M: McCook through Merritt

Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography

McCOOK, ALEXANDER McDOWELL (April 22, 1831-June 12, 1903), soldier, came of a Scotch-Irish family known as "the fighting McCooks" from the fact that his father with eight sons and the five sons of his uncle saw distinguished service in the Uni on forces during the Civil War. His paternal grandfather, George McCook, emigrated from Ireland about 1780 and settled in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, whence he subsequently moved to Carroll County, Ohio. Daniel and John, in the second generation, also settled in Ohio and here, in Columbiana County, Alexander was born to Daniel and Martha (Latimer) McCook. He was the fifth of nine sons, of whom one died in infancy. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1852, thirtieth in a class of forty-seven members, and was commissioned lieutenant in the 3rd Infantry. After service at frontier posts and field duty against hostile Utes and Apaches, in 1858-61 he was assistant instructor in infantry tactics at West Point. The day that President Lincoln called for volunteers, he was commissioned colonel, 1st Ohio Volunteers, and in the action at Vienna, Virginia, on June 17, and at Bull Run, July 21, 1861, was commended for coolness and good conduct. He commanded a brigade in Kentucky until Janu ary 1862, and a division in the Army of the Ohio until the end of June of that year, and distinguished himself at Corinth, Nashville, and Shiloh, receiving the brevets of lieutenant-colonel and of colonel. Promotion to the grade of major-general of volunteers followed, July 17, 186 2, and during the operations of the Army of the Ohio in northern Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky, McCook commanded the I Army Corps at Nashville and in the battle of Perryville, Kentucky (October 8, 1862). For distinguished service in the latter engagement, he was brevetted brigadier-general, United States Army. After the organization of the Army of the Cumberland, he commanded the XIV and later the XX Corps with distinction, serving in the battle of Stone River, the advance on Tullahoma, and the battle of Chickamauga. He received blame for the disaster to the Union forces at Chickamauga and was relieved from command, October 6, 1863, but a court of inquiry, convened at his request, exonerated him from responsibility. He was on duty with the defenses of Washington until October 1864, commanded the District of E astern Arkansas until May 1865, and served with a joint committee of Congress, investigating Indian affairs, until October of the same year. For gallant and meritorious services in the field throughout the war he received the brevet of major-general, United States Army, March 13, 1865. In post-war army reorganization, McCook was appointed lieutenant-colonel, 26th Infantry, at the age of thirty-seven years, and again saw arduous frontier service. In 1874-75 he was acting inspector-general and from 1875 to 1881, aide-de-camp to General William T. Sherman. He was promoted colonel, 6th Infantry, December 15, 1880, and after protracted duty in th e West and a period in command of the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was promoted brigadier-general (1890) and major-general (1894). He was retired from active service for age, April 22, 1895. In May 1896 he represented the United States at the coronation of Nicholas II as Czar of Russia, and in September 1898 was a member of the commission appointed to investigate the conduct of the War with Spain. He died at Dayton, Ohio. McCook was twice married: on January 23, 1863, to Kate Phillips of Dayton, Ohio, who died in 1881, and on October 8, 1885, to Annie Colt of Milwaukee, who survived him, as did three daughters by his first marri age.

[J. H. Wilson, biographical sketch in Thirty-fifth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1904); J, H. Woodward, General A. D. McCook at Stone River (1892); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (2 volumes 1885-86); Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan (2 volumes, 1888); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War (1868), I, 806-09, severely critical of McCook's work at Perryville, Stone River, and Chickamauga; Henry Howe, "The Fighting McCooks," in The Scotch-Irish in America, Proc. and Addresses of the Sixth Congress (1894); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); Who's Who in America, 1901-02; Army and Navy Journal, June 20 1903; Ohio State Journal (Columbus), June 13, 1903.

C.D.R.



McCOOK, ANSON GEORGE (October 10, 1835-December 30, 1917), Union soldier, congressman, publisher, was born in Steubenville, Ohio, a first cousin of Alexander McDowell McCook [q.v.] and the second son of Dr. John McCook, a native of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and of Catharine Julia (Sheldon) of Hartford, Connecticut. He was brought up in the town of Lisbon (then New Lisbon), Ohio. At the age of fifteen he left school and went to Pittsburgh where he was employed in a drugstore. After two years in Pittsburgh he taught school at a little crossroads town near Lisbon and worked as transit-man on a local railway. When news of the discovery of gold in California reached the Middle West, he went overland to the coast with a party taking cattle across the plains. For the next five years he lived as a miner and businessman in California and Nevada. Upon his return to Ohio in 1859 he read law in the office of his cousin, George W. McCook of Steubenville, law partner of Edwin M. Stanton. The following year he was admitted to the bar.

McCook belonged to the famous "fighting McCooks" of Ohio. He, with his father and four brothers, was at that time a war Democrat, and upon the outbreak of the Civil War the five sons, among whom were Edward M., Henry C., and John James McCook [qq.v.], entered the military or naval service of the United States. Anson George organized a company of infantry at Steubenville and on April 17, 1861, was commissioned captain in the 2nd Ohio Volunteers. He rose successively through the grades of major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel of the same regiment, and when it was mustered out he became colonel of the 194th Ohio Volunteers. In March 1865 he was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers "for meritorious services." During the war he took part in many engagements, including the battles of Bull Run, Perryville, Stone River, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Kenesaw Mountain, and Atlanta. He was also in the Shenandoah campaign which preceded the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.

Upon his honorable discharge at the close of the war he returned to Steubenville, where from 1866 to 1872 he was assessor of internal revenue. In 1873 he moved to New York and was admitted to practice in the courts of that state. Political honors soon came to him in his new domicile, and in 1876, 1878, and 1880 he w1s elected to the national House of Representatives from the eighth congressional district of New York. His congressional record was creditable but not outstanding. In 1884 he was chosen secretary of the United States Senate, a position which he retained until August 1893. Two years later he was appointed chamberlain of the City of New York by Mayor William L. Strong and served until the expiration of the latter's term of office in 1897.

When he removed from Ohio to New York, McCook became interested in the Daily Register (later the New York Law Journal) and was for many years its editor. He was also president of the New York Law Publishing Company and a member of many organizations. In May 1886 he married Hettie B. McCook, a daughter of his cousin and law preceptor. A son and a daughter were born to them. McCook died at the age of eighty-three at his home in New York.

[New York Times, December 31, 1917; New York Law Journal, January 2, 1918; Who's Who in America, 1916-17; Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War (1868), I, 974; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), I series, XX, XXIII, XXX-XXXII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL VI, LII; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Henry Howe, ''The Fighting McCooks," in The Scotch-Irish in America, Proc. and Addresses of the Sixth Congress (1894).]

H.J.C.



McCOOK, EDWARD MOODY (June 15, 1833-September 9, 1909), Union soldier, minister to Hawaii, governor of Colorado Territory, was born at Steubenville, Ohio, of a family which gave many famous soldiers to the Civil War. A brother of Anson George, Henry Christopher, and John James, and a first cousin of Alexander McDowell McCook [qq.v.], he was the eldest son of Dr. John McCook, a physician, and Catharine Julia (Sheldon). Educated in public schools at Steubenville, he went to Minnesota when he was sixteen, and in the gold rush of the year 1849 went on to Colorado, where he practised law. In 1859, he represent ed his district in the legislature of Kansas Territory, and when Kansas became a state he was a lead er in the organization of the Territory of Colorado. Upon the fall of Sumter, he joined the Kansas Legion in Washington, and in recognition of his success in carrying dispatches to General Scott through unfriendly Maryland lines, was appointed a lieutenant of cavalry. During the southern campaigns of 1862-63 he made a brilliant record, being brevetted first lieutenant for gallant services at Shiloh, captain for services at Perryville, Kentucky, major for his conduct at Chickamauga, and lieutenant-colonel for cavalry operations in East Tennessee. He was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, April 27, 1864, and commanded the cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland. His most brilliant exploit of the war was performed during the Atlanta campaign when he prevented the reinforcement of General Hood, then shut up in Atlanta. Sweeping with his cavalry in the rear of the city, he destroyed the Confederate transportation trains, cut railroads leading south, captured many prisoners, and finally made his way back to rejoin the main Union army at Marietta, Georgia. At the close of the war he received the brevets of brigadier-general, United States Army, and major-general of volunteers in recognition of his record.

After the close of hostilities he acted as military governor of Florida, until June 1865. On May 9, 1866, he resigned his military commission, and until 1869 was United States minister to Hawaii. During his term in this office he negotiated a treaty of commercial reciprocity. In 1869 President Grant appointed him governor of the Territory of Colorado. As governor, he organized a school system, encouraged the building of railroads, secured the opening up of vast mineral and agricultural lands by the transfer of the troublesome Ute Indians to Utah, and was instrumental in the building of water-works for the city of Denver. He was unpopular in Colorado, where he was regarded as an office-seeker trading upon his military reputation; enemies charged him with participation in Indian frauds. At the request of the people of the territory Grant did not reappoint him in 1873, but in January 1874, after McCook had declined the office of postmaster general, the President renominated him for the governorship, and six months later the appointment was ratified by one vote. Early the next year he resigned.

After his retirement from public life, McCook had financial interests in many great enterprises in Colorado and the West, and at one time he was the largest real-estate owner and tax-payer in the Territory. Later, his investments extended to European telephone syndicates and to rich mines in Mexico. He was an early advocate of woman's suffrage. McCook was married twice: first, in 1865 to Mary Thompson of Peoria, Illinois, grand-daughter of Charles Thompson, secretary of the Continental Congress, and after her death, which occurred in 1874, to Mary McKenna of Colorado. He died of Bright's disease in Chicago and was buried at Steubenville, Ohio.

