W-Z: Wadsworth through Wright

Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography

WADSWORTH, JAMES SAMUEL (October 30, 1807-May 8, 1864), Union soldier, was the son of James Wadsworth [q.v.] and his wife, Naomi, daughter of Samuel Wolcott of East Windsor, Connecticut, Born at Geneseo, New York, at a time when the hardships of the first settlement there were over, Wadsworth grew up among pioneer surroundings, but as the prospective heir to a great landed estate. He spent two years at Harvard, without graduating, studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but did not practise, his legal education having been intended only to prepare him for the management of his properties. On May 11, 1834, he married Mary Craig Wharton, daughter of John Wharton, a Quaker merchant of Philadelphia. His position in the community and his own sense of public duty made him active in politics throughout his life, although he had no ambition for office. At first a Democrat, his strong anti-slavery sentiments made him join in organizing the Free-Soil party, which merged with the Republican party in 1856. He was a delegate to the unofficial "peace conference" in Washington in February 1861. From the outbreak of the Civil War his life and fortune were unreservedly at the service of the country. "It always seemed to me," wrote his friend John Lothrop Motley, "that he was the truest and the most thoroughly loyal American I ever knew" (Pearson, post, p. 34). But he was no candidate for high military rank. The governor of New York, on the understanding that he could name two major generals of volunteers, offered an appointment to Wadsworth, who advised the selection of a regular army officer instead, and accepted only when this was found impossible. "I am better than a worse man," was his sagacious comment, and he was frankly gratified when the grant of power to the governor was refused. He went to the front, however, and offered his services as an aide to General Irvin McDowell, a gift accepted with hesitation, for a middle-aged gentleman of national reputation would not seem to be either physically or mentally suitable for an orderly officer. But he proved at the battle of Bull Run that both in hard riding and in intelligent obedience he could match the youngest of the staff. On August 9, 1861, he was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers. The appointment, which was partly political, was intended to conciliate Republicans of Democratic antecedents. Wadsworth accepted it after considering in his usual detached fashion what the effect on the public service might be. He was, indeed, much better qualified than most of the non-professional general officers. Though destitute of military training like the rest, he had the habit of command, rarer among Union than among Confederate volunteers, and his civil occupations had fitted him peculiarly well for the care of his men in the field. A military education would not have shown him how to organize a system of supply by ox team, as he did when his brigade was camped in the Virginia mud near Arlington during the first winter of the war and mule-drawn wagons could not get through. He was fortunate in not being required to command a large force in action until he had been nearly two years in service and the men under him were seasoned veterans. When the Army of the Potomac moved to the peninsula in the spring of 1862, he was left in command of the defenses of Washington  Doubtful of getting service in the field, he accepted the Republican nomination for governor of New York but was defeated at the election. In December 1862, after the battle of Fredericksburg, he took command of the 1st Division, I Corps. It had a small part in the battle of Chancellorsville and a very great one at Gettysburg. On the first day of the battle, in spite of terrific loss, it held the Confederates in check while the rest of the army was hastening to the battlefield. On the second and third days it held Culp's Hill, on the right of the Union line. In the reorganization of the army for the 1864 campaign, Wadsworth received the 4th Division of the V Corps, made up largely of regiments from his old command. After nearly succeeding in breaking through the Confederate center on the second day (May 6) of the battle of the Wilderness, it was outflanked and driven back. Wadsworth had already had two horses shot under him; his third was unmanageable, and the Confederate line was close upon him before he could turn. He was shot in the head, and the enemy's advance passed over his body. He died two days later in a Confederate field hospital. He was survived by his wife and their six children. 

