H-J: Halleck through Hurlbut

Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography

HALLECK, HENRY WAGER (January 16, 1815-January 9, 1872), soldier, author, lawyer, capitalist, came of ancestors who served in both the Revolution and the War of 1812. According to family tradition, his father, Joseph Halleck, was a descendant of Peter Hallock of Long Island. His mother was Catherine Wager, the daughter of Henry Wager of Utica, New York, a magistrate, who was a close personal friend of Baron Steuben and. an elector of Thomas Jefferson. Halleck was born in Westernville, Oneida County, New York. At an early age he took such a dislike to enforced farming that he ran away from home in pursuit of an education. His maternal grandfather adopted him and sent him to the Hudson (New York) Academy, whence he went to Union College. He was there elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was later awarded (1837) the A.B. degree. Appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, he became a cadet on July 1, 1835. His ability was demonstrated by his standing as a cadet officer of high rank, as number three in a class of thirty-two at his graduation on July 1, 1839, and as assistant professor of chemistry and engineering during and after his four-year course.

Commissioned as a second lieutenant of engineers, on July 1, 1839, he was sent to his first station at New York Harbor, where he worked upon the fortifications. In the fall of 1844, he accompanied Marshal Bertrand to Europe, where he met Marshal Soult, was introduced at the French Court, and was given permission to visit the fortifications of France. The inspiration of this tour abroad caused him on his return home to write a "Report on the Means of National Defence," which was published by Congress (Senate Document No. 85, 28 Congress, 2 Session) and was so highly thought of that he was invited by the Lowell Institute of Boston to deliver twelve lectures. These he published in 1846 under the title, Elements of Military Art and Science, a book which was looked upon as authoritative and had a wide circulation among regular and volunteer officers, especially during the Civil War. When the Mexican War broke out in 1846, Halleck, a first lieutenant, was sent on the transport Lexington to Monterey, California, by way of Cape Horn. During the voyage of seven months, he translated Henri Jomini's Vie Politique et Militaire de Napoleon, which he published in four volumes in 1864. In California he filled varied and responsible positions, serving as secretary of state under Generals Mason and Riley, chief of staff of Burton's operations in Lower California, aide-de-camp to Commodore Shubrick; and lieutenant-governor of Mazatlan. For "gallant conduct in affairs with the enemy on the 19th and 20th of November 1846, and for meritorious services in California," he was brevetted a captain on May 1, 1847. After the war he continued as aide to General Riley, was inspector and engineer of light-houses, and acted as member of the board of engineers for fortifications on the Pacific Coast. During this time he took a prominent part in the California constitutional convention (S. H. Willey, in Overland Monthly, July 1872). He was promoted a captain of engineers, July 1, 1853, but, because of the cuts in the army after the war and the hopeless future in a profession little rewarded by the government, he resigned from the service on August 1, 1854.

In 1843 he had already declined the professorship of engineering in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard. Before his resignation he had completed his study of law, and he became in 1854 head of the leading law firm in California, Halleck, Peachy & Billings, and refused a proffered seat on the state supreme bench and the office of United States senator. His business enterprises, in which he was eminently successful, forbade his acceptance of a restricting desk. He was director-general of the New Almaden quicksilver mine, president of the Pacific & Atlantic Railroad, which ran from San Francisco to San Jose, and major-general of California militia. His business preoccupation, however, did not prevent his writing. In 1859 he published A Collection of Mining Laws of Spain and Mexico; in 1860, a translation of Fundamental Principles of the Law of Mines by J. H. N. de Fooz; and in 1861, a treatise, International Law, or Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War, which was condensed and used widely as a textbook in-schools and colleges. On April 10, 1855, he married Elizabeth Hamilton, the grand-daughter of Alexander Hamilton. From this union was born an only child, Henry Wager Halleck, in 1856.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Winfield Scott, who held a high regard for Halleck's merits, urged President Lincoln to give him advanced rank. Accordingly, on August 19, 1861, he was commissioned a major-general in the regular army. He was ordered to St. Louis, where on November 18, 1861, he succeeded General Fremont in the command of the Department of Missouri. Halleck found the miserable conditions of extravagance, illegal organization, graft, and inefficiency, about which he had been warned by McClellan. With skill and summary restriction of abuses, he coldly and impartially put an end to evil practices in the border state. If Fremont's management of the slavery question had been too radical, Halleck's was too conservative. He was denounced in the press and in Congress by the extreme Abolitionists and pro-slavery secessionists; but he was not swerved from his course by criticism or threats. The successes of his subordinates, Grant and Foote at Donelson, Curtis at Pea Ridge, Pope at Island No. 10, and Grant at Shiloh, brought prestige to Halleck's department, although the victories were attributable rather to the skill of the individual commanders in the field than to Halleck himself. The departments of Kansas and Ohio were added to his command on March 11, 1862, and the whole named the Department of the Mississippi. After bending his efforts toward reorganization, he took the field in person in April. But his labors there were not so meritorious as in the office. With double the number of his opponent's forces, he moved on the enemy cautiously with "pick and shovel," rather than intrepidly with a hundred thousand bayonets. Though Corinth, the objective, was captured, he allowed Beauregard's forces to escape and did not pursue them with vigor. This movement ended Halleck's active campaigning, during which he was known to the soldiers as "Old Brains." About five feet nine inches tall, sturdy and erect, Halleck looked the part of the soldier, but his austerity, aloofness, and scholarly procedure robbed him of that spark of personality which ignites the fire of achievement in others.

Recognizing his characteristics and needing some one to untangle the snarled situation in the eastern theatre, Lincoln called Halleck against his inclination to Washington. On July 11, 1862, he was made military adviser to the President with the title of general-in-chief, an anomalous position which scarcely any one could have filled with credit. Brusque, mathematical, direct, wholly impersonal and impartial, Halleck not only antagonized office seekers and politicians but also his subordinates far away with the forces. He was impatient of McClellan over the very shortcomings he had himself exhibited before Corinth. His counsels to his generals were frequent and often superfluous. His fears for the safety of Washington led him into errors of judgment. At times he appeared to have broken faith with McClellan, Pope, and Hooker over promised troops. Devoting his time to minutiae and the manner of raising soldiers and equipment, he seemingly obscured in his own mind the sound strategy of the main army. His timidity is illustrated in his dispatches to Meade after Gettysburg, which suggested the postponement of an engagement with Lee. Critics blame him in part for the failure to reap the fruits of that decisive battle. Here the picture of Halleck could be painted very black. It is impossible, however, now to reconstruct the difficulties which surrounded Halleck in what he termed his "political Hell" (letter to his wife, August 9, 1862). He had been suddenly inducted into the supreme command of armies hastily assembled from a country that had no idea of training and scientific fighting. He found himself in an impenetrable fog of detail. Knowledge of the battlefield had to be gained mainly from dispatches. Halleck in this transitional period tirelessly worked out plans, which were ordinarily approved because those in power were not as well versed as he. Many orders of the President and Secretary of War were issued in his name when he did not approve of the contents. Being put an office general he had no opportunity to obliterate his mistakes by victories on the battlefield. Too much, however, cannot be said of Halleck's unflinching insistence upon discipline in those early days.

After almost three years of war, his incongruous position was alleviated. An order of March 12, 1864, several days after Grant had been created a lieutenant-general, changed the status of Halleck from that of general-in-chief to chief of staff of the army. Although the new office was more logical and appropriate to the work Halleck had been doing, it was indeed a demotion, but he took the change in good part. Unlike other generals, who asked for relief or resigned when they could not have the positions to which they believed themselves entitled, he pursued his duties with his same unflagging energy. During the last year of the war he remained in Washington with curtailed powers. On April 19, 1865, after Appomattox, he was relieved from the office of chief of staff and three days later was assigned to command the Military Division of the James, with headquarters at Richmond. After the Johnston convention he ordered Meade's army to push forward, to disregard the truce made by General Sherman, and to pay attention to the orders of no one save Grant. By this action, although it was induced by his superiors, Halleck incurred the enmity of Sherman. The breach between the two men was not healed until years later. On August 30, 1865, after the termination of hostilities, Halleck was transferred to command the Military Division of the Pacific with headquarters at San Francisco. From there, on March 16, 1869, he was transferred to command the Division of the South with headquarters at Louisville, Kentucky. He took up his new duties on June 17, 1869. This was his last assignment, for he died in Louisville on January 9, 1872, in the arms of his brother-in-law, Schuyler Hamilton [q.v.]. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. Doubtless the great strain of his four years in Washington hastened his end, which was all the more tragic because of his happy domestic life. There was also no little tragedy in his career. He gave up much in entering the army in 1861, but he was not fitted to command and, thrust against his will into a treacherous position, was the victim of his limitations.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); Records of the Adjutant-General's Department, War Department; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), see index; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); G. W. Richards, Lives of Gens. Halleck and Pope (1862); Jas. B. Fry, "Misunderstandings between Halleck and Grant," in Magazine of American History, December 1886; Louisville Commercial, January 10, 1872; Army and Navy Journal, January 13, February 3, 1872; memoir by Jas. G. Wilson, in Journal of the Military Service Institution of the U. S., May-June, September-October, 1905; Emory Upton, "The Military Policy of the U. S.," Senate Doc. No. 494, 62 Congress, 2 Session; W. A. Ganoe, History of the U.S. Army (1924); Memoirs of General William T. Sherman (2 volumes, 1875); Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (2 volumes, 1885-86); McClellan's Own Story (1887); George Meade, Life and Letters of George. Gordon Meade (2 volumes, 1913); L. H. Hallock, A Hallock Genealogy (1928).]