[Who's Who in America, 1908-09; Henry Howe, "The Fighting McCooks," in The Scotch-Irish in America, Proc. and Addresses of the Sixth Congress (1894); H. M. Cist, The Army of the Cumberland (1882) and J. D. Cox, Atlanta and The March to the Sea (both 1882), in Campaigns of the Civil War, volumes VII, IX, X; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volumes III, IV (1888); Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S., Commandery of D. C., War Papers, 29 (1898); Frank Hall, History of the State, of Colorado, volumes I, II (1889-90); Daily Rocky Mountain News (Denver), for 1874, esp. June 20; Rocky Mountain News and Denver Republican, September 10, 1909; Inter Ocean (Chicago), September 10, 1909.]

C. D. R.

R. F. N.



McCLERNAND, JOHN ALEXANDER (May 30, 1812-September 20, 1900), congressman and Union soldier, the son of John A. and Fatima McClernand, was born near Hardinsburg, Kentucky, and moved to Illinois when a small boy. His father died probably in 1816 and John, the only child, attended village school at Shawneetown, helped support his mother, and read law in a local office. He was admitted to the bar in 1832, but the Black Hawk War, Mississippi River trading, and the editorship of the Gallatin Democrat and Illinois Advertiser temporarily diverted him from his profession. As an assemblyman between 1836 and 1843, his political acumen and expansive eloquence, fortified with many allusions to the classics, quickly gained him prominence. Ever a stanch Jacksonian, he hated Abolitionists and supported sound money and extensive internal improvements. He married Sarah Dunlap of Jacksonville, on November 7, 1843, and removed to that town eight years later. In Congress from 1843 to 1851 and from 1859 to 1861, although courting war with foreign powers for territorial gain, he urged conciliation and the popular sovereignty panacea during crises over slavery extension. He figured prominently in the tumultuous speakership contests of the first sessions of the Thirty-first and the Thirty-sixth congresses and shared in framing the compromise measures of 1850. He broke with Douglas in 1854, but they worked together for peace and the Union six years later. His wife having died he married his sister-in-law, Minerva Dunlap, probably on December 30, 1862.

Following the first battle of Bull Run he proposed a resolution in the House to spend men and money without stint to restore the Union, and when the resolution was adopted he, himself, already a colonel of militia, left Congress to accept a brigadier-general's commission. While post commander at Cairo on reconnaissance in Kentucky and at Belmont, his vigor and bravery won Grant's approval; but at Fort Henry, despite orders, he failed to block the Confederate retreat and, after the fall of Fort Donelson, angered his superior by virtually crediting the victory to his own division, the 1st. Nevertheless, he was a major-general after March 21, 1862, outranked in the West by Halleck and Grant alone. Ambitious and untactful, he resented dictation, disliked West Pointers, and never forgot his political fences in Illinois. He wrote of his decisive role at Shiloh to Lincoln and to Halleck, criticizing Grant's strategy and protesting assignments to duty inconsistent with his rank. He sought to supplant McClellan in the East, and, warning Lincoln that a closed Mississippi meant dangerous discontent in the upper valley, was authorized in October 1862 to raise a large force in the Northwest for a river expedition against Vicksburg. At Sherman's suggestion and unauthorized by Grant, he and his thirty thousand, with Porter's. ironclads, reduced Arkansas Post on January II,.1863, and thereby gained the congratulations of Lincoln and Governo Yates of Illinois. Grant tartly ordered him to return to Millikens Bend and, over his protest, dissolved the Mississippi River expedition and ass igt1ed him to command the XIII Corps. For three months he supervised the making of roads, levees, and canals on the peninsula opposite Vicksburg. Although Charles Dana, war department observer in the field, repeatedly advised Stanton to remove him, he led the advance across the Mississippi at the end of April 1863. Grant charged him with tardiness at Grand Gulf and Champion Hills and with half of the heavy losses before Vicksburg on May 22. When he, without Grant's authorization, furnished the press with a congratulatory order, extolling his men a s the heroes of the campaign, Grant, eagerly supported by Sherman and McPherson, ordered him to Illinois on June 18, 1863. Here, ever popular, and unbroken in spirit, he rallied the people to a renewed support of the war, and Governor Yates besought Lincoln on the eve of Gettysburg to give him the eastern command. When the President refused to call a court of inquiry, McClernand warned him that he would publish a severe indictment of Grant (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, post, l series, XXIV, part I, pp. 169- 86). In early February 1864 he regained command of the XIII Corps, then scattered from New Orleans to the Rio Grande. For three months he contended with bad weather and water, shifting sands, an elusive enemy, a dwindling corps, and his own thwarted ambition. Hardly had he left his headquarters on Matagorda Island in late April to participate in the Red River expedition, than acute sickness forced him to return to Illinois. He resigned his commission on November 30, 1864.

He served as circuit judge of the Sangamon district from 1870 to 1873, as a member of the state Democratic central committee, as chairman of the National Democratic Convention in 1876, and on the Utah commission under Cleveland. He died of dysentery in Springfield, where he had lived since some time before the Civil War. He was survived by his wife and four children.

[A few letters in the Chicago History Society Library and in the McCormick History Association Library in Chicago; Illinois State Journal (Springfield), October 19-November 16, 1859, August 8, October 10, 31, 1860.April 24, June 5, August 7, October 2, 1861, May 21, August 6, September 3, 10, October 8, November 19, 26, December 31, 1862, March 18, July 1, 1861, February 3, 1864; Illinois Weekly State Journal (Springfield), December 31, 1862; J. M. Palmer, The Bench and Bar of Illinois f, R09), volume I; History of Sangamon County, Illinois (1881); T. C. Pease, Illinois Election Returns (1923); Journal of the Illinois State History Society, October 1923-January 1924, January 1929; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), 1 series, III, :VII, X, parts 1, 2, XVI, part 2, XVII, parts 1, ;i, XXII, part 2, XXIV, parts 1, 3, XXXIV, parts 1-3; LI, part 1, LU; part 1; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1887), volumes I, III. John Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War (1900); Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (1885), volume I; Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, 2nd ed. (1886), volume I; Illinois State Register (Springfield), February 24, 1843, Nov 10, 1843, September 20, 1900.]

W. T. H.



MACKENZIE, RANALD SLIDELL (July 27, 1840-January 19, 1889), soldier, elder son of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie [q.v.] and Catherine Alexander (Robinson), was born in New York City. He matriculated at Williams College with the class of 1859, but withdrew to go to West Point, where he graduated No. 1 in the class of 1862. Assigned to the Corps of Engineers, he went promptly to the front, taking part, as an engineer officer, in the battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the subsequent campaigns, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and the siege of Petersburg (June-July 1864), and receiving during that time two wounds and four brevets for gallantry. In July 1864 he was made colonel of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery Volunteers, with which he helped defend Washington against Early's raid. In command of a brigade during the Shenandoah campaign, he was wounded at Cedar Creek in October, but returned to duty in time to take part in the siege of Petersburg, February-March 1865. With the further brevets of colonel and brigadier-general, United States Army, and major-general of volunteers, he commanded a highly efficient cavalry division with the Army of the James during the Five Forks-Appomattox campaign in the spring of 1865, and was stationed in and about Appomattox while the details of Lee's surrender and the dispersion of the Army of Northern Virginia were carried out. In his Personal Memoirs (II, 541), General Grant said, "I regarded Mackenzie as the most promising young officer in the army. Graduating at West Point, as he did, during the second year of the war, he had won his way up to the command of a corps [division] before its close. This he did upon his own merit and without influence."

After the war he was transferred to the South and Southwest in lower rank, owing to the reduction of the military establishment. As colonel of the 4th Cavalry, he took the leading part in the campaigns of the early 1870's against marauding Indians in West Texas and along the Rio Grande, and was severely wounded (1871) while engaged in a canon of the "Staked Plains," Texas Panhandle. In 1873 he crossed the Rio Grande, made a forced night march, attacked and destroyed an Indian camp, precipitating a situation which was finally settled by diplomatic exchanges with the Mexican government. As a result of these operations and his subsequent military supervision, large areas in Texas-particularly the "Staked Plains" were opened to permanent settlement. Mackenzie was then transferred to the Indian Territory, where he was equally successful in coping with the hostile Indians of that region.

When, after the Custer fight at the Little Big Horn, June 25-26, 1876, General P. H. Sheridan, commanding the Military Division of the Missouri, planned large-scale operations against the Sioux and Cheyennes, he relieved Mackenzie from command at Fort Sill, Indian Territory, and brought him with six companies of the 4th Cavalry up into Nebraska to form part of the Powder River Expedition. Before starting on that campaign, Mackenzie, with his own companies, two from the 5th Cavalry, and a detachment of Pawnee Indian scouts, surrounded and disarmed the Red Cloud and Red Leaf bands on Chadron Creek, Nebraska, October 23, and then became the mounted column of General George Crook's winter campaign into and up through an extensive district in Wyoming Territory. Locating the Northern Cheyennes in the Big Horn Mountains, Mackenzie thoroughly defeated them in the battle of November 25, 1876, dispersing and breaking the fighting power of Dull Knife's formidable band. This campaign, with corresponding successes by troops operating in Montana under Colonel Nelson A. Miles [q.v.], led to the surrender of Crazy Horse without further hostilities in Wyoming.

Transferred back to the Indian Territory in 1877, and thence again to Texas, Mackenzie completed the work of pacifying the region extending down to the Mexican border. At the outbreak of the Ute disturbances in Colorado and Utah in 1879 he was sent into that district, and was engaged for about two years in military operations and administration, with marked ·success. Later Indian troubles in Arizona and New Mexico required short tours of duty in both these territories. After comparatively brief period of command in the departments of New Mexico and Texas, he was retired on March 24, 1884, for disability incurred in the line of duty; already failing in health, he died at New Brighton, Staten Island, New York, as brigadier-general, United States Army, although he had held the brevet rank of major-general of volunteers since March 31, 1865, for gallant and meritorious services during the Civil War.

