war in the ranks, twice refusing commissions, and was wounded at the battles of Fair Oaks and Gettysburg. He was principal of Bethel Academy in 1871—'8, when he became professor of languages in Randolph Macon, held office till 1886, and since that time has been president of that college. He has published "Outlines of Psychology" (New York, 1883), and "Chart of Comparative Syntax of Latin, Greek, French, German, and English " (1885). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 594.
SMITH, William, naval officer, born in Washington, Kentucky, 9 January, 1803; died in St. Louis, Missouri, 1 May, 1873. He entered the U. S. Navy as a midshipman in 1823, was attached to the " Sea-Gull," and served in Commodore David Porter's squadron against the West Indian pirates. He became lieutenant in 1831, co-operated in the " Vandalia " with the army in several expeditions against the Seminole Indians in Florida in 1835-'7, and during the Mexican War assisted at the capture of Tuspan and Tobasco. He became commander in 1854, was in charge of the "Levant," of the East Indian Squadron, and participated in the capture of the barrier forts at Canton, China, in 1856. During the Civil War he was in the frigate “Congress” when she was sunk by the "Merrimac," became commodore, 16 July, 1862, commanded the "Wachusett" and gun-boats co-operating with General George B. McClellan's army in that year, and was subsequently in command of the Pensacola Naval Station till 9 January, 1865, when he was retired. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 595.
SMITH, William Farrar, soldier, born in St. Albans, Vermont, 17 February, 1824. He was graduated at the , U. S. Military Academy in 1845, appointed to the Corps of Topographical Engineers, and, after a year's service on lake survey duty, was assistant professor of mathematics at West Point in 1846-'8. He was then engaged in surveys in Texas for the Mexican Boundary Commission, and in Florida till 1855, when he returned to his former duty at the Military Academy. In 1853 he became 1st lieutenant of Topographical Engineers. He was placed on lighthouse construction service in 1856, became captain of Topographical Engineers, 1 July, 1859, and was engineer secretary of the Light-House Board from that year till April, 1861. After serving on mustering duty in New York for one month, he was on the staff of General Benjamin F. Butler in June and July, 1861, at Fort Monroe, Virginia., became colonel of the 3d Vermont Volunteers in the latter month, and was engaged in the defences of Washington, D. C. He became brigadier-general of volunteers on 13 August, participated in the Virginia Peninsula Campaign, and was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, U. S. Army, for gallant and meritorious service at the battle of White Oak Swamp, 30 June, 1862. He became major-general of volunteers, 4 July, 1862, and led his division at South Mountain and Antietam, receiving the brevet of colonel, U. S. Army, 17 September, 1862, for the latter battle. He was assigned to the command of the 6th Corps, and engaged at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia., in December, was transferred to the 9th Corps in February, 1863, and became major in the Corps of Engineers on 3 March. The next day his appointment of major-general of volunteers, not having been confirmed by the Senate, expired by constitutional limitation, and he resumed his rank of brigadier-general in the volunteer service. He was in command of a division of the Department of the Susquehanna in June and July, 1863, became chief engineer of the Department of the Cumberland in October, and of the Military Division of the Mississippi in November, 1863. He was engaged in operations about Chattanooga, Tennessee, participating in the battle of Missionary Ridge. He rendered important services in carrying out the Brown's Ferry movement, which made it possible not only to maintain the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga, but to bring Sherman and Hooker to its assistance. In his report to the Joint Committee of Congress on the conduct of the war, General George H. Thomas said: "To Brig.-General W. F. Smith should be accorded great praise for the ingenuity which conceived, and the ability which executed, the movement at Brown's Ferry. When the bridge was thrown at Brown's Ferry, on the morning of the 27th October, 1863, the surprise was as great to the army within Chattanooga as it was to the army besieging it from without." The house Committee on Military Affairs, in April, 1885, unanimously agreed to a report that "as a subordinate, General William P. Smith had saved the Army of the Cumberland from capture, and afterward directed it to victory." He was confirmed as major-general of volunteers in March, 1864, and in May assigned to the 18th Corps, which he commanded at Cold Harbor and at Petersburg till July, when he was placed on special duty. On 13 March, 1865, he received the brevets of brigadier-general, U. S. Army, for "gallant and meritorious services at the battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee," and that of major-general for services in the field during the Civil War. He resigned his volunteer commission in 1865, and that in the U. S. Army in 1867. He became president of the International Telegraph Company in 1865, police commissioner of New York City in 1875, and subsequently president of the board. Since 1881 he has been a civil engineer. He was known in the army as "Baldy" Smith. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 595-596.
SMITH, William Henry, journalist, born in Columbia County, New York, 1 December, 1833. In 1836 his parents emigrated to Ohio, where he had the best educational advantages that the state then afforded. He was tutor in a western college, and then assistant editor of a weekly paper in Cincinnati, of which, at the age of twenty-two, he became editor, doing also editorial work on the "Literary Review. At the opening of the Civil War he was on the editorial staff of the Cincinnati "Gazette," and during the war he took an active part in raising troops and forwarding sanitary supplies, and in political work for strengthening the government. He was largely instrumental in bringing Governor John Brough to the front as the candidate of the united Republicans and War Democrats; and at Brough's election, in 1863, he became the latter's private secretary. The next year he was elected Secretary of State of Ohio. and he was re-elected in 1866. He retired from public office to establish the " Evening Chronicle" at Cincinnati, but, his health giving way, he was forced to withdraw from all active work. In 1870 he took charge of the affairs of the Western Associated Press, with headquarters at Chicago. In 1877 he was appointed by President Hayes collector of the port at that city, and was instrumental in bringing about important reforms in customs methods in harmony with the civil-service policy of the administration. In January, 1883, he effected the union of the New York Associated Press with the Western Associated Press, and became general manager of the consolidated association. Mr. Smith is a student of historical subjects. He is author of " The St. Clair Papers " (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1882), a biography of Charles Hammond, and many contributions to American periodicals. He has partly completed (1888) a "Political History of the United States." By his investigations in the British Museum he has brought to light many unpublished letters of Washington to Colonel Henry Bouquet, and has shown that those that were published by Jared Sparks were not given correctly. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 596.
SMITH, William Nathan Harrell, jurist, born in Murfreesborough, North Carolina, 24 September, 1812. He was graduated at Yale in 1834. studied at the law department there, was admitted to practice in his native state in 1840, and took high rank at the bar. He served in the legislature in 1840, and in the state senate in 1848, in which year he was chosen solicitor for the 1st Judicial Circuit, and held office for two terms of eight years. He was defeated as a Whig candidate for Congress in 1850, returned to the legislature, was chosen to Congress in 1858. and served one term. He declared himself for secession at the beginning of the Civil War, was a member of the Confederate Congress in 1861-'5, and of the North Carolina legislature in the latter year. During the administration of President Johnson he aided in the reconstruction of the state according to the policy that he suggested. He practised his profession in Norfolk, Virginia., in 1870-'2. returned to North Carolina in the latter year, and settled in Raleigh. He was appointed chief justice of the state supreme court, succeeding Richmond W. Pearson in 1878, and has served by re-election since that date. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 596.
SMITH, William Russell, Congressman, born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 8 August, 1813. He was educated at the University of Alabama, but was not graduated, and began the practice of law in Greensborough, Alabama. He served in the Creek War in 1830 as a captain of volunteer infantry, moved to Tuscaloosa in 1838, founded the "Monitor " in that city, and was mayor in 1839. He was a circuit judge and major-general of state militia in 1850-'l, and in the former year was chosen to Congress as a Whig, serving by re-election till 1857. During his last term in that office he delivered a notable speech in denunciation of Louis Kossuth. He was a member of the Alabama Convention in 1861, opposed secession, but after the opening of hostilities sat in the Confederate Congress till 1865. He was president of the University of Alabama for several years after the war, but resigned to devote himself to his profession and to literary pursuits. He has published "The Alabama Justice" (New York, 1841); "The Uses of Solitude," a poem (Albany, New York, 1860); "As it, Is," a novel (Tuscaloosa, 1860); “ Condensed Alabama Reports " (1862); and several poems and legal pamphlets. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 596.
SMITH, William Sooy, civil engineer, born in Tarlton, Ohio, 22 July, 1830. He was graduated at Ohio University in 1849, and at the U. S. Military Academy in 1853. He resigned in 1854 and became assistant to Lieutenant-Colonel James D. Graham, of the U. S. Topographical Engineers, then in charge of the government improvements in the great lakes. In 1855 he settled in Buffalo, New York, and was principal of a high-school. In 1857 he made the first surveys for the international bridge across Niagara River, and was employed by the city of Buffalo as an expert to examine the bridge plans that were submitted. He was then elected engineer and secretary of the Trenton Locomotive-Works, New Jersey, which was at that time the chief iron-bridge manufacturing company in this country, and he continued so until 1861. While serving in this capacity he was sent to Cuba by the company, and he also constructed an iron bridge across Savannah River, where he introduced improvements in sinking cylinders pneumatically. The beginning of the Civil War stopped this work, and he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of Ohio volunteers and assigned to duty as assistant adjutant-general at Camp Denison. On 26 June, 1861, he was commissioned colonel of the 13th Ohio Regiment and participated in the West Virginia Campaigns, after which he joined the Army of the Ohio, and was present at Shiloh and Perryville. He was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers on 15 April, 1862, and commanded successively the 2d and 4th Divisions of the Army of the Ohio until late in 1862, after which he joined the army under General Grant and took part in the Vicksburg Campaign as commander of the 1st Division of the 16th Corps. Subsequently he was made chief of cavalry of the Department of the Tennessee, and as such was attached to the staffs of General Grant and General William T. Sherman until, owing to impaired health, he resigned in September, 1864. Returning to his profession, he built the Waugoshanee Light-House at the western entrance of the Straits of Mackinaw, where in 1867 he sank the first pneumatic caisson. He aided in opening the harbor of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and has been largely engaged in building bridges. He built the first great all steel bridge in the world, across Missouri River at Glasgow, Missouri, and was concerned in the construction of the Omaha and the Leavenworth Bridges, as well as many others, including that over Missouri River at Plattsmouth, Nebraska. General Smith has served on numerous engineering commissions, both for the government and for private corporations. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and was president of the Civil Engineers' Club of the northwest in 1880. His writings have been confined to reports and professional papers. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 596-597.
SMYTH, Thomas A., soldier. born in Ireland; died in Petersburg, Virginia., 9 April, 1865. In his youth he emigrated to this country, settling in Wilmington, Delaware, where he engaged in coach-making. At the beginning of the Civil War he raised a company in Wilmington and joined a three months' regiment in Philadelphia, serving in the Shenandoah Valley. On his return he was made major of a Delaware regiment, rose to the ranks of lieutenant-colonel and colonel, and commanded a brigade, winning a high reputation for bravery and skill. For gallant conduct at Cold Harbor, Virginia, he was appointed brigadier-general, U.S. volunteers, on 1 October, 1864. He was mortally wounded by a sharpshooter near Farmville, Virginia, on 6 April, 1865. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 600.
SNEAD, Thomas Lowndes, soldier, born in Henrico County, Virginia, 10 January, 1828. He was graduated at Richmond College in 1846 and at the University of Virginia in 1848, was admitted to the bar, and moved in 1850 to St. Louis, where he was editor and proprietor of the “Bulletin” in 1860–1. He was aide-de-camp of Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, and adjutant-general of the Missouri State Guard in 1861, and as such was in the battles of Booneville, Carthage, Wilson's Creek, and Lexington. He was commissioned from Missouri to negotiate a military convention with the Confederate states in October, 1861, became assistant adjutant-general in the Confederate Army, served with General Price in Arkansas, Missouri, and Mississippi, and was elected to the Confederate Congress by Missouri soldiers in May, 1864. He moved to New York in 1865, was managing editor of the “Daily News” in 1865-'6, and was admitted to the bar of New York in 1866. He has published the first volume of a projected history of the war in the Trans-Mississippi Department, entitled “The Fight for Missouri” (New York, 1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp.600-601.
SNEED, John Louis Taylor, jurist, born in Raleigh, North Carolina, 12 May, 1820. He was educated at Oxford Male Academy, North Carolina, moved to Tennessee, became a member of the legislature in 1845, and was captain of a Tennessee Company in the Mexican War in 1846–7. He was attorney-general of the Memphis Judicial District in 1851, attorney-general of the state of Tennessee in 1854–'9, and in 1861 was commissioned brigadier-general of the provisional army of the state of Tennessee. He was judge of the state supreme court in 1870–8, and of the court of arbitration in 1879, presidential elector on the Hancock ticket in 1880, and judge of the state court of referees in 1883-'4. In 1888 he was chosen president of the Memphis School of Law. He is the author of “Reports of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, 1854–'9” (Nashville). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 601.
SNOW, William Dunham, lawyer, born in Webster, Worcester County, Massachusetts, 2 February, 1832. He settled in Rochester, New York, where he published "The Tribune" in 1852-'4. Afterward he moved to Arkansas, was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1863 that made Arkansas a free state, and was elected U. S. Senator in 1864 under the proclamation of President Johnson, but was not admitted to a seat. He was largely instrumental in raising a brigade of Arkansas troops for the U. S. Army in 1865, and declined the commission of brigadier-general. Since his graduation at Columbia Law-School in 1876 he has practised in New York City and in the Federal courts. He has invented a successful carburetor, a gas-regulator, a thermostatic apparatus for the maintenance of equal heat for furnaces and steam apparatus, and a system for facsimile telegraphy. Mr. Snow is the author of several anti-slavery poems, and has contributed to magazines. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 602.
SOJOURNER TRUTH, lecturer, born in Ulster County, New York, about 1775; died in Battle Creek. Michigan, 26 November, 1883. Her parents were owned by Colonel Charles Ardinburgh, of Ulster County, and she was sold at the age of ten to John J. Dumont. Though she was emancipated by the act of New York which set at liberty in 1817 all slaves over the age of forty, she does not appear to have obtained her freedom until 1827, when she escaped and went to New York City. Subsequently she lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in 1851 began to lecture in western New York, accompanied by George Thompson, of England, and other Abolitionists, making her headquarters in Rochester, New York. Subsequently she travelled in various parts of the United States, lecturing on politics, temperance, and women's rights, and for the welfare of her race. She could neither read nor write, but, being nearly six feet in height and possessing a deep and powerful voice, she proved an effective lecturer. She carried with her a book that she called "The Book of Life." containing the autographs of many distinguished persons that were identified with the anti-slavery movement. Her name was Isabella, but she called herself "Sojourner," claiming to have heard this name whispered to her from the Lord. She added the appellation of "Truth" to signify that she should preach nothing but truth to all men. She spent much time in Washington, D. C, during the Civil War, and passed her last years in Battle Creek, Michigan, where a small monument was erected near her grave, by subscription. See "Narrative of Sojourner Truth, drawn from her ' Book of Life,' with Memorial Chapter," by Mrs. Francis W. Titus (Battle Creek, 1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 603-604.
SOLEY, James Russell, author, born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 1 October, 1850. He was graduated at Harvard in 1870, became assistant professor of English in the U. S. Naval Academy in 1871, and in 1873 was placed at the head of the department of English studies, history, and law, where he remained nine years. In 1876 he was commissioned a professor in the U. S. Navy, and in 1878 he was on special duty at the Paris Exposition. He also examined the systems of education in European naval colleges, and on his return made an extensive report. In 1882 he was transferred to Washington, where he collected and arranged the Navy Department Library, and since 1883 he has superintended the publication of the naval records of the Civil War. He has been lecturer on international law at the Naval War College at Newport since 1885. and has also delivered courses before the Lowell Institute. Boston, on "American Naval History " (1885) and "European Neutrality during the Civil War" (1888). Professor Soley has published " History of the Naval Academy" (Washington, 1876); "foreign Systems of Naval Education," the report mentioned above (1880); "The Blockade and the Cruisers "(New York. 1883); "The Rescue of Greely," with Commodore Winfield S. Schley (1885); and "The Boys of 1812 " (Boston. 1887). He has edited the "Autobiography of Commodore Morris" (Annapolis, 1880), and contributed to the " Battles and Leaders of the Civil War." and to Justin Winsor's " Narrative and Critical History of America." Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 604.
SOUDER, Casper (sow-dor), journalist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 8 November, 1819; died there, 21 October, 1868. He supplemented a common-school education by private study, and in 1850-"64 was connected with the Philadelphia "Dispatch," devoting himself specially to local antiquities. In 1853 he also became associated with the "Evening Bulletin," of which he was afterward an editor and part proprietor till his death. Mr. Souder was an active supporter of the administration during the Civil War. His "History of Chestnut Street," which was published serially, has been praised for trustworthiness and originality of treatment. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 610.
SOULE, George, educator, born in Barrington, Yates County, New York, 14 May, 1834. After the death of his father in 1838 he was taken to Illinois by his mother. He was graduated at Sycamore Academy, Illinois, in 1852. During the next three years he studied medicine, law, and the commercial sciences in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1856 he founded the Soule Commercial and Literary College in New Orleans, Louisiana, of which he is still (1888) president. He was an officer in the Confederate Army from 1862 to the close of the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was captured at Shiloh. and afterward was chief of the labor bureau of General Kirby Smith's army. Colonel Soule is engaged in lecturing and writing on educational and social topics, and has held many offices in benevolent and civic societies. He has published "Practical Mathematics" (New Orleans, 1872); a series of "Philosophic Arithmetics "on a new system (1884); and "Science and Practice of Accounts" (1887). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 610.
SOWARDS, Joseph, scout, born in eastern Kentucky about 1840; died there about 1863. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, and at the beginning of the Civil War occupied, with his aged father, a small farm in the upper part of Johnson County, Kentucky. He was a decided Unionist. The threats of his neighbors caused him to take refuge in the woods. While he was thus in hiding a party demanded of his father his place of concealment, and, on the latter's refusal to disclose it, Judge Cecil, one of the number, shot the old man dead before his own doorway. Sowards now enlisted in the 8th Kentucky Regiment in the National Army, and in December 1861, was selected by General James A. Garfield as a scout. Sowards rendered important services, among others going, at imminent risk, into Marshall's camp on the eve of the battle of Middle Creek and reporting to Garfield an ambuscade into which he would doubtless have fallen but for this timely information. On Marshall's retreat from that battle, Judge Cecil was captured, and Sowards upbraided him with the death of his aged father. A taunting reply caused Sowards to lose his self-control, and he shot Cecil as Cecil had shot his father. A court-martial sentenced Sowards to death; but Garfield was careful to enjoin upon his colonel to select as his guard only such men as were especially friendly to the prisoner, who naturally was allowed to escape. After this he performed the most important services, hanging about Garfield's camp and giving constant information as to the movements of the enemy. No one knew how he lived or where he could be found, but he was sure to appear whenever he was wanted. Through him Garfield was enabled to drive the last organized body of General Humphrey Marshall's men from Kentucky. They had strongly intrenched themselves at Pound Gap, and were fast receiving re-enforcements from Virginia, when Sowards penetrated their camp, learned their strength and position, and then returned to Garfield's lines with the suggestion that he should fall upon and destroy them. The result was the Pound Gap Expedition, which Sowards guided over a hundred miles of rough road and through a blinding snow-storm. He was so thoroughly disguised that Garfield, though he knew Sowards was with the troop, did not recognize him until he disclosed himself on the eve of the battle. This is the last that is certainly known of Sowards, but he is reported to have been killed in the following year by a band of Confederate guerillas. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 616.
SPALDING, James Reed, journalist, born in Montpelier, Vermont, 15 November, 1821; died in Dover, New Hampshire, 10 October, 1872. His father was for nearly half of a century a well-known physician in Vermont. The son was graduated at the University of Vermont in 1840, and was a private tutor in Georgia, at the same time studying law. On his return to Montpelier he was admitted to the bar, but his literary tastes led him to give up his profession, and he spent several years in travel through Europe and into Asia as a student of manners, morals, and politics. He was a witness of the events of the French Revolution of 1848. His letters to the New York "Courier and Enquirer" during his sojourn abroad won great admiration by their philosophical grasp of events and persons and brilliancy of style. On his return to the United States in the spring of 1850 he became attached to the "Courier and Enquirer" as its leading writer. His reputation led in 1859 to the establishment of the New York " World." and his headship of it, The design of the enterprise was altogether new— that of a model journal conducted throughout on Christian principles, independent of particular sects or political parties. The financial crisis that attended the progress of the Civil War so affected the paper that it passed under a new management and editorship. In 1862 Mr. Spalding took a post in the editorial corps of the New York "Times," and many of its patriotic editorials were from his pen. He was stricken with paralysis when in the full vigor of his powers, and died after years of sickness. Richard Grant White, who was associated with him both in the "Courier and Enquirer" and the "World," wrote of Mr. Spalding: "With a theme congenial and an occasion to arouse him, his vigor and elegance have never been excelled by a writer upon the city press." His published addresses are " Spiritual Philosophy and Material Politics" (1854), and "The True Idea of Female Education" (1855).—His brother, George Burley, clergyman, born in Montpelier, Vermont, 11 August, 1835, was graduated at the University of Vermont in 1856, studied law at Tallahassee, Florida, spent two years at Union Theological Seminary. New York City, and was graduated at Andover Seminary in 1861. He was ordained at Vergennes, Vermont, the same year, and after holding Congregational pastorates in Hartford, Connecticut., and Dover and Manchester, N. H., took charge in 1885 of the 1st Presbyterian Church in Syracuse, New York, which place he now holds. Dr. Spalding has done much editorial work on the New York "World," the "Times," the " Watchman," Boston, and the " New Hampshire Journal," which was established by him in 1881. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of New Hampshire in 1877, and of the legislature of the same year. He received the degree of D. D. from Dartmouth in 1878. Dr. Spalding has travelled extensively in the Old World. His published sermons and addresses include "Sermon Commemorative of General Samuel P. Strong" (1854); "Scriptural Policy," a political tract (1868); "In Memoriam, John Parker Hale" (1873); and "The Idea and Necessity of Normal School Training" (1878). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 618.
SPALDING, Martin John, archbishop, born near Lebanon, Marion County, Kentucky., 23 May, 1810; died in Baltimore, Maryland., 7 February, 1872. In 1821 he was sent to St. Mary's Seminary in Marion County, where he was graduated in 1826. He then studied theology in St. Joseph's Seminary, Bardstown, for four years, and then in the Urban College of the Propaganda, Rome, where he won his doctor's diploma by defending for seven hours in Latin 256 theological propositions against some of the ablest theologians in the city. He was ordained priest on 13 August, 1834, and on his return to Kentucky was charged with the pastorship of the cathedral at Bardstown and with the professorship of philosophy in the diocesan seminary Louvain, which up to 1884 has sent 301 priests to the missions of the United States. At the beginning of the Know-Nothing movement he became involved in a controversy with George D. Prentice, and during the riots in Louisville in 1855 he showed great prudence, his influence probably preventing the disturbances from assuming larger proportions. Bishop Spalding did much to secure hospital accommodations for the sick of the National troops that were encamped around Louisville in the first year of the Civil War. On the death of Archbishop Kenrick in June, 1864, Bishop Spalding was transferred to the see of Baltimore and installed as archbishop on 31 July. He founded the House of the Good Shepherd in Baltimore, and began a boys' protectory, which he placed in charge of the Xaverian Brothers. In 1865 he was appointed administrator of the diocese of Charleston, the bishop of which was unable to return, and made successful appeals to the Roman Catholics of the north in aid of their southern brethren. He also secured important contributions for the American College at Rome. […] Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 619-612.
SPALDING, Rufus Paine, 1798-1886, Massachusetts, lawyer, jurist. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio, 1863-1869. Opposed the extension of slavery into the new territories. In 1847, declared: “If the evil of slavery had been restricted, as it should have been, to the thirteen original states, self-interest might have led to the extinction of the practice long before now.” Spalding joined the anti-slavery Free Soil Party in 1850. He opposed the Fugitive Slave Act. He encouraged fellow attorneys in Cleveland to oppose the Act. He represented Underground Railroad conductor Simon Buswell in his defense, arguing the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional. He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Spalding was elected to Congress in 1862. While there, he introduced legislation to repeal the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. One of the organizers of the Republican Party. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Sinha, 2016, pp. 524, 525; Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 620-621; Congressional Globe.
SPALDING, Rufus Paine, jurist, born in West Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, 3 May, 1798; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 29 August, 1886. He was graduated at Yale in 1817, and subsequently studied law under Zephaniah Swift, chief justice of Connecticut, whose daughter, Lucretia, he married in 1822. In 1819 he was admitted to practice in Little Rock, Arkansas, but in 1821 he went to Warren, Ohio. Sixteen years later he moved to Ravenna, Ohio, and he was sent to the legislature in 1830-'40 as a Democrat, serving as speaker in 1841-'2. In 1840 he was elected judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio for seven years, but when, three years later, the new state constitution was adopted, he declined a re-election and began practice in Cleveland. In l852 he entered political life as a Free-Soiler, and he was one of the organizers of the Republican Party. He was a member of Congress in 1863-'9, where he served on important committees, but he subsequently declined all political honors. Judge Spalding exercised an important influence in restoring the Masonic Order to its former footing after the disappearance of William Morgan. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 620-621.
SPEAR, John Murray, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1846-55, Vice-President, 1843-46. Severely beaten by a mob of pro-slavery supporters in Portland, Maine.
SPARKMAN, James Truslow, reformer, born in Brooklyn, New York, 27 September, 1842. He was educated at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and at Tarrytown Institute, after which he followed a special course of commercial training. In 1861 he entered into business with his father, James D. Sparkman, who was a large importing merchant, with whom he continued until after the Civil War. Mr. Sparkman has been active in politics, although not holding office, and his opinion and counsel are valued by the leaders of the Democratic Party. In recent years he has advocated various measures of reform, notably the labor-day bill, the half-holiday bill, the small-parks bill, and the tenement-house reform bill, and has been uniformly successful in procuring the passage of measures of reformatory legislation. He secured the commutation of the sentence of the these boycotters, who were imprisoned for a long period at a time when public feeling was bitter against them. Mr. Sparkman has contributed to various periodicals. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 621-622.
SPAULDING, Elbridge Gerry, banker, born in Summer Hill, Cayuga County, New York, 24 February, 1809. He is a lineal descendant in the seventh generation of Edward Spaulding, who came from England and settled in Massachusetts soon after the arrival of the Puritans in the "Mayflower." His father, Edward, was a pioneer from New England to central New York. The son studied law in Batavia and Attica, New York, was admitted to practice in Genesee County, and soon afterward moved to Buffalo, New York. He was associated in practice with Heman B. Potter, George R. Babcock, and John Ganson. After accumulating a fortune in the practice of the law he gave his attention to banking, in which he has been equally successful. He was instrumental in causing the moving of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Batavia to Buffalo, and soon thereafter became its president. Upon the passage of the Federal banking-law the bank was reorganized under its provisions with the name of the Farmers' and Mechanics' National Bank, and Mr. Spaulding as president and principal owner. He has been largely identified with public affairs. He was mayor in 1847 and assemblyman in 1848, was a representative in Congress in 1849-'51, having been chosen as a Whig, was state treasurer in 1853, and again elected to Congress as a Republican in 1858, serving till 1863. During his last term in Congress Mr. Spaulding achieved a wide reputation. He was a member of the Ways and Means Committee, and chairman of the sub-committee that was intrusted with the duty of preparing legislative measures. The result was the presentation and passage of the Greenback or Legal-Tender Act, and the National Currency Bank Bill. Both of these were drawn by Mr. Spaulding. They were offered and urged as war measures, and are claimed to be the best financial system that was ever conceived or adopted by any government. Mr. Spaulding is entitled to the credit of formulating these measures and securing their adoption. By reason of his connection with this important legislation he has been called the "Father of Greenbacks." Mr. Spaulding prepared a " History of the Legal-Tender Paper Money used during the Great Rebellion" (Buffalo, 1869), which is regarded as standard authority on the subject. He was chosen to deliver the address before the Banking Association at the Centennial Exposition, in which he gave a review of "One Hundred Years of Progress in the Business of Banking." Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 623-624.
SPEAR, Charles, philanthropist, born in Boston. Massachusetts, 1 May, 1801; died in Washington, D. C, 18 April, 1863. He became a Universalist minister, and was settled over societies in Brewster and Rockport, Massachusetts, but afterward moved to Boston, where he devoted many years to prison-reform, urging upon legislatures the adoption of measures for the benefit and reformation of convicts. He also visited prisons and took discharged convicts to his own home, sometimes six at a time, keeping them till they found employment. During his last efforts in behalf of the prisoners of war in Washington he contracted a disease which resulted in his death. His second wife, Catharine Swan Brown, is now (1888) writing his life. He published "Names and Titles of Christ." (Boston, 1842); "Essays on the Punishment of Death" (1844); "Plea for Discharged Convicts" (1844); and "Voices from Prison." a selection of poems (1849). He edited " The Prisoner's Friend" (Boston, 1848-'54), a monthly periodical, and was connected with several religious newspapers. — His brother, John M., also devoted himself to the cause of prison reform near Boston, and wrote "Labors for the Prisoner " (Boston, 1848); "Messages from the Superior State" (1852); "Twelve Discourses on Government" (1853); and "The Educator " (vol. i., 1857). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 624-625.
SPEAR, Ellis, commissioner of patents, born in Warren, Knox County, Maine, 15 October, 1834. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1858, entered the National Army in August, 1862, as a captain of Maine volunteers, was promoted through the intermediate grades to colonel, and from October, 1863, till February, 1865, commanded a regiment in the Army of the Potomac. He was brevetted for his services at Peebles Farm, where he was in command of a brigade while holding the rank of major, subsequently received the brevet of colonel for gallantry in action, and on 9 April, 1865, that of brigadier-general. He served for a short time as inspector of division, and at the close of the war was in command of a brigade. He was mustered out in July, 1865. In November of that year he became an assistant examiner of railway and civil engineering in the U. S. Patent-Office. He was appointed examiner in 1868, examiner-in-chief in the same bureau in 1872, and Assistant Commissioner of Patents in 1874. In 1876 he resigned and engaged in private business till January, 1877, when he was appointed Commissioner of Patents. He held this office till November, 1878, when he again resigned. He has since been in practice as an attorney and solicitor in patent eases. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 625.
SPEAR, Samuel P., soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1815; died in New York City, 5 May, 1875. He enlisted in the U. S. Army in 1833, and served in the 2d U.S. Dragoons in the Seminole War and through the Mexican Campaign, in which he was wounded at Cerro Gordo. Subsequently he served on the plains against hostile Indians and in the Utah Expedition, and was long sergeant-major of his regiment. In the beginning of the Civil War he entered the volunteer army as lieutenant-colonel of the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry, his commission dating from 25 September, 1861. The regiment was raised as an independent body for scouting service, under authority of the Secretary of War, but in November, 1861, was incorporated in the Pennsylvania state organization. Spear became its colonel on 25 August, 1862. He commanded several expeditions during the war, was brevetted brigadier-general on 13 March, 1865, received severe wounds at Five Forks, and resigned on 9 May, 1865. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 625.
SPEED, James, 1812-1887, Kentucky, lawyer, soldier, statesman, U.S. Attorney General. Ardent opponent of slavery. Early friend of Abraham Lincoln. Emancipation candidate for Kentucky State Constitutional Convention. Unionist State Senator. U.S. Attorney General appointed by President Lincoln in 1864, he served until 1866. Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 625-626; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 440.
SPEED, James, lawyer, born in Jefferson County, Kentucky., 11 March, 1812; died there, 25 June, 1887. He was graduated at St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1828, studied law at Transylvania, and began practice at Louisville. His ancestors were identified with that state from pioneer days, and were active participants in the best political life of the young commonwealth. Inheriting a repugnance to every form of oppression and injustice, he was naturally opposed to slavery, and his well-known opinions on that subject prevented his taking any prominent part in politics until the opening of the Civil War. He was then nearly fifty years old, but he had established his reputation as a jurist, and was recognized even by those wholly opposed to him on the issues of the time as able, consistent, and upright. He also held at this time a chair in the law department of the University of Louisville. A powerful element in Kentucky strove to commit the state to the disunion cause, and against that element he exercised all his talents and influence. To him as much as any one man is ascribed the refusal of Kentucky to join the Confederacy. He became in early manhood a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and their subsequent relations continued to be intimate. When the war came, he promptly yielded to the president’s request that he should assist in organizing the National troops in his native state, and he devoted himself to the cause of loyalty until 1864, when he was made Attorney General of the United States. He was a member of the legislature in 1847, and in 1849 was the Emancipation candidate for the State Constitutional Convention, but was defeated by James Guthrie, pro-slavery. He was a Unionist state senator in 1861-‘3, mustering officer of the U.S. volunteers in 1861 for the first call for 75,000 men, and U.S. Attorney-General of 1864 till 1866 when he resigned from opposition to Andrew Johnson’s administration. He was also a delegate to the Republican Conventions of 1872 and 1876. His last appearance in public was in delivering an address on Lincoln before the Loyal League of Cincinnati, 4 May, 1887. In 1875, he returned to his law professorship. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 625-626.
SPEED, Joshua Fry, merchant, born in Jefferson County, Kentucky., 14 November, 1814; died in Louisville, Kentucky., 29 May, 1882, was educated at the local schools and at St. Joseph's College, Bardstown. After leaving college he spent some time as a clerk in a wholesale mercantile house in Louisville. He next went to Springfield, Illinois, where he kept a country store for seven years, and formed a close and lasting friendship with Abraham Lincoln, then a young man. He took a warm interest in public affairs, and for a time assisted in editing a newspaper, and had intimate association with men of widely different politics and opinions. He returned to Kentucky in 1842 and engaged in farming in Jefferson County. In 1848 he was elected to the legislature, but was never again willing, though often solicited, to hold office. In 1851 he moved to Louisville, gaining a handsome fortune in the real-estate business. In 1861 he embraced with ardor the National cause, and was intrusted with many delicate and important missions by President Lincoln, whom he frequently visited in Washington.[Brother of James Speed, Lawyer]. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 626.
SPEER, William, missionary, born in New Alexandria, Pennsylvania. 24 April, 1822. He was graduated at Kenyon College, Ohio, in 1840, studied medicine under his father, a surgeon of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and divinity at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Alleghany City. He was licensed to preach in 1846, and in the same year was sent with two colleagues by the Presbyterian board of foreign missions to establish their first mission in Canton, China. He devoted himself specially to hospital work and tract distribution. In 1850, having lost his wife and child, and with failing health, he returned home. In 1852 he was sent on a mission to the Chinese in California, as the first preacher in their own tongue. He soon established a Chinese school, opened a dispensary, lectured on the Chinese in various towns, and largely from the funds thus obtained built a brick mission-house. He organized the first Chinese Christian Church in the New World. He founded, and maintained for two years, " The Oriental," a religious and secular paper in Chinese and English devoted to the interests of the emigrants. He greatly influenced religious bodies and thinking people toward throwing open to the Chinese the benefits of Christian civilization. His efforts led to the repeal of the legislative act of 1854-'5, designed to exclude the Chinese from the mines. After devoting five years to this mission he was again obliged to go in quest of health. In 1865 he was called to Philadelphia, to be corresponding secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Education, which he aided in reorganizing, a measure that resulted from the reunion of the two branches of the church, which took place in 1869. In connection with his duties on the board of education he prepared a series of publications, some of which are of permanent value. Relinquishing his educational labors in 1876, Dr. Speer travelled in Japan and China, and has since served the cause of missions on both continents. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him in 1866. His works include “China and the United States " (Hartford. Connecticut., 1870); "The Great Revival of 1800" (Philadelphia, 1872); "God's Rule for Christian Giving" (1875); and sermons, pamphlets, and reviews. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 626.
SPEIR, Samuel Fleet, surgeon, born in Brooklyn, New York, 9 April, 1838. He was educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and at the medical department of the University of the City of New York, where he was graduated in 1860, with three prizes. He also received the prize essay gold medal from the American Medical Association in 1864. After spending two years in study abroad, chiefly in Paris, he settled in his native city, where he still (1888) practices his profession. Dr. Speir has been connected with various hospitals and dispensaries, and during the Civil War served under the U. S. Sanitary Commission. He has contributed to professional literature and is the inventor of a new method of arresting surgical haemorrhage by artery-constriction, for which he received a prize from the State Medical Society in 1871, and of a new method for the differential diagnosis of morbid growths, based on the examination of minute specimens. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 626.
SPENCER, George Eliphaz, senator, born in Jefferson County, New York, 1 November, 1836. He was educated in Montreal, Canada, and after studying law was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1856. Two years later he was secretary of the Iowa Senate, and in October, 1862, he entered the National Army as assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of captain. In the autumn of 1863 he recruited the 1st Alabama Cavalry, of which he became colonel, and during General William T. Sherman's march to the sea he commanded a brigade of cavalry under General Judson Kilpatrick in the Army of the Tennessee. He received the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers on 13 March, 1865, and resigned from the army on 4 July of that year. In May, 1867, he was appointed register in bankruptcy for the 4th District of Alabama, and he was also chosen U. S. Senator from that state as a Republican, serving with re-election from 25 July, 1868, till 3 March, 1879. After he had left the Senate he was active in the prosecution that led to the exposure of the star-route frauds, and in furthering the legislation that reduced letter postage to two cents. In 1881 he was appointed commissioner of the Union Pacific Railroad, and he has since engaged in ranching and mining business in Nevada.—His first wife, Bella Zilfa, born in London. England, 1 March, 1840; died in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 1 August, 1867, came to this country in infancy, and married General Spencer in 1862. She published "Ora, the Lost Wife" (Philadelphia, 1864); "Tried and True, a Story of the Rebellion" (Springfield, 1866); and "Surface and Depth" (1867).—His second wife, William Loring, born in St. Augustine, Florida, is a niece of General William W. Loring, and daughter of Albert A. Nunez. She is called " Major," perhaps because of her masculine name. She married General Spencer in 1877. She has published "Salt-Lake Fruit" (Boston, 1883); "Story of Mary " (New York, 1884; republished as "Dennis Day, Carpet-Bagger," 1887); "A Plucky One " (1887); and "Calamity Jane" (1887). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 629-630
SPENCER, Platt Rogers, originator of the Spencerian system of penmanship, born in East Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York, 7 November, 1800; died in Geneva, Ashtabula County, Ohio, 16 May, 1864. His father, Caleb, a farmer and soldier of the Revolution, died in 1806, and in 1810 the family moved to Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio, then a wilderness. The son was passionately fond of writing. Paper being difficult to get, he wrote on birch-bark, sand, ice, snow, the fly-leaves of his mother's Bible, and by permission of a cobbler, upon the leather in his shop. In 1815 he taught his first writing-class. From 1816 till 1821 he was a clerk and book-keeper, and from 1821 till 1824 he studied law, Latin, English literature, and penmanship, taught in a common school, and wrote up merchants' books. In 1824 he contemplated entering college with a view to preparing for the ministry, but, being a victim of inherited alcoholism aggravated by the prevalent drinking customs, he fell and his plans were changed. He then taught in New York and Ohio. In 1832 he became a total abstainer, and was, as he believed, the first public advocate in this country of that principle, for which he labored during the remainder of his life. Soon after his reformation he was elected to public office, and was county treasurer twelve years. He was instrumental in collecting the early history of Ashtabula County, and was deeply interested in American history, he early engaged actively in the anti-slavery movement and was an advocate of universal liberty. Through his work and influence as a teacher, by his system of penmanship, through his pupils, and by his public addresses and encouragement, he was instrumental in founding the business colleges of the United States and in promoting their growth and development. In the winter of 1864 Mr. Spencer delivered before the business college in Brooklyn, New York, his last lecture, and gave his last course of lessons in the business college in New York City. His first publications on penmanship were issued in 1848 under the name of "Spencer and Rice's System of Business and Ladies Penmanship," later published under the title of "Spencerian or Semi-Angular Penmanship." His other publications on penmanship appeared from 1855 till 1863. The "New Spencerian Compendium," issued in parts, was completed in 1886. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 630-631.
SPENCER, Sara Andrews, reformer, born in Savona, Steuben County, New York, 21 October, 1837. Her maiden name was Andrews. After graduation at the normal school of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1856, she taught until she married Henry C. Spencer, a son of Platt R. Spencer, in 1864 and moved to Washington, D. C. On 14 April, 1871, Mrs. Spencer and seventy-two other women of Washington attempted to register and vote, but were refused. She then brought suit in the supreme court of the District, and Judge David K. Cartter's decision that "women are citizens but have not the right to vote without local legislation" was reaffirmed by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1874. In 1871-'2 Mrs. Spencer defeated the pending bill to license the "social evil" in Washington. In 1873 she secured a bill from the District of Columbia legislature for the reform of outcast girls, and she was also the author of a bill in Congress for a girls' reform-school (1876). From 1874 till 1881 she was secretary of the National Woman Suffrage Association, which she represented at the Republican Presidential Convention in Cincinnati in 1876, and delivered an address. She also engrossed and signed the woman's declaration of rights, presented at the Centennial celebration in Philadelphia. In 1871-'6 she was president of the District of Columbia Woman Franchise Association, and is general secretary of the charity organization Society of the District of Columbia. She has published "Problems on the Woman Question" (Washington, 1871), and "Thirty Lessons in the English Language" (1873). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 631.
SPENCER, Thomas, physician, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1793; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 30 May, 1857. From 1835 till 1850 he was professor of the theory and practice of medicine in Geneva (now Hobart) College, New York, and subsequently he held chairs in medical colleges in Chicago and Philadelphia. Dr. Spencer served as surgeon in the army during the war with Mexico. He was president of the New York Medical Association, and was the author of "Practical Observations on Epidemic Diarrhoea known as Cholera" (Utica, 1832); "Introductory Lecture at Medical Institute of Geneva College " (1842): " Lectures on Vital Chemistry, or Animal Heat" (Geneva, 1844-'5); and a paper on "The Atomic Theory of Life and Vital Heat" (1853). See "Memoir of Dr. Spencer," by Sylvester D. Willard, M. I). (Albany, 1858). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 631.
SPICER, William Francis, naval officer, born in New York City, 7 February, 1820; died in the Boston U.S. Navy-yard, 29 November, 1878. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 21 June, 1839, attended the naval school at Philadelphia in 1843-'5, and became a passed midshipman, 2 July, 1845. He cruised in the steamer " Vixen " during the latter part of the Mexican War in 1846-8, participating in the capture of Tuspan, and was promoted to master, 28 June, 1853, and, lieutenant, 25 February, 1854. His first service during the Civil War was in the steam frigate "Niagara" in 1861. He was commissioned lieutenant-commander, 16 July, 1862, and commander, 2 January, 1863, served in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in command of the steamer " Cambridge," and took part in the attacks on Fort Fisher in 1863-'5. He was commissioned captain, 22 April, 1870, and commanded the monitor "Dictator" in 1874-'5 during the threatened war with Spain on account of the " Virginius" affair, after which he was at the rendezvous at Boston in 1875-'6. He was made commodore, 25 April, 1877, and was commandant of the Boston U.S. Navy-yard until his death. He was well known as a poet and musician, and was the author of several popular ballads, among which are " Absent Friends and you, Mary," "The Gale," "Manhattan's Dear Isle," "Ah, who can tell t" "The Commodore's Return," "Death at Sea," "Coming Home," " All Hands, up Anchor," ' The Old Relief," " Off Scillys Isles," "Adeline," "Maurice," "The Norfolk Girls," "The Date of '39," and " The Last Voyage." Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 631.
SPINNER, Francis Ellias, financier, born in German Flats (now Mohawk), New York, 21 January1802. His father, John Peter (born in Werbach, Baden, 18 January, 1768; died in German Flats, 27 May. 1848), officiated for twelve years as a Roman Catholic priest, then embraced Protestantism, married, emigrated to the United States in 1801, and was pastor of Reformed churches at Herkimer and German Flats until his death, preaching at first in German alone, and afterward alternately in German and English. The son was educated carefully by his father, who required him to learn a trade, and apprenticed him at first to a confectioner in Albany, and afterward to a saddler in Amsterdam, New York. He engaged in trade at Herkimer in 1824, and became deputy sheriff of the county in 1829. He was active in the militia organization, and by 1834 had reached the grade of major-general. In 1835-'7 he was sheriff, and in 1838-'9 commissioner for building the state lunatic asylum at Utica. When he was removed from this post, on political grounds alone, he became cashier of a bank at Mohawk, of which he was afterward president for many years. He held various local offices, was auditor and deputy naval officer in the naval office at New York in 1845-'9, and in 1854 was elected to Congress as an anti-slavery Democrat. He served on the Committee on Privileges and Elections, on a special committee to investigate the assault made by Preston Brooks on Charles Sumner, and on a conference committee of both houses on the Army Appropriation Bill, which the Senate had rejected on account of a clause that forbade the use of the military against Kansas settlers. General Spinner was an active Republican from the formation of the party. He was twice re-elected to Congress, serving altogether from 3 December, 1855, till 3 March, 1861. During his last term he was the chairman of the committee on accounts. When the Lincoln administration was organized, Secretary Salmon P. Chase selected him for the post of Treasurer, which he filled, under successive presidents, from. 16 March, 1861, till 30 June, 1875. When, during the war, many of the clerks joined the army, General Spinner suggested to Secretary Salmon Chase the advisability of employing women in the government offices, and carried into effect this innovation, though not without much opposition. He signed the different series of paper money in a singular handwriting, which he cultivated in order to prevent counterfeiting. When he resigned his office the money in the Treasury was counted, and when the result showed a very small discrepancy, many days were spent in recounting and examining the books of accounts, until finally the mistake was discovered. On retiring from office he went to the south for the benefit of his health, and for some years he has lived in camp at Pablo Beach, Florida. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 632.
SPINOLA, Francis B., soldier, born in Stony Brook, Long Island, New York, 19 March, 1821. He was educated at Quaker Hill Academy, Dutchess County, New York, and engaged in business in New York City, where he was elected alderman and supervisor. He subsequently served as a member of the assembly and as a state senator, and in 1860 was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Charleston, South Carolina. In 1862 he raised the Empire Brigade of New York State Volunteers, and on 1 October he was commissioned as brigadier-general. He served in the National Army till the close of the war. resigning on 8 June, 1865. He was subsequently connected with banking and insurance companies in New York City, returned to the state senate, and in 1886 was elected to Congress for the term that will end on 3 March, 1889. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 633.
SPOFFORD, Ainsworth Rand, librarian, born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, 12 September, 1825, received a classical education by private tuition, but when he was about to enter college his health failed, and he emigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he established himself as a bookseller and publisher. In 1859 he became associate editor of the Cincinnati " Daily Commercial," and in 1861 he was appointed first assistant librarian in the Library of Congress at Washington. Three years later he was made librarian-in-chief. During his administration, the National Library has grown from 70,000 to about 600,000 volumes. The change in the law of copyright that was effected in 1870 has made the position of the librarian an onerous and important one, as all American copyrights are issued from his office, and all copyright publications are required to be deposited in the Congressional Library. As a librarian, Mr. Spofford is widely known for his comprehensive knowledge of books and their contents. He is a member of many historical and philosophical societies, and received the degree of LL. D. from Amherst in 1884. He has written largely for the periodical press on historical, economic, and literary topics, and has published, besides catalogues of the Library of Congress, "The American Almanac and Treasury of Facts, Statistical, Financial, and Political " (annually since 1878); and has edited with others a " Library of Choice Literature " (10 vols., Philadelphia, 1881-8); "Library of Wit and Humor" (5 vols., 1884); and "A Practical Manual of Parliamentary Rules " (1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 634.
SPOONER, Benjamin F., soldier, born in Mansfield, Ohio, 27 October, 1828; died in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 3 April. 1881. At the beginning of the Mexican War he enlisted in the 3d Indiana Regiment, and was chosen 2d lieutenant. After serving in General Zachary Taylor's campaign he returned home, studied law, and practised in Lawrenceburg, holding the office of prosecuting attorney of Dearborn County for several years. At the beginning of the Civil War he became lieutenant-colonel of the 7th Indiana Regiment, with which he fought at Philippi and Laurel Hill, and he afterward held the same commission in the 51st Indiana, with which he was present at Shiloh and the siege of Corinth. He then resigned and returned home, but was soon made colonel of the 83d Indiana, and took part in the engagements around Vicksburg, the battle of Mission Ridge, and the Atlanta Campaign, receiving a wound at Kenesaw Mountain that necessitated the amputation of his left arm. He then served on a military commission till his resignation in April, 1865, and on 13 March of that year was brevetted brigadier-general and major-general of volunteers. He was U. S. Marshal of the District of Indiana till 1879, when failing health compelled him to resign. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 634.
SPOONER, Bourne, Plymouth, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1845-1853, Vice-President, 1863-1864. Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1847-1860.
SPOONER, John Coit, senator, born in Lawrenceburg. Indiana, 6 January, 1843. His father, Judge Philip L. Spooner, was an authority on the law of real estate. The family moved to Madison, Wisconsin in June, 1859, and the son was graduated at the state university in 1864, when he enlisted as a private in the 40th Wisconsin Infantry. He subsequently returned and served as assistant state librarian, but entered the army again as captain in the 50th Wisconsin Regiment. After he was mustered out in July, 1866, with the brevet of major, he studied law with his father, was admitted to the bar in 1867, became Governor Lucius Fairchild's private secretary, and was then assistant in the attorney-general's office till 1870, when he moved to Hudson, Wisconsin, and began the general practice of his profession. He was elected a member of the legislature in 1872, and was active in his support of the state university, on whose board of regents he served in 1882-'5. In 1885 he took his seat in the United States Senate, having been chosen as a Republican for the term that will end in March, 1891. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 634.
SPOONER, Lysander, 1808-1887, lawyer, author, radical abolitionist leader. Wrote, “Unconstitutionality of Slavery,” 1845, “A Defense for Fugitive Slaves,” 1850, and “A Plan for the Abolition of Slavery (and) to tell Non-Slaveholders of the South” in 1858. This was used by the Liberty Party for its political campaigns. Spooner believed the institution of slavery was not supported by the Constitution. He wrote The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1845. He believed that slavery itself had no basis in law historically. He wrote that slavery “had not been authorized or established by any of the fundamental constitutions or charters that had existed previous to this time; … it had always been a mere abuse sustained by the common consent of the strongest party” (Spooner, 1845, p. 65). Spooner was opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act and wrote in 1850, “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves, Against the Acts… of 1793 … 1850.”
(Cover, 1975; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 162; Shivley, Charles, ed., The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner; Wiecek, 1977; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 634-635; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 466; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 750-752; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Vol. 2, pp. 651-652)
SPOONER, Lysander, lawyer, born in Athol, Massachusetts, 19 January, 1808; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 14 May, 1887. He studied law in Worcester, Massachusetts, but on completing his course of reading found that admission to the bar was permitted only to those who had studied for three years, except in the case of college graduates. This obnoxious condition at once engaged his attention and he succeeded in having it removed from the statute-books. In 1844 the letter postage from Boston to New York was twelve and a half cents and to Washington twenty-five cents. Mr. Spooner, believing that the U. S. government had no constitutional right to a monopoly of the mails, established an independent service from Boston to New York, carrying letters at the uniform rate of five cents. His business grew rapidly, but the government soon overwhelmed him with prosecutions, so that he was compelled to retire from the undertaking, but not until he had shown the possibility of supporting the post-office department by a lower rate of postage. His efforts resulted in an act of Congress that reduced the rates, followed in 1851 and subsequent years by still further reductions. Mr. Spooner was an active Abolitionist, and contributed largely to the literature of the subject, notably by his “Unconstitutionality of Slavery” (1845), the tenets of which were supported by Gerrit Smith, Elizur Wright, and others of the Liberty Party, but were opposed by the Garrisonians. He defended Thomas Drew, who in 1870 declined to take his oath as a witness before a legislative committee on the ground that in the matter it was investigating it had no authority to compel him to testify. The case was adversely decided on the ground of precedent, but the principles of Mr. Spooner's argument were afterward sustained by the U.S. Supreme Court. His writings include “A Deistic Reply to the Alleged Supernatural Evidences of Christianity” and “The Deistic Immortality, and an Essay on Man's Accountability for his Belief” (1836); “Credit, Currency, and Banking” (1843); “Poverty, Causes and Cure” (1846); “A Defence for Fugitive Slaves” (1856); “A New System of Paper Currency” (1861); “Our Financiers” (1877); “The Law of Prices” (1877); “Gold and Silver as Standards of Value” (1878); and “Letter to Grover Cleveland on his False Inaugural Address” (1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 634-635.
SPRAGUE, Seth, Duxbury, Massachusetts, abolitionist. American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1848. Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1847-1860.
SPOTTS, James Hanna, naval officer, born in Port Johnson, Wilmington Harbor, North Carolina, 11 March. 1822; died at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, 9 March, 1882. His father was an officer in the U. S. Army, and commanded the artillery under General Andrew Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. In acknowledgment of his bravery, General Jackson presented Major Spotts with a sword. The son entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 2 August, 1837, and made a cruise around the world in the sloop "John Adams" in 1837-'40, in which he participated in two battles on the island of Sumatra with the natives, who had committed piratical acts against American merchant ships. He attended the naval school at Philadelphia in 1842-'3. During the Mexican War he served in the " Lexington " on the Pacific Coast in 1846-'9, participated in the engagements that resulted in the conquest of California, on the blockade of the Mexican Pacific ports, and at the capture of Guaymas, San Blass, and La Paz. He was promoted to master, 8 April, 1851, and to lieutenant, 25 November, 1851. Though a native of the south, he promptly announced his devotion to the Union, taking command of the schooner “Wanderer" in June, 1861, and acted as captain of the port of Key West. In July, 1862, he took charge of the steamer " Magnolia" on the Eastern Gulf blockade. He was promoted to commander, 5 August. 1862, and had the steamer " South Carolina" on the South Atlantic Blockade in 1863-'4 he was transferred to the steamer " Pawtucket," in which he participated in both attacks on Fort Fisher. In June, 18/15, he was detached and ordered to the Mare Island U.S. Navy-yard, where he served until October, 1867. His duties had taken him to California so often that he made his home in San Francisco, and was one of the first naval officers to identify himself with the interests and development of California. He was promoted to captain, 6 August, 1866. commanded the steamers "Saranac " and "Pensacola" in the Pacific Squadron in 1870-'2, and served as light-house inspector on the Pacific Coast in 1872-4, being commissioned commodore, 25 September, 1873. He served as president of the Board of Inspection on the Pacific Coast until 1880. He was promoted to rear-admiral. 28 May, 1881, and took command of the U. S. Naval force on the South Atlantic Station in July. He was on a cruise to visit, the ports of that station when he was stricken with apoplexy while receiving the farewell visit of the British colonial governor at Port Stanley. After his death the authorities gave a lot in the cemetery for his burial, and every honor was paid to the American admiral. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 636.
SPRAGUE, Charles Ezra, author, born in Nassau, Rensselaer County, New York, 9 October, 1842. He was graduated at Union College in 1860, and since 1878 has been secretary of the Union Dime Savings Institution of New York City. During the Civil War he served in the army, was severely wounded at Gettysburg, and was given the brevet of captain in 1865. He is the inventor of the "Sprague checkbook," has devised numerous account-books and forms, and also a savings-bank system for testing the accuracy of accounts, and has written many articles on the subject, on which he has also lectured at Columbia College. Mr. Sprague is the first prominent advocate in this country of the international language that is called Volapuk. Since 1887 he has edited the " Volaspodel," issued as part of "The Office," and he is the author of "Logical Symbolism" (printed privately, New York, 1882), "The Hand-Book of Volapuk " (1888), and "The Story of the Flag," a poem read before the survivors of the 44th New York Regiment (Albany, 1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 637.
SPRAGUE, John Titcomb, soldier, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, 3 July, 1810; died in New York City, 6 September, 1878. In 1834 he became 2d lieutenant in the Marine Corps, and served in the Florida War, being twice promoted for meritorious conduct, and brevetted captain on 15 March, 1842. He was given that full rank in 1846, and brevetted major on 30 May, 1848. He was made major of the 1st U.S. Infantry, 14 May, 1861, and, when stationed with his regiment in Texas, was taken prisoner by General David E. Twiggs, but was released on parole, and became mustering and disbursing officer at Albany, New York, and adjutant-general of the state, with the rank of brigadier-general, holding this post until 1865. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 11th U.S. Infantry in March, 1863, and colonel of the 7th U.S. Infantry on 12 June, 1865, and in that year served in Florida and was made military governor, but retired from the army on 15 July, 1870. He was the author of "Origin, Progress, and Conclusion of the Florida War" (New York, 1848). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 637.
SPRAGUE, John Wilson, soldier, born in White Creek, Washington County, New York, 4 April, 1817. He was educated in common schools, and entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, in 1830, but was not graduated. He then became a merchant, and in 1851-'2 was treasurer of Erie County, Ohio. He was made a captain in the 7th Ohio Volunteers at the beginning of the Civil War, became colonel of the 63d Ohio in 1863, and was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers on 30 July, 1864, receiving the brevet of major-general, U. S. volunteers, on 13 March, 1865. He also declined a lieutenant-colonelcy in the U. S. Army. After the war he was general manager of the Winona and St. Peter Railroad, Minnesota, but moved to Washington Territory in 1870, having been made general agent and superintendent of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which offices he resigned in 1882. Since then he has engaged in various enterprises, and was for five years president of the National Bank in Tacoma, Washington Territory. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 637.
SPRAGUE, William, governor of Rhode Island, born in Cranston, Rhode Island, 3 November, 1799; died in Providence, R. I., 19 October, 1856. He received a good education at an early age, became a member of the assembly, and in 1832 was chosen speaker of the house. He was then elected to Congress as a Democrat, served from 7 December, 1835, till 3 March. 1837, and, declining a re-election, became governor of Rhode Island in 1838-'9. He was elected to the U. S. Senate in place of Nathan P. Dixon, serving from 18 February, 1842, till 17 January, 1844. when he resigned, and was subsequently a member of the Rhode Island legislature. In 1848 he was an elector on the Taylor and Fillmore ticket. He was largely engaged in the manufacture of cotton, and was president of the Hartford, Providence, and Fishkill Railroad, and of two banks. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 638.
SPRAGUE, William, 1830-1930, Union officer. Governor of Rhode Island, 1860-1863. Republican U.S. Senator from Rhode Island. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. (Appletons’, 1888. Vol. V, p. 638; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 457; Congressional Globe)
SPRAGUE, William, governor of Rhode Island, born in Cranston, Rhode Island, 12 September, 1830, received his education in common schools, served in his father's factory, and engaged in making calico-prints. Subsequently he became a manufacturer of linen, woollen goods, and iron, a builder of locomotives, and an owner of railroads and steamships. In 1860-'3 he was governor of Rhode Island. He had served as colonel in the state militia, offered a regiment and a battery of light-horse artillery for service in the Civil War, and with this regiment participated in the battle of Bull Run, where his horse was shot under him. He received a commission as brigadier-general of volunteers, which he declined. He also served in other actions during the Peninsular Campaign, including Williamsburg and the siege of Yorktown. He was chosen to the U. S. Senate as a Republican, was a member of the Committee on Manufactures, and chairman of that on Public Lands, his term extending from 4 March, 1863, till 3 March, 1875, when he resumed the direction of his manufacturing establishments. He operated the first rotary machine for making horseshoes, perfected a mowing-machine, and also various processes in calico-printing, especially that of direct printing on a large scale with the extract of madder without a chemical bath. Governor Sprague claims to have discovered what he calls the “principle of the orbit as inherent in social forces.” He asserts that money is endowed with two tendencies, the distributive and the aggregative, and that when the latter predominates, as before the Civil War, decadence results; but that when the former is in the ascendancy, as was until recently the case, there is progress. He received the degree of A. M. from Brown in 1861, of which university he has been a trustee since 1866. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 638.
SPRING (nee Buffum), Rebecca, abolitionist. Member, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (PFASS). Daughter of abolitionists Arnold and Rebecca Buffum. Married abolitionist, philanthropist Marcus Spring. (Yellin, 1994, pp. 41, 76)
SPRING, Marcus, New York, abolitionist, founded and funded Raritan Bay Union at Eaglewood, New Jersey, an abolitionist community. Husband of abolitionist Rebecca Buffum Spring (Yellin, 1994, p. 76n18)
SPRINGSTEAD, Mary, Cazenovia, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-1853.
STAFFORD, J. S., Cummington, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1850-56.
STANFORD, John C., New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)
STAGER, Anson, soldier, born in Ontario County, New York, 20 April, 1825; died in Chicago, Illinois, 26 March, 1885. At sixteen years of age he entered into the service of Henry O'Reilly, a printer, who subsequently became a pioneer in the building and operating of telegraphs. He followed O'Reilly in his enterprise, and when the latter established a line from Philadelphia to Harrisburg he was placed in charge of the first office at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1846. He then went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he made several improvements in the construction of batteries and, the arrangement of wires, and in 1852 he was made general superintendent of the principal lines in the west at that time. After the consolidation of the Western Union Company with these he was still superintendent, and to his industry and ability the success of these lines is much indebted. At the opening of the Civil War he was asked to take the management of the telegraphs in southern Ohio and along the Virginia line, to which he consented and at once prepared a cipher by which he could safely communicate with those who had the key. In October he was called to Washington and appointed general superintendent of government telegraphs in all departments. He remained in service till September, 1868, and was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers for valuable services. In 1869 General Stager returned to Chicago, and, in addition to his duties as general superintendent, he was the promoter of many enterprises, among which was the Western Electric Manufacturing Company, one of the largest of its kind in the United States. He was also interested in the Babcock Manufacturing Company and several others. He secured a consolidation of the two telephone companies in Chicago, and was president of them and also of the Western Edison Electric Light Company, and a director in many corporations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 642.
STAHEL, Julius, soldier, born in Csongrad, Hungary, 4 November, 1825. After being educated at Budapest, he entered the Austrian Army and had risen from the ranks to be 1st lieutenant when the Hungarian revolution occurred. Stahcl joined the revolutionists and served on the staffs of General Arthur Gorger and General Richard Debaufre Guyon. After the success of the Austrian arms he went to Germany, thence to England, and finally to New York City. There he essayed journalism, and in 1859 was editor of the "Deutsche Illustrirte Familienbatter," an illustrated German weekly. He became, in May, 1861, lieutenant-colonel of the 8th New York Volunteers, commanded that regiment in the first battle of Bull Run, and was made colonel. He was promoted brigadier-general, 12 November, 1861, given a brigade in General Louis Blenker's German division, and took part in the battle of Cross Keys, Virginia., 8 June, 1862. He was subsequently in command of a division of General Franz Sigel's army corps, the 11th, and on 14 March, 1863, was commissioned major-general. He resigned from the army, 8 February, 1865. In 1866 he was made U. S. consul at Yokohama, Japan, but after three years' residence there he was compelled to return on account of impaired health. He was engaged in mining from 1870 till 1877, when he was again appointed consul to Japan. There he remained until March, 1884, when he was made U. S. consul-general at Shanghai, which latter office he resigned in 1885. He has since been engaged in business in New York City. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 642.
STANFORD, Leland, senator, born in Watervliet, Albany County, New York, 9 March, 1824. His ancestors settled in the valley of the Mohawk, New York, about 1720. He was brought up on a farm, and when twenty years old began the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1849, and the same year began to practise at Port Washington, Wisconsin. In 1852, having lost his law library and other property by fire, he moved to California and began mining for gold at Michigan Bluff, Placer County, subsequently becoming associated in business with his three brothers, who had preceded him to the Pacific Coast. In 1856 he moved to San Francisco and engaged in mercantile pursuits on a large scale, laying the foundation of a fortune that has recently been estimated at more than $50,000,000. In 1860 Mr. Stanford made his entrance into public life as a delegate to the Chicago Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. He was an earnest advocate of a Pacific Railroad, and was elected president of the Central Pacific Company when it was organized in 1861. The same year he was elected governor of California, and served from December, 1861, till December, 1863. As president of the Pacific Road he superintended its construction over the mountains, building 530 miles in 293 days, and on 10 May, 1869, drove the last spike at Promontory Point, Utah. He also became interested in other roads on the Pacific slope, and in the development of the agriculture and manufactures of California. In 1885 he was elected to the U. S. Senate for the full term of six years from 4 March, 1886. In memory of his only son, Mr. Stanford has given the state of California $20,000,000 to be used in founding at Palo Alto a university whose curriculum shall not only include the usual collegiate studies, but comprise instruction in telegraphy, type-setting, type-writing, journalism, book-keeping, farming, civil engineering, and other practical branches of education. The corner-stone was laid on 14 May, 1887, and it is expected that the various structures will be so far completed as to afford accommodation for several hundred students by January, 1889. Included in the trust fund for the maintenance of the university is Mr. Stanford's estate at Vina, Tehama County, California, which is said to be the largest vineyard in the world. It comprises 30,000 acres, 3,500 of which are planted with bearing vines. It is divided into 500-acre tracts, and most of the labor is performed by Chinese. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 644.
STANLEY, David Sloan, soldier, born in Cedar Valley, Ohio, 1 June, 1828. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1852. and in 1853 was detailed with Lieutenant Amiel W. Whipple to survey a railroad route along the 35th parallel. As lieutenant of cavalry from 1855 till his promotion to a captaincy in 1861, he spent the greater part of his time in the saddle. Among other Indian engagements he took part in one with the Cheyennes on Solomon's Fork, and one with the Comanches near Fort Arbuckle. At the beginning of the Civil War he refused high rank in the Confederate Army. In the early part of the war has fought at Independence, Forsyth, Dug Springs, Wilson's Creek, Rolla, and other places, and was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, 28 September, 1861. He led a division at New Madrid, and the commanding general reported that he was " especially indebted" to General Stanley for his "efficient aid and uniform zeal." Subsequently he was complimented for his "untiring activity and skill" in the battle of Island No. 10. He took part in most of the skirmishes in and around Corinth and in the battle of Farmington. In the fight near the White House, or Bridge Creek, he repelled the enemy's attack with severe loss, and he was especially commended by General William S. Rosecrans at Iuka. At Corinth, he occupied the line between batteries Robinett and Williams, and was thus exposed to the severest part of the attack of the enemy, and, although other parts of the line gave way, his was never broken. General Stanley was appointed major-general of volunteers on 29 November, 1862. He bore an active part in most of the battles of the Atlanta Campaign, and as commander of the 4th Army Corps he took part in the battle of Jonesboro'. After General George H. Thomas was ordered to Nashville, General Stanley was directed on 6 October to command the Army of the Cumberland in his absence. Until he was severely wounded at Franklin, he took an active part in all the operations and battles in defence of Nashville. His disposition of the troops at Spring Hill enabled him to repel the assault of the enemy's cavalry and afterward two assaults of the infantry. A few days afterward, at Franklin, he fought a desperate hand-to-hand conflict. Placing himself at the head of a reserve brigade, he regained the part of the line that the enemy had broken. Although severely wounded, he did not leave the field until long after dark. When he recovered he rejoined his command, and, after the war closed, took it to Texas. He had received the brevets of lieutenant-colonel for Stone River, Tennessee, colonel for Resaca, Georgia, brigadier-general for Ruff's Station, Georgia, and major-general for Franklin, Tennessee, all in the regular army. He was appointed colonel of the 22d U.S. Infantry, and spent a greater part of the time up to 1874 in Dakota. In command of the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, he successfully conducted his troops through the unknown wilderness of Dakota and Montana, and his favorable reports on the country led to the subsequent emigration thither. In 1874 he went with his regiment to the lake stations, and in 1879 moved it to Texas, where he completely suppressed Indian raids in the western part of the state. He also restored the confidence of the Mexicans, which had been disturbed by the raid that the U. S. troops made across the boundary in 1878. He was ordered to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1882. and placed in command of the district of New Mexico. While he was stationed there, and subsequently at Fort Lewis, complications arose at various times with the Navajos, Utes, and Jicarillas, all of which he quieted without bloodshed. The greater part of his service has been on the Indian frontier, and he has had to deal with nearly every tribe that occupies the Mississippi and Rio Grande Valley, thus becoming perfectly acquainted with the Indian character. In March, 1884. he was appointed a brigadier-general in the regular army, and assigned to the Department of Texas, where he has been ever since. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 644-645.
STANLEY, Henry Morton, explorer, born near Denbigh, Wales, in 1840. His name was originally John Rowlands. He was placed in the poor-house at St. Asaph when he was three years old, remaining there and being educated for ten years. In 1855 he sailed as a cabin-boy to New Orleans, where he was adopted by a merchant, whose name he took instead of his own. This merchant died without leaving a will, and young Stanley enlisted in the Confederate Army, was taken prisoner, and subsequently volunteered in the U. S. Navy, serving as acting ensign on the iron-clad " Ticonderoga." At the close of the war he went as a newspaper correspondent to Turkey. In 1868 he accompanied the British Army to Abyssinia as correspondent of the New York "Herald." When he was in Spain in the service of the same paper he was asked by its proprietor in October, 1869, to go and find Dr. David Livingstone, the African explorer, of whom nothing definite had been heard for more than two years. After attending the opening of the Suez Canal, visiting Constantinople, the Crimea, Palestine, the valley of the Euphrates, Persia, and India, Stanley sailed from Bombay, 12 October, 1870, and reached Zanzibar, on the eastern coast of Africa, early in January, 1871. There he organized his search expedition and set out for the interior on 21 March with 192 followers. On 10 November he found Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, where he had just arrived from the southwest. Stanley furnished Dr. Livingstone with supplies, explored the northern part of Lake Tanganyika with him, and remained till February, 1872, when Livingstone set out on that journey from which he never returned, while Stanley made his way back to the coast, sailing thence on 14 March, 1872, and reaching England late in July. The British Association entertained him at Brighton, where, on 16 August. he gave an account of his expedition. On 27 August the queen sent him a gold snuff-box set with diamonds, and on 21 October a banquet was given him by the Royal Geographical Society. In 1873 he received the patron's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. The New York " Herald " and the London "Daily Telegraph " again sent Stanley to explore the lake region of equatorial Africa. He reached Zanzibar in the autumn of 1874. There learning that Livingstone had died in central Africa, he determined to shape his course northwest and explore the region of Lake Victoria N'yanza. Leaving at the head of 300 men, after many hardships and severe encounters with the natives, he reached it in February, 1875, having lost on the way 104 men by death or desertion. He circumnavigated the lake, sailing about 1,000 miles and minutely examining all the inlets, in a boat that he had brought with him in pieces, and found it to be a single large lake, instead of a series of lagoons, as had been supposed by Richard P. Burton and Livingstone, so that the opinion of the explorers Speke and Grant was confirmed. Thus was Lake Victoria N'yanza proved to be the largest body of fresh water in the world, having an area of 40,000 square miles. On 17 April, 1875, continuing his explorations, he set out westward toward Lake Albert N'yanza, and found that it was not, as had been supposed, connected with Lake Tanganyika. The hostility of the natives barred his further advance, and, forced to return to Ujiji, he resolved to reach the coast by descending the great river that had been discovered by Livingstone, and named the Lualaba. but which Stanley had called the Livingstone in honor of its discoverer. The latter had thought that it might be identical with the Nile; others supposed it to be part of the Congo, and Stanley, by his descent of it, proved that these last, were correct. The descent, chiefly by canoes, took eight months, was accomplished under very great difficulties and privations, and cost him the lives of thirty-five men. On his reaching a west coast settlement, a Portuguese man-of-war took him to St. Paul de Loanda, whence an English vessel conveyed the party to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence to Zanzibar, where what remained of the men who had joined his expedition were left at their own homes. Stanley reached England in February, 1878. On 28 June, 1878, at the Sorbonne, Paris, he was presented with the cross of chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the president of the French Geographical Society. In 1879-82 he was again in Africa, sent out by the Brussels African International Association with a view to develop the great basin of the river Congo. The king of the Belgians devoted £50,000 a year from his own private means toward this enterprise. In 1884 Stanley completed the work, establishing trading-stations along the Congo from its mouth to Stanley pool, a distance by the river of 1,400 miles, and founding the free state of the Congo, but he declined to be its first governor. On 13 January, 1887, he was presented with the freedom of the city of London. At present (August, 1888) he is engaged on an African expedition to the Soudan, sent out for the relief of Emin Pasha. He has published " How I Found Livingstone " (New York. 1872); "Through the Dark Continent,'' an account of his second expedition (1878; abridged ed.. 1885): and "The Congo and the Founding of its Free State" (1885). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 645-646.
STANLY, Edward, statesman, born in New Berne, North Carolina, about 1811; died in San Francisco, California, 12 July, 1872. He was the son of John Stanly, who was several times speaker of the North Carolina Legislature and twice a member of Congress. The son was educated at Captain Alden Partridge's Military Academy in Middletown, Connecticut, studied and practised law, and was elected to Congress as a Whig in 1836, and re-elected for the two succeeding terms. Having left Congress in 1843, he represented Beaufort in the state house of commons from 1844 till 1849, serving during his last term as speaker. In 1847 he was elected attorney-general of the state. He was re-elected to Congress in 1848 and returned for the succeeding term, at the close of which, in 1853, he moved to California, where he practised his profession, and in 1857 was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor. After the capture of New Berne on 14 March, 1862, and the occupation of other points in North Carolina by National troops, President Lincoln appointed Stanly military governor of his native state. The people were embittered by this, and, after vainly endeavoring to consolidate and give effect to the Unionist sentiment in North Carolina, he resigned and returned to California. —His brother, Fabius, naval officer, born in New Berne, North Carolina, 15 December, 1815; died in Washington, D. C, 5 September, 1882, entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 20 December, 1831, was promoted to lieutenant, 8 September, 1841, and during the Mexican War was attached to the Pacific Squadron, where he did good service, participating in the capture and defence of San Francisco and other California ports. He assisted at the capture of Guaymas, where he led the storming party, and commanded a night expedition to a fort twelve miles from that place, where with thirty men he passed through the enemy's lines, spiked the guns, and returned in safety. He was also present at the capture of Mazatlan, commanded the outposts, and had frequent skirmishes with the enemy, in one of which he had a hand-to-hand contest, and received a lance wound in the breast. He was highly commended for his zeal and ability, and received the thanks of two secretaries of the navy for his services in the Mexican War. He commanded steamers of the Pacific Mail Company in 1850-'l. During the Paraguay Expedition he commanded the store-ship "Supply," and in 1859-'60 he had the steamer "Wyandotte" on the south side of Cuba. While he was at Key West he prevented what he supposed to be an attempt by the secessionists to seize Fort Taylor in December, 1860; but the rumor was contradicted, and he was relieved from his command for his excessive zeal, and sent to command the receiving-ship "Independence " in California. He was commissioned commander, 19 May, 1861, and was in the steamer "Narragansett in the Pacific in 1862-'4. He received the thanks of the State Department for his diplomatic services in Mexico during this period. He commanded the " State of Georgia on the coast of South Carolina in 1864-'5, co-operated in the expedition up the Santee, and had charge of the expedition of Bull's Bay. He was commissioned captain, 25 July, 1866, commodore, 1 July, 1870, and rear-admiral, 12 February, 1874. He was retired on 4 June, 1874, on his own application. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 646-647.
STANNARD, George Jerrison, soldier, born in Georgia. Vermont 20 October, 1820; died in Washington, D. C, 31 May, 1886. He received an academic education, worked on his father's farm, teaching in winter, and was a clerk in a foundry from 1840 till 1860, when he became joint proprietor of the business. He was a colonel of militia when the Civil War began, and was the first man in Vermont to offer his services after the president's call for volunteers. He was commissioned as lieutenant-colonel of the 2d Vermont Regiment, which was mustered into the service in May, 1861. He was at the first battle of Bull Run, and while stationed near the Chain Bridge in the following autumn frequently led scouting parties into the enemy's territory. In May, 1862, he was commissioned colonel of the 9th Vermont Infantry, which was stationed at Harper's Ferry when Colonel Dixon S. Miles surrendered that post, and on being paroled went into camp at Chicago. On 11 March, 1863, he was commissioned as brigadier-general. His brigade of Vermont troops came up at the close of the first day's battle at Gettysburg. On the second day he held the left slope of Cemetery hill till he was ordered farther to the left in the afternoon to oppose General James Longstreet's assault after the rout of the 3d Corps. His brigade closed the gap speedily, saving two batteries, retaking another, and capturing two Confederate guns. On the third day it opposed a solid front to General George E. Pickett's division, and, when the Confederate column turned slightly to the left, threw the assailants into confusion by a flanking fire. General Stannard was wounded in the action, and could not return to the field till May, 1864. At Cold Harbor he was struck by a rifle-ball, but brought off the remnant of his command. He led the advance on Petersburg, and was assigned to the command of a division, but was again wounded and, moreover, disabled by sickness. When he rejoined the army after a few weeks of absence he led the advance upon the defences of Richmond north of James River, and captured Fort Harrison, for which he was brevetted major-general on 28 October, 1864, but when the enemy attempted to storm the works on the day after their capture a bullet shattered his arm, necessitating amputation. He returned to his home, and in December, 1864, after the raid on St. Albans, was placed in charge of the defence of the northern frontier of Vermont. He resigned on 27 June, 1866, and was appointed collector of customs for the district of Vermont, which office he held till 1872. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 647.
STANSBURY, Howard, explorer, born in New York City, 8 February, 1806; died in Madison, Wisconsin, 17 April, 1863. Early in life he became a civil engineer, and in October, 1828, he was placed in charge of the survey of proposed canals to unite Lake Erie and Lake Michigan with the Wabash River, and was also engaged in other surveys of western rivers. In 1835 he had charge of numerous public works in Indiana, in 1836 he made a survey of James River with a view toward improving the harbor of Richmond, and in 1837 he surveyed Illinois and Kaskaskia Rivers, being afterward engaged upon the survey for a railroad from Milwaukee to Dubuque, and charged with the construction of a road from Milwaukee to Mississippi River. He became 1st lieutenant of U. S. Topographical Engineers on 7 July, 1838, captain in 1840, and in 1841 was engaged in a survey of the lakes. In 1842-'5 he was in charge of the survey of the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a work which for minute accuracy of detail is unsurpassed in this country. In 1847 he was charged with the construction of an iron light-house on Carysfort Reef, Florida, which is the largest light-house on our coast. From 1849 till 1851 he was engaged in the Great Salt Lake Expedition, his report of which gave him a wide reputation. In 1852-'3 he was engaged upon the lake harbors, and in 1856 he was assigned to the charge of the military roads in Minnesota. He was appointed major on 28 September, 1861, and at the time of his death he was mustering and disbursing officer at Madison. Major Stansbury published " An Expedition to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah" (Philadelphia, 1852; 2d ed., 1855). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 647.
STANTON, Edwin McMasters, 1814-1869, statesman, lawyer, anti-slavery activist. U. S. Secretary of War, 1862-1867. Favored Wilmot Proviso to exclude slavery from the new territories acquired by the U.S. after the War with Mexico in 1846. Member of the Free Soil movement. (Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 65, 67, 69, 72, 144, 147-148; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 648-649; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 517; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 558)
STANTON, Edwin McMasters, statesman, born in Steubenville Ohio, 19 December, 1814; died in Washington, D. C., 24 December, 1869. His father, a physician died while Edwin was a child. After acting for three years as a clerk in a book-store, he entered Kenyon College in 1831, but left in 1833 to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1836, and, beginning practice in Cadiz, was in 1837 elected prosecuting attorney. He returned to Steubenville in 1839, and was supreme court reporter in 1842-'5, preparing vols. xi., xii., and xiii. of the Ohio reports. In 1848 he moved to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1857, on account of his large business in the U. S. Supreme Court, he established himself in Washington. During 1857-'8 he was in California, attending to important land cases for the government. Among the notable suits that he conducted were the first Erie Railway litigation, the Wheeling Bridge Case, and the Manney and McCormick reaper contest in 1859. When Lewis Cass retired from President Buchanan's cabinet, and Jeremiah S. Black was made Secretary of State, Stanton was appointed the latter's successor in the office of Attorney-General, 20 December, 1860. He was originally a Democrat of the Jackson school, and, until Van Buren's defeat in the Baltimore Convention of 1844, took an active part in political affairs in his locality. He favored the Wilmot proviso, to exclude slavery from the territory acquired by the war with Mexico, and sympathized with the Free-Soil movement of 1848, headed by Martin Van Buren. He was an anti-slavery man, but his hostility to that institution was qualified by his view of the obligations imposed by the Federal Constitution. He had held no public offices before entering President Buchanan's cabinet except those of prosecuting attorney for one year in Harrison County, Ohio, and reporter of the Ohio Supreme Court for three years, being wholly devoted to his profession. While a member of Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, he took a firm stand for the Union, and at a cabinet meeting, when John B. Floyd, then Secretary of War, demanded the withdrawal of the United States troops from the forts in Charleston Harbor, he indignantly declared that the surrender of Fort Sumter would be, in his opinion, a crime, equal to that of Arnold, and that all who participated in it should be hung like André. After the meeting, Floyd sent in his resignation. President Lincoln, though since his accession to the presidency he had held no communication with Mr. Stanton, called him to the head of the War Department on the retirement of Simon Cameron, 15 January, 1862. As was said by an eminent senator of the United States: “He certainly came to the public service with patriotic and not with sordid motives, surrendering a most brilliant position at the bar, and with it the emolument of which, in the absence of accumulated wealth, his family was in daily need.” Infirmities of temper he had, but they were incident to the intense strain upon his nerves caused by his devotion to duties that would have soon prostrated most men, however robust, as they finally prostrated him. He had no time for elaborate explanations for refusing trifling or selfish requests, and his seeming abruptness of manner was often but rapidity in transacting business which had to be thus disposed of, or be wholly neglected. As he sought no benefit to himself, but made himself an object of hatred to the dishonest and the inefficient, solely in the public interest, and as no enemy ever accused him of wrong-doing, the charge of impatience and hasty temper will not detract from the high estimate placed by common consent upon his character as a man, a patriot, and a statesman.
Mr. Stanton's entrance into the cabinet marked the beginning of a vigorous military policy. On 27 January, 1862, was issued the first of the president's war orders, prescribing a general movement of the troops. His impatience at General George B. McClellan's apparent inaction caused friction between the administration and the general-in-chief, which ended in the latter's retirement. He selected General Ulysses S. Grant for promotion after the victory at Fort Donelson, which General Henry W. Halleck in his report had ascribed to the bravery of General Charles F. Smith, and in the autumn of 1863 he placed Grant in supreme command of the three armies operating in the southwest, directed him to relieve General William S. Rosecrans before his army at Chattanooga could be forced to surrender. President Lincoln said that he never took an important step without consulting his Secretary of War. It has been asserted that, on the eve of Mr. Lincoln's second inauguration, he proposed to allow General Grant to make terms of peace with General Lee, and that Mr. Stanton dissuaded him from such action. According to a bulletin of Mr. Stanton that was issued at the time, the president wrote the despatch directing the general of the army to confer with the Confederate commander on none save purely military questions without previously consulting the members of the cabinet. At a cabinet council that was held in consultation with General Grant, the terms on which General William T. Sherman proposed to accept the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston were disapproved by all who were present. To the bulletin announcing the telegram that was sent to General Sherman, which directed him to guide his actions by the despatch that had previously been sent to General Grant, forbidding military interference in the political settlement, a statement of the reasons for disapproving Sherman's arrangement was appended, obviously by the direction of Secretary Stanton. These were: (1) that it was unauthorized; (2) that it was an acknowledgment of the Confederate government; (3) that it re-established rebel state governments; (4) that it would enable rebel state authorities to restore slavery; (5) that it involved the question of the Confederate states debt; (6) that it would put in dispute the state government of West Virginia; (7) that it abolished confiscation, and relieved rebels of all penalties; (8) that it gave terms that had been rejected by President Lincoln; (9) that it formed no basis for peace, but relieved rebels from the pressure of defeat, and left them free to renew the war. General Sherman defended his course on the ground that he had before him the public examples of General Grant's terms to General Lee's army, and General Weitzel's invitation to the Virginia legislature to assemble at Richmond. His central motive, in giving terms that would be cheerfully accepted, he declared to be the peaceful disbandment of all the Confederate armies, and the prevention of guerilla warfare. He had never seen President Lincoln's telegram to General Grant of 3 March, 1865, above quoted, nor did he know that General Weitzel's permission for the Virginia legislature to assemble had been rescinded.
A few days before the president's death Secretary Stanton tendered his resignation because his task was completed, but was persuaded by Mr. Lincoln to remain. After the assassination of Lincoln a serious controversy arose between the new president, Andrew Johnson, and the Republican Party, and Mr. Stanton took sides against the former on the subject of reconstruction. On 5 August, 1867, the president demanded his resignation; but he refused to give up his office before the next meeting of Congress, following the urgent counsels of leading men of the Republican Party. He was suspended by the president on 12 August on 13 January, 1868, he was restored by the action of the Senate, and resumed his office. On 21 February, 1868, the president informed the Senate that he had removed Secretary Stanton, and designated a secretary ad interim. Mr. Stanton refused to surrender the office pending the action of the Senate on the president's message. At a late hour of the same day the Senate resolved that the president bad not the power to remove the secretary. Mr. Stanton, thus sustained by the Senate, refused to surrender the office. The impeachment of the president followed, and on 26 May, the vote of the Senate being “guilty,” 35, “not guilty,” 19, he was acquitted—two thirds not voting for conviction. After Mr. Stanton's retirement from office he resumed the practice of law. On 20 December, 1869, he was appointed by President Grant a justice of the Supreme Court, and he was forthwith confirmed by the Senate. Four days later he expired.
The value to the country of his services during the Civil War cannot be overestimated. His energy, inflexible integrity, systematized industry, comprehensive view of the situation in its military, political, and international aspects, his power to command and supervise the best services of others, and his unbending will and invincible courage, made him at once the stay of the president, the hope of the country, and a terror to dishonesty and imbecility. The vastness of his labors led to brusqueness in repelling importunities, which made him many enemies. But none ever questioned his honesty, his patriotism, or his capability. A “Memoir” of Mr. Stanton is at present in preparation by his son, Lewis M. Stanton. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 648-649.
STANTON, Henry, soldier, born in Vermont about 1796; died in Fort Hamilton, New York, 1 August, 1856. He was appointed a lieutenant in the light artillery, 29 June, 1813, assistant deputy quartermaster-general in July, 1813, military secretary to General George Izard in 1814, deputy quartermaster-general, with the rank of major, 13 May, 1820, acting adjutant-general under General Thomas S. Jesup in Florida in 1836-'7, assistant quartermaster-general, with the rank of colonel, 7 July, 1838, and was brevetted brigadier general for meritorious conduct in the Mexican War, 1 January, 1847. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 649.
STANTON, Henry Brewster, 1805-1887, New York, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, abolitionist leader, anti-slavery agent, journalist, author. Worked with William T. Allan and Birney. Financial Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Manager, 1834-1838, Corresponding Secretary, 1838-1840, and Executive Committee of the Society, 1838. Secretary, 1840-1841, and Member of the Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1844. Leader of the Liberty Party. Wrote for abolitionist newspapers. Worked against pro-slavery legislation at state level. Later edited the New York Sun.
(Dumond, 1961, pp. 164, 219, 238-240, 286; Filler, 1960, pp. 68, 72, 134, 137, 156, 189, 301; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14016, 18, 28, 36, 45, 47, 101, 162, 223; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 162; Sorin, 1971 p. 63-67, 97, 131, 132; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 649-650; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 525)
STANTON, Henry Brewster, journalist, born in Griswold, New London County, Connecticut., 29 June, 1805; died in New York City, 14 January, 1887. His ancestor, Thomas, came to this country from England in 1635 and was crown interpreter-general of the Indian dialects, and subsequently judge of the New London County court. His father was a manufacturer of woollens and a trader with the West Indies. After receiving his education, the son went in 1826 to Rochester, New York, to write for Thurlow Weed's newspaper, “The Monroe Telegraph,” which was advocating the election of Henry Clay to the presidency. He then began to make political speeches. He moved to Cincinnati to complete his studies in Lane Theological Seminary, but left it to become an advocate of the anti-slavery cause. At the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York City in 1834 he faced the first of the many mobs that he encountered in his tours throughout the country. In 1837-'40 he was active in the movement to form the Abolitionists into a compact political party, which was resisted by William Lloyd Garrison and others, and which resulted in lasting dissension. In 1840 he married Elizabeth Cady, and on 12 May of that year sailed with her to London, having been elected to represent the American Anti-Slavery Society at a convention for the promotion of the cause. At its close they travelled through Great Britain and France, working for the relief of the slaves. On his return, he studied law with Daniel Cady, was admitted to the bar, and practised in Boston, where he gained a reputation especially in patent cases, but he abandoned his profession to enter political life, and removing to Seneca Falls, New York, in 1847, represented that district in the state senate. He was a member of the Free-Soil Party previous to the formation of the Republican Party, of which he was a founder. Before this he had been a Democrat. For nearly half a century he was actively connected with the daily press, his contributions consisting chiefly of articles on current political topics and elaborate biographies of public men. Mr. Stanton contributed to Garrison's “Anti-Slavery Standard” and “Liberator,” wrote for the New York “Tribune,” and from 1868 until his death was an editor of the New York “Sun.” Henry Ward Beecher said of him: “I think Stanton has all the elements of old John Adams; able, stanch, patriotic, full of principle, and always unpopular. He lacks that sense of other people's opinions which keeps a man from running against them.” Mr. Stanton was the author of “Sketches of Reforms and Reformers in Great Britain and Ireland” (New York, 1849), and “Random Recollections” (1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 649-650.
STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, 1815-1902, reformer, suffragist, abolitionist leader, co-founder of the Women’s National Loyal League in 1863, co-founded American Equal Rights Association (AERA) in 1866
(Drake, 1950; Filler, 1960, pp. 35, 137, 277; Gordon, Ann D., ed., The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, 1997; Griffiths, Elizabeth, In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1984. Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 47, 170, 388, 465, 519; Sorin, 1971, pp. 66-67; Wellman, Judith, The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Women’s Rights Convention, 2004; Yellin, 1994, pp. 30, 85-87, 149, 157, 301, 302n; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 650; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 521; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 562; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Vol. 2, pp. 655-656)
STANTON, Elizabeth Cady, reformer, born in Johnstown, New York, 12 November, 1815, is the daughter of Judge Daniel Cady, and, after receiving her first education at the Johnstown Academy, was graduated at Mrs. Emma Willard's seminary in Troy, New York, in 1832. While attending the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 she met Lucretia Mott, with whom she was in sympathy, and with whom she signed the call for the first Woman's Rights Convention. This was held at her home in Seneca Falls, on 19 and 20 July, 1848, on which occasion the first formal claim of suffrage for women was made. She addressed the New York Legislature on the rights of married women in 1854, and in advocacy of divorce for drunkenness in 1860, and in 1867 spoke before the legislature and the constitutional convention, maintaining that during the revision of the constitution the state was resolved into its original elements and that citizens of both sexes had a right to vote for members of that convention. She canvassed Kansas in 1867 and Michigan in 1874, when the question of woman suffrage was submitted to the people of those states, and since 1869 she has addressed congressional committees and state constitutional conventions upon this subject, besides giving numerous lectures. She was president from 1855 till 1865 of the national committee of her party, of the Woman's Loyal League in 1863, and of the National Woman Suffrage Association until 1873. In 1868 she was a candidate for Congress. She has written many calls to conventions and addresses, and was an editor with Susan B. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury of “The Revolution,” which was founded in 1868, and is joint author of '”History of Woman's suffrage” (vols. i. and ii., New York, 1880; vol. iii., Rochester, 1886).—Their son, Theodore, journalist, born in Seneca Falls, New York, 10 February, 1851, was graduated at Cornell in 1876. In 1880 he was the Berlin correspondent of the New York “Tribune,” and he is now (1888) engaged in journalism in Paris, France. He is a contributor to periodicals, translated and edited Le Goff's “Life of Thiers” (New York, 1879), and is the author of The Woman Question in Europe” (1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 650.
STANTON, Oscar Fitzalan, naval officer, born in Sag Harbor, New York, 18 July, 1834. He entered the U.S. Navy as acting midshipman, 29 December, 1849, and was warranted midshipman from the same date. He was graduated at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1855, promoted to master, 16 September, 1855, and commissioned lieutenant, 2 April, 1856, serving in the steamer “Memphis,” on the Paraguay Expedition, in 1858–9, on the coast of Africa in 1859–60, and in the sloop “St. Mary's,” of the Pacific Squadron, from December, 1860, till April, 1862. He was commissioned lieutenant-commander, 16 July, 1862, commanded the steamer “Tioga,” in the special West India Squadron, in 1862–3, and the steamer “Panola,” on the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, in 1863–4. In 1865 he was on ordnance duty at New York, after which he served at the Naval Academy until May, 1867. He was promoted to commander, 12 December, 1867, and had charge of the steamer “Tahoma,” of the North Atlantic Squadron, and the “Purveyor,” on special service, in 1867–9. He commanded the receiving-ship at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1871, the steamer “Monocacy,” on the Asiatic Station, from 1872 until 1874, when he was transferred to the “Yantic.” He was promoted to captain, 11 June, 1879, and in November, 1881, went on duty at the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia, where he remained until November, 1884, when he took command of the steam frigate “Tennessee,” flag-ship of the North Atlantic Station. Since 31 October, 1885, he has had command of the naval station at New London, Connecticut. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 650.
STANTON, Richard Henry, jurist, born in Alexandria, Virginia., 9 September, 1812. He received an academic education, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised in Maysville, Kentucky. Being elected to Congress as a Democrat, he served from 3 December, 1849, till 3 March, 1855, and he was presidential elector on the Buchanan ticket in 1856, state attorney for his judicial district in 1858, a delegate to the National Democratic Convention in 1868, and district judge in 1868–’74. He has edited the “Maysville Monitor" and the “Maysville Express," and published a “Code of Practice in Civil and Criminal Cases in Kentucky” (Cincinnati, 1855); “Practical Treatises for Justices of the Peace, etc., of Kentucky” (1861); and a “Practical Manual for Executors, etc., in Kentucky” (1862).—His brother, Frederic Perry, lawyer, born in Alexandria, Virginia, 22 December, 1814, obtained through his own exertion a good education, and was graduated at Columbian College in 1833. He studied law, was admitted to the bar of Alexandria in 1834, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he practised his profession. He was elected to Congress as a Democrat, serving from 1 December, 1845, till 3 March, 1855, and in 1853-'5 was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In 1857 he was appointed secretary of Kansas Territory, and he was governor of Kansas from 1858 till 1861. In 1863–14 he edited with Robert J. Mather the “Continental Monthly,” and he has published numerous speeches in pamphlet form.—Richard Henry's son, Henry Thompson, poet, born in Alexandria, Virginia, 30 June, 1834, was educated at several colleges in Kentucky and at the U. S. Military Academy, but was not graduated. He served as captain and major in the Confederate Army. For several years he has been connected with the U. S. Indian Commissioners in selecting lands for Indian reservations. He has invented an iron tie for binding cotton-bales, and is the author of “The Moneyless Man, and other Poems” (Baltimore, 1872). From 1875 till 1886 he edited the “Kentucky Yeoman.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 650.
STANWOOD, Atkinson, Newburyport, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1855-60-
STEARNS, Frank Preston, 1846-1917, writer, abolitionist. Worked with abolitionist leader Elizur Wright. Member of and active in American Anti-Slavery Society. (Stearns, 1907)
STAPLES, Waller Redd, jurist, born in Patrick Court-House, Patrick County, Virginia, 24 February, 1826. He was graduated at William and Mary in 1846, studied law, and was admitted to practice in 1848. He served in the legislature in 1853-'4, was presidential elector on the Whig ticket in 1855 and 1860, and one of four commissioners to the Provisional Congress that met in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1861. He served in the Confederate Congress for the subsequent three years, and took an active part in its deliberations. In 1870-'82 he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia. He was one of the three revisers of the code of laws for the state in 1884-'6, elector on the Democratic presidential ticket in 1884, and is now (1888) counsel for the Richmond and Danville Railroad. During his term on the bench he acquired a national reputation for the learning, soundness, and conservatism that characterized his opinions. He also takes high rank as a political speaker. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 651.
STARBUCK, Calvin Washburn, journalist, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 20 April, 1822; died there, 15 November, 1870. He was educated at the public schools of his native city, but, as his parents' means were limited, he began very early to support himself. He learned the printing trade, and, having saved a little money, established, at nineteen, the Cincinnati “Times," an afternoon newspaper. Being the fastest type-setter in Ohio, he prepared a large part of the paper for years, and also assisted m distributing it to subscribers. It rapidly gained success, and its weekly edition had at one time the largest circulation in the west. To his exertions and generosity are mainly due the Relief Union, the Home of the friendless, and other charitable institutions of Cincinnati, while his private gifts were many and constant. During the Civil War he strove by voice and pen to establish the National credit when the government needed money. To the families of the men in his employment who had enlisted he continued their regular pay while they were in the service. When in 1864 the governor of Ohio tendered the home-guards of the state to the country for a hundred days, Starbuck left his business and went into the field. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 651-652.
STARK, Benjamin, U. S. Senator, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, 26 June, 1820. He was graduated at Union School, New London, Connecticut, in 1835, entered a counting-house in New York, and became a merchant. In 1845 he moved to Oregon, and engaged in trade with the Sandwich Islands, but studied law in 1850, was admitted to the bar of Oregon, and began practice in Portland, of which city he was a founder. He was a member in 1853 of the territorial house of representatives, and in 1860 of the state house of representatives, and was appointed a U. S. Senator from Oregon as a Democrat, in place of Edward D. Baker, serving from 27 February, till 1 December, 1862. He was a delegate from Oregon to the National Democratic Convention at Chicago in 1864, and from Connecticut to the one in New York in 1868. Since 1867 he has been a member of the Board of Education of New London, Connecticut, a director of the New London Northern Railroad Company, and since 1871 a deputy to the conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 652.
STARKWEATHER, John Converse, soldier, born in Cooperstown, New York, 11 May, 1830. His father. George Anson (born in Connecticut in 1794; died in Cooperstown, New York, in 1878), was graduated at Union in 1819, held local offices in Otsego, New York, was colonel of the New York 12th Artillery, and was elected to Congress as a Democrat, serving from 6 December, 1847, till 3 March, 1849. After graduation at Union in 1850, the son moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and practised law until 1861. On 17 May, 1861, he was made colonel of the 1st Wisconsin Volunteers, took part in the battles of Falling Waters, 2 July, 1861, and Edward's Ferry, 29 July, 1861, and was mustered out on 21 August, 1861. Reorganizing his regiment for three years, by special order of the War Department he again enlisted, and served in Kentucky and northern Alabama. He participated in the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, 8 October, 1862. He was also engaged at Stone River, 31 December, 1862, and 1–2 January, 1863, and remained on duty at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, until 23 June, 1863. He was appointed brigadier-general of U.S. volunteers on 17 July, 1863, commanded brigades and divisions in the Army of the Ohio and in the Army of the Cumberland, participated in the attack at Chickamauga, 19–21 September, 1863, where he was wounded, in battles around Chattanooga, Tennessee, 23–25 November, 1863, and in the assault and capture of Mission Ridge, Tennessee, 23–25 November, 1863. He served on the court-martial that tried General William A. Hammond, surgeon-general, U. S. Army (q. v.), and, after commanding several posts in Tennessee and Alabama, he was mustered out of the army on 11 May, 1865. After farming for several years in Wisconsin, and occupying posts of importance and trust, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he now (1888) practices law, having been admitted to the bar in 1857.—His cousin, Henry Howard, lawyer, born in Preston, New London County, Connecticut, 29 April, 1826; died in Washington, D.C., 28 January, 1876, was educated in public schools, studied law, was admitted to the bar, served in the Connecticut Legislature in 1856, and was a delegate to the National Republican Conventions that nominated Lincoln in 1860 and Grant in 1868. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln to be postmaster at Norwich, and he was reappointed by President Johnson in 1865, but resigned in 1866. He was then chosen to Congress as a Republican, and served from 4 March, 1867, until his death, being thrice reelected. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 653-654.
STEARNS, Charles Woodward, physician, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1818; died in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, 8 September, 1887. He was graduated at Yale in 1837, and took his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1840. After practising for some time he entered the army as a surgeon, subsequently travelled and studied in Europe, and at the opening of the Civil War re-entered the service as surgeon of the 3d New York Regiment. He was on service at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Suffolk, Virginia., Fortress Monroe, and in the field. Dr. Stearns was widely known as an enthusiastic Shakespearean student and writer. His principal works are "Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge " (New York, 1865): "The Shakespeare Treasury of Wisdom and Knowledge " (1869); and "Concordance of the Constitution of the United States " (1872). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 655.
STEARNS, George Luther, 1809-1867, Medford, Massachusetts, merchant, industrialist, Free Soil supporter, abolitionist. Chief supporter of the Emigrant Aid Company which financed anti-slavery settlers in the Kansas Territory. Founded the Nation, Commonwealth, and Right of Way newspapers. Member of the “Secret Six” who secretly financially supported radical abolitionist John Brown, and his raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, (West) Virginia, on October 16, 1859. Recruited African Americans for the all-Black 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiments, U.S. Army. (Filler, 1960, p. 268; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 207, 327, 338; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 655; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 543)
STEARNS, George Luther, merchant, born in Medford, Massachusetts, 8 January, 1809; died in New York, 9 April, 1867. His father, Luther, was a teacher of reputation. In early life his son engaged in the business of ship-chandlery, and after a prosperous career undertook the manufacture of sheet and pipe-lead, doing business in Boston and residing in Medford. He identified himself with the anti-slavery cause, became a Free-Soiler in 1848, aided John Brown in Kansas, and supported him till his death. Soon after the opening of the Civil War Mr. Stearns advocated the enlistment of Negroes in the National Army. The 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments, and the 5th Cavalry (colored), were largely recruited through his instrumentality. He was commissioned major through the recommendation of Secretary of War Stanton, and was of great service to the National cause by enlisting Negroes for the volunteer service in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. He was the founder of the “Commonwealth” and “Right of Way” newspapers for the dissemination of his ideas. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 655.
STEBBINS, Giles B., Wisconsin, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1850-1851, 1851-1852, Manager, 1852-1853.
STEDMEN, William, Randolph, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1848-1856.