W.A.G.



HANCOCK, WINFIELD SCOTT (February 14, 1824-February 9, 1886), soldier, presidential candidate, was named for Winfield Scott, already an outstanding figure in the War of 1812. His father was Benjamin Franklin Hancock (1800-1879), the son of Richard Hancock, a Philadelphia seaman, and his second wife, Anna Maria Nash, of Edinburgh, Scotland. Benjamin Hancock was reared by John Roberts, a Quaker; he was at first a teacher, but was admitted to the bar in 1828, and practised law in Norristown, Pennsylvania, for over forty years, where he had the reputation of being a well-read lawyer. His wife was Elizabeth Hoxworth, of English descent. Their son, Winfield Scott Hancock, was born at the village of Montgomery Square, and at the age of four years moved with his parents to Norristown, the county-seat. Here in due time he attended the Norristown Academy until it was merged into a high school, and showed a fondness for drill by organizing a military company among his schoolmates. He entered West Point on July 1, 1840, at the age of sixteen years and, though admittedly immature and not well grounded in his studies, graduated from the Military Academy on June 30, 1844, eighteenth in a class which had been reduced by elimination from one hundred to twenty-five members. Among his contemporaries at West Point, who later became distinguished generals, were Grant, McClellan, Franklin, W. F. Smith, Reynolds, Rosecrans, Longstreet, Pickett, and "Stonewall" Jackson. As a cadet he has been described by a fellow student as "of tall, slender, and handsome person, which he bore without haughtiness or condescension" (O. B. Willcox, in Letters and Addresses, post). In later years General Grant said of Hancock, "Tall, well-formed ... young and fresh-looking, he presented an appearance that would attract the attention of an army as he passed" (Memoirs, II, 540). Upon graduation, he was assigned to the 6th Infantry, and after two years' service in Texas, joined General Scott's army in Mexico in time to win brevets for gallantry at the battles of Contreras and Churubusco and to take part in the assaults upon Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. There followed some fourteen years of instructive, valuable experience for Hancock-the Seminole War in Florida, the Border War in Kansas, Barney's Utah Expedition, and quartermaster duty on the Pacific Coast. During this period he was married, January 24, 1850, to Almira Russell, daughter of a St. Louis merchant. They had a son and a daughter, both of whom died before their father.

The outbreak of the Civil War found Hancock, then in his thirty-eighth year, active intellectually and physically, ripe in the experience of handling troops, and enjoying the confidence of his military superiors. Accordingly, on General McClellan's recommendation, he was promptly made a brigadier-general of volunteers, September 23, 1861, and put to work organizing and training the newly assembled Army of the Potomac. His brigade-the 49th Pennsylvania, 43rd New York, 5th Wisconsin, and 9th Maine regiments was early prepared for field duty, and took a prominent part in all the battles of McClellan's Peninsular campaign, and at Crampton's Pass, South Mountain, and Antietam. In the latter decisive battle, Hancock succeeded to the command of the 1st Division, II Army Corps, and was promoted to major-general of volunteers, November 29, 1862. He commanded his new division with distinction at the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862. In the desperately contested battle of Chancellorsville, May 1-4, 1863, the steadiness of Hancock's division largely prevented overwhelming defeat, and he was promoted to command of the II Army Corps.

It was at Gettysburg, however, that he achieved lasting fame as one of the great soldiers of the Civil War. On the first day of the battle, it was Hancock, acting under broad discretionary powers from Meade, who virtually selected the field of Gettysburg upon which to fight and who by simulating a strongly held position on a broad front, dissuaded General Lee from attacking at once. On the second day, it was Hancock, commanding the left wing, who thwarted Lee's all but successful attempt to turn the Federal army's flank. On July 3, it was Hancock's corps which successfully repulsed the Confederate army's desperate thrust at the Federal center. During the battle, Hancock received a wound from which he never fully recovered. In the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, his corps again engaged in severe fighting which continued on to Appomattox; but on November 26, 1864, he was recalled to Washington and entered upon a period of recruiting.

For gallant and distinguished services in all the operations of Grant's army in Virginia, Hancock was made a brigadier-general in the Regular Army (August 12, 1864); and for his conspicuous share in the victory at Gettysburg he received the Thanks of Congress (April 21, 1866). He was appointed a major-general in the Regular Army, July 26, 1866. During the ensuing years he personally led an expedition against hostile Indians while in command of the Central Military Department, 1867; commanded the Department of Louisiana and Texas, 1867, where his proclamation giving to civil tribunals jurisdiction over all crimes and offenses not involving forcible resistance to Federal authority failed to meet with the approval of Congress and led to his being relieved; commanded the Department of Dakota, 1870-72, the Division of the Atlantic, 1872-86, and finally, the Department of the East also, with headquarters at Governor's Island, New York.

Although he "had had absolutely no experience in politics and possessed but little knowledge of the problems of government" (Thomas, post, p. 54), in the National Democratic Convention of 1868 he received, as a military hero, a large number of votes for the presidential nomination, and in 1880, at Cincinnati, he was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic party. The campaign was notable for the lack of major issues and is chiefly remembered for Hancock's undeservedly ridiculed remark, "The tariff question is a local question" (interview in Paterson Daily Guardian, October 8, 1880; widely quoted). He lost the election to James A. Garfield by a small popular plurality and fifty-nine votes in the electoral college.

Among those who knew him personally Hancock was characterized as possessing great industry, courage, ambition, lofty ideals, unfaltering loyalty to friends, and the quality of patient labor which has been called genius. In his Memoirs (II, 539-40), General Grant said of him : "Hancock stands the most conspicuous figure of all the general officers who did not exercise a separate command. He commanded a corps longer than any other one, and his name was never mentioned as having committed in battle a blunder for which he was responsible. . . . His personal courage and his presence with his command in the thickest of the fight, won for him the confidence of troops serving under him." He died, after a very brief illness, at Governors Island and was buried with military honors at Norristown, Pennsylvania.

[H. M. Jenkins, "Genealogical Sketch of General W. S. Hancock," in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, April 1886; Reminiscences of Winfield Scott Hancock (1887), by his wife, Almira Russell Hancock; J. W. Dixon, "Across the Plains with General Hancock," Journal of the Military Service Inst., June 1886; F. A. Walker, General Hancock (1895); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register (3rd ed., 1891); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Abner Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882); Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (2 volumes, 1886); Letters and Addresses Contributed ... in Memory of Winfield Scott Hancock (1886); D. X. Junkin, and F. H. Norton, Life of Winfield Scott Hancock (1880), A. T. Freed, Hancock (1880), and other campaign biographies; H. C. Thomas, The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884 (1919), ch. III; New York Times, February 10, 1886.]