Mackenzie was slightly above medium height, very active, somewhat nervous, often impetuous and exacting; he had a reputation in the old army for being a severe disciplinarian, but his officers and men became much attached to and had complete confidence in him as a leader. "I really classed him," writes Captain Robert G. Carter, who served under him in Texas, "as our best, most reliable and dependable Indian fighter. He had an indomitable will, wonderful powers of endurance, and unsurpassed courage." Several times he was in the forefront of battle; one of the three wounds received in the Civil War resulted in the loss of fingers, which led the Indians to call him "Bad Hand." His particular interest was in the tactical handling of troops in the field, of which he was one of the acknowledged masters. He was, withal, a conserver of forces, and several times-notably in the Dull Knife fight-went through to the point of assured victory, without pressing an advantage at too great sacrifice. His fame has been circumscribed by his temperamental aversion to publicity; all of the military operations under his command were followed by brief reports and immediate retirement to his station or other duties. No act of his ever brought censure from his superiors, and the only incident of his career resulting in controversy was his crossing of the Rio Grande with United States troops in 1873, and that was at least tacitly approved by the government. Mackenzie never wrote for publication and was never married, but devoted all of his energies to the profession of a soldier.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates, U. S. Military Academy (3rd edition, 1891); J. H. Dorst, in Twentieth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates, U. S. Military Academy (1889); James Parker, The Old Army Memories 1872-1918 (1929); D. L. Vaill, The County Regiment; a Sketch of (he Second Regt. of Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery (1908); Colonel C. A. P. Hatfield, "Army Life on the Texas Plains in the 1870's," MS. in the possession of Robert Bruce, New York; letter from Captain R. G. Carter, U.S.A., retired, September 27, 1932; Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (2 volumes, 1885-86); J. G. Bourke, On the Border with Crook (1891); Army and Navy Journal, January 26, 1889.

J R.B.



MANSFIELD, JOSEPH KING FENNO (December 22, 1803-September 18, 1862), military engineer, the son of Henry and Mary (Fenno) Mansfield, was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was a lineal descendant of Richard Mansfield who came from Exeter, England, in 1639, and a nephew of Jared Mansfield [q.v.], professor at the United States Military Academy from 1812 to 1828, and a first cousin of Edward Deering Mansfield [q.v.]. Joseph Mansfield became a cadet at the Military Academy in 1817, and on graduation in 1822 was commissioned second lieutenant and assigned to the Corps of Engineers. Until the Mexican War he was engaged mainly in the construction of the coast defenses of the South Atlantic states and was specially charged with the construction of Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah River. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1832 and captain in 1838.

During the Mexican War, he was chief engineer of the army under General Taylor and as such served with great distinction. At the beginning of operations he designed and constructed Fort Brown on the Rio Grande opposite Matamoras and took part in its defense. George Gordon Meade [q.v.], then a subaltern in this army, wrote in a letter that Mansfield "had gained for himself great credit for the design and execution of the work and still more for his energy and bravery in its defence" (The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, 1913, I, 76). At Monterey, he made the preliminary reconnaissance on which the plan of the battle was based and conducted one of the columns of attack. He was equally active in reconnoitering the ground and selecting the positions for the troops in the battle of Buena Vista. For gallant and distinguished services in the defense of Fort Brown he received the brevet of major, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista he received the brevets of lieutenant-colonel and colonel. After the war he was again engaged as a captain in the construction of coast defenses until 1853 when, upon the recommendation of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who had also served in Taylor's army, he received an unsolicited promotion to colonel and inspector-general of the army. Under his new commission he traveled extensively, inspecting frontier posts in Texas, New Mexico, California, and Oregon.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War he was commissioned brigadier-general in the Regular Army and assigned to the command of the Department of Washington, which included the capital and surrounding territory. It was on his recommendation that the heights on the south bank of the Potomac opposite the city were promptly seized and fortified. When his department was merged into the Department of the Potomac under McClellan, he was assigned to command under General Wool at Fort Monroe and in 1862 took part in the occupation of Norfolk and Suffolk, Virginia, being commissioned major-general of volunteers in July. When McClellan reorganized the Army of the Potomac after the Manassas Campaign, Mansfield was recalled from Suffolk where he was in command, and assigned to the command of the XII Corps. He joined the army two days before the battle of Antietam and was mortally wounded in that battle, September 17, 1862; while reconnoitering the enemy's position as his corps was coming into action. Ort September 25, 1838, he had married Louisa Maria Mather, the daughter of Samuel and Catherine (Livingston) Mather. They had two daughters and two sons, one of whom, Samuel Mather Mansfield, became a brigadier-general in the Corps of Engineers.

[Memorial of General J. K. F. Mansfield (1862); J. L. Dudley, Discourse on, the Death of General Joseph K. F. Mansfield (1862); J. M. Gould, Joseph K. F. Mansfield (1895); (C. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891). volume I; Horace Mansfield, The Descendants of Richard and Gillian Mansfield (1885): Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88): War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Hartford Daily Courant, September 22, 24, 1862.

J. G. J. F.



MARCY, RANDOLPH BARNES (April 9, 1812-November 22, 1887), soldier, was born at Greenwich, Massachusetts, the eldest son of Laban and Fanny (Howe) Marcy. He was descended from John Marcy, an Irish emigrant who was in Roxbury, Massachusetts, as early as 1685 and di ed in Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1724. Marcy graduated at the Military Academy in 1832, as brevet second lieutenant in the 5th Infantry; reached the substantive rank of second lieutenant in 1835, first lieu~ tenant in 1837, and captain in 1846. His service for some thirteen years was entirely on the Michigan and Wisconsin frontier, except for two short periods on recruiting duty in the East. In 1845 he went to Texas, and served there during the military occupation and in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. He then went on recruiting duty again, but returned to Texas in 1847.

For the next twelve years he remained in the Southwest, much of the time in the field. In 1849 he escorted emigrants from Fort Smith to Santa Fe, reconnoitering and opening a new trail. In 1851 he commanded the escort of General Belknap, who traveled extensively in that region selecting sites for military posts. In 1852 he led an exploring expedition to the headwaters of the Red and Canadian rivers, and in 1854 he surveyed Indian reservations in northern and western Texas. His reports of the explorations of 1849, 1852, and 1854, were published as Senate Executive Document No. 64 (31 Congress, 1 Session), No. 54 (32 Congress, 2 Session), and No. 60 (34 Congress, 1 Session). For a short time in 1857 he was engaged in the campaign against the Seminole Indians in Florida, but returned to the West in time to accompany Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston's expedition against the Mormons in Utah. This expedition had to winter at Fort Bridger, under conditions of great hardship, its trains having been seriously crippled by Mormon raiders. Marcy, with a hundred men, made a winter march of nearly a thousand miles through trackless country and over the Rocky Mountains, to the military posts in New Mexico, to obtain animals and supplies; he reached Fort Bridger again in June 1858. Until this time his service had been entirely with his regiment. He was now detailed as acting inspector-general of the Department of Utah. After a few months on this duty he was ordered to New York to prepare a semi-official guidebook, called The Prairie Traveler, which was published in 1859 by authority of the War Department. It was an excellent compendium of practical hints for travelers, and included a remarkable collection of detailed road notes covering thirty-four important overland trails.

In August 1859 he was appointed major and paymaster, and served in the northwest until May 1861, when he became chief of staff of his son-in-law, General George B. McClellan [q.v.]. In this capacity he served through the Peninsular and Antietam campaign, holding the rank of colonel and inspector-general from August 9, 1861, and the temporary rank of brigadier-general from September 23, 1861, to March 4, 1863. At the close of the war he received brevet commissions as brigadier-and major-general. From 1863 to 1878 he served as inspector in various departments and on December 12, 1878, was appointed inspector-general of the army, with the rank of brigadier-general. He served in this capacity until his retirement from active service, January 2, 1881. From his retirement to his death he resided at West Orange, New Jersey.

He was married in 1833 to Mary A. Mann, daughter of General Jonas Mann of Syracuse, New York. She died in 1878. They had three children-a son who died in infancy; Mary Ellen, who married General George B. McClellan; and Frances, who married Edward Clarke. Marcy was tall, broad-shouldered, and soldierly in bearing. He was essentially an out-of-doors man, and continued to make big-game hunting trips even after his retirement. At the same time he had some facility in writing and published two volumes of recollections of frontier service: Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border (1866), and Border Reminiscences (1872), besides the guidebook mentioned above.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); L. R. Hamersly, Records of Living Officers of the U.S. Army (1 884); Army and Navy Journal, November 26, 1887; New York Times, November 23, 1887; New-England History and Genealogical Register, July 1875; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Marcy's own books; personal and family notes furnished by Hon. George B. McClellan, his grandson.]

O. L. S., Jr.



McCLELLAN, GEORGE BRINTON (December 3, 1826--October 29, 1885), soldier, was born in Philadelphia, the third child and second son of Dr. George McClellan, 1796-1847 [q.v.] and Elizabeth (Brinton) McClellan. The family had come from Scotland to New England early in the eighteenth century. His great-grandfather, Samuel McClellan, served through the Revolutionary War with the Connecticut militia, and reached the grade of brigadier-general. In the Civil War, several members of the family were in service. His younger brother, Arthur, was one of his aides-de-camp; a first cousin, Carswell McClellan, was on the staff of General Humphreys; another first cousin, Henry Brainerd McClellan [q.v.], was chief of staff to the Confederate generals Stuart and Hampton, and wrote a biography of Stuart.

McClellan attended preparatory schools in Philadelphia, and entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1840, but left there upon appointment as cadet at West Point in 1842. He graduated in 1846, as No. 2 in his class, and was assigned to the Engineers. Joining a company of sappers and miners that was being organized at West Point for service in Mexico, he assisted in training it, and went with it to Matamoros. In January 1847 the company formed part of the column that marched from the Rio Grande to Tampico, and was charged with the road and bridge construction. It then became a part of General Scott's command, landed with the first troops at Vera Cruz, and served throughout his campaign. McClellan at once attracted attention, and was often mentioned in dispatches. He received the brevet rank of first lieutenant for service at Contreras and Churubusco, and of captain for Chapultepec. (The Mexican War Diary of George B. McClellan, edited by W. S. Myers, was published in 1917.) He returned with his company to West Point in 1848, and for three years served there as assistant instructor in practical military engineering. During this time, he translated the French regulations on the bayonet exercise and adapted them to use in the American service; his regulations were tested in the company, and in 1852 were adopted for the army. He also became an active member of a group of officers formed for the study of military history.