[C. C. Baldwin, Wadsworth (Copyright 1882); H. G. Pearson, James S. Wadsworth of Geneseo (1913), an adequate biography, with ample citations of authorities; L. F. Allen, Memorial of the Late General James S. Wadsworth (1865); Proc. Century Association in Honor of Brigadier General James S. Wadsworth (1865); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); New York Monuments Commission, In Memoriam, James Samuel Wadsworth (1916); Morris Schaff, The Battle of the Wilderness (1910); obituary in New York Times, May 11, 1864. ]

T. M. S.



WALLACE, LEWIS (April 10, 1827-February 15, 1905), lawyer, soldier, diplomat, author, commonly known as "Lew" Wallace, was born at Brookville, Indiana, the son of David [q.v.] and Esther French (Test) Wallace. His mother, to whom he was deeply attached, died during his boyhood. He early displayed a love of adventure; his father tried to keep him in school, but the boy was irked by ordinary tasks and preferred to draw caricatures or to play truant. As he grew older, however, he carried his books to the woods as often as his gun and rod. When his father was elected governor of Indiana in 1837 and the family moved to Indianapolis, Lew's zest for reading was stimulated by the advantages of th e state library. Before he was sixteen he began to support himself by copying records in the county clerk's office. About the same time, Prescott's Conquest of Mexico made such a deep impression upon him that he determined to write upon the theme. Thus, The Fair God of later years had its inception. In 1844-45 he reported the proceedings of the Indiana House of Representatives for the Indianapolis Daily Journal, and soon afterwards began the study of law in his father's office. When the Mexican War began, he raised a company of which he became second lieutenant and which was assigned to the 1st Indiana Infantry. His services in Mexico gave him experience without involving him in the dangers of any serious engagement. He campaigned against Taylor in 1848 and edited a Free-Soil paper, chiefly because of resentment against Taylor's treatment of the Indiana regiments. Following the campaign he became a Democrat. Admitted to the bar in 1849 he began practice in Indianapolis. Soon he moved to Covington, and in 1850 and 1852 was elected prosecuting attorney. In 1853 he changed his residence to Crawfordsville, and in 1856 was elected to the state Senate. There he advocated a reform in divorce laws and in 1859 proposed the popular election of United States senators. In the summer of 1856 he had organized a military company at Crawfordsville which he drilled so efficiently that most of its members became officers in the Civil War. After Fort Sumter was fired upon, Governor O. P. Morton [q.v.] made him adjutant-general of the state. Within a week he had 130 companies in camp, seventy more than the state quota, and was made colonel of the 11th Regiment. Soon at the front, he helped to capture Romney, on the South Branch of the Potomac, and to evict the enemy from Harpers Ferry. An excellent disciplinarian and popular with his men, he was promoted rapidly. On September 3, 1861, he was made a brigadier-general and on March 21, 1862, after his service at the capture of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, a major-general. Unfortunately, he incurred the ill will of General Halleck, who twice removed him from command; the first time he was restored by President Lincoln, the second time, by General Grant. In November 1862, he was president of the military commission that investigated the operations of the army under Major-General Don Carlos Buell [q.v.]. The following year he saved Cincinnati from capture by General E. Kirby-Smith [q.v.], after which event the President gave him command of the Middle Division and VIII Army Corps, with headquarters at Baltimore. With 5,800 men, part of them inexperienced, he held a force of 28,000 under General Jubal A. Early [q.v.] at the Monocacy, July 9, 1864. Though defeated, he probably saved Washington from capture, and was highly commended by Grant in his Memoirs (post, II, 306). He served on the court martial which tried the assassins of Lincoln, and was president of the court that tried and convicted Henry Wirz [q.v.], commandant of Andersonville Prison. At the close of the war he undertook to procure munitions and to raise a corps of veterans for the Mexican liberals, and spent some time in Mexico. Returning to Crawfordsville, he practised law, and in 1870 was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress on the Republican ticket. In 1878 he was appointed governor of New Mexico, serving until 1881, when President Garfield appointed him minister to Turkey. There he lived for four years, 1881-85, winning the confidence of the Sultan to an unusual degree. In 1890 he declined an offer of the mission to Brazil tendered by President Harrison. Wallace is best known, however, as a man of letters. In 1873 he published The Fair God, a story of the conquest of Mexico, which won him wide recognition. The fame thus attained was greatly enhanced by Ben Hur; A Tale of the Christ (1880), of which 300,000 copies were sold within ten years. It was translated into a number of foreign languages, including Arabic and Chinese, and was successfully dramatized. The extraordinary success of this work was largely due to the fact that the greatest figure in history was with the deepest reverence brought into a strong story dramatically told. Among his other publications were The Life of Benjamin Harrison (1888), written for campaign purposes; The Boyhood of Christ (1888); The Prince of India (1893), inspired by his stay in Constantinople; and The Wooing of  Malkatoon (1898), a poem, with which was included Commodu1, a tragedy, written many years earlier. In 1906 appeared Lew Wallace, An Autobiography, which Wallace had brought down only to 1864, but which was sketchily completed by his wife and Mary H. Krout. On May 6, 1852, he married Susan Arnold (December 25, 1830-October 1, 1907), born in Crawfordsville, the daughter of Colonel Isaac C. and Maria Aken Elston. Fifty years later he called her "a composite of genius, common-sense, and all best womanly qualities" (Autobiography, I, 209). She was a frequent contributor to newspapers and periodicals, and one of her poems, "The Patter of Little Feet," had wide popularity. Other publications by her include The Storied Sea (1883); Ginevra: or The Old Oak Chest (1887); The Land of the Pueblos (1888); and The Repose in Egypt (1888). Wallace's poise and urbanity marked him as a man of the world, yet he was simple in taste and democratic in ideals. For politics he had no aptitude; the law he did not like; the military life challenged his adventurous spirit but could not hold him after his country had no special use for his services; art, music, and literature were his most vital and permanent interests. Many a young person had reason to remember the gracious hospitality of his study, built as "a pleasure-house for my soul." Never a church member, he believed in the divinity of Christ. His last years were serene. He lectured frequently and received unstinted praise. He died at Crawfordsville, and five years after his death his statue was unveiled in the Capitol at Washington as representative of the state of Indiana.