STEARNS, John, physician, born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, 16 May, 1770; died in New York City, 18 March, 1848. He was graduated at Yale in 1789, and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1812. He settled at Waterford, New York, in 1793, was in the New York Senate in 1809-'13, in 1810 moved to Albany, and in 1819 went to New York City, where he remained till his death. He originated the Saratoga County Medical Society, and in 1807 the Medical Society of the State of New York, and in 1846 was the first president of the New York Academy of Medicine. He was also a founder of the American Tract Society. He contributed valuable medical discoveries to the New York "Medical Repository," and published numerous addresses (1818-'47). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 655.
STEARNS, Ozora Pierson, soldier, born in De Kalb, Lawrence County, New York, 15 January, 1831. He was educated at Oberlin College and Michigan University, where he was graduated in the literary department in 1858, and in law in 1860. Immediately after his graduation he began practice in Rochester, Minnesota, and shortly afterward was elected prosecuting attorney for Clinton County. In August, 1862, he entered the National Army as 1st lieutenant in the 9th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, and in April, 1864, he was commissioned colonel of the 39th Regiment of U. S. Colored Infantry. His regiment suffered severely at the mine-explosion before Petersburg on 30 July. He accompanied General Benjamin F. Butler on his Fort Fisher Expedition, was with General Alfred H. Terry at the capture of that fort, and afterward remained with his command in North Carolina until he was mustered out of the service in December, 1865. He then returned to Rochester, Minnesota, was soon afterward offered the professorship of agriculture in Cornell University, which he declined, was again elected county attorney, and then appointed register in bankruptcy. In 1871 he was elected U. S. Senator for the unexpired term of Daniel S. Norton, deceased, and served for a short period. In the spring of 1872 he moved with his family to Duluth, and two years later became judge of the 11th Judicial District of Minnesota, which office he has held ever since. He is in favor of granting the right of suffrage to women.—His wife, Sarah Burger, reformer, born in New York City, 30 November, 1836, is the daughter of Edward G. Burger. She was educated chiefly at the Ann Arbor High-School, and the State Normal School, Ypsilanti, Michigan. In 1858 and afterward she made formal application to be admitted as a student to the Michigan State University, which, though it was refused, had an influence in finally deciding the regents in 1869 to make their classes open to women. During the Civil War Mrs. Stearns was well known as a worker on the Sanitary Commission, and lectured on behalf of the soldiers' societies in Michigan and elsewhere. She married Colonel Stearns in 1863, and moved to Minnesota in 1866. For many years she has been vice-president for Minnesota of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She is president of the Duluth Home Society, and was instrumental in establishing a temporary home for needy women and children in that city. She has been active for years as an advocate of woman's rights. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 656.
STEDMAN, Edmund Clarence, poet, born in Hartford, Connecticut, 8 October, 1833. He is the son of Edmund B. Stedman, a merchant of Hartford, and Elizabeth C. Dodge, a sister of William E. Dodge, who, subsequent to the death of Mr. Stedman in 1835, married William B. Kinney. Through his mother Mr. Stedman is further related to William Ellery Channing and to Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe. He was prepared for college by his great-uncle, James Stedman, and entered Yale in 1849. As an under graduate he distinguished himself in Greek and in English composition. His poem of "Westminster Abbey," published in the "Yale Literary Magazine" in 1851, received a first prize. In his junior year he was suspended for irregularities, and he did not return to receive his degree, but in 1871 the college authorities restored him to his class, and conferred on him the degree of A. M. He became editor of the Norwich " Tribune " in 1852, and in 1854 of the Winsted "Herald," but two years later he relinquished this post after establishing some reputation for the pure literary tone of his journal. He then moved to New York City, where for many years he contributed to "Vanity Fair," " Putnam's Monthly," "Harper's Magazine." and other periodicals. After a hard struggle for a competence, he drifted into journalism. His poems, " The Diamond Wedding," a widely read satire on a society event, " How Old John Brown took Harper's Ferry," " The Ballad of Lager-Bier," and similar lyrics, appeared in the "Tribune" during 1859, and their success led him to issue his " Poems, Lyric and Idyllic " (New York, 1860). In 1860 he joined the editorial staff of the "World," and he was its war-correspondent in 1861-3. during the early campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, from the headquarters of General Irvin McDowell and General George B. McClellan, and then from Washington. He afterward accepted a confidential appointment under Attorney-General Bates, but in 1864 he returned to New York, and relinquished journalism to adopt some pursuit that would afford him more leisure for literary work. Mr. Stedman soon purchased a seat in the stock exchange, and became a broker. His poetry of this period is included in his "Alice of Monmouth, an Idyl of the Great War, and other Poems" (New York, 1864), which was followed by "The Blameless Prince, and other Poems " (Boston, 1809). A collective edition of his "Poetical Works " was published in 1873. With Thomas B. Aldrich he edited "Cameos " (Boston, 1874), selected from the works of Walter Savage Landor; also, with an introduction, " Poems of Austin Dobson " (New York, 1880). About 1875 he began to devote attention to critical writing, and contributed to "Scribner's Monthly" a series of sketches of the poets and poetry of Great Britain from the accession of Queen Victoria to the present time, which were rewritten and published as " Victorian Poets " (Boston, 1875; London, 1876; 13th ed., with a supplement, bringing it down to 1887). In a similar manner he prepared " Poets of America," a critical review of American poets and poetry (Boston, 1886). At present he is engaged with Ellen M. Hutchinson in editing a " Library of American Literature," to be completed in ten volumes, of which three are now published (1888). Mr. Stedman has delivered several poems on public occasions. Of these the more important are " Gettysburg." read at the annual meeting of the Army of the Potomac in Cleveland in 1871, and the "Dartmouth Ode," delivered in 1873 before that college. In 1870 he read "The Monument of Greeley " at the dedication in Greenwood cemetery of the printers' monument to Horace Greeley, and in 1878 he delivered his poem on "The Death of Bryant" before the Century Club. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Yale class of 1853 he read " Meridian, an Old-Fashioned Poem," and in July, 1881, his "Corda Concordia" was read before the Summer School of Philosophy. He has also been engaged at intervals during many years on a complete metrical translation of the Greek idyllic poets. His other publications include " Rip Van Winkle and His Wonderful Nap" (Boston, 1870); "Octavius Brooks Frothingham and the New Faith" (New York, 1876); "Favorite Poems" (Boston, 1877); "Hawthorne, and other Poems" (1877); "Lyrics and Idylls, with other Poems " (London, 1879); "The Raven, with Comments on the Poem" (Boston, 1883); and a "Household Edition" of his poems (1884).—His cousin. Alexander Griffin, soldier, born in Hartford, Connecticut, 6 January, 1838; died near Petersburg, Virginia, 6 August, 1864, was graduated at Trinity in 1859, and began to study law, but in 1861 entered the volunteer army as captain in the 5th Connecticut Regiment. He was transferred to the 11th Connecticut as major after seeing service in the Shenandoah Valley, and took part in the battle of Antietam, leading half of the regiment in the charge on the stone bridge, and receiving a severe wound. He commanded the regiment at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, and at the beginning of the Overland Campaign of 1864 was placed at the head of a brigade. He repeatedly won the commendation of his superiors, and was mortally wounded in one of the skirmishes that followed the mine-explosion at Petersburg. Fort Stedman, one of the works near that place, had been named for him. He had been strongly recommended for promotion to brigadier-general, and was given that rank by brevet, to date from 5 August, 1864. His grave at Hartford is marked by a monument of granite and bronze. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 658.
STEEDMAN, Charles, naval officer, born in Charleston, South Carolina, 24 September, 1811. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman, 1 April, 1828, became a passed midshipman, 14 January, 1834, and cruised in the Mediterranean in the frigates "Constitution" and " United States." He was promoted to lieutenant, 25 February, 1841, and during the Mexican War served in the sloop "St. Mary's " in 1846-'7. At the bombardment of Vera Cruz he commanded the siege-guns in the naval battery on shore, and he participated in other operations on the coast and in the boat expedition that captured Tampico. He was commissioned commander, 14 September, 1855, and in the Paraguay Expedition commanded the brig "Dolphin." Notwithstanding the efforts of his family and friends in his native state to induce him to join the seceded states, he remained loyal and rendered valuable service to the Union. He immediately asked for duty, took command of the railroad ferry steamer " Maryland," and conveyed General Benjamin F. Butler with the 8th Massachusetts Regiment from Havre de Grace to Annapolis, Maryland, in April, 1861. He then went to the west temporarily and assisted Admiral Foote in organizing the naval forces that operated on the Mississippi River in the gun-boats. In September, 1861, he commanded the steamer " Bienville," in which he led the second column of vessels at the capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, and participated in operations on the coast of Georgia and Florida. He returned north in the spring, and took command of the steamer "Paul Jones," in which he assisted in the capture of Fort McAllister, on Ogeechee River, in August, 1862, and operated on St. John's River, Florida, during the following month. He was promoted to captain, 13 September, 1862, and in the steamer " Powhatan " took part in the blockade off Charleston and in several engagements there. He then towed the captured ram "Atlanta " to Philadelphia, took command of the steamer " Ticonderoga, and went to the coast of Brazil in pursuit of the Confederate cruiser "Florida" until November, 1864. He participated in the two attacks on Fort Fisher, remained in command of the " Ticonderoga" on a cruise in the Mediterranean, and returned in command of the steam frigate "Colorado" in September, 1867. He was promoted to commodore, 25 July, 1866, and was in charge of the Boston U.S. Navy-yard in 1869-'72. He was made a rear-admiral, 25 Mav, 1871, and retired, 24 September, 1873. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 659.
STEEDMAN, James Barrett, soldier, born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, 30 July, 1818; died in Toledo, Ohio, 18 October, 1883. He went to Ohio in 1837 as a contractor on the Wabash and Erie canal, and in 1843 was chosen to the legislature of that state as a Democrat. In 1849 he organized a company to cross the plains to California in search of gold, but he returned in 1850, and in 1851 became a member of the Ohio board of public works. During Buchanan's administration he was public printer at Washington, and in 1860 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention at Charleston, advocating the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas. At the opening of the Civil War he became colonel of the 4th Ohio Regiment, and was ordered to western Virginia. After taking part in the battle of Philippi he joined General Don Carlos Buell in Kentucky, was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers, 17 July, 1862, and rendered valuable service at Perryville, arriving on the battle-field just in time to drive back the enemy, who had broken the National line and were pushing a heavy column toward the gap. In July, 1863, he was placed in command of the 1st Division of the reserve corps of the Army of the Cumberland. At the battle of Chickamauga he re-enforced General George H. Thomas at a critical moment, and it has been claimed that he thus saved the day, though credit for ordering the movement is usually given to General Gordon Granger. For his services here he was promoted major-general, 24 April, 1864. He was afterward active in the Atlanta Campaign, relieving the garrison at Dalton and defeating General Joseph G. Wheeler's cavalry in June, 1864. When Sherman marched to the sea he joined General Thomas, and did good service at Nashville. He resigned on 19 July, 1866, after serving as provisional governor of Georgia, and was appointed U. S. collector of internal revenue at New Orleans bv President Johnson, whose close friend he was. Here his lack of business ability involved him in financial trouble, and he returned to Ohio, where in 1879 he was chosen to the state senate, but was defeated in a second canvass. In the May before his death he became chief of police of Toledo, and he was editor and nominal owner of the " Weekly Ohio Democrat." On 26 May, 1887, a fine monument was dedicated to his memory in Toledo. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 659.
STEEL, William, 1809-1881, reformer, abolitionist leader, southeastern Ohio, active in Underground Railroad Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 659.
STEEL, William, reformer, born in Biggar, Scotland, 26 August, 1809; died in Portland, Oregon, 5 January, 1881. He came to the United States with his parents in 1817 and settled near Winchester, Virginia., but moved soon afterward to Monroe County, Ohio, where, from 1830 till the Civil War, he was an active worker in the “Underground Railroad,” of which he was one of the earliest organizers. During these years large numbers of slaves were assisted to escape to Canada, and in no single instance was one retaken after reaching him. At one time the slave-holders of Virginia offered a reward of $5,000 for his head, when he promptly addressed the committee, offering to bring it to them if the money were placed in responsible hands. He acquired a fortune as a merchant, but lost it in 1844. From 1872 till his death he resided with his sons in Oregon. In the early days of the anti-slavery movement Mr. Steel was the recognized leader of the Abolitionists in southeastern Ohio. He was at one time a candidate of the Liberty Party for Congress, and in 1844 circulated in eastern Ohio the “great petition,” whose signers agreed to vote for Henry Clay if he would emancipate his one slave. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 659.
STEELE, John B., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)
STEPHENS, George E., 1832-1888, African American, journalist, soldier, abolitionist. Wrote for the New York Weekly Anglo-African newspaper. Enlisted and fought in 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Supported equal pay for colored troops in the Union Army. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 10, p. 509)
STEPHENS, Uriah Smith, 1821-1882, labor leader, abolitionist leader (Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 581; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 759-762)
STERLING, G.W., Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1841-42
STERLING, John M., Cleveland, Ohio, abolitionist. Manager, 1833-1840, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)
STEVENS, Aaron Dwight, 1831-1860, militant abolitionist. Chief aid to abolitionist John Brown in his unsuccessful raid on the U.S. Arsenal in Harper’s Ferry. He was tried and executed for this action on March 16, 1860.
STEVENS, John L., 1820-1895, author, journalist, clergyman, newspaper publisher, diplomat, anti-slavery activist and leader, political leader. Co-founder of the Republican Party in Maine. Co-owner and editor of the Kennebec Journal in Augusta.
STEELE, Frederick, soldier, born in Delhi, New York, 14 January, 1819; died in San Mateo, California, 12 January, 1868. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1843, and served as 2d lieutenant in the Mexican War, receiving the brevets of 1st lieutenant and captain for gallant conduct at Contreras and Chapultepec respectively. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant, 6 June, 1848, and served in California till 1853, and then principally in Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska till the Civil War, receiving his captain's commission on 5 February, 1855. He was promoted to major on 14 May, 1861, and commanded a brigade in Missouri from 11 June, 1861, till April, 1862, being engaged at Dug Spring and Wilson's Creek, and also in charge of the southeastern district of that state after February. He had become colonel of the 8th Iowa Regiment on 23 September, 1861, and on 29 January, 1862, was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers. He led a division in the Army of the Southwest from May till November, 1862, being engaged at Round Hill, 7 July, and in the occupation of Helena, Arkansas. On 29 November he was made major-general of volunteers, and, after engaging in the Yazoo Expedition, he commanded a division in the Vicksburg Campaign, taking part in the operations at Young's Point, the advance to Grand Gulf, the attack on Jackson, and the siege of Vicksburg. For his services in this campaign he received the brevet of colonel in the regular army, 4 July, 1863, and on 26 August he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel. From July, 1863, till 6 January, 1864, he was at the head of the Army of Arkansas, taking part in the capture of Little Rock, 10 September, 1863, and then till 29 November he commanded the department of that state. He led a column in the Mobile Campaign, and at the close of the war received the brevet of brigadier-general, U.S. Army, for services in the capture of Little Rock, and that of major-general for services during the war. He was then transferred to Texas, and placed in command on the Rio Grande, and from 21 December, 1865, he had charge of the Department of the Columbia. From 23 November, 1867, till his death he was on leave of absence. He had been promoted colonel of the 20th U.S. Infantry, 28 July, 1866. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 659-660.
STEELE, Joel Dorman, educator, born in Lima, New York, 14 May, 1836; died in Elmira, New York, 25 May, 1886. He was graduated at Genesee College in 1858, and then taught at the Mexico Academy, of which institution he was appointed principal in 1859. Soon after the beginning of the Civil War he became captain in the 81st New York Volunteers, and served in the Peninsula Campaign, being severely wounded at Seven Pines. He was chosen principal of the Newark, New York, High-School in 1862, and in 1866 accepted a similar office in the Elmira Free Academy, which place he retained until 1872. Subsequently he devoted his time exclusively to the preparation of text-books. The degree of Ph.D. was conferred on him by the regents of the University of the State of New York in 1870, and during the same year he presided over the New York State Teachers' Association. In 1872 he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society of London, and also in 1872 he was chosen by the alumni a trustee of Syracuse University, in which Genesee College had been merged, and to that university he bequeathed $50,000 to found a professorship of theistic science. Dr. Steele was the author of a popular series of scientific text-books, each intended or a course of fourteen weeks, including “Chemistry” (New York, 1867); “Astronomy” (1868); “Natural Philosophy” (1869); “Geology” (1870); “Human Physiology” (1873); “Zoölogy” (1875); and “Key to the Practical Questions in Steele's Sciences” (1871); also “Barnes's Popular. History of the United States” (1875); and with his wife, Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 660.
STEELE, William, soldier, born in Albany, New York, in 1819; died in San Antonio, Texas, 12 January, 1885. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1840, assigned to the 2d U.S. Dragoons, and served in the Florida War, the military occupation of Texas, and the war with Mexico, being promoted 1st lieutenant, 9 May, 1846, and brevetted captain for gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco. He was stationed in Texas from 1849 till 1852, being promoted captain, 10 November, 1851, and was then in New Mexico till 1854. From that time till the Civil War he was chiefly in Kansas, Dakota, and Nebraska, taking part in several expeditions against Indians. He resigned on 30 May, 1861, joined the Confederate Army as colonel of the 7th Texas Cavalry, and took part in General Henry H. Sibley's Expedition to New Mexico. On its return, he was made brigadier-general, 12 September, 1862, and in January, 1863, was assigned to the command of the Department of Western Arkansas and the Indian Territory. He commanded at Galveston, Texas, in December, 1863, and had charge of a cavalry division in Louisiana in 1864, where he opposed the Red River Expedition of General Nathaniel P. Banks. In 1867 he became a commission merchant in San Antonio, Texas, and for some time after 1874 he was adjutant-general of the state. In this office he did good service by procuring and publishing, at great pains and expense, lists of escaped convicts and other fugitives from justice, which he furnished to the sheriffs of the various counties in the state. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 660-661.
STEINBEL, Roger Nelson, naval officer, born in Middleton, Maryland., 27 December, 1810. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman. 27 March, 1832, and cruised in the schooner " Porpoise" when she was wrecked near Vera Cruz in 1833. He was on duty in New York at the naval school in 1834-'8, and became a passed midshipman, 23 June, 1838. He was commissioned lieutenant, 23 October, 1843, served in the U.S. Coast Survey until 1847, and then was on the Brazil Station, on special duty in Washington, and in the steamer "Mississippi,'' on the East India Station, in 1857-'9. When the Civil War began he went to Cincinnati to fit out river gun-boats, and then rendered good service in the Mississippi River Flotilla. He commanded the river gun-boat " Lexington " at Belmont when General Grant's force was defeated and saved by the gun-boats in November, 1861. From August, 1861, until May, 1862, he participated in several engagements, and contributed greatly to the successes and victories at Lucas Bend, 9 September, 1861, Fort Henry, 6 February, 1862, Island No. 10 from 16 March until its capture on 7 April, 1862, and in the action with the rams at Fort Pillow in May, 1862. In this last engagement his vessel, the " Cincinnati," was sunk, and he was seriously wounded. He then had special duty at Philadelphia and Pittsburg until 1865. He was commissioned captain, 25 July, 1866, and commanded the "Canandaigua " in the Mediterranean in 1866-'7. He next served at the rendezvous in Boston, and was commissioned commodore, 13 July, 1870, and appointed commander-in-chief of the Pacific Squadron in 1872. He was retired on 27 December, 1872, and subsequently promoted to rear-admiral on the retired list, 5 June, 1874. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 661.
STEINER, Lewis Henry, physician, born in Frederick city, Maryland., 4 May, 1827. He was educated at the Frederick Academy and at Marshall College, Pennsylvania, where he received the degree of A. M. in 1849. and was graduated the same year at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania. He began to practise in Frederick, but in 1852 moved to Baltimore, where for three years he was associated with Dr. John R. W. Dunbar in the conduct of the Baltimore Medical Institute, at the end of which time he returned to Frederick. Soon after he began to practise his attention was especially directed to chemistry and the allied sciences, and during his residence in Baltimore his time was largely occupied in teaching. He was professor of chemistry and natural history in Columbian College, Washington, D. C. and also of chemistry and pharmacy in the National Medical College, Washington. in 1853; lecturer on chemistry and physics in St. James College, Maryland., in 1854; lecturer on applied chemistry in the Maryland Institute in 1855, and professor of chemistry in the Maryland College of Pharmacy in 1850. During the Civil War he was actively employed as an inspector by the U. S. Sanitary Commission, and for a period was in charge of its operations in the Army of the Potomac as chief inspector. In 1871 he was elected by the Republicans to the state senate for four years. He was re-elected for a like term in 1875, and again in 1879. From 1855 till 1858 he was a contributor to, and afterward assistant editor of, "The American Medical Monthly." In 1884 he was appointed librarian of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, which office he now holds. He has published " H. Wills's Outlines of Chemical Analysis," translated from the 3d German edition, with Dr. Daniel Brud (Cambridge, 1855); " Cantate Domino: a Collection of Chants, Hymns, etc., for Church Service." with Henry Schwing (Boston, 1859); " Report containing a Diary kept during the Rebel Occupation of Frederick, Maryland., etc." (New York, 1802); and also translations from the German, with monographs, reports, lectures, and speeches. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 661-662.
STEINWAY, Henry Engelhard (stine'-way), piano-forte manufacturer, born in Wolfshagen, Germany, 15, February, 1797; died in New York City, 7 February, 1871. The original spelling of the name is Steinweg. After receiving a common-school education in his native place, he was first apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, then worked in an organ-factory, and thereafter studied the art of piano-forte making. His earliest youthful musical constructions were zithers and guitars, for his own amusement. At the age of fifteen the boy was left an orphan and thrown on his own resources. After a time Mr. Steinway began to make piano-fortes in a small way in his native place, but, being dissatisfied with the surroundings, came with his family to New York City in 1850. Here for several years father and sons were employed as journeymen in noted factories, until they resolved to unite their knowledge and experience and established the firm of Steinway and Sons. In 1802 they gained the first prize in London in competition with the most eminent makers in Europe; and this victory was followed in 1807 by a similar success at the Universal exposition in Paris. According to Liszt, Rubinstein, and other high authorities, the Steinways have done more to advance the durability, action, and tone-quality of their instruments than any other makers of Europe or America.—Henry Engelhard's son, Albert, born in Seesen, Germany, 10 June, 1840; died in New York City, 14 May, 1877, early in the Civil War was advanced to the colonelcy of the 0th Regiment of New York Volunteers, and later became brigadier-general on the staff of Governor John T. Hoffman. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 662.
STEINWEHR, Adolph Wilhelm August Friedrich, Baron von, soldier, born in Blankenburg, duchy of Brunswick, Germany, 25 September, 1822; died in Buffalo, New York, 25 February, 1877. His father was a major in the ducal service, and his grandfather a lieutenant-general in the Prussian Army. Adolph was educated at the military academy in the city of Brunswick, and entered the army of the duchy as lieutenant in 1841. In 1847 he resigned and came to the United States to offer his services to the government during the Mexican War. Failing to obtain a commission in the regular army, he returned to Germany after marrying an American lady. In 1854 he again visited this country and purchased a farm near Wallingford, Connecticut. At the beginning of the Civil War he raised a regiment, the 29th New York, which he commanded at the first battle of Bull Run, forming part of the reserve under Colonel Dixon S. Miles. On 12 October, 1861, he was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers and placed at the head of the 2d Brigade, General Louis Blenker's division, which was attached in May, 1862, to the Mountain Department under General John C. Fremont. When General Franz Sigel assumed command of the corps, after the organization of the Army of Virginia, General Steinwehr was given the 2d Division, and with it took part in the campaign on the Rapidan and Rappahannock in the following August. He also retained it when the command of the corps passed into the hands of General Oliver O. Howard, and under that officer fought in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. He remained with the army until the close of the war. His home for several years before his death was in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he prepared an "Eclectic Series" of school geographies that was widely circulated, and published 'A Topographical Map of the United States" and "The Centennial Gazetteer" (Philadelphia, 1873). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 552.
STEPHENS, Alexander Hamilton, statesman, born near Crawfordsville, Georgia, 11 February, 1812; died in Atlanta, Georgia, 4 March. 1883. His grandfather, Alexander, founder of the American branch of the Stephens family, was an Englishman, and an adherent of Prince Charles Edward. He came to this country about 1746, settled in the Penn colony, was engaged in several conflicts with the Indians and in the old French war, serving under Colonel George Washington. His home was at the junction of the Juniata and Susquehanna Rivers. He was a captain in the Revolutionary Army, and soon after the peace moved to Georgia. Alexander became an orphan at the age of fifteen. Under the charge of his uncle he attracted the attention of Charles C. Mills, a man of means, and after five months at school he was offered a home in Washington, Wilkes County, and a place in the high-school that was taught by the Reverend Alexander Hamilton Webster, pastor of the Presbyterian Church. His middle name, Hamilton, was taken from this gentleman. He regarded this charity as a loan, and afterward repaid the full amount. He also accepted the offer of the Presbyterian educational Society to send him to college, with a view to the ministry, with the proviso that he was to refund the cost in case of his change of mind, and in any event when he should be able. He entered Franklin College (now the State University) in August, 1828, was graduated in 1832 with the first honor, and subsequently earned money by teaching to pay his indebtedness. At that period of his life he was much given to morbid introspection, which was partly the result of constitutionally delicate health. On 22 July, 1834. after two months study, he was admitted to the bar, being congratulated by Senator William H. Crawford and Judge Joseph Henry Lumpkin on the best examination they had ever heard. He lived on six dollars a month, and made $400 the first year. Then he began to win reputation, and he soon owned his father's old homestead, and bought the estate that is now Liberty hall.
