T-V: Terry through Vinton

Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography

TERRY, ALFRED HOWE (November 10, 1827- December 16, 1890), soldier, was a descendant of Samuel Terry who settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1650. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest soft of Alfred and Clarissa (Howe) Terry, he entered the Yale Law School in 1848, but on admission to the bar the following year left without graduating. He was clerk of the superior court of New Haven County, 1854-60. Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War he was commissioned colonel of the 2nd Connecticut Militia, a three months' regiment, and participated in the first battle of Bull Run. On the expiration of his service, he returned to Connecticut, and with Joseph R. Hawley [q.v.] soon raised the 7th Connecticut Volunteers for three years or the duration of the war. Terry was commissioned colonel and Hawley lieutenant-colonel. This regiment took part in the capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861 and subsequently in the bombardment, siege, and capture of Fort Pulaski, Georgia, April 10-11, 1862. On April 25 Terry was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers. After the attempted advance on Charleston across James Island had been turned back by the repulse at Secessionville, June 16, he was stationed for some months at Hilton Head, taking part in the action at Pocotaligo Bridge, South Carolina, October 22. On October 29, 1862, he was placed in command of the forces on Hilton Head. To supplement the naval operations of Rear Admiral Samuel Francis du Pont [q.v.] off Charleston, in the summer of 1863 the army under General Quincy Adams Gillmore [q.v.], in cooperation with Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren [q.v.], conducted a siege of Battery Wagner, Morris Island, South Carolina Terry's command was sent on a diversion up the Stono River to James Island, whence it soon returned and advanced along Morris Island to reenforce the siege. Later in 1863, Terry was transferred to the Army of the James under General B. F. Butler, and during 1864 was engaged mainly in operations against Richmond and Petersburg. On August 26, 1864, he was brevetted major-general of volunteers, After the failure of Butler's expedition against Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in December 1864, Grant assigned the same task to practically the same military forces under Terry, adding only one small brigade and a siege train which was not used. On  January 15, 1865, the fort was taken by a series of assaults after severe bombardments by the fleet under Rear Admiral David D. Porter [q.v.]. Terry's report, dated  January 25, 1865, is the most detailed and comprehensive description of that action (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Army, I series XL VI, part I, pp. 394-400). He was advanced as of  January 15, 1865, to brigadier-general in the regular army and received the thanks of Congress with particular reference to the capture of Fort Fisher. Following that supreme accomplishment of his military career, he occupied Wilmington, North Carolina, in cooperation with General John M. Schofield [q.v.] and soon thereafter started with the X Corps to join General William T. Sherman, then coming up from Georgia. A junction was made near Goldsboro, North Carolina, and for a time Terry and his corps served under Schofield in the Army of the Ohio. On April 20, 1865, he was commissioned major-general of volunteers. After the war Terry was mustered out of the volunteer service, and in 1866, as a regular officer, assumed command of the Department of Dakota, with headquarters at St. Paul and later at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. In 1868 he was transferred to the Department of the South, but in December 1872 was returned to the Northwest, where he continued at the head of the Department of Dakota during the exploration of the Black Hills in 1874 and the Sioux war, taking the field in personal command of the expedition from Fort Abraham Lincoln on the Missouri River in Dakota to the Yellowstone-Big Horn region of Montana in the summer of 1876. The disaster to the force under General George A. Custer [q.v.] at the Little Big Horn, June 25, 1876, led to a controversy as to whether or not Custer had disobeyed or exceeded Terry's order of June 22, but Terry never made any statement on that point, preferring (it is generally believed) to accept responsibility and criticism rather than create an issue (see Hughes, post). His assignments to the Northwest covered the most important period of railroad construction and development in the present North and South Dakota and Montana. On March 3, 1886, he was advanced to the full rank of major-general, and on April 9 was placed in command of the Division of the Missouri, with headquarters at Chicago. He was retired for disability, April 5, 1888. Terry was a member of several boards and commissions, notably the Indian Commission created by Congress in 1867 to treat with the Plains Indians. He was the ranking officer in the attempted negotiations with Sitting Bull in the fall of 1877, and a member of the board of army officer s appointed in 1878 to review the court martial and sentence of General Fitz-John Porter [q.v.]. Terry was a thorough student of the science and art of war. He was about six feet in height, straight, vigorous and active. A conspicuous trait was his ability to cooperate with superiors, equals, or subordinates. He never wrote for publication outside of numerous official reports of a high order. He was one of very few Civil War volunteer officers who reached the highest permanent rank in the regular army; for a considerable time he was the first general officer on the army list not a West Point graduate. After retirement, he returned to New Haven, where he died. He was unmarried. A full length portrait of him hangs in Memorial Hall, Connecticut State Building, Hartford.

[Stephen Terry, Notes of Terry Families in the U. S. A. (1887); Record of Service of Connecticut Men ... during the War of the Rebellion (1889); Stephen Walkley, History of the Seventh Connecticut Volunteer Infantry (1905); A. D. Osborne, The Capture of Fort Fisher by Major General Alfred H. Terry and What It Accomplished (New Haven Colony Historical Society, 1911); War of the Rebellion, Official Records (Army) and (Navy) both, for operations along the Atlantic Coast; F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U.S. Army (1903), volume I; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88). D. D. Porter, The Naval History of the Civil War (1886); Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, volume II. (1886) and Memoirs of General Wm. T. Sherman (2 volumes, 1875); J. M. Schofield, Forty-six Years in the Army (1897); Nelson A. Miles, Personal Recollections (1896); R. P. Hughes (Terry's brother-in-law), " The Campaign against the Sioux in 1876," Journal of the Military Service Institute, January 1896; General Orders, Hdqrs. Army, Washington, December 16, 1890; Army and Navy Journal, December 20, 1890; Harper's Weekly, December 27, 1890; Sun (New York), December 17, 1890.)

R. B.



THAYER, JOHN MILTON (January 24, 1820- March 19, 1906), lawyer, soldier, politician, was born at Bellingham, Massachusetts, the youngest of nine children of Captain Elias Thayer and his wife, Mrs. Ruthe T. Staples, and a descendant of Thomas Thayer who settled at Braintree before 1647. He was reared upon a farm and educated in a district school. After some experience as a rural teacher he attended Brown University from which he was graduated with honor in 1841. He then read law in Worcester, was admitted to the Worcester County bar, and practised until about 1854. During this time he became a lieutenant of the Worcester Light Infantry, and, for a while, was editor of the Worcester Magazine and Historical Journal. In the spring of 1854 he made an exploratory expedition to Nebraska and in the autumn moved with his family to Omaha where he acquired land and engaged in farming. In the following year he was admitted to the bar in Nebraska. Indian troubles arose and he was commissioned the first brigadier-general of the territorial militia. He led expeditions against the Pawnee Indians in 1855 and 1859, and at the outbreak of the Civil War was commissioned colonel of the 1st Nebraska Volunteers. He served with distinction with the army of the West throughout the war and returned home at its conclusion, having been brevetted major-general of volunteers. His political career began in the territorial council of 1860. He was a member of the constitutional conventions of 1860 and 1866 and was elected one of the first United States senators from Nebraska on the Republican ticket. He served from 1867 to 1871. In the reconstruction contests he was an ardent and active radical. He served on various committees: Military Affairs, Indian Affairs, Patents and Patent Office, and Enrollment of Bills. He was an ardent supporter of Pres ident Grant's administration. His best work in Congress was relative to Indian affairs. Of this subject he had first-hand knowledge and offered realistic solutions in contrast to the idealism of his fellow radicals from the Northeast. President Grant appointed him governor of Wyoming Territory, 1875-79. On his return to Nebraska he became especially active in the G.A.R. and acted in the capacity of state commander-a position yielding much publicity. He was elected governor on the Republican ticket in 1886 and reelected two years later. Although not a candidate for reelection in 1890 ne brought suit against Governor James E. Boyd on the grounds that the latter was not a citizen of the United States and secured a decision from the Nebraska Supreme Court that left him in the governorship until this decision was reversed by the United States Supreme Court in 1892 (143 U.S., 135). Thayer's career as governor was not distinctive. His imposing personal appearance, his military experiences, and his willingness to conform to the demands of his party were his primary assets. In the contests between the anti-monopolists and the railroads he occupied a neutral position. At the expiration of his governorship, he retired to live in Lincoln. The federal government voted him a liberal pension. His wife, Mary Torrey Allen, to whom he had been married in Sterling, Massachusetts, on December 27, 1842, and four of his six children preceded Thayer in death.

[Who's Who in America, 1906-07; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (1928); Vital Records of Bellingham, Massachusetts (1904); G. F. Partridge, History of the Town of Bellingham (1919); H. L. Adams, Worcester Light Infantry (1924); J. S. Morton, Illustrated History of Nebraska, volumes I (1905), III (1913); T. W. Tipton, Forty Years of Nebraska, Proc. and Collections, Nebraska State Historical Society, 2 series, volume IV (1902); Congressional Globe, 40 and 41 Congress, 1867-1869; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (see Index); R. D. Rowley, "Judicial Career of Samuel Maxwell," Master’s thesis, Univ. of Nebraska, 1928; for date of marriage, Massachusetts Spy (Worcester),  January 11, 1843; Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln), March 20, 1906.]

J. L. S.



THOMAS, GEORGE HENRY (July 31,1816-March28, 1870), soldier, was born in Southampton County, in southeastern Virginia, the son of John and Elizabeth (Rochelle) Thomas. The family, on his father's side, was Welsh and English; on his mother's, French Huguenot. He received his early education in the local Southampton Academy and began the study of law, serving meanwhile as deputy to his uncle, James Rochelle, clerk of the county court. Through the influence of this uncle he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy, entered in 1836, and was graduated in 1840, number twelve in a class of forty-two members. Among his classmates were William T. Sherman and Richard S. Ewell [qq.v.]. He received his commission as second lieutenant in the 3rd Artillery, then on field service in the Florida War. He remained in Florida for two years, and received the brevet rank of first lieutenant for gallantry in action against the Indians; then he served in several Southern garrisons, receiving his promotion to the substantive grade of first lieutenant in 1844. The following year he was assigned to Bragg's light battery with Taylor's force in Texas, and served throughout Taylor's Mexican campaign. He was brevetted captain and major for gallantry at Monterey and Buena Vista. He again served in Indian troubles in Florida, and then was an instructor in artillery and cavalry at West Point, 1851-54, being promoted, meanwhile, to the rank of captain.

Upon relief at the Academy he went with a detachment of his regiment via Panama to California, and to Fort Yuma, where he served for a year. He then accepted a commission as major in the newly raised 2nd (later designated as the 5th) Cavalry, and joined at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. In this regiment, Albert S. Johnston was colonel, Robert E. Lee lieutenant-colonel, and William J. Hardee the other major; in it served many other officers who later became famous, including the Federal general George Stoneman, and the Confederate generals John B. Hood, Fitzhugh Lee, and Earl Van Dorn [qq.v.]. He served with the new regiment in Texas, and on garrison and exploration duty. On one of his exploring expeditions he was wounded in the face by an Indian arrow. On November 1, 1860, he was granted a twelve months' leave of absence and was in the East at the outbreak of the Civil War.

In spite of his Southern birth, Thomas decided to remain with the Union army, and on April 14 he joined his regiment at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In April he became a lieutenant-colonel, and in May a colonel. He commanded a brigade in the opening operations in the Shenandoah Valley. On August 17, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers and assigned to duty in Kentucky, organizing new troops. In November 1861, he assumed command of the 1st Division, Army of the Ohio, and won the small but decisive action of Mill Springs on January 19, 1862. His command was then withdrawn to Louisville and took part in Buell's advance to Nashville and to Pittsburg Landing. Here, on April 25, 1862, he was promoted major-general of volunteers, and commanded the right wing of Halleck’s army in the advance to and capture of Corinth. He remained in command of the garrison at that place until June 22, when, with his own division, he was reassigned to Buell's army with which he served during the campaign against Bragg in Kentucky. Buell's retreat to Louisville caused dissatisfaction in Washington, and on September 29 Thomas received orders to supersede him. Thomas declined the command, pointing out that Buell had already issued orders for the offensive, and served as Buell's second in command in the Perryville operations in October.

On October 30 General Rosecrans replaced Buell. Thomas, although he had declined to supersede Buell himself, protested against serving under Rosecrans, a former junior; but the president antedated Rosecrans' commission to make him senior, and Thomas promptly acquiesced and served under him loyally. The command was several times reorganized, and was finally designated the Army of the Cumberland; Thomas' own command became the XIV Army Corps, one of three corps in the army. This corps he commanded at Stones River (December 31-January 3), and in the Tullahoma campaign in June and July 1863, which pushed Bragg out of Tennessee. Early in September, Rosecrans crossed the Tennessee River and maneuvered Bragg out of Chattanooga as he had out of the Tullahoma lines. In this process his army became widely extended, and Bragg, having been reenforced by Longstreet's corps from Virginia, made an effort to cut him off from Chattanooga. He succeeded in concentrating in time, and took position OP Chickamauga Creek. Of this line, Thomas' corps formed the left, or northern flank.

The battle of Chickamauga began on September 19, but the heaviest fighting came the next day. Bragg's attack came first upon Thomas' position, which was reenforced progressively by parts of other corps. Toward noon, a gap opened on Thomas' right through an erroneous movement by a, division not at the time engaged, and Longstreet penetrated the lines. Thomas' right was violently bent back, and all the troops south of that point were driven in disorder across Missionary Ridge, where they took the road to Chattanooga. Rosecrans, whose headquarters were behind the right wing, was carried to the rear by what seemed the rout of his whole force. Thomas, however, was still in the field with over half the army. His line was bent into horseshoe shape, but not broken; and here he stood all day, earning his title, "the Rock of Chickamauga." After dark, he drew off to Rockville, five miles to the north, and he retired unmolested to Chattanooga. For this service he was promoted brigadier-general in the regular army on October 27, 1863.

The situation at Chattanooga was critical. The army was in a state of siege, its supply being so reduced as to place it in a starving condition. All the energy of the North was turned toward its relief, active operations elsewhere being suspended. Grant was given supreme command in the West, and directed upon Chattanooga his own old Army of the Tennessee, now under Sherman; Hooker was sent by rail from Washington with two corps of the Army of the Potomac; Rosecrans was relieved from command of the Army of the Cumberland, and Thomas put in his place. Grant's first telegram to him directed that Chattanooga be held "at all hazards." Thomas replied, "We will hold the town till we starve"-which seemed not a mere rhetorical expression, for the men, to use their own language, were on "half rations of hard bread and beef dried on the hoof" (see Van Horne, post, p. 156). By the use of Hooker's command. a new and direct line of supply was opened; and when Sherman finally assumed his position on November 23, after having been delayed by bad weather, Grant was ready to undertake a general offensive. As a first move, Thomas made a reconnaissance in force on November 23, which cleared up the question of Bragg's strength and position, and secured favorable ground for the decisive action, but which also served to put Bragg on his guard. On the following two days was fought the battle that forced Bragg back from Chattanooga. Thomas' right, under Hooker, seized Lookout Mountain; the rest of his army carried Missionary Ridge.

Operations during the winter were of minor character, but in May 1864 Sherman's Atlanta campaign began. In this campaign, Thomas' Army of the Cumberland constituted over half of Sherman's entire force. It was constantly engaged, was in every offensive move, and bore the brunt of the only serious Confederate counter-stroke-Hood's attack at Peachtree Creek, Georgia, on July 20. Troops of this Army received the surrender of Atlanta and were first to enter the city. Thomas now suggested that his army be detached from Sherman's command, and sent on a march to the sea. When it was decided that Sherman's main force should make this movement, it became necessary to form a new army to oppose Hood in the west; Thomas was designated to command it, and was ordered to Nashville in October. The nucleus of his force, 35,000 men, was furnished from Sherman's army, but it was necessary to collect another 35,000 by drawing in detachments, even from beyond the Mississippi, and by bringing new troops from the north. Hood began his advance northward late in November. Thomas kept his entire field force, under Schofield, in front of Hood, delaying him. This force, having held out so long as almost to be cut off, finally took position at Franklin, vigorously checked Hood there on November 30, and then withdrew into Nashville. General Grant insisted strongly upon an immediate offensive by Thomas' whole force, but the latter insisted that he was not yet strong enough to gain a decisive victory, and that nothing less should be considered. On this point he remained firm, although his fitness for independent command and even his loyalty, were seriously questioned. It is a moot question whether Thomas did not seriously jeopardize the success of the campaign as a whole by his insistence. On December 9 Grant directed that he be relieved, and Schofield put in his place; but meanwhile Thomas reported himself ready to move, and the order was suspended. A violent storm, with snow and ice, caused another delay. Grant then dispatched General Logan with orders to supersede Thomas; and he himself started from the James River for Nashville on December 15. But before either arrived, Thomas had moved. In a two days' battle, December 15-16, he fully vindicated his plan of action, and administered so severe a defeat to Hood that his army played no further important part in the war. He was promoted to the rank of a major-general in the regular army and on March 3, 1865, received the thanks of Congress.

He remained in command in this region for the rest of the war, and for some years after. In 1868 President Johnson sent his name to the Senate for promotion to the brevet ranks of lieutenant-general and general, but, believing that the purpose of these promotions was to use him as an instrument for displacing General Grant in command of the army, he declined, saying that the honor was too great for his services since the war, and came too late to be acceptable for war service. In the same year he was strongly urged to become a candidate for the presidency, but he refused to allow his name to be used. In June 1869, he assumed command of the Military Division of the Pacific, at San Francisco, California, where he died of apoplexy, leaving a widow but no children. He was buried at Troy, New York, the home of his wife, Frances Lucretia Kellogg, to whom he had been married on November 17, 1852.