C. D. R.



HAUPT, HERMAN (March 26, 1817-December 14, 1905), civil engineer, author, and inventor, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Jacob and Anna (Wiall) Haupt. He was educated in private schools in Philadelphia and at the United States Military Academy, where he graduated July 1, 1835, at the age of eighteen, and was appointed brevet second lieutenant in the 3rd Infantry. Three months later he resigned his commission to become assistant engineer in the survey of a railroad from Norristown to Allentown, Pennsylvania, and subsequently in the location of the Norristown & Valley Railroad. The following year he was appointed principal assistant engineer in the Pennsylvania state service, in which capacity he located a railroad from Gettysburg to the Potomac. Engaged in 1840 to aid in the construction of the York & Wrightsville Railroad, he began the study of bridge construction and a year or two later published the results of his experiments, anonymously, in a pamphlet entitled Hints on Bridge Construction, which attracted much attention and led to some controversy. Meanwhile he had given instruction in civil engineering and architecture at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, and from 1845 to 1847 he was professor of mathematics there. During this time he wrote his important book, General Theory of Bridge Construction, published in 1851, which has since been regarded as a leading authority on the subject. In 1847 he was appointed principal assistant to the chief engineer in charge of construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and on September 1, 1849, became superintendent of transportation. In this capacity he examined the systems of bookkeeping and modes of operation of the more important railroads of New York and New England and arranged a plan of organization for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company which was adopted without change by the board of directors. From December 31, 1850 to November 1, 1852, he was general superintendent of the road, and after six months as chief engineer of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi, he was recalled to the Pennsylvania to take the post of chief engineer, which he retained until the completion and opening of the whole line to Pittsburgh, including the Alleghany Mountain tunnel. From March 3 to December 24, 1856, he served on the board of directors, elected by the city council of Philadelphia to represent the stock held by that city.

In 1855 he was requested to make an examination of the proposed Hoosac tunnel, on the line of the Troy & Greenfield Railroad in Massachusetts, and to give his opinion as to its practicability. Reporting favorably, he was prevailed upon to take an interest in the contract for its construction and to assist in rai sing the necessary capital. Accordingly, in 1856 he resigned from the Pennsylvania Railroad and began a vigorous prosecution of this new work. Despite the hostility of press and legislature, instigated by the rival Boston & Albany Railroad, and financial embarrassment resulting therefrom and from the failure of three of his partners, Haupt carried on the work, by advancing his personal fund s and borrowing from friends, until it was so far completed as to permit his collecting the fir st payment due from the State of Massachusetts. After this the tunnel progressed without trouble until 1862 when the Sta te of Massachusetts took over the work. Haupt was unable to secure a refund of his advances until 1884, when the State, in order to clear its title, made a settlement with him at the rate of about eight cents on the dollar. Throughout the controversy he never lost a point before bodies in which fairness and facts were permitted to control decisions, although he was not assisted by counsel until the matter was taken to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile the Civil War had begun, and in April 1862 Haupt was called to Washington to become chief of construction and transportation on the United States military railroads, being appointed, April 27, 1862, aide-de-camp on the staff of General Irwin McDowell, with the rank of colonel. Accepting this post at great personal sacrifice, since at this time the tunnel controversy in Massachusetts was at its height, he directed the repairs and construction of railroads for facilitating the movements of the United States armies in Virginia. On September 5, 1862, he was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers, for meritorious services, which appointment he later declined to accept. Although he expressed his willingness to serve without official rank and without pay so long as no restriction was placed upon his freedom to attend to his business affairs, when this freedom was curtailed by the demand that he accept a military commission, he retired from the army, September 14, 1863.

During his work on the Hoosac tunnel (1858) he had developed a pneumatic drill which was far superior to any in use up to that time, and in 1867, at the invitation of the Royal Polytechnic Society of Cornwall, he vi sited Europe to explain his system of mining and tunneling by power machinery. In 1870 he was chief engineer in charge of the location of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad; from 1872 to 1876 he was general manager of the Richmond & Danville Railroad, and during that time he prepared the plan for organizing the Southern Railway & Steamship Association which was adopted. In 1876 he was employed by the Pennsylvania Transportation Company to investigate and report upon the practicability of constructing a pipeline for the transportation of crude petroleum from the wells in the Allegheny Valley to tidewater. He decided that such a project was feasible, undertook its construction, and completed it despite the strong opposition of the trunk-line railroads and the Standard Oil Company.

As general manager of the Northern Pacific Railroad from the spring of 1881 to the fall of 1884, during which period the road was completed to the Pacific, he had charge of organizing the various divisions and departments necessary for its operation. For the next two years he was president of the Dakota & Great Southern Railroad. He was also president of the General Compressed Air & Power Company (1892- 1905), as such being responsible for the practical introduction of compressed air for motors and mining machinery, and president of the National Nutrient Company (1899-1905) which was engaged in the evolution of foods from the waste products of the dairy. Throughout his career he was a voluminous writer, especially upon technical subjects. His most important publications, besides those already mentioned, were: Military Bridges (1864), Tunneling by Machinery (1876), Street Railway Motors (1893), and his account of his Civil War experiences, Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt (1901), prepared in collaboration with F. A. Flower. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and the Franklin Institute. In 1838 he married Ann Cecilia Keller of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They had eleven children. He died of heart failure on a railroad train at Jersey City, New Jersey, en route to his home in Washington, D. C.

[Haupt's Letter Book, 186 2-63, in MSS. Div., Library of Congress; sketch by F. A. Flower in Haupt's Reminiscences (1901); Who's Who in America, 1903-05; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume I; Thirty-seventh Annual Reunion Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1906); W. H. Haupt, The Haupt Family in America (1924); W. B. Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania R. R. Co. (2 volumes, 1895), and General Supts. of the Pennsylvania R. R. Co. (1890); H. W. Scholler, Growth and Development of the Pennsylvania R. R. Co. (1927); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); "Use of Railroads in War an American Development," Ry. Age Gazette, June 22, 1917; obituaries in Railroad Gazette, December 22, 1905, and New York and Phila. newspapers, December 15, 1905.]

J. H. F.



HEINTZELMAN, SAMUEL PETER (September 30, 1805-May I, 1880), soldier, was born at Manheim, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the son of Peter and Ann Elizabeth (Grubb) Heintzelman. He received a fair elementary education and was appointed a cadet at West Point in 1822. Graduating four years later, he became a lieutenant in the 2nd Infantry and was promoted to captain in 1838. On December 5, 1844, he married Margaret Stewart of Albany, New York. In 1847 he joined General Scott's expedition against the City of Mexico and was brevetted major for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Huamantla. He was promoted to major in 1855 and served with the 1st Infantry in California, being again brevetted, this time for gallantry in action against Indians. He founded Fort Yuma, Arizona, afterwards operating along the Rio Grande border, then infested with marauders.

Early in 1861 he was called to Washington as inspector of the forces there collecting. In May he was appointed colonel of the 17th Infantry, and a few clays later brigadier-general of volunteers. On May 24 he captured Alexandria, Virginia, initiating the military operations n ear Washington. Soon after he was assigned to the 3rd Division of McDowell's army, which he commanded in the ensuing Bull Run campaign. In the battle of Bull Run he led his division to the support of Hunter's troops, already engaged. Heintzelman's troops were slow to arrive, and no united attack was made; yet they captured the Henry house, the key po int of the battle-field. The enemy, through an unfortunate error being mistaken for friends, was ab le to seize the Union artillery, which had advanced to a line near the Henry house. Heintzelman personally directed numerous efforts to recapture the lo st guns, and fought desperately but unsuccessfully. His division was driven from the field, and he himself was severely wounded. In the spring of 1862, he commanded the III Corps, in General McClellan's army during the Peninsula campaign. He led the advance on Yorktown, again initiating operations. His report to McClellan that an assault was impracticable was one of the cause s of the protracted siege, which ended on May 4 when the Confederates quietly marched away. Heintzelman started in pursuit, and late the same day his corps gained contact with the enemy near Williamsburg. On May 5 a severe battle was fought, the main attack being largely under Heintzelman's direction. The result was indecisive, owing to lack of coordination between the Union commanders. Three years later Heintzelman was brevetted for his gallant conduct in this battle. At the battle of Seven Pines, May 31, he was the senior officer south of the Chickahominy. When the news of the Confederate attack upon the front line reached him, he at once sent his own corps to the front to resist the advancing enemy. He himself went forward and attempted to res tore order among the retiring troops; but personal bravery did not compensate for absence of leadership, and unorganized efforts only prolonged the fighting into the next day without securing victory. Heintzelman was selected to lead what was intended to be the final attack on Richmond, commencing June 25. This started the Seven Days' battles. A slight initial gain was counterbalanced on June 26 by the Confederate attack elsewhere on th e battle-field. McClellan decided to withdraw his army. Heintzelman fell back, on June 29, rather precipitately, due to a misunderstanding of the situation. On June 30, his corps fought well. On July 1, at Malvern Hill, it was engaged, but not as seriously as other troops. On July 4, Heintzelman was promoted to major-general of volunteers. His next service was in August 1862, when his corps, withdrawn from the Peninsula, was sent to reenforce Pope's army in the Manassas campaign. Two days, August 27-28, were spent in exhausting marches. On August 29 Heintzelman attacked what he supposed to be a retreating enemy, but instead found the redoubtable Jackson awaiting him. His attack was repulsed. Its renewal the next day met with no greater success, and the Union army withdrew. Heintzelman was now assigned to the defenses of Washington, on which duty he remain ed until October 1863. Early in 1864, he was sent to command the Northern (Central States) Department, from which he was relieved in October of the same year. He was employed on courts-martial duty for the remainder of the war. Mustered out of the volunteer service in August 1865, he assumed command of the 17th Infantry, and served with it, mostly in Texas, until retired in February 1869. A few months later, he was made a major-general retired, by special act of Congress. He resided in Washington until his death. He had a stern, rather unkempt appearance, with full beard and long, thin hair. Although he was gifted with personal bravery, his gallant conduct failed to make him a successful leader; he lacked initiative, and magnified difficulties.

[The principal source for Heintzelman's war record is War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); the Report of the Joint Committee on the. Conduct of the War at the Second Session, Thirty-eighth Congress (1865) contains interesting matter; G. B. McClellan in McClellan's Own Story (1887) gives an account of his· relations with Heintzelman, in the main correct. See also G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates U.S. Military Academy, volume I (3rd ed., 1891); F. B. Heitman, History Register and Dictionary U. S. Army, volume I (1903); Third Army Corps Union, Obit. Notice of Major-General Samuel P. Heintzelman, First Commander of the Third Army Corps (1881); Eleventh Annual Reunion Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1880); Evening Star (Washington), May 1, 1880; A. K. Hostetter, in History Papers and Addresses of the Lancaster County History Society, volume XVII (1913).]

C.H.L.



HITCHCOCK, ETHAN ALLEN (May 18, 1798-August 5, 1870), soldier, author, was born at Vergennes, Vermont. Descended from Luke Hitchcock (1606-1659) of New Haven and Wethersfield, Connecticut, he was the son of Samuel Hitchcock, a United States Circuit judge, and of Lucy Caroline (Allen) Hitchcock, a daughter of Ethan Allen [q.v.], the Revolutionary patriot. At the age of sixteen, on the death of his father, he obtained an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point where he graduated, July 17, 1817. He rose by the usual stages to the rank of captain on December 31, 1824. From January 31, 1824, until the spring of 1827 he acted as assistant instructor of infantry tactics at West Point. Meanwhile he had plunged into the study of philosophy in an effort to answer various doubts that troubled him on the subject of religion. He reached the satisfactory conclusion that "The great Whole is one, and all the parts agree with all the parts"-a conclusion which he was to reaffirm, much later, in volume after volume. As a result of refusing to sit on a court of inquiry at West Point which, he held, contravened the 92nd Article of War, he was ordered to rejoin his company, then at Fort Snelling, but on his way West he stopped in Washington and laid the case before President Adams. When after investigation his contention was found correct, he was, in 1829, returned to West Point as commandant of cadets. Most remarkably, he retained the friendship of the commanding officer whom he had opposed. Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, W. T. Sherman, and other officers of Civil War distinction, as well as the poet, Edgar Allan Poe, sat under his instruction. Toward the end of his stay at West Point he protested vigorously against President Jackson's interference with discipline, and in consequence found his promotion in the service less rapid than it might otherwise have been.



HOOKER, JOSEPH (November 13, 1814-October 31, 1879), soldier, was born at Hadley, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph Hooker and the latter's second wife, Mary Seymour. His grandfather, another Joseph Hooker, had been a captain in the Revolution. In Hooker's endowments, characteristics, and opportunities lay all the elements of a successful military career. After attending the Hopkins Academy at Hadley, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1833, and four years later was graduated number twenty-nine in a class of fifty. Among his classmates were Bragg, Sedgwick, Early, and Pemberton. Tall, robust, bronze-haired, sharp-eyed, he commanded attention at a time when physical attractiveness lent much prestige, and his frank, affable manners brought him early recognition. After service as a subaltern in the Florida War and the Canadian border disturbances, he was brought back to West Point as adjutant of the Academy. Successful in this executive capacity, he held the post of adjutant of the 1st U.S. Artillery until the outbreak of the Mexican War, when he served successively on the staffs of Generals P. F. Smith, Hamer, Butler, and Pillow. He went through part of Taylor's campaign and most of Scott's. In that period service as a staff officer did not prevent a man from distinguishing himself in action; and Hooker was brevetted a captain for gallantry at Monterey, a major at the National Bridge, and a lieutenant-colonel at Chapultepec. His "coolness and self-possession" in battle forecast the traits that were to signalize him in the Civil War. In the lamentable disloyalty of Pillow to Scott at the end of the war, however, Hooker by giving testimony in favor of Pillow incurred the enmity of Scott.

With the coming of peace, the army was reduced, and hope of advancement and progress was curtailed for the officer. Hooker, energetic and ambitious, resigned from the service on February 21, 1853. Until 1858 he was a farmer at Sonoma, California, in 1858-59 he was superintendent of military roads in Oregon, and in 1859-61 a colonel of California militia. In that region was developed his portentous antipathy to Halleck. When the Civil War broke out, Hooker, like Grant and others who had served their country courageously and with high professional ability in the Mexican War, proffered his services to the Union, and, like them, was genuinely snubbed. A trip to Washington seemed for a time entirely futile, because of some impediment or, as he felt, probably General Scott's attitude. On May 17, 1861, however, he was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers aiding in the defense of Washington. In the Peninsular campaign, at Williamsburg on May 5, 1862, his division bore the brunt of the battle. At the head of his troops in the face of torrents of rain and bullets, he inspired his men and directed the fire of his artillery even after he had fallen in the mud with his dying horse. His determination, energy, and bravery in this battle won for him a major-generalcy of volunteers and the sobriquet of "Fighting Joe" a name he secretly deplored because of its smack of the buccaneer. His further engagements at Fair Oaks, Williamsburg Road, Glendale, Malvern Hill, Bristoe Station, and Manassas were strongly flavored with his daring and professional skill. In command of the I Corps in the Maryland campaign, he was successful at South Mountain, but while leading the pivot of the maneuver at Antietam, he was so painfully wounded in the foot that he had to be carried from the field. During his ensuing sick leave, he was awarded on September 20, 1862, the rank of brigadier-general in the regular army.

In December came defeat at Fredericksburg. Although Hooker, like others of Burnside's subordinates, expressed himself too freely about the latter 's conduct of the campaign, he led his troops forward and safely disengaged them from the enemy. Shortly afterward Burns ide [q.v.] requested the relief of some of his chief officers, Hooker leading the list, or of himself. Accepting the latter alternative, Lincoln appointed Hooker to the command of the Army of the Potomac. In his famous letter to the new appointee (A Letter from President Lincoln to General Joseph Hooker, January 26, 1863, 1879), the President frankly told him that although he was brave, skilful, ambitious, and self-reliant, he had thwarted Burnside by criticism and the withholding of confidence, and that his action might prove a boomerang. Lincoln said further: "I have heard in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it is not for this, but in spite of it that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship."

Hooker immediately set in motion some needed reforms of organization, especially by doing away with the grand divisions and consolidating the cavalry into a corps. On March 29, 1863, he announced to his officers: "My plans are perfect ... may God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none" (H. S. Hall, Personal Experience under Generals Burnside and Hooker, 1894, pp. II-12). The ensuing action at Chancellorsville, May 2-4, 1863, was Hooker's great chance. His plans and preparations for the battle were indeed masterly. Leaving Sedgwick completely covering Washington from a counter stroke, Hooker left. Lee's front without opposition, crossed the Rappahannock and the Rapidan, and established his army at Chancellorsville, a position of "great natural strength" (April 30, 1863). The next day he ordered a general advance but retreated upon Lee's approach. On May 2 Lee sent Jackson with 32,000 m en on a flank march. Hooker could easily have crushed Lee's remaining 14,000 troops, but remained passive while Jackson made an attack on the Union right and forced Howard to fall back. Hooker 's continued in activity on May 3 enabled Lee to reenforce the 13,000 troops he had left facing Sedgwick, and Wilcox in the battle of Salem Heights prevented Sedgwick from joining Hooker. The latter was struck on the head by a falling pillar and was in a shattered nervous condition throughout the day. Since he was not completely incapacitated he remained in command of the army. Leaving Stuart with 24,000 troops at Chancellorsville, Lee went in person to attack Sedgwick (May 4). Hooker, with 78,400 men, remained idle, making no attempt to crush Stuart. Lee forced Sedgwick's withdrawal. At midnight May 4-5 Hooker held a council of war. Meade, Reynolds, and Howard wished to fight. Couch, who had lost all confidence in Hooker, joined Sickles in voting against an advance (F. A. Walker, History of the Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac, 1886, pp. 250-51). Hooker then ordered a retreat. With an army of 138,300 he had been unable to defeat Lee's 62,550 troops. None the less, upon his return to camp at Falmouth, Virginia, he issued a general order on May 6, 1863, felicitating the, army upon its "achievements" (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Army, I series, XXV, part 1, p. 171).