In 1836 he was elected to the lower branch of the legislature against bitter opposition because he strove against nullification, while believing in state sovereignty, and opposed vigilance committees and the then common "slicking clubs," the parent of the Ku-Klux Klan. His first speech in the legislature secured the passage of the appropriation for what is now the Western and Atlantic Railway from Atlanta to Chattanooga, the property of Georgia. His advocacy secured a charter for the Macon, Georgia, Female College, the first in the world for the regular graduation of young women in classics and the sciences. In 1839 he was a delegate to the Charleston Commercial Convention, and in 1843 he was nominated for Congress under the "general-ticket system," there being then no division of the state into congressional districts. He was elected by 8,000 majority. His first speech was in favor of the power of Congress to pass an act requiring the states to be divided into congressional districts. He seemed thus to question his own right to sit, as Georgia had not obeyed the law. He won both point and seat. It was, in fact, the entering-wedge of the assertion of the power of the general government to legislate in state domestic affairs, under the plea of regulating its own organization. On the same principle Mr. Stephens, as senator-elect from Georgia, in 1866, was not allowed to sit, Georgia not having complied with the terms of Congress. He advocated the annexation of Texas by legislative resolution as early as 1838-'9, and opposed the John Tyler treaty of 1844, but, with seven other southern Whigs, secured the passage of the Milton-Brown Plan of 1845. He bitterly opposed President James K. Polk on the Mexican War, but adopted all its results as a godsend of southern territory. In 1848 he had a personal encounter with Judge Cone, of Greensboro, which illustrated the physical courage for which he had been noted from youth—the courage that comes, not from principle or duty, but from utter indifference to consequences. The difficulty grew out of a quarrel on the Clayton compromise of 1848. Cone cut Stephens terribly with a knife and cried: "Now, you, retract, or I'll cut your throat." The bleeding, almost dying Stephens said: "Never!—cut," and grasped the swiftly descending knife-blade in his right hand. That hand never again wrote plainly. Few of the witnesses of the affair, which occurred on the piazza of Thompson's hotel, Atlanta, expected him to recover, he did, however, in time to make a speech in favor of Zachary Taylor for the presidency, the carriage being drawn to the stand by the people. In 1850 Mr. Stephens opposed the secession movement at the south, and thought the admission of California as a free state a blessing, as repealing the Missouri restrictions and opening all the remaining territories north and south to slavery. He was one of the authors of the "Georgia Platform" of 1850. Its first resolve was "that we hold the American Union secondary in importance only to the rights and principles it was designed to perpetuate." On the nominations of Franklin Pierce and General Winfield Scott, at Baltimore, the lines of Whig and Democrat were drawn for the last time. Pierce approved the settlement of 1850; Scott did not. Stephens, with Charles G. Faulkner, Walker Brooke, Alexander White, James Abercrombie, Robert Toombs, James Johnson, Christopher H. Williams, and Meredith P. Gentry, killed the Whig Party forever by their famous card of 3 July, 1852, giving their reasons for refusing to support General Scott. Stephens wrote it. Daniel Webster was nominated without a party, but died, and Toombs and Stephens voted for him after he was dead. In 1854 Mr. Stephens defended the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, as embodying the principle of 1850, " the people of the territories left free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions (including slavery), subject only to the Constitution of the United States." In 1859 he retired from Congress, and in a farewell speech in Augusta, Georgia intimated that the only way to get more slaves and settle the territories with slave-holding voters was to reopen the African slave-trade.
Mr. Stephens seemed a bundle of contradictions, but he always acted upon reasons and principles. While a state-rights man, he supported Harrison in 1840. In 1844, though in favor of the acquisition of Texas, he supported Clay, who said it would reopen the slave issue and make war, as it did. In 1845 he voted with the Democratic Party in admitting Texas. In 1846 and 1847 he stood with Calhoun and the Whig Party upon the Mexican War. His house resolutions in February, 1847, became the basis of the Whig reorganization, and General Zachary Taylor was elected president on the same policy in 1848. In 1850 he differed with Fillmore on policy, as he had with Polk, and approved the compromise of Clay. In 1854 he was with Stephen A. Douglas, and In 1856 aided to elect James Buchanan, his extreme foe. In 1859 he resigned his seat in Congress, saying: "I saw there was bound to be a smash-up on the road, and resolved to jump off at the first station." In 1860 he supported Stephen A. Douglas for the presidency against John C. Breckinridge, the professed exponent of state rights, holding that the territorial views of Mr. Douglas were his life-long principles. In 1860 he made a great Union speech, and in 1861 became the Vice-President of the Confederacy of seceded states—both times on principle. By 1862 he was as much at issue with Jefferson Davis as he had been with Mr. Lincoln in 1860, and on the same matter—state rights—and he continued to differ to the end. Mr. Stephens, Governor Joseph E. Brown, and General Robert Toombs, one Union man and two of the bitterest of the original secessionists of 1860, formed the head of the Georgia Peace Party of 1864, and all the three supported by speeches and letters the Linton-Stephens peace, and habeas corpus resolutions passed by the Georgia legislature in that year. In February, 1865, he was at the head of the Peace Commission on the part of the Confederate government in the Hampton Roads Conference. After the downfall of the Confederacy he was arrested and confined for five months in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, as a prisoner of state, but in October, 1865, he was released on his own parole. On 22 February, 1866, he made a strong reconstruction speech and plea for the new freedmen. He had been chosen to the Senate by the legislature, but Congress ignored the restoration of Georgia to the Union under the presidential proclamation of Andrew Johnson, and he did not take his seat. On 16 April, 1866, he was called to testify before the Congressional Reconstruction Committee. He both testified and spoke on his life-long theme.
In 1867 he published the first volume of his "War between the States." In December, 1868, he was elected professor of political science and history in the University of Georgia, but declined from failing health. He was kept in the house by rheumatism nearly four years. In 1870 he completed the second volume of "The War between the States," but in a more partisan and less hopeful tone than the first volume. Later in the year he conceived the idea of a "School History of the United States," which he carried out (1870-'l). He taught a law class in 1871 as a means of support, and edited and became in part proprietor of the Atlanta " Sun," which was published chiefly to defeat Horace Greeley for the presidency. The enterprise proved financially unsuccessful, and exhausted all the profits of his books. By 5 September, Charles O'Conor had declined the "straight-out" nomination in Louisville, and with that died Mr. Stephens's last hope. He was defeated in his canvass for a seat in the U. S. Senate in November, 1871, but in 1874 was elected to Congress. He opposed the Civil Rights Bill in a speech on 5 January, and the repeal of the increase of salary act. He was re-elected in 1876, and continuously served until his resignation in 1882. In the contest before the electoral commission, on the Hayes-Tilden issue, he advocated going behind the returns and setting aside those of Florida and Louisiana, but opposed all resort to force for seating Mr. Tilden. In January, 1878, he reviewed the question in the "International Review." On the announcement that Mr. Hayes was elected he advised acquiescence. His speech on the uncovering of the painting, "The Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation," 12 February, brought praise from all quarters. An old admirer proposed to send his crutches to Congress after he should cease to be able to go. In 1881-'2 he undertook to write a "History of the United States," which he completed and published just before his death (New York, 1883). It had neither the vigor nor the value of his "War between the States," and was a failure, carrying with it his last bonds, in which he had invested part of the proceeds of his really great life-work. He had received a bad sprain in May, 1882, on the capitol steps, and at the close of the session left Washington forever. In 1882 he was elected governor of Georgia, by 60,000 majority, over General Lucius J. Gartrell, a Confederate officer and lawyer. He worked hard and was an excellent governor. He made his last public speech at the Georgia sesquicentennial celebration in Savannah, 12 February, 1883. —His brother, Linton, jurist, born in Crawfordsville, Georgia, 1 July, 1823; died in Sparta, Georgia, 14 July, 1872, was left an orphan at the age of three years, but his education was eared for by friends, and he was graduated at the University of Georgia in 1843. He then studied law at the University of Virginia and at Harvard, was admitted to the bar in his native state, and, taking an active part in politics, represented the counties of Taliaferro and Hancock in the legislature for several years. In 1858 he was appointed to a vacancy in the supreme court of Georgia, and his decisions, contained in three volumes of the " Georgia Reports," are characterized by their precision, perspicuity, and power of logic. Judge Stephens was a delegate to the Georgia Secession Convention in 1861, and opposed that measure, but subsequently proposed a preamble and resolution declaring that the lack of unanimity in the convention was in regard to the proposed remedy and its application before a resort to other means of redress, and not as to alleged grievances. This was adopted, and he signed the ordinance. During the Civil War he was a member of the Georgia Legislature, where he introduced the Peace Resolutions of 1864, and vigorously denounced the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus by the Confederate Congress. He also served in the army, and attained the rank of colonel. He continued his activity in politics during the reconstruction period, and prior to the presidential canvass of 1872 publicly spoke in favor of the selection of a purely Democratic ticket instead of adopting the candidacy of Horace Greeley. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 663-665.
STEPHENS, Henry Louis, book-illustrator, born in Philadelphia, 11 February, 1824; died in Bayonne, New Jersey, 13 December, 1882. About 1859 he went to New York under an engagement with Frank Leslie, and after a year or so transferred his services to Harper Brothers. Mr. Stephens was a prolific artist, and accomplished a great amount of work for book and magazine illustration. He was well known as a caricaturist, excelling especially in the humorous delineation of animals, and drew cartoons and sketches for “Vanity Fair” (1859–63). “Mrs. Grundy" (1868). “ Punchinello” (1870), and other periodicals. He gave some attention also to painting in water-colors, but rarely exhibited his works. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 666.
STEPHENSON, Mathew, statesman, born in Buckingham County, Virginia., about 1776; died after 1834. He moved to Washington County, Tennessee, and engaged in farming. The Constitution of Tennessee, adopted in 1797, gave the right of suffrage to all free men. Under it free colored men voted until 1834, when a convention was called and a new constitution adopted, which deprived them of the right. In that convention the party in favor of restricting the suffrage was boldly opposed by twenty members; thirty-eight voted for the restriction. Mathew Stephenson led the liberal element. All those that voted with him were natives of slave states, while every native of a free state voted against every proposition looking toward the freedom of the slave. The friends of liberty sought to have fixed by the constitution a period beyond which slavery should not exist in the state, placing the period in 1866. The points that they made were defended by the Liberals with great power and earnestness, and the journal of the convention shows an advanced sentiment among these men, of whom Mr. Stephenson was the admitted leader. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 666-667.
STERETT, Isaac Sears, naval officer, born in Baltimore, Maryland., 28 October, 1801; died in 1863. He entered the United States U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 24 March, 1819, was commissioned lieutenant, 17 May, 1828, and was variously employed on shore duty and also on leave till 1835, when he made a two-years' cruise in the sloop “John Adams" on the Mediterranean Station. He served in the U.S. Coast Survey in 1839-'41. In January, 1842, he sailed as executive of the frigate "United States " to the Pacific Station, and upon arrival at Calluo took command of the "Relief" until April, 1844. During the Mexican War he rendered valuable services in command of the schooner " Reefer," of the Mosquito Division of the U. S. Naval Forces in the Gulf of Mexico. He participated in the expedition against Frontera and Tabasco, 17-27 October, 1846, where he captured the Mexican schooner " Tabasco." On 14 November, 1846, he took part in the attack and capture of Tampico, where five Mexican vessels, forts, and supplies were captured. He was present during the bombardment of Vera Cruz, 10-25 March, 1847, assisted in covering the landing of Scott's army, and engaged the Mexican forts and batteries. After the war he resumed duties at the naval rendezvous in Baltimore, and was promoted to commander, 5 February, 1850. He was governor of the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia in 1852-'3 and in 1854-'5 commanded the sloop " Decatur," protecting New England fisheries. He was placed on the reserved list, 28 September, 1855, and promoted to captain, 2 March, 1857. When the Civil War began he resigned his commission, 23 April, 1861, and entered the navy of the seceded states; but the only record of his services is as a member of the court to investigate the causes that compelled Commodore Josiah Tatnall to destroy the " Merrimac." Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 667.
STERNBERG, George Miller, surgeon, born in Hartwick Seminary, Otsego County, New York, 8 June, 1838. He was graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1860, and appointed assistant surgeon in the U. S. Army on 28 May, 1861. His first duty was with General George Sykes's command in the Army of the Potomac, and, after four months' hospital duty in Rhode Island, he joined General Nathaniel P. Banks's expedition to New Orleans, and then served in the office of the medical director of the Department of the Gulf until January, 1864. Subsequently he was on hospital duty in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, till April, 1866, and since he has been stationed at various government posts, being promoted on 1 December, 1875, surgeon with the rank of major. Dr. Sternberg has recently been on duty in Baltimore, where he has been engaged in experimental researches in bacteriology at Johns Hopkins University as a fellow by courtesy in that institution. In 1879 he was sent to Havana as a member of the yellow-fever commission by the National Board of Health, and in 1885 he was a delegate to the International Sanitary Conference in Rome, Italy. Dr. Sternberg is an honorary member of the Royal Academies of Medicine of Rome, Rio Janeiro, and Havana, and a fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society of London, and, besides membership in other medical and scientific societies at home and abroad, was in 1887 president of the American Public Health Association. The Lomb prize of $500 was awarded to him by the last association in 1885 for his essay on “Disinfectants,” and he has invented automatic heat-regulating apparatus. Besides contributions to scientific journals on his specialties, he has published “Photo Micrographs, and how to make them ” (Boston, 1883); “Bacteria” (New York, 1884); and “Malaria and Malarial Diseases” (1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 667-668.
STEVENS, Aaron Fletcher, Congressman, born in Derry, New Hampshire, 9 August, 1819; died in Nashua, New Hampshire, 10 May, 1887. He was educated at Pinkerton Academy, Derry, moved to Peterborough, afterward studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1845, and gained a high reputation as a lawyer. He was a member of the legislature in 1849, a delegate to the Whig National Convention in 1852, and a representative in the legislature again in 1854. He identified himself with the Republican Party when it was first organized, and was again sent to the legislature in 1856 and the following years. He was one of the first to enlist in the Civil War, and was made major of the 1st New Hampshire Volunteers, subsequently appointed colonel of the 13th Regiment, and brevetted brigadier-general on 8 December, 1864, for gallantry at Fort Harrison, where he was wounded. On his return home he was elected to Congress and re-elected for the following term, serving from 4 March, 1867, till 3 March, 1871. From 1876 till 1884 he was a member of the legislature, and took part in its debates. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 670.
STEVENS, John Austin, banker, born in New York City, 22 January, 1795; died there, 19 Oct, 1874, was graduated at Yale in 1813, entered mercantile life, and became a partner in his father's business in 1818. He was for many years secretary of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and one of the organizers and the first president of the Merchants' Exchange. From its first establishment in 1839 till 1866 he was president of the Bank of Commerce. He was a Whig in politics, but an earnest advocate of low tariffs. He was chairman of the Committee of Bankers of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia which first met in August, 1861, and decided to take $50,000,000 of the government 7-30 loan. They subsequently advanced $100,000,000 more, and the terms of the transactions were arranged chiefly by Mr. Stevens, as the head of the treasury note committee. His advice was frequently sought by the officers of the Treasury Department during the Civil War. He was many years governor of the New York Hospital, and took an interest in other benevolent institutions. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 671.
STEVENS, Isaac Ingalls, soldier, born in Andover, Massachusetts, 28 March, 1818; died near Chantilly, Fairfax County, Virginia, 1 September, 1862. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1839, ranking first in his class, and was commissioned as 2d lieutenant of engineers. He was promoted 1st lieutenant on 1 July, 1840, and served as adjutant of the Corps of Engineers during the war with Mexico, being engaged at the siege of Vera Cruz and at Cerro Gordo, at Contreras and Churubusco, where he gained the brevet of captain, at Chapultepec, of major, at Molino del Rey, and at the taking of the city of Mexico, where he was severely wounded. He superintended fortifications on the New England Coast in 1841–27 and in 1848-’9, and had charge of the Coast-Survey office in Washington, D.C., from 14 September, 1849, till 17 March, 1853, when he resigned, having been appointed governor of Washington Territory. He was at the same time placed in charge of the exploration of the northern route for a Pacific Railroad. In 1853, at the head of a large exploring party, he surveyed a route between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Puget Sound, and established the navigability of the upper Missouri and Columbia Rivers for steamers. He was superintendent of Indian Affairs by virtue of his office of governor, and in 1854–5 he made treaties with the Indian tribes of the territory by which they relinquished their titles to more than 100,000 square miles of land. He also crossed the Rocky Mountains to conclude a treaty, in October, 1855, of friendship with the Blackfeet Indians, at the same time intervening successfully to make peace between them and the hunting tribes of Washington and Oregon. While he was absent on this expedition the disaffected Indians of Washington Territory rose against the whites. He returned before January, 1856, called out 1,000 volunteers, and conducted a campaign against the Indians that was so vigorous and successful that before the close of 1856 they were subdued and their chiefs slain. White sympathizers with the Indians were taken from their homes and confined in the towns, and, when Chief-Justice Edward Lander issued a writ of habeas corpus for their release, Governor Stevens declared two counties under martial law, and on 7 May, 1856, caused Judge Lander to be arrested in his courtroom, and held him a prisoner till the close of the war. He resigned in August, 1857, and was elected a delegate to Congress for two successive terms, serving from 7 December, 1857, till 3 March, 1861. In Congress he vindicated his course in the Indian War, and saw his treaties confirmed, and the scrip that he had issued to pay the volunteers assumed by the government. In the presidential canvass of 1860 he acted as chairman of the executive committee of the Breckinridge wing of the Democratic Party. But when the leaders of his party afterward declared for secession, he publicly denounced them, and urged President Buchanan to remove John B. Floyd and Jacob Thompson from his cabinet. At the intelligence of the firing on Fort Sumter he hastened from the Pacific Coast to Washington, and was appointed colonel of the 79th Regiment of New York Volunteers, known as the Highlanders. The regiment had lost heavily at Bull Run, and expected to be sent home to recruit. Disappointment at being kept in the field and commanded by regular army officers caused eight companies to mutiny. The courage and wisdom with which he restored discipline won the respect of the men, who, by their own desire, were transferred to his brigade when he was commissioned as brigadier-general on 28 September, 1861, and took part in the Port Royal Expedition. He attacked the Confederate batteries on the Coosaw in January, 1862, and captured them with the co-operation of the gun-boats. In June he was engaged in actions on Stono River, and commanded the main column in an unsuccessful assault on the enemy's position near Secessionville. After the retreat of General George B. McClellan from his position before Richmond, General Stevens was ordered to Virginia. He commanded a division at Newport News, and was made a major-general on 4 July1862, serving under General John Pope in the campaign in Northern Virginia. He was engaged in skirmishes on the Rappahannock, distinguished himself at Manassas, and while leading his division at the battle of Chantilly was killed with the colors of the 79th Regiment in his hand. He published “Campaigns of the Rio Grande and Mexico, with Notices of the Recent Work of Major Ripley” (New York, 1851), and “Report of Explorations for a Route for the Pacific Railroad near the 47th and 49th Parallels of North Latitude, from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound,” which was printed by order of Congress (2 vols., Washington, 1855–60). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 672.
STEVENS, John, engineer, born in New York City in 1748 or 1749; died at Hoboken, New Jersey, 6 March, 1838, was graduated at King's (now Columbia) College in 1768, and was admitted to the bar, but practised little. During the Revolutionary war he held several offices, among which was that of treasurer of New Jersey in 1776-'9, and at its close he married and resided in winter on Broadway, New York, and in summer on the island of Hoboken, which he then owned. His life was devoted to experiments at his own cost for the common good. In 1790 he petitioned Congress for protection to American inventors, and his petition was referred to a committee, which reported a bill that became the law of 10 April, 1790, the foundation of the American patent law. He had begun experiments in the application of steam in 1788, and now continued them, having as his associates Nicholas L Roosevelt and the elder Brunei, who afterward built the Thames tunnel. Toward the close of the century he was engaged with his brother-in-law, Robert R. Livingston, and Roosevelt, in building a steamboat to navigate Hudson River, the legislature of the state of New York having previously offered a monopoly of exclusive privilege to the owners of a boat that, complying with given conditions, should attain a speed of three miles an hour; but their boat failed to achieve the required speed, and their joint proceedings were interrupted by the appointment of Livingston as minister to France in 1801. In Paris, Livingston met Robert Fulton, and afterward was associated with him in establishing steam navigation. Stevens persevered, and in 1804 built a vessel propelled by twin screws that navigated the Hudson. The boiler was tubular and the screw was identically the short four threaded screw that is now used. That it was a helix, his letter of 1804 to Dr. Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, shows. This was the first application of steam to the screw-propeller. The engine and boiler of this steamboat are preserved in the Stevens Institute at Hoboken, New Jersey. Mr. Stevens always upheld the efficiency of the screw and its great advantages for ocean navigation. Shortly after his death his sons placed the engine and boiler referred to in a boat, which was tried before a committee of the American Institute of New York, and attained a speed of about nine miles an hour.
It is remarkable that after 1804 no serious attempt was made for the practical introduction of the screw until 1837, when it was brought into use simultaneously in England and the United States. Still more remarkable is the fact that its introduction into use in England was by the Archimedian screw of a single thread, and in America by a multi-threaded screw on the outer surface of a cylinder; that the first was completely modified in the course of five or six years into the short four threaded screw that was used by Stevens in 1804, and that in about ten years the multi-threaded screw was also replaced by the screw of 1804. In 1807, assisted by his son Robert, he built the paddle-wheel steamboat " Phoenix" that plied for six years on the Delaware. Professor James Renwick, who from his own observation has left the best description extant of Fulton's boat, the "Clermont, as she ran in the autumn of 1807, says that "the Stevenses were but a few days later in moving a boat with the required velocity,'1 and that " being shut out of the waters of New York by the monopoly of Livingston and Fulton, Stevens conceived the bold design of conveying his boat to the Delaware by sea, and this boat, which was so near reaping the honor of first success, was the first to navigate the ocean by the power of steam." Fulton had the advantage of a steam-engine that was made by James Watt, while his predecessors were provided only with inferior apparatus, the work of common blacksmiths and millwrights. The piston-rod of the "Phoenix" was guided by slides instead of the parallel motion of Watt, and the cylinder rested on the condenser. Stevens also surrounded the water-wheel by a guard-beam. Among the patents that were taken out by Stevens was one in 1791 for generating steam; two in the same year described as improvements in bellows and on Thomas Savary's engine, both designed for pumping; the multi-tubular boiler in 1803, which was patented in England in 1805 in the name of his eldest son, John C.; one in 1816 for using slides; an improvement in rack railroads in 1824; and one in 1824 to render shallow rivers more navigable. In 1812 he made the first experiments with artillery against iron armor. He then proposed a circular vessel, to be rotated by steam to train the guns for the defence of New York Harbor. On 11 October, 1811, he established the first steam-ferry in the world with the "Juliana," which plied between New York City and Hoboken. In 1813 he invented and built a ferry-boat made of two separate boats, with a paddle-wheel between them which was turned by six horses. On account of the simplicity of its construction and its economy, this description of horse-boat continued long in use both on the East River and on the Hudson. In February, 1812, shortly before the war with England and five years before the beginning of the Erie canal, Stevens addressed a memoir to the commission appointed to devise water-communication between the seaboard and the lakes, urging instead of a canal the immediate construction of a railroad. This memoir, with the adverse report of the commissioners, among whom were De Witt Clinton, Gouverneur Morris, and Chancellor Livingston, was published at the time, and again, with a preface, by Charles King, president of Columbia, in 1852, and by the "Railroad Gazette" in 1882. The correctness of his views and arguments contrast strongly with the answer of the commissioners on the impracticability of a railroad. At the date of the memoir, although short railroads for carrying coal had been in use in England for upward of 200 years, there was not a locomotive or passenger-car in use in the world. Stevens's proposal was to build a passenger and freight railroad for general traffic from Albany to Lake Erie having a double track, made with wooden stringers capped with wrought-plate rails resting on piles and operated by locomotives. He enumerates £ the advantages of a general railroad system, naming many details that were afterward found necessary, putting the probable future speed at from twenty to thirty miles an hour, or possibly at from forty to fifty. He gives a definite plan and detailed estimates of the construction and cost. His plan is identical with that of the successful South Carolina Railroad built in 1830–32, the first long railroad in the United States, which has been described as “a continuous and prolonged bridge.” The accuracy of his estimates was proved by the cost of this road. Stevens in 1814 applied to the state of New Jersey for a railroad charter from New York to Philadelphia. He received the charter in February, 1815, and located the road, but proceeded no further. In 1823, with Horace Binney and Stephen Girard, of Philadelphia, he obtained from the state of Pennsylvania a charter for a railroad from Philadelphia to Lancaster, on the site of the present Pennsylvania Railroad. These two were the first railroad charters that were granted in this country. On 23 October, 1824, he obtained a patent for the construction of railroads. In 1826, at the age of seventy-eight, to show the operation of the locomotive on the railroad, he built at Hoboken a circular railway having a gauge of five feet and a diameter of 220 feet, and placed on it a locomotive with a multi-tubular boiler which carried about half a dozen people at a rate of over twelve miles an hour. ' Was the first locomotive that ever ran on a railroad in America. Colonel Stevens was an excellent classical scholar, and not only a close student of natural philosophy, but fond of metaphysical speculations, leaving several philosophical treatises, which have never been £ He was through life an enthusiastic botanist and amateur gardener, importing and cultivating many new plants. The accom Point, Mr. which in 1835 was replaced by a spacious mansion.—Another son, Robert Livingston, born 18 October, 1787; died in Hoboken, New Jersey, 20 April, 1856, having a strong engineering bias, began to assist his father when only seventeen years old. He took the “Phoenix” to Philadelphia by sea in June, 1808. At the death of Fulton the speed of steamboats on the Hudson was under seven miles an hour, and at about that date Robert L. Stevens built the “Philadelphia,” which had a speed of eight miles. He built many steamboats, increasing the speed of each successive one up to 1832, when the “North America” attained fifteen miles. From 1815 until 1840 he stood at the head of his profession in the United States as a constructor of steam vessels and their machinery, making innumerable improvements, which were generally adopted. In 1821 he originated the present form of ferry-boat and ferry-slips, making his boats with guards encircling them throughout, and constructing the ferry-slips with spring piling and spring fenders. In adopting the overhead working-beam of Watt to navigation, he made important improvements, inventing and applying, in 1818, the cam-board cut-off, substituting in 1821 the gallows-frame that is now used for the column that supported the working-beam, and making that beam of wrought-iron strap with a cast-iron centre, instead of purely of cast-iron. This he improved in 1829 into the shape that is now universally used. He lengthened the proportionate stroke of the piston, and invented t'. split water-wheel in 1826. In 1831 he invented the balance-valve, which was a modification of the Cornish double-beat valve, and is now always used on the beam engine. He placed the boilers on the wheel-guards and over the water, improved the details in every part, and finally left the American working beam (or walking-beam) engine in its present form. At the same time he strengthened the boiler, beginning with a pressure of two pounds to the square inch, and increasing the strength of the boilers, so that fifty pounds could be safely carried. He made the first marine tubular boiler in 1831, and was among the first to use anthracite coal. In the hulls of his vessels he gradually increased the amount of iron fastening until it was finally more than quadrupled, increasing the strength of vessels while diminishing their weight. He reduced the vibration of the hull by the masts and rods that are now used, and added greatly to their strength by his overhead truss-frame. On the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, he went to England, where he had made, from a model he brought over, the rails for the road he was building, with his brother, Edwin A., in New Jersey. This rail is the well-known T-pattern, used in this country and in a large part of Europe, which is fastened by spikes without the intervention of chairs, which are required by the form of rail that is still used in England. He also then ordered from the Stephenson’s the locomotive called the “John Bull.” the prototype of those that are made in this country, which is now preserved at the Smithsonian institution in Washington. Toward the close of the last war with England Robert was engaged in making a bomb that could be fired from a cannon instead of from a mortar, and that could thus be applied to naval warfare. In connection therewith he made many experiments on the Hoboken marshes, for which he obtained from the government the loan of heavy ordnance, and finally he succeeded in producing a successful percussion-shell. President Madison then appointed a board to test this shell in the harbor of New York, both against solid targets of wooden beams and against an actual section of a ship of the line, built for the purpose. Each was demolished by a single shell. The government then adopted the shell, purchasing a large quantity, together with the secret of its construction. In 1814 Edwin, under the direction of his father, had experimented with shot against inclined iron-plating, and in 1841, when, on account of the U. S. boundary disputes with England, public attention was directed to naval defences, he made a series of experiments, which he and his brothers laid before the government. President Tyler appointed a commission of officers of the army and navy to superintend, at Sandy Hook, the experiments of the brothers on the application of iron to war-vessels as a protection against shot, who, after many trials against iron targets, reported that iron four and a half inches thick resisted effectually the force of a sixty-four pound shot fired at thirty yards with battering charges. Thereupon an act was passed, 14 April, 1842, authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to contract with Robert L. Stevens for an iron-clad steam vessel. Stevens immediately began to excavate a dry dock for his vessel, which he had finished within a year, and also had his vessel planned, and began its construction; but the contract was changed in the latter part of 1843, when Commodore Robert P. Stockton constructed a wrought-iron cannon having a bore of ten inches and throwing a round shot that pierced a four-and-a-half-inch target. At each successive important increase of the power of the gun, either at home or abroad, the increased thickness of armor necessary for defence required increased tonnage in the vessel that Stevens had contracted to build, causing interminable interruption and consequent delay. This vessel, which was known as the Stevens battery, lay in its business at Hoboken for many years, and was never launched. It was the first iron-clad ever projected, preceding by more than ten years the small iron-clad vessels used by the French at Kinburn in 1854.—Another son, James Alexander, born in New York city, 29 January, 1790; died in Hoboken, New Jersey, 7 October, 1873," was graduated at Columbia in 1808, and admitted to the bar in New York City in 1811. In -connection with Thomas Gibbons, he established the Union Steamboat Line between New York and Philadelphia, which led to the suit of Ogden V8. Gibbons, memorable for the decision that placed all the navigable waters of the United States under the jurisdiction of the general government.—Another son, Edwin Augustus, born in Hoboken, New Jersey, 28 July, 1795; died in Paris, France, 8 August, 1868, after assisting his brother Robert, in 1820 took charge of the Union line, which was shortly after merged into the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the charter for which the two brothers obtained from the state of New Jersey in 1830. They prosecuted the work so vigorously that the road was opened for traffic on 9 October, 1832, the elder brother being president and the younger treasurer and manager. In the next twenty years the railroad system of the United States, differing materially from that of England, was formed, and in aiding this development the brothers were conspicuous, inventing and introducing many appliances on the road, locomotives, and cars. The germ of many improvements afterward perfected on other roads can be traced back to the Camden and Amboy. Of this the vestibule car is a modern instance. The brothers, while engaged in railroad affairs, still retained their great interests in navigation, and made many improvements in it. In 1827 the elder brother applied forced draught to the "North America,'' and its use immediately became general, while in 1842 the younger patented the air-tight fire-room for this forced draught, and applied it on many vessels. This double invention of the two brothers is now used in all the great navies of the world. Both brothers spent a great part of their lives in devising and effecting improvements in the means of attack and defence in naval warfare. Robert had bequeathed the Stevens battery to his brother, and Edwin, at the beginning of the Civil War, presented to the government a plan for completing the vessel, together with a small vessel, called the "Naugatuck”, to demonstrate the practicability of his plans. This small vessel was accepted by the government, and was one of the fleet that attacked the "Merrimac." She was a twin screw-vessel, capable of being immersed three feet below her load-line, so as to be nearly invisible, of being raised again in eight minutes by pumping out the immersing weight of water, and of turning end for end on her centre in one minute and a quarter. The government refused to appropriate the money on the plans that were proposed by Mr. Stevens, and at his death he left the vessel to the state of New Jersey, together with $1,000,000 for its completion, he founded the Stevens Institute (see illustration), bequeathing to it and to the high school a large plot of ground in Hoboken, and $150,000 for the building and $500,000 for endowment.—His widow, Martha Bayard, has devoted $200,000 to religious and charitable institutions, among which may be mentioned the erection of the Church of the Holy Innocents at Hoboken. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 673-675.
STEVENS, Thaddeus, 1792-1868, statesman, lawyer, abolitionist leader. Anti-slavery leader in U.S. House of Representatives. As member of Whig Party and leader of the radical Republican Party, urged Lincoln to issue Emancipation Proclamation. Led fight to pass Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, abolishing slavery and establishing citizenship, due process and equal protections for African Americans. He is depicted in the 2012 film “Lincoln”. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 677-678; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 1, p. 620; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 764-767; Congressional Globe; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 711)
STEVENS, Thaddeus, statesman, born in Danville, Caledonia County, Vermont, 4 April, 1792; died in Washington, D. C., 11 August, 1868. He was the child of poor parents, and was sickly and lame, but ambitious, and his mother toiled to secure for him an education. He entered Vermont University in 1810, and after it was closed in 1812 on account of the war he went to Dartmouth, and was graduated in 1814. He began the study of law in Peacham, Vermont, continued it while teaching an academy in York, Pennsylvania, was admitted to the bar at Bel Air, Maryland., established himself in 1816 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and soon gained a high reputation, and was employed in many important suits. He devoted himself exclusively to his profession till the contest between the strict constructionists, who nominated Andrew Jackson for the presidency in 1828, and the national Republicans, who afterward became the Whigs, drew him into politics as an ardent supporter of John Quincy Adams. He was elected to the legislature in 1833 and the two succeeding years. By a brilliant speech in 1835, he defeated a bill to abolish the recently established common-school system of Pennsylvania. In 1836 he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention, and took an active part in its debates, but his anti-slavery principles would not permit him to sign the report recommending an instrument that restricted the franchise to white citizens. He was a member of the legislature again in 1837, and in 1838, when the election dispute between the Democratic and anti-Masonic parties led to the organization of rival legislatures, he was the most prominent member of the Whig and anti-Masonic house. In 1838 he was appointed a canal commissioner. He was returned to the legislature in 1841. He gave a farm to Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson, who had written poetry in defence of the common schools, and thus aided him in saving them. Having incurred losses in the iron business, he moved in 1842 to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and for several years devoted himself to legal practice, occupying the foremost position at the bar. In 1848 and 1850 he was elected to Congress as a Whig, and ardently opposed the Clay compromise measures of 1850, including the Fugitive-Slave Law. On retiring from Congress, March, 1853, he confined himself to his profession till 1858, when he was returned to Congress as a Republican. From that time till his death he was one of the Republican leaders in that body, the chief advocate of emancipation, and the representative of the radical section of his party. His great oratorical powers and force of character earned for him the title, applied to William Pitt, of the “great commoner.” He urged on President Lincoln the justice and expediency of the emancipation proclamation, took the lead in all measures for arming and for enfranchising the Negro, and initiated and pressed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. During the war he introduced and carried Acts of Confiscation, and after its close he advocated rigorous measures in reorganizing the southern states on the basis of universal freedom. He was chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means for three sessions. Subsequently, as chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, he reported the bill which divided the southern states into five military districts, and placed them under the rule of army officers until they should adopt constitutions that conceded suffrage and equal rights to the blacks. In a speech that he made in Congress on 24 February, 1868, he proposed the impeachment of President Johnson. He was appointed one of the committee of seven to prepare articles of impeachment, and was chairman of the Board of Managers that was appointed on the part of the house to conduct the trial. He was exceedingly positive in his convictions, and attacked his adversaries with bitter denunciations and sarcastic taunts, yet he was genial and witty among his friends, and was noted for his uniform, though at times impulsive, acts of charity. While skeptical in his religious opinions, he resented slighting remarks regarding the Christian faith as an insult to the memory of his devout mother, whom he venerated. The degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by the University of Vermont in 1867. He chose to be buried in a private cemetery, explaining in the epitaph that he prepared for his tomb that the public cemeteries were limited by their charter-rules to the white race, and that he preferred to illustrate in his death the principle that he had advocated through his life of “equality of man before his Creator.” The tomb is in a large lot in Lancaster, which he left as a burial-place for those who cannot afford to pay for their graves. He left a part of his estate to found an orphan asylum in Lancaster, to be open to both white and colored children. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 677-678.
STEVENS, Thomas Holdup, naval officer, born in Middletown, Connecticut, 27 May, 1819, was appointed a midshipman on 14 December, 183*6, served as aide to President Tyler in 1842, received his commission as lieutenant on 10 May, 1849, and in 1852-'5 commanded the schooner " Ewing" in surveys of the California and Oregon Coasts. When the Civil War began he applied for duty at the front, was ordered to command the "Ottawa," one of the ninety-day gunboats then building, raised a crew of volunteers at Erie, Pennsylvania, and joined the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron of Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont. While commanding a division of gun-boats, he drove the fleet of Commodore Josiah Tatnall under the protection of the forts at Port Royal, 4 November, 1861. In the battle of Port Royal he engaged Fort Walker at short range. On 1 January, 1862, he had an engagement with Commodore Tatnall's Mosquito fleet in Savannah River. His command was the leading vessel in a combined attack of the navy and land forces on Fort Clinch, 3 March, 1862, and in the capture of the town of St. Mary's, Georgia, and commanded the first expedition up St. John's River, occupying Mayport, Jacksonville, Magnolia, and Palatka and Fort Steele and Fort Finnegan, and capturing the yacht “America." He left the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron early in May, 1862. to take command of the steamer "Maratanza," was present at the battle of West Point, and commanded the first expedition to Cumberland and White House to open James River, taking part in the demonstration against Petersburg and the battle of Malvern Hill. On 4 July, 1862, he captured the Confederate gun-boat " Teazer." He was promoted commander on 16 July, and ordered to the iron-clad "Monitor," with which he covered the flank of the army on James River and its rear during the withdrawal from the Peninsula. In September, while attached to Commodore Charles Wilkes's Flying Squadron, he captured five prizes, and chased the privateer "Florida" on the Bahama banks. On 7 October, 1862, off St. George, Bermuda, he stopped the steamer "Gladiator, which had the appearance of a blockade-runner, while she was under the convoy of the British sloop-of-war "Desperate," and both commanders cleared their decks for action. Early in August, 1863, he assumed command of the ironclad " Patapsco," and in the engagements with the forts in Charleston Harbor he performed gallant services. After a severe engagement with the batteries on Sullivan's Island, he led a boat attack against Fort Sumter. Afterward he commanded the "Oneida," of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, but was temporarily transferred to the iron-clad "Winnebago” for the operations before Mobile in July, 1864, in which he was conspicuous for the handling of his vessel and his personal daring. He commanded the " Oneida" off the coast of Texas in 1865, was commissioned captain on 26 July, 1866, commodore on 20 November, 1872, and rear-admiral on 27 October, 1879, and, after commanding the Pacific Fleet and acting as president of the Board of Visitors at the U. S. Naval Academy, he was retired on 27 May, 1881.—His son, Thomas Holdup, is a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 678.
STEVENS, Walter Husted, soldier, born in Penn Yan, New York, 24 August, 1827; died in Vera Cruz, Mexico, 12 November, 1867. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1848, and commissioned as lieutenant of engineers. He was engaged in constructing and repairing fortifications at New Orleans, Louisiana. He built two forts on the coast of Texas, moved the great Colorado River raft by order of Congress, and built the Ship shoal light-house in 1855-'6, and superintended the erection of the custom-house at New Orleans after Major Pierre T. G. Beauregard was called away, and also built the custom-house at Galveston, Texas. In May, 1861, having resigned his commission and entered the Confederate service, he accompanied General Beauregard to Virginia as his chief engineer. He was made a brigadier-general, and was the chief engineer of the Army of Northern Virginia until the autumn of 1862, when he was placed in charge of the fortifications of Richmond. He completed these defences and again became chief engineer of Lee's army, and continued as such to the close of the war. He then sought and obtained employment as an engineer on the Mexican Railway between Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico, and at the time of his death was its superintendent and constructing engineer. An English company was building this road, and during the revolution in which Maximilian was dethroned General Stevens remained in sole charge of it, and he skilfully preserved the property through that difficult period. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 679.
STEVEVSON, John White, senator, born in Richmond, Virginia., 4 May, 1812; died in Covington, Kentucky, 10 August, 1880, was educated at Hampden Sidney and the University of Virginia, where he was graduated in 1832, and in 1841 settled in Covington, Kentucky, where he practised law with success, and served in the Kentucky legislature, in 1845-'7. He was a leader of the State Constitutional Convention of 1849, was chosen a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1848, 1852, and 1856, and from 1857 till 1861 sat in the lower house of Congress. He was a delegate to the Philadelphia Union Convention of 1866, and in 1867 he was chosen lieutenant-governor of the state. The governor, John L. Helm, died five days after his inauguration, and Mr. Stevenson acted as governor till 1868, and then was elected to the office by the largest majority that was ever given to a candidate in the state, serving till 1871. In the last year he took his seat in the U. S. Senate, where he served till 1877. On the expiration of his term he became professor of commercial law and contracts in the law-school at Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1880 he was chairman of the Democratic National Convention that nominated General Winfield S. Hancock for the presidency. In 1884 he was president of the American Bar Association. He was a commissioner to prepare a " Code of Practice in Civil and Criminal Cases for Kentucky" (1854). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 680
STEVENSON, James, ethnologist, born in Maysville, Kentucky, 24 December, 1840; died in New York City, 25 July, 1888. Before he was sixteen years old he was engaged in geologic work for the government surveys of the northwest under Ferdinand V. Hayden. He spent several winters among the Blackfoot and Sioux Indians, studying their languages, customs, and traditions, and made an exploration of the Yellowstone country. When the Civil War began he joined the National Army, and served till the close of hostilities. He then resumed his explorations in the northwest in connection with the Engineer Corps, and afterward with the U. S. Geological Survey, of which he became the executive officer. He followed Columbia and Snake Rivers to their sources, made the ascent of Great Teton mountain, discovered a new pass across the Rocky mountains, assisted Professor Hayden in the survey of Yellowstone Park, and was instrumental in having it made a government reservation. He was continued as executive officer of the survey, under Major John W. Powell, and detailed for research in connection with the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, exploring the cliff houses of Arizona and New Mexico, and investigating the history and religious myths of the Navajos and the Zuni, Moqui, and other Pueblo Indians. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 680.
STEVENSON, John D., soldier, born in Staunton. Virginia, 8 June, 1821. He spent two years in the College of South Carolina, was graduated, in law at Staunton in 1841, and in 1842 began practice in Franklin County, Missouri. He organized a volunteer company in 1846, and served in General Stephen W. Kearny's invasion of New Mexico. After his return he moved to St. Louis, was frequently a member of the legislature, president for one term of the state senate, and in 1861 was an earnest supporter of the Union. In that year he raised the 7th Missouri Regiment, and during the siege of Corinth commanded the District of Savannah. He then led a brigade in Tennessee, was made brigadier-general of volunteers, 29 November, 1862, served in the Vicksburg Campaign, and made a charge at Champion Hill that broke the enemy's left flank. He led a successful expedition to drive the Confederates from northern Louisiana, commanded the District of Corinth, and then occupied and fortified Decatur, Alabama. On 8 August, 1864, being left without a command, he resigned; but he was recommissioned and given the District of Harpers Ferry. During the reconstruction period he was in charge of northern Georgia. At the close of the war he was made brevet major-general of volunteers, and in 1867, for his services at Champion Hill, brevetted brigadier-general in the regular army, in which he had been commissioned a colonel on 28 July, 1866. He left the army in 1871, and has since practised law in St. Louis. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 680.
STEVENSON, Thomas Greely, soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 3 February, 1836; died near Spottsylvania, Virginia, 10 May, 1864. He early entered the militia, and at the opening of the Civil War was major of the 4th Infantry Battalion. He had a high reputation as a drill-master, and trained a large number of young men that afterward entered the National Army. After doing a month's garrison duty at Fort Independence, he recruited the 24th Massachusetts Regiment in the autumn of 1861, and commanded it in the capture of Roanoke Island and New Berne in 1862. After holding the outpost defences of the latter place for several months, he conducted several expeditions within the enemy's lines, and on 6 September successfully defended Washington, North Carolina, against a superior force. He led a brigade against Goldsboro and Kinston later in the year, and in the expedition against Charleston in February, 1863, having been made brigadier-general of volunteers on 27 December, 1862. He aided in the reduction of Morris Island, and led the reserves in the assault on Fort Wagner. After a visit to the north to recruit his health, he was placed at the head of the 1st Division of the 9th Corps. He was killed at the head of his troops in the battle of Spottsylvania. A memoir of General Stevenson was printed privately after his death (Cambridge). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 681.
STEWARD, Austin, 1793-1865, African American, former slave, anti-slavery activist, reformer. Steward was born a slave in Prince William County, Virginia. Wrote autobiography, Twenty-two Years a Slave, and Forty Years Freeman; Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, published in Rochester, New York, in 1857. He was Vice President of the National Convention of Negroes in Philadelphia, elected in 1830. In 1831, he moved to Canada to a colony for former slaves, Wilberforce, named after a British abolitionist. He helped finance the colony. In 1834, he became an Agent for the newspaper, the Anti-Slavery Standard. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 10, p. 511; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 683)
STEWART, Austin, author, born in Prince William County, Virginia, about 1793; died after 1860. He was born in slavery, and when a lad was taken to Bath, New York. He afterward fled to Canandaigua, and in 1817 he engaged successfully in business in Rochester. In 1826 he delivered an oration at the celebration of the New York Emancipation Act, and in 1830 he was elected vice-president of the National Convention of Negroes at Philadelphia. The following year he moved to a small colony that had been established in Canada West, named the township Wilberforce, and was chosen its president. He used his own funds to carry on the affairs of the colony, but, finding that no more land would be sold to the colonists by the Canada Company, returned to Rochester in 1837. He afterward opened a school in Canandaigua, and after two years became an agent for the “Anti-Slavery Standard.” He published “Twenty-two Years a Slave and Forty Years a Freeman” (2d ed., Rochester, New York, 1859). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 683.
STEWARD, Theophilus Gould, clergyman, born in Gouldtown, New Jersey, 17 April, 1843. His parents were of African descent. He was licensed to preach at twenty years of age, and at twenty-one entered the ministry of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and was stationed in Camden, New Jersey. He went to the south in 1865, and preached and taught in South Carolina and Georgia. He wrote the platform upon which the Republican Party of Georgia was first organized, and returning to the north in 1871, by appointment of his church, reopened the missions in the island of Hayti. On his return he took a full course in theology at the Protestant Episcopal Divinity-School in Philadelphia, and also studied in the School of elocution there. He has written an " Essay on Death, Hades, and the Resurrection "; "The End of the World "; and "Genesis Re-read" (Philadelphia. 1885). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 681.
STEWART, Alexander Peter, soldier, born in Rogersville, Hawkins County, Tennessee, 2 October, 1821. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1842, became 2d lieutenant in the 3d U.S. Artillery, and was acting assistant professor of mathematics at the academy from 1843 till 31 May, 1845, when he resigned. He was then professor of mathematics and natural and experimental philosophy in Cumberland University, Tennessee, in 1845-'9, and in Nashville University in 1854-'5, and became city surveyor of Nashville in 1855. He was appointed by Governor Isham G. Harris major of the corps of artillery in the Provisional Army of Tennessee, 17 May, 1861, and became brigadier-general in the Confederate Army, 8 November, 1861, major-general, 2 June, 1863, and lieutenant-general, 23 June, 1864. He was engaged in the battles of Belmont, Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro', and the campaign about Hoover's Gap, Tullahoma, Chattanooga, and through the Dalton-Atlanta Campaign under General Joseph E. Johnston. He was with General John B. Hood in his movements in the rear of General Sherman's army, and destroyed the railroads and captured the garrison at Big Shanty and Acworth. He was at Franklin and Nashville under Hood, and at Cole's Farm, in North Carolina, under Johnston. In 1868 he became professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the University of Mississippi, and chancellor of the university. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 681.
STEWART, Alexander Turney, merchant, born in Lisburn, near Belfast, Ireland, 12 October, 1803; died in New York, 10 April, 1876. He was the descendant of a Scotch emigrant to the north of Ireland and the only son of a farmer, who died when he was a school-boy. He studied with a view to entering the ministry, but, with his guardian's consent, abandoned this purpose and came to New York in the summer of 1823, without any definite plans for the future. He was for a period employed as a teacher in a select school in Roosevelt Street near Pearl, then one of the fashionable localities of the city. Returning to Ireland, he received the moderate fortune his father had left him, bought a stock of Belfast laces and linens, and on reaching New York opened a store at No. 283 Broadway, 2 September, 1825, for which he paid a rent of $250 per annum, giving as a reference Jacob Clinch, whose daughter, Cornelia, he soon afterward married. The amount of the capital invested was about $3,000. The young merchant had a sleeping-room in the rear of his shop, and under these humble conditions was formed the germ of the most extensive and lucrative dry-goods business in the world. In 1826 he moved to a larger store at 262 Broadway, and soon afterward he again moved to 257 Broadway. He displayed a genius for business, met with remarkable success from the first, and in 1848 had accumulated so much capital that he was enabled to build the large marble store on Broadway between Chambers and Reade Streets, which afterward was devoted to the wholesale branch of his business. In 1862 he erected on the block bounded by Ninth and Tenth streets, Broadway and Fourth Avenue, the five story iron building used for his retail business. This was said to be the largest retail store in the world at that time. Its cost was nearly $2,750,000. About 2,000 persons were employed in the building, the current expenses of the establishment were more than $1,000,000 a year, and the aggregate of sales in the two stores for the three years preceding his death amounted to about $203,000,000. Besides these two vast establishments, Mr. Stewart had branch houses in different parts of the world, and was the owner of numerous mills and manufactories. During the war his annual income averaged nearly $2,000,000, and in 1869 he estimated it at above $1,000,000. In 1867 Mr. Stewart was chairman of the honorary commission sent by the United States government to the Paris Exposition. In March, 1869, President Grant appointed him Secretary of the Treasury; but his confirmation was prevented by an old law which excludes from that office all who are interested in the importation of merchandise. The president sent to the Senate a message recommending that the law be repealed in order that Mr. Stewart might become eligible to the office, and Mr. Stewart offered to transfer his enormous business to trustees and to devote the entire profits accruing during his term of office to charitable purposes; but the law was not repealed, as it was believed that Mr. Stewart's plan would not effectually remove his disabilities. His acts of charity were numerous. During the famine in Ireland in 1846 he sent a ship-load of provisions to that country and gave a free passage to as many emigrants as the vessel could carry on its return voyage to this country, stipulating only that they should be able to read and write and of good moral character. After the Franco-German War he sent to France a vessel laden with flour, and in 1871 he gave $50,000 for the relief of the sufferers by the Chicago fire. When Prince Bismarck sent him his photograph requesting that of Mr. Stewart in return, he forwarded instead a draft for 50,000 francs for the benefit of the sufferers by the floods in Silesia, as he would not permit his portraits of any description to be made. He was also one of the largest contributors to the sum of $100,000 presented by the merchants of New York to General Ulysses S. Grant as an acknowledgment of his great services during the Civil War. At the time of his death Mr. Stewart was completing, at the cost of $1,000,000, the iron structure on Fourth Avenue between Thirty-second and Thirty-third Streets, New York, intended as a home for working-girls. He was also building at Hempstead Plains, L.I., the town of Garden City, the object of which was to afford to his employees and others airy and comfortable houses at a moderate cost. Mr. Stewart's wealth was estimated at about $40,000,000. His real estate was assessed at $5,450,000, which did not include property valued at more than $500,000 on which the taxes were paid by the tenants. He had no blood relatives, and by his will the bulk of his estate was given to his wife. He bequeathed $1,000,000 to an executor of the will appointed to close his partnership business and affairs. Many bequests were made to his employees and to other persons. He left a letter, dated 29 March, 1873, addressed to Mrs. Stewart, expressing his intention to make provision for various charities, by which he would have been held in everlasting remembrance, and desiring her to carry out his plans in case he should fail to complete them. Unfortunately, his noble schemes of benevolence were “turned awry, and lost the name of action,” and a large portion of his wealth passed to a person not of his name or lineage , verifying the words, “He heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them.” After Mr. Stewart's death his mercantile interests were transferred by his widow to other persons, who continued the business under the firm name of A. T. Stewart and Company, which was soon changed to E. J. Denning and Company Mr. Stewart's residence, on the corner of Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street, a marble mansion, seen in the accompanying illustration, is perhaps the finest private house in the New World. His art-gallery, among the largest and most valuable in the country, was sold at auction in New York in 1887. Two of his most important paintings were presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There was no satisfactory portrait of Mr. Stewart, and that from which the accompanying vignette is taken was painted after death by Thomas Le Clear. He was slight and graceful, of medium height, with fair hair and complexion, and light-blue eyes. He possessed refined tastes, a love of literature and art, and was fond of entertaining, which he did in a delightful manner. At his weekly dinners might be met men of distinction in all the various walks of life —from the emperor of Brazil and a Rothschild, to the penniless poet and painter. What was said of Stewart in ' dedication of a volume published in 1874 was but the simple truth – that he was “the first of American merchants and ---." philanthropists."—His widow, Cornelia Clinch, died in New York City, 25 October, 1886. She erected at Garden
City, Long Island, the Cathedral of the Incarnation as a memorial of her husband and as his mausoleum, where she now rests by his side. It is represented in the vignette, and was formally transferred by Mrs. Stewart, together with various buildings connected with it, and also an endowment of about $15,000 per annum, to the diocese of Long Island, New York, 2 June, 1885. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 681-682.
STEWART, Alvan, 1790-1849, Utica, New York, reformer, educator, lawyer, abolitionist leader, temperance activist. Member, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Vice President, 1834-1835, and Manager, 1837-1840, AASS. Member of the Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1844-149. Founder, leader, Liberty Party. Founder, New York State Anti-Slavery Society (NYSASS), 1835.
(Blue, 2005, pp. xiii, 4-5, 9, 13, 15-36, 49, 50, 63, 68, 92-94, 98, 145, 266; Dumond, 1961, pp. 225-226, 293-295, 300; Filler, 1960, pp. 151, 177; Mabee, 1970, pp. 4, 39, 40, 41, 246, 293; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4-5, 9, 13, 15-36, 49, 50, 63, 92, 98; Sernett, 2002, pp. 49, 52, 73, 112, 122; Sorin, 1971, pp. 25, 32, 33, 47-52, 60, 103n, 115, 132; Zilversmit, 1967, pp. 218-220; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 683; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 5; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 768-769; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 742)
STEWART, Alvan, reformer, born in South Granville, Washington County, New York, 1 September, 1790; died in New York City, 1 May, 1849. His parents moved when he was five months old to Crown Point, New York, and in 1795, losing their possessions through a defective title, to Westford, Chittenden County, Vermont, where the lad was brought up on a farm. In 1808 he began to teach and to study anatomy and medicine. In 1809 he entered Burlington College, Vermont, supporting himself by teaching in the winters, and, visiting Canada in 1811, he received a commission under Governor Sir George Prevost as professor in the Royal School in the seigniory of St. Armand, but he returned to college in June, 1812. After, the declaration of war he went again to Canada, and was held as a prisoner. On his return he taught and studied law in Cherry Valley, New York, and then in Paris, Kentucky, making his home in the former place, where he practised his profession and won reputation. He was a persistent advocate of protective duties, of internal improvements, and of education. He moved to Utica in 1832, and, though he continued to try causes as counsel, the remainder of his life was given mainly to the temperance and anti-slavery causes. A volume of his speeches was published in 1860. Among the most conspicuous of these was an argument, in 1837, before the New York State Anti-Slavery Convention, to prove that Congress might constitutionally abolish slavery; on the “Right of Petition” at Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, and on the “Great Issues between Right and Wrong” at the same place in 1838; before the joint committee of the legislature of Vermont; and before the supreme court of New Jersey on a habeas corpus to determine the unconstitutionality of slavery under the new state constitution of 1844, which last occupied eleven hours in delivery. His first published speech against slavery was in 1835, under threats of a mob. He then drew a call for a state anti-slavery convention for 21 October, 1835, at Utica. As the clock struck the hour he called the convention to order and addressed it, and the programme of business was completed ere the threatened mob arrived, as it soon did and dispersed the convention by violence. That night the doors and windows of his house were barred with large timbers, and fifty loaded muskets were provided, with determined men to handle them, but the preparations kept off the menaced invasion. “He was the first,” says William Goodell, the historian of abolitionism, “to insist earnestly, in our consultations, in committee and elsewhere, on the necessity of forming a distinct political party to promote the abolition of slavery.” He gradually brought the leaders into it, was its candidate for governor, and this new party grew, year by year, till at last it held the balance of power between the Whigs and Democrats, when, uniting with the former, it constituted the Republican Party. The characteristics of Mr. Stewart's eloquence and conversation were a strange and abounding humor, a memory that held large resources at command, readiness in emergency, a rich philosophy, strong powers of reasoning, and an exuberant imagination. A collection of his speeches, with a memoir, is in preparation by his son-in-law, Luther R. Marsh. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 683.
STEWART, Austin, see STEWARD, Austin
STEWART, James W., African American, businessman, anti-slavery activist. Husband of abolitionist Maria W. Stewart. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 10, p. 524)
STEWART, John E., African American, abolitionist, publisher of The African Sentinel and Journal of Liberty, founded 1831, Albany, New York (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 41)
STEWART, Maria W., 1803-1879, Hartford, Connecticut, free African American woman, author, abolitionist, women’s rights activist, civil rights advocate, orator. Published Religion and Pure Principles of Morality—The Sure Foundation on Which we Must Build, in 1831. Contributor to the abolitionist newspaper, Liberator. Also wrote, Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart (1835). (Richardson, 1987; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 41, 289, 463-464; Yellin, 1994, pp. 4, 6-7, 10, 125, 128-129, 156-157, 206; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 10, p. 524; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Vol. 2, pp. 656-658; Garcia, Jennifer Anne, Maria W. Stewart: America’s First Black Feminist, 1998, master’s thesis; Richardson, Marilyn, Maria W. Stewart: America’s First Black Woman Political Writer, Indiana University Press, 1988)
STEWART, Philo P., Troy, New York, abolitionist, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1861-64
STEWART, Robert, Ross County, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-1840, Vice-President, 1840-1856.
STEWART, Samuel, New York, abolitionist leader (Sorin, 1971)
STEWART, Charles Samuel, clergyman, born in Flemington, New Jersey, 16 October, 1795; died in Cooperstown, New York, 15 December, 1870, was graduated at Princeton in 1815, when, after studying law, he took a theological course. He was ordained and sent as missionary to the Sandwich Islands in 1823, but, owing to the failing health of his wife, returned in 1825, and afterward lectured through the northern states in advocacy of foreign missions. In 1828 he was appointed chaplain in the U.S. Navy, and during his visits to all parts of the world he collected material for his works. He was subsequently stationed for many years at New York, where, in 1836-'7, he edited the “Naval Magazine.” In 1862 he was retired, and at his death he was the senior chaplain in the Navy. The degree of D.D. was given him in 1863 by the University of New York. His works include “Residence at the Sandwich Islands, 1823–25,” which is an authority on the early history of that mission New York, 1828); “Visit to the South Seas in the . S. Ship ‘Vincennes, with Scenes in Brazil, Peru, etc.” (2 vols., 1831; improved ed., by Reverend William Ellis, 2 vols., 1839): “Sketches of Society in Great Britain and Ireland in 1832” (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1834); and “Brazil and La Plata in 1850–53: the Personal Record of a Cruise” (New York, 1856). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 683-584.
STEWART, Charles Seaforth, soldier, born at sea, 11 April, 1823, was graduated in 1846 at the U.S. Military Academy, where he was assistant professor of engineering in 1849–54. He was made 1st lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers in 1853, serving as assistant engineer in 1 ’7, and as superintending engineer in the construction of fortifications in Boston Harbor till 1861, having been promoted captain in 1860. He served during the Civil War in the Corps of Engineers, was made major in 1863, and was chief engineer of the Middle Military Division in 1864–5. He was made lieutenant-colonel in 1867, colonel in 1882, and was retired in 1886. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 684.
STEWART, Charles, naval officer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 July, 1778; died in Bordentown, New Jersey, 6 November, 1869. His parents were Irish; his father died in 1780, and his mother was left with scant means to provide for four children. He entered the merchant marine as cabin-boy in 1791, and quickly rose to the command of an Indiaman. Entering the U.S. Navy as lieutenant, 9 March, 1798, he served in the frigate “United States” in the West Indies, operating against French privateers. On 16 July, 1800, he was appointed to command the schooner “Experiment” in the West Indies, where he captured the He was also French schooner “Deux Amis.” chased by two French vessels, which he skilfully avoided, and by following them he fought and captured one, the schooner “Diana,” before the other vessel could assist in the engagement. On 16 November, 1800, he took the privateer “Louisa Bridger,” and the next month he rescued sixty women and children that had been wrecked while flying from a revolution in Santo Domingo. The Spanish governor of the island wrote a letter of thanks to the president for Stewart's services. He was retained on the list of lieutenants in the naval reorganization of 1801. In 1802 he served as executive of the “Constellation,” blockading Tripoli, but returned in 1803 and was placed in command of the brig “Siren,” in Preble's squadron, off Tripoli, where he convoyed Decatur in the “Intrepid.” to destroy the “Philadelphia,” and participated in all the attacks on Tripoli, being included in the vote of thanks by Congress on 3 March, 1805, to Preble's officers. While blockading Tripoli, he captured the Greek ship “Catapoliana” and the British brig “Scourge” for violating the blockade. As master-commandant he took charge of the “Essex” and went with the fleet to Tunis, where he convinced his commander-in-chief that it was illegal to make War except by declaration of Congress. He returned home in 1806, commanding the “Constellation,” and was promoted to captain, 22 April, 1806. He superintended the construction of gun-boats at New York in 1806-7, was engaged in the merchant marine in 1808–'12, but returned to the service in 1812, and with Bainbridge dissuaded the cabinet from the proposed policy, of not sending the navy to sea against the British. He was assigned to command the “Arus” and “Hornet” in a special expedition to the est Indies on 23 June, 1812, but the order was cancelled, and he was appointed to command the “Constellation.” In going to Norfolk he met a British fleet, which he skilfully avoided, and then participated in the defence of the town. In the summer of 1813 he took command of the “Constitution,” destroyed the “Pictou,” an armed merchant ship, and the brigs “Catherine” and “Phoenix,” chased several British ships-of-war and the frigate “La Pique,” and narrowly escaped two British frigates near Boston. With new sails he left Boston in December, 1814, captured the brig “Lord Nelson ” off Bermuda, 24 December 1814, and the ship “Susan ” off Lisbon, and on 23 February, 1815, took two British ships-of-war, the “Cyane” and “Levant,” after a spirited engagement of fifty minutes. While he was at anchor at St. Jago, Cape de Verde, a British fleet approached, from which he adroitly escaped with the “Constitution” and “Cyane,” the “Levant” being recaptured by the fleet in the neutral harbor which she had just left. He received from Congress a vote of thanks, a sword, and a gold medal, from the Pennsylvania legislature a vote of thanks and a sword, and the freedom of the city of New York. Like the famous frigate, represented in the illustration, Stewart received the soubriquet of “Old Ironsides.” He commanded the Mediterranean Squadron, in the “Franklin,” in 1816-'20, and the Pacific Squadron in 1820-'4, where he caused a paper blockade to be annulled, and vindicated the rights of American commerce. He was commissioner of the navy in 1830–2, commanded the Philadelphia U.S. Navy-yard in 1838–41, and in 1841 was mentioned as a candidate for president, but was not nominated. He had charge of the Home Squadron in 1842–3, commanded the Philadelphia U.S. Navy-yard again in 1846, and from 1854 till 1861. He was retired as senior commodore in 1856 and flag-officer in 1860, and on 16 July, 1862, was commissioned rear-admiral, after which he was on waiting orders until his death. He was in the service seventy-one years, and the senior officer for seventeen years. On 21 May, 1885, his daughter, Delia Tudor, married Charles Henry Parnell, and she became the mother of Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish home-rule leader in the British parliament. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 684-685.
STEWART, Gideon Tabor, lawyer, born in Johnstown, New York, 7 August, 1824. He moved with his parents to Oberlin, Ohio, where he was educated. Subsequently he studied law in Norwalk and then with Noah H. Swayne in Columbus. In 1846, after his admission to the bar, he began practice in Norwalk, where in 1846 he became editor of the "Reflector." He was elected county auditor as a Whig and held that office during three terms. In 1861 he moved to Iowa, where he purchased the Dubuque "Daily Times," and published it during the Civil War. At the time of its purchase it was the only daily Union paper in the northern half of the state. Previously he was one of the proprietors of the Toledo "Blade," and afterward of the Toledo "Commercial," but in 1876 he returned to Norwalk, where he has since continued his law-practice. Mr. Stewart was three times elected grand worthy chief templar by the Good Templars of Ohio. In 1853 he took part in the Maine law campaign of that year, and then endeavored to organize a permanent Prohibition Party. He was chairman of a state convention in 1857 in Columbus for the purpose of forming such a party, but the movement failed on account of the troubles in Kansas and the Civil War. In 1869 he was one of the delegates from Ohio to the Chicago Convention that formed the National Prohibition Party. Since that time he has been nominated three times for governor, seven times for supreme judge, once for circuit judge, once for Congress, and once for vice-president in 1876, when, with Green Clay Smith as candidate for president, he received a popular vote of 9,522. For fifteen years he was a member, during four of which he was chairman of the national executive committee of his party. In 1876, 1880, and 1884 the Prohibition State Convention unanimously instructed the Ohio delegates to present him in the National Convention as their choice for presidential candidate, but each time he refused to have his name brought forward. Mr. Stewart has written much in advocacy of the temperance reform, and many of his public addresses have been extensively circulated. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 686.
STEWART, Jacob Henry, physician, born in Clermont, New York, 15 January, 1829; died in St. Paul, Minnesota, 25 August. 1884. He studied at Yale for three years, and was graduated at the medical department of the University of New York in 1851. Four years later he began practice in Peekskill, New York, but in 1855 he moved to St. Paul, where he obtained recognition as one of the most skilful practitioners of that city. In 1856 he was appointed physician of Ramsay County. Minnesota, and in 1857-'63 he was surgeon-general of Minnesota, also serving as a member of the governor's staff and as a member of the state senate in 1858-'9. On 17 April, 1861, he joined the 1st Minnesota Volunteers, which was the first regiment that was received by President Lincoln, thus making Dr. Stewart the ranking surgeon in the volunteer service. He remained on the battle-field of Bull Run, was paroled, and allowed to care for his wounded at Sudley-Church Hospital until they were able to be moved to Richmond, when he was permitted to return home without exchange "for voluntarily remaining on the battle-field in the discharge of his duty." The sword taken from him when he was made prisoner was given back to him by General Beauregard in recognition of his faithfulness to duty. On his return to Minnesota he was appointed surgeon of the board of enrolment, and held that office until the close of the war. In 1864 he was elected mayor of St. Paul, and he was re-elected for four terms (1869-'73). Dr. Stewart was the only Republican that has ever held that office in St. Paul, as the vote of the city is Democratic. From 1865 till 1870 he was postmaster of St. Paul, and he was then elected to Congress as a Republican, serving from 15 Oct. 1877, till 4 March, 1879. He was appointed surveyor-general of the state in 1880, and held that office for four years. Dr. Stewart was president of Minnesota State Medical Society in 1875-'6, and president of the board of physicians and surgeons to St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 686.
STEWART, Robert Mercellus, governor of Missouri, born in Truxton, New York, 12 March, 1815; died in St. Joseph. Missouri, 21 September, 1871. He went to Kentucky as a boy, and in 1838 settled in Buchanan County, Missouri. In 1845 he was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, and for ten years he was a member of the state senate. He was elected governor of Missouri in 1857, and served for four years, during which time he was active in founding the system of railroads that centres in that state. At the beginning of the Civil War he entered the National Army, but failing health prevented him from serving and he soon retired. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 686-687.
STEWART, Virgil Adam, born in Jackson County, Georgia, about 1810. In 1835 he became acquainted with John A. Murrell, who was the chief of an organization that existed throughout the south and southwest and made a practice of enticing Negroes from their owners, with promise of freedom, and then selling them in a distant part of the country. The members of the conspiracy recognized one another by signs, and dexterously concealed their identity. Their crimes included robbery and murder. Mr. Stewart succeeded in gaining full information concerning the plans of the organization, which included an extended uprising of the Negroes, who were incited by promises of freedom to rebel and slay all the whites on the night of 25 December, 1835. Meanwhile the members of the conspiracy were to take advantage of the condition of affairs and plunder generally. A knowledge of this plot, which was divulged to Stewart by Murrell, led to the arrest of the latter, and his subsequent sentence to imprisonment for ten years. After the conviction, Stewart published a pamphlet account of the affair, under the title of "The Western Land Pirate" (1835), giving the names of the conspirators. This quickly disappeared, statements were industriously circulated that Stewart was a member of the band, and efforts were made to murder him. See " The History of Virgil A. Stewart and his Adventure in capturing and exposing the Great Western Land Pirate and his Gang " (New York, 1836). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 687.
STEWART, William Morris, senator, born in Lyons, New York, 9 August, 1827. He entered Yale in 1848, and, although he was not graduated, his name was afterward enrolled among the members of the class of 1852, and he received the degree of A. M. in 1865. In 1850 he set out for California by the way of Panama and engaged in mining in Nevada County, where he discovered the celebrated Eureka diggings, he disposed of his mining interests and began the study of law early in 1852, and was appointed district attorney in December of that year, and in 1854 became attorney-general and settled in San Francisco. Later he moved to Downieville, California, where he devoted himself to the study and practice of the laws that relate to mining, ditch and water-rights, and similar processes. In 1860 he moved to Virginia City, Nevada, and was retained in almost every case of importance before the higher courts. To his efforts is mainly due the permanent settlement of the titles of nearly all the mines on the great Comstock Lode. In 1861 he was chosen a member of the territorial council, and in 1863 he was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention. Subsequently he was twice elected as a Republican to the U. S. Senate, and served from 4 December, 1864, till 3 March, 1875. On his retirement he resumed the practice of his profession on the Pacific Coast, where his great familiarity with mining law and mining litigation created a demand for his services. In 1887 he was again elected to the U. S. Senate for a full term, taking his seat on 4 March. He has published various addresses and speeches. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 687.
STILES, Israel Newton, lawyer, born in Suffield, Connecticut, 16 July, 1833. He is a relative of Ezra Stiles. He received a common-school education, began the study of law in 1849, and three years later moved to Lafayette, Indiana, where he taught and continued his studies till his admission to the bar in 1855. He was prosecuting attorney two years and a member of the legislature, and became active as an anti-slavery orator during the Fremont canvass, delivering more than sixty speeches. When the Civil War began he enlisted as a private, but was soon made adjutant of the 20th Indiana Regiment. He was taken prisoner at Malvern Hill, but, after six weeks in Libby prison, was exchanged. He was subsequently major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel of the 63d Indiana, and finally brevet brigadier-general, his commission being dated 31 January, 1865. He moved to Chicago, where he has earned a high reputation as a lawyer. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 688-689.
STILES, Joseph Clay, clergyman, born in Savannah, Georgia, 6 December, 1795; died there, 27 March, 1875. After graduation at Yale in 1814 he studied law at Litchfield, and practised in his native city, but in 1822 entered Andover Theological Seminary, where he was graduated in 1825. After his ordination by the presbytery in 1826 he labored as an evangelist in Georgia and Florida from 1829 till 1835, and gave an impetus to Presbyterianism in his native state, reviving old churches and building new ones. In 1835 he moved to Kentucky and spent nine years in the west, where he frequently engaged in public theological discussion that grew out of the division of his denomination. In 1844 he accepted a call to Richmond, Virginia., and in 1848 he became pastor of the Mercer Street Church, New York City, which charge he resigned, owing to impaired health, and became general agent for the American Bible Society in the south in 1850. In 1853 he became pastor of the South Church in New Haven, Connecticut, organized a southern aid society, and in 1860 labored as evangelist in the south, serving in this capacity until his death. He received the degree of D. D. from Transylvania University in 1846, and that of LL. D. from the University of Georgia in 1860. Dr. Stiles was the author of a " Speech on the Slavery Resolutions in the General Assembly" (New York, 1850); "Modern Reform Examined, or the Union of the North and South on the Subject of Slavery" (Philadelphia, 1858); "The National Controversy, or the Voice of the Fathers upon the State of the Country" (New York, 1861); and "Future Punishment Discussed in a Letter to a Friend " (St. Louis, 1868). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 689.
STILES, William Henry, lawyer, born in Savannah, Georgia, in January, 1808: died there, 20 December, 1865, received an academic education, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1831, and practised in Savannah. He was solicitor-general for the eastern District of Georgia in 1833-'6, and afterward elected to Congress as a Democrat, serving from 4 December, 1843, till 3 March, 1845. On 19 April, 1845, he was appointed charge d' affaires in Austria, holding this office until 3 October, 1849, and on his return he resumed law-practice in Savannah. At the beginning of the Civil War he raised a regiment for the Confederate Army, in which he served as colonel, but resigned, owing to impaired health. Yale College gave him the degree of A. M. in 1837. He was the author of a " History of Austria, 1848-'9" (2 vols., New York, 1852). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 689.
STILL, William, 1821-1902, African American, abolitionist, writer. “Conductor” on the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia area, 1851-1861. Member of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Wrote fugitive slave narratives. (
Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, p. 689; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 22; Mabee, 1970, pp. 108, 270, 273, 275, 279, 287, 288, 289, 292, 338, 339, 414n3, 415n18; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 53, 74, 204, 307, 464, 482, 489; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 775; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 313-314; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 10, p. 536)
STILL, William, philanthropist, born in Shamony, Burlington County, New Jersey, 7 October, 1821. He is of African descent, and was brought up on a farm. Coming to Philadelphia in 1844, he obtained a clerkship in 1847 in the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society. He was chairman and corresponding secretary of the Philadelphia branch of the “Underground Railroad” in 1851-'61, and busied himself in writing out the narratives of fugitive slaves. His writings constitute the only full account of the organization with which he was connected. Mr. Still sheltered the wife, daughter, and sons of John Brown while he was awaiting execution in Charlestown, Virginia. During the Civil War he was commissioned post-sutler at Camp William Penn for colored troops, and was a member of the Freedmen's Aid Union and Commission. He is vice-president and chairman of the board of managers of the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored persons, a member of the board of trustees of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home, and of other charitable institutions. In 1885 he was sent by the presbytery of Philadelphia as a commissioner to the general assembly at Cincinnati. He was one of the original stockholders of “The Nation,” and a member of the Board of trade of Philadelphia. His writings include “The Underground Rail-Road” (Philadelphia, 1878); “Voting and Laboring”; and “Struggle for the Rights of the Colored People of Philadelphia.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 689.
STILLE, Charles Janeway, historian, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 23 September, 1819, was graduated at Yale in 1839, and, after admission to the bar, devoted his attention to literature. During the Civil War he was an active member of the executive committee of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, of which he afterward became the historian. In 1866 he was appointed professor of history in the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1868 became provost, which place he filled until 1880. While holding this office he convinced the trustees and faculty of the necessity of considering the demands of advanced education, especially in the scientific branches, and largely through his influence the new buildings in West Philadelphia were erected and the scientific department was founded. The edifice shown in the illustration represents the library building erected in 1888-'9 on the university grounds. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Yale in 1868. In addition to numerous addresses and pamphlets, he has published “How a Free People conduct a Long War” (Philadelphia, 1862): “Northern Interest and Southern Independence: a Plea for United Action” (1863); “Memorial of the Great Central Fair for the United States Sanitary Commission” (1864); “History of the United States Sanitary Commission” (1866); and “Studies in Mediaeval History.” (1881). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 689-690.
STILLMAN, Thomas Bliss, mechanical engineer, born in Westerly, Rhode Island, 30 August, 1806; died in Plainfield, New Jersey, 1 January, 1866. He was educated at Union College, and in 1832 came to New York City and took charge of the Novelty Iron-Works. The first line of steamships on this coast to carry passengers and freight between New York and Charleston, South Carolina, was established by him. During the Civil War he was U.S. inspector of steam vessels for the New York District, and superintendent of construction of revenue cutters. His last work was to put twelve armed steam cutters afloat in place of the sailing vessels that had been previously used. He was also at various times president of the board of comptrollers, of the Park Board in New York County, and of the Metropolitan Police Commission. For nearly twenty years he was a trustee of the New York Hospital, and he was long president of the Metropolitan Savings Bank. He invented improved forms of machinery that have come into use. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 690.