In the summer of 1851 he was relieved from duty at West Point and assigned as assistant engineer for the construction of Fort Delaware. In March of the next year, however, he went with the expedition of Captain R. B. Marcy to explore the sources of the Red River, in Arkansas (Senate Executive Document No. 54, 32 Congress, 2 Session). This duty was completed in July. He acted as chief engineer on the staff of General Persifor F. Smith until October, and then took up river and harbor work in Texas. The next spring he was placed in command of an expedition to survey a route for a railway across the Cascade Mountains, which occupied him until the end of the year. His route did not ultimately prove the best; but Jefferson Davis, then secretary of war, was so much pleased with his work that he directed him to continue his study of railways, and report on the practicability of construction on the line selected (House Executive Document No. 129, 33 Congress, 1 Session; Senate Executive Document No. 78, 33 Congress, 2 Session). This study being completed, Davis sent him to report upon Samana Bay, in Santo Domingo, as a possible naval station (House Executive Document No. 43, 41 Congress, 3 Session).

An increase in the regular army was made in 1855, and McClellan was appointed a captain in one of the new regiments of cavalry, resigning his commission as first lieutenant of engineers. He never joined his regiment, for in April 1855 he was detailed as a member of a board of officers to study the European military systems. The board spent a year in Europe, visiting most of the principal countries as well as the theatre of operations in the Crimea. McClellan was to observe particularly the engineers and cavalry, as well as to make a special study of the Russian army at large. The board arrived too late to see much of active operations in the Crimea, but was able to make a very complete study of the siege of Sevastopol. McClellan's reports are most excellent (Senate Executive Document No. 1, 35 Congress, Special Session). In submitting them, he made numerous recommendations for improvements in the American service; notably, he proposed a new type of saddle, modeled on the lines of the Hungarian. This was adopted. Alterations in the McClellan saddle have been few and slight, and the specifications of 1929 reverted very nearly to his original design. In January 1857 he resigned his commission to become chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad. The next year he was made vice-president, in charge of operations in Illinois; and in 1860 he became president of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad, with his residence in Cincinnati.

At the outbreak of the Civil War his services were sought by both New York and Pennsylvania. He started for Harrisburg to consult with Governor Curtin, but stopped in Columbus to inform Governor Dennison as to conditions in Cincinnati. Here he was tendered appointment as major-general of Ohio Volunteers, with command of all the Ohio forces, militia and volunteer. He accepted, a special act was hastily passed by the legislature, empowering the Governor to appoint to this office one who was not an officer of the militia, and he entered upon his duties the same day, April 23, 1861.

By reason of the rioting in Baltimore, mail connection with Washington was uncertain, and states in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys had to act largely on their own initiative. The work of organizing, equipping, and training the troops fell chiefly upon McClellan, under state authority only. On May 13, however, he received appointment (dated May 3) as a major-general in the regular army, and was placed in command of the Department of the Ohio, including the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and later certain portions of western Pennsylvania and Virginia. During this period Grant called upon him, to ask for employment on his staff or with troops. McClellan happened to be absent, and before his return Grant had been offered an Illinois regiment; so the interesting experiment, McClellan in command with Grant as chief of staff, was never tried.

McClellan's refusal to support the neutrality of Kentucky, when called upon by Simon B. Buckner [q.v.] to do so, had great influence in keeping that state in the Union. Western Virginia was chiefly Unionist in sentiment. To control this territory for the South, troops from eastern Virginia occupied Grafton, the junction point of the two branches of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. McClellan sent troops, which regained possession of the railways. This action led to further concentrations of troops on both sides and to the campaign of Rich Mountain, in which McClellan personally commanded, and by means of which that region was cleared of Confederate troops and kept in the Union.

This success, just before McDowell's defeat at Bull Run, led to McClellan's appointment to command the Division of the Potomac, which included McDowell's department south of the river and Mansfield's in the city of Washington. He reached Washington on July 26, and found the troops in utter confusion. He plunged into his work with great energy, soon brought his command under discipline, and began reorganization and training. Spirit at once improved, and the army gained rapidly, both in strength and in efficiency. In a few months the troops became tired of inactivity and were anxious to take the offensive. McClellan, however, overestimating the strength of the enemy and underrating his own condition, refused to move. Meanwhile, his relations with General Scott became more and more strained. In November, Scott retired and McClellan became general-in-chief in his stead; this led to further delay, while he studied his enlarged problems.

The President began to exhibit impatience. Not only did he feel that the army was strong enough for a move, but the financial situation, with the increasingly unfavorable rate of exchange, convinced him that some military risk was preferable to certain bankruptcy. McClellan's plan was, not to move frontally upon the Confederate force at Manassas, and thence upon Richmond, but to transport his army by water to the lower Rappahannock or to Fortress Monroe, and advance on Richmond from the east. To this Lincoln demurred, fearing that Washington would not be sufficiently protected. Finally, on January 27, 1862, the President issued his General War Order No. 1, prescribing an advance of all the armies on February 22, and on the 31st his Special War Order No. 1, requiring that the move of the Army of the Potomac should be upon Manassas (Official Records, Army, I Series, V, 41). This brought matters to a head. McClellan again urged his own plan, and Lincoln consented to a move by way of Fortress Monroe, but reluctantly and doubtfully, imposing conditions in regard to the security of Washington. The Confederate force at Manassas was withdrawn to the Rappahannock early in March, somewhat relieving this anxiety. A few days later the Army of the Potomac began embarking at Alexandria. McClellan, having taken the field with it, was relieved as general-in-chief and left only that army, reporting, as did the other independent commanders, direct to the secretary of war. Jackson's activity in the Shenandoah Valley now caused renewed alarm, and McDowell's corps and other troops intended for the expedition were held back for the defense of Washington.

Advancing from Fortress Monroe, McClellan encountered the Confederates at Yorktown and approached the lines there by regular siege operations, which delayed him for a month. He then moved up the Peninsula toward Richmond. Upon his urgent representations that he was outnumbered, McDowell's corps was ordered to march by way of Fredericksburg to join him; but Jackson's renewed activity caused these orders to be countermanded. Finally, over McDowell's protest, the corps was withdrawn from the Army of the Potomac and constituted a separate command. On the Chickahominy there was another long delay. Heavy rains had set in; the streams were up, and the roads almost impassable. The first troops to cross had heavy fighting at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks on May 31 and June 1; a position almost at the gates of Richmond was occupied and entrenched, and work was begun on bridges to bring the rest of the army across. Meanwhile, lingering hopes of McDowell's arrival made McClellan reluctant to relinquish his hold on the left bank of the river, where he expected to effect the junction.

Instead of McDowell, Jackson came. Having drawn as many Union troops as possible to the Valley, he had secretly moved his own force out by rail, and come down to join the army at Richmond. Upon his approach, on June 26, Lee launched a powerful attack upon the part of McClellan's army on the left bank of the river, and defeated it at Gaines's Mill. The bridges, just finished and ready to take that wing to the right bank for an attack upon Richmond, had to be used to bring supports across, the other way; and then, the immediate emergency having been met, to take them all back to the right bank, not now for an advance, but for a flank march to the James. The Confederate pursuit was finally checked at Malvern Hill on July 1, ending the Seven Days' Battles, and the army established itself at Harrison's Landing. McClellan, in his dispatches, attributed his reverses to lack of support from Washington, and insisted, as he had throughout the campaign, that he was outnumbered. He still contemplated a further offensive, south of the James, but he demanded for it a greater reinforcement than the President-or Halleck, who became general-in-chief late in July-was willing to provide. Finally, on August 3, the Army of the Potomac was ordered withdrawn. McClellan established his headquarters at Alexandria. His troops, as they arrived, were detached from him and assigned to General Pope's Army of Virginia.

After Pope's defeat at Manassas, McClellan was again called upon to reorganize the army and prepare the defense of Washington. Orders from General Halleck to this effect reached him on September l; the next morning the President called upon him in Washington and personally requested him to undertake the task. He immediately rode out to meet Pope, took over the command from him, and went on to join the retreating troops, who received him with enthusiasm. Their spirits rose, and they forgot their defeat. Lee did not pursue in the direction of Washington, but moved toward the upper crossings of the Potomac. McClellan assembled the incoming troops at Rockville and Leesburg, assuming personal command for an advance, although his orders were simply to provide for the defense of Washington. Pending further information of the enemy, he directed his right upon Frederick, and kept his left on the Potomac. On the morning of September 13 he learned, through a copy of one of Lee's orders which fell into his hands, that the Confederates were much scattered. He moved to take advantage of this, but too slowly; Lee succeeded in concentrating, and was able to avoid destruction in the battles of South Mountain and the Antietam. After these battles, McClellan did not press, and Lee accomplished the withdrawal of his army across the Potomac. McClellan did not follow until late in October. Early in the month he had been ordered by Lincoln to give battle, and on October 13 he was asked by the President: "Are you not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing?" (Official Records, I Series, Volume XIX, Pt I, pp. II, 13). At Warrenton, on November 7, he received an order to turn over his command to General Burnside and to proceed to Trenton, New Jersey, to await orders. He was never again employed in the field. In 1863 he prepared a report covering his period of command of the Army of the Potomac (published as House Executive Document No. 15, 38 Congress, 1 Session).