Thomas was a man of fine presence-six feet in height and weighing about 200 pounds. He was studious in his habits, deliberate but decided in action, and fastidious to the point of exasperation. He is said to have remarked to a less tidy officer, "The fate of an army may depend on a buckle" (B. A. Liddell Hart, Sherman, 1930, p. 257). He was respected by his superiors and beloved by his subordinates; at the same time, his deliberateness was often looked upon as sluggishness, and his Southern birth sometimes led to suspicion of luke warmness. Even his various nicknames are indicative of his dominant traits of character: as a cadet, he was called "Old Tom"; as an instructor, "Slow Trot"; and in the Army of the Cumberland, "Pap Thomas." His military reputation, however, may rest upon the judgments of two superiors. Sherman, although sometimes impatient at Thomas' deliberateness, remarked on one occasion, "I wish Old Thom was here! he's my off-wheel horse" (W. F. G. Shanks, Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals, 1866, p. 58). And Grant writes (Personal Memoirs, volume II, 1886, p. 525), that although Thomas could hardly have conducted the offensive operations of the Atlanta campaign as Sherman did, he could have handled Johnston's problem in that campaign to perfection; that his dispositions were always good, and that he could not be driven from a point he was given to hold.

[Letters filed with the manuscript "Reports of General Officers," Old Records Division, Adjutant-General's Office, War Department; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates, U. S. Military Academy (1891); T. B. Van Horne, The Life of Major-General George H. Thomas (1882); Henry Coppee, General Thomas (1893); R. W. Johnson, Memoir of Major-General George H. Thomas (1881); Timothy Hopkins, The Kelloggs in The Old World and The New (1903), volume I; Morning Bulletin (San Francisco, California), March 29, 1870; New York Tribune, March 30, 1870.]

O. L. S., Jr.



THOMAS, LORENZO (October 1804-March 2, 1875), soldier, was born in New Castle, Delaware, the son of Evan and Elizabeth (Sherer) Thomas. There was a military tradition in the Thomas family and in 1819 Lorenzo entered the United States Military Academy. At his graduation in 1823 he stood seventeen th in his class and was made a second lieutenant in the 4th Infantry. Subsequently he rose to the rank of major (1848) in this regiment. Except for service a s quarter master in the Seminole War (1836-37), his early duties were mostly of a routine nature. He was appointed assistant adjutant-general at Washington in 1838, with the rank of brevet major, and remained there almost continuously until 1846, when he joined the volunteer division of Major-General William O. Butler [q.v.] as chief of staff during the Mexican War. " For gallant and meritorious conduct" at Monterey he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, September 23, 1846. At the close of the war he returned to his duties as assistant adjutant-general at Washington and continued in that capacity until designated a s chief of staff to Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott in 1853. Upon the resignation of Colonel Samuel Cooper [q.v.], the adjutant-general of the army, Thomas was promoted to a colonelcy and put in charge of that office, March 7, 1861. Five months later he was made adjutant-general and g iv en the rank of brigadier-general. Like other bureaus of the War Department, when the Civil War cam e, the office over which Thomas presided proved hopelessly inadequate in equipment and personnel and gradually had to be expanded. Meanwhile, he was subjected to sharp criticism from some of the zealous war governors because he seemed too slow in furnishing state quotas and other necessary information. There apparently was considerable laxity and inefficiency in his bureau and many persons surmised that he was "lukewarm" regarding the war, but there was no sound basis for this suspicion. In what was probably an effort to be rid of him, Secretary Stanton ordered him to the Mississippi Valley in March 1863 to organize negro regiments. This work, together with arranging for the exchange of prisoners and the consolidation of depleted regiments, kept him occupied until the end of the war. He was brevetted major-general on March 13, 1865. The next year Stanton sent him on an inspection tour of the provost marshal general's office and in 1867 on an extended inspection tour of the national cemeteries. While he was engaged in the latter work the difficulties between President Johnson and Stanton came to a head, and the President, desiring to have a "rightminded" man in the adjutant general's office, directed Thomas on February 13, 1868, to resume full charge of the bureau. On February 21, Johnson dismissed Stanton, appointed Thomas secretary ad interim, and requested him to take possession of the department. The selection was unfortunate, for the Adjutant-General proved to be a vain and garrulous person. When he publicly boasted that he would oust the Secretary by force if necessary, Stanton ordered his arrest for violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Although immediately admitted to bail and discharged within a week, the General failed to displace the recalcitrant Secretary, the contest between them degenerating into opera bouffe. Thomas' testimony and his naivete in the impeachment trial of the President effectively dispelled the charge that he and Johnson had conspired forcibly to eject Stanton and helped to win for the President an acquittal. After the adjournment Thomas resumed his inspection duties, but was retired from active service on February 22, 1869. He died in Washington six years later.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U.S. Army (1903), volume I; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Diary of Gideon Welles (1911), volume III; Trial of Andrew Johnson (1868), volume I; G. C. Gorham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton (1899), volume II; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, November 25, 1865; Army and Navy Journal, March 6, 1875; National Republican (Washington), March 3, 1875; bibliography of article on Edwin M. Stanton.]

A H M



TORBERT, ALFRED THOMAS ARCHIMEDES (July 1, 1833-August29, 1880), soldier, diplomat, was born at Georgetown, Delaware, the son of Jonathan R. and Catharine (Milby) Torbert. His father was a farmer, a Methodist local preacher, and a bank cashier. After attending the local schools, Alfred entered the United States Military Academy in 1851 and was graduated and appointed brevet second lieutenant of infantry on July 1, 1855. During the next five years he served on the frontier, participating in operations against Indians in New Mexico and in Florida, 1856-57; in the Utah expedition, 1857-60; and in the march to New Mexico, 186o-61; he was promoted second lieutenant in 1856, and first lieutenant, February 25, 1861. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was assigned to mustering duty in New Jersey; on September 16, 1861, he was appointed colonel of the 1st New Jersey Volunteers, and nine days later, captain in the Regular Army. He commanded his regiment in the Peninsular campaign and took part in the siege of Yorktown, and the battles of West Point, Gaines's Mill, and Charles City Cross-roads. In the second Manassas and Maryland campaigns he commanded a brigade of the VI Corps and was· wounded at the battle of Crampton's Gap but rejoined his brigade in time to be present at Antietam. After the battle of Fredericksburg, where he rendered efficient service in covering the withdrawal of the VI Corps across the Rappahannock, he was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers, as of November 29, 1862, and retained command of the same brigade during the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns. In April 1864, Torbert was assigned to command the 1st Cavalry · Division, which in the Richmond campaign, together with the division commanded by General David M. Gregg [q.v.] under Sheridan, covered the left of the army in its successive turning movements. During these operations Torbert defeated opposing Confederate forces at Hanovertown, Matadequin Creek, and Cold Harbor. In Sheridan's Trevilian raid, June 5-21, 1864, Torbert defeated the cavalry division of General Wade Hampton [q.v.] at Trevilian Station, but suffered a repulse the next day at Mallory's Ford. In the operations before Petersburg he was engaged in a successful action at Darbytown, July 28, 1864. In August, Torbert was ordered to join Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah, and on arrival he was appointed chief of cavalry of the middle military division. During the next four months he maintained contact with the Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley and carried out Sheridan's policy of devastation. At the battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864, Torbert's envelopment of the Confederate left secured the victory. He defeated the cavalry under General Thomas L. Rosser [q.v.] at Tom's Brook, October 9, and when the army was surprised at Cedar Creek; October 19, Torbert's cavalry and Getty's infantry division were the only units that continued resistance until Sheridan arrived and rallied the disordered forces. In December he conducted a cavalry raid to break up the railroads in western Virginia, but did not accomplish that object. Having previously been several times brevetted for meritorious service, on March 13, 1865, he was brevetted major-general, United States Army. On  January 17, 1866, he married Mary E. Curry of Milford, Delaware, and on October 31 of that year resigned from the service. In April 1869 he was appointed United States minister to Salvador. He was transferred as consul general to Havana in December 1871, and to Paris in December 1873, resigning in 1878 to engage in a business enterprise in Mexico. In August 1880 he sailed from New York on the steamer Vera Cruz in connection with this venture and was drowned when the vessel was wrecked off the Florida coast. His chivalrous conduct in this disaster befitted his gallant career. Torbert as a subordinate commander was stanch, sure, and victorious. On independent cavalry missions requiring the utmost initiative and audacity he was less successful. His genial and steadfast character was evinced by the esteem in which he was held by his military associates, by the dependability of his troops, and by his popularity in public and private life.