Yet vigorously he followed Lee and skilfully maneuvered his troops, desiring his opponent to get well into Pennsylvania and predicting two weeks in advance that Gettysburg would be the battleground. His work here merited the thanks of Congress for the "skill, energy and endurance" with which he covered Baltimore and Washington. But just before the decisive battle, his request that the 10,000 troops at Harper's Ferry be added to his army was refused by Halleck. Regarding this as a breach of faith by the administration, Hooker asked to be relieved of the command of the army. On June 28, 1863, Meade took command.

Hooker was given the XI and XII Corps then en route to the Department of the Cumberland. His subsequent conduct under Generals Thomas and Sherman was characterized by the same soldierly qualities he had previously shown. At Lookout Mountain on November 24, 1863, he demonstrated again his impetuous and determined leadership. For his aggressiveness there he was brevetted major-general in the regular army. At Mill Creek Gap, Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Pine Mountain, and the siege of Atlanta, he commanded his troops with vigor and sagacity. When McPherson was killed, Hooker became the logical successor; but Sherman, possibly through the influence of Halleck, felt a distrust of Hooker for so important a command and gave it to Howard. As a consequence, Hooker asked to be relieved from duty, saying: "Justice and self-respect alike require my removal from an army in which rank and service are ignored" (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Army, 1 series, XXXVIII, part 5, p. 273). Thus ended Joseph Hooker's military service in the field. In September 1864, he was transferred to command the Northern Department at Cincinnati, Ohio, where in 1865, after the eventful days of his life had passed, he married Olivia Groesbeck. On July 8, 1865, he was placed in command of the Department of the East at New York City; and on August 23, 1866, of the Department of the Lakes at Detroit. In 1868 his wife died, and on October I5 of the same year he was retired as a major-general on account of paralysis. He died at Garden City, New York, and was buried beside his wife in Laurel Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati.

Gossip has sometimes connected Hooker's name with questionable personal conduct which his friends and close associates stoutly disclaimed. All authorities agree that he was excellent as a corps commander.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); G. A. Taylor, in Journal of the Military Service Inst. of the U. S., September-October 1910; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), see index; "Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War," Senate Report No. 142, 38 Congress, 2 Session; J. W. De Peyster, Obits. of Major-General Samuel P. Heintzelman and Major-General Jos. Hooker (1881); John Bigelow, Jr., The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1910); W. R. Livermore, Th e Story of the Civil War, part III (1 g 1.,); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); Wm. Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (1866); J. H. Stine, History of the Army of the Potomac (1892); T. A. Dodge, The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1881); Abner Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882); George Meade, Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade (2 volumes, 1913); Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard (1907), volume I; Memoirs of General William T. Sherman (1875), volume II; J. L. Butterfield, A Biographical Memorial of General Daniel Butterfield (1904); H. E. Tremaine, Two Days of War (1905); Colonel Alexander K. McClure's Recollections of Half a Century (1902); Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the U. S. (1904); W. A. Ganoe, History of the U.S. Army (1924); Daniel E. Sickles, Address Delivered in Boston before the Hooker Monument Association of Massachusetts (1910); Army and Navy Journal, November 8, 1879; New York Tribune, November 1, 1879. ]

W.A.G.



HOWARD, OLIVER OTIS (November 8, 1830-October 26, 1909), soldier, was born at Leeds, Maine. His father, Rowland Bailey Howard, a well-to do farmer, was descended from John Howard, one of the founders of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He died in 1839. His widow, Eliza M. (Otis) Howard, remarried two years later. The boy lived with his uncle, John Otis, at Hallowell, Maine. He attended Monmouth Academy, a school at North Yarmouth, and Bowdoin College, where, supporting himself by teaching during vacations, he graduated in 1850. Entering West Point that summer, he graduated fourth in his class in 1854. After brief service at the Watervliet and Kennebec arsenals, he was made chief of ordnance of the department of Florida, and a year later, promoted to first lieutenant, he returned to West Point an instructor in mathematics, remaining there until June 1861, when he resigned to become colonel of the 3rd Maine Regiment. He was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers in September 1861 and major-general in 1862, and in 1864 became a brigadier-general in the regular army with brevet rank of major-general.

In Virginia Howard participated in the first battle of Bull Run and the Peninsular campaign, losing his right arm at Fair Oaks. Quickly back in the field, he commanded the rear guard at Second Bull Run, was present at South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg-where he commanded a division-Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Although his personal bravery at Chancellorsville has never been disputed, the better military critics assign to him much responsibility for the Union reverse in the first day's fighting. He was in command of the XI Corps, composed largely of Germans who, because he had displaced General Sigel, did not like him, and were, in addition, not impressed with his reputation as a great Biblical soldier, "the Havelock of the Army." Holding the right, he was in spite of warning surprised by Jackson and routed. Livermore accuses him of "persistent negligence and blind credulity" (post, p. 151, passim). Bigelow (post, p. 297) admits his neglect and disregard of orders; and Hooker charged him with disobeying an order, which Howard always denied receiving but which Carl Schurz testified that he personally read to Howard (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, III, 1888, pp. 196, 219-20). At Gettysburg he showed a lack of decision and Livermore blames him largely for the loss of the first day's battle. By Halstead he is accused of insubordination (Ibid., 285), but he personally rallied the I Corps in the cemetery on the fir st day and, though there is considerable doubt as to whether he deserves the credit, he received the Thanks of Congress for the selection of that important position.

In September 1863 he was ordered to Tennessee, where he participated in the battles around Chattanooga, and in 1864 he was placed in command of the IV Corps. He took an active part in the Atlanta campaign and in July was given command of the Army and Department of the Tennessee. Thenceforward he commanded the right wing of Sherman's army. His kindly soul was harrowed by the horrors of the march to the sea and northward, and while he justified the harsh treatment of the inhabitants, he opposed and rigorously punished looting and violence.

On May 12, 1865, President Johnson appointed him commissioner of the newly established Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, for which position he had been selected by Lincoln. So far as good intentions, humanitarian passion, and religious enthusiasm were concerned a better choice could not have been made, and the Bureau rendered valuable service in relieving destitution and suffering in its early days; as an executive, however, Howard left much to be desired. The rank and file of lower Bureau officials were unfit or unworthy, and presently the whole service was so honeycombed with fraud, corruption, and inefficiency, so busy with politics looking to negro enfranchisement; and so bent on bringing about the political separation of the negroes and the native whites that its usefulness was hopelessly impaired (House Executive Document 120, 39 Congress, 1 Session). Howard, always inclined to believe the best of any one associated with him, persistently refused to give credence to any charges of misconduct against Bureau officials, declaring all of them based upon race prejudice or political partisanship, and accepted all the reports of his subordinates at their face value, regardless of their patent falsity (Howard, Autobiography, ch. LX; Daily North Carolina Standard, Raleigh; May 23, 1866). In his enthusiasm for the negro he lost his poise. A climax to numerous absurdities into which sentimentality betrayed him was his favorable comment on the notorious South Carolina legislature of 1868 (Daily Morning Chronicle, Washington, D. C., October 1, 1868).

From time to time charges were made against Howard, and in 1870 some of these were investigated by a committee of Congress which exonerated him by a strict party vote (House Report 121, 41 Congress, 2 Session). Later Secretary Belknap preferred charges and Howard at last asked for a court of inquiry. Objecting to that appointed by Belknap, whom he thought hostile to negroes, he was able to persuade Congress to create, by special act, a court which Grant appointed. The charges were failure to establish and enforce a proper system of payments to colored soldiers, responsibility for some minor defalcations of officers, misapplication of public funds, and the transfer of confused and incomplete records. From all of these he was completely exonerated (Proceedings, Findings, and Opinions of the Court of Inquiry ... in the Case of Brigadier-General Oliver O. Howard, 1874).

Dishonest Howard undoubtedly was not, but he had too many irons in the fire. He was buy organizing a Congregational church in Washington and raising funds for it. Seeking to bring in colored members, he precipitated a quarrel which disrupted the congregation. Instrumental in founding Howard University, he became its president in 1869 and gave much of his time to it until 1874 when he resigned. He was a director of the Freedmen's Bank and his name was influential in securing the patronage of the negroes for the venture, which resulted in financial disaster to many of them.

In 1872 Grant sent him as a peace commissioner to the Apache Indians under Cochise, with whom he concluded a treaty. In 1874 he was placed in command of the Department of the Columbia. In 1877 he commanded an expedition against the Nez Perce Indians and in 1878 one against the Bannocks and Piutes. In 1880 he became superintendent at West Point and two years later took command of the Department of the Platte. In 1884 he spent some months in Europe, attending the meetings of the International Y. M. C. A. in Berlin and representing the United States at the French army maneuvers, upon which occasion he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Promoted major-general in 1886, he was placed in command of the Division of the East, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1894.

After his retirement Howard lived at Burlington, Vermont, until his death, continuing his writings and engaging in religious and educational activities. He was prominent in raising funds for the establishment of Lincoln Memorial University. He actively participated as a Republican speaker in the presidential campaigns of 1896, 1900, and 1904, and commanded the veterans in the inaugural parades which followed. He was the author of Nez Perce Joseph (1881), General Taylor (1892), Isabella of Castile (1894), Fighting for Humanity (1898), Donald's School Days (1899), Henry in the War (1899), Autobiography (1907), My Life and Experiences among Our Hostile Indians (1907), Famous Indian Chiefs I Have Known (1908). In 1881 he translated T. Borel's Count Agenor de Gasparin. He wrote constantly for magazines and newspapers and was much in demand as a lecturer and preacher. In 1893 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery at Fair Oaks. He was married, February 14, 1855, to Elizabeth Ann Waite of Portland, Maine, who survived him.

[Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard (2 volumes, 1907); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Abner Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882); John Bigelow, Jr., The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1910); Papers of the Military History Society of Massachusetts, volume VIII (110); W. R. Livermore, The Story of the Civil War (1913); Laura C. Holloway, Howard : the Christian Hero (1885); J. M. Hudnut, Commanders of the Army of the Tennessee (1884); Southern Magazine (Baltimore), November 1873; P. S. Peirce, The Freedmen's Bureau (1904); Forty-first Annual Reunion Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1910); Military Order of the Loyal Legion of th e U. S., Commandery of the State of Vermont, Circular No. 9, Series of  1909; Who's Who in America, 1908-09; H. Howard, Howard Genealogical (1903); Army and Navy Journal, October 30, 1909; Burlington Daily Free Press, October 27, 1909].

L. G. de R. H.



HOWE, ALBION PARRIS (March 25, 1818- January 25, 1897), soldier, uncle of Lucien Howe [q.v.], was born in Standish, Maine, the son of Dr. Ebenezer Howe, a native of Massachusetts, and Catherine Spring, of Conway, N. H. He was descended from John Howe who settled at an early date in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He began his education with the intention of going to college, and in 1836-37 taught at the Standish Academy, but he later became interested in military affairs and through the governor of the state secured an appointment to West Point, where he entered July 1, 1837. He was graduated in the class of 1841, eighth in a class of fifty-two, and was commissioned second lieutenant of the 4th Artillery. From 1843 to 1846 he was detailed at West Point as assistant professor in mathematics, but when the Mexican War began he was sent to his regiment, reaching Vera Cruz with Scott's army. He was present at the siege of this city and took part in the more important battles of the war. He was brevetted captain, August 20, 1847, for gallant and meritorious service at Contreras and Churubusco. After the war he was stationed in various parts of the country, especially in the South and West, then from 1856 to 1860 he was for the most part in garrison at the artillery school at Fortress Monroe. During John Brown's raid, he was sent with his battery to Harper's Ferry, where he remained on duty until peace was restored. He was married, in 1859, to Elizabeth Law Mehaffey of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War Howe reported to McClellan and served through the West Virginia campaign. Then, after duty in Washington, D. C., he went with McClellan to Yorktown and took part in the Peninsular campaign. He later served in the siege of Yorktown and in the battles of Williamsburg, Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Marye's Heights, Salem, and Gettysburg. For gallant and meritorious service at Malvern Hill, where his division held an important position in the defense, he was later brevetted major in the regular army. For similar services at Salem Heights, Virginia, he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel in the regular army, and for his conduct at Rappahannock Station, Virginia, he received a brevet as colonel in the regular army. Subsequently he was engaged at Mine Run and afterward put in command of the large artillery depot at Washington, D. C., where he served from March 2, 1864, to August 2, 1866. When Lincoln was assassinated, Howe was one of the guard of honor which stood watch over the remains at the White House and later accompanied the body to Springfield. On his return to Washington, he was made a member of the commission that tried the conspirators. In 1866 he was a member of the Artillery Board and, with General Hardie, appointed inspector of all arms and military stores in the forts and arsenals of this country. Later he was made a member of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. On June 30, 1882, while stationed at Fort Adams, Rhode Island, commanding his old regiment, the 4th Artillery, he was retired from active service. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

[For printed sources, see G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register. . . U.S. Military Academy (ed. 1891), volume II; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volumes I, II, and III (1887- 88); J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln. A History (1890), volumes VII, IX, and X; and D. W. Howe, Howe Genealogy, John Howe of Sudbury and Marlborough, Massachusetts (1929). A manuscript monograph of Howe has been prepared by his son, William deLancey Howe, Boston, Massachusetts.]

J. W.W.



HUMPHREYS, ANDREW ATKINSON (November 2, 1810-December 27, 1883), engineer, scientist, soldier, the son of Samuel and Letitia (Atkinson) Humphreys, was born in Philadelphia. His grandfather, Joshua Humphreys [q.v.], was an eminent ship-builder who during the administration of Washington designed the first large warships for the United States Navy. His father was chief constructor of the navy from 1826 until his- death in 1846. His grandfather on his mother's side was Andrew Atkinson, an officer of the British navy who settled in Florida in 1784. Humphreys entered the United States Military Academy in 1827 and on graduation in 1831 was commissioned a lieutenant in the artillery. As such he took part in the Seminole War in Florida in 1836. After this campaign he resigned his commission to follow the profession of engineering. He became a civil engineer under the Topographical Engineers of the army and was engaged in 1837 and 1838 on plans for Delaware River fortifications and harbor works. This led to his appointment as lieutenant in the Corps of Topographical Engineers when it was increased in 1838. In 1844, at the request of Alexander Dallas Bache [q.v.], the superintendent, he was assigned to duty in the Coast Survey and served under its distinguished head for six years. He was commissioned captain in 1848.

In 1850, at the request of the chief of his corps, he was relieved from duty in the Coast Survey to take charge of the topographic and hydrographic survey of the delta of the Mississippi River, which had just been authorized by Congress. He took charge of this work in October 1850 arid carried it on with his accustomed energy until he was disabled by a sunstroke in the summer of 1851. The work was temporarily suspended, and as soon as he was able to do so he was given authority to visit Europe to study the methods of improvement of the deltas of European rivers. He returned to the United States in 1854, but before resuming work on the Mississippi was directed by the Secretary of War to take charge of the explorations and surveys ordered by Congress "to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railway from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean." His report, submitted in the latter part of 1855 (Senate Executive Document 78 and House Executive Document 91, 33 Congress, 2 Session) described five practicable routes which are sub0stantially the routes of five of the present transcontinental railroads. In 1857 his work on the Mississippi River was renewed, in association with Lieutenant Henry L. Abbot [q.v.], and was continued until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. The Report upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River (1861), submitted by Humphreys and Abbot, was so valuable a contribution to the knowledge of the hydraulics of great rivers that it was translated into foreign languages and permanently established the reputation of its authors as investigators, scientists, and engineers of a high order. It formed the basis for the flood control and the improvement of the navigation of the great river.

In the latter part of 1861, with the rank of major, Humphreys was appointed to the staff of General McClellan. He rendered valuable service in the Peninsular campaign as brigadier-general of volunteers and chief of the Topographical Engineers. During the Antietam campaign he commanded a division of new troops assigned to the V Corps. In the battle of Fredericksburg he led this division in a desperate attack on Marye Hill for which he received the brevet of colonel, United States Army. After the battle of Chancellorsville he was assigned to the command of a division of the III Corps and in the battle of Gettysburg fought it with great skill in resisting Longstreet's attack on the afternoon of July 2. For this service he received the brevet of brigadier-general, United States Army. After the Gettysburg campaign, at General Meade's earnest request, he accepted the position of chief of staff of the Army of the Potomac with the rank of major-general, which position he held until November 1864 when he was selected by General Grant to command the II Corps. In the final campaign he won the brevet of major-general, United States Army, in the battle of Sailor's Creek. In 1866 he was appointed chief of the Corps of Engineers with the rank of brigadier-general, United States Army, and in that capacity he served until his retirement in 1879; he also served as consulting engineer for several civil projects. After his retirement he wrote From Gettysburg to the Rapidan (1883) and The Virginia Campaign of '64 and '65 (1885), which have been generally accepted as among the most reliable works on these campaigns.

As a scientist, Humphreys was a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an incorporator of the National Academy of Sciences, and an honorary or corresponding member of societies in Austria, France, and Italy. Harvard University conferred on him the degree of LL.D. His associate, General Henry L. Abbot, said of him (National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, pp. '210-14) that, as a soldier, "to courage of the brightest order, both moral and physical, he united the energy, decision and intellectual power which characterized him in civil administration. . . . In official relations . . . [he] was dignified, self-possessed and courteous. His decisions were base d on full consideration of the subject, and once rendered were final. . . In his social relations ... [he] exerted a personal magnetism which can hardly be expressed in words." In 1839 he married his cousin, Rebecca Hollingsworth, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.

[H. H. Humphreys, Major General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys (1896) and Andrew Atkinson Humphreys (1924); memoirs by H. L. Abbot in National Academy Science Biographical Memoirs, volume II (1886), Fifteenth Annual Reunion Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1884),and Science, April 18, 1884; H. L. Carson., in Proc. American Phil. Society, volume XXII (1885); Proc. American Academy Arts and Science, n. s., volume XI (1884); J. W. De Peyster, in Magazine of American History, October 1886 ; Frederick Humphreys, The Humphreys Family in America (1883); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register (3rd ed., 1891); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Army and Navy Journal, December 29, 1883, January s, 1884; Evening Star (Washington, D. C.), December 28, 1883.]

G.J.F.



HUNT, HENRY JACKSON (September 14, 1819- February 11, 1889), soldier, artillery officer, was born at Detroit, Michigan. Descended from Enoch Hunt, an emigrant from England, who was admitted freeman of Newport, Rhode Island, in 1638 and later settled at Weymouth, Massachusetts, he was the son of Lieutenant Fanuel Wellington Hunt, 3rd Infantry, and grandson of Colonel Thomas Hunt, 1st Infantry, who had served with distinction in the Revolution. His mother was Julia Ann (Herrick) Hunt. Although the boy was but ten years old when his father died, he received a good education from friends and at sixteen went to West Point, graduating in 1839 and being assigned as second lieutenant to the 2nd Artillery. In 1846 he participated in the siege of Vera Cruz and in the battles ending in the capture of Mexico City. Wounded at Molino del Rey, he was highly commended for gallantry and brevetted major. In 1852 he was promoted to captain. In 1856, with W. F. Barry and W. H. French [qq.v.], he was appointed to a board to revise the light artillery tactics. Their report, made three years later, was adopted by the War Department in 1860, and was used throughout the Civil War.

It was Captain Hunt who, early in 1861, prepared the arsenal at Harper's Ferry for defense, or for destruction, should defense be impracticable. He left to go to the relief of Fort Pickens, which he secured to the Federal government. Arriving at New York on July 13, and at Washington the next day, he marched his battery on July 19 to the extreme left of McDowell's army at Bull Run. On the 21st, after the Federal forces had been driven back, Hunt, at Blackburn's Ford, by artillery fire alone, broke the Confederate attempt to pursue the retreating troops. Promoted to major, 5th Artillery, he became chief of artillery of the Washington defenses, and on September 28, 1861, he was commissioned colonel and placed in charge of training the artillery reserve of the Army of the Potomac.

He took part in the Peninsular campaign, at Malvern Hill, July 1, 1862, handling a hundred guns with such skill as to overcome the hostile artillery and render great assistance in winning the battle. For his services he was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers. At Antietam he served with distinction. He organized the great battery of 147 guns which opened the battle of Fredericksburg, and suggested sending infantry across in boats to seize the houses nearest the water's edge, a move which led to the capture of the town. Soon afterward his authority was materially curtailed by Hooker, the new army commander, but when in the Chancellorsville campaign the artillery was evidently poorly handled, Hunt's authority was immediately restored and enlarged.

At Gettysburg he was instrumental in securing the Peach Orchard for the Federals. Placing seventy-seven guns along Trostle Lane, he engaged the Confederate artillery in a duel on July 3. As his ammunition approached exhaustion he stopped firing, and ten minutes later Pickett started his famous charge. With his remaining ammunition Hunt reopened fire and broke this charge, thus marking the turning point of the war. During the Wilderness campaign, he continued to serve as chief of artillery. On June 27, 1864, Grant issued an order placing him in general charge of all siege operations about Petersburg. On this duty he remained until the end of the war. He was brevetted major-general, March 13, 1865.

After the war he was sent to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to command the Frontier District. In 1866 he was mustered out of the volunteer service, and reverted to his regular army rank of lieutenant-colonel, 3rd Artillery, to which he had been promoted in 1863. In 1869, he became colonel of the 5th Artillery. In 1870 he collected, disarmed, and returned to their homes, without expense to the government, the bands of Fenians then disturbing the Canadian border. Ten years later he was assigned, under his brevet commission, to command the Department of the South, and remained in this assignment until he retired in 1883. He then settled in Washington, becoming in 1885 governor of the Soldier's Home in that city. His death occurred while on this duty. Hunt was married twice: first to Emily C. De Russy, daughter of Colonel R. E. De Russy, who died in 1857, and second to Mary B. Craig, who survived him. Hunt was an exceptionally able artillery leader, whose services were not adequately appreciated by his government during his lifetime.

[War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), 1 series, XI (parts 1 2, 3), XIX (parts 1. 2), XXI, XXV (parts 1, 2), XXVII (parts 1, 2, 3), XXXVI (parts 1, 2, 3); David FitzGerald, In Memoriam: General Henry J. Hunt (1889); papers by Hunt and other valuable references in Battles and Leaders of the Civ il War (4 volumes, 188;- 88); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register (3rd ed., 1891); John Bigelow, The Peach Orchard, Gettysburg (1910); Prof. R. M. Johnston, Bull Run (1913); W. E. Birkhimer, History Sketch of the Artillery of the U.S.A. (1884); W. E . Birkhimer and J.E. Johnston, in Twentieth Annual Reunion Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1889); T. B. Wyman, Genealogy of the Name and Family of Hunt (1862-63); Army and Navy Register, Army and Navy Journal, February 16, 1889; Evening Star (Washington), February 11, 1889; certain information from Colonel J. E. Hunt, a son of H. J. Hunt.]

C. H. L.



HUNTER, DAVID (July 21, 1802-February 2, 1886),  Union soldier, was born at Washington, D. C., the son of Reverend Andrew Hunter [q.v.] and his second wife, Mary (Stockton) Hunter, daughter of Richard Stockton [q.v.], a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1818, his father being at that time chaplain in the United States Navy stationed at the Washington Navy Yard, young Hunter was appointed to West Point. Graduating in 1822, he served in the 5th Infantry until he became a captain in the 1st Dragoons in 1833. While stationed at Fort Dearborn, Chicago, he was married, between 1828 and 1831 to Maria Indiana Kinzie. He invested in Chicago lands and in 1836, resigning from the army, settled in Chicago to engage in business with his brother-in-law, John H. Kinzie. He reentered the army in 1842 as a paymaster with the rank of major, and in this capacity was with General Taylor's forces in the Mexican War.