In 1864 he was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the presidency. The country seemed weary of the war, and the leaders of the Democratic party thought they could see an opportunity to win on a platform calling for immediate cessation of hostilities. McClellan seemed the logical candidate. He could be represented as a victim of the injustice of the administration-a general who had accomplished much and would have accomplished more if he had been fairly treated. He accepted the nomination, although it placed him in a most embarrassing position; he had always stood for vigorous prosecution of the war, and had recently reaffirmed this attitude in an oration at West Point. In his letter of acceptance he tried to harmonize the inconsistency, but without conspicuous success. On election day he resigned his commission in the army. The returns showed that he had carried only New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky, with 21 electoral votes against Lincoln's 212.

The next three years he spent abroad. Upon his return he was placed in charge of construction of a new type of steam war-vessel, designed by Edwin A. Stevens of Hoboken, and being built with money left for that purpose in his will. The funds were exhausted before the ship was completed, and the project was abandoned in 1869. He was invited to become president of the University of California in 1868, and of Union College in 1869, but declined both offers. In 1870 he was appointed chief engineer of the New York City Department of Docks, but resigned in 1872. In 1871 he declined appointment as comptroller of the city. From January 1878 to January 1881 he served as governor of New Jersey. He was married in 1860 to Ellen Mary Marcy, and had two children, a daughter and a son. His wife was the daughter of his old commander in the Red River exploring expedition, Randolph B. Marcy [q.v.], who served later as his chief of staff. He died of heart trouble, at Orange, New Jersey, October 29, 1885.

McClellan was slightly under the middle height, but very squarely and powerfully built, with exceptional strength and endurance. His features were regular and pleasing, his hair and moustache red. His tastes were quiet and scholarly. An excellent linguist, he knew and used all the principal languages of western Europe, ancient and modern. Not only did he always keep up military study, but he was well informed in current literature, particularly that dealing with archeological research and exploration. He spent much time abroad, chiefly in Switzerland, and interested himself in mountain climbing.

As a soldier, he fell barely short of conspicuous success. He took the best of care of his men and had th e happy faculty of inspiring confidence and loyalty. His knowledge and comprehension of military affairs was great, and he was able to select from foreign systems features that were appropriate to the American service, and adapt them to its requirements. His ideas of organization, strategy, and tactics were clear and sound. But he was never satisfied with what he had, nor willing to make the best of an imperfect tool. He could always see wherein he might make improvements, given time; and he took the time, at the expense of losing his opportunities. He could not be content with a plan that took into account all apparent factors, and trust to the inspiration of the moment to take care of the unforeseen; -his plan must be complete. His reasoning powers carried him up to contact with the enemy; at that moment, when an independent will entered the problem, he became hesitating. Knowing accurately his own numbers, and knowing also the weaknesses and defects of his own force, he allowed for these and discounted the numbers. For the enemy's strength, he accepted too readily the estimates of his intelligence service, directed by Allan Pinkerton [q.v.], and these estimates were usually too high. Further, not knowing the enemy's troubles, he failed to make the discounts. Hence he always believed himself outnumbered, when. in fact he always had the superior force.

While he had seen much field service, he had never held even the smallest command in war, until he conducted the operations in West Virginia as a major-general. Except for the campaign in Mexico, his only knowledge of warfare was gained at Sevastopol, and the siege technique observed there controlled his action in the Peninsula. In the Antietam campaign he showed that he was beginning to learn to attack. Under a good teacher had there been such a teacher he might have mastered the lesson. He probably came to the supreme command too early. In his Own Story he hints that such was the case. But at the time, possibly through a half recognition of his deficiencies, he expressed the utmost confidence, and always took the attitude that his superiors, through ignorance or jealousy, were not properly supporting him. Thus his successes were only half successes; at the same time, his failures were not disasters. Lee, who should have known, set him down as the best commander who ever faced him (R. E. Lee, Jr., Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee, 1924, p. 416). But Lee saw the deficiencies, too; he once remarked, half seriously, when he learned that Burnside had taken command, that he regretted to part with McClellan, "for we always understood each other so well. I fear they may continue to make these changes until they find someone I don't understand" (Battles and Leaders, III, 70).

[McClellan's Own Story (1887) is a poorly constructed book and unsatisfactory in that it assumes the defensive throughout. Everything printed about him during or soon after the war is partisan. John G. Barnard, The Peninsular Campaign and Its Antecedents (1864), is a military analysis, sharply critical of McClellan. An excellent example of contemporary defenses of him is G. S. Hillard, Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan (1864). Later and more dispassionate writings are P. S. Michie, General McClellan (1901), and Francis W. Palfrey, The Antietam and Fredericksburg (1882). See also G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U. S. Military Academy (3d ed., 1891); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); "Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War," Senate Report No. 108, 37 Congress, 3 Session; memoir by General W. B. Franklin in Seventeenth Annual Reunion of the Association of the Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy (1886); J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln (10 volumes, 1890); Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the U. S. (1904); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); G. C. Gorham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton (2 volumes, 1899); Diary of Gideon Welles (19I1), volume I; J. H. Stine, History of the Army of the Potomac (1892); G. T. Curtis, "McClellan's Last Service to the Republic," North American Review, April, May 1880; Army and Navy Journal, October 31, November 7, 14, 1885. Colonel John R. Meigs Taylor, of Washington, has furnished recollections of conversations with his grandfather General Meigs, which have thrown light upon some of McClellan's relations with the administration.]

O. L. S., Jr.



McDOWELL, IRVIN (October 15, 1818-May 4, 1885), soldier, was born at Columbus, Ohio, the son of Abram Irvin McDowell, and Eliza Selden Lord, his wife. The family was Scotch-Irish; its founder in America, Ephraim McDowell, came to Pennsylvania in 1735 and later migrated to the Valley of Virginia, whence his descendants crossed the mountains into Kentucky. Irvin McDowell received his early education in France, at the College de Troyes. Returning home, he was appointed a cadet at the Military Academy in 1834, and graduated in 1838, as No. 23 in a class of forty-five. Assigned to the 1st Artillery as brevet second lieutenant, he became second lieutenant almost immediately (July 7, 1838), upon the occurrence of a vacancy in his regiment. His first service was on the Canadian frontier, from Niagara to Maine, in connection with the border disturbances then in progress. In 1841, however, he was brought back to the Military Academy as a tactical officer, and served in that capacity and as adjutant until the outbreak of the Mexican War. Meanwhile (October 7, 1842) he had been promoted first lieutenant. On October 6, 1845, he was detailed as aide-de-camp to General Wool, and served with that officer's command throughout the war and in the Army of Occupation, most of the time acting as his adjutant general. For his services at the battle of Buena Vista he was made captain by brevet, and on May 13, 1847, was transferred with that rank to the Adjutant General's Department. He returned to the United States in 1848, and until 1861 served at headquarters of the Army and of various territorial departments, except for the year 1859, which he spent on leave in Europe. He was promoted major in 1856. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was serving in Washington. Through General Scott, who had known him since his graduation and thought highly of him, he became acquainted with the leaders of the new administration, and particularly with Secretary Chase, whose confidence and esteem he immediately won. On May 14, 1861, he was promoted brigadier-general and assigned to duty with the forces assembling in Washington under the command of General J. K. F. Mansfield. As these troops were transferred across the Potomac, it became necessary to organize those south of the river into a separate command, later known as the Army of the Potomac; and McDowell received this assignment, together with command of the Department of Northeastern Virginia. Although neither he nor most other officers concerned considered the army in any condition to operate in the field, both the political and the military situation seemed to demand a move to dislodge the Confederate forces at Manassas Junction, where the rail line from the West joined that from the South-for at that time the direct railway from Washington to Richmond did not exist. He was therefore required to undertake the brief campaign which ended in the disastrous battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), a campaign of which it has been well said that "although foredoomed to failure, yet it came within inches of success" (Johnston, post, p. 269).

He was now superseded by McClellan in command of the army, but remained with it as a division commander. In March 1862 he was made major-general of volunteers, and assigned to command the I Corps, Army of the Potomac. When McClellan moved to Fort Monroe to open his Peninsular campaign, this corps was retained, against the judgment of both generals, for the direct defense of Washington; it was later separated from McClellan's command entirely, and designated as the Army of the Rappahannock, McDowell retaining command of the troops and of the territorial Department of the Rappahannock. When, after the Peninsular campaign, most of McClellan's troops were transferred to General Pope's new Army of Virginia, McDowell's force became the III Corps of that army. At the second battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas), McDowell's conduct was severely criticized, and he was relieved of his command. He at once applied for an inquiry, and was ultimately exonerated, but was never afterward employed in the field. In 1864 he was assigned to territorial command in San Francisco; in 1868 he was transferred to the Department of the East, and in 1872 to that of the South. In that year he was promoted major-general in the regular army.

In 1876 he returned to San Francisco, where he remained until his retirement in 1882. He then took up his residence in that city, and interested himself in local affairs, serving as park commissioner until his death in 1885. In this capacity he planned the park improvement of the Presidio 'reservation, and laid out its roads overlooking the Golden Gate. He was buried on the reservation. He was married in 1849 to Helen Burden, of Troy, New York, and had four children, three of whom, a son and two daughters, survived him.

Although able, energetic, and devoted to his profession, McDowell was always unfortunate as a field commander. His previous service, while most creditable, had been entirely as a staff officer; until he took over the Army of the Potomac he had never held a command of his own, not even the smallest. In the preparation of his plans for Bull Run, he seemed instinctively to assume the position of a staff officer or second in command to General Scott, not that of the commander of an army; and in their execution he perhaps deferred too much to the views of his subordinates, and accepted situations instead of controlling them. But to control the situation that existed at that time would have required a most exceptional man, and no such man was found until much later in the war.

In person, McDowell was squarely and powerfully built. His manner was frank and agreeable. An appreciation of him by Secretary Chase exists, written September 4, 1862, just after the second battle of Manassas. According to this estimate he was loyal, brave, truthful, and capable; a good disciplinarian. Contrary to the usual customs of the time, he used neither alcohol nor tobacco. He was serious and earnest, never sought popularity, and had no political aims. In official relations, his manner was purely military; he seemed to disregard individuals, and did not as a rule arouse warm personal sentiment in officers or men.

[Personal and family information is taken chiefly from a letter to the writer from Mrs. Maud Appleton McDowell, a daughter-in-law, and from W. H. Russell, My Diary North and South (1863). An outline of McDowell's military career is found in G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); his reports and dispatches appear in War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); analyses of his action in command in R. M. Johnston, Bull Run: Its Strategy and Tactics (1913), J.B. Fry, McDowell and Tyler in the Campaign of Bull Run (1884), Thomas Worthington, A Correct History of Pope, McDowell and Fitzjohn Porter at the Second Battle of Bull Run (1880), and in his own Statement ... before the Court of inquiry (1863). See also memoir by G. W. Cullum in Sixteenth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1885); T. M. Green, History Families of Kentucky (1889); "Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War," Senate Report No. 108, 37 Congress, 3 Session; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); Daily Alta California (San Francisco), May 5, 1885.]

O.L.S., Jr.

T. M.



McPHERSON, JAMES BIRDSEYE (November 14, 1828-July 22, 1864), Union soldier, was born in Green Creek township, Sandusky County, Ohio, near the present town of Clyde. He was the son of William and Cynthia (Russell) McPherson. Appointed cadet at the United States Military Academy in 1849, he graduated in 1853 at the head of his class, and was assigned to the corps of engineers as brevet second lieutenant. For a year he was retained at the Academy as assistant instructor in practical engineering, and was then assigned to duty in connection with river and harbor improvement and seacoast fortification. Upon duty of this nature he continued, first on the Atlantic and then on the Pacific coast, until 1861; meanwhile, he was promoted second lieutenant, December 18, 1854, and first lieutenant, December 13, 1858.

The outbreak of the Civil War found him in San Francisco. He was ordered East, and employed on fortification work in Boston. Upon the enlargement of the regular army, May 14, 1861, he was offered a commission as captain in the new 19th Infantry, but declined it, and on August 6 reached the grade of captain in his own corps. When General Halleck assumed command in Missouri, he took McPherson with him as an aide-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel and later of colonel. He served first as assistant engineer, Department of Missouri, but when General Grant opened his Tennessee campaign in February 1862, he accompanied the expedition as chief engineer, and from that time on was constantly in the field. While before Corinth, May 15, 1862, he was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers; and after the occupation of that place he was made military superintendent of railways in the district of Western Tennessee. Of his services at this period, General Sherman said : "McPherson ... was one of the most useful staff-officers in the whole army-riding night and day .... I think he knew more of the lay . . . of the country around Corinth than any officer of the army" (Hours at Home, April 1866, pp. 485-86). His first command, small but unusual in character, resulted naturally from this employment. On October 2, Rosecrans, at Corinth, was heavily attacked by Van Dorn; the situation seemed critical, and Grant, at Jackson, Tennessee, made efforts to reinforce him. McPherson, then at headquarters in Jackson, was directed to collect four regiments stationed along the railway between there and Corinth, and report with them to Rosecrans. He moved by rail to within ten miles of Corinth, detrained, and marched the rest of the way, arriving too late to assist in the repulse of Van Dorn, but in time to lead the pursuit. For his conduct in this affair he was made major-general of volunteers, October 8, 1862, and, was assigned to command the 2nd Division, Department of the Tennessee; which command, on November 24, became the 2nd Division, XIII Army Corps. Later, January 18, 1863, the army, having been reinforced, was reorganized, and McPherson received command of the XVII Army Corps. He was actively employed throughout the entire Vicksburg campaign, and after the surrender (July 4, 1863) remained in command of the District of Vicksburg until the following March, participating meanwhile in Sherman's raid to Meridian. In recognition of his services before Vicksburg, he was made, August 1, 1863, brigadier-general in the regular army.

On March 18, 1864, Grant went east to assume direction of all the armies; Sherman succeeded him in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, and began preparations for his Atlanta campaign. McPherson took over Sherman's Army of the Tennessee, assuming command at Huntsville, March 26. At the head of this army he fought the entire campaign, up to the fortifications of Atlanta. At Kenesaw Mountain, the rapid and decisive movements of his force won for it the soldier nickname " the whiplash of the army." On July 22, the armies of the Cumberland and the Ohio were well established north and east of Atlanta. The Army of the Tennessee was directed to connect with the Army of the Ohio on its right, and extend its left to the south. While this movement was in progress, a Confederate turning movement against the left and rear developed. McPherson was at Sherman's headquarters, receiving his orders, and at once started to join his troops. Passing, with a single orderly, through a wood road which had been previously reconnoitered and found clear, he suddenly encountered hostile skirmishers who had penetrated between his XVI and XVII Corps, and was killed.

His death was one of the heaviest individual losses ever suffered by the Union forces. By his superiors, he was recognized as one of the ablest generals in the army. Energetic and ambitious, he welcomed responsibility and active service, but loyally and with no spirit of self-seeking. Grant, in a letter written upon leaving the western army, coupled Sherman and McPherson together as "the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success" (Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, post, I, 399). Sherman was equally emphatic in his praise. In the army at large his talents seemed to be fully recognized, and his advancement to corps and army command gave rise to little or no jealousy. A man of striking and pleasing appearance--over six feet in height, erect and well-proportioned-and possessed in a high degree of the faculty of command, he was able to gain the confidence and loyalty of his subordinates. Young and vigorous, he lived in close association with his troops, and bore his full share of hardship and exposure.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); Memoirs of General William T. Sherman (2 volumes, 1875); Person. al Memoirs of U. S. Grant (2 volumes, 1885-86); Hours at Home, March 1866; D. R. Keim, "The Life and Character of Major-General James B. McPherson," U. S. Service Magazine, October 1864; Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery ... of the State of Ohio, volume I (1883); Basil Meek, Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens (1909); Army and Navy Journal, July 30, 1864.]

O. L. S., Jr.



MEADE, GEORGE GORDON (December 31, 1815-November 6, 1872), soldier, the victor of Gettysburg, was born in Cadiz, Spain, where his father Richard Worsam Meade, 1778-1828 [q.v.], was naval agent for the United States. His mother, Margaret Coates (Butler) Meade, was the daughter of Anthony Butler, of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. His grandfather, George Meade [q.v.], a merchant of Philadelphia, contributed generously to the American cause in the Revolution. His father, after having lived in affluence in Spain, died in Washington, D. C., in poverty, through the failure of the government to pay a just debt. Because of this financial loss, young Meade had to be withdrawn from Mt. Airy School near Philadelphia and sent to one conducted by Salmon P. Chase in Washington. Afterward he attended a Mt. Hope school in Baltimore. Though his tastes pointed toward a collegiate education, lack of funds turned his attention toward West Point, where he became a cadet, September 1, 1831, having received an appointment upon his second application. While at the Academy he was not a particular admirer of the course, and determined to resign from the military service as soon as he could properly do so. He was graduated number nineteen among the fifty-six members of the class of 1835. During his graduation leave he helped with the survey of the Long Island Railroad. As brevet second lieutenant of the 3rd Artillery, he was ordered to Florida. Though he was advised not to go to that climate because of the weakness of his health, he arrived at the outbreak of the Seminole War. After serving a year in southern Florida, where he was stricken with fever which rendered him unfit for duty, he was ordered to Watertown Arsenal, Massachusetts, on ordnance work. There he resigned from the army, October 26, 1836, along with many others who foresaw little promotion in the service. He at once became assistant engineer of the Alabama, Florida, & Georgia Railroad. In 1839 he acted as principal assistant engineer on a survey of the mouths of the Mississippi. In 1840 he was one of the assistants to the joint commission for establishing the boundary between the United States and Texas. During the same year he returned to Washington, where he was married on his twenty-fifth birthday to Margaretta Sergeant, daughter of John Sergeant.

At work now as one of the civil assistants of the survey of the northeastern boundary, he determined with the new responsibilities of matrimony to apply for reinstatement in the army. Accordingly, on May 19, 1842, he was appointed a second lieutenant of Topographical Engineers, his classmates already having attained the rank of captain. As a military engineer he was continued on the northeastern boundary survey until the end of 1843, when he was transferred to Philadelphia in the work of designing and constructing lighthouses in the Delaware Bay. He was on this duty when, in August 1845, he was ordered to Aransay Bay, Texas, with Taylor's army of occupation. He arrived at Corpus Christi September 14, 1845, a young man in robust health, tall, gaunt, with a hatchet face and prominent aquiline nose. During the Mexican War he was engaged in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and was brevetted a first lieutenant (September 23, 1846) at Monterey for performing daring reconnaissances. He was then transferred to Scott's column, participating in the siege of Vera Cruz, whence, because of the superfluity of topographical engineers and the lack of opportunity for further active service, he was returned to Philadelphia. There he was presented by a body of citizens with a sword for his services in the war. From 1847 to 1849 he was employed in the construction of lighthouses in Delaware Bay and in making surveys and maps of the Florida reefs. In 1849 and 1850 he was in Florida in active service against the Seminoles. In 1850 and 1851 he was again in the Delaware Bay at work upon lighthouses and the Delaware breakwater. On August 4, 1851, he was promoted a first lieutenant of Topographical Engineers. In 1851 and 1852 he was in Florida at work upon the Iron Screw Pile Lighthouse on Corysfort Reef; and from 1852 to 1856 at Sand Key. He was promoted a captain of Topographical Engineers, May 17, 1856. He was then ordered to Detroit, Michigan, on the geodetic survey of the Great Lakes, his report of which was of such value as to place him in charge of the Northern Lake Surveys from 1857 to 1861.

When the Civil War broke out, Meade, through the efforts of Governor Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania, was made a brigadier-general of volunteers, August 31, 1861, and given one of the three Pennsylvania brigades with Reynolds and Ord. It was at this time that the close friendship between Reynolds and Meade began, to end only when Reynolds was killed early in the battle of Gettysburg. Meade's first active service in command of his brigade was in the defenses of Washington, D. C., where he assisted in the construction of Fort Pennsylvania, near Tennallytown. In March 1862, he was transferred with his command to McDowell's army, and after the evacuation of Manassas went into the Department of the Shenandoah. In June 1862 he was ordered to the Peninsula under McClellan, when (June 18) he was promoted to major in the Topographical Engineers of the regular army. His brigade took part in the battles of Mechanicsville, Gaines's Mill, and Glendale. At Glendale he received the wound which was to trouble him the remainder of his career and which was to be the indirect cause of his death. The ball entered just above the hip joint, indented his liver, and passed out near his spine. Simultaneously another ball hit his arm. In spite of these wounds he stuck to his horse, directed his subordinates in the action, and was forced to quit the field only through loss of blood. Though afterward his hat was riddled with bullets, his mounts were killed, and his leg was numbed by a shell, he was never again actually wounded. Before he was fully recovered at Philadelphia, he rejoined his command and participated in the Second Bull Run, August 29-30, 1862. When Reynolds' division at South Mountain, September 14, 1862, was without its leader, Meade was placed in temporary command. His successful and skilful advance elicited written praise from his superiors. At Antietam, on September 16-17, he again pressed forward with intrepidity until the ammunition of his troops was exhausted. When Hooker was carried off the field, Meade was placed in temporary command of the I Corps, which he led for the remainder of the battle. He was then engaged under McClellan in the pursuit of Lee to Falmouth, Virginia, in October and November 1862, during which time he was given the old division of Reynolds, who succeeded by rank to the command of Hooker's Corps. On November 29 Meade was made a major-general of volunteers, and on December 25 was given the regular command of the V Corps, after the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg. On January 26, 1863, he was placed in command of the Center Grand Division, composed of the III and VI Corps. On February 5, when Hooker abolished the grand divisions, Meade reverted to the command of the V Corps, which in the battle of Chancellorsville, May 24, 1863, gave an excellent account of itself in so far as Hooker used it.

It was because of Meade's insight and advice in this battle that Couch and Reynolds both recommended him to Washington as the next commander of the Army of the Potomac, though this act may not have affected the appointment. While leading his corps northward paralleling Lee, he was awakened in the early morning of June 28 by a messenger from the President, who delivered a letter placing him in command of the Army of the Potomac. Thoroughly surprised and displeased, he protested against his selection. Nevertheless, even with his handicaps and his unfamiliarity with Hooker's plans, he quickly adjusted himself to his new office and began at once to carry out his sudden and complicated mission. He at once issued orders for taking up a position on the line, Emmitsburg-Hanover, for the protection of Baltimore and Washington, thus concentrating his forces but making no attempt to destroy Lee's army. The Gettysburg position was an accident induced by a meeting engagement of advance elements. Though Meade generally handled his troops well, he has been criticized for not strengthening his flanks, for holding out no reserve, and for failure on July 2-3 to counter-attack and to pursue in exploitation of his success. His was no Napoleonic victory, nor did he display-doubtless because of the same heckling that had beset all early commanders of the Army of the Potomac-the aggressiveness that he had urged at Chancellorsville. But it must be remembered he had been given the command only five days before, that his troops were exhausted, and that the topography of the country favored an orderly retirement by the master soldier, Lee. On January 28, 1864, he received the thanks of Congress "for the skill and heroic valor which, at Gettysburg, repelled, defeated and drove back, broken and dispirited, beyond the Rappahannock, the veteran army of the Rebellion"; and after the battle he was promoted a brigadier-general in the regular army to rank from July 3, 1863. He was continued in sole command of the Army of the Potomac through the Rapidan campaign and the Mine Run operations. However, when Grant who had been made a lieutenant-general in command of all the Union forces, March 12, 1864, decided to accompany the main army in Virginia, Meade's powers were mechanically curtailed. It was an anomalous situation for both Grant and Meade, which, even with the deference Grant displayed, relegated Meade's work to the tactical rather than the strategical realm. But notwithstanding tense moments, when Meade's high-strung, scholarly nature grew irascible and petulant, he was unswervingly loyal to his superior and carried out the orders given him with skill and fidelity. He was retained in command of the Army of the Potomac continuously from Gettysburg to Appomattox, during which time he was promoted a major-general in the regular army, August 18, 1864.

At the close of the war he was placed successively in command of the Military Division of the Atlantic, and the Department of the East with headquarters at Philadelphia. On January 2, 1868, he was transferred to Atlanta, Georgia, in command of the third military district of the Department of the South, comprising the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. He served there until March 12, 1869, when he was transferred to the command of the Military Division of the Atlantic with headquarters in Philadelphia. His work in the South was unusually trying and responsible, because of the almost impossible task of administering the unjust reconstruction laws. His uncompromising attitude and sense of fairness were able to make tolerable a most difficult situation (C. M. Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, 1915, pp. 179-85). From 1866 until his death he acted as commissioner of Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, the plan and beautification of which are ascribed to his energies more than to those of any other. On October 31, 1872, while taking his daily walk from his office with his wife, he was attacked with a violent pain on the side of his old wound. It was the second time since the war that pneumonia had overtaken him. He died November 6, 1872. There had been six children from his marriage, four sons and two daughters.

Meade's outstanding qualities were soundness and steadfastness. His mind was scientific, and his convictions were deep-seated. These traits, coupled with an intense honesty and unswerving adherence to what he believed to be the truth, often brought him into heated contentions with inferiors and superiors, regardless of person or place. He was not a popular type, but in the field of efficiency his rugged, lofty character outweighed any possible defects of tact.

[George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade (2 volumes, 1913); R. M. Bache, Life of General George Gordon Meade (I 897); I. R. Pennypacker, General Meade (1901); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U. S. Military Academy, volume I (1891); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); Civil War Pamphlets, War College Library, Washington, D. C.; obituary in Philadelphia Press, November 7, 1872.]

W.A.G.



MEAGHER, THOMAS FRANCIS (August 23, 1823-July 1, 1867), politician, lawyer, soldier, was born in Waterford, Ireland, the son of Thomas Meagher, a wealthy merchant in the Newfoundland trade, who for a time represented his district in Parliament. His mother, of the well-known family of Quan, died while Thomas Francis was yet an infant. He attended the Jesuit college of Clongowes-Wood, Kildare (1833-39), and the English college of Stonyhurst, near Preston, Lancashire (1839-43). He joined the Young Ireland party in the year 1845 and in 1846 made his first appearance as a public speaker at the great national meeting at Kilkenny, over which Daniel O'Connell presided. In the following year he became one of the founders of the Irish Confederation and a member of the so-called ''War Directory," and in April 1848 went to France in its interest, bringing back to the city of Dublin an Irish tri-color. Meagher made presentation of the flag the occasion for an incendiary speech, and was arrested July 11, 1848, charged with sedition. In October he was tried for high treason at Clonmel and condemned to death. The sentence of the court was commuted and in July 1849 he was banished to Tasmania, where on February 22, 1851, he was married to a Miss Bennett, daughter of a farmer. Escaping in January 1852, he arrived in the United States in the following May, took out citizenship papers in August, and became the virtual leader of the Irish element in New York City. He lectured throughout the East with considerable success, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1855, became editor of the Irish News in 1856, and practised law from 1856 to 1861. His first wife had died in Ireland in 1854, and on November 14, 1855, he was married to Elizabeth Townsend of Southfield, New Jersey.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Meagher organized in 1861 a company of Zouaves which became part of the 69th Volunteers. With his regiment he took part in the first battle of Bull Run, where he had a horse shot under him while acting as a field-officer. In the winter of 1861- 62 he organized in New York City the Irish Brigade, and became its commander, February 3, 1862, participating in the battles of the Peninsular Campaign, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. When his brigade was so decimated as to be non-effective, Meagher resigned his commission and returned to New York City where, June 25, 1863, he was banqueted by a number of leading citizens and presented with a gold medal. Early in 1864 he was reappointed a brigadier-general and in November took over command of the district of Etowah. In the following January he joined General Sherman's army at Savannah, where he was mustered out of the service with the coming of peace. Later in 1865 he was appointed territorial secretary of Montana, and after his arrival in October served for a year as temporary governor in the absence of Governor Sidney Edgerton. He encountered many obstacles in the administration of his office. In July 1867, while engaged in a reconnoissance on the Missouri River near Fort Benton, he fell from the deck of a steamer and was drowned. Meagher published Speeches on the Legislative Independence of Ireland (1853), The Last Days of the 69th in Virginia (1861), and other letters and papers.

[Michael Cavanagh, Memoirs of General Thos. Francis Meagher (1892); W. F. Lyons, Brigadier-General Thos. F. Meagher (1870); C. G. Bowers, The Irish Orators (1916); J. C. O'Meagher, Some History Notes of the O'Meaghers of Ikerrin (1893); New York Times, July 8, 1867.]

C. D. R.



MEIGS, MONTGOMERY CUNNINGHAM (May 3, 1816-January 2, 1892), soldier, engineer, was born in Augusta, Georgia, the son of Dr. Charles Delucena Meigs [q.v.] and of Mary (Montgomery) Meigs of Philadelphia. He was an elder brother of John Forsyth Meigs [q. v.]. During his childhood the family moved from Georgia to Philadelphia, where he matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1831. He later entered the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1836, fifth in his class. After temporary assignment to the artillery, he was transferred to the engineer corps of the Army, and thereafter, for a quarter of a century, his conspicuous ability was devoted to many important engineering projects. Of these, his favorite was the Washington Aqueduct, carrying a large part of the water supply from the Great Falls of the Potomac to the city of Washington. This work, of which he was in charge from November 1852 to September 1860, involved not only the devising of ingenious methods of controlling the flow and distribution of the water, but also the design of the monumental bridge across Cabin John Branch which for some fifty years remained unsurpassed as the longest masonry arch in the world. To this task was added from 1853 to 1859 the supervision of the building of the wings and dome of the national Capitol, and from 1855 to 1859, of the extension of the General Post Office building, as well as the direction of many minor works of construction. In the fall of 1860, as a result of a disagreement over certain contracts, Meigs "incurred the ill with of the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd," and was "banished to Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico to construct fortifications at that place and at Key West" (Abbot, post, p. 317). Upon the resignation of Floyd a few months later, however, he was recalled to his work on the aqueduct at Washington.

Here, in the critical days preceding the actual outbreak of the Civil War, Meigs and Lieutenant Colonel E. D. Keyes were quietly charged by President Lincoln and Secretary Seward with drawing up a plan for the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida, by means of a secret expedition; and in April 1861, together with Lieutenant D. D. Porter of the Navy, they carried out the expedition, embarking under orders from the President without the knowledge of either the Secretary of the Navy or the Secretary of war. On May 14, 1861, Meigs was appointed colonel, nth Infantry, and on the following day, promoted to brigadier-general, he became quartermaster-general of the Army, in which capacity he served throughout the war. Of his work in this office James G. Blaine remarked: "Montgomery C. Meigs, one of the ablest graduates of the Military Academy, was kept from the command of troops by the inestimably important services he performed as Quartermaster-General. . . . Perhaps in the military history of the world there was never so large an amount of money disbursed upon the order of a single man. . . . The aggregate sum could not have been less during the war than fifteen hundred millions of dollars, accurately vouched and accounted for to the last cent." (Twenty Years in Congress, volume II, 1886, p. 30.) William H. Seward's estimate was "that without the services of this eminent soldier the national cause must have been lost or deeply imperilled" (letter, May 28, 1867, from the Secretary of State, asking the good offices of diplomatic officers for General Meigs during a tour of Europe; in possession of the family). His brilliant services during the hostilities included command of Grant's base of supplies at Fredericksburg and Belle Plain (1864), command of a division of War Department employes in the defenses of Washington at the time of Early's raid (July 11-14, 1864), personally supervising the refitting and supplying of Sherman's army at Savannah (January 5-29, 1865), -and at Goldsboro and Raleigh, North Carolina, reopening Sherman's lines of supply (March-April 1865). He was brevetted major-general July 5, 1864.

As quartermaster-general after the Civil War, Meigs supervised plans for the new War Department building (1866-67), the National Museum (1876), the extension of the Washington Aqueduct (1876), and for a hall of records (1878). In 1867-68, to recuperate from the strain of his war service, he visited Europe, and in 1875-76 made another visit to study the government of European armies. After his retirement on February 6, 1882, he became architect of the Pension Office building. He was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, member of the American Philosophical Society, and one of the earliest members of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1888, although he "was not a literary person and had no taste for writing except of official reports of work done," at the request of the editors of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War he submitted an article on the relations of Lincoln and Seward to the military commanders during the war which was apparently intended as a reply to some of the statements in McClellan's Own Story (1887). It was not printed, however, until long after the author's death, when it appeared as a "document” in the American Historical Review (January 1921).

Meigs died in Washington after a short illness and his body was interred with high military honors in the National Cemetery at Arlington. The General Orders (January 4, 1892) issued at the time of his death declared that "the Army has rarely possessed an officer ... who was entrusted by the government with a greater variety of weighty responsibilities, or who proved himself more worthy of confidence." In 1841 he had married Louisa Rodgers, daughter of Commodore John Rodgers, 1773-1838 [q.v.]. Four of their seven children lived to maturity, but one of these, John Rodgers Meigs, a lieutenant of engineers, was killed in action during the Civil War.

[G. W. Cullum, in Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy Annual Reunion, 1892; H. L. Abbot, in National Academy Science Biography Memoirs, volume III (1895); the Times (London), January 4, 1892; H. B. Meigs, Record of the Descendants of Vincent Meigs (1901); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891)  Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887- 88); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); J . G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (1890), esp. volumes III, IV; American History Review, January 1921, containing many other references; Washington Post, January 3, 1892; information as to certain facts from Meigs's grandson, Colonel J. R. M. Taylor.]  

C. D. R.



MERRITT, WESLEY (June 16, 1834-December 3, 1910), soldier, seventh in descent from Thomas Merritt who came to America in the seventeenth century, was the fourth of eleven children born to John Willis Merritt and his wife Julia Anne (de Forest). The father was a lawyer, but in 1841, after financial reverses suffered during the crisis of 1837, abandoned his profession, and moved his family West to Illinois. After a few years of farming he turned to journalism, editing the Bellville Advocate and then the Salem Advocate and eventually being elected to the legislature. Wesley Merritt attended the school of the Christian Brothers and studied law with Judge Haynie in Sal em, but when the opportunity came to him, in 1855, entered the United States Military Academy. The appointment had been tendered first to his younger brother, Edward, who did not wish to accept it, and it is the year of Edward's birth that still stands on the army records.

Upon graduation in 1860 Merritt was commissioned second lieutenant of dragoons. The following year, promoted first lieutenant, he served as aide-de-camp to General Philip St. George Cooke [q.v.], commanding the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac. He was promoted captain in 1862, and on June 29, 1863, was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers. He commanded the reserve cavalry brigade at Gettysburg, and received the brevet of major in the regular establishment for bravery there. Following continuous service in Virginia, he was brevetted major-general of volunteers in 1864, and commissioned in the same rank in 1865. In the meantime he was successively brevetted lieutenant- colonel, colonel, brigadier-general and major-general, United States Army, for meritorious services. He was present at Appomattox,, then became chief of cavalry in the Department of Texas, and was mustered out of the voluntary service February 1, 1866, resuming his regular rank. Later that year he became lieutenant-colonel, 9th Cavalry, and ten years later colonel, 5th Cavalry. Until 1879 his service was principally in the West in connection with Indian disturbances.

From September 1, 1882, to June 30, 1887, he was superintendent of the United States Military Academy. Commissioned brigadier-general April 10, 1887, he assumed command of the Department of the Missouri in July. He later commanded the Department of Dakota, and then the Department of the Missouri, with headquarters at Chicago from 1895 to 1897, being promoted to the grade of major-general, April 25, 1895. The post at Chicago was considered a territorial command second in importance only to that of the Department of the East, and in 1897 Merritt succeeded to the latter command with headquarters at Governor's Island, New York.

The war with Spain brought larger responsibilities. On May 16, 1898, he was given command of the first Philippine Expedition. Sailing from San Francisco June 29, he arrived at Cavite, Manila Bay, July 25, where Dewey's fleet was anchored. Landing immediately, he assumed command of the American forces investing Manila, July 27, 1898. These forces, about two miles from the Spanish defenses, extended from the Bay to a point not far therefrom where the Philippine insurgents, under command of General Aguinaldo, continued the investment. The insurgents also had other forces between the American and Spanish lines. Since the American officers had been instructed to avoid an appearance of an alliance with the insurgents, and at the same time were hardly disposed to treat them as enemies, the situation presented extraordinary difficulties. On August 6, Merritt and Dewey entered into communication with the Spanish commander, with a view to preventing suffering to non-combatants in case an attack should be necessary. Meanwhile, through one of his officers, General F. V. Greene [q.v.], Merritt had tried to persuade the insurgents "to move out of the way" (Dewey, post, p. 270). On August 9 a formal joint demand was made for the surrender of Manila. When this was refused Merritt decided, after consultation with Dewey, to try to carry the extreme right. of the Spanish line of entrenchments without bombarding the city. Early in the morning of the 13th, after a short naval bombardment of the Spanish entrenchments, the attack was opened and was almost immediately successful, although there were numerous casualties on both sides. An exploitation of the attack brought the whole city into American possession, with the exception of the Walled City, which shortly after surrendered. Merritt's official report summarizes the operations as follows: "I submit that for troops to enter under fire a town covering a wide area, to rapidly deploy and guard all principal points in the extensive suburbs, to keep out the insurgent forces pressing for admission, to quietly disarm an army of Spaniards more than equal in numbers to the American troops, and finally by all this to prevent entirely all rapine, pillage, and disorder, and gain entire and complete possession of a city of 300,000 people filled with natives hostile to the European interests and stirred up by the knowledge that their own people were fighting in the outside trenches, was an act which only the law-abiding, temperate, resolute American soldier, well and skillfully handled by his regimental and brigade commanders, could accomplish."

On August 14, the day after the capture of the city, Merritt issued a proclamation to the people of the Philippine Islands establishing military government therein, and entered on duty as military governor. Two days later he received the president's proclamation directing the cessation of hostilities. During his short governorship, in addition to setting up an administrative machine, he was under the necessity of conducting negotiations with Aguinaldo with regard to the location and conduct of the Philippine insurgents, who were much dissatisfied at not being permitted to occupy Manila. On August 28 he was ordered to France, for conference with the Peace Commission, and on completion of this duty, December 10, returned to America, arriving December 19. Relieved as military governor of the Philippines, he resumed his old command of the Department of the East, returning to Governor's Island, where he completed his military career. He retired at the statutory age of sixty-four, in June 1900.

In appearance as in character, Merritt was representative of the best in the United States Army of his day. A fine looking man of strong will and wide experience, he was highly competent, and at the same time modest and agreeable. He was twice married: in 1871, to Caroline Warren of Cincinnati, Ohio; and in 1898, at London, to Laura Williams of Chicago. He died at Natural Bridge, Virginia, and was buried at the United States Military Academy.

[Personnel files, War Department; files Army War College; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates, U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), and supplementary volumes; Forty-Second Annual Reunion Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1911); Who's Who in America, 1910-11; Douglas Merritt, Revised Merritt Records (1916); Autobiography of George Dewey (1913); Army and Navy Journal, December 10, 1910; information as to certain facts from a cousin, Mrs. J. M. Chance, Kensington, Maryland]

J.N.G.



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volume VI, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.