[U.S. Census Records of Sussex County, Delaware, 1840- 1850; G. B. Hynson, Historical Etchings of Milford, Delaware, and Vicinity (1899); Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of Delaware (1882); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); Reunion of the Association Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, 1881; Personal Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan (2 volumes, 1888); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); Papers of the Historical Society of Delaware, no. 57 (1922); Daily Gazette (Wilmington, Delaware), September, October 1880; Harper's Weekly, October 18, 1864; Army and Navy Journal, September 18, October 2,  

L



TOTTEN, JOSEPH GILBERT (August 23, 1788-April22, 1864), soldier, scientist, and engineer, for whom Fort Totten in New York Harbor was named, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Peter and Grace (Mansfield) Totten. His mother died when Joseph was three years old and his father shortly afterward was appointed vice-consul at Santa Cruz in the West Indies. The guardianship of the boy thus fell upon his uncle, Jared Mansfield [q.v.], a Yale graduate who was selected in 1802 as the first professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy. Here Joseph became a cadet, in November 1802, and was graduated and commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers, July 1, 1805, the tenth graduate of West Point. As a cadet he had been outstanding in scholarship, industry, "gentlemanly deportment," and popularity. Immediately upon his graduation he was made secretary to his uncle, who had been appointed surveyor general of the Northwestern Territory, in charge of the first systematic survey of the new states of the Union. In order to pursue the requisite explorations, Totten resigned from the army March 31, 1806, but was reappointed to the same rank and corps two years later. He was promoted first lieutenant July 23, 18m, and captain July 31, 1812. From the time of his return to the service, he acted as assistant engineer of the harbor defenses of New York City, with special supervision of Fort Clinton at Castle Garden, and of the defenses of New Haven, New London, and Sag Harbor. At the beginning of the War of 1812, he was made chief engineer of the army on the Niagara frontier, where he rendered conspicuous and active service in harbor and fortress defense, winning the brevet of major, June 6, 1813. For gallant conduct at the battle of Plattsburg he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, September 11, 1814. There followed more than two decades of service on various engineering boards, in the planning and erection of coast defenses, and the execution of river and harbor improvements, during which time he was promoted major in 1818, lieutenant-colonel in 1828, and colonel, December 7, 1838. With the last commission he was simultaneously made chief engineer of the army and inspector of the United States Military Academy, both of which posts he held uninterruptedly for over a quarter of a century, until his death. When General Winfield Scott [q.v.] undertook the southern campaign in the Mexican War, he took Totten with him as chief engineer and member of his "Little Cabinet." Totten originated the detailed and successful plan of operations at Vera Cruz, and was brevetted brigadier-general as of March 29, 1847, for "gallant and meritorious conduct" at the siege. He was also one of the commissioners at the capitulation. In 1851 when the Lighthouse Board was legally established, Totten became a member, serving until 1858 and again from 1860 till his death. In this capacity he was instrumental in establishing and maintaining a system of lighting by Fresnel lenses. His name is particularly associated with the lights at Seven-Foot Knoll, off Baltimore, and Minot's Ledge off Cohasset, Massachusetts, difficult works to which he devoted all his energy and talents. For these contributions alone, according to a colleague, General John G. Barnard [q.v.], he is entitled to recognition among the Smeatons, Stevensons, and Brunels as one of the great engineers of the age ("Memoir," post). Between 1851 and 1855 he conducted a series of experiments on the effects of firing heavy ordnance from casemate embrasures. He was chosen as a member of the New York state commission on the improvement and preservation of New York Harbor, and to a similar capacity with the Massachusetts commission on Boston Harbor. In 1859-61 he made a reconnaissance of the Pacific Coast in order to determine its state of defense. During the Civil War he continued to be chief engineer of the army and on March 3, 1863, was made a brigadier-general. He was active in supervising the defensive works around Washington and was a member of the commission to examine them. He was president of the retiring board for disabled officers in 1861 and a member of the board appointed to regulate and fix the heavy ordnance (1861-62). One day before he died he was brevetted a major-general by Congress "for long, faithful and eminent service." In addition to his reports on national defenses and his essays on ordnance, he published Essays on Hydraulic and Common Mortars and on Lime-Burning (1838), a translation from the French, with added notes of his own, which aided engineering progress materially. His studies in conchology were rewarded by having two shells-the gemma and succinea tottenii-named for him. In 1829 he was awarded the honorary degree of A.M. by Brown University. He was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution from its establishment in 1846 until his death, and in 1863, a corporator of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1816 he married Catlyna Pearson of Albany, New York, who bore him three sons and four daughters. Before the close of the Civil War he died suddenly of pneumonia, survived by two daughters. The order of the Secretary of War announcing his death stated that "his military career of more than half a century has been one of continued usefulness and distinguished services."

[J. G. Barnard, "Memoir of Joseph Gilbert Totten," in National Academy Science Biographical Memoirs, volume I (1877), and Eulogy on the Late Bvt. Major General Joseph G. Totten (1866); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume I; J. H. Smith, The War with Mexico (2 volumes, 1919); W. A. Ganoe, The History of the U. S. Army (1924); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903); Army and Navy Journal, April 30, 1864; Daily National Intelligencer (Washington), April 25, 1864; Records, Old Files Section, Adjutant General's Office, Washington.]

W.A.G.



TOWER, ZEALOUS BATES (January 12, 1819- March 20, 1900), soldier and engineer, was of English ancestry, a lineal descendant of John Tower who came to America from Hingham, England, in 1637 and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts; his parents Were Nichols and Ann (Bates) Tower of Cohasset, Massachusetts, where he was born. After his school days he entered the United States Military Academy, graduated at the head of his class in 1841, and was commissioned second lieutenant in the corps of engineers. Prior to 1846 he was engaged principally on the construction of the fortifications at the entrance of Hampton Roads, Virginia. In the Mexican War he was on the engineer staff of General Scott and took part in all the operations of Scott's army from the siege of Vera Cruz to the capture of the city of Mexico. His duties were mainly the dangerous tasks of reconnoitering the positions of the enemy and of leading columns of attack. For gallant and meritorious service he received the brevets of first lieutenant, captain, and major, United States Army. He was wounded in leading the storming column at Chapultepec, September 13, 1847. After the war he was superintending engineer on the coast defenses of Portland and Portsmouth, and of harbor works on the New England coast; from 1855 to 1858 he was in charge of the defenses of San Francisco, where he also constructed the custom house and appraiser's store. Early in 1861 he was directed to assume command of Fort Barrancas, near Pensacola, Florida, but when he reached Fort Pickens, on a nearby island, the state troops were already in possession of Barrancas. As a volunteer he assisted in organizing the defenses of Fort Pickens and Santa Rosa Island and in repelling the attacks made by the Confederates in October 1861, and aided in making the works proof against the bombardments of Confederate batteries later in the year. For these services he received the brevet of lieutenant-colonel, United States Army, and was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers. In Pope's Virginia campaign in 1862 he commanded a brigade and took part in the battles of Cedar Mountain and Manassas and in the engagement at Thoroughfare Gap. In the second battle of Manassas, he was so badly wounded that he was incapacitated for further field service. For this campaign he received the brevets of colonel and brigadier-general, United States Army. He recovered sufficiently to return to duty in June 1864, and in July became superintendent of the United States Military Academy. In September of the same year, however, the unsatisfactory condition of the field defenses of Nashville, Tennessee, gave the War Department grave concern and Tower was sent to take charge of them; later, at General Sherman's request, he was also made inspector general of fortifications for the Division of the Mississippi. By organizing the quartermaster and railroad employees he was able so to strengthen the fortifications that when Hood appeared in their front with his army he dared not venture an attack. Under the protection of these works General Thomas was enabled to organize his forces for the attack that destroyed Hood's army. For his services in the war Tower received the brevets of major-general of volunteers and major-general, United States Army. From 1866 until his retirement,  January 10, 1883, as one of the senior officers of the corps of engineers he was an active member of many boards convened to consider projects of river and harbor improvement and of coast defense. After his retirement he lived at Cohasset, Massachusetts, where he died. He never married.

[Charlemagne Tower, Tower Genealogy (1891); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates, U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); Thirty-first Annual Reunion, Association of Graduates, U. S. Military Academy (1900); Memorial of the Massachusetts Commandery, Military Order of Foreign Wars (1900); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Army and Navy Journal, March 24, 1900; Boston Transcript, March 21, 1900.]

G. J. F.



TOWNSEND, EDWARD DAVIS (August 22, 1817-May 10, 1893), soldier, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, the son of David S. Townsend, an army officer of the War of 1812, and Eliza Gerry, the daughter of Elbridge Gerry [q.v.]. He was a descendant of Thomas Townsend who settled in Lynn, Massachusetts, about 1637. He was educated at the Boston Latin School, attended Harvard College for one year, and was graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1837, as a second lieutenant, 2nd Artillery. He served in the Florida war, and later assisted in removing the Cherokee Indians to what is now Oklahoma. In 1846, he transferred to the adjutant general's department, and for the next fifteen years served on the Pacific coast, and at Washington, D. C. During the winter of 1860-61, he was consulted as to the defense of Southern forts. He recommended that, as the forts were in no condition to resist attack, a nominal defense be made, stipulating only for honorable terms and a free passage to the North for the defenders. When Lincoln became president, Townsend, now a lieutenant-colonel, became adjutant-general to Winfield Scott [q.v.], commander-in-chief. Bowed with age, Scott left the direction of affairs largely to Townsend. President Lincoln frequently visited Scott's office, and formed a lifelong friendship with Townsend. Townsend was responsible for many measures taken in 1861 for the defense of Washington and for the organization and discipline of the newly raised troops. Upon Scott's retirement, November 1, 1861, he became senior assistant in the adjutant-general's department. On March 23, 1862, he became adjutant-general, a position equivalent to what would now be chief-of-staff. In daily contact with the president and the secretary of war for the next three eventful war years, he quietly and efficiently carried out their orders. Wherever possible he effaced himself. He had an expert knowledge of files and office work; he was faithful and reliable, and closely supervised his important department. At the end of the war he was brevetted major-general for his services. After the war, Townsend issued an order to collect all war papers and by this order was responsible for founding that vast collection published later as the War of the Rebellion: Official Records. In 1868, during the difficulties between President Johnson and Secretary Stanton, and the impeachment of the former, Townsend handled a serious situation at the War Department with unusual tact. In 1869, he was appointed adjutant-general by President Grant, after having acted in this capacity for seven years. An improved system of military prisons occupied much of his attention during his term. He retired in 1880, and lived in Washington until his death. He possessed strong religious ideas, and some literary ability, publishing two books, the Catechism of the Bible-the Pentateuch (1860), and Judges and Kings (1862). In 1884 he published Anecdotes of the Civil War, a discreet work with little information in it. He was interested in collecting political papers and heirlooms, and was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. On May 9, 1848, he was married to Ann Overing Wainwright, a sister of Richard W ainwright, 1817-1862 [q.v.]. She, with four of their five children, survived him at his death in Washington.