In 1860, Hunter, then serving in Kansas; commenced a correspondence with Lincoln advising him of secession rumors. Invited to accompany the President-Elect on his inaugural trip to Washington, he sustained an injury to his collar bone early in the journey and was unable to continue with Lincoln's party. When he arrived at the Capital later, he was put in charge of a guard of 100 gentlemen volunteers to protect the White House, spending every night in the East Room. Commissioned colonel of cavalry in May 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers a few days later and appointed to command the 2nd Division of McDowell's army. In July he participated in the Bull Run campaign. Much straggling and disorder occurred, and the attack led by Hunter's division, was late, and was made by small detachments one at a time which were successively defeated. Hunter, however, severely wounded at the beginning of the engagement, was not to blame for the poor conduct of the troops, which was due in the main to their lack of training.

In October, he was sent to Missouri to relieve Fremont whom, on November 2, he superseded as commander of the Western Department. He at once repudiated Fremont's convention with Sterling Price whereby both generals agreed to force the disbandment of unauthorized armed bodies, and in accordance with orders withdrew the Union forces for rest and reorganization. Later in November he was assigned to command in Kansas, but since there was at the moment no enemy in that state, he was able to send troops to assist in the expedition against Forts Henry and Donelson, and to Canby in New Mexico.

In March 1862 he assumed command of the Department of the South. Fort Pulaski, Georgia, was at once besieged, and after heavy bombardment surrendered on April 11. The next day Hunter issued an order liberating the slaves which had fallen into Federal hands, and on May 9 followed it by another liberating all slaves in his department. Applauded by abolitionists, this move caused uneasiness in border states and excitement in Congress, and on May 19 the President issued a proclamation annulling the order on the ground that it exceeded the General's authority. Hunter had also sanctioned the raising of a negro regiment (the 1st South Carolina), and in that action was upheld by Congress. The Confederate States proclaimed him a felon, and ordered his execution if captured. He now attempted to take Charleston, but lost the battle of Secessionville on June 16, and was forced to suspend further operations.

When he left his department on leave to seek more active duty, he was employed as president of courts martial which tried General Fitz-John Porter [q.v.] and inquired into the loss of Harper's Ferry. Returning to his department, he conducted minor operations until "temporarily" relieved in June 1863, when he was again employed on court-martial duty and in making an extensive inspection of the troops and conditions in the Mississippi Valley. In May 1864, upon the defeat of Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley, Hunter was recalled and assigned to command this important sector. He was ordered to move up the Valley, cross the Blue Ridge to Charlottesville, and then proceed to Lynchburg, living on the country and cutting all railroads and canals. It was left to his discretion as to whether, upon completion of his mission, he should return to the Potomac, or join Grant's army near Richmond. He marched south, and on June 5 won the battle of Piedmont. He captured many prisoners and forced Lee to detach Breckinridge's division, and later Early's corps, to prevent the serious loss of supplies and destruction of communications which Hunter was accomplishing. On June 16 he invested Lynchburg, but the next day Early's forces commenced to arrive, and skirmishing resulted. Since his ammunition was nearly exhausted, Hunter decided not to fight, and in order to avoid an engagement retired into West Virginia. He thus left the Shenandoah Valley open to Early, who, quick to seize his advantage, marched down the Valley and threatened Washington. Hunter made every effort to reach railroads so as to be on the Potomac ahead of Early, but he failed to arrive in time to prevent the Confederates from raiding in the vicinity of the Capital. Hunter has been criticized for this campaign, though he succeeded in his principal mission, which was to weaken Lee's army at a critical hour.

On August 4, Grant arrived at Hunter's headquarters, bringing with him Sheridan, whom he had selected to be the leader of the field forces under Hunter's direction, with a view to driving the enemy once for all from the Shenandoah Valley. Hunter thought it better to resign his command so as to leave Sheridan entirely free, and his resignation was accepted on August 8. He was again engaged on court-martial duty from February 1, 1865, until the end of the war. Directed to accompany the remains of President Lincoln to Springfield, Illinois, he was recalled to become president of the military commission which tried the conspirators. He later became president of the Special Claims Commission and of the Cavalry Promotion Board. Brevetted brigadier-general and major-general for gallant and meritorious conduct during the war, he was retired from active service in 1866 as a colonel, and resided thereafter in Washington, where he died.

Hunter was a handsome man, a typical beau sabreur. He was not a great general, but he had the highly commendable qualities of initiative and energy and he never allowed personal interests to stand between him and duty.

[War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), 1 series, II (Bull Run), III, VIII (Missouri), XX, LXV, LXVI (Atlantic Coast), LXX, I:XXI (Shenandoah); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887- 88); R. M. Johnston, Bull Run (1913); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register (3rd ed., 1891); Report of the Military Services of General David Hunter during the War of the Rebellion (1873), a short autobiography; R. C. Schenck, "Major-General David Hunter," Magazine of American History, February 1887; Papers of the Military History Society of Massachusetts, volume VI (1907); Seventeenth Annual Report Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1886); T. C. Stockton, The Stockton Family of New Jersey (1911); A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago, volume I (1884); Army and Navy Journal, February 6, 1886; Washington Post, February 3, 1886.]

C. H. L.



HURLBUT, STEPHEN AUGUSTUS (November 29, 1815-March 27, 1882), Union soldier, congressman, was born in Charleston, South Carolina. His father, Martin Luther Hurlbut, teacher and Unitarian minister, was a native of Southampton, Massachusetts, and a descendant of Thomas Hurlbut who settled about 1635 at Saybrook, Connecticut, and later moved to Wethersfield; his mother, before her marriage, was Lydia Bunce of Charleston. William Henry Hurlbert [q.v.], author and editor, was his half-brother. Stephen Hurlbut was admitted to the bar in 1837, served in the Seminole War, and in 1845 migrated to Illinois, settling at Belvidere, where two years later, May 13, 1847, he married Sophronia R. Stevens. He was elected as a Whig to the Illinois constitutional convention of 1847 from Boone ·and McHenry counties, was presidential elector on the Whig ticket in 1848, and was elected as a Republican to the Illinois General Assembly for 1858-59 and 1860-61. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned brigadier-general, May 17, 1861. He served in northern Missouri in 1861, and commanded the 4th Division at Shiloh, being stationed in reserve on the left, apparently handling his unit bravely and skilfully. He was promoted to major-general, as of September 17, 1862. In the campaign of Corinth, he conducted the turning movement against the Confederate communications. During the remainder of the campaign of 1862-63, he was stationed at Memphis, being assigned in December to the command of the XVI Army Corps. In the Vicksburg campaign of 1863, his mission was to assure the safety of Memphis as the base of operation. In July 1863, he sought to resign on personal grounds, but a month later withdrew his resignation (Official Records, post, I series LXVII, 398-99, 436-37). He took part in Sherman's raid toward Mobile in February 1864. On August 5 of that year he was ordered to report to General Canby in the division of West Mississippi for assignment to duty. Assigned to command the Department of the Gulf, to Lincoln's distress he harassed the loyal government of Louisiana. Charges of corruption brought against him apparently had solid foundation (Chicago Tribune, November 1, 1872; Clark vs. United States, 102 U.S. Reports, 322). He was mustered out June 20, 1865.

Upon his return to civil life, he became a Republican leader in Illinois. Charges of drunkenness and corruption leveled at him thereafter apparently had much reason. He served in the Illinois General Assembly of 1867 and was elector at large in 1868. He was the first commander-in- chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, 1866-68. Appointed minister to Colombia in 1869, he served until 1872, apparently with little activity not of the routine order. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1870, but in 1872 tried again with success. He was reelected for the next Congress over J. F. Farnsworth, but in 1876 was defeated for the regular renomination by William Lathrop, and, running as an independent Republican, was defeated in the election. Beyond some interest in interstate commerce regulation his congressional service was not remarkable. Appointed minister to Peru in 1881, at the time of the War of the Pacific, he showed himself an ardent partisan of Peru, making mistakes which seriously embarrassed Trescot in his special mission to the belligerent nations. After Hurlbut's death, which occurred at Lima, a House committee exonerated him of the charge of using his official position to aid the Credit Industriel, claimant of guano and nitrate rights in Peru, against rival interests.

[H. H. Hurlbut, The Hurlbut Genealogy (1888); C. A. Church, History of Rockford (1900); A. C. Cole, The Constitutional Debates of 1847 (1919); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S., 1882 (1883); House Report No. 1790, 47 Congress, 1 Session; Chicago Tribune and New York World, April 3, 1882.]

T.C.P.



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes IV-V, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.