[In addition to the Autobiography, see Commemorative Biographical Record of Prominent and Representative Men of Indianapolis and Vicinity (1908); J. P. Dunn, Greater Indianapolis (1910), volume II; M. H. Krout, "Personal Record of Lew Wallace," Harper's Weekly, March 18, 1905; Meredith Nicholson, in Review of Reviews, April 1905; New York Tribune, Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis News and Daily Sentinel (Indianapolis), February 16, 1905; Senate Doc. 503, 61 Congress, 2 Session; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (2 volumes, 1885-86).] A.L.L. port 1335, 62 Congress, 3

J H.J.P.



WARREN, GOUVERNEUR KEMBLE (January 8, 1830-August 8, 1882), soldier, engineer, was born in Cold Spring, New York, across the Hudson from West Point, the son of Sylvanus Warren, a close personal friend of Washington Irving and a prominent citizen of Putnam County. Fourth of twelve children, the lad was named for Gouverneur Kemble [q.v.], proprietor of a foundry at Cold Spring and sometime member of the House of Representatives. After some instruction in his native town and at Kinsley's School across the Hudson, Warren at sixteen was appointed to the United States Military Academy, with the admonition from Kemble: "We expect you to rank, at graduation, not lower than second." Carrying out instructions literally, he finished number two in his class, July 1, 1850, and was appointed brevet second lieutenant in the restricted Corps of Topographical Engineers. During the next four years he served successively as assistant engineer on the survey of the Delta of the Mississippi River, member of the board for the improvement of the canal around the Falls of the Ohio, head of surveys for the improvement of Rock Island and Des Moines Rapids, and, with Captain A. A. Humphreys [q.v.], as compiler of maps and reports of the Pacific Railroad exploration. Promoted second lieutenant, September 1, 1854, he was chief topographical engineer of the Sioux Expedition of 1855, receiving his baptism of fire on September 3, in the battle of the Blue Water. Promoted first lieutenant, July 1, 1856, he was engaged in making maps and reconnaissances of Dakota Territory and Nebraska Territory until August 1859, when he was detailed as assistant professor of mathematics at the Military Academy. The opening of the Civil War found him still teaching at West Point, but on May 14, 1861, he became lieutenant-colonel of the 5th New York Volunteers, seeing action at Big Bethel Church, June 10, and subsequently aiding in the construction of defenses around Baltimore and Washington. He was promoted colonel of his regiment August 31, and captain of topographical engineers, United States Army, September 9. In the Peninsular campaign of 1862 he was engaged in the siege of Yorktown and commanded a brigade at Pamunky River and Hanover Court House (May 26, 27). He was wounded at Gaines's Mill, June 27, and brevetted lieutenant-colonel, United States Army, for gallant and meritorious service in that battle. Four days later he commanded the force that repulsed Wise's division at Malvern Hill, and the next day participated in the engagement at Harrison's Landing. He took part in the second battle of Bull Run and the skirmish at Centerville (August 30, September 1, 1862), and commanded a brigade in the Maryland campaign and its sequel, from Antietam to Falmouth, Virginia (September-November 1862). Promoted brigadier-general of volunteers, September 26, he served at the battle of Fredericksburg in December. As chief topographical engineer of the Army of the Potomac from February 4, 1863, he saw action in May at Orange Pike, Marye Heights, and Salem. He was promoted major-general of volunteers June 3, 1863, and served as chief engineer, Army of the Potomac, from June 8 to August 12, 1863. It was at Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863) that he rendered his most distinguished service. On the second day of that vital struggle, sent at his own suggestion by Meade to examine the Union left, he discovered that Little Round Top, the commanding position, was undefended except for a few signalers. He perceived Longstreet's threat and, intercepting some of Sickles' supports and Sykes's troops on the Peach Orchard road, practically commandeered them for the defense of the hill, just in time to keep Little Round Top from falling into the hands of the Confederates. Had this critical point been taken by Longstreet, it is agreed that the whole Union army would have been forced back in disorder and the day lost. Warren was brevetted colonel, United States Army, for his services in this battle, and in 1888 a bronze statue of him was erected to