[A biography is now in preparation by Annette Townsend. Important papers are in the possession of Mrs. Townsend Phillips, New York See Annette Townsend, The Atchmuty Family of Scotland and America (1932); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register... U.S. Military Academy (1891); Samuel Breck, biographical article in Annual Reunion, Association of Graduates, U. S. Military Acad. (1893); Evening Star (Washington, D. C.), May 11, 1893.]

C.H.L.



TRACY, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (April 26, 1830-August 6, 1915), lawyer, soldier, secretary of the navy, was born near Owego, New York, of Irish descent. His grandfather, Thomas Tracy, after living in Vermont and Massachusetts, became one of the first settlers in the southern tier of counties of New York. Benjamin was reared on a farm and was educated at Owego Academy, where Thomas C. Platt [q.v.] was a fellow student. After studying in the office of N. W. Davis of Owego, Tracy was admitted to the bar in 1851. Two years later he was elected district attorney of Tioga County as a Whig. In 1854 he organized the Republican party in the county. He was reelected district attorney in 1856. As an assemblyman, in 1862, he urged full support of the national government in the Civil War. In the summer of 1862 he recruited two regiments and became colonel of the 109th New York Volunteers. In the Wilderness campaign, though ordered to the rear on account of physical exhaustion, he continued to lead his regiment until the condition of his health forced him to relinquish his command. His gallantry earned for him the brevet rank of brigadier-general and years afterward the Congressional Medal of Honor. During the last months of the war he was colonel of the 127th Regiment (colored troops) and commander of the military prison and recruiting camp at Elmira, New York. In 1866 President Johnson appointed him district attorney for the eastern district of New York, whereby a series of able prosecutions he broke up illicit distilling. He drafted the safeguarding provisions of the internal revenue act of 1868, under which federal collections were increased fourfold. In 1873 he resumed his private practice in Brooklyn; he defended Henry Ward Beecher [q.v.] in the suit brought against him by Theodore Tilton [q.v.] and was unusually successful in cases involving the law of public officers. As a judge of the court of appeals, 1881- 82, he rendered decisions on the validity of marriages contracted in other states (90 New York Reports, 603) and on the liability of elevated railroad companies for damages for the stoppage of light and air (90 New York Reports, 122) which still (1936) stand. In 1889 he received from President Harrison the appointment as secretary of the navy, which has usually been interpreted as a sop to Thomas C. Platt, though Tracy had the indorsement of both the principal factions of the Republican party of New York. He entered at once on a program for the building of a powerful navy, and during his administration the Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Brooklyn were completed or authorized. He organized the naval militia, created the board of construction to correlate the work of various bureaus, and did much to abolish political corruption in appointments and the purchase of supplies at the navy yards. In the cabinet he was responsible for several official interpretations of international law, including the right of asylum in the Barrundia case (see J.B. Moore, A Digest of International Law, 1906, II, 851), neutral rights and duties in the Chilean revolution (Ibid., II, no7-08), and the right of property in seals which became the basis of one of the questions put up for arbitration by the United States in the Bering Sea controversy (see Tracy, in North American Review, May 1893). After his retirement he was counsel for Venezuela in the boundary arbitration with Great Britain. He was chairman of the commission of 1896 which formula ted the charter of Greater New York. At Flatt's insistence, he became the regular Republican nominee for mayor in 1897, but was defeated by a large majority. His principal avocation was the breeding of trotting horses on his Tioga County farm. In person he was unusually handsome. He had keen powers of analysis, good judgment, and great executive ability. In 1851 he married Delinda E. Catlin; she and their younger daughter lost their lives in the burning of their Washington home in February 1890; a son and a daughter survived him.

[Who's Who in America, 1914-15; The New International Yearbook, 1915 (1916); W. B. Gay, Historical Gazetteer of Tioga County, New York (n.d.); L. W. Kingman, Our Country and Its People (n.d.); H. R. Stiles, The Civil ... Historical and ... Industrial Record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn (copyright 1884); G. 0. Seilhamer, H ist. of the Republican Party (n.d.); New York Times and New York Tribune, August 7, 1915; J. D. Long, The New American Navy (1903); D. S. Alexander, Four Famous New Yorkers (1923); The Autobiography of Thomas Collier Platt (1910); H. F. Gosnell, Boss Platt and His New York Machine (Copyright 1924); History of the Bench and Bar of New York, volume II (1897); Bench and Bar, January 1915.

J E.C.S.



TREMAIN, HENRY EDWIN (November 14, 1840-December 9, 1910), soldier and lawyer, the son of Edwin Ruthven and Mary (Briggs) Tremain, was born in New York City. He was a descendant of Joseph Truman, who settled in New London, Connecticut, in 1666. After preliminary education in the public schools he attended the College of the City of New York and was graduated with the B.A. degree in 1860. He then entered Columbia University Law School, but his course was interrupted by service in the Civil War and he received the LL.B. degree in 1867. In April 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 7th New York State Militia. On the return of the regiment from Washington, he resigned to recruit the 73rd New York Volunteers in which he was commissioned first lieutenant in August 1861. Under McClellan and Pope he participated in the Virginia campaigns of the Army of the Potomac and was mentioned for gallantry at Williamsburg and Malvern Hill. Taken prisoner while leading a counter attack at the second battle of Bull Run, he was confined in Libby Prison for a short time. He resumed duty as aide-de-camp to Daniel E. Sickles [q.v.], and rendered notable staff service in the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. He was also a favorite staff officer of Joseph Hooker [q.v.]. In 1864 he accompanied Sickles to the West to inspect all armies in the field. Upon his return he rejoined the Army of the Potomac, and participated as a staff officer in all battles to Appomattox. He was appointed captain in 1862, major and aide-de-camp in 1863, and brevetted lieutenant-colonel on March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious service." He became a colonel in June and a brigadier-general in November 1865. For conspicuous gallantry at the battle of Resaca, on May 15, 1868, when he rode between two brigades of Union troops that were firing into each other, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He served in South Carolina until his discharge in 1866. Immediately after his return to New York in 1868 he began his career at the bar. He was unsuccessful in his candidacy for justice of the court of common pleas in the following year, but maintained an active interest in politics and public law. As special counsel to the United States marshall in 1870 he prosecuted violations of the election laws, and participated in attacks upon the "Tweed ring." From 1873 to 1877 he was first assistant United States attorney in New York, and thereafter appeared as counsel in the federal courts in cases involving revenue law violations. He joined Joshua T. Owen in 1872 in establishing the New York Law Journal, a daily devoted to news of the courts. He served as editor for two years, but relinquished the -post because of the pressure of his legal duties. He showed deep interest in the associations made by the War. He was president of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, 1902, colonel of the Veterans of the 7th New York N. G., and president of the III Army Corps Union. He was twice president of the National Republican Club and. from 1870 to 1874, president of the alumni association of the College of the City of New York. Besides many papers on law, tariff, and taxation he wrote : Last H 01tr s of Sheridan's Cavalry (1904); Two Days of War (1905); Sectionalism. Unmasked (1907); and Fifty Papers, Addresses and Writings (1909). He was married to Sarah Brownson, of New York City, on June 1, 186g. They had no children.  

[Who's Who in America, 1910-11; E. M. Treman, M. E. Poole, The History of the Treman, Tremaine, Treman Family in America (1901), volume I; H. E. Tremain, A Family Genealogy  (privately printed, 1908); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register ... U.S. Army.(1903); American Decorations . . . 1862-1926 (1927); New York Times, December 11, 1910.]

D. A. R.



TURNER, JOHN WESLEY (July 19, 1833- April 8, 1899), soldier, son of John Bice and Martha (Voluntine) Turner, was born near Saratoga, New York. His father was a prominent railroad and canal constructor, and in 1843 the family removed to Chicago, where the elder Turner helped build the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad. John Wesley was appointed to the United States Military Academy from Illinois, graduated in 1855, and was commissioned lieutenant of artillery. As a subaltern he served in Oregon and in hostilities against the Seminoles in Florida. In August 1861 he was commissioned captain in the commissary department and served as chief commissary under General David Hunter [q.v.] in Kansas from December 1861 to March 1862, and in the same capacity under General Hunter when the latter was in command of the Department of the South in April 1862. During this tour of duty he was employed as an artillery officer in the attack on Fort Pulaski, April 10-11, 1862. In May of the same year he was assigned as chief commissary on the staff of General Benjamin F. Butler [q.v.] at New Orleans and remained with him to the end of the year. In the spring of 1863 he returned to General Hunter in the Department of the South, and when Hunter was relieved by General Quincy A. Gillmore [q.v.], Turner was made chief of staff and chief of artillery, June 13, 1863, and as such took part in the siege of Fort Wagner and the attack on Fort Sumter. For his services he received the brevet of major, United States Army, and was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers. In the operations of 1864 Turner commanded a division in the Army of the James under General Butler on Bermuda Hundred and in front of Petersburg, and received the brevet of lieutenant-colonel, United States Army, for gallant services in action at the Petersburg mine, and the brevet of major-general of volunteers for gallant services in the campaign of 1864. From November 20, 1894, to  January 12, 1865, he was chief. of staff of the Army of the James. In the campaign of 1865 he commanded a division of the XXIV Army Corps and took an active part in the operations leading to the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. For his services at the capture of Fort Gregg he received the brevet of colonel, United States Army, and later those of brigadier and major-general. At the end of active operations he was appointed to the command of the District of Henrico, which included the city of Richmond; this position he held from June 1865 to April 1866. His administration was both efficient and tactful. On being mustered out of the volunteer service in 1866 he became purchasing and depot commissary at St. Louis. In September 1871 he resigned from the army. Being accustomed to command and to assume great responsibilities, and having a pleasing personality and great tact, he was as successful in civil life as he had been in his military career. From 1872 to 1877 he was president of the Bogy Lead Mining Company, and for eleven years (1877-88), street commissioner of St. Louis. He served, also, as president of the St. Joseph Gas and Manufacturing Company (1888-97), and as a director of the American Exchange Bank and of the St. Louis Savings and Safe Deposit Company (1893-99). On September 18, 1869, he married Blanche Soulard of St. Louis, by whom he had seven children. His death occurred in St. Louis and his wife and children survived him.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register ... Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891); Thirteenth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1899); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); William Hyde and H. L. Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis (1899, volume IV); St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 8, 9, 1899.]  

G. J. F. L



TYLER, DANIEL (January 7, 1799-November 30, 1882), soldier, industrialist, was born in Brooklyn, Windham County, Connecticut His parents were Daniel Tyler, III, a Revolutionary officer, descended from Job Tyler, one of the early settlers of Andover, Massachusetts, and Sarah (Edwards) Chaplin Tyler, a grand-daughter of Jonathan Edwards [q.v.]. After attending the public schools, the boy was sent in 1812 to Plainfield Academy to prepare for Yale, but secured instead an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1816. Three years later, as a lieutenant of light artillery, he began service in New England, and in 1824 he was ordered to the Artillery School of Practice at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. His own need for professional knowledge led him to import the best books on the subject and then to translate from the French a work on drill and maneuvers originally published in Paris in 1824. This translation was used by a commission appointed in 1826 to prepare a light artillery system for the American army, and in 1828 Tyler was sent to France to make further study of the French system. Admitted to the artillery school at Metz, he found it so far superior to that at Fortress Monroe that he proceeded at great expense to obtain copies of every drawing and treatise on the French system and to translate their latest manual of exercise and instruction for field artillery (1829). His detailed inspection of French armories and construction of small arms he turned to good advantage in 1830 when he investigated the armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, exposing the inferior quality of the arms produced there and pointing to political influence as the cause. Likewise, as superintendent of inspectors of contract arms in 1832, he rejected as defective most of the muskets delivered by manufacturers. When the Ordnance Corps was reorganized, he was recommended for the commission of captain, but President Jackson, doubtless owing to political pressure, refused to appoint him. Tyler then resigned from the army, May 31, 1834. On May 28, 1832, in Norwich, Connecticut, he married Emily Lee. After an unsuccessful venture in iron-making in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, he turned to the financing and engineering of a series of transportation projects. In the early 1840's, as president of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad and the Morris Canal & Banking Company, he rescued both from bankruptcy. During 1844-45 he was asked to complete the construction of a railroad from Macon, Georgia, to Atlanta, then for sale at $150,000, scarcely one-tenth of the capital already expended. Through Tyler's financial aid and the backing of a group of Macon men, the rechartered Macon & Western Railroad was opened for traffic in ten months and was soon paying a dividend of eight per cent. Anticipating disunion, Tyler resigned in 1849 from the presidency of the road and returned to Connecticut. During the 1850's he reorganized and improved a number of railroads in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Kentucky. With the outbreak of the Civil War, in April 1861 Tyler was chosen to command the 1st Connecticut Regiment; in May he was commissioned brigadier-general, and shortly before the Bull Run campaign he was given a division command. Whether or not this campaign "was gotten up," as Tyler said, " by General McDowell ... to make him the hero of a short war" ("Autobiography Mitchell, post, p. 49), Tyler disobeyed orders by failing to go to Centreville to intercept the Confederates' communication with Fairfax Court House and by bringing on a premature engagement, July 18, at Blackburn's Ford, where he was repulsed by Beauregard (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Army, I series, II, 311-12; Fry, post, pp. 17-25). His opponent failed to follow up the advantage, but during the main battle of Bull Run, July 21, Tyler did not press the attack when he could have, and he must bear some of the blame for the disastrous outcome of that battle. He was in action at Corinth in 1862 and in command of Maryland Heights and Harpers Ferry during the summer of 1863, and he also aided in recruiting, prison-camp administration, and army investigations. After the death of his wife in 1864 he moved to New Jersey and traveled extensively year after year in Europe and in the South. In Charleston, South Carolina, in 1872; he met Samuel Nolle [q.v.], who induced him to examine the iron deposits of Eastern Alabama. They explored the country on horseback, and the upshot of the visit was the organization of the Woodstock Iron Company by Tyler, his son Alfred, and Noble in 1872. Furnace No. I was erected immediately at a cash investment of $200,000, and gave rise to the town of Anniston, named for Tyler's daughter-in-law. The company arid the town enjoyed a steady growth despite the depression years immediately following: a second furnace was added in 1879; a cotton mill with 10,000 spindles, a water works, and a car factory were built; improvements in agriculture were introduced. During his last years he served as president of the Mobile & Montgomery Railroad with his residence in Montgomery and spent his winters in Guadalupe County, Texas, where he had invested in railroad lands, but he visited Anniston frequently. He died in New York City, but was buried in Anniston. Three sons and two daughters survived him.

[W. I. T. Brigham, The Tyler Genealogy (1912), volume I; D. G. Mitchell, Daniel Tyler: A Memorial Volunteer Containing His Autobiography and War Record (1883);  B. Fry, McDowell and Tyler in the Campaign of Bull Run 1861 (1884); T. M. Vincent, "The Battle of Bull Run, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U. S., Commandery of D. C., War Papers, no. 58 (1905); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register… U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume I; Fourteenth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1883); Ethel Armes, The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama (1910); U. B. Phillips, A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt (1908); New York Times, December 1, 1882; Army and Navy Journal, December 2, 1882.]

L.J.C.



TYLER, ROBERT OGDEN (December 22, 1831- December 1, 1874), soldier, was born at Hunter, Greene County, New York, the son of Frederick and Sophia (Sharp) Tyler and a nephew of Daniel Tyler [q.v.]. He was descended from Job Tyler who was in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1638 and later went to Massachusetts. Robert's grandfather, Daniel Tyler, was adjutant to General Israel Putnam during the Revolution, and three uncles were army officers. Given an excellent preparatory education, he entered the United States Military Academy in 1849, graduated in 1853, and became a second lieutenant of the 3rd Artillery. He soon participated in a movement of troops from the Missouri River to Salt Lake and San Francisco (1854-55). In 1856-he was promoted first lieutenant on September 1 of that year he was engaged in Indian wars in what is now the state of Washington. In 1859, he went to the Sioux country in Minnesota. At the opening of the Civil War he was in garrison at the Fort Columbus Recruiting Station, New York. He accompanied the relief expedition to Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861, and then went to Baltimore to assist in the opening of that city to Federal forces. In May 1861 he transferred as a captain to the quartermaster's department and opened a supply depot at Alexandria, Virginia. In September he became colonel of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery. He found this regiment, considerably demoralized, within the defenses of Washington, but soon brought it to a state of high efficiency. The following spring he participated in the Peninsular campaign. He prepared his batteries to bombard Yorktown, but owing to the fact that the Confederates withdrew just before the batteries were ready to fire, there was no engagement. With great effort the batteries were moved up for an attack on Richmond, which also never occurred. At Gaines's Mill, June 27, 1862, the batteries did good work in assisting the Federals north of the Chickahominy. In the retreat to Malvern Hill, Tyler brought off all his guns but one and used them in repulsing the Confederate attack on July 1. For these services he was appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers on November 29, 1862. The following month he had charge of the Federal batteries which fired upon Fredericksburg. In the Gettysburg campaign he commanded the artillery reserve of 130 guns and, under direction of General Henry J. Hunt [q.v.], chief of artillery, disposed these guns to maximum advantage, especially in stopping Pickett's charging infantry. In 1864 Tyler's artillery served as infantry throughout the Wilderness campaign. It distinguished itself at Spotsylvania, May 17-24, driving back the Confederate forces under General Richard Ewell [q.v.]. At Cold Harbor, on June 1, it was one of the brigades selected for the famous bloody assault. Early in this action Tyler was shot through the ankle, a wound from the effects of which he never recovered. Returning to duty in December, he was assigned to board duties, and to the command of districts outside of the theatre of active operations. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted major- general for gallant conduct and meritorious services. He was mustered out of the volunteer service  January 15, 1866, and on July 29 was appointed to the Regular Army as a lieutenant-colonel in the quartermaster's department. In this capacity he served at many important military headquarters, with constantly declining health. In an effort to recuperate he took a year's leave in 1872, visiting the Far East. A diary relating to part of this trip was published in Memoir of Brevet Major-General Robert Ogden Tyler (1878). Failing to find the relief he had sought, Tyler died at Boston in the year after his return from the East, and was buried in Hartford, Connecticut. He never married. He was noted for strictness and justice, but was of kindly disposition.

[W. I. T. Brigham, The Tyler Genealogy (1912, volume I; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd edition, 1891), volume II; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903), Sixth Annual Reunion Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1875); New York Tribune, December 2, 1874.]

C.H. - a.



UPTON, EMORY (August 27, 1839-March 15, 1881), soldier, tactician, author, was born on a farm west of Batavia, New York, the tenth child and sixth son of Daniel and Electra (Randall) Upton. He was a descendant of John Upton, who seems to have been in Massachusetts as early as 1639, bought land in Salem in 1658, and later moved to North Reading. During the winter of 1855-56, Emory Upton was a student at Oberlin College. Interested from early youth in military history, he secured appointment to the United States Military Academy, which he entered on July 1, 1856. He was an excellent student, and was notably outspoken on controversial subjects. As personal feelings grew tense over the issues that provoked the Civil War, he had the most celebrated physical encounter-with Wade Hampton Gibbes of South Carolina-in the history of West Point (Schaff, post, pp. 143-48). Graduating number eight on the list of forty-five with the first (May 6) class of 1861, he was at once appointed second lieutenant, 4th Artillery, and sent 'to help drill Federal volunteers then assembling about Washington. On May 14 he was advanced to first lieutenant in the newly organized 5th Artillery (field batteries), and continued to drill volunteers until assigned to active field service under General Daniel Tyler [q.v.] in the 1st Division of McDowell's army in northern Virginia. From that time to the close of the Civil War, Upton's career was one of the most notable in the annals of the army, comprising as it did varied service (artillery, infantry, and cavalry) and participation in a large number of engagements; it also brought him by successive promotions to the rank of brevet major-general, United States Army. Four of the many actions in which he commanded troops brought advanced rank "for gallant and meritorious services" at Rappahannock Station, Virginia, November 7, 1863; at Spotsylvania, Virginia, May 10, 1864, where Upton, wounded in the charge, was promoted to brigadier-general on the spot by Grant; at the Opequon (or Winchester, Virginia), September 19, 1864, where after the death of General D. A. Russell, Upton succeeded to command of the 1st Division, VI Army Corps, and though soon dangerously wounded, continued in active command while being carried about the field on a stretcher until the battle had been won (Wilson, post, I, 554): and at Selma, Alabama, April 2, 1865, where dismounted Federal cavalry, of which he led a detachment. broke through and surmounted stockaded fortifications defended by sheltered infantry and superior artillery, capturing the city and arsenal. For nearly three months after the Opequon engagement, Upton was disabled and on sick leave: meanwhile, J. H. Wilson [q.v.] assigned to command the cavalry in the farther South, requested and secured his services for the latter part of the Tennessee-Alabama-Georgia campaign. Upton also participated in the Antietam and Fredericksburg campaigns, the thirty-five-mile march by the VI Corps from Manchester, Maryland, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, mostly through the night of July 1-2, 1863, and in the battles of the Wilderness and Cold Harbor, and about Petersburg. The timeliness, good judgment, and precision with which he executed orders were frequently commended in the reports of his superiors. After the Civil War, Upton continued in the Regular Army, with much lower rank because of the reduction of the military establishment. For short periods he was stationed in Tennessee and Colorado; then transferred to West Point as a member of the board of officers appointed to consider the system of infantry tactics which he had prepared. That system, with which his name has since been associated, was adopted in 1867. After a short station in Kentucky, he secured leave of absence and with his wife spent several months in Europe. Returning in the late summer of 1868, he was again assigned to regular duties for short periods. From July 1, 1870, to June 30, 1875, he was commandant of cadets and instructor in artillery, infantry, and cavalry tactics at West Point. Those five years were the height of Upton's career in time of peace, and his influence upon the corps of cadets was particularly marked; meanwhile, he served on the board appointed to assimilate the tactics adopted in 1873. In the summer of 1875 he was relieved at the Military Academy and assigned to professional duty on a trip around the world via San Francisco and the Orient, and for the greater part of two years studied the army organizations of Asia and Europe. At Shanghai, October 1876, he wrote out an elaborate plan for a military academy in China on the model of West Point. Returning, he was appointed superintendent of theoretical instruction in the Artillery School, Fort Monroe, Virginia, where he was stationed nearly three years and during two periods commanded the post. After service as member of the board to codify army regulations, he was assigned to command the 4th Artillery and the Presidio of San Francisco. There, before reaching the age of forty-two, he died by a shot from his own hand, an act explained in brief by "an incurable malady of the head and its passages that ultimately became unbearable" (Wilson, II, 368; Michie, post, pp. 474-97). His resignation as colonel of the 4th Artillery was written out and signed on the day before. Upton's tragic death was a shock to the nation, and particularly to the army, which had looked to him as a model of life and conduct as well as its leading tactician. Known always as a strict disciplinarian who drilled his men in all weathers and occasionally put them through new evolutions, he won and held their confidence and loyalty to a remarkable degree. His face, somewhat "pointed," was habitually in an attitude of concentration, "with force and determination in every line." In the field he took nothing for granted; was enterprising, resourceful, and energetic; acted upon personally ascertained or well-assimilated facts; and carried military books on campaigns which he studied in connection with situations developing from day to day. He was of strong religious nature and was in the habit of saying his prayers every night. On occasions he was excitable and angry, and after the great sacrifices at Cold Harbor, Virginia, in June 1864, he severely criticized the chief command (Michie, pp. 108-09). He rose to his greatest heights in the excitement and turmoil of battle. On February 19, 1868, he married Emily Norwood Martin, who died Mat. 30, 1870, after much illness. His funeral was at Auburn, New York, March 29, 1881, and he was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery there. Upton wrote more on tactics and critical military history than any other officer of his day. Two books were published in his lifetime-A New System of Infantry Tactics, Double and Single Rank, Adapted to American Topography and Improved Firearms (1867, revised edition, 1874); and The Armies of Asia and Europe (1878). A monumental work, "The Military Policy of the United States from 1775," upon which he had been engaged for several years, he was able to complete only down to the second year of the Civil War. In 1903-04 the manuscript was reexamined by Elihu Root, who was then secretary of war, and in 1904 The Military Policy of the United States was published, under the editorship of J. P. Sanger; in 1914 a separate reprint of the Mexican War section was made. Some of the recommendations contained in Upton's treatise have been adopted; others no longer apply to changed conditions of warfare; yet it remains the most important work on a subject nowhere else treated on the same scale and in equal detail. Its outstanding features are searching analyses of the American national. military policy and fearless comments upon its results. Intense application to those engrossing subjects, usually in connection with the full discharge of routine military duties, may have been a contributing factor to Upton's breakdown in the prime of life.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates, U. S. Military Academy (1891), volume II; Twelfth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates, U.S. Military Academy (1881); Morris Schaff, The Spirit of Old West Point, 1858-1862 (1907); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, II (1886), 223-25, 234-36;  H. Wilson, Under the Old Flag (1912); W. F. Scott, The Story of a Cavalry Regiment (1893); I. O. Best,  History of the 121st New York State Infantry (1921); E. N. Gilpin, "The Last Campaign," Journal U. S. Cavalry Association April 1908; Army and Navy Journal March 19 and 26, 1881; Harper's Weekly, April 9, 1881; Morning Call (San Francisco), March 16, 1881; P. S. Michie, The Life and Letters of Emory Upton (1885); W. H. Upton, Genealogy Collections for an Upton Family History (1893); J. A. Vinton, The Upton Memorial (1874); information from various army officers, from E. S. Martin, New York, and from the Seymour Library, Auburn, New York]

R. B.



VANWYCK, CHARLES HENRY (May 10, 1824-October 24, 1895), lawyer, soldier, legislator, the second son of Dr. Theodorus C. and Elizabeth (Mason) Van Wyck, was born at Poughkeepsie, New York. He was descended from Cornelius Barentse van Wyck who emigrated to Long Island in 1660. Charles spent his youth at Bloomingburg, Sullivan County, New York, at which place his father was a practising physician. He was graduated from Rutgers College, the ranking student of the class of 1843. After graduation he turned to the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1847. Three years later he was elected district attorney of Sullivan County, and was reelected to this position for three successive terms (1850-56). He began politics as a member of the Barnburner wing of the Democratic party, but joined the new Republican movement and represented his district in Congress from March 4, 1859, to March 3, 1863. He recruited the 56th New York Volunteers and commanded the regiment from September 4, 1861, until he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, September 27, 1865. He served in the Peninsular and South Carolina campaigns and remained in the army of occupation in South Carolina until August 1865. On  January 15, 1866, he was mustered out of the service. He was reelected to Congress in 1866 and 1868. On the last occasion his election was contested, but he was seated, after a congressional investigation, on February 17, 1870. As congressman he took a leading part in investigations of the New York custom house service and of contracts of the War Department. In 1857 he acquired lands near Nebraska City, Nebraska, and in 1874 removed to that place. He was an active member of the Nebraska constitutional convention of 1875, and was elected to the state Senate for three successive terms (1877, 1879, 1881). In the legislature he was an active advocate of railroad rate legislation and tax relief. As United States senator from 1881 to 1887 he was a strong supporter of tariff reform, railroad regulation, protection of the public lands, and direct popular election of senators. To make possible the last named, he proposed an amendment to the federal Constitution. In the senatorial preferential ballot (provided in the Nebraska constitution) he received an overwhelming plurality for reelection, but was rejected by the state legislature. He was an active leader of the Farmers' Alliance and of the Populist movement in Nebraska. He would probably have been the Populists' candidate for governor in 1890 but for a peculiar composition of their first convention, for which a personal foe of Van Wyck was responsible. In 1892 he received the nomination but failed of election. In 1894 he was a candidate on the Populist ticket for the state Senate; he was physically unable to make an active campaign, however, and in the election the Republicans were victorious. He was a man of strong and positive personality, an entertaining and eloquent speaker, a genial and generous host, a friend of the masses. He died in Washington and was buried at Milford, Pennsylvania, the early home of his wife, Kate Brodhead, whom he married September 15, 1868; she and a daughter survived him.

[Anne Van Wyck, Descendants of Cornelius Barentse Van Wyck and Anna Polhemus (1912); J. C. Fisk and W. H. D. Blake, A Condensed History of the 56th Regiment of New York (n. d.); M. U. Harmer and J. L. Sellers, "Charles Henry Van Wyck," Nebraska History Magazine, April-December 1929; Omaha Daily Bee, October 25, 1895; Nebraska City News, October 25, 1895; J. S. Morton and Albert Watkins, History of Nebraska, volume III (1913); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928).]

J. L.S.



VIELE, EGBERT LUDOVICUS (June 17, 1825-April 22, 1902), engineer, was born at Waterford, New York, the son of John Ludovicus and Kathlyne Knickerbacker Viele. The founder of his family in America, Cornelis Volkertszen, father of Aernout Cornelissen Viele [q.v.], was a tavern keeper in New Amsterdam as early as 1639. John Ludovicus Viele was a state senator, a judge of the court of errors, and a regent of the University of the State of New York. Egbert attended the common schools of Lansingburg, graduated with honors at the Albany Academy, and began the study of law. In 1843, however, he secured appointment to the United States Military Academy, where he graduated in 1847. He was sent at once to join an infantry regiment fighting in the Mexican War, and after the peace he saw service on the southwestern frontier. On June 3, 1850, he married Teresa Griffin, who bore him eight children. In 1853 he resigned his commission, returned to New York, and opened an office as a civil engineer. From 1854 to 1856 he was employed by the state of New Jersey, and in the latter year became chief engineer of the projected Central Park in New York City. He made preliminary surveys and submitted a plan for the development of the park, but after a reorganization of the park commission in the following year his design was superseded by that of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux [qq.v.], and his services were discontinued. In 1860 he was engineer of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. While engineer of Central Park Viele began a study of the original topography of Manhattan Island, and later repeatedly called attention to the necessity for recognizing the natural drainage system of the island in planning streets and sewers. In 1865 he published a pamphlet, The Topography and Hydrology of New York, urging sanitation from the point of view of the engineer. He thus had a part in the movement which resulted in the Metropolitan Health Law of 1866. His Topographical Atlas of the City of New York, published by Julius Bien [q.v.] in 1874, "showing the original water courses and made land," was of much value to the erectors of large buildings. Meanwhile, in the first year of the Civil War, Viele's Hand-book for Active Service (1861) was published in New York and also (in two parts) in Richmond, Virginia. Viele became a captain of engineers in the 7th New York Militia, served in the defenses of Washington, and on August 17, 1861, was made a brigadier-general of volunteers. He was second in command of the Port Royal expedition, participated in the capture of Fort Pulaski and the taking of Norfolk, Virginia, was military governor of Norfolk from May to October 1862, and was then put in charge of the draft in northern Ohio. In 1863 he resigned and resumed his engineering practice in New York. About 1868 he promulgated a plan for the "Arcade" underground railway, a presage of the subways which came much later. He served as a commissioner of parks for New York City in 1883-84, and in 1885-87 as a Democratic representative in Congress. In that body he did much to further the building of the Harlem Ship Canal. He then returned to private life and to his practice. About 1895, while visiting England, he spoke before a committee of the House of Lords upon American municipal administration. As a member of the International Congress of History, he gave the closing address at The Hague Congress in 1898. He was an early member and a vice-president of the American Geographical Society, president of the Aztec Society, and a trustee of the Holland Society of New York. His first marriage was terminated by divorce in 1872 and shortly afterward he married Juliette H. Dana. Two sons and two daughters survived him; the elder son, Herman Knickerbacker Viele, studied civil engineering with his father and later became an artist; the young Vignauder, Egbert Ludovicus, Jr., was taken by his mother to France and there attained distinction as a poet, under the name Francis Viele-Griffin.

[Viele apparently used no accent in his signature; his son H. K. Viele, in "General Egbert L. Viele," New York Genealogy and Biographical Record, Jan. 1903, uses the accent and spells the middle name Lodovickus, while Viele's daughter, Kathryne Knickerbacker Viele, in Viele 1659-1909 (1909) and Viele Records (1913), uses the forms adopted in this sketch. See also Who's Who in America, 1901-02; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; Thirty-third Annual Reunion Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1902); Year Book of the Holland Society of New York (1903); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Bull. American Geog. Society, April 1902; C. C. Cook, A Description of the New York Central Park (1869); Army and Navy Journal, April 26, 1902; New York Tribune, April 23, 1902.]

A. F. H.



VINTON, FRANCIS LAURENS (June 1, 1835-Oct. 6, 1879), Union soldier, mining engineer, was born at Fort Preble, Portland Harbor, Maine, the son of an army officer, John Rogers Vinton, and Lucretia Dutton (Parker). His mother died in 1838, and his father was killed at the siege of Vera Cruz in 1847. Thereafter, until 1851, when he was appointed to the United States Military Academy by President Fillmore, the boy was cared for by his uncle, Francis Vinton [q.v.], who had left the army for the Protestant Episcopal ministry. Vinton graduated at West Point tenth in his class in 1856 but resigned within a few months and proceeded to France, where he entered the Ecole des Mines. After four years of study he returned to the United States, where he at once obtained a position as instructor in mechanical drawing at Cooper Union, New York City. In February 1861, he left to head an expedition to explore th e mineral resources of Honduras, but had barely started before the news of the outbreak of the Civil War caused him to return to the United States. He was commissioned captain in the 16th United States Infantry on August S, 1861, and was soon given permission to raise a regiment, of which he was made colonel on October 31, 1861. He commanded this regiment, the 43rd New York, with skill and distinction in the various battles of the Virginia peninsular campaign (March-August 1862). After September 1862 he commanded a brigade in the VI Corps (Army of the Potomac) until he was wounded in the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, so severely that he was never able to rejoin hiscommand. Appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers on March 13, 1863, he resigned less than two months later. In the following year, when the School of Mines of Columbia College opened its doors, Vinton was selected by Thomas Egleston [q.v.], whom he had known at the Ecole des Mines, to fill the chair of civil and mining engineering. A man of great personal charm and extremely popular with his students, he taught such subjects as mechanical drawing and elementary civil engineering with great skill, but his presentation of mining was necessarily confined to European practice, since he had had no contact with mining in America. To a man who had successfully commanded a brigade of soldiers in combat this must have seemed a task which offered but little scope for his real capacity. After thirteen years in the chair he resigned and went to Denver, Colorado, where he established himself as a consulting mining engineer. Here, in addition to engineering employment, he found congenial work as Colorado correspondent of the Engineering and Mining Journal of New York, to which, during the next two years, he contributed well written and beautifully illustrated articles. On a professional trip to Leadville, Colorado, then coming to the height of its glory, he became infected with erysipelas and died within a few days, at the age of forty-four. His impressive funeral services were chiefly a recognition of the distinction of his military career, but were attended by the most prominent mining men of the state.

[New York Herald, October 7, 1879; G.W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; Engineering and Mining Journal October 11, 25, 1879; Eleventh Annual Reunion Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1880); J. A. Vinton, The Vinton Memorial (1858); Army and Navy Journal, October 11, 1879.]

T.T.R.



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