Encyclopedia of Civil War Biography - Sto-Sza
STOCKBRIDGE, Francis Brown, senator, born in Bath, Maine, 9 April, 1826. He was educated at Bath Academy, and resided in Boston from 1842 till 1847, when he became a lumber merchant in Chicago, Illinois. In 1854 he moved to Saugatuck, Michigan, and since 1863 he has resided in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has served as a colonel of Michigan Militia, was successively in both branches of the legislature in 1869-'71, and in January, 1887, was elected to the U.S. Senate. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 692.
STOCKBRIDGE, Henry, lawyer, born in North Hadley, Massachusetts, 31 August, 1822, was originally named Henry Smith Stockbridge, but he dropped the Smith in early manhood. He was graduated at Amherst in 1845. and studied law in Baltimore, where he was admitted to the bar, 1 May, 1818, and has since practised his profession. During the Civil War he was a special district attorney to attend to the business of the War Department, and in 1864, as a member of the legislature, he drafted the act that convened a constitutional convention for the abolition of slavery in the state. He took an active part in the proceedings of the convention, and defended the constitution that it adopted before the court of last resort. Afterward he instituted, and successfully prosecuted in the U. S. Courts, proceedings by which were annulled the indentures of apprenticeship by which it was sought to evade the emancipation clause. Mr. Stockbridge thus practically secured the enfranchisement of more than 10,000 colored children. He was judge of the circuit court for Baltimore County in 1865, a delegate to the Loyalists' Convention in 1866, and vice-president of the National Republican Convention of 1868. Mr. Stockbridge has been for twenty years editor of the Fund Publications of the Maryland Historical Society, of which he is vice-president; and he is the author of publication No. 22; “The Archives of Maryland" (Baltimore, 1886); besides various contributions to magazines. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 693.
STOCKTON, Robert Field, naval officer, born in Princeton, New Jersey, 20 August, 1795; died there, 7 October, 1866, studied at Princeton College, but before completing his course he entered the U. S. navy as a midshipman, 1 September, 1811. He joined the frigate “President” at Newport, 14 February, 1812, and made several cruises in that ship , with Commodore Rodgers, with whom he went as aide to the “Guerrière” at Philadelphia; but, as the ship was unable to go to sea, Rogers took his crew to assist in defending Baltimore. Before the arrival of the British, Stockton went to Washington and became the aide of the Secretary of the Navy, after which he resumed his post with Commodore Rodgers and took part in the operations at Alexandria. He then went with Rodgers to Baltimore and had command of 300 sailors in the defence of that city against the British Army. He was highly commended, and promoted to lieutenant, 9 September, 1814. On 18 May, 1815, he sailed in the “Guerrière,” Decatur's flag-ship, for the Mediterranean after the declaration of war with Algiers, but he was transferred soon afterward to the schooner “Spitfire.” as 1st lieutenant, in which vessel he participated in the capture of the Algerine frigate “Mahouda,” and '' the boarders at the capture of the Algerine brig “Esledio” in June, 1815. In February, 1816, he joined the ship-of-the-line “Washington” and made another cruise in the Mediterranean, in the course of which he was transferred to the ship “Erie,” of which he soon became executive officer. The American officers very often had disputes with British officers, and frequent duels took place. At one time in Gibraltar. Stockton had accepted challenges to fight all the captains of the British regiment in the garrison, and several meetings took place. In one case after wounding his adversary he escaped arrest by knocking one of the guard from his horse, which he seized and rode to his boat. Stockton came home in command of the “Erie" in 1821. Shortly after his return the American Colonization Society obtained his services to command the schooner “Alligator” for the purpose of founding a colony on the west coast of Africa. He sailed in the autumn of 1821, and after skilful diplomatic conferences obtained a concession of a tract of territory near Cape Mesurado, which has since become the republic of Liberia. In November, 1821, the Portuguese letter-of-marque “Mariana Flora.” fired on the “Alligator,” which she mistook for a pirate. After an engagement of twenty minutes the Portuguese vessel was taken and the capture was declared legal, though the prize was returned by courtesy to Portugal. On a subsequent cruise in the “Alligator” he captured the French slaver “Jeune Eugenie,” by which action the right to seize slavers under a foreign flag was first established as legal. He also captured several piratical vessels in the West Indies. From 1826 until December, 1838, he was on leave, and resided at Princeton, New Jersey. He organized the New Jersey Colonization Society, became interested in the turf, and imported from England some of the finest stock of blooded horses. He also took an active part in politics, and became interested in the Delaware and Raritan canal, for which he obtained the charter that had originally been given to a New York company, and vigorously prosecuted the work. His whole fortune and that of his family were invested in the enterprise, which was completed, notwithstanding the opposition of railroads and a financial crisis, by which he was obliged to go to Europe to negotiate a loan. He retained his interest in this canal during his life, and the work stands as an enduring monument to his energy and enterprise. In December, 1838, he sailed with Commodore Isaac Hull in the flag-ship “Ohio.” as fleet-captain of the Mediterranean Squadron, being promoted to captain on 8 December. He returned in the latter part of 1839, and took part in the presidential canvass of 1840 in favor of General William Henry Harrison. After John Tyler became president, Stockton was offered a seat in the cabinet as with Mexico was subsequently confirmed, General Secretary of the Navy, which he declined. The U.S. Steamer “Princeton” was built under his supervision and launched at Philadelphia early in 1844. He was appointed command of the ship, and brought her to Washington for the inspection of officials and members of Congress. On a trial-trip down the Potomac River, when the president, cabinet, and a distinguished company were on board, one of the large guns burst and killed the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Navy, the president's father-in-law, and several of the crew, while a great many were seriously injured. A naval court of inquiry entirely exonerated Captain Stockton. Shortly after this event he sailed in the “Princeton ” as bearer of the annexation resolutions to the government of Texas. In October, 1845, he went in the frigate “Congress” from Norfolk to serve as commander-in-chief of the Pacific Squadron, on the eve of the Mexican War. He sailed around Cape Horn to the Sandwich Islands, and thence to Monterey, where he found the squadron in possession under Commodore John D. Sloat, whom Stockton relieved. News of the war had been received by the squadron before his arrival, and Monterey and San Francisco were captured. Stockton assumed command of all American forces on the coast by proclamation, 23 July, 1846. He organized a battalion of Americans in California and naval brigades from the crews of the ships. Colonel John C. Frémont also co-operated with him. He sent Frémont in the “Cyane" to San Diego, while he landed at Santa Barbara and marched thirty miles with the naval brigade to the Mexican capital of California, the city of Los Angeles, of which he took possession on 13 August He then organized a civil government for the state, and appointed Colonel Frémont governor. Rumors of a rising of the Indians compelled him to return to the north in September. The force that he left at Los Angeles was besieged by the Mexicans in his absence, and Stockton was obliged to sail to San Diego after finding all quiet in the northern part of California. The Mexicans had also recaptured San Diego. He landed at that place, drove out the enemy, and sent a force to the rescue of General Stephen W. Kearny, who had been defeated by the Mexicans on the way to San Diego. General Kearny, with sixty dragoons, then served under Stockton's orders, and the force proceeded to Los Angeles, 150 miles distant. An engagement took place at San Gabriel on 8 January, 1847, followed by the battle of La Mesa the next day, in which the Mexicans were routed. Colonel Frémont had raised an additional force of Californians, by which the force under Stockton amounted to more than 1,000 men. Negotiations were opened with the Mexican governor, and the entire province of California was ceded to the United States and evacuated by the Mexican authorities. The treaty was subsequently confirmed. General Kearny raised a dispute with Stockton for his assumption of command over military forces, but Stockton's course was sustained by virtue of his conquest. On 17 January, 1847, he returned to San Diego, and then sailed to Monterey, where he was relieved by Commodore William B. Shubrick. Stockton returned home overland during the Summer. He was the recipient of honors by all parties, and the legislature of New Jersey gave him a vote of thanks and a reception. The people of California, in recognition of his services, named for him the city of Stockton, and also one of the principal streets of San Francisco. On 28 May, 1850, he resigned from the navy in order to settle his father-in-law's estate in South Carolina and attend to his private interests. He continued to take part in politics, was elected to the U. S. Senate, and took his seat, 1 December, 1851, but resigned, 10 January, 1853, and retired to private life. During his brief service in the Senate he introduced and advocated the bill by which flogging was abolished in the navy. He also urged measures for coast defence. After he resigned from the Senate he devoted himself to the development of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, of which he was president until his death. He continued to take an interest in politics, became an ardent supporter of the “American" Party, and was a delegate to the Peace Congress that met in Washington, 13 February, 1861. See his “Life and Speeches” (New York, 1856). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp 694-695.
STOCKTON, John Potter, senator, born in Princeton, New Jersey, 2 August, 1826, was graduated at Princeton in 1843, studied law, was licensed to practise as an attorney in 1847, and came to the bar in 1850. He was appointed by the legislature a commissioner to revise and simplify the proceedings and practice in the courts of law of the state, and was for several years afterward reporter to the court of chancery. In 1857 he was appointed U.S. minister to Rome, but in 1861 he was recalled at his own request. In 1865 he was chosen U.S. Senator from New Jersey by a plurality vote of the legislature, a resolution changing the number necessary to elect from a majority to a plurality having been passed by the joint convention that elected him. On this ground, after he had taken his seat in the Senate, several members of the legislature sent to the Senate a protest against his retaining it. The Committee on the Judiciary unanimously reported in favor of the validity of his election, and their report was accepted by a vote of twenty-two to twenty-one, Mr. Stockton voting in the affirmative. His vote was objected to by Charles Sumner, and on the following day, 27 March, 1866, he withdrew it, and was unseated by a vote of twenty-three to twenty-one. He then devoted himself to the practice of his profession, but in 1869 was re-elected to the Senate, and served one term till 1875. While in that body he advocated the establishment of lifesaving stations on the coast, and procured on the appropriation bills the first provision for their maintenance. He served on the Committees on Foreign Affairs, the Navy, Appropriations, Patents, and Public Buildings and Grounds; and took part in the debate on reconstruction, and in the discussion of questions of international law. In 1877 he was appointed attorney-general of New Jersey, and he was chosen again in 1882 and 1887. In this office he has sustained by exhaustive arguments the system of railroad taxation, reversing in the court of errors the decisions of the Supreme Court against the state. Mr. Stockton has been a delegate-at-large to all the Democratic National authorities. since that of 1864, where, as chairman of the New Jersey delegation, he nominated General George B. McClellan for the presidency. He was also a delegate to the Unionists' Convention at Philadelphia in 1866. Princeton gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1882. He has published “Equity Reports being the decisions of the courts of chancery and appeals (3 vols., Trenton, 1856–60). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 695-696.
STOCKTON, Thomas Hewlings, clergyman, born in Mount Holly, New Jersey, 4 June, 1808; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 9 October, 1868. He studied medicine in Philadelphia, but began to preach in 1829, entered the ministry of the Methodist Protestant Church, and took charge of a circuit on the eastern shore of Maryland. He soon attained a reputation as a pulpit orator, and served as chaplain to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1833–5 and 1859–61, and to the Senate in 1862. Being unwilling to submit to the restrictions in the discussion of slavery that were imposed by the Baltimore Conference, he went to Philadelphia in 1838, where he was a pastor and lecturer till 1847. He then resided in Cincinnati, Ohio, till 1850, and while there declined a unanimous election to the presidency of Miami University. From 1850 till 1856 he was associate pastor of St. John's Methodist Protestant Church in Baltimore, also serving during three years and a half of this period as pastor of an Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church there. From 1856 till his death he was pastor of the Church of the New Testament in Philadelphia and also devoted himself to literary work. Dr. Stockton edited at different periods the “Christian World” and the “Bible Times.” He was an anti-slavery pioneer, opposed sectarianism, and was active in his labors for all social reforms. He published editions of the Bible, each book by itself; “Floating Flowers from a Hidden Brook” (Philadelphia, 1844); “The Bible Alliance” (Cincinnati, 1850); “Ecclesiastical Opposition to the Bible” (Baltimore, 1853); “Sermons for the People” (Pittsburg, 1854); “The Blessing” (Philadelphia, 1857); “Stand up for Jesus,” a ballad, with notes, illustrations, and music, and a few additional poems (1858); “Poems, with Autobiographical and other Notes” (1862); and “Influence of the United States on Christendom” (1865). After his death '' eared his “The Book above all” (1870). See “Memory's Tribute to the Life, Character, and Work of Reverend Thomas H. Stockton,” by the Reverend Alexander Clark (New York, 1869), and “Life, Character, and Death of Reverend Thomas H. Stockton,” by Reverend John G. Wilson (Philadelphia, 1869). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 696.
STOCKTON, Francis Richard, author, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 £ 1834, was graduated at the Central high school in his native city in 1852, became an engraver and draughtsman, and in 1866 invented and patented a double graver, but he soon abandoned this occupation for journalism. After being connected with the "Post” in Philadelphia and “Hearth and Home” in New York, he joined the editorial staff of “Scribner's Monthly,” and on the establishment of “St. Nicholas” became its assistant editor. Mr. Stockton's earliest writings, under the name of Frank R. Stockton, which # has since retained, were fantastic tales for children, and appeared in the “Riverside Magazine” and other periodicals. Four of these, under the title of “The Ting-a-Ling Stories,” were issued in a volume (Boston, 1870). More recently he has attained a wide reputation for his short stories, which are marked by quaintness of subject and treatment and by dry humor. The first of these were the “Rudder Grange" stories, which appeared in “Scribner's Monthly,” and afterward in book-form (New York, 1879). “The Lady or the Tiger?” is perhaps the most widely known. It ends by propounding a problem, various solutions of which, some serious and some jocose, have appeared from time to time. A comic opera, upon it, the libretto of which was written by Sydney Rosenfeld, was produced in New York in 1888. Mr. Stockton's other short stories include “The Transferred Ghost,” “The Spectral Mortgage,” and “A Tale of Negative Gravity.” He is also the author of the novels “The Late Mrs. Null” (New York, 1886); “The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine” (1886), with a sequel, entitled “The Dusantes” (1888); and “The Hundredth Man” (1887). His short stories have been collected as “The Lady or the Tiger? and other Stories” (1884); “The Christmas Wreck, and other Tales” (1887); and “The Bee Man of Orm, and other Fanciful Tales” (1887). He has written for children “Roundabout Rambles” (1872); “What might have been Expected” (1874): “Tales Out of School” (1875); “A Jolly Fellowship” (1880); “The Floating Prince.” (1881); and “ Story of Viteau” (1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 696.
STOCKTON, John Drean, journalist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 26 April, 1836; died there, 3 November, 1877, was educated in his native city, and began to study art and engraving, but was employed at an early age on the Philadelphia “Press,” and became its manager under John W. Forney. He was connected with the New York “Tribune” in 1866, and in 1867 assumed the editorship of the Philadelphia “Post,” of which he became a proprietor, but he gave up his interest in 1872, and from 1873 till his death was dramatic and musical critic of the New York “Herald.” He wrote “Fox and Geese,” a comedy (1868), which ran 100 nights in New York and other cities, and more than 300 in London. Mr. Stockton's political editorials, as well as his dramatic and literary criticisms, were marked by touches of humor an poetic fancy. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 696.
STOIDDARD, Charles Warren, author, born in Rochester, New York, 7 August, 1843. He was educated in New York City and in California, to which state he had moved with his father in 1855. In 1864 he went to the Hawaiian Islands, where he has since passed much of his time, and, as travelling correspondent of the San Francisco “Chronicle.” in 1873-'8, visited many islands of the South seas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific slope from Alaska to Mexico. He began to write poetry at an early age, was for a short time an actor, has contributed to many magazines, and has also lectured. He was professor of English literature in Notre Dame College, Indiana, in 1885–6. He has published “Poems” (San Francisco, 1867); “South Sea Idyls ” (Boston, 1873); “Mashallah: a Flight into Egypt” (New York, 1881); and “The Lepers of Molokai.” (Notre Dame, 1885). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 696.
STODDARD, Joshua C, inventor, born in Pawlet, Vermont, 26 August, 1814. He was educated at the public schools, and became noted as an apiarist, le also turned his attention to inventing, and in 1856 devised the steam-calliope, which is used on Mississippi steamers. He also invented the Stoddard horse-rake and hay-tedder. More than 100,000 of his rakes are now in use. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 697.
STODDARD, Richard Henry, poet, born in Hingham, Massachusetts, 2 July, 1825. His father, a sea-captain, was wrecked and lost on one of his voyages while Richard was a child, and the lad went in 1835 to New York with his mother, who had married again. He attended the public schools of that city, but worked for several years in an iron-foundry, at the same t i me reading the best authors, particularly poetry. His talents brought him into relations with young men interested in literature, notably with Bayard Taylor, who had just published his 'Views Afoot." Stoddard had written verses from his early years, and in 1849 printed privately a collection in a small volume called "Footprints," the edition of which he afterward destroyed. In 1852 he published a riper volume of poems, became a contributor to the "Knickerbocker," and entered upon literary work. Writing as a means of subsistence became such a burden that, through Nathaniel Hawthorne, he obtained a place in the custom-house, and retained it from 1853 till 1870. He was confidential clerk to General George B. McClellan in the dock department in 1870-'3, and city librarian in New York for about a year. He was literary reviewer on the New York "World " from 1860 till 1870, and has held the same office on the "Mail " and "Mail and Express " since 1880. He also edited for some time "The Aldine," an illustrated periodical, which was discontinued. His mind and tastes are poetical, but he has done a good deal of booksellers' work from the urgency of circumstances. In 1853 he published " Adventures in Fairy Land " for young folks, and in 1857 "Songs of Summer," abounding in luxuriant imagination and tropical feeling. Among his other works are " Town and Country," for children (New York, 1857); "Life, Travels, and Books of Alexander von Humboldt," with an introduction by Bayard Taylor (Boston, 1860; London, 1862); "The King's bell," a poem (Boston, 1862: London, 1864; New York, 1865): "The Story of Little Red Riding Hood," in verse (New York, 1864); "The Children in the Wood," in verse (1865); "Abraham Lincoln, a Horatian Ode" (1865); "Putnam, the Brave" (1869); and "The Book of the East," containing his later poem's (1867). He has edited " The Last Political Writings of General Nathaniel Lyon"(1861); "The Loves and Heroines of the Poets " (1801); John Guy Vassar's "Twenty-one Years Round the World (1862); "Melodies and Madrigals, mostly from the Old English Poets" (1865); "The Late English Poets " (1805); enlarged editions of Rufus W. Griswold's " Poets and Poetry of America " (1872); " Female Poets of America" (1874); and the "Bric-A-Brac Series" (1874). He has also edited several annuals, made translations, and written numerous monographs and prefaces, including monographs on Edgar Allan Poe and William Cullen Bryant.— His wife, Elizabeth Barstow, poet, born in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, 6 May, 1823, was educated at various boarding-schools. At twenty-eight years of age she married Mr. Stoddard, and soon afterward she began to contribute poems to the magazines. These are more than of the merely agreeable, popular order; they invariably contain a central idea, not always apparent at first, but always poetical, though not understood by the average reader. No collection of her poems, distributed for twenty-five or thirty years through many periodicals, has been made, years ago she published three remarkable novels. "The Morgesons " (New York, 1862); "Two Men " (1865); and " Temple House " (1867). Owing to various causes, they never sold to any extent, and had long been out of print when a new edition was published in 1888. They illustrate New England character and scenery, and are better adapted to the taste and culture of the present than to the time when they were written. She has also published a story for young folks, "Lolly Dinks's Doings " (New York, 1874). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 697.
STODDARD, William Osborn, author, born in Homer, Cortland County, New York, 24 September, 1835. His father was for many years a bookseller and publisher in Rochester and Syracuse, New York. He was graduated at the University of Rochester in 1858, edited the “Daily Ledger” in Chicago for a short time, and the same year became editor of the “Central Illinois Gazette,” at Champaign, which he conducted for about three years. He was an opponent of slavery, and took an active part in the Republican presidential canvass of 1860. He was a private secretary to President Lincoln in 1861–4, was U. S. Marshal for Arkansas in 1864–6, and has since been variously employed. He invented a centre-locking printer's chase, and has taken out several patents for successful improvements in desiccating processes and in machinery. He has published “Royal Decrees of Scanderoon ” (New York, 1869): “Verses of Many Days” (1875); “Dismissed” (1878); “The Heart of It” (1880); “Dab Kinzer” (1881): “The Quartet” (1882): “Esau Hardery” (1882): “Saltillo Boys” (1882): “Talking-Leaves” (1882): “Among the Lakes" (1883); “Wrecked ?” (1883): “The Life of Abraham Lincoln" (1884): “Two Arrows” (1886); “The Red Beauty” (1887); “The Volcano under the City,” a description of the draft riots of 1863 (1887); and “Lives of the Presidents,” to be completed in ten volumes (1886-'8). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 698.
STOKES, James H., soldier, born in Maryland about 1814. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1835, resigned in 1843, and engaged in manufacturing and railroad business, removing in 1858 to Illinois. After aiding in the equipment of volunteers, he joined the army as captain, and served in Tennessee, and afterward as assistant adjutant-general. He was made a brigadier-general on 20 July, 1865, and was mustered out a month later. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 699.
STOLBRAND, Carlos John Meuller, soldier, born in Sweden, 11 May, 1821. He entered the Royal Artillery in January, 1839, and during 1848–50 took part in the campaign of Schleswig-Holstein with part of his regiment in defence of Denmark. At the close of the war he came to the United States, and in July, 1861, he enlisted as a private in the volunteer artillery. Soon afterward he was appointed its captain and joined the 1st battalion of Illinois Light Artillery, and became chief of artillery under General John A. Logan. He took part in the movements against Corinth, Mississippi., and in 1863, on General Logan's accession to the command of the 15th Corps, was transferred to the command of its artillery brigade. He participated in the campaign of Atlanta and the march to the sea. In February, 1865, he was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers, assigned to a brigade in the 15th Corps, and shortly afterward to one in the 17th Corps. The latter brigade, being reduced in numbers, was re-enforced and reorganized under his charge. In 1865 he went with his brigade to St. Louis, Missouri, and thence to Leavenworth, Kansas, and in February, 1865, he received an honorable discharge from the army. In 1868 General Stolbrand was elected secretary of the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina. He was delegate-at-large to the National Republican Convention at Chicago in 1868, and served as presidential elector. He has made various improvements in steam-engines and steam-boilers, and now resides at Fort Collins, Colorado. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 699.
STONE, Amasa, philanthropist, born in Charlton, Massachusetts, 27 April, 1818; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 11 May, 1883. He began life as an architect, at twenty-one was engaged in the construction of railroad bridges, and while still young became the first bridge-builder in the country. In partnership with two friends he constructed the Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati Railroad, and afterward the Cleveland and Erie, of which railroads he was made superintendent. He was next engaged in building the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad. He was president and director of numerous railroads and other industrial and financial corporations, was frequently consulted by President Lincoln in regard to matters of army transportation, and was offered by him an appointment as brigadier-general. He spent a year in Europe in 1868–'9. Mr. Stone gave large sums in charity to the city of Cleveland. He built and endowed the Home for Aged Women and the Industrial School for Children, and gave $600,000 to Adelbert College of Western Reserve University. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 699.
STONE, David Marvin, journalist, born in Oxford, Connecticut, 23 December, 1817, left home at the age of fourteen, and taught when he was sixteen. He was a merchant in Philadelphia from 1842 till 1849, when he was called to New York City to take charge of the “Dry Goods Reporter.” In December of that year he became commercial editor of the New York “Journal of Commerce,” and in September, 1861, with William C. Prime, he purchased the interest of that paper, succeeding Mr. Prime in 1866 as editor-in-chief, which post he still (1888) retains. He was president of the New York Associated Press for twenty-five years. For several years he contributed a financial article weekly to the New York "Observer," edited as a pastime the " Ladies' Wreath." and conducted the financial department of "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine." An important event in the history of his paper was its suppression by the government in 1864 for publishing a proclamation purporting to have been issued by President Lincoln, calling for volunteers to serve in the war and naming a day of fasting and prayer. It was the production of Joseph Howard, Jr., and appeared in the " Journal of Commerce," 18 May, 1864. The "Herald" printed 25,000 copies containing the so called proclamation, but, finding that neither the "Times" nor the "Tribune" had printed it, destroyed the edition. The " World” published it, but afterward endeavored to undo the mischief. President Lincoln immediately ordered the suppression of the "Journal of Commerce" and the "World," and the arrest and imprisonment of their editors and proprietors. General John A. Dix, who knew that the proclamation had been left at the newspaper offices at about three o'clock in the morning, after the responsible editors had departed, endeavored to secure a modification of this order. Some of the persons designated were arrested, but they did not include David M. Stone or Manton Marble. The government soon found that it had made a mistake, the troops that had been put in possession of the two newspaper offices were withdrawn, and the editors were released from arrest and their papers from suspension. Mr. Stone's opinions on commercial and other matters in his "answers to correspondents" are regarded as an authority by merchants throughout the country. In his younger days he wrote for the magazines, but since 1860 he has done little literary work except for his own paper. He published a volume called "Prank Forest," which passed through twenty editions (1849), and a memorial volume containing the "Life and Letters" of his niece, Mary Elizabeth Hubbell (1857). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 699-700.
STONE, Charles Pomeroy, soldier, born in Greenfield, Massachusetts, 30 September, 1824; died in New York City, 24 January, 1887. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1845, assigned to the ordnance, and served in the war with Mexico, being brevetted 1st lieutenant, 8 September, 1847, for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Molino del Rey, and captain, 13 September, for the battle of Chapultepec. He also participated in the siege of Vera Cruz and the assault and capture of the city of Mexico. He was on duty at Watervliet Arsenal. New York, till 15 September. 1848, on leave of absence to visit Europe for the purpose of improvement in his profession and the gaining of general information till 13 May, 1850, and on duty at Watervliet and Fort Monroe Arsenals in 1850. Under orders of the Secretary of War he embarked men and stores, and conducted them to California via Cape Horn till August. 1851, after which, till 27 January, 1856, he was in charge of construction and in command of Benicia Arsenal, and chief of ordnance of the Division and Department of the Pacific. He resigned, 17 November, 1856, and from March, 1857, till 31 December, 1860, was chief of the scientific commission for the survey and exploration of the state of Sonora, Mexico. On 1 January, 1861, he was appointed colonel and inspector-general of the District of Columbia Militia, and was engaged, under the orders of General Winfield Scott, in disciplining volunteers from 2 January till 16 April, 1861. He was appointed colonel of the 14th Infantry, 14 May, 1861, and given charge of the outposts and defences of Washington. He commanded the Rockville Expedition and engaged in the skirmishes of Edward's and Conrad's Ferry in June, and Harper's Ferry, 7 July, 1861, led a brigade in Gen. Robert Patterson's operations in the Shenandoah Valley, commanded the corps of observation of the Army of the Potomac from 10 August, 1861, till 9 February, 1862, and on 20 October, 1861, was ordered by General McClellan to keep a good lookout and make a feint of crossing the Potomac at Ball's Bluff. General McClellan, in his report of this disastrous affair, says: " I did not direct him to cross, nor did I intend that he should cross the river in force for the purpose of fighting." After having made the feint. General Stone, it appears, was led to believe that the enemy might be surprised, and accordingly caused a part of his command to cross the Potomac in the night. The enemy attacked in force at daybreak of the 21st, and pushed the National troops into the river with great loss. General Stone was continued in the same command until 9 February, 1862, when he was suddenly arrested and imprisoned in Fort Lafayette, New York Harbor, where he remained until 16 August, 1862. He was then released, no charge having been preferred against him, and awaited orders until 8 May, 1863, when he was directed to report to the commanding general of the Department of the Gulf, where he served until 17 April, 1864. He participated in the siege of Port Hudson in June and July, 1863, and was senior member of the commission for receiving the surrender of that place, 8 July, 1863. He was chief of staff to General Nathaniel P. Banks, commanding the Department of the Gulf, from 25 July, 1868, to 17 April. 1864, participating in the campaign of Bayou Teche, Louisiana, in October, 1863, and the Red River Campaign in March and April, 1864. He was honorably mustered out as brigadier-general of volunteers, 4 April, 1864, and resigned his commission as colonel of the 14th Infantry, 13 September, 1864. In the autumn of 1865 General Stone was appointed engineer and superintendent of the Dover Mining Company in Goochland County, Virginia, where he resided until 1870. He then accepted a commission in the Egyptian Army, and later was made chief of the general staff, in which capacity he bestowed much attention upon the military school that had already been formed by French officers in the Egyptian service. He created a typographical bureau, where a great number of maps were produced and the government printing was executed, and when the reports of the American officers engaged in exploration of the interior were printed. General Stone was placed in temporary charge of the cadastral survey, and was president of the Geographical Society and a member of the Institute Egyptian at Cairo. The American officers were mustered out of the service in 1879, as a measure of economy, by the reform government which succeeded the dethronement of Ismail. General Stone alone remained, and acted as chief of the staff until the insurrection of Arabi and the army, in which he took no active part. He resigned and returned to the United States in March. 1883. General Stone was decorated by Ismail Pacha with the order of the commander of the Osmanieh, was made grand officer of the Medjidieh and Osmanieh. and was created a Ferik pacha (general of division). In May he was appointed engineer-in-chief of the Florida Ship-Canal and Transit Company, and directed a preliminary survey across the northern part of the Peninsula. On 3 April, 1886, he became engineer-in-chief to the committee for the construction of the pedestal of the Bartholdi statue of "Liberty enlightening the World," and upon its successful completion he acted as grand marshal in the military and civic ceremony that accompanied the dedication of the statue. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 700.
STONE, Ebenezer Whitton, soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 10 June, 1801; died in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 18 April, 1880. In 1817 he enlisted in the U. S. Army, from which he was discharged in 1821. He was connected with the Massachusetts Militia in 1822-'60, receiving the appointment of adjutant-general in 1851 and filling the post till the close of his service. In 1840 he was a member of the legislature, serving on the military committee. The first full battery of light artillery in the United States, except those in the regular army, was organized by him in 1858, and through his efforts Massachusetts was the first state to receive the new rifled musket of the pattern of 1855. From experiments that he made with this musket. General Stone conceived the idea that cannon could also be rifled, and after successful tests in 1859, he ordered a model from John P. Schenkl, the inventor of the Schenkl shell. It is claimed that this was the first rifled cannon that was made in the United States, and that the invention was original with General Stone, though rifled cannon had been in use in Europe for several years. From April till October, 1861, General Stone, as chief of ordnance, armed and equipped twenty-four regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and three light batteries of artillery. He was for twelve years a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and became its captain in 1841. He prepared, under an act of the legislature, a " Digest of the Militia Laws of Massachusetts" (Boston, 1851), and a "Compend of Instructions in Military Tactics," and "The Manual of Percussion Arms" (1857). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 701.
STONE, Edwin Martin, clergyman, born in Framingham, Massachusetts, 29 April, 1805; died in Providence, Rhode Island, 15 December, 1883. After working as a printer in Boston, he edited the "Times" in that city in 1827, the "Independent Messenger" in 1832-'3, and subsequently the "Salem Observer." In 1833-'46 he was pastor of a Congregational Church in Beverly. Massachusetts, in the meantime serving two years as representative in the general court of Massachusetts, to which he made some important legislative reports. In 1847 he took charge of the ministry-at-large in Providence, Rhode Island, devoting himself for thirty years to mission work, and suggesting reforms that were successfully carried out. […] Assisted by his son, Edwin W., he edited the “Adjutant-General's Report of Rhode Island for 1865,” which contains a roster of the Rhode Island soldiers in the Civil War. He left unpublished a “Life of Reverend Dr. Manasseh Cutler” and a history of Providence.— His son, EDWIN WINCHESTER (1835–’78), served in the Rhode Island Artillery during the Civil War, was a war correspondent of the “Providence Journal,” and published “Rhode Island in the Rebellion ” (Providence, 1864). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 701-702.
STONE, Lucy, 1818-1893, women’s rights activist, abolitionist, friend of abolitionist Abby Kelley. Agent, American Anti-Slavery Society. Gave lectures on slavery. Wife of abolitionist Henry Blackwell.
(Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 702-703; Blackwell, 1930; Dumond, 1961, p. 281; Hays, 1961; Kerr, 1992; Million, 2003; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 291, 338, 465; Yellin, 1994, pp. 86, 148, 247, 260, 295-296; Blackwell, Alice Stone, Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Woman’s Rights. 2001; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 80; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 777-780; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 863; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 316-317)
STONE, Lucy, reformer, born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, 13 August, 1818. Her grandfather was a colonel in the Revolution, and led 400 men in Shays's Rebellion. Her father was a prosperous farmer. In determining to obtain a collegiate education, she was largely influenced by her desire to learn to read the Bible in the original, and satisfy herself that the texts that were quoted against the equal rights of women were correctly translated. She was graduated at Oberlin in 1847, and in the same year gave her first lecture on woman's rights in her brother's church at Gardner, Massachusetts. She became lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1848, travelling extensively in New England, the west, and Canada, and speaking also on woman's rights. In 1855 she married Henry B. Blackwell (brother of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell), a merchant of Cincinnati and an Abolitionist, retaining by his consent her own name. A few years later, while she lived in New Jersey, her property was seized for taxes, and she published a protest against “taxation without representation.” In 1869 Mrs. Stone was instrumental in forming the American Woman's Suffrage Association. In the following year she became co-editor of the “Woman's Journal” in Boston, and from 1872 to the present time (1888) she has been editor-in-chief, with her husband and daughter as associates. Mrs. Stone again lectured in the west, in behalf of the woman suffrage amendments, in 1867-'82. She has held various offices in the national, state, and local woman suffrage associations. “Lucy Stone,” says Mrs. Stanton, “first really stirred the nation's heart on the subject of woman's wrongs.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 702-703
STONE, Thomas Treadwell, born 1801, Waterford, Maine, clergyman, abolitionist. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 703)
STONE, Thomas Treadwell, clergyman, born in Waterford, Maine, 9 February, 1801. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1820, studied theology, and was pastor of the Congregational Church at Andover, Maine, in 1824-'30, of that at East Machias in 1832-'46, of the 1st Church (Unitarian) at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1846-'52, of the 1st Congregational Church at Bolton, Massachusetts, in 1852-'60, and of the 1st Ecclesiastical Society, Brooklyn, Connecticut, from 1863 till 1871, when he retired from the active duties of the ministry. He afterward moved to Bolton, Massachusetts, where he has since resided. He received the degree of D. D. from Bowdoin in 1866, was principal of Bridgeton Academy. 1830-'32, one of the early members of the Transcendental school, contributed to various religious periodicals, and published “Sermons on War” (Boston, 1829); “Sketches of Oxford County, Maine” (Portland, 1830); “Sermons” (Boston, 1854); “The Rod and the Staff” (1856); and separate sermons and addresses. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 703.
STONE, William B., abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1848-50.
STONE, Warren, physician, born in St. Albans, Vermont, in February, 1808; died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 6 December, 1872. He studied medicine in Massachusetts, settled in New Orleans, and soon became one of the chief physicians there. He began teaching anatomy in 1836, in 1837 was appointed professor of that branch in the University of Louisiana, and afterward accepted the chair of surgery, which he held till his death. Dr. Stone was at the head of his profession in the south, and when General Grant was thrown from his horse near New Orleans in September, 1863, he was called to attend him. He contributed numerous articles to medical journals. —His son, Warren, physician, born in New Orleans in 1843; died there, 3 January, 1883, was educated at the Jesuits’ College, New Orleans, and served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. On returning to New Orleans, he began the study of medicine, was graduated at the University of Louisiana in 1867, and at the opening of the Charity Hospital Medical College of New Orleans, in 1874, was appointed to the chair of surgical anatomy. In 1873 he made what is thought to be the first recorded cure of traumatic aneurism of the subclavian artery by digital pressure. He gave his services to the people of Brunswick, Georgia, during the prevalence of yellow fever in 1874, and in 1878, when that disease was raging in the southwest, he left his home and large practice and travelled about from one stricken village or town to another, giving his services gratuitously. Dr. Stone became a member of the American Public Health Association in 1880. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 703.
STONE, Frederick, Congressman, born in Virginia, 7 February, 1820, was graduated at St. John's College, Annapolis, and studied and practised law at Port Tobacco, Charles County, Maryland. He was elected by the general assembly in 1852 one of the commissioners to simplify the rules of pleading and practice in the state courts. He was elected to the Constitutional Convention to form a new constitution for the state in the spring of 1864, but declined to take his seat. In the following November, he was elected to the house of delegates from Charles County and served for that session. He was elected to Congress in 1866, and re-elected in 1868. In 1871 he was again elected to the house of delegates, and served his term. He was chosen judge of the court of appeals in 1881, which place he now (1888) occupies. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 704-705.
STONE, William Leete, 1792-1844, New York, author, newspaper editor, American Colonization Society (ACS), Executive Committee, 1839-1840. Officer in the New York City auxiliary of the ACS. Advocated the abolition of slavery by Congress. Published anti-slavery articles in his newspapers. Drafted petition for emancipation of slaves at the Anti-Slavery Convention in Baltimore in 1825. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 703; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 90; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 73, 135)
STONE, William Leete, author, born in New Paltz, New York, 20 April, 1792; died in Saratoga Springs, New York, 15 August, 1844. His father, William, was a soldier of the Revolution and afterward a Presbyterian clergyman, who was a descendant of Governor William Leete. The son moved to Sodus, New York, in 1808, where he assisted his father in the care of a farm. The country was at that time a wilderness, and the adventures of young Stone during his early pioneer life formed material that he afterward wrought into border tales. At the age of seventeen he became a printer in the office of the Cooperstown “Federalist,” and in 1813 he was editor of the Herkimer “American,” with Thurlow Weed as his journeyman. Subsequently he edited the “Northern Whig” at Hudson, New York, and in 1817 the Albany “Daily Advertiser.” In 1818 he succeeded Theodore Dwight in the editorship of the Hartford “Mirror.” While at Hartford, Jonathan M. Wainwright (afterward bishop), Samuel G. Goodrich (Peter Parley), Isaac Toucey, and himself alternated in editing a literary magazine called “The Knights of the Round Table.” He also edited while at Hudson “The Lounger,” a literary periodical which was noted for its pleasantry and wit. In 1821 he succeeded Zachariah Lewis in the editorship of the New York “Commercial Advertiser,” becoming at the same time one of its proprietors, which place he held until his death. Brown University gave him the degree of A. M. in 1825. Mr. Stone always advocated in its columns the abolition of slavery by congressional action, and at the great anti-slavery Convention at Baltimore in 1825 he originated and drew up the plan for slave emancipation which was recommended at that time to Congress for adoption. In 1824 his sympathies were strongly enlisted in behalf of the Greeks in their struggles for independence, and, with Edward Everett and Dr. Samuel G. Howe, was among the first to draw the attention of the country to that people and awaken sympathy in their behalf. In 1825, with Thurlow Weed, he accompanied Lafayette on his tour through part of the United States. He was appointed by President Harrison minister to the Hague, but was recalled by Tyler. Soon after the Morgan tragedy (see MORGAN, WILLIAM) Mr. Stone, who was a Freemason, addressed a series of letters on “Masonry and Anti-Masonry” to John Quincy Adams, who in his retirement at Quincy had taken interest in the anti-Masonic movement. In these letters, which were afterward collected and published (New York, 1832), the author maintained that Masonry should be abandoned, chiefly because it had lost its usefulness. The writer also cleared away the mists of slander that had gathered around the name of De Witt Clinton, and by preserving strict impartiality he secured that credence which no ex-parte argument could obtain, however ingenious. In 1838 he originated and introduced a resolution in the New York Historical Society directing a memorial to be addressed to the New York legislature praying for the appointment of an historical mission to the governments of England and Holland for the recovery of such papers and documents as were essential to a correct understanding of the colonial history of the state. This was the origin of the collection known as the “New York Colonial Documents” made by John Romeyn Brodhead, who was sent abroad for that purpose by Governor William H. Seward in the spring of 1841. He was the first superintendent of public schools in New York City, and while holding the office, in 1844, had a discussion with Archbishop Hughes in relation to the use of the Bible in the public schools. Although the influence of Colonel Stone (as he was familiarly called, from having held that rank on Governor Clinton's staff) extended throughout the country, it was felt more particularly in New York City. He was active in religious enterprises and benevolent associations. His works are “History of the Great Albany Constitutional Convention of 1821” (Albany, 1822); “Narrative of the Grand Erie Canal Celebration,” prepared at the request of the New York common council (New York, 1825); “Tales and Sketches,” founded on aboriginal and Revolutionary traditions. (2 vols., 1834); “Matthias and His Impostures” (1833); “Maria Monk and the Nunnery of the Hotel Dieu,” which put an end to an extraordinary mania (see MONK, MARIA) (1836); “Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman,” a satire on the fashionable follies of the day (1836); “Border Wars of the American Revolution” (1837); “Life of Joseph Brant” (1838); “Letters on Animal Magnetism” (1838); “Life of Red Jacket” (1840; new ed., with memoir of the author by his son, William L. Stone, 1866); “Poetry and History of Wyoming,” including Thomas Campbell's “Gertrude of Wyoming” (1841; with index, Albany, 1864); and “Uncas and Miantonomoh”(1842). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 703
STORRS, George, 1796-1882, New Hampshire, Montpelier, Vermont, Methodist clergyman, anti-slavery agent, abolitionist. Member of the New Hampshire Conference, which founded an anti-slavery group in 1835. Storrs was a Manager, 1835-1836, and a Vice President 1835-1837, of the American Anti-Slavery Society and a Member of the Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1841. He was censured by the Methodist Church for his anti-slavery activities in 1836. He was also arrested by authorities for “disturbing the peace.” Storrs co-founded the American Wesleyan Anti-Slavery Society in 1840 and the Wesleyan Methodist Connection in 1843. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 187, 245, 392n19; Sinha, 2016, pp. 238, 241, 472)
STORRS, Nathan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-1840.
STONE, William Oliver, artist, born in Derby, Connecticut, 26 September, 1830; died in Newport, Rhode Island, 15 September, 1875. He studied with Nathaniel Jocelyn at New Haven, and in 1851 moved to New York. In 1856 he was elected an associate of the National Academy, and he became an academician three years later. He gained distinction in portraiture, and devoted himself entirely to that branch of art. Among his numerous portraits are those of Bishops Williams of Connecticut (1858), Littlejohn of Rhode Island (1858), and Kip of California (1859); John W. Ehninger (1859), owned by the National Academy; Reverend Henry Anthon (1860); Cyrus W. Field (1865); and James Gordon Bennett (1871). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 706.
STONEMAN, George, soldier, born in Busti, Chautauqua County, New York, 8 August, 1822. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1846, and entered the 1st U.S. Dragoons. He acted as quartermaster to the Mormon Battalion at Santa Fé, was sent with it to California in 1847, and remained actively engaged on the Pacific Coast till 1857. In March of this year he became captain in the 2d U.S. Cavalry, and served till 1861, chiefly in Texas. In February of that year, while in command of Fort Brown, he refused to obey the order of his superior, General David E. Twiggs, for the surrender of the government property to the secessionists, evacuated the fort, and went to New York by steamer. He became major of the 1st U.S. Cavalry on 9 May, 1861, and served in western Virginia till 13 August, when he was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers and chief of cavalry of the Army of the Potomac. He organized the cavalry of that army and commanded during the Virginia Peninsular Campaign of 1862. After the evacuation of Yorktown by the Confederate troops his cavalry and artillery pursued and overtook them, and thus brought on the battle of Williamsburg, 5 May, 1862. He took command of General Philip Kearny’s division after the second battle of Bull Run, succeeded General Samuel P. Heintzelman as commander of the 3d Army Corps, 15 November, 1862, and led it at Fredericksburg on 13 December He was promoted major-general, 29 November, 1862, led a cavalry corps in the raid toward Richmond from 13 April till 2 May, 1863, and commanded the 23d Corps from January till April, 1864. On the reorganization of the armies operating against Richmond by General Grant, General Stoneman was appointed to a cavalry corps in the Department of the Ohio, was engaged in the operations of the Atlanta Campaign in May–July, 1864. and conducted a raid for the capture of Macon and Andersonville and the liberation of prisoners, but was captured at Clinton, Georgia, 31 July, and held a captive till 27 October He led a raid to southwestern Virginia in December, 1864, commanded the District of East Tennessee in February and March, 1865, conducted an expedition to Asheville, North Carolina, in March–April, 1865, and was engaged at Wytheville, the capture of Salisbury, North Carolina, and at Asheville. He became colonel of the 21st U.S. Infantry, 28 July, 1866, and was brevetted colonel, brigadier and major-general for gallant conduct. He retired from the army, 16 August, 1871, and has since resided in California, of which he was governor in 1883-'7, having been chosen as a Democrat. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 705.
STORER, George Washington, naval officer, born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1789; died there, 8 January, 1864, entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 16 January, 1809, and was commissioned a lieutenant, 24 July, 1813. He served in the ship “Independence,” on the Mediterranean station in 1815— 16, commanded the schooner “Lynx” on the New England Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico in 1817, cruised in the frigates “Congress” and “Java” in the West Indies in 1818– 19, and in the frigate “Constitution” in the Mediterranean in 1820–4. He was commissioned master-commandant, 24 April, 1828, and captain, 9 February, 1837, commanded the receiving-ship “Constellation” at Boston in 1839, the frigate “Potomac,” of the Brazil Station, in 1840–2, the U.S. Navy-yard at Portsmouth in 1843–6, and was the commander-in-chief of the Brazil Squadron in 1847–’50. He was on leave and served as member of boards, president of the board of inquiry, and other duty in 1851-'4. In 1855–’7 he was governor of the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia. He was retired, 21 December, 1861, on account of age, and promoted to rear-admiral on the retired list, 16 July, 1862. In 1861–2 he served on special duty in Brooklyn, after which he was unemployed for one year. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 707.
STOUGHTON, Edwin Wallace (sto-ton), lawyer, born in Springfield, Vermont, 1 May, 1818; died in New York City, 7 January, 1882. He came to New York City when he was eighteen years old, and there studied law. After his admission to the bar in 1840 he became connected with important cases, including some famous patent trials, notably those of Charles Goodyear. He was engaged in the case of Ross Winans against the Erie Railway Company, and was counsel for the latter in the receiver cases in the U. S. Courts in 1868. Mr. Stoughton was retained by William M. Tweed at the beginning of his legal troubles, though he took no active part in the defence; and he conducted the suit of the stockholders in the Emma Mine litigation. During the administration of President Grant, he published an elaborate letter in which he defended on constitutional grounds the president's use of the army in Louisiana. He was one of the party that, after the election of 1876, went to New Orleans to observe the action of the returning board, and was a warm defender of Rutherford B. Hayes's title to the office of president, which he supported by argument as one of the counsel before the Electoral Commission. In October, 1877, he was appointed minister to Russia by President Hayes, and remained there until May, 1879, when he returned to the United States. The climate of St. Petersburg did not agree with him, and the seeds of disease that he contracted there finally caused his death. As a young man he attracted some attention by his contributions to “Hunt's Merchants' Magazine,” but they were afterward discontinued. He gave $15,000 to Dartmouth to found a museum of pathological anatomy. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 712.
STROUGHTON, Edwin Henry, soldier, born in Springfield, Vermont, 28 June, 1838; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 25 December, 1868, was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1859, and assigned to the 6th U.S. Infantry. During 1859–60 he served in Garrison at Fort Columbus, New York, and on scouting duty in the western territories, but he resigned on 4 March, 1861, from the regular army. In September he was commissioned colonel of the 4th Vermont Volunteers, and with his regiment joined the Army of the Potomac. He served during the Peninsular Campaign, and was engaged in the siege of Yorktown, the action at Lee's Mill, the battles of Williamsburg and Savage Station, and the operations before Richmond. His services gained for him promotion to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers on 5 November, 1862, and he was assigned to the command of the 2d Vermont Brigade, covering the defences of Washington. While stationed at Fairfax Court-House, Virginia, he was captured by General John S. Mosby, on 8 March, 1863, but, after confinement for several weeks in Libby Prison, he was released. His commission had expired by constitutional limitations four days before his capture. General Stoughton then resigned from the army and entered on the practice of law in New York City, but failing health compelled his moving to Boston, where he died. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 712.
STOUGHTON, William Lewis, lawyer, born in New York, 20 March, 1827; died in Sturgis, Michigan, 6 June, 1888. He early moved to Sturgis, Michigan, and, after being admitted to the bar in 1851, he settled in the practice of his profession. In 1854 he was elected prosecuting attorney, serving twice, and in 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln U. S. District Attorney for Michigan. This office he resigned in the beginning of the Civil War, and entered the 11th Michigan Volunteers, in which he became lieutenant-colonel. His services were principally in the west, and at Stone River he attained his colonelcy and commanded a brigade in General George H. Thomas's corps at Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Resaca, New Hope Church, Ruff's Station (where, while directing the fire of a battery, he lost a limb), and Atlanta. He continued with his regiment until wounded, and on 13 March, 1865, he received the brevets of brigadier-general and major-general of volunteers. In 1866 he was elected attorney-general of Michigan, then he was chosen as a Republican to Congress, and served, with re-election, from 4 March, 1869, till 3 March, 1873. Subsequently he retired to Sturgis. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 713.
STOW, Baron, 1801-1869, Boston, Massachusetts, clergyman, abolitionist, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Stow was a Vice President of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1834-1836. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V., p. 713; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 114)
STOW, Baron, clergyman, born in Croydon, New Hampshire, 16 June, 1801; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 27 December, 1869. He was graduated at Columbian College, Georgetown, D. C., in 1825, and in 1827 was ordained to the ministry in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he was settled as pastor of the Baptist church. In 1832 he was called to the pastorate of the Baldwin Place Baptist Church in Boston, in which connection he had a successful ministry of sixteen years. At the close of this term of service he became pastor of the Rowe Street (now Clarendon avenue) Church, and continued in this relation until 1867, when he retired from regular ministerial work. He twice visited Europe for the benefit of his health. Dr. Stow performed a large amount of work as a member of the executive committee of the American Missionary Union. He was a graceful and vigorous writer, as well as one of the most eloquent and successful preachers of his denomination. He was one of the compilers of the “Psalmist,” a hymnal (1849), and editor of “Daily Manna” and the “Missionary Enterprise” (1846), a volume of sermons on missions, to which he contributed one of great merit. He was the author of “Memoir of Harriet Dow” (Boston, 1832); “History of the Baptist Mission to India” (1835); “History of the Danish Mission on the Coast of Coromandel” (1837); “Daily Manna” (1842); “The Whole Family in Heaven and Earth” (1845); “Christian Brotherhood” (1859); and “First Things” (1859). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 713.
STOWE, Calvin Ellis, 1802-1866, clergyman, husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, p. 713; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 196, 467)
STOWE, Calvin Ellis, clergyman, born in Natick, Massachusetts, 6 April, 1802; died in Hartford, Connecticut, 22 August, 1886. His ancestors came from London to Boston in 1634. Mr. Stowe was a lad of six years when his father died, leaving a widow and two boys to struggle with poverty, and at the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a paper-maker. He was early distinguished for his insatiable craving for books, and acquired the rudiments of Latin by studying at odd moments during his apprentice-ship in the paper-mill. His earnest desire and determined efforts to gain an education attracted the attention of benevolent people, who resolved to assist him, and in November, 1820, he was sent to the academy in Gorham, Maine. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1824, remained there one year as librarian and instructor, and in September, 1825, entered the Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. In the seminary, at the instigation of Professor Moses Stuart, he completed a scholarly translation of Jahn's “Hebrew Commonwealth” (Andover, 1828; 2 vols., London, 1829). In 1828 he was graduated, and in the following year he became editor of the Boston “Recorder,” the oldest religious paper in the United States. In addition to his editorial labors, he published a translation from the Latin, with notes, of “Lowth's Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” (1829). In 1830 he was appointed professor of Greek in Dartmouth, and he married in 1832 Eliza, daughter of Reverend Bennett Tyler, of Portland, Maine. The same year he moved to Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati, Ohio, having been called to the chair of sacred literature in Lane Theological Seminary. In August, 1834, his wife died without children, and in January, 1836, he married Harriet Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher, the president of the seminary. Professor Stowe became convinced by his experience as an instructor that the great need of the west at that time was an efficient common-school system, and, without neglecting his professional duties, he devoted himself heart and soul to this work. In May, 1836, he sailed for England, primarily to purchase a library for Lane Seminary, but he received at the same time an official appointment from the state legislature to visit as agent the public schools of Europe, particularly those of Prussia. On his return he published his “Report on Elementary Education in Europe.” In 1850 Professor Stowe accepted a professorship in Bowdoin, and in 1852 he was appointed to fill the chair of sacred literature at Andover Seminary. In 1853 and 1856 he visited Europe with Mrs. Stowe. In 1864, owing to failing health and increasing infirmities, he resigned his professorship and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Besides the works mentioned above, he published “Introduction to the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible” (Cincinnati, 1835); “The Religions Element in Education,” a lecture (1844); “The Right Interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures,” inaugural address (Andover, 1853); and “Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, both Canonical and Apocryphal” (Hartford, 1867). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 713.
STOWE, Harriet Beecher, 1811-1896, author, reformer, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, published in 1852 (Adams, 1989; Crozier, 1969; Gerson, 1965; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 466-468; Wagenknecht, 1965; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 713-715; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 115; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 20, p. 906; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Vol. 2, pp. 660-664)
STOWE, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, born in Litchfield, Connecticut, 14 June, 1812, is the third daughter and sixth child of Reverend Dr. Lyman Beecher. When she was a mere child of four years, Mrs. Beecher died, yet she never ceased to influence the lives of her children. Mrs. Stowe writes: “Although my mother's bodily presence disappeared from our circle, I think that her memory and example had more influence in moulding her family than the living presence of many mothers.” After her death, Mrs. Stowe was placed under the care of her grandmother at Guilford, Connecticut. Here she listened, with untiring interest, to the ballads of Sir Walter Scott and the poems of Robert Burns. The “Arabian Nights,” also, was to her a dream of delight—an enchanted palace, through which her imagination ran wild. After her father's second marriage, her education was continued at the Litchfield Academy under the charge of Sarah Pierce and John Brace. Of Mr. Brace and his methods of instruction Mrs. Stowe ever speaks with the greatest enthusiasm. “Mr. Brace exceeded all teachers that I ever knew in the faculty of teaching composition,” she writes. “Much of the inspiration and training of my early days consisted not in the things I was supposed to be studying, but in hearing, while seated unnoticed at my desk, the conversation of Mr. Brace with the older classes.” Nor, indeed, were the influences in her home less stimulating to the intellect. Dr. Beecher, like the majority of the Calvinistic divines of his day, had his system of theology vast and comprehensive enough to embrace the fate of men and angels, and to fathom the counsels of the Infinite. His mind was kept in a state of intense and joyous intellectual activity by constantly elaborating, expounding, and defending this system. Consequently his children grew up in an atmosphere surcharged with mental and moral enthusiasm. There was no trace of morbid melancholy or ascetic gloom in Dr. Beecher. He was sound in body, sound in mind, and the religious influence which he exerted on the minds of his children was healthy and cheerful. Under such circumstances it is not surprising to find a bright and thoughtful child of twelve years writing a school composition on the profound theme “Can the Immortality of the Soul be proved from the Light of Nature?” The writer took the negative side of the question, and argued with such power and originality that Dr. Beecher, when it was read in his presence, not knowing the author, asked with emphasis, “Who wrote that?” “Your daughter, sir,” quickly answered Mr. Brace. Says Mrs. Stowe, speaking of this event: “It was the proudest moment of my life. There was no mistaking father's face when he was pleased, and to have interested him was past all juvenile triumphs.”
Dr. Beecher read with enthusiasm, and encouraged his children to read, both Byron and Scott. When nine or ten years of age, Mrs. Stowe was deeply impressed by reading Byron's “Corsair.” “I shall never forget how it electrified and thrilled me,” she writes. “I went home absorbed and wondering about Byron, and after that listened to everything that father and mother said at table about him.” Byron's death made an enduring, but at the same time solemn and painful, impression on her mind. She was eleven years old at the time, and usually did not understand her father's sermons, but the one that he preached on this occasion she remembers perfectly, and it has had a deep and lasting influence on her life. At the time of the Missouri agitation Dr. Beecher's sermons and prayers were burdened with the anguish of his soul for the cause of the slave. His passionate appeals drew tears down the hardest faces of the old farmers who listened to them. Night and morning, in family devotions, he appealed to heaven for “poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa, that the time of deliverance might come.” The effect of such sermons and prayers on the mind of an imaginative and sensitive child can be easily conceived. They tended to make her, what she has been from earliest childhood, the enemy of all slavery. In 1824, when thirteen years of age, Mrs. Stowe went to Hartford to attend the school that had been established there by her eldest sister, Catherine. Here she studied Latin, read Ovid and Virgil, and wrote metrical translations of the former, which displayed a very respectable knowledge of Latin, a good command of English, with considerable skill in versification. At the age of fourteen she taught with success a class in “Butler's Analogy,” and gained a good reading knowledge of French and Italian. As scholar and teacher she remained with her sister in Hartford till the autumn of 1832, when both moved with their father to Cincinnati, Ohio, where Dr. Beecher assumed the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary and the pastorate of the 2d Presbyterian Church. At this time Mrs. Stowe compiled an elementary geography for a western publisher, which was extensively used, and again engaged in teaching with her sister in Cincinnati. She wrote lectures for her classes in history, and, as a member of a literary club, called the Semi-Colon, humorous sketches and poems.
In January, 1836, she married Mr. Stowe. During her residence in Cincinnati she frequently visited the slave states, and acquired the minute knowledge of southern life that was so conspicuously displayed in her subsequent writings. Fugitive slaves were frequently sheltered in her house, and assisted by her husband and brothers to escape to Canada. During the riots in 1836, when James G. Birney's press was destroyed and free Negroes were hunted like wild beasts through the streets of Cincinnati, only the distance from the city and the depths of mud saved Lane seminary and the Yankee Abolitionists at Walnut Hills from a like fate. Many a night Mrs. Stowe sank into uneasy slumber, expecting to be roused by the howling of an angry mob, led by the agents of exasperated and desperate slave-holders. In 1849 Mrs. Stowe published “The Mayflower, or Short Sketches of the Descendants of the Pilgrims” (New York; new ed., with additions, Boston, 1855), being a collection of papers which she had from time to time contributed to various periodicals. In 1850 she moved with her husband and family to Brunswick, Maine, where the former had just been called to a professorship in Bowdoin. It was at the height of the excitement caused by the passage of the Fugitive-Slave Law. It seemed to her as if slavery were about to extend itself over the free states. She conversed with many benevolent, tender-hearted, Christian men and women, who were blind and deaf to all arguments against it, and she concluded that it was because they did not realize what slavery really meant. She determined, if possible, to make them realize it, and, as a result of this determination, wrote “Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly.” In the meantime Professor Stowe was appointed to the chair of biblical literature in the theological seminary at Andover. Massachusetts, and moved thither with his family about the time that this remarkable book was published. Neither Mrs. Stowe nor any of her friends had the least conception of the future that awaited her book. She was herself very despondent. It does not seem to have been very widely read when it appeared in the “National Era,” at Washington, D. C., from June, 1851, till April, 1852, before it was issued in book-form (Boston, 1852). Mrs. Stowe says: “It seemed to me that there was no hope; that nobody would hear; that nobody would read, nobody would pity; that this frightful system which had pursued its victims into the free states might at last threaten them even in Canada.” Nevertheless, nearly 500,000 copies of this work were sold in the United States alone in the five years following its publication. It has been translated into Armenian, Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Illyrian, Polish, Portuguese, modern Greek, Russian, Servian, Spanish, Swedish, Wallachian, Welsh, and other languages. These versions are to be found in the British Museum in London, together with the most extensive collection of the literature of this book. In reply to the abuse and recrimination that its publication called forth, Mrs. Stowe published, in 1853, “A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon which the Story is founded, together with Corroborative Statements verifying the Truth of the Work.” She also wrote “A Peep into Uncle Tom's Cabin, for Children” (1853). The story has been dramatized in various forms; once by the author as “The Christian Slave; a Drama” (1855). The character of Uncle Tom was suggested by the life of Josiah Henson (q. v.).
So reduced was Mrs. Stowe's health by her severe and protracted labors that complete rest and change of scene became necessary. Consequently, in the spring of 1853, accompanied by her husband and brother, the Reverend Charles Beecher, she sailed for England. In the following year appeared “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands,” a collection of letters of Mrs. Stowe and. her brother during their travels in Europe (2 vols., Boston, 1854). In 1856 she published “Dred, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.” The same book was reissued, in 1866, under the title “Nina Gordon,” but has now been again issued under the original title. About this time, Mrs. Stowe made a second visit to England, and an extended tour of the continent. In the judgment of some critics, by far the ablest work that has come from Mrs. Stowe's pen, in a purely literary point of view, is the “Minister's Wooing” (New York, 1859). It was first given to the public as a serial in the “Atlantic Monthly,” and James Russell Lowell said of it: “We do not believe that there is anyone who, by birth, breeding, and natural capacity, has had the opportunity to know New England so well as she, or who has the peculiar genius so to profit by the knowledge. Already there have been scenes in the ‘Minister's Wooing’ that, in their lowness of tone and quiet truth, contrast as charmingly with the timid vagueness of the modern school of novel-writers as the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ itself; and we are greatly mistaken if it do not prove to be the most characteristic of Mrs. Stowe's works, and that on which her fame will chiefly rest with posterity.” Mrs. Stowe received letters containing similar expressions of commendation from William E. Gladstone, Charles Kingsley, and Bishop Whately.
In 1864 Professor Stowe resigned his professorship at Andover and moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where the family have since resided, making their winter home in Mandarin, Florida, until Professor Stowe's increasing infirmities made the journey no longer possible. In 1869 Mrs. Stowe published “Old Town Folks,” a tale of New England life, and in September of the same year, moved thereto by reading the Countess Guiccioli's “Recollections of Lord Byron,” contributed a paper to the “Atlantic Monthly” on “The True Story of Lady Byron's Life.” In reply to the tempest of adverse criticism that this paper evoked, she published “Lady Byron vindicated: a History of the Byron Controversy” (Boston, 1869). Her seventieth birthday was celebrated with a garden party, mainly of literary people, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She spent the summer of 1888, in failing health, at North Haven, Long Island. George Sand has paid the following tribute to the genius of Mrs. Stowe: ”I cannot say she has talent as one understands it in the world of letters, but she has genius as humanity feels the need of genius—the genius of goodness, not that of the man of letters, but of the saint. . . . Pure, penetrating, and profound, the spirit that thus fathoms the recesses of the human soul.” The accompanying steel engraving represents Mrs. Stowe as she appeared in middle life; the vignette, at threescore and ten.
Besides the works that have been mentioned, Mrs. Stowe has written “Geography for my Children” (Boston, 1855); “Our Charley, and what to do with him” (1858); “The Pearl of Orr's Island; a Story of the Coast of Maine” (1862); “Agnes of Sorrento” (1862); “Reply on Behalf of the Women of America to the Christian Address of many Thousand Women of Great Britain” (1863); “The Ravages of a Carpet” (1864); “House and Home Papers, by Christopher Crowfield” (1864); “Religious Poems” (1865); “Stories about our Dogs” (1865); “Little Foxes” (1865); “Queer Little People” (1867); “Daisy's First Winter, and other Stories” (1867); “The Chimney Corner, by Christopher Crowfield” (1868); “Men of our Times” (Hartford, 1868); “The American Woman's Home,” with her sister Catherine (Philadelphia, 1869); “Little Pussy Willow” (Boston, 1870); “Pink and White Tyranny” (1871); “Sam Lawson's Fireside Stories” (1871); “My Wife and I” (1872); “Palmetto Leaves” (1878); “Betty's Bright Idea, and other Tales” (1875); “We and Our Neighbors” (1875); “Footsteps of the Master” (1876); “Bible Heroines” (1878); “Poganuc People” (1878); and “A Dog's Mission” (1881). Most of these works have been republished abroad. There is also a selection from her writings entitled “Golden Fruit in Silver Baskets” (London, 1859). In 1868 she became co-editor with Donald G. Mitchell of “Hearth and Home” in New York. Her life will be written by her son, the Reverend Charles Edward Stowe, who is pastor of Windsor avenue Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 713-715.
STRAIN, Isaac G., naval officer, born in Roxbury, Pennsylvania, 4 March, 1821; died in Aspinwall, Colombia, 14 May, 1857. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman in 1837, and was advanced to the grade of passed midshipman in 1843. While in the South Atlantic Ocean in 1845 he led an exploring expedition into the interior of Brazil, and in 1848 he visited the peninsula of Lower California. In 1849 he obtained permission to leave his vessel at Valparaiso for the sake of making the overland journey to Rio Janeiro, where he rejoined his ship. The result of his experiences he gave to the public as “The Cordillera and Pampa: Sketches of a Journey in Chili and the Argentine Provinces in 1849” (New York, 1853). He was promoted lieutenant, 27 February, 1850, and was attached to the commission that in 1850 located the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico. In 1854 he had charge of the expedition to survey the Isthmus of Darien. The extremities to which his party were reduced in that affair, and the heroism with which he sustained his command under extraordinary difficulties, brought him to the notice of the public. In the summer of 1856 he sailed in the “Arctic” on her voyage to ascertain by soundings in the North Atlantic Ocean the possibility of an ocean telegraphic cable between the United States and Great Britain. Lieutenant Strain was a member of the American Ethnological Society, and to its proceedings and those of the American Geographical Society he contributed interesting accounts of his expeditions, including a paper on “The History and Prospects of Interoceanic Communication” (New York, 1856). His death was the result of undue exposure while he was on the isthmus. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 716.
STRANAHAN, James Samuel Thomas, capitalist. born in Peterboro, New York, 25 April, 1808. He received his education in the common schools of his neighborhood, where he afterward taught, and then studied civil engineering. In 1827 he visited the region of the upper lakes for the purpose of opening trade with the Indians; but, finding this undesirable, he engaged in the wool trade. He became associated in 1832 with Gerrit Smith in developing the manufacturing interests of Oneida County. The town of Florence was the result, and in 1888 he was sent as a Whig to represent that district in the legislature. In 1840 he moved to Newark, New Jersey., and became interested in the construction of railroads, accepting stock in payment for his work. He settled in Brooklyn in 1844, which has since been his home. In 1854 he was sent as a Whig to Congress, and served from 3 December, 1855, till 3 March, 1857. Mr. Stranahan was a member of the first Metropolitan police commission in 1858, and delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1860 and 1864, serving as a presidential elector in the latter year. During the Civil War he was an active supporter of the National government and president of the War-Fund Committee. This organization founded the Brooklyn "Union," in order that the government might have an organ devoted to its support. In 1860 he was appointed president of the Park Commission, and he held that office for more than twenty years. During his administration, Prospect Park was created, and the system of boulevards, including the Ocean and Eastern Parkways, is due to his suggestions. He has long been one of the managers and is now (1888) president of the Union Ferry Company, and the Great Atlantic Docks, which are the largest works of the kind in the United States, were built under his direction. Mr. Stranahan is not only the president of the Dock Company, but also the largest stockholder and general manager of affairs. He was also associated with the building of the East River Bridge from the beginning of that work, and was president of the board of directors in 1884. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 716-717.
STRATTON, Charles Sherwood, dwarf, born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 4 January, 1838; died in Middleborough, Massachusetts, 15 July, 1883. He was first exhibited as a dwarf by Phineas T. Barnum at his American museum in New York City on 8 December, 1842, who gave him the title and name of General Tom Thumb. At that time he was not more than two feet high, and weighed less than sixteen pounds. He was engaged at a salary of three dollars a week and travelling expenses; but, as he proved a great success, his salary was soon increased to twenty-five dollars a week, and at the end of his second year he received fifty dollars a week. In 1844 he visited Europe under the management of Mr. Barnum, and appeared at the courts of England, France, and Belgium. In 1857 he again visited Europe, and on later occasions he travelled extensively on the continent. He accumulated a large fortune, and settled in Bridgeport. In 1862 he met Lavinia Warren, also a dwarf, who was exhibited by Mr. Barnum, and married her on 10 February, 1863. The wedding ceremony was performed at Grace Church, in New York City, with "Commodore" Nutt as groomsman and Minnie Warren as bridesmaid. Subsequently Mr. and Mrs. Stratton travelled over the world and gave exhibitions wherever they went. As he grew older he became stout and weighed seventy pounds, and his height increased to forty inches. The dwarf's death was the result of a stroke of apoplexy. He was buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, where a marble shaft forty feet in height was raised to his memory, on the top of which is a full-length statue of the little general.—His wife, Mercy Lavinia Bump, born in Middleborough, Massachusetts, 31 October, 1841, was first engaged by Mr. Barnum in 1862, under whose management she assumed the name of Warren. When exhibited with General Tom Thumb she was both shorter and lighter than her husband, but her height increased to forty inches and her weight to fifty pounds. After the death of Mr. Stratton, she lived in retirement until her marriage on 6 April, 1885 to Count Primo Magri, an Italian dwarf, with whom she has since given exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 717.
STRIBLING, Cornelius Kinchiloe, naval officer, born in Pendleton, South Carolina, 22 September, 1796; died in Martinsburg, West Virginia, 17 January, 1880. He entered the U.S, Navy as a midshipman, 18 June, 1812, and served in the frigate “Mohawk” on Lake Ontario in 1815, where he participated in the blockade of Kingston. He was commissioned lieutenant, 1 April, 1818, cruised on the Brazil Station in 1819–20, and then in the West Indies suppressing piracy. He commanded the sloop “Peacock” in the East Indies in 1835-'7, and was on leave for two years after his return. He was commissioned commander, 24 January, 1840, and in 1842-'4 had the sloop “Cyane” and frigate “United States” successively on the Pacific Station. For the next two years he had command of the receiving-ship at Norfolk, and he then went out as fleet-captain in command of the ship-of-the-line “Ohio,” of the Pacific Squadron, during the latter part of the Mexican War, returning to New York in April, 1850. He was superintendent of the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1850–3, was commissioned captain, 1 August, 1853, and commanded the steam sloop “San Jacinto” on special service in 1854–5. He was commandant of the Pensacola U.S. Navy-yard 1857–'9, and served as flag-officer in command of the East India Squadron in 1859-'61. When the Civil War opened he returned home, and, notwithstanding the secession of his native state, adhered to the Union. He served on the board to regulate the compensation of government officers in 1861, and on the Light-House Board in 1862. By operation of law he was placed on the retired list in December, 1861, but he continued to render valuable service in command of the U.S. Navy-yard at Philadelphia in 1862-'4, and from February till July, 1865, as commander-in-chief of the Eastern Gulf Blockading Squadron; after which he was a member of the Light-House Board until 1872. He was commissioned commodore on the retired list, 16 July, 1862, and rear-admiral. 25 July, 1866. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 718-719.
STRICKLAND, William, architect, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1787; died in Nashville, Tennessee, 7 April, 1854. He studied under Benjamin H. Latrobe, and in 1809 became a landscape-painter. At this time and subsequently he did considerable work as an aquatint engraver, producing a series of views of Philadelphia and a few portraits of decided merit. His first important architectural work was the old Masonic Hall, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, which was opened for use, 27 December, 1810. The style was Gothic. His next important work was the U. S. Bank, modelled after the Parthenon at Athens, and finished in August, 1824. He now took his place as one of the chief architects in the country, and as such built the new Chestnut Street Theatre, the Arch Street Theatre, U. S. Custom-House, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, the Merchants' Exchange, U. S. Mint, and the U. S. Naval Asylum, all in Philadelphia. Mr. Strickland was one of the first architects and engineers that turned his attention to the construction of railroads, and he went to Europe to study the system. On his return he built the Delaware breakwater for the U. S. government. His last work was the state-house at Nashville, Tennessee, and he died while engaged in superintending its construction. By a vote of the legislature of the state his remains were placed in a crypt in that edifice. He published "Triangulation of the Entrance into Delaware Bay " (Philadelphia); " Report on Canals and Railways" (1826); and, with Gill and Campbell, "Public Works of the United States" (London, 1841). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 719.
STRICKLAND, William Peter, clergyman, born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 17 August, 1809; died in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 15 July, 1884. He was educated at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, from which he afterward received the degree of D. D. In 1832 he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio, and, after serving in the itinerancy and also for five years as an agent of the American Bible Society, he moved to New York in 1856, where he was connected with the Methodist book concern, and was an associate editor of the "Christian Advocate." From 1865 till 1874 he supplied the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church in Bridgehampton, L. T., and then he was installed as its regular pastor, but three years later he resigned on account of his wife's health. Afterward he labored as an evangelist. In 1862 he served as chaplain of the 48th New York Regiment, at Port Royal, South Carolina. Dr. Strickland published "History of the American Bible Society" (New York, 1849; continued to 1856, 1856); "History of the Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church" (Cincinnati, 1850); "Genius and Mission of Methodism" (Boston, 1851): "Manual of Biblical Literature" (New York, 1853); "Light, of the Temple" (Cincinnati, 1854); "The Astrologer of Chaldea, or the Life of Faith" (1855); "Christianity demonstrated by Facts" (1855); "Pioneers of the West" (New York, 1856). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 719.
STRINGHAM, Silas Horton, naval officer, born in Middletown, Orange County, New York, 7 November, 1798; died in Brooklyn, New York, 7 February, 1876. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 15 November, 1809, and in the frigate "President" participated in the engagements with the " Little Belt" and "Belvidere." He was commissioned lieutenant, 9 December 1814. and served in the schooner "Spark" in the Mediterranean in 1815—'18, participating in the Algerine War. During a storm at Gibraltar, upon one occasion, he went in a boat with six men to rescue the crew of a French brig that had capsized. He succeeded in getting the crew, but was unable to get back to port, and was blown off to Algesiras, where his boat capsized in the surf on the beach, and one of his crew and. two Frenchmen were drowned. In 1819—'21 he served in the sloop "Cyane " on the coast of Africa, and brought home four slavers as prize-master. He was executive officer of the "Hornet" in the West Indies in 1821-'4, for the suppression of piracy, and assisted in the capture of the "Moscow, the most dreaded piratical vessel in those waters. He was commissioned commander, 3 March, 1831, and captain, 8 September, 1841, was commandant of the New York U.S. Navy-yard in 1844-'6, and with the ship "Ohio" took part in the bombardment of Vera Cruz in 1847. He was in charge of the Norfolk Navy-yard in 1848-'52. and the Boston Navy-yard in 1856-'60, and in 1853-'C commanded the Mediterranean Squadron as flag-officer. When the Civil War began he was summoned to Washington to advise upon the preparations for war, especially in relation to the relief of Fort Sumter, which he strongly urged, but his advice was not followed until it had become too late to be feasible. He took command of the North Atlantic Blockading Fleet, and planned the expedition to Hatteras Inlet. General Benjamin P. Butler accompanied him with nine hundred men. The squadron bombarded the forts, sailing in an ellipse, by which means the vessels concentrated their fire on the forts and maneuvered so skilfully that none were hit. Both forts surrendered after the bombardment, and the troops were landed to garrison them on 29 August, 1861. Not one of the National troops was injured. The Confederates lost twelve killed and thirty-five wounded, and seven hundred and fifteen prisoners, and large quantities of guns and stores were captured. This was the first naval victory of importance in the war. Stringham declined further active service on account of his age, and was retired, as commodore, 21 December, 1861. He continued to render valuable service as commandant of the Boston U.S. Navy-yard in 1862-'5. and was promoted to rear-admiral on the retired list, 16 July, 1862. He was port-admiral at New York in 1870-'2, and was on waiting orders until his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp 719-720.
STRONG, George Crockett, soldier, born in Stockbridge, Vermont 16 October, 1832; died in New York City, 30 July, 1863. Losing his father early in life, he was adopted by his uncle, Alfred L. Strong, of Easthampton, Massachusetts. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1857, assigned to the ordnance, and in 1859 became assistant at Watervliet Arsenal, of which he took command in May, 1861. He was ordnance officer on General Irvin McDowell's staff at Bull Run, and was then attached successively to the staffs of General George B. McClellan and General Benjamin P. Butler, whose chief of staff he became in May, 1862. He had previously been engaged in the organization of the New Orleans Expedition, and on 1 October, 1861, had been commissioned major and assistant adjutant-general. He commanded the expedition from Ship Island to Biloxi, Mississippi., in April, 1862, and that to Ponchatoula in September, when he destroyed a large train and inflicted much damage on the enemy. He was made, brigadier-general of volunteers, 29 November, 1862, was on sick-leave in New York from the following December till June, 1863, and then commanded a brigade in the operations against Charleston, South Carolina. He had been commissioned captain of ordnance, 3 March, 1863. He led the successful attack on Morris Island, where he was the first to land. At the assault on Fort Wagner on 18 July, while he was leading and cheering on the storming column, he was mortally wounded. He was at once moved to New York City. General Strong was the author of "Cadet Life at West Point" (Boston. 1862). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 721.
STRONG, James Hooker, naval officer, born in Canandaigua, New York, 26 April, 1814; died in Columbia, South Carolina 23 November, 1882. He was appointed a midshipman in the U.S. Navy while he was a student in the Polytechnic College at Chittenango, New York, 2 February, 1829, but remained at the College until he was graduated in 1833. He made his first cruise on the Brazil Station in 1833-'5, and, while attached to the sloop "Lexington," commanded a boat expedition that captured a piratical establishment in the Falkland Islands, where he had a hand-to-hand conflict with the pirates, and won credit by his valor and ability. The vessels that had been captured were restored to their crews, and the pirates were taken to Buenos Ayres for trial by the Argentine government. He became passed midshipman, 4 June, 1836, and lieutenant, 8 September, 1841, and after various cruises commanded the store-ship "Relief " in 1859. He was commissioned commander, 24 April, 1861, and had the steamers "Mohawk" and "Flag," on the South Atlantic Blockade in 1861-'2, and the steamer "Monongahela" on the Western Gulf Blockade in 1863-'5, in which he rendered good service at Arkansas Pass and especially at the battle of Mobile Bay, where he was the first to ram the iron-clad "Tennessee," and was highly commended. After being commissioned captain, 5 August, 1865, he was on duty at the Brooklyn U.S. Navy-yard in 1866-'7, and commanded the steamer " Canandaigua," of the Mediterranean Squadron, in 1869-'70. He was commissioned commodore, 2 March, 1870, and served as light-house inspector for two years. He was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. 10 September, 1873, was commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic Squadron from 1873 till 1875, and was placed on the retired list, 25 April, 1876. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 721.
STRONG, William, jurist, born in Somers, Connecticut, 6 May, 1808, was the eldest of eleven children of Reverend William L. Strong. The son was graduated at Yale in 1828, and engaged in the study of law, teaching at the same time, at one period in Burlington, New Jersey, where his legal preceptor was Garret D. Wall. He finished his legal studies by a six months' course in Yale law school. Deciding to practise in Pennsylvania, he was admitted to the bar in that state in 1832, and, settling at Reading, mastered the German language, then much spoken in that region, and soon ranked high as a lawyer. In 1846 he was a candidate for Congress, and was twice elected on the Democratic ticket, serving from 1847 till 1851. In his second term he was appointed chairman of the committee on elections. He declined a third nomination, and retired from active politics, but when the Civil War began, though then occupying a high judicial post, he gave all his support and influence in aid of the government. In 1857 he was elected a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and he served eleven years, attaining a high reputation as a jurist. His opinions, in volumes 30-60 of the state reports, exhibit great care in preparation, clearness of statement, precision and vigor of style, and accurate knowledge of law. In 1868 he resigned his seat on the bench, and opened an office in Philadelphia, at once obtaining a large and lucrative practice. In February, 1870, he was appointed a Justice, of the Supreme Court of the United States, and served until December, 1880, when he resigned. His great knowledge of law, keen discrimination, and sound judgment made him an invaluable associate in consultation, and his clear and masterly opinions helped largely to sustain the dignity and authority of the court. Of his opinions, those in the legal tender cases, the state freight-tax cases, and the civil-rights cases, including Tennessee vs. Davis, exhibit in an eminent degree his great power of analysis and rigorous logic. Justice Strong was a member of the Electoral Commission in February, 1877, and in his opinions contended that Congress has no power to canvass a state election for presidential electors (which was the great question at issue), and that in the cases that, he specially reviewed (those of Florida and Oregon) the canvass of the state authorities was clear and decisive. Besides his official and professional labors. Justice Strong has long taken an active part in the counsels of the Presbyterian Church, of which he is a member. He has for years been president of the American Tract Society and of the American Sunday-School Union, and has taken part in other benevolent, enterprises. He has delivered many public addresses and lectures, and has frequently contributed to magazines and reviews. He delivered in 1875, before the Philadelphia Bar and the American Philosophical Society, of which he was a member, an address on the " Life and Character of Horace Binney," and in 1879 an address before the law department of the University of Pennsylvania on the "Growth and Modifications of Private Civil Law.” He has also delivered a course of lectures to the professors and students of the Union Theological Seminary of New York, and for several years lectures to the law department of Columbian University, Washington. Fayette gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1867, and Yale and Princeton in 1870. The portrait of Justice Strong is copied from an engraving that appeared in the “Democratic Review” in 1850. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 722.
STRONG, William Emerson, soldier, born in Granville, Washington County, New York, 10 August, 1840, is the son of John E. Strong, a merchant and manufacturer, who in 1853 moved to Wisconsin and became a farmer. The son studied law in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1857–61, and was admitted to the bar in the latter year. He then raised a company, which was assigned to the 2d Wisconsin Regiment, and as its captain served at Blackburn's Ford and Bull Run. He was promoted major of the 12th Wisconsin on 12 September, and saw service in Missouri, Kansas, and New Mexico. He was then on staff duty with the Army of the Tennessee, with rank of lieutenant-colonel, served in the Vicksburg Campaign, and in 1864 became inspector-general of the Department and Army of the Tennessee. He was chief of staff to General Oliver O. Howard in the march through the Carolinas, was promoted colonel, to rank from 22 July, 1864, for “gallantry on the field of battle” at Atlanta, and on 21 March, 1865, was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers. He was inspector-general of the Freedmen's Bureau from May, 1865, till September, 1866, and from 1867 till 1873 was secretary of the Peshtigo Lumber Company in Chicago, Illinois, of which he has been president since the latter year. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 723.
STRONG, William Kerley, soldier, grandson of Simeon's first cousin, Josiah, born in Duanesburg, New York, 30 April, 1805; died in New York City, 15 March. 1868, became an extensive wool merchant in New York City, but early retired from business to his estate in Geneva, New York. He returned to his former occupation for a time in 1843, but at the opening of the Civil War was in Egypt. He had been active in politics as a Democrat, but at once set out for France, where he met General John C. Fremont and others, and was instrumental in the purchase of arms for the National government. On his return he made patriotic addresses, and on 28 September, 1861, on the solicitation of merchants in New York, was made a brigadier-general of volunteers. He served for some time under Fremont, and was in command at Cairo, Illinois, but on 20 October, 1863, resigned his commission. On his return to New York, while riding in Central Park, he was thrown from his carriage, receiving injuries that paralyzed him for life, and finally caused his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 723-724.
STRONG, George Templeton, lawyer, born in New York City, 26 February, 1820; died there, 21 July, 1875. He was the son of George Washington Strong (1783-1855), a lawyer of much repute in his day, who was successively the partner of John Wells, George Griffin, and Marshall S. Bidwell. The son was graduated at Columbia in 1838, became a lawyer, and married a daughter of Samuel B. Ruggles. During the Civil War he was treasurer and one of the executive committee, of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, in which capacity he rendered valuable service. Mr. Strong was an accomplished scholar, and his library was among the finest in the city. It was sold in New York City in November, 1878. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 723.
STROTHER, David Hunter, author, born in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), 16 September, 1816; died in Charleston, West Virginia, 8 March, 1888. In 1829 he went to Philadelphia to study drawing with Pietro Ancora, and seven years later became a pupil of Samuel F. B. Morse in New York. He went to the west in 1838, travelling through various states, and in 1840 visited Europe, remaining five years. On his return he settled in New York, where, under the direction of John G. Chapman, he acquired the art of drawing on wood for the engravers. In 1848 he returned to his native place, and four years later published under the pen-name of "Porte Crayon," the first of his series of papers in "Harper's Magazine." They relate chiefly to Virginia and the south, and were illustrated by himself. Many of them were afterward published in book-form under the title of "The Backwater Chronicle " (New York, 1853) and " Virginia Illustrated" (1857). At the opening of the war in 1861 he joined the National Army as captain and assistant, adjutant-general, became colonel of the 3d West Virginia Cavalry, and resigned in September, 1864. In 1865 he received the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers. After his return to his home at Berkeley Springs he continued for several years to furnish sketches to the magazines. He was a clever writer and an artist of considerable ability. His pencil was also occasionally employed in illustrating the works of others, notably John P. Kennedy's " Swallow Barn" and "Rob of the Bowl." In 1879 he was appointed consul-general to Mexico, which post he held until 1885. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 725.
STRUVE, Gustav von, German agitator, born in Munich, Bavaria, 11 October, 1805; died in Vienna, Austria, 21 August, 1870. He studied law, spent a short time in the diplomatic service of the duke of Oldenburg, then settled as an advocate in Mannheim, Baden, and soon became known as a Liberal journalist and political speaker. He also gave attention to phrenology, and published three books on the subject. As editor of the "Mannheimer Journal," he was repeatedly condemned to imprisonment. When he was compelled in 1846 to retire from the management of this paper, he founded the "Deutsche Zuschauer," in which he addressed his radical sentiments to a larger circle of readers. He was one of the leaders of the Baden uprising of 1848, and attempted, with Friedrich Hecker, to establish a republic. After the failure of the first insurrection, he fled to France, and thence to Switzerland, where he and Carl P. Heinzen drew up a "plan for revolutionizing and republicanizing Germany." In September, 1848. he returned with a body of followers to Baden, and stirred up a second insurrection. After his defeat at Stauffen, he was arrested, 25 September, 1848, and on 30 March, 1849, was condemned to five years' solitary confinement, for high treason. He was taken to the Bruchsal penitentiary on 12 May, but on the following day the revolutionists took possession of the government, and set him free. He went to the fortress of Rastadt, and stirred the soldiers of the garrison to revolt and fight on the side of the people against the Prussians. He was the leader of the Republican Party in the constituent assembly. When that body was dissolved after the victory of the Prince of Prussia over the armies of Baden and the Palatinate, Struve again escaped into Switzerland. The authorities, after two months, expelled him from that country. He went to France, and afterward to England, and in 1851 emigrated to the United States. He edited the "Deutsche Zuschauer” in New York City, but soon discontinued its publication because of insufficient support. He wrote several novels and a drama in German, and then undertook, with the assistance of his wife, the composition of a universal history from the standpoint of radical republicanism. In the beginning of the Civil War he entered the volunteer service as an officer in the 8th New York Regiment, but retired when Prince Felix Salm Salm succeeded Louis Blenker as its colonel. In 1863 he returned to Germany, availing himself of a general amnesty, and thenceforth he devoted himself to literary pursuits and lectured on phrenology in Stuttgart, Coburg, and Vienna. He was a U. S. consul at Sonneberg in 1865, but the Huringian States refused to issue his exequatur. His publications include “Politische Briefe” (Mannheim, 1846); “Das Öffentliche Recht des Deutschen Bundes” (2 vols., 1846); “Grundzüge der Staatswissenschaft” (4 vols., Frankfort, 1847-'8); “Geschichte der drei Volkserhebungen in Baden.” (Bern, 1849): “Weltgeschichte” (6 vols., New York, 1856–'9; 7th ed., with a continuation, Coburg, 1866–'9); “Das Revolutionszeitalter” (New York, 1859–60); “Diesseits und Jenseits des Oceans” (Coburg, 1864–5); “Kurzgefasster Wegweiser für Auswanderer” (Bamberg, 1867); “Pflanzenkost die Grundlage einer neuen Weltanschauung ” (Stuttgart, 1869); “Das Seelenleben, oder i. Naturgeschichte des Menschen” (Berlin, 1869); and “Eines Fürsten Jugendliebe,” a drama (Vienna, 1870). — His wife, Amalie, died on Staten Island, New York, in 1862, was the author of “Erinnerungen aus den badischen Freiheitskämpfen" (Hamburg, 1850); and “Historische Zeitbilder” (3 vols., Bremen, 1850). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 725-726.
STRYKER, William Scudder, soldier, born in Trenton, New Jersey, 6 June, 1838, was graduated at Princeton in 1858, and began the study of law. In the beginning of the Civil War he assisted in organizing the 14th New Jersey Volunteers, and in February, 1863, was ordered to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where he served as aide to General Quincy A. Gillmore, with the rank of major, participating in the capture of Morris Island and in the night attack on Fort Wagner. Returning to the north on account of illness, he became senior paymaster in charge of all disbursements in the District of Columbus, Ohio, was brevetted lieutenant-colonel for meritorious services, and resigned on 30 June, 1866. Soon afterward he was placed on the military staff of the Governor of New Jersey, and since 12 April, 1867, he has filled the office of adjutant-general of the state. He was admitted to the bar in 1866, and for some time was president of the Trenton Banking Company. General Stryker has compiled a “Roster of Jerseymen in the Revolutionary War” (Trenton, 1872) and a “Roster of New Jersey Volunteers in the Civil War” (1876). He has also published many monographs relating to the history of New Jersey, among these being “The Reed Controversy” (Trenton, 1876); “New Jersey Continental Line in the Virginia Campaign of 1781.” (1882); “New Jersey Continental Line in the Indian Campaign of 1779 (1885); and “The New Jersey Volunteers (Loyalists) in the Revolutionary War” (1887). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p.726.
STUART, Alexander Hugh Holmes, Secretary of the Interior, born in Staunton, Virginia, 2 April, 1807. His father, Archibald Stuart, saw service in the war of the Revolution, studied law under Thomas Jefferson, was a member of the convention that ratified the U. S. constitution, and became president of the state senate and judge of the general court of Virginia. The son spent one year at William and Mary College, and then studied law at the University of Virginia, where he was graduated in 1828. The same year he was admitted to practice in Staunton. He began his political career as a member of the £ convention held in support of Henry Clay at Washington in 1832. He was elected to the Virginia house of delegates in 1836, and the two succeeding years, but declined re-election in 1839. He was a member of Congress from 1841 till 1843, and took an active part in the debates. He was a presidential elector on the Clay ticket in 1844, and on the Taylor ticket in 1848, and was appointed by President Fillmore Secretary of the Interior, serving from 12 September, 1850, till 3 March, 1853. He was a delegate to the national convention that nominated Millard Fillmore for the presidency in 1856, sat in the Virginia Senate from 1857 till 1861, and was a member of the Virginia Convention of 1861. As an Old Line Whig he opposed the secession of his state to the last. After the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, he was one of the leaders of the first movement in the south to re-establish peaceful relations with the U.S. government, and presided at a mass meeting at Staunton with that object on 8 May, 1865. He was elected to Congress in the same year, but was excluded by the oaths that were required. In December, 1868, he began what was known as “the new movement” of the "committee of nine," which, with the co-operation of President Grant, redeemed the state from military rule and secured the removal of objectionable provisions in the Underwood constitution. He was rector of the University of Virginia from 1876 till 1882, and from 1884 till 1886, when he resigned because of advanced age. He is a member of the board of trustees of the George Peabody Educational Fund, and the sole survivor of the Fillmore cabinet. Mr. Stuart has been for many years president of the Virginia Historical Society. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 726-727.
STUART, James Ewell Brown, soldier, born in Patrick County, Virginia, 6 February, 1833; died in Richmond, Virginia, 12 June, 1864, entered the U. S. Military Academy after spending two years at Emory and Henry College, was graduated in 1854, joined the regiment of U.S. Mounted Riflemen that was then serving in Texas, and took a creditable part in actions with the Apache Indians. In 1855 he was transferred to the 1st U. S. Cavalry with the rank of 2d lieutenant. He married Flora, a daughter of Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, on 14 November, 1855, and on 20 December was promoted 1st lieutenant. In 1856 his regiment was engaged in quelling the Kansas disturbances, and in 1857 in Indian warfare, ne was wounded in an action with the Cheyennes on Solomon's River. In 1859 he went to Washington to negotiate with the War Department concerning the sale of a sabre-attachment that he had invented. Going to Harper's Ferry with Robert E. Lee as a volunteer aide, he identified John Brown. He rejoined his regiment at Fort Riley, but in March, 1861, obtained leave of absence, being resolved to direct his course by the action of his state, and sent in his resignation after Virginia seceded. It was accepted on 7 May, just after he had received notification of his promotion to a captaincy, to date from 22 April, 1861. He was commissioned as lieutenant-colonel of infantry in the service of the state of Virginia, and as colonel of cavalry on 16 July. He performed important services in charge of the outposts of General Joseph E. Johnston's army. At Bull Run he contributed to the Confederate victory by efficiently guarding General Thomas J. Jackson's left flank, and driving back the National attacking force. During the long cessation of operations he perfected his system of pickets, was engaged in many cavalry skirmishes, and became brigadier-general on 24 September, 1861. He was defeated by General Edward O. C. Ord at Dranesville. When the Confederates retired from Yorktown to Richmond, his cavalry guarded their rear. In the middle of June, 1862, he conducted a daring raid in the rear of General McClellan's army on the Chickahominy, in order to determine the position of the National right. He was incessantly engaged during the seven-days' fight before Richmond. On 25 July, 1862, he was commissioned as major-general of cavalry. On 22 August, he crossed the Rappahannock, penetrated General John Pope's camp at Catlett's station, captured his official correspondence and personal effects, and made prisoners of several officers of his staff. In the following night he made an attack on Manassas Junction, and sent into the town a brigade of infantry, which took many prisoners and carried off stores of great value. His cavalry was engaged in the second battle of Bull Run, and led the advance of Stonewall Jackson's corps in the ensuing invasion of Maryland. He performed important services at Antietam, guarding with artillery an eminence on Jackson's left that was essential to the security of the Confederate position, and leading the movement that resulted in the repulse of General Edwin V. Sumner's corps. A few weeks later he crossed the Potomac near Williamsport at the head of 1,800 picked troopers, gained the rear of the National Army, rode as far north as Mercersburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, returned on the other side of McClellan's position, and recrossed the river below Harper's Ferry. At Fredericksburg Stuart's cavalry guarded the extreme right of the Confederate line. In a raid to Dumfries he ascertained the intended movements of the National troops by means of forged telegrams that he sent to Washington. In March, 1863, he encountered the National Cavalry at Kelly's Ford. At Chancellorsville, the cavalry screened Stonewall Jackson's march to the right of the National Army. After General Jackson was mortally wounded, and General Ambrose P. Hill was disabled, the command of Jackson's corps devolved temporarily on Stuart, who took command in the night of 2 Slay and directed its movements during the severe fighting of the following day. He led two charges in person, and carried the ridge of Hazel Grove, which was the key to the field. He was sent forward to guard the flanks of the advancing columns of Lee's army in the Gettysburg Campaign, but was opposed and checked by the National Cavalry at Fleetwood Hill and Stevensburg, with heavy losses on both sides. At Aldie he was successful in an encounter with the National Cavalry, but at Middleburg and Upperville he was defeated. He was directed to cross the Potomac in advance of the infantry column, and take position on its right. He held the pass in the Blue Ridge for a while, and then made a raid in the rear of the National Army, rejoining the main body at the close of the conflict at Gettysburg. The responsibility for this movement and its influence on the event have been the subject of much controversy. In the retreat from Gettysburg Stuart guarded the gaps in the mountains. While the Confederate Army was intrenched on the northern bank of the Potomac, he engaged in indecisive conflicts with the cavalry of General Judson Kilpatrick and General John Buford. While the cavalry held the line of the Rappahannock, during the rest of the summer of 1863, he evaded General Kilpatrick at Culpeper Court-House, retired from General Buford at Jack's Shop, after a severe conflict, but forced back the National Cavalry under General Alfred Pleasonton at Brandy Station, and bv a ruse routed the brigade of General Henry E. Davies near Buckland. After General Grant crossed the Rapidan, Stuart led the advance of General Ambrose P. Hill's corps. When General Philip H. Sheridan with his cavalry moved on Richmond, Stuart, by a rapid circuitous march, interposed his cavalry, concentrating his forces at Yellow Tavern, where he was mortally wounded in the obstinate engagement that ended in the defeat of the Confederates. See "Life and Campaigns of Major-General J. E. B. Stuart," by his chief-of-staff, Major Henry B. McClellan (Boston, 1885). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 727.
STUART, Charles, 1783-1865, author, anti-slavery agent, abolitionist. Went to England in 1829 to lobby for immediate emancipation. Wrote tracts on colonization. Collected English abolitionist literature, which he sent to abolitionist Theodore Weld. Trained agents for the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). He participated in the famous Lane Seminary anti-slavery debates. Wrote highly influential anti-slavery pamphlets. Attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in June 1840. Worked with abolitionist leader Gerrit Smith. (Dumond, 1961, pp. 169, 173, 180; Sinha, 2016, pp. 221, 224, 233, 240, 290; Appletons’, 1888, Vol. V, p. 728; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 162)
STUART, Charles, author, born in Jamaica, West Indies, about 1783; died near Lake Simcoe, Canada, in 1865. His father was a British officer, who fought at Bunker Hill and in other battles of the Revolution, and was subsequently stationed in the West Indies. The son at the age of eighteen, when living at Belfast, Ireland, received a lieutenant's commission in the Madras Army. He was promoted captain, received a severe wound in an encounter with native insurgents, and after thirteen years' service, returned to England, and was retired with a pension. Sometime later he received a grant of land on Lake Simcoe, and was commissioned as a local magistrate. About 1822 he settled in Utica, New York, as principal of the academy, which he taught for several years. From that period he spent much of his time in the United States. He was one of the early emancipationists, and took part with Gerrit Smith in anti-slavery meetings. Captain Stuart was the author of several pamphlets that were published by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, the most effective of which was “Prejudice Vincible,” which was reprinted in this country. He published a volume of short poems, and a religious novel entitled “Parraul of Lum Sing, or the Missionary and the Mountain Chiefs.” His principal other works were “The West India Question: Immediate Emancipation would be Safe and Profitable” (New Haven, 1833); “Memoirs of Granville Sharp” (New York, 1836); and “Oneida and Oberlin: the Extirpation of Slavery in the United States” (Bristol, 1841). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 728.
SUGAR, Nathan, Marshalton, Pennsylvania, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1841.
SULLIVAN, Caterine M., leader, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199)
STUART, Charles Beebe, engineer, born in Chittenango Springs, New York, 4 June, 1814; died in Geneva. New York, 4 January, 1881. He entered upon the profession of civil engineering, was for some time state engineer of New York, entered the service of the U. S. government, and completed the Brooklyn Drydocks. He was appointed engineer-in-chief of the U. S. Navy on 1 December 1850, and resigned on 30 June, 1853. He published " The Naval Dry-Docks of the United States " (New York, 1851); "The Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States " (1853); "Railroads of the United States and Canada" (1855); "Water-Works of the United States" (1855); and "Civil and Military Engineers of America " (1871). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 728.
STUART. Charles E., Senator, born in Columbia County, New York, 25 November, 1810; died in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1887. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan. From 1841 till 1846 he was a member of the state legislature, after which he entered the National House of Representatives as a Democrat, serving from 4 December, 1847, till 3 March. 1849. He was defeated in 1848, but at the next election was again successful, and at the close of his second term was elected to the U. S. Senate, serving from 4 March, 1853, till 3 March, 1859. In the Senate he was chairman of the Committee on Public Lands. He attended the National Union Convention at Philadelphia in 1866. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 728.
STUART, George Hay, philanthropist, born in County Down, Ireland, 2 April, 1816. He emigrated to the United States in 1831, and became a merchant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During the Civil War he was president of the U. S. Christian Commission. He presided over the international conventions of the Young Men's Christian Associations in 1859 and 1861, and over the Presbyterian National Convention in Philadelphia in November, 1867, has been an officer in the American Sunday School Union, the American Bible Society, and the American Tract Society. He twice declined a seat in President Grant's cabinet, but consented to serve on the first board of Indian Commissioners, and was chairman of its purchasing committee. Mr. Stuart has been a munificent giver to foreign missions and other religious and charitable objects. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 728.
STUART, Hamilton, editor, born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 4 September, 1813. He was educated in common schools in Scott County, Kentucky, and began, at the age of eighteen, to write for the press. In 1838 he moved to Texas, where he established the “Civilian,” an independent Democratic journal, which he continued for nearly forty years. He has resided in Galveston since its foundation, was its mayor in 1848–52, and served as a member of the legislature in 1847-'8. During the Republic he enjoyed the confidence of Presidents Houston and Jones, and was opposed to the policy of annexation, but after Texas was admitted to the Union he was unwilling to annul the compact. He was appointed collector of customs of Galveston in 1851, and held that office until 1861, when, owing to his opposition to secession, his services were not retained by the Confederate government. Mr. Stuart was a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1866, and subsequently became one of the editors of the Galveston “News.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 729-730.
STUART, John Todd, lawyer, born near Lexington, Kentucky, 10 November, 1807; died in Springfield, Illinois, 28 November, 1885. His ancestry was Scotch-Irish; his father, Robert Stuart, was a Presbyterian clergyman, and his maternal grandfather was Levi Todd, one of the survivors of the disastrous Indian battle at the Blue Licks in 1782. He was graduated at Centre College, Kentucky, in 1826, was admitted to the bar, and moved to Springfield, Illinois, at the age of twenty-one. He took at once a high place in his profession, and held it actively for nearly sixty years, to the day of his death. He was a Whig until the formation of the Republican Party, served in the legislature from 1832 till 1836, and was defeated in a congressional contest in the latter year, being then the recognized leader of his party. He renewed the contest in 1838, with Stephen A. Douglas as his opponent, and was successful after a campaign that excited national attention. After two terms in Congress he declined a re-election. Mr. Stuart was a member of the state senate from 1848 till 1852, and was distinguished for the part he took in settling the charter of the Illinois Central Railroad, from the provisions of which the state derives an annual revenue that amounted in 1887 to $396,315.07, the total revenue of the state in the same year being $3,185,607.56. He remained out of public life until 1862, when he was again elected to Congress, but now as a Democrat, serving one term. The last special public service of Mr. Stuart was as a commissioner in the erection of the new state-house. He was also chairman of the executive committee of the National Lincoln Monument Association. He served as a major in the Black Hawk War in 1832, and this title was always used in addressing him. In this campaign he met Abraham Lincoln, and thus began a life-long intimacy. They were fellow-members of the legislature in 1834. He induced Mr. Lincoln to study law, lent him the necessary books, and took him as a partner as soon as he was admitted to practice. This partnership lasted until April, 1841; in 1843 Mr. Stuart associated with himself in legal business Benjamin S. Edwards, and in 1860 his son-in-law, Christopher C. Brown, and their firm was at Mr. Stuart's death the oldest in the state. In personal character Mr. Stuart was a model of kindness, fidelity, purity, and nobility, and in his busy career as a lawyer and legislator he found time for the exercise in many directions of a wise public spirit, which made him for more than half a century one of the most notable citizens of the community in which he lived. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 731.
STUART, David, soldier, born in Brooklyn, New York, 12 March, 1810; died in Detroit, Michigan, 19 September, 1868. He moved to Michigan, studied law, and practised in Detroit. He was there elected to Congress as a Democrat, and served from 5 December, 1853, till 3 March, 1855. He subsequently settled in Chicago, Illinois, becoming solicitor for the Illinois Central Railroad. He was appointed colonel of the 55th Illinois Infantry on 31 October, 1861, and commanded the 2d Brigade of General William T. Sherman's division from 27 February till 14 May, 1862. His brigade held the position on the extreme left at Shiloh, and suffered severe loss, while he was wounded in the shoulder. He was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers on 29 November, 1862, and commanded a brigade of Morgan L. Smith's division during the siege of Corinth and subsequent operations till General Smith was wounded at Chickasaw Bayou, after which he led the division, participating in the capture of Arkansas Post. When the Senate failed to confirm his appointment as brigadier-general, he left the service on 3 April, 1863, and returned to legal practice in Detroit. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 732.
STUCKENBERG, John Henry Wilburn, clergyman, born in Bramsche, Hanover, Germany, 6 January, 1835. He emigrated in early life to the United States, and was graduated at Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, in 1857, after which he returned to Germany to study theology in the universities of Gottingen, Berlin, and Tubin General He was ordained as a Lutheran minister in 1860, and held pastoral charges in Iowa and Pennsylvania, besides officiating in 1862-'3 as chaplain of the 45th Pennsylvania Volunteers, he was professor of theology at Wittenberg College from 1873 till 1880, and since that time has been pastor of the American Chapel in Berlin, Germany. A memoir was published shortly after his death. […]. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p.
STURGES, Jonathan, merchant, born in Southport, Connecticut, 24 March, 1802; died in New York City, 28 November, 1874, went to New York in 1821 and became a clerk in a mercantile house, in which he rose to be a junior partner in 1828, and senior partner in 1836. He remained connected with the firm till 1868, when he retired with a large fortune. He was one of the chief promoters of the Illinois Central Railway and a director, during the Civil War was among the most liberal and outspoken supporters of the government, and took an active part in establishing the Union League Club, of which he was president in 1863. He was active in the measures to break up the Tweed ring and to promote municipal reform in the government of the city of New York. He was distinguished for philanthropy, and was liberal as a founder or supporter of many charities in that city. He was at one time vice-president of the New York Chamber of Commerce, an active member of the Century Club, and a generous patron of art. Mr. Sturges was an intimate friend of the poet Bryant, and was among the most active in the movement that led to the presentation of the vase, known as the “Bryant vase,” now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 734.
STURGIS, Samuel Davis, soldier, born in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, 11 June, 1822. He was graduated at the U.S. Military Academy in 1846, entered the 2d U.S. Dragoons, served in the war with Mexico, and was made prisoner while on a reconnoissance before the battle of Buena Vista, but was soon exchanged. He afterward served in California, New Mexico, and the territories, and was commissioned captain. 3 March, 1855. At the opening of the Civil War he was in command of Fort Smith, Arkansas, but, all his officers having resigned and joined the southern Confederacy, he evacuated the fort on his own responsibility, and thus saved his command and the government property. He was appointed major of the 4th U.S. Cavalry, 3 May, 1861, and served in Missouri under General Nathaniel Lyon, whom Sturgis succeeded in command after his death at the battle of Wilson's Creek. He was made brigadier-general of volunteers, 10 August, 1861, was assigned to the Army of the Tennessee, and afterward to the command of the Department of Kansas. In 1862 he was called to Washington to assist the military governor, and was given command of the fortifications around the city. At the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg he commanded the 2d Division of the 9th Army Corps and he was engaged in the operations Kentucky from April till July, 1863. He was chief of cavalry of the Department of the Ohio from July, 1863, till April, 1864, and captured General Robert B. Vance and his command, 13 January, 1864. He was engaged at Bolivar, Tennessee, 10 May, 1864, and in the expedition against General Nathan Forrest, and in the fight near Guntown, Mississippi, 10 June, 1864. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 6th U.S. Cavalry, 27 October, 1863, colonel of the 7th U.S. Cavalry, 6 May, 1869, and was retired, 11 June, 1886. He had been brevetted colonel for Fredericksburg, and brigadier-general and major-general, U.S. Army, 13 March, 1865. – His son, JAMES GARLAND, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 24 January, 1854, was graduated at the '' States Military Academy in 1875, and was killed in the Indian massacre on Little Big Horn River, 25 June, 1876. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 734.
SUCKLEY, George, physician, born in the city of New York in 1830; died there, 30 July, 1869. He was graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1851, served as resident surgeon in the New York Hospital in 1852, and was assistant surgeon in the U. S. Army in 1853-'6. He became brigade surgeon in 1861, and was staff surgeon, U. S. Volunteers, in 1862-'5. He became brevet lieutenant-colonel and colonel, U. S. Volunteers, 15 August, 1865. Dr. Suckley contributed to the transactions of the American Medical Association and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. With James G. Cooper, M. D., he published "Reports on the Natural History, Climate, and Physical Geography of Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington, and Oregon Territories" (New York, 1860). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 738.
SULLIVAN, Algernon Sydney, lawyer, born in Madison, Indiana, 5 April, 1826; died in New York City, 4 December, 1887, was educated at Hanover College, Indiana, and Miami University, Ohio, and graduated at the latter in 1850. Having been admitted to the bar, he practised for several years, in 1855 moved to Cincinnati, and in the spring of 1859 to New York, where he soon attracted attention by his legal talent and his oratory. Shortly after the opening of the Civil War he was counsel for several privateersmen that had been captured and taken to New York, and his acting in that capacity having caused him to be suspected by the authorities, he was arrested and confined in Fort Lafayette for three months. He was assistant district attorney of New York for three years, and public administrator from 1875 till 1885, resigning each of those offices to attend to his private practice. Mr. Sullivan was president of the Southern Society, and was identified with many charitable and other associations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 740.
SULLIVAN, Jeremiah C., soldier, born in Madison, Indiana, 1 October, 1830, served during the Civil War, became brigadier-general of volunteers, 28 April, 1862, and resigned, 11 May, 1865. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 740.
SULLIVAN, Peter John, soldier, born in County Cork, Ireland, 15 March, 1821; died in Cincinnati, Ohio, 2 March, 1883. He was descended from General William O'Sullivan of the British Army, came to this country with his parents when he was two years old, passed his early years in Philadelphia, and was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He omitted the prefix “O” from his name on reaching manhood. He served through the Mexican War, attaining the rank of major, and at its close was appointed an official stenographer in the U.S. Senate. In 1848 he moved to Cincinnati, studied law, and was a draughtsman for the U.S. Topographical Corps. In 1855 he was elected colonel of the German regiment and contributed toward the suppression of the “Know-Nothing” riots of that year. At the opening of the Civil War he raised four regiments at his own expense, was commissioned colonel of the 48th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and was present at Shiloh, where he captured a Confederate flag and was wounded three times. In consequence of his injuries he was unfit for service for nine months, but, he was present at the fall and capture of Vicksburg, was post-commander at Memphis and Fort Pickering, and during the last days of the war was the presiding judge of the military court of claims. He was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers, 13 March, 1865, for gallant and meritorious services, and immediately after was appointed by President Johnson minister to the United States of Colombia, serving till 1869, when his health compelled him to resign. He subsequently practised occasionally in the U. S. Supreme Court, in the court of claims, and in the government departments at Washington, D. C. He was the author of the “Don Felix Letters, or Pen-Portraits of Members of the Bar.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 742.
SULLY, Thomas, painter, born at Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, 8 June, 1783; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 November, 1872. At the age of nine he was brought by his parents to the United States. His father placed him in 1795 in an insurance broker's office, but it soon became evident that art was his true vocation. In 1799 he joined his brother Laurence, a miniature-painter, at Richmond, Virginia, and two years later moved with him to Norfolk. Thomas soon surpassed his brother, and began to try his hand at oil portraits, aided somewhat by Henry Bembridge. He determined to go to London for study, and worked hard to gain sufficient money to carry him there. But the death of his brother in 1804 decided him to remain and protect the latter's family, whom he had left unprovided for. In 1806, after marrying his brother's widow, Sully went to New York, where he resided until 1808. In 1807 he made a short visit to Boston, where he had some instruction and advice from Gilbert Stuart. He returned to Philadelphia in 1809, and went the same year to London. Here he studied for some time under Benjamin West, and made copies after old masters that had been contracted for in this country, after which he embarked for New York in 1810. He now settled permanently in Philadelphia. During the following years he executed numerous portraits, notably those of George Frederick Cooke as Richard III., which is owned by the Pennsylvania Academy; Benjamin Rush (1814); and Coin. Decatur, in the city-hall, New York. In 1818 the legislature of North Carolina applied to him for two full-length portraits of Washington. Sully, in reply, proposed to paint a historical picture which should represent some memorable action of the great commander, and suggested the crossing of the Delaware. This was agreed upon; but when Sully wrote for the dimensions of the space that the picture was to occupy, he received no answer. Nevertheless, he proceeded with the work on a canvas of large size. When, after a considerable expense of time and money, the picture was finished, he was informed that there was no place fitted to receive it, and it was thrown upon his hands. The picture finally came into the possession of the Boston museum. Sully was perhaps most successful in his portraits of women, Henry T. Tuckerman says of him : "His organization fits him to sympathize with the fair and lovely rather than the grand or comic. . . . Sully's forte is the graceful. Among his numerous portraits, of which many have been engraved, are those of General Jonathan Williams (1815); Bishop William White, of Pennsylvania; Lafayette, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson, painted for the United States Military Academy (1821); Fanny Kemble and her father, Charles Kemble; Reverdy Johnson ; Charles Carroll, of Carrollton; Queen Victoria, painted in 1887-"8 for the St. George Society, Philadelphia; Rembrandt Peale; Percival Drayton (1827): Alexander J. Dallas; Dr. Philip Syng Physick; Joseph Hopkinson; George M. Dallas; and Robert F. Stockton (1851). The Corcoran gallery owns the portraits of James Madison, Andrew Jackson (1825), John Marshall, and a portrait of himself. He painted also some figure-pieces and historical pictures, among which are " Capture of Major Andre " (1812) and "Miranda " (1815). Sully wrote an autobiographical sketch, "Recollections of an Old Painter," which appeared in " Hours at Home " for November, 1869. His " Hints to Young Painters," which he prepared for the press in 1851 and revised in 1871, was published after his death (Philadelphia, 1873).—His son, Thomas, and his daughter, Jane, afterward Mrs. John C. Darley, followed their father's profession. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 743.
SULLY, Alfred, soldier, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1821; died in Fort Vancouver, Washington territory, 17 April, 1879, was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1841, assigned to the 2d U.S. Infantry, which was then engaged in the Seminole War, and participated with credit in the attack on Hawe Creek Camp, 25 January, 1842. He was on garrison duty on the Great Lakes till the Mexican War, and after the siege of Vera Cruz in 1847 was ordered to the north on recruiting service. He was then stationed in California, and on 22 February, 1849, was promoted to captain. In 1853 he was sent with others to re-enforce the governor of Oregon in his operations against the Rogue River Indians, and in December of that year, while on his way to New York, he was wrecked off the California Coast and remained six days on a desert island. He was then in Minnesota, Nebraska, and Dakota till 1858, and, after spending a year in Europe on leave of absence, took part in operations against the Cheyenne Indians in 1860-'l. He then served in the defences of Washington till 4 March, 1862, when he became colonel of the 3d Minnesota Regiment. He led a brigade during the change of base to James River, and was brevet ted lieutenant-colonel, U. S. Army, for gallantry at Fair Oaks, and colonel for Malvern Hill. After engaging in the northern Virginia and Maryland Campaigns, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers, 1 October, 1862. He led his brigade at Chancellorsville, and in May, 1863, was assigned to the command of the Department of Dakota, where he soon gained note by his expeditions against northwestern Indians, especially in the engagement at White Stone Hill, 3 September, 1863, that at Tah-kah-hakuty, 28 July, 1864. and the skirmish in the Bad Lands, 8 August, 1864. He was given the brevet of major-general of volunteers, and that of brigadier-general in the regular army, at the close of the war, and subsequently served on the board of promotion, and was on special service in the Interior Department at Washington. He was made lieutenant-colonel, 28 July, 1866, and colonel of the 10th U.S. Infantry, 10 December, 1872. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp 743-744.
SUMNER, Charles, 1811-1874, Boston, Massachusetts, statesman, lawyer, writer, editor, educator, reformer, peace advocate, anti-slavery political leader. U.S. Senatorial candidate on the Free Soil ticket. Entered the Senate in December 1851. He was the earliest and most important anti-slavery voice in the Senate. He opposed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Sumner was an organizer and co-founder of the Republican Party. He was severely beaten on the Senate floor by pro-slavery Senator Preston S. Brooks. It took him three and a half years to recover. Strong supporter of Lincoln and the Union. He was among the first to support emancipation of slaves. As a U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.
(Blue, 1994, 2005; Mabee, 1970, pp. 74, 103, 173, 178, 248, 354, 261, 299, 329, 337, 356, 368, 393n17; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 60, 62, 67-68, 89, 174, 238, 243; Potter, 1976; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 54, 59, 201-203, 298, 657-660; Sewell, 1988; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 744-750; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 214; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 783-785; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 137; Congressional Globe; Donald, David. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1960.)
SUMNER, Charles, statesman, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 6 January, 1811; died in Washington, D. C., 11 March, 1874. The family is English, and William Sumner, from whom Charles was descended in the seventh generation, came to America about 1635 with his wife and three sons, and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The Sumner’s were generally farmers. Job, grandfather of Charles, entered Harvard in 1774, but in the next year he joined the Revolutionary Army, and served with distinction during the war. He was not graduated, but he received in 1785 an honorary degree from the college. He died in 1789, aged thirty-three. Charles Pinckney Sumner (born 1776, died 1839), father of Charles, was graduated at Harvard in 1796. He was a lawyer and was sheriff of Suffolk County from 1825 until a few days before his death. In 1810 he married Relief Jacob, of Hanover, New Hampshire, and they had nine children, of whom Charles and Matilda were the eldest and twins. Matilda died in 1832. Sheriff Sumner was an upright, grave, formal man, of the old Puritan type, fond of literature and public life. His anti-slavery convictions were very strong, and he foretold a violent end to slavery in this country. In his family he was austere, and, as his income was small, strict economy was indispensable. Charles was a quiet boy, early matured, and soon showed the bent of his mind by the purchase for a few cents of a Latin grammar and '”Liber Primus” from a comrade at school. In his eleventh year he was placed at the Latin-school where Wendell Phillips, Robert C. Winthrop, James Freeman Clarke, and other boys, afterward distinguished men, were pupils. Sumner excelled in the classics, in general information, and in writing essays, but he was not especially distinguished. Just as he left the Latin-school for college he heard President John Quincy Adams speak in Faneuil hall, and at about the same time he heard Daniel Webster's eulogy upon Adams and Jefferson. It was in a New England essentially unchanged from the older, but refined and softened, that Sumner grew up. At the age of fifteen he was reserved and thoughtful, caring little for sports, slender, tall, and awkward. His thirst for knowledge of every kind, with singular ability and rapidity in acquiring it, was already remarkable. He had made a compend of English history in eighty-six pages of a copybook, and had read Gibbon's history.
In September, 1826, he began his studies at Harvard. In the classics and history and forensics, and in belles-lettres, he was among the best scholars. But he failed entirely in mathematics. His memory was extraordinary and his reading extensive. Without dissipation of any kind and without sensitiveness to humor, generous in his judgment of his comrades, devoted to his books, and going little into society, he was a general favorite, although his college life gave no especial promise of a distinguished career. In his junior year he made his first journey from home, in a pedestrian tour with some classmates to Lake Champlain, returning by the Hudson River and the city of New York. In 1830 he was graduated, and devoted himself for a year to a wide range of reading and study in the Latin classics and in general literature. He resolutely grappled with mathematics to repair the defect in his education in that branch of study, wrote a prize essay on commerce, and listened carefully to the Boston orators, Webster, Everett, Choate, and Channing. No day, no hour, no opportunity, was lost by him in the pursuit of knowledge. His first interest in public questions was awakened by the anti-Masonic movement, which he held to be a “great and good cause,” two adjectives that were always associated in his estimate of causes and of men. Mindful of Dr. Johnson's maxim, he diligently maintained his friendships by correspondence and intercourse. On 1 September, 1831, he entered Harvard Law-School, of which Judge Joseph Story was the chief professor. Story had been a friend of Sumner's father, and his friendly regard for the son soon ripened into an affection and confidence that never ceased. Sumner was now six feet and two inches in height, but weighing only 120 pounds, and not personally attractive. He was never ill, and was an untiring walker; his voice was strong and clear, his smile quick and sincere, his laugh loud, and his intellectual industry and his memory were extraordinary. He began the study of law with the utmost enthusiasm, giving himself a wide range, keeping careful notes of the moot-court cases, writing for the “American Jurist,” and preparing a catalogue of the library of the Law-school. He joined the temperance society of the professional schools and the college. His acquirements were already large, but he was free from vanity. His mental habit was so serious that, while his talk was interesting, he was totally disconcerted by a jest or gay repartee. He had apparently no ambition except to learn as much as he could, and his life then, as always, was pure in word and deed.
The agitation of the question of slavery had already begun. “The Liberator” was established by Mr. Garrison in Boston on 1 January, 1831. The “nullification movement” in South Carolina occurred while Sumner was at the Law-school. He praised President Jackson's proclamation, and saw civil war impending; but he wrote to a friend in 1832: “Politics I begin to loathe; they are for a day, but the law is for all time.” He entered the law-office of Benjamin Rand, in Boston, in January, 1834, wrote copiously for the “Jurist,” and went to Washington for the first time in April. The favor of Judge Story opened to Sumner the pleasantest houses at the capital, and his professional and general accomplishments secured an ever-widening welcome. But Washington only deepened his love for the law and his aversion to politics. In September, 1834, he was admitted to the bar. During the month that he passed in Washington, Sumner described his first impression of the unfortunate race to whose welfare his life was to be devoted: “For the first time I saw slaves [on the journey through Maryland], and my worst preconception of their appearance and ignorance did not fall as low as their actual stupidity. They appear to be nothing more than moving masses of flesh, unendowed with anything of intelligence above the brutes. I have now an idea of the blight upon that part of our country in which they live.” Anticipating hearing Calhoun, he says: “He will be the last man I shall ever hear speak in Washington.” In 1835 he was appointed by Judge Story a commissioner of the circuit court of the United States and reporter of Story's judicial opinions, and he began to teach in the Law-school during the judge's absence. This service he continued in 1836-'7, and he aided in preparing a digest of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Maine. He wrote upon literary and legal topics, he lectured and edited and pleaded, and he was much overworked in making a bare livelihood. In 1835 his interest in the slavery question deepened. The first newspaper for which he subscribed was “The Liberator,” and he writes to Dr. Francis Lieber, then professor in the college at Columbia, South Carolina: “What think you of it? [slavery] Should it longer exist? Is not emancipation practicable? We are becoming Abolitionists, at the north, fast.” The next year, 1836, his “blood boils” at an indignity offered by a slave master to the Boston counsel of a fugitive slave. Sumner now saw much of Channing, by whose wisdom and devotion to freedom he was deeply influenced. His articles in the “Jurist” had opened correspondence with many eminent European publicists. His friends at home were chiefly among scholars, and already Longfellow was one of his intimate companions. In the summer of 1836 he made a journey to Canada, and in December, 1837, he sailed for France.
He carried letters from distinguished Americans to distinguished Europeans, and his extraordinary diligence in study and his marvellous memory had equipped him for turning every opportunity to the best account. During his absence he kept a careful diary and wrote long letters, many of which are printed in the memoir by Edward L. Pierce, and there is no more graphic and interesting picture than they present of the social and professional life at that time of the countries he visited. Sumner remained in Paris for five months, and carefully improved every hour. He attended 150 university lectures by the most renowned professors. He walked the hospitals with the great surgeons. He frequented the courts and theatres and operas and libraries and museums. He was a guest in the most famous salons, and he saw and noted everything, not as a loiterer, but as a student. On 31 May, 1838, he arrived in England, where he remained for ten months. No American had ever been so universally received and liked, and Carlyle characteristically described him as “Popularity Sumner.” He saw and studied England in every aspect, and in April, 1839, went to Italy and devoted himself to the study of its language, history, and literature, with which, however, he was already familiar. In Rome, where he remained for some months, he met the sculptor Thomas Crawford, whom he warmly befriended. Early in October, 1839, he left Italy for Germany, in the middle of March, 1840, he was again in England, and in May, 1840, he returned to America.
He showed as yet no sign of political ambition. The “hard-cider campaign” of 1840, the contest between Harrison and Van Buren, began immediately after his return. He voted for Harrison, but without especial interest in the measures of the Whig Party. In announcing to a brother, then in Europe, the result of the election, he wrote: “I take very little interest in politics.” The murder of Lovejoy in November, 1837, and the meeting in Faneuil Hall, where Wendell Phillips made his memorable speech, and the local disturbances that attended the progress of the anti-slavery agitation throughout the northern states, had plainly revealed the political situation. But Sumner's letters during the year after his return from Europe do not show that the question of slavery had especially impressed him, while his friends were in the most socially delightful circles of conservative Boston. But in 1841 the assertion by Great Britain, of a right to stop any suspected slaver to ascertain her right to carry the American flag, produced great excitement. Sumner at once showed his concern for freedom and his interest in great questions of law by maintaining in two elaborate articles, published in a Boston newspaper early in 1842, the right and the justice of such an inquiry. Kent, Story, Choate, and Theodore Sedgwick approved his position. This was his first appearance in the anti-slavery controversy. In 1842 Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State, wrote his letter upon the case of the “Creole,” contending that the slaves who had risen against the ship's officers should not be liberated by the British authorities at Nassau. Sumner strongly condemned the letter, and took active part in the discussion. He contended that the slaves were manumitted by the common law upon passing beyond the domain of the local law of slavery; and if this were not so, the piracy charged was an offence under the local statute and not under the law of nations, and no government could be summoned to surrender offenders against the municipal law of other governments. In April, 1842, he writes: “The question of slavery is getting to be the absorbing one among us, and growing out of this is that other of the Union.” He adjured Longfellow to write verses that should move the whole land against the iniquity. But his social relations were still undisturbed, and his unbounded admiration of Webster showed his generous mind. “With the moral devotion of Channing,” he said of Webster, “he would be a prophet.”
In July, 1843, Sumner published in the “North American Review” an article defending Commodore Alexander Slidell Mackenzie for his action in the case of the “Somers” mutiny, when a son of John C. Spencer, Secretary of War, was executed. He published also a paper upon the political relations of slavery, justifying the moral agitation of the question. In this year he contributed largely to the “Law Reporter,” and taught for the last time in the Law-school. In the election of 1844 Sumner took no part. He had no special sympathy with Whig views of the tariff and the bank, and already slavery seemed to him to be the chief public question. He was a Whig, as he said in 1848, because it seemed to him the party of humanity, and John Quincy Adams was the statesman whom he most admired. He was overwhelmed with professional work, which brought on a serious illness. But his activity was unabated, and he was elected a member of various learned societies. His letters during 1844 show his profound interest in the slavery question. He speaks of the “atrocious immorality of John Tyler in seeking to absorb Texas,” and “the disgusting vindication of slavery” by Calhoun, which he regrets that he is too busy to answer. In 1845 he was deeply interested in the question of popular education, and was one of the intimate advisers of Horace Mann. Prison-discipline was another question that commanded his warmest interest, and his first public speech was made upon this subject at a meeting of the Prison-discipline Society, in May, 1845. This was followed, on 4 July, by the annual oration before the civil authorities of Boston, upon “The True Grandeur of Nations.” The oration was a plea for peace and a vehement denunciation of war, delivered, in commemoration of an armed revolutionary contest, to an audience largely military and in military array. This discourse was the prototype of all Sumner's speeches. It was an elaborate treatise, full of learning and precedent and historical illustration, of forcible argument and powerful moral appeal. The effect was immediate and striking. There were great indignation and warm protest on the one hand, and upon the other sincere congratulation and high compliment. Sumner's view of the absolute wrong and iniquity of war under all circumstances was somewhat modified subsequently; but the great purpose of a peaceful solution of international disputes he never relinquished. The oration revealed to the country an orator hitherto unknown even to himself and his friends. It showed a moral conviction, intrepidity, and independence, and a relentless vigor of statement, which were worthy of the best traditions of New England. Just four months later, on 4 November, 1845, Sumner made in Faneuil hall his first anti-slavery speech, at a meeting of which Charles Francis Adams was chairman, to protest against the admission of Texas. This first speech had all the characteristics of the last important speech he ever made. It was brief, but sternly bold, uncompromising, aggressive, and placed Sumner at once in the van of the political anti-slavery movement. He was not an Abolitionist in the Garrisonian sense. He held that slavery was sectional, not national; that the constitution was meant to be a bond of national liberty as well as union, and nowhere countenanced the theory that there could be property in men; that it was to be judicially interpreted always in the interest of freedom; and that, by rigorous legal restriction and the moral force of public opinion, slavery would be forced to disappear. This was subsequently the ground held by the Republican Party. Sumner added to his reputation by an elaborate oration at Cambridge, in August, 1846, upon “The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist,” of which the illustrations were his personal friends, then recently dead, John Pickering, Judge Story, Washington Allston, and Dr. Channing. The reference to Channing gave him the opportunity, which he improved, to urge the duty of anti-slavery action. It was the first time that the burning question of the hour had been discussed in the scholastic seclusion of the university.
In September, 1846, at the Whig State Convention held in Faneuil Hall, Sumner spoke upon the “Anti-Slavery Duties of the Whig Party,” concluding with an impassioned appeal to Mr. Webster to lead the Whigs as an anti-slavery party. He sent the speech to Mr. Webster, who, in replying coolly, politely regretted that they differed in regard to political duty. In October, Sumner wrote a public letter to Robert C. Winthrop, representative in Congress from Boston, censuring him severely for his vote in support of the Mexican War. He wrote as a Whig constituent of Mr. Winthrop's, and during his absence from Boston he was nominated for Congress, against Mr. Winthrop, by a meeting of Whigs, including Charles Francis Adams and John A. Andrew. But he immediately and peremptorily declined, and he warmly supported Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who was nominated in his place. During this period, when “Conscience Whigs” were separating from “Cotton Whigs,” Sumner was untiring in his public activity. He spoke often, and he argued before the supreme court of the state the invalidity of enlistments for the Mexican War, and delivered a lecture upon “White Slavery in the Barbary States,” which was elaborated into a pamphlet, and was a valuable historical study of the subject. In June, 1847, a speech upon prison-discipline showed his interest in the question to be unabated. On 29 September, 1847, he spoke for the last time as a Whig, in the State Convention at Springfield, in support of a resolution that Massachusetts Whigs would support only an anti-slavery man for the presidency. The resolution was lost, and upon the Whig nomination of General Zachary Taylor, 1 June, 1848, a convention of anti-slavery men of both parties was called at Worcester on 28 June, at which Sumner, Charles Francis Adams, Samuel Hoar (who presided), and his son, E. Rockwood Hoar, with many other well-known Whigs, withdrew from the Whig Party and organized the Free-soil Party. “If two evils are presented to me,” said Sumner in his speech, alluding to Cass and Taylor, “I will take neither.” Sumner was chairman of the Free-Soil State Committee, which conducted the campaign in Massachusetts for Van Buren and Adams, nominated at the Buffalo Convention. In October, 1848, he was nominated for Congress in the Boston District, receiving 2,336 votes against 1,460 for the Democratic candidate. But Mr. Winthrop received 7,726, and was elected. In May, 1849, he renewed his plea for peace in an exhaustive address before the American peace Society on “The War System of the Commonwealth of Nations,” and on 5 November, 1850, his speech, after the passage of the Fugitive-Slave Law, was like a war-cry for the Free-Soil Party, and was said to have made him senator. In the election of members of the legislature the Free-Soilers and Democrats united, and at a caucus of members of the Free-Soil Party Sumner was unanimously selected as their candidate for U. S. Senator. He was more acceptable to the Democrats because he had never been an extreme Whig, and the Democratic caucus, with almost equal unanimity, made him its candidate. The legislature then chose George S. Boutwell governor, Henry W. Cushman lieutenant-governor, and Robert Rantoul, Jr., senator for the short term. These were all Democrats. The House of Representatives voted, on 14 January, 1851, for senator, casting 381 votes, with 191 necessary to a choice. Sumner received 186, Robert C. Winthrop 167, scattering 28, blanks 3. On 22 January, of 38 votes in the Senate, Sumner received 23, Winthrop 14, and H. W. Bishop 1, and Sumner was chosen by the Senate. The contest in the house continued for three months. Sumner was entreated to modify some expressions in his last speech; but he refused, saying that he did not desire the office, and on 22 February he asked Henry Wilson, President of the Senate, and the Free-Soil members, to abandon him whenever they could elect another candidate. On 24 April, Sumner was elected senator by 193 votes, precisely the necessary number of the votes cast.
When he took his seat in the Senate he was as distinctively the uncompromising representative of freedom and the north as Calhoun had been of slavery and the south. But it was not until 26 August, 1852, just after the Democratic and Whig national Conventions had acquiesced in the compromises of 1850, that Sumner delivered his first important speech, “Freedom National, Slavery Sectional.” It treated the relations of the national government to slavery, and the true nature of the constitutional provision in regard to fugitives. The speech made a profound impression. The general view was accepted at once by the anti-slavery party as sound. The argument seemed to the anti-slavery sentiment to be unanswerable. Seward and Chase both described it as “great,” and it was evident that another warrior thoroughly equipped was now to be encountered by the slave power. On 23 January, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, by which the Missouri Compromise was repealed, and on 21 February, 1854, Sumner opposed it in a speech characteristically comprehensive and exhaustive, reviewing the history of the restriction of slavery. On the eve of the passage of the bill he made a solemn and impressive protest, and his reply to assailants, 28 June, 1854, stung his opponents to madness. He was now the most unsparing, the most feared, and the most hated opponent of slavery in Congress. On 17 March, 1856, Mr. Douglas introduced a bill for the admission of Kansas as a state. On 19 and 20 May, Sumner delivered a speech on the “Crime against Kansas,” which again aroused the country, and in which he spoke, in reference to the slave and free-soil factions in Kansas, of “the fury of the propagandists and the calm determination of their opponents,” who through the whole country were “marshalling hostile divisions, and foreshadowing a conflict which, unless happily averted by freedom, will become war—fratricidal, parricidal war.” It provoked the bitterest rejoinders in the Senate, to which Sumner replied contemptuously. In his speech he had sharply censured Senator Butler, of South Carolina, and Senator Douglas, and two days after the delivery of the speech, as Sumner was sitting after the adjournment writing at his desk alone in the Senate-chamber, Preston Smith Brooks, a relative of Butler's and a representative from South Carolina, entered the chamber, and, after speaking a few words to Sumner, struck him violently upon the head with a bludgeon, and while Sumner was trying in vain to extricate himself from the desk and seize his assailant, the blows continued until he sank bloody and senseless to the floor. This event startled the country as a presage of civil war. The excitement was universal and profound. The House of Representatives refused to give the two-third vote necessary to expel Brooks, but he resigned and appealed to his constituents, and was unanimously re-elected. Sumner was long incapacitated for public service. On 3 November, 1856, he returned to Boston to vote, and was received with acclamation by the people and with the highest honor by the state and city authorities. On 13 January, 1857, he was re-elected senator, receiving all but ten votes, and on 7 March, 1857, he sailed for Europe, where he submitted to the severest medical treatment. With characteristic energy and industry, in the intervals of suffering, he devoted himself to a thorough study of the art and history of engraving.
For nearly four years he was absent from his seat in the Senate, which he resumed on 5 December, 1859, at the opening of the session. He was still feeble, and took no part in debate until the middle of March, and on 4 June, 1860, on the question of admitting Kansas as a free state, he delivered a speech upon “The Barbarism of Slavery,” which showed his powers untouched and his ardor unquenched. Mr. Lincoln had been nominated for the presidency, and Sumner's speech was the last comprehensive word in the parliamentary debate of freedom and slavery. The controversy could now be settled only by arms. This conviction was undoubtedly the explanation of the angry silence with which the speech was heard in the Senate by the friends of slavery. During the winter of secession that followed the election Sumner devoted himself to the prevention of any form of compromise, believing that it would be only a base and fatal surrender of constitutional principles. He made no speeches during the session. By the withdrawal of southern senators the Senate was left with a Republican majority, and in the reconstruction of committees on 8 March, 1861, Sumner was made chairman of the committee on foreign affairs. For this place he was peculiarly fitted. His knowledge of international law, of the history of other states, and of their current politics, was comprehensive and exact, and during the intense excitement arising from the seizure of the “Trent” he rendered the country a signal service in placing the surrender of Slidell and Mason upon the true ground. (See MASON, JAMES MURRAY.) While there was universal acquiescence in the decision of the government to surrender the commissioners, there was not universal satisfaction and pride until on 9 January, 1862, Sumner, in one of his ablest speeches, showed incontestably that our own principles, constantly maintained by us, required the surrender. One of the chief dangers throughout the Civil War was the possible action of foreign powers, and especially of England, where iron-clad rams were being built for the Confederacy, and on 10 September, 1863, Sumner delivered in New York a speech upon “Our Foreign Relations,” which left nothing unsaid. Happily, on 8 September, Lord Russell had informed the American minister, Charles Francis Adams, that the rams would not be permitted to leave English ports.
Throughout the war, both in Congress and upon the platform, Sumner was very urgent for emancipation, and when the war ended he was equally anxious to secure entire equality of rights for the new citizens. But while firm upon this point, and favoring the temporary exclusion of recent Confederates from political power, he opposed the proposition to change the jury law for the trial of Jefferson Davis, and disclaimed every feeling of vengeance. He was strong in his opposition to President Andrew Johnson and his policy. But the great measure of the Johnson administration, the acquisition of Alaska by treaty, was supported by Sumner in a speech on 9 April, 1867, which is an exhaustive history of Russian America. He voted affirmatively upon all the articles of impeachment of President Johnson, which in a long opinion he declared to be one of the last great battles with slavery.
Early in the administration of President Grant, 10 April, 1869, Sumner opposed the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty with England, as affording no means of adequate settlement of our British claims. In this speech he asserted the claim for indirect or consequential damages, which afterward was proposed as part of the American case at the Geneva arbitration, but was discarded. In his message of 5 December, 1870, President Grant, regretting the failure of the treaty to acquire Santo Domingo, strongly urged its acquisition. Sumner strenuously opposed the project on the ground that it was not the wish of the “black republic,” and that Baez, with whom, as president of the Dominican Republic, the negotiation had been irregularly conducted, was an adventurer, held in his place by an unconstitutional use of the navy of the United States. Sumner's opposition led to a personal rupture with the president and the Secretary of State, and to alienation from the Republican senators, in consequence of which, on 10 March, 1871, he was removed, by the Republican majority of the Senate, from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was assigned the chairmanship of the Committee on Privileges and Elections; but, upon his own motion, his name was stricken out. On 24 March he introduced resolutions, which he advocated in a powerful speech, severely arraigning the president for his course in regard to Santo Domingo. In December, 1871, he refused again to serve as chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections. Early in 1872 he introduced a supplementary civil-rights bill, which, since January, 1870, he had vainly sought to bring before the Senate. It was intended to secure complete equality for colored citizens in every relation that law could effect; but it was thought to be unwise and impracticable by other Republican senators, and as drawn by Sumner it was not supported by them. He introduced, 12 February, 1872, resolutions of inquiry, aimed at the administration, into the sale of arms to France during the German War. An acrimonious debate arose, during which Sumner's course was sharply criticised by some of his party colleagues, and he and Senators Trumbull, Schurz, and Fenton were known as anti-Grant Republicans.
Sumner was urged to attend the Liberal or anti-Grant Republican Convention, to be held at Cincinnati, 1 May, which nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency, and the chairmanship, and authority to write the platform were offered to him as inducements. But he declined, and in the Senate, 31 May, declaring himself a Republican of the straitest sect, he denounced Grantism as not Republicanism in a speech implying that he could not support Grant as the presidential candidate of the party. The Republican Convention, 5 June, unanimously renominated Grant, and the Democratic Convention, 9 June, adopted the Cincinnati platform and candidates. In reply to a request for advice from the colored citizens of Washington, 29 July, Sumner, in a long letter, advised the support of Greeley, on the general ground that principles must be preferred to party. In a sharp letter to Speaker Blaine, 5 August, he set forth the reasons of the course he had taken.
But the strain of the situation was too severe. His physicians ordered him to seek recreation in Europe, and he sailed early in September, leaving the manuscript of a speech he had proposed to deliver in Faneuil Hall at a meeting of Liberal Republicans. He opposed the election of Grant upon the ground that he was unfaithful to the constitution and to Republican principles, and otherwise unfitted for the presidency; and he supported Greeley as an original and unswerving Republican, nominated by Republicans, whose adoption as a candidate by the Democratic Party proved the honest acquiescence of that party in the great results of the Civil War. He returned from Europe in time for the opening of the session, 2 December, 1872. The Republican majority omitted him altogether in the arrangement of the committees, leaving him to be placed by the Democratic minority. But Sumner declined to serve upon any committee, and did not attend the Republican caucus. On the first day of the session he introduced a bill forbidding the names of battles with fellow-citizens to be continued in the army register or placed on the regimental colors of the United States. From this time he took no party part and made no political speech, pleading only for equality of civil rights for colored citizens. At the next session, 1 December, 1873, he was placed on several committees, not as chairman, but as one of the minority, and he did not refuse to serve, but attended no meetings. During this session the cordial relations between Sumner and the Republicans were almost wholly restored, and in Massachusetts the Republican feeling for him was very friendly. Again, promptly but vainly, 2 December, 1873, he asked consideration of the civil-rights bill. On 27 January, 1874, he made for the bill a last brief appeal, and on 11 March, 1874, after a short illness, he died. The bill that was his last effort to serve the race to whose welfare his public life had been devoted was reported, 14 April, 1874, substantially as originally drawn, and passed the Senate, 22 May. But it failed in the house, and the civil-rights bill, approved 1 March, 1875, was a law of less scope than his, and has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Sumner's death was universally lamented. One of the warmest and most striking eulogies was that of Lucius Q. C. Lamar, then a representative in Congress from Mississippi, who had been a sincere disciple of Calhoun and a Confederate officer, but who recognized in Sumner a kindred earnestness and fidelity. The later differences with his party were forgotten when Sumner died, and only his great service to the country in the most perilous hour, and his uncompromising devotion to the enslaved race, were proudly and enthusiastically remembered. Among American statesmen his life especially illustrates the truth he early expressed, that politics is but the application of moral principles to public affairs. Throughout his public career he was the distinctive representative of the moral conviction and political purpose of New England. His ample learning and various accomplishments were rivalled among American public men only by those of John Quincy Adams, and during all the fury of political passion in which he lived there was never a whisper or suspicion of his political honesty or his personal integrity. He was fortunate in the peculiar adaptation of his qualities to his time. His profound conviction, supreme conscientiousness, indomitable will, affluent resources, and inability to compromise, his legal training, serious temper, and untiring energy, were indispensable in the final stages of the slavery controversy, and he had them all in the highest degree. “There is no other side,” he said to a friend with fervor, and Cromwell's Ironsides did not ride into the fight more absolutely persuaded that they were doing the will of God than Charles Sumner. For ordinary political contests he had no taste, and at another time and under other circumstances he would probably have been an all-accomplished scholar or learned judge, unknown in political life. Of few men could it be said more truly than of him that he never lost a day. He knew most of the famous men and women of his time, and he was familiar with the contemporaneous political, literary, and artistic movement in every country. In public life he was often accounted a man of one idea; but his speeches upon the “Trent” case, the Russian treaty, and our foreign relations showed the fulness of his knowledge and the variety of his interest. He was dogmatic, often irritable with resolute opposition to his views, and of generous self-esteem, but he was of such child-like simplicity and kindliness that the poisonous sting of vanity and malice was wanting. During the difference between Sumner and his fellow-Republicans in the Senate, one of them said that he had no enemy but himself, and Sumner refused to speak to him for the rest of the session. But the next autumn his friend stepped into an omnibus in New York in which Sumner was sitting, and, entirely forgetting the breach, greeted him with the old warmth. Sumner responded as warmly, and at once the old intimacy was completely restored. From envy or any form of ill-nature he was wholly free. No man was more constant and unsparing in the warfare with slavery and in the demand of equality for the colored race; but no soldier ever fought with less personal animosity. He was absolutely fearless. During the heat of the controversy in Congress his life was undoubtedly in danger, and he was urged to carry a pistol for his defence. He laughed, and said that he had never fired a pistol in his life, and, in case of extremity, before he could possibly get it out of his pocket he would be shot. But the danger was so real that, unknown to himself, he was for a long time under the constant protection of armed friends in Washington. The savage assault of Brooks undoubtedly shortened Sumner's life, but to a friend who asked him how he felt toward his assailant, he answered: “As to a brick that should fall upon my head from a chimney. He was the unconscious agent of a malign power.” Personally, in his later years, Sumner was of commanding presence, very tall, and of a stalwart frame. His voice was full, deep, and resonant, his elocution declamatory, stately, and earnest. His later speeches in the Senate he read from printed slips, but his speech upon Alaska, which occupied three hours in the delivery, was spoken from notes written upon a single sheet of paper, and it was subsequently written out. Few of the bills drawn by him became laws, but he influenced profoundly legislation upon subjects in which he was most interested. He was four times successively elected to the Senate, and when he died he was the senior senator of the United States in consecutive service. In October, 1866, when he was fifty-five years old, Sumner married Mrs. Alice Mason Hooper, of Boston, daughter-in-law of his friend, Samuel Hooper, representative in Congress. The union was very brief, and in September, 1867, Mr. and Mrs. Sumner, for reasons that were never divulged, were separated, and they were ultimately divorced. Of the “Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner,” written by his friend and literary executor, Edward L. Pierce, two volumes, covering the period to 1845, have been published (Boston, 1877). His complete works in fifteen volumes are also published (Boston, 1870-'83). The notes by himself and his executors supply a chronology of his public career. There are several portraits of Sumner. A crayon drawing by Eastman Johnson (1846) hung in Longfellow's study, and is engraved in Pierce's memoir. A large daguerreotype (1853) is also engraved in the memoir. A crayon by William W. Story (1854) for Lord Morpeth is now at Castle Howard, Yorkshire. An oil portrait by Moses Wight (1856) is in the Boston public library, another by Morrison (1856) in the library of Harvard College. A portrait by Edgar Parker was painted several years before his death. There is a photograph in the “Memorial History of Boston”; a photograph (1869) engraved in his works; another (1871) engraved in the city memorial volume of Sumner; a full-length portrait by Henry Ulke (1873) for the Haytian government—copy presented to the state of Massachusetts by James Wormely (1884), now in the State library; a photograph (1873), the last likeness ever taken, engraved in the state memorial volume; Thomas Crawford's bust (1839) in the Boston art museum; Martin Milmore's bust (1874) in the state-house, a copy of which is in the Metropolitan art museum, New York; a bronze statue by Thomas Ball (1878) in the Public garden, Boston; and a statuette in plaster by Miss Whitney (1877), an admirable likeness. The illustration on page 747 represents Mr. Sumner's tomb in Mt. Auburn cemetery, near Boston. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, pp. 744-750.
SUMNER, Charles Allen, stenographer, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 2 August, 1835. His father, Judge Increase Sumner, was a distant relative of the Increase that is noted elsewhere. The son studied at Trinity, but was not graduated. He subsequently studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but his chief attention was given to the practice of stenography. In 1856 he sailed for California, and reported for the legislature in 1857–61. He settled at San Francisco, and between the legislative sessions he was engaged in the state and county courts, in law-reporting, and general editorial duties till 1860, when he entered the Republican canvass. The following year he edited the “Herald and Mirror,” in which his opposition to the “Shafter” Land Bill succeeded in defeating it. Removing to Virginia City, Nevada, Mr. Sumner was made assistant-quartermaster in the U.S. forces in 1862, became colonel in 1864, and served as state senator in 1865–8, being pro tempore during one session. Meanwhile he had been twice an unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congress. He returned to San Francisco in 1868, and began to advocate a government postal telegraph in the “Herald,” of which he was editor. After this he was appointed official note-taker of the city, and in 1875 and 1880 official reporter of the Supreme Court. In 1878 he was defeated as a Democratic candidate for Congress, but he was elected in 1882. There he opposed the Pacific Railroads, and introduced a postal telegraph bill. Trinity gave him the degree of A. M. in 1887. He has published “Shorthand and Reporting” (New York, 1882); “Golden Gate Sketches” (1884); “Travel in Southern Europe” (1885); and “Sumner’s Poems,” with his brother, Samuel B. Sumner (1887). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 750
SUMNER, Edwin Vose, soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts., 30 January, 1797; died in Syracuse, New York, 21 March, 1863. Young Sumner was educated at Milton (Massachusetts.) Academy, and entered the army in 1819 as 2d lieutenant of infantry. He served in the Black Hawk War, became captain of the 2d U.S. Dragoons in 1833, and was employed on the western frontier, where he distinguished himself as an Indian fighter. In 1838 he was placed in command of the School of Cavalry Practice at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was promoted major in 1846, and in the Mexican War led the cavalry charge at Cerro Gordo in April, 1847, commanded the reserves at Contreras and Churubusco, and at the head of the cavalry at Molino del Rey checked the advance of 5,000 Mexican lancers. He was governor of New Mexico in 1851–’3, when he visited Europe to report on improvements in cavalry. In 1855 he was promoted colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry, and made a successful expedition against the Cheyennes. In command of the Department of the West in 1858 he rendered efficient service during the Kansas troubles. In March, 1861, he was appointed brigadier-general in the regular army, and sent to relieve General Albert Sidney Johnston, in command of the Department of the Pacific, but was recalled in the following year to the command of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He commanded the left wing at the siege of Yorktown, At Fair Oaks, where McClellan's army was divided by the Chickahominy and the left wing was heavily attacked, the orders to Sumner to cross the river and re-enforce that wing found him with his corps drawn out and ready to move instantly. In the seven days' battles he was twice wounded. In 1862 he was a appointed major-general of volunteers, led the 2d Corps at the battle of Antietam, where he was wounded, and commanded one of the three grand divisions of Burnside's army at Fredericksburg, his division being the first to cross the Rappahannock. At his own request, he was relieved in 1863, and, being appointed to the Department of the Missouri, he was on his way thither when he died. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel for Cerro Gordo, colonel for Molino del Rey, and major-general in the regular army for services before Richmond. General Sumner's last words, as he with great effort waved a glass of wine above his head, were: “God save my country, the United States of America.”—His son, Edwin Vose, served with merit through the Civil War, and was appointed major of the 5th U.S. Cavalry in 1879, and inspector of rifle practice, Department of the Missouri, which place he still holds. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. V, p. 751.
SUNDERLAND, Le Roy, Reverend, 1802-1885, Andover, Massachusetts, and New York, author, orator, abolitionist. Manager, 1833-1836, 1836-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. Sunderland was a member of the Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1841. Co-founder of anti-slavery Wesleyan Connection of America. Founded first anti-slavery society in the Methodist Church. Became editor of Zion’s Watchman anti-slavery periodical of the organization.
(Dumond, 1961, pp. 187, 349; Matlack, 1849, p. 162; Pease, 1965, pp. 280-297, 439-445; Sorin, 1971; Yellin, 1994, p. 43n; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 1; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 222; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 153)
SUNDERLAND, Le Roy, author, born in Exeter, Rhode Island, 18 May, 1802; died in Quincy, Massachusetts, 15 May, 1885. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, was converted to Methodism, became a preacher at Walpole, Massachusetts, in 1823, and was soon known as an orator of great power. He was prominent in the temperance and anti-slavery movements, presided at the meeting in New York City in October, 1834, when the first Methodist anti-slavery society was organized, and in December wrote the “Appeal” to Methodists against slavery, which was signed by ministers of the church in New England. He was appointed a delegate to the first anti-slavery convention in the west at Cincinnati, in 1841, and to the World's Convention in 1843, in London. His preaching was attended by strange phenomena. Under his first sermon the entire audience was “struck down by the power of God,” as it was then called; and ever afterward when he preached with reference to the awakening of sinners such manifestations appeared to a greater or less extent. His study of such phenomena had doubtless a determinative effect in his subsequent denial of Christianity, which he opposed during forty years preceding his death. He edited “The Watchman” in New York in 1836-'43; “The Magnet” in 1842-'3; “The Spirit World,” at Boston, in 1850-'2; and was a large contributor to various religious periodicals. He published “Biblical Institutes” (New York, 1834); “Appeal on the Subject of Slavery” (Boston, 1834); “History of the United States” (New York, 1834); “History of South America” (1834); “Testimony of God against Slavery” (Boston, 1834); “Anti-Slavery Manual” (New York, 1837); “Mormonism Exposed” (1842); “Pathetism, with Practical Instructions” (1843); “Book of Health” (1847); “Pathetism: Man considered in Respect to his Soul, Mind, Spirit” (1847); “Pathetism: Statement of its Philosophy, and its Discovery Defended” (1850); “Book of Psychology” (1852); “Theory of Nutrition and Philosophy of Healing without Medicine”; “Book of Human Nature” (1853); and “The Trance, and how it Introduced” (Boston, 1860). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 1.
SUNDERLAND, Mehitable, abolitionist, wife of Reverend Le Roy Sunderland (Yellin, 1994, p. 43n40)
SWAIM, Mary A., Indiana, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-1841, 1846-1853.
SWAN, Caleb, abolitionist, Underground Railroad activist, Easton, Massachusetts (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 3-4)
SUTRO, Adolph Heinrich Joseph, mining engineer, born in Aix-la-Chapelle, Rhenish Prussia, 29 April, 1830. He was educated in his native place. His father was a cloth-manufacturer, and Adolph learned the details of the business and travelled for the factory, but the elder Sutro died before the son was old enough to continue the business, and the family, consisting of seven sons and four daughters, came to New York in 1850. During the voyage Adolph had learned of the gold fever in California, and, soon after establishing the family in Baltimore, he set out for the Pacific coast. Having studied mineralogy in the best polytechnic schools in Germany, he was much better prepared for mining operations than the majority who at that time were flocking to the gold-fields. He visited Nevada in 1860, and, after a careful inspection of the mining region there, he planned the now famous Sutro tunnel through the heart of the mountain where lay the Comstock lode. Having interested capitalists in the project, he obtained a charter from the Nevada legislature on 4 February, 1865, and the authorization of Congress on 25 July, 1866. The mining companies agreed to pay a toll of $2 for each ton of ore, from the time when the tunnel should reach and benefit their mines. The work was begun on 19 October, 1869. It proceeded as rapidly as its character would permit, and before the close of 1871 four vertical shafts were opened along the line of the tunnel, one of which was 552 feet deep. The distance from the mouth of the tunnel to the Savage mine, where, at a depth of 1,050 feet from the surface, it formed the first connection with the Comstock Lode, is 20,000 feet. Lateral tunnels connect it with the mines on either side of the main bore. In 1879 the great tunnel was finished, and its projector became a millionaire many times over. Some of the mines at the level of the tunnel were flooded with water to the depth of one hundred feet or more, and had long been abandoned; others were unworkable on account of the heat and noxious gases. The tunnel with its shafts effectually ventilated them, and within a few days they were rid of the accumulated water, which had a temperature in some mines of 100° Fahrenheit. Mr. Sutro has devoted a part of his fortune to the collection of a fine library and art gallery in San Francisco. In 1887 he presented that city with a copy of Frederic A. Bartholdi's statue of “Liberty enlightening the World." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 2
SUTTER, John Augustus, pioneer, born in Kandern. Baden. 15 February, 1803; died in Washington, D. C, 17 June, 1880. He was of Swiss parentage, and his family name was originally Suter. He was graduated at the military college at Berne in 1823, entered the French service as an officer of the Swiss guard, and served in 1823-'4 through the Spanish Campaign. In 1834 he emigrated to this country and settled in St. Louis. Afterward he carried on at Santa Fe a profitable trade with Indians and trappers, whose accounts of California induced him m 1838 to cross the Rocky mountains. He first went to Oregon, descended Columbia River to Fort Vancouver, and thence sailed to the Sandwich Islands, where he purchased a vessel and went to Sitka, Alaska. After disposing of his cargo to advantage there, he sailed along the Pacific coast, and on 2 July, 1839, was stranded in the Bay of Yerba Buena (now San Francisco). Penetrating into the interior amid great difficulties, he founded in the same year the earliest white settlement on the site of Sacramento, received a considerable grant of land from the Mexican government, and in 1841 built a fort, calling it New Helvetia, which was afterward the first settlement that was reached by overland emigrants to California. The Mexican government appointed him governor of the northern frontier country, but. as he favored the annexation of California to the United States, the Mexicans regarded him with suspicion. When Captain Charles Wilkes's exploring expedition reached San Francisco, Sutter gave him aid and information, and he extended a similar welcome to John C. Fremont and his party. When California was ceded to the United States in February, 1848, Sutter was the owner of a large tract of land, many thousands of cattle, and other property, but the discovery of gold on his estate near Coloma, El Dorado County, at the same time (see Marshall, James Wilson), proved his financial ruin. His laborers deserted him, his lands were overrun by gold-diggers, and the claim he had filed for thirty-three square leagues, which had been allowed by the commissioners, was decided against him on appeal to the Supreme Court. Despoiled of his property and reduced to want, he was granted by the California legislature a pension of $250 a month. In 1864 his homestead was burned, and in 1873 he moved to Litiz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After California had been annexed to this country Sutter was elected first alcalde of his district, and a delegate to the convention to form a state constitution, and he was also an Indian Commissioner. The illustration shows the mill on Sutter's property, near which gold was first discovered. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 2.
SWAIM, David Gaskill, soldier, born in Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, 22 December, 1834. He was educated at Salem Academy, studied law, and after admission to the bar in 1858 began practice in Salem. At the beginning of the Civil War he left a prosperous law-practice and entered the National service, being commissioned 2d lieutenant in 1861, and 1st lieutenant, 4 November, 1861, in the 65th Ohio Regiment. He was promoted to captain and assistant adjutant-general, 16 May, 1862, and engaged in the battles of Shiloh, Murfreesboro, and Perryville. He was in Washington, D. C, till December, 1862, was assistant adjutant-general on the staff of General William S. Rosecrans and General George Thomas till November, 1863, and was present at Chickamauga, where he was wounded, and at Missionary Ridge. From January till October, 1864, he was on mustering duty at Wilmington, Delaware, and afterward, till September, 1866, was assistant adjutant-general, Department of Missouri, He was brevetted major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel for faithful and meritorious services during the war, and appointed 2d lieutenant in the 34th U.S. Infantry, 28 July, 1866, was promoted major and judge-advocate, 9 December, 1869, and became judge-advocate-general of the army with the rank of brigadier-general, 18 February, 1881. In 1884, he was court-martialed on various charges and suspended for ten years. He was the intimate friend and companion of President Garfield. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 3
SWAIN, David Lowry, governor of North Carolina, born in Asheville. Buncombe County, North Carolina, 4 January, 1801; died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 3 September, 1868. After receiving his education at the University of North Carolina he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1823, and practised in Raleigh. In 1824 he was elected to the legislature, and in 1831 he was appointed a judge of the state supreme court. From 1832 till 1835 he was governor of North Carolina, being the youngest man to fill that office. He was elected president of the University of North Carolina in 1835 and filled this post until his death, contributing effectively to the improvement of the institution. In 1865 he was invited by President Andrew Johnson to advise with him regarding the reconstruction of the Union. The degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by Princeton in 1841, and by Yale in 1842. He wrote many valuable historical papers, and published "The British Invasion of North Carolina in 1776" in the " North Carolina University Magazine," for May, 1853, which was afterward included in a volume of lectures, entitled " Revolutionary History of North Carolina" (New York, 1853). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 3
SWAIN, James Barrett, editor, born in New York City, 30 July, 1820. He learned the printing business with Horace Greeley, with whom he was a partner in the publication of the "Log Cabin" in 1840, and in 1838-'9 was private secretary to Henry Clay. In 1843-'9 he was editor of the "Hudson River Chronicle " in Sing-Sing, serving also as clerk of the state-prison there in 1848-'9. He was city editor of the New York "Tribune" in 1850, of the "Times" in 1851-2, editor of the "American Agriculturist " in 1852, a political contributor to the " Times" in 1853-'9, and its Washington correspondent in 1860-'l. He was also editor of the "Free State Advocate" (a campaign paper published in New York in 1856 by the National Republican Committee), of the Albany " Daily Statesman" from 1857 till 1861, and again of the " Hudson River Chronicle" from 1870 till 1885. He was a railroad commissioner for New York State in 1855-'7, 1st lieutenant in the 1st U. S. Cavalry and also colonel of the 1st U. S. Volunteer Cavalry in 1861-'4, engineer-in-chief of the National Guard of New York in 1865-'6. U. S. weigher in 1867-'70, and post-office inspector in 188l-'5. Mr. Swain is the author of " Life and Speeches of Henry Clay" (2 vols., New York, 1842; 3d ed., 1848); "Historical Notes to a Collection of the Speeches of Henry Clay" (2 vols., 1843); and "Military History of the State of New York " (3 vols.. 1801-'5). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 3.
SWAN, Joseph Rockwell, 1802-1884, jurist, legal writer, judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, ardent abolitionist. Overrode court judgment in U.S. District Court of a Negro prisoner convicted of violation of the Fugitive Slave Law. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 4; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 234; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 184)
SWAN, Joseph Rockwell, jurist, born in Westernville, Oneida County, New York, 28 December, 1802; died in Columbus, Ohio, 18 December, 1884. He was educated in Aurora, New York, and in 1824 moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he studied law in the office of his uncle, Judge Gustavus Swan, was admitted to the bar, and practised in Franklin and the adjoining counties. In 1830, he was made prosecuting attorney, and in 1834 he was elected judge of the court of common pleas, but he resigned this post in 1815, and practised his profession until 1854. In that year he was elected judge of the Supreme Court, serving until 1859, when his most important decision was delivered. The Supreme Court of the state, under a writ of habeas corpus, sought to override the judgment of the U. S. District Court in Ohio in attempting to discharge from jail a prisoner that had been sentenced by that court for violation of the Fugitive-Slave Law. Judge Swan decided that the state could not interfere with the action of the U. S. Courts, and the discharge of the prisoner was refused. At the same time he said that if he were appealed to personally he would protect any slave from his pursuers. He was the author of important statutes that were passed by the legislature and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of Ohio in 1850. In 1860 he became president of the Columbus and Xenia Railroad, and from that time till 1876 he acted as solicitor for several railroads. He published “Treatise on Justices of the Peace and Constables in Ohio” (Columbus, 1836; 12th ed., 1885); “Statutes of Ohio” (1841); “Manual for Executors and Administrators” (1843); “Practice in Civil Actions and Proceedings at Law in Ohio and Precedents in Pleading” (2 vols., 1845); “Swan's Pleading and Practice” (2 vols., 1851); “Commentaries on Pleadings under the Ohio Code” (Cincinnati, 1860); and “Supplement to the Revised Statutes of Ohio, etc., in Force August, 1868,” with notes by Milton Sayler (1869). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 4.
SWANK, James Moore, statistician, born in Loyalhanna, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, 12 July, 1832. He was educated at Elderidge Academy and at the preparatory department of Jefferson College. Pennsylvania In 1852, he published a weekly Whig newspaper at Johnstown. Pennsylvania, where, in 1853, he established the "Tribune," with which he was connected until 1870. He was superintendent of public schools in Cambria County. Pennsylvania, in 1861, and in 1871-'2 was chief clerk of the department of agriculture in Washington. Since 1873 he has been secretary of the American iron and steel association, and in 1885 he was appointed its general manager, which office he now (1888) holds. He is the editor of its weekly "Bulletin." compiles its annual statistical reports, is the author of its tariff tracts, and has edited nearly all its statistical and miscellaneous publications. In 1880, he was appointed agent of the U. S. Census, to collect the iron and steel statistics, his report appearing in 1881. He has published a " History of the Department of Agriculture" (Washington, 1871); "Centennial Report of the American Iron and Steel Association on the American Iron Trade" (Philadelphia, 1876); "Historical Account of Iron-Making and Coal-Mining in Pennsylvania" (1878): and "History of the Manufacture of Iron in all Ages" (1884). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 4
SWANN, Thomas, governor of Maryland, born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1805; died near Leesburg, Virginia, 24 July, 1883. His father was U. S. district attorney for the District of Columbia. After receiving his education at Columbian College and at the University of Virginia the son studied law with his father, and was made secretary to the Neapolitan Commission. He settled in Baltimore in 1834. and became a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1836, of which he was president from 1847 till 1853, and he was also president of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad. After his return from Europe he was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1856, and re-elected in 1858. Before the Civil War he emancipated his slaves, and he was an earnest supporter of the Union throughout the contest. He was elected governor of Maryland in 1864, and served from 1 January, 1865, until 1 January, 1869, refusing to leave the executive chair when he was elected U. S. Senator in 1866. He was afterward chosen to Congress as a Democrat for five successive terms, serving from 4 March, 1869, till 3 March, 1879. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 4-5.
SWARTOUT, Samuel, naval officer, born in New York City, 10 May, 1804; died in Brooklyn, New York, 5 February, 1867, entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 10 May, 1820, became passed midshipman, 4 June, 1831, and in 1834-'5 cruised in the schooner "Grampus," suppressing piracy in the West Indies, and in 1836-'7 hi the "St. Louis" on the same duty. He was promoted to lieutenant, 9 February, 1837, was inspector of provisions and clothing at the New York Navy-yard in 1841-'5, and cruised in the sloop "Vincennes" in the East Indies in 1845-'7, after which he was stationed at the New York Navy-yard until 1850. In 1851 he served on the coast survey. He was promoted to commander, 14 September, 1855, and had the steamer "Massachusetts," of the Pacific Squadron, in 1855-'7, during which time he had several engagements with Indians in Puget Sound. In 1861-'3 he commanded the sloop "Portsmouth," of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, in which he took part in the engagements with Forts Jackson and St. Philip, on the lower Mississippi River, and the consequent capture of New Orleans. He was then placed on waiting orders, his health failed, and he was retired, 10 May. 1866. His sister, Frances, married Admiral Charles H. Bell. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 5.
SWAYNE, Noah Haynes, 1804-1884, lawyer, jurist, anti-slavery activist. Represented former slaves in fugitive slave cases. Appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as a justice to the U. S. Supreme Court. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 5-6; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 239)
SWAYNE, Noah Haynes, jurist, born in Culpeper County, Virginia, 7 December, 1804; died in New York City, 8 June, 1884. H.is ancestor, Francis Swayne, came to this country with William Penn, and the farm on which he settled near Philadelphia is still in possession of his descendants. Noah's father, Joshua, moved to Virginia, and the son, after receiving a good education in Waterford, Virginia, studied law in Warrenton, was admitted to the bar in 1823, moved to Ohio, and in 1825 opened an office in Coshocton. In 1826-'9 he was prosecuting attorney of the county, and he then entered the Ohio legislature, to which he was elected as a Jefferson Democrat. He was appointed U. S. district attorney for Ohio in 1831, moved to Columbus, and served until 1841. In 1833 he declined the office of presiding judge of the common pleas. Subsequently he practised law until he was appointed, with Alfred Kelly and Gustavus Swan, a fund commissioner to restore the credit of the state. He also served on the commission that was sent by the governor to Washington to effect a settlement of the boundary-line between Ohio and Michigan, and in 1840 was a member of the committee to inquire into the condition of the blind. The trial of William Rossane and others in the U. S. circuit court at Columbus in 1853 for burning the steamboat “Martha Washington,” to obtain the insurance, was one of his most celebrated cases. He also appeared as counsel in fugitive-slave cases, and, owing to his anti-slavery opinions, joined the Republican Party on its formation, liberating at an early date the slaves that he received through his marriage in 1832. In 1862 he was appointed by President Lincoln a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and he served until 1881, when he resigned on account of advanced age. The degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by Dartmouth and Marietta in 1863, and by Yale in 1865.—His son, Wager, lawyer, born in Columbus, Ohio, 10 November, 1834, was graduated at Yale in 1856, and at the Cincinnati law-school in 1859. On his admission to the bar he practised in Columbus. He was appointed major of the 43d Ohio Volunteers on 31 August, 1861, became lieutenant-colonel on 14 December, 1861, colonel on 18 October, 1862, served in all the marches and battles of the Atlanta Campaign, lost a leg at Salkahatchie, South Carolina, and was brevetted brigadier- general, U. S. volunteers, on 5 February, 1865, becoming full brigadier-general on 8 March, 1865, and major-general on 20 June, 1865. He was made colonel of the 45th regular Infantry on 28 July, 1866, and on 2 March, 1867, was brevetted brigadier-general, U. S. Army, for gallant and meritorious services in the action of. Rivers Bridges, South Carolina, and major-general for services during the war. He was mustered out of the volunteer service on 1 September, 1867. General Swayne was a commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama, where he commanded the U. S. forces, and was also intrusted with the administration of the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, organizing an extensive system of common schools for colored children, who had none, and establishing at Montgomery, Selma, and Mobile important high-schools, which still remain, and also Talladega College. He retired on 1 July, 1870, and practised law in Toledo, Ohio, but in 1880 he moved to New York City, where he is counsel for railroad and telegraph corporations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 5-6.
SWEET, Samuel N., Adams, New York, abolitionist. Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). (Abolitionist, Vol. 1)
SWISSHELM, James (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 32; Blue, 2005, pp. 8, 140-143, 149, 153-154)
SWAYNE, Wager, lawyer, born in Columbus, Ohio, 10 November, 1834, was graduated at Yale in 1850, and at the Cincinnati law-school in 1859. On his admission to the bar he practised in Columbus. He was appointed major of the 43d Ohio Volunteers on 31 August, 1861, became lieutenant-colonel on 14 December, 1861, colonel on 18 October. 1862, served in all the marches and battles of the Atlanta Campaign, lost a leg at Salkahatchie, South Carolina and was brevetted brigadier-general, U. S. volunteers, on 5 February, 1865, becoming full brigadier-general on 8 March, 1865, and major-general on 20 June, 1865. He was made colonel of the 45th regular Infantry on 28 July, 1866, and on 2 March, 1867, was brevetted brigadier-general, U. S. Army, for gallant and meritorious services in the action of Rivers Bridges, South Carolina, and major-general for services during the war. He was mustered out of the volunteer service on 1 September, 187. General Swayne was a commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau in Alabama, where he commanded the U. S. forces, and was also intrusted with the administration of the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, organizing an extensive system of common schools for colored children, who had none, and establishing at Montgomery, Selma, and Mobile important high schools, which still remain, and also Talladega College. He retired on 1 July, 1870, and practised law in Toledo, Ohio, but in 1880 he moved to New York City, where he is counsel for railroad and telegraph corporations. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 6.
SWEENY, Thomas William, soldier, born in Cork, Ireland, 25 December, 1820. He came to the United States in 1832. and at an early age was apprenticed to the printing business. When a young man he joined the Baxter blues, a military organization in New York City, and in 1846, at the beginning of the war with Mexico, he became 2d lieutenant in Ward B. Burnett's 1st New York Volunteers. He participated in the campaign under General Winfield Scott from the siege of Vera Cruz to the storming of Churubusco, where he received wounds that necessitated the amputation of his right arm. On his return to New York City he was given a reception ball at Castle Garden by the printers of the city, and he received the brevet of captain from the governor of the state and a silver medal from the city of New York. He was given the commission of 2d lieutenant in the 2d U. S. Infantry, and served in California, in charge of Port Yuma, and elsewhere in the west, being engaged in frequent actions with hostile Indians. While stationed at Fort Yuma, the command under Maj. Samuel P. Heintzelman was compelled to fall back on San Diego for want of supplies, and Sweeny was ordered to remain with ten men. The Indians besieged his camp from 5 June until 6 December, 1851, but he was finally extricated by a government exploring expedition under Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves. After other duties at various posts he was promoted captain, 19 January, 1861. Soon after the beginning of the Civil War he was ordered to St. Louis and given command of the arsenal, which contained immense quantities of munitions of war of all kinds, sufficient fully to arm and equip 60,000 men, together with over forty tons of powder. Captain Sweeny had but forty unaligned recruits under him. while in St. Loins there were nearly 3,000 hostile minute-men. fully equipped. Advances were made to induce him to surrender the arsenal; but the reply, that if a serious attempt should be made to capture the arsenal he would blow it to atoms, prevented any action on the part of the Confederate sympathizers. He was second in command of the union troops at the surrender of the state forces at Camp Jackson, and conducted the final negotiations, in consequence of General Nathaniel Lyon's having been disabled. Subsequently he was instrumental in the organization of the Missouri three-months' volunteers, and he was appointed brigadier-general on 20 May, 1861. In the campaign that followed he took an active part with General Lyon, and was severely wounded at the battle of Wilson's Creek, and later he was acting assistant adjutant general under General John C. Fremont. He then accepted the command of the 52d Illinois Volunteers, and was attached to the army under General Grant, participating in the capture of Port Donelson, after which he took 6,000 prisoners to Alton, Illinois. At a critical moment toward the close of the first day of the battle of Shiloh a gap existed between the right flank of Sweeny's brigade and General William T. Sherman's left. The defence of this position, which was the key of the situation, was intrusted to him by Sherman, who has since said: "I attach more importance to that event than to any of the hundred achievements which I have since heard saved the day." His commission of brigadier-general of volunteers dates from 29 November, 1862, and thereafter he commanded a division of the 10th Army Corps and was engaged in protecting the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, he was promoted major of the 16th U.S. Infantry, 20 October, 1863, and in the Atlanta Campaign had the 2d Division of the 16th Corps in the Army of the Tennessee. At Snake Creek gap his command took possession of the gap twenty-four hours in advance of the cavalry, and held it in spite of every effort of the enemy. He took part in the battle of Resaca and forced a passage across Oostenaula River at Lay's Ferry, where he fought a successful battle, which action resulted in General Joseph E. Johnston's retreat southward. He also participated in the battles of Dallas and Kenesaw Mountain, and at the battle before Atlanta on 22 July, 1864, his division drove the enemy back with great slaughter, capturing four battle-flags and 900 prisoners. Subsequently he had command of the post of Nashville until July, 1865, and he was mustered out of volunteer service on 24 August of that year. He participated in the Fenian invasion of Canada in 1866, and was present at the battle of Limestone Ridge. During this period he was out of the National service, but was reinstated by the president soon afterward and given posts in the southern states. General Sweeny was presented with a sword by the city of Brooklyn for services rendered in the Civil War. He was retired on 11 May, 1870, with the rank of brigadier-general. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 6-7.
SWEET, Alexander Edwin, editor, born in St. John, New Brunswick, 28 March, 1841. His father, James, moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1849, and was afterward mayor of that town. He also served in the Confederate Army as a lieutenant-colonel. The son was sent to school in Poughkeepsie, New York, and in 1859 went to Europe and entered the Polytechnic institute, in Carlsruhe. Returning to Texas in 1863, he served in the Confederate Army in the 33d Texas Cavalry. After the war he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised in San Antonio for several years. In 1879 he became editor of the San Antonio " Express," and, still practicing law, became city attorney. Afterward he was editor of the San Antonio " Herald." and a contributor of humorous paragraphs to the Galveston "News." In May, 1881, he moved to Austin, Texas, and formed there a partnership for the publication of a weekly journal entitled "Texas Sittings," which was moved to New York in 1884. With J. Amory Knox he has published " On a Mexican Mustang through Texas from the Gulf to the Rio Grande" (Hartford, 1883). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 7.
SWEET, Benjamin Jeffrey, soldier, born in Kirkland, Oneida County, New York, 24 April, 1832; died in Washington, D. C, 1 January, 1874. His father was a clergyman in poor health, and at nine years of age the boy was set at work in a cotton-mill. When he was sixteen his father moved to Stockbridge, Wis., and settled upon a piece of wild forest land, where the son spent a year in clearing a homestead for the family. At the age of seventeen he entered Appleton College, but remained only a year, and then returned home, where he alternately taught and worked on his father's farm, his spare hours he devoted to the study of the law. Before he was twenty-seven he was elected to the Senate of Wisconsin, but at the opening of the Civil War he was commissioned major of the 6th Wisconsin Regiment. Soon afterward he resigned and raised two fresh regiments, the 21st and 22d Wisconsin, of the first of which he became colonel. In the battle of Perryville, where it formed a part of one corps that during all of one day sustained an attack from the whole of Bragg's army, it lost 300 in killed and wounded. Colonel Sweet had been for several days confined to an ambulance by malarial fever, but when the battle began he mounted his horse and took command of his regiment. During the battle he received a wound that was supposed to be mortal. His life was saved by the careful tending of his wife, but his health was permanently shattered. He was given a colonelcy in the Veteran reserve corps, and stationed at Gallatin, Tennessee, building a fort there in the winter of 1862-'3. In May, 1864, he was ordered to take command of the prison at Camp Douglas, Chicago, where about 10,000 Confederate soldiers were confined. In June, he discovered that an outbreak had been planned for the 4th of July which should liberate and arm the prisoners, and result in the sacking and burning of Chicago. He quickly strengthened his defences and re-enforced his garrison, and the attempt I was thus rendered hopeless. Early in November, Colonel Sweet received positive information that the I post was to be attacked on election night, only three days following; 5,000 armed men under competent leaders were then in Chicago, ready for the assault on the camp, and muskets were there in abundance to arm the 9,000 prisoners. Chicago was to be burned, and its flumes were to be the signal for a general uprising of 500,000 well-armed men throughout the western country. Even available soldier had been sent to the front by the government, and Sweet had in the garrison but 796 men, most of whom were unfit for active duty. Moreover, it was too late to receive re-enforcements. His only hope of safety lay in the speedy arrest of the Confederate leaders who were then in Chicago. In this emergency he called to his aid one of his prisoners, a Texas ranger named John T. Shanks, who was well acquainted with the Confederate officers, and engaged him to ferret them out. To gain him confidence with the Confederates, he allowed Shanks to escape from the prison, and made great efforts for his recapture. Colonel Sweet thought he could trust the man; but he had him constantly shadowed by detectives pledged to take his life in case of his treachery. Shanks did his work so well that within thirty-six hours the leaders of the intended assault were in irons, and a large quantity of contraband arms was in the possession of the government. When Chicago awoke to the danger it had escaped, its citizens collected at a mass meeting and publicly thanked Colonel Sweet for the service he had rendered. For it also the government promoted him to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers. When he was mustered out of service at the close of the war he resumed the practice of his profession in Wisconsin, but in 1869 he was appointed U. S. pension-agent at Chicago. He held this position till April, 1870, when he was made supervisor of internal revenue for Illinois. This office he held till January, 1872, when he was called to Washington to be 1st deputy commissioner of internal revenue. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 7-8.
SWEET, John Edson, inventor, born in Pompey, Onondaga County, New York, 21 October, 1832, was educated in a district school, und in 1873-'9 was professor of practical mechanics at Cornell University. He was a founder of the American society of mechanical engineers, of which he was president in 1883-'4. He is believed to be the first to suggest the use of pipe-lines for transporting oil from the oil-wells, and is the inventor of the straight-line high-speed engine, and one of the first to construct a composing-machine to form a matrix for casting stereotype-plates directly without the use of movable type. He is a contributor to the London " Engineering" and " American Machinist." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 8.
SWEETSER, Henry Edward, journalist, born in New York City, 19 February, 1837; died there, 17 February, 1870. After graduation at Yale in 1858 he devoted himself to mercantile pursuits, and then became a reporter for the New York "Times." In 1860 he was made night editor of the "World." and in 1863 he founded, with his brother, Charles H. Sweetser, the " Round Table," from which he withdrew in 1866, and, after a short visit to Europe. returned to New York and engaged in editorial work until his death.—His brother. Charles Humphreys, journalist, born in Athol, Massachusetts, 25 August, 1841; died in Palatka, Florida, 1 January. 1871, after graduation at Amherst in 1862 engaged in journalistic work, aided in founding the " Round Table." and became connected with the New York "Evening Gazette." He was an originator of the "Evening Mail " in 1867, and the "City" in 1869. After the failure of the latter enterprise he moved to Minnesota, and subsequently to Chicago, where he became literary editor of the " Times," but, owing to impaired health, he went to Florida. He published "Songs of Amherst" (Amherst, 1860; "History of Amherst College" (1860); and " Tourist's and Invalid' Guide to the Northwest" (New York, 1867). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 8.
SWETT, Leonard, lawyer, born near Turner, Maine, 11 August, 1825. He was educated at North Yarmouth Academy and at Waterville (now Colby University)) but was not graduated. He read law in Portland, enlisted as a soldier in the Mexican War, and at its close in 1848 settled in Bloomington, Illinois He travelled the circuit in fourteen counties, and was an intimate friend of Abraham Lincoln and David Davis. In 1865 he moved to Chicago. In 1852-'61 he took an active part in politics, canvassing the state several times, and in 1858, at the special request of Mr. Lincoln, was a candidate for the legislature on the Republican ticket, and was elected by a large majority. This is the only official place he has ever held. When Mr. Lincoln became president Mr. Swett was employed in the trial of government cases, one of the most noted of which was that for the acquisition of the California quicksilver-mines in 1863. In the course of his practice Mr. Swett has defended twenty men indicted for murder, securing the acquittal of nineteen, and a light punishment for the other one. He has also been retained in criminal cases in nearly every part of the country, though his professional work has been mainly devoted to civil suits. His success is attributed to his careful personal attention to details and his eloquence as an advocate. He has rendered much gratuitous service to workingmen, servants, and other poor clients. He delivered the oration at the unveiling of the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago, Illinois, 22 October, 1887, and at the Chicago Republican convention in June, 1888, in an eloquent speech, proposed Walter Q. Gresham, of Illinois, as a candidate for the presidency. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 9.
SWIFT Ebenezer, surgeon, born in Wareham. Massachusetts, 8 October, 1819;. died in Hamilton, Bermuda, 24 September, 1885. He was graduated at the medical department of the University of the city of New York in 1842, and in March, 1847, became acting assistant surgeon in the U. S. Army. His first service was with the army of invasion and occupation of Mexico, and he was on duty at General Winfield Scott's headquarters until July, 1848. Subsequently he served at various posts in the east, in Texas, and on expeditions against hostile Indians until June, 1856. Meanwhile he had been made captain and assistant surgeon on 30 August, 1852. He had command of Fort Chadbourne, Texas, was on temporary duty at Fort Columbus in New York harbor during the prevalence of the cholera, and accompanied the troops under General Albert S. Johnston to Utah in May,1859. After serving at various stations in Missouri, Kansas, and Dakota, he was made full surgeon on 21 May, 1861, and appointed medical director of General Ormsby M. Mitchel's division of the Army of the Tennessee. In December. 1862. He became medical director of that army, and early in 1863 he was transferred to Philadelphia, where he was chief medical officer and superintendent of hospitals in and around Philadelphia, and from November, 1863, till June, 1864, medical director of the Department of the South. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel and colonel on 13 March, 1865, and from February till June, 1865, held the office of medical director with the ranks of lieutenant-colonel and colonel. On 20 June, 1869, he received the additional brevet of brigadier-general for meritorious services voluntarily rendered during the prevalence of cholera at Fort Harker, Kansas. In 1874 he became medical director of the Department of the South, and thereafter, until his retirement on 8 October, 1883, he was assistant medical purveyor in New York City. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 10.
SWIFT, Jonathan Williams, naval officer, born in Taunton, Massachusetts. 30 March. 1808; died in Geneva, New York, 30 July, 1877. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman. 25 August, 1823, and cruised in the sloop "Cyane," of the Mediterranean station, in 1823-'5, and the frigate " Brandywine," of the Pacific station, in 1826-"9. He became passed midshipman, 23 March, 1829, and was then on leave for four years. He was commissioned a lieutenant. 3 March, 1831, and the next year made a short cruise in the sloop "John Adams "in the Mediterranean. After this he was on leave and waiting orders until his death, except for a short cruise in the steamer "Fulton " on the Home station in 1840, and was placed on the reserved list by the action of the board of retirement, 14 September, 1855. He was promoted to commodore on the retired list. 4 April, 1867, and resided at Geneva, N. Y until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 10.
SWINBURNE, John, physician, born in Deer River, Lewis County, New York, 30 May, 1820. He was graduated at Albany Medical College in 1846. and began to practice in that city. In 1861 he was appointed chief medical officer on the staff of General John F. Rathbone, and placed in charge of the depot for recruits at Albany. In May, 1862. he was appointed by Governor Edwin D. Morgan auxiliary volunteer surgeon at the front with the rank of medical superintendent, and was reappointed by Governor Horatio Seymour on 13 June. He was subsequently made a surgeon in the U. S. service, and assigned to duty at Savage's station. He was taken prisoner, 29 June, 1862, and offered his liberty by his captors, but preferred to remain with his patients. He was appointed by Governor Seymour in 1864 health officer of the port of New York, reappointed by Governor Reuben E. Fenton in 1866, and held the post six years. He was surgeon-in-chief of the American ambulance corps in Paris during the siege of that city by the German Army in 1870-'l. In 1882 he was elected mayor of Albany, and in 1884 he was chosen to Congress and served for one term. He has been surgeon-in-chief to the Child's hospital and Homoeopathic hospital at Albany, and has been a frequent contributor to the medical journals and reviews. See "A Typical American, or Incidents in the Life of Dr. John Swinburne" (Albany, 1888). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 12.
SWINTON. John, journalist, born in Salton, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, 12 December, 1830. He received his early education from his uncle, the Reverend Robert Currie, emigrated in 1843 to Canada, and afterward to the United States, with his family, learned the printer's trade in Illinois, and practised it for some time in New York City. He then received a course of classical instruction at Williston seminary, Massachusetts, and afterward travelled extensively through the United States. Feeling an abhorrence for slavery, he left Charleston, South Carolina, where he resided at the time, in order to take an active part in the free-state contest in Kansas. He returned to New York City in 1857, und began the study of medicine. While thus engaged he contributed articles to the "Times,'' afterward accepted an editorial place on that paper, and soon became managing editor. During the absences of Henry J. Raymond he had the sole control, and wrote a large number of the leading articles. He resigned the post of managing editor at the close of the war, on account of impaired health, but continued his connection with the journal as an editorial writer till the death of Mr. Raymond. Subsequently he was managing editor of the New York "Sun." He became a leader in the movement for labor-reforms, and in 1883 severed his connection with the "Sun" in order to expound his political and social views in a weekly journal that he called "John Swinton's Paper," which he ceased to publish in 1887. Besides other pamphlets, he has published "New Issue: the Chinese American Question" (New York, 1870), and also a "Eulogy on Henry J. Raymond" (1870): "John Swinton's Travels'' (1880); and an " Oration on John Brown" (1881). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 12-13.
SWINTON, William, author, born in Salton, Scotland, 23 April, 1833, was educated at Knox College, Toronto, and at Amherst, with the intention of becoming a Presbyterian minister, and in 1853 began to preach, but adopted the profession of teaching. He was professor of ancient and modern languages at the Edgeworth female seminary, Greensborough, North Carolina, in 1853-'4, and afterward went to New York City to take a professorship in Mt. Washington collegiate institute. While in the south he contributed to 'Putnam's Monthly" some critical and philosophical articles, and a series of etymological studies that were afterward published under the title of "Rambles among Words: their Poetry and Wisdom" (New York, 1&59; London, 1861). 'Having previously contributed articles to the New York "Times,'' he was taken on the staff of that journal in 1858, and in 1862 went to the seat of war as a correspondent. He was equipped for this work by close study of military art, and he discussed tactical movements with such freedom that in 1864 General Ambrose K. Burnside, whom he had criticised in his letters, procured an order for his exclusion from the camps of the army. He also, at a later date, incurred the displeasure of General Grant. In 1867 he travelled through the southern states and collected material for a history of the war from the military and civil leaders of the Confederacy. Returning to the office of the "Times." he resumed the work of literary criticism, in which province he had gained a reputation before he became a war-correspondent. Before abandoning journalism, he published in newspaper articles and in a pamphlet an exposure of the machinations of railroad financiers to procure subsidies. In 1869 he became professor of belles-lettres in the University of California, where he remained for five years. Subsequently he made Brooklyn, New York, his residence, devoting himself to the composition of educational works, most of which were widely adopted in public and private schools. For a series of these, which cover most "of the studies pursued in schools, he received a gold medal at the Paris exposition of 1867 'for educational works of remarkable originality and value." His principal military works are " The 'Times's' Review of McClellan: his Military Career Reviewed and Exposed" (1864); "Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac: a Critical History of Operations in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania" (1866; revised ed., 1886); "The Twelve Decisive Battles of the War: a History of the Eastern and Western Campaigns in Relation to the Actions that Decided their Issue" (1867); and "History of the New York Seventh Regiment during the War of the Rebellion" (Boston, 1870). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 13
SWISSHELM, Jane Grey Cannon, 1815-1884, abolitionist leader, women’s rights advocate, journalist, reformer. Free Soil Party. Liberty Party and Liberty League. Republican Party activist. Established Saturday Visitor, an abolition and women’s rights newspaper. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 13; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 253; Blue, 2005, pp. 8-9, 50, 138-160, 268, 269; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 217; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 316; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Vol. 2, pp. 668-670)
SWISSHELM, Jane Grey, born near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 6 September, 1815; died in Swissvale, Pennsylvania, 22 July, 1884. When she was eight years of age her father, James Cannon, died, leaving a family in straitened circumstances. The daughter worked at manual labor and teaching till she was twenty-one, when she married James Swisshelm, who several years afterward obtained a divorce on the ground of desertion. Two years later she moved with her husband to Louisville, Kentucky In this city she became an outspoken opponent of slavery, and her first written attack upon the system appeared in the Louisville “Journal” in 1842. She also wrote articles favoring abolition and woman's rights in the “Spirit of Liberty,” of Pittsburg, for about four years. In 1848 she established the Pittsburg “Saturday Visitor,” a strong abolition and woman's rights paper, which, in 1856, was merged with the weekly edition of the Pittsburg “Journal.” In 1857 she went to St. Cloud, Minnesota, and established the St. Cloud “Visitor.” Her bold utterances caused a mob to destroy her office and its contents, and to throw her printing-press into the river. But she soon began to publish the St. Cloud “Democrat.” When Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the presidency, she spoke and wrote in his behalf and for the principles of which he was the representative. When the Civil War began and nurses were wanted at the front, she was one of the first to respond. After the battle of the Wilderness she had charge of 182 badly wounded men at Fredericksburg for five days, without surgeon or assistant, and saved them all. She was a prolific writer for newspapers and magazines, and published “Letters to Country Girls” (New York, 1853), and an autobiography entitled “Half of a Century” (1881). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI. P. 13.
SWORDS, Robert Smith, author, born in New York City, 12 July, 1816; died in Newark. New Jersey, 15 January, 1881. He was graduated at Columbia in 1834, and after studying law for three years with Daniel Lord was admitted to the bar. Soon after this he formed a partnership with Sylvester Ward which lasted ten years, when he retired from the practice of his profession, in the meantime serving during several years as judge-advocate for the city of New York. In 1849 he settled on Passaic River, opposite Belleville, New Jersey, and while living there was for twelve years a magistrate for Union township. Although an earnest Democrat and an opponent of the administration of President Lincoln, he placed his services at the disposal of the government, in August, 1862, was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the 13th New Jersey Volunteers, and was with his regiment in the battles of Antietam and South Mountain, being wounded in the former engagement. He resigned in 1863 and moved to Newark. New Jersey, where he afterward resided. For many years he was secretary of the Board of trade of Newark, and he was corresponding secretary of the New Jersey state agricultural society, treasurer of the New Jersey society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and treasurer of the Board of proprietors of East. New Jersey. In 1867 he became treasurer of the New Jersey historical society, to whose " Proceedings " he contributed a " Memoir of the Life and Character of John Rutherford'' (1872); "The Bones of Columbus" (1879); "The Cathedral Church of San Domingo"'(1879); and other similar papers. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 13-14.
SWORDS, Thomas, soldier, born in New York City, 1 November, 1806; died there, 20 March, 1886. He was "a grandson of Captain Thomas Swords, a British officer, who died in New York in 1780, and his father was the senior member of the publishing-house of T. and J. Swords, of New York City. The son was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1829, assigned to the 4th U.S. Infantry, and served in various parts of the southern states for four years, when he was appointed 1st lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Dragoons. He was promoted captain, 3 March, 1837, and during nearly the whole of the succeeding twelve years was engaged on frontier duty, serving with General Henry Leavenworth against the Indians in the southwest, and with General Stephen Kearny in the conquest of New Mexico and California, and raised the first American flag over Santa Fe. When General Kearny's force reached San Diego on the Pacific coast in January. 1847, Swords, who was the quartermaster, went to the Sandwich Islands and obtained clothing and supplies for the soldiers. He became captain and assistant quartermaster. 7 July. 1838. major, 21 April, 1846, and lieutenant-colonel and deputy quartermaster-general. 3 August, 1861. He was chief quartermaster of the Army of the West in 1846-'7, was engaged at San Pasqual. California, 6 December, 1846, and at Vera Cruz, and was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, 30 May, 1848, for meritorious services in the enemy's country. He was chief quartermaster of the Departments of the Cumberland and the Ohio in 1861-65, was engaged in the battle of Chickamauga, and brevetted brigadier-general and major-general, U. S. Army. 13 March, 1865. He was retired from active service, 22 February, 1869. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 14.
SYKES, George, soldier, born in Dover, Delaware, 9 October, 1822; died in Brownsville, Texas, 9 February, 1880. He was appointed from Maryland to the U. S. Military Academy, and on his graduation in 1842 was assigned to the 3d U.S. Infantry, with which he served in the latter part of the Florida war, and then in the west and in Texas. He was promoted 1st lieutenant, 21 September, 1846. and during the Mexican war was engaged at Monterey, Vera Cruz. Cerro Gordo (where he was brevetted captain for gallantry), Contreras, Churubusco, and the capture of the City of Mexico. He was commissary of General Twiggs's division in Mexico in 1847-"8, and was then on frontier and garrison duty till the Civil War, taking part in skirmishes with the Apaches in 1854, and in the Navajo Expedition of 1859, and reaching the rank of captain on 30 September. 1855. He became major of the 14th U.S. Infantry, 14 May, 1861, was at the battle of Bull Run, and then commanded the regular infantry in Washington till March, 1862, and was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers, 28 September, 1861. He took part in the Peninsula Campaign at the head of the division of regulars in Fitz-John Porter's corps, receiving the brevet of colonel for gallantry at Gaines's Mills, and in the succeeding operations of the Army of the Potomac, becoming major-general of volunteers on 29 November, 1862, and commanding the 5th Corps after the battle of Chancellorsville. He was at the head of this corps at Gettysburg, and so continued till 20 April. 1864, when he was ordered to Kansas. At the close of the war he received the brevet of brigadier-general, U. S. Army, for services at Gettysburg, and major-general for "gallant and meritorious services in the field " during the war. He had reached the regular army rank of lieutenant-colonel on 16 October, 1863, and on 12 January, 1868, he became colonel of the 20th U.S. Infantry. From this time till his death he commanded various posts, and after 1877 he was in charge of Fort Brown, Texas On motion of Senator Burnside, H appropriated $1,000 for the removal of his remains to the cemetery at West Point, where he now lies buried, and where a fine monument has been erected to his memory by his many friends. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 14.
SYPHER, Josiah Rhinehart, journalist, born in Liverpool, Perry County, Pennsylvania, 12 April, 1832. He was graduated at Union College in 1858, and, after making a tour of the United States, studied law and was admitted to the bar at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1862. While he was travelling he contributed to the Lancaster " Express," and he was its associate editor while studying law. In 1862 he was engaged as war-correspondent of the New York "Tribune." and he was afterward in charge of the correspondence in the Army of the Potomac. In the winter of 1865 he became associate editor of the "Tribune," and in 1870 he established the “Pennsylvania State Journal" at Harrisburg, but at the end of six months he resumed the practice of law in Philadelphia. He has advocated public education and temperance reform, and, in addition to articles for the press and several school-books, has published "History of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps" (Lancaster, 1865), and "School History of Pennsylvania" (Philadelphia. 1868). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 16.
SZABAD, Emeric, author, born in Hungary about 1822. He was secretary under the Hungarian national government in 1849, was a friend of Louis Kossuth, and gained his first experience as a soldier in his native country. He subsequently served in Italy under Garibaldi, and at the opening of the Civil War came to this country and was appointed on the staff of General John C. Fremont. He served through the war, being on the staff of General Daniel E. Sickles at Gettysburg, and afterward on that of General Gouverneur K. Warren. He wrote a series of letters on the United States Army and its management for the New York "Tribune." and has published " Hungary, Past and Present " (London, 1854); "State Policy of Modern Europe from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Present I Time"(2 vols., 1857): and "Modern War: its Theory and Practice" (New York, 1863). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 16.