mark the spot where his alertness and· energy came into play. Despite a wound received during the defense of Little Round Top, he continued in action, and was subsequently in temporary command of the II Corps from August 12, 1863, to May 24, 1864, participating in a number of engagements, notably that at Bristoe Station. He was placed regularly in command of the V Corps, March 24, 1864, and with this corps participated in the actions of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and other engagements, as well as the various assaults on Petersburg. He was promoted major, United States Army, June 25, 1864, and brevetted major-general, United States Army, March 13, 1865. At Five Forks, April 1, 1865, the last decisive battle of the war, his corps, after conflicting orders, arrived with dispatch on the flank of the Confederates and offered to the cavalry's hard-pressed troops the signal aid that clinched the victory, but to the astonishment of his subordinates and others engaged in that critical action, he was summarily relieved of his command by Sheridan, who had been given authority by General Grant. Transferred to command the defenses of Petersburg and the Southside Railroad, he served here during April and the first half of May, then commanded the Department of Mississippi, May 14-30, 1865. On May 27 he resigned his volunteer commission and reverted to the status of major of engineers, United States Army. During the later sixties he prepared maps and reports of his campaigns and elaborated for publication the results of some of his early explorations. He served as member of the board of engineers to examine the canal at Washington, D. C., as superintending engineer of surveys and improvements of the upper Mississippi, and as member of the commission to examine the Union Pacific Railroad and telegraph lines. He was also in charge of the survey of the battlefield of Gettysburg. For almost a year, in 1869-70, he supervised the building of the Rock Island bridge across the Mississippi, and there through exposure and over-exertion received the impairment to his health which ultimately caused his death. He continued for twelve years more, however, in the river-and-harbor work of the Corps of Engineers-in the upper Mississippi Valley, along the Atlantic Coast, and in the Great Lakes. On October 10, 1878, he was made a member of the advisory council of the Harbor Commission of Rhode Island, 'and on March 4, 1879, he was promoted a lieutenant-colonel of engineers. Throughout this period he made repeated requests for a board of inquiry to examine into the causes of his ignominious relief at Five Forks, but since the authorities implicated were then in power, his request was not granted until December 1879. The court then appointed not only fully exonerated and applauded him, but cast reflections upon the manner of his relief. Ironically, however, the findings vindicating him were not published until three months after his death. Among Warren's published writings were: "Examination of Reports of Various Routes," with Captain A. A. Humphreys, in Reports of Explorations and Surveys .... for a Railroad ... to the Pacific Ocean, volume I (1855); Memoir to Accompany the Map of the Territory of the United States from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, Giving a Brief Account of Each of the Exploring Expeditions since A.D. 1800 (1859); An Account of the Operations of the Fifth Army Corps (1866); Report of the Survey of the Upper Mississippi River and Its Tributaries (1867); An Essay Concerning Important Physical Features Exhibited in the Valley of the Minnesota River (1874), Preliminary Report of Explorations in Nebraska and Dakota in the Years 1855-'56-'57 (1875); Report on the Transportation Route along the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers …. between the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan (1876); Report on Bridging the Mississippi River between St. Paul, Minnesota; and St. Louis, Missouri. (1878). He was a member of a number of scientific organizations, including the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. Warren was a firm friend, a generous enemy, gentle, sensitive, kind, and stanch. He was passionately fond of flowers. After the death of his father in 1859, he assumed much of the responsibility for the younger members of the family, whose welfare he guarded faithfully and tenderly. On June 17, 1863, he married Emily Forbes Chase of Baltimore, by whom he had a son and a daughter; two years later his sister Emily married his former aide, Washington A. Roebling [q.v.]. Warren died at his home in Newport, Rhode Island, at the age of fifty-two.

[E. G. Taylor, Gouverneur Kemble Warren (1932); The Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Rhode Island (1881); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U.S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; H. L. Abbot, in National Academy Science Biographical Memoirs, volume II (1886) and in F011rteenth Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1883); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Proceedings, Findings, and Opinions of the Court of Inquiry ... in the Case of Gouverneur K. Warren (1883); Dedication Services at the Unveiling of the Bronze Statue of Major-General G. K. Warren at Little Round Top, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. (1888); Army and Navy Journal, August 12, 1882; New York Times, August 9, 1882.]

W.A.G.



WASHBURN, CADWALLADER COLDEN (April 22, 1818-May 14, 1882), soldier, congressman, governor of Wisconsin, pioneer industrialist, was one of the seven sons (an eighth died in infancy) of Israel and Martha (Benjamin) Washburn. His ancestry on both sides went back to early Massachusetts Puritans on the paternal side to John Washburn who settled in Duxbury in 1632-and his two grandfathers, Captain Israel Washburn and Lieutenant Samuel Benjamin, served with distinction in the Revolutionary War. In 1809 Washburn's father, who had left the ancestral home in Raynham, Massachusetts, three years before, bought a farm and a store at Livermore, Androscoggin County, Maine. Here he married and brought up his numerous brood of children, which included, besides the boys, three girls; Members of so large a family could not stay for long under the parental rooftree; hence, in 1839, equipped with what education he could get from the town schools, and deeply impressed by the advice of Reuel Washburn, a lawyer uncle, Cadwallader borrowed enough money to pay his way to the West, and was soon in Davenport, Iowa. Here, and across the Mississippi in Illinois, he taught school, worked in a store, did some surveying, and read law. In 1842 he opened a law office at Mineral Point, Wisconsin a small town not far from Galena, Illinois, where his brother Elihu B. Washburne [q.v.] had settled two years before. The foundation of his great fortune was soon laid. In 1844 he formed a partnership with Cyrus Woodman, an experienced land agent, and gradually abandoned the law for the far more lucrative business of entering public lands for settlers. Before long he partners owned in their own right valuable pine, mineral, and agricultural lands, and for a short time they operated the Mineral Point Bank. After 1855, when the partnership was amicably dissolved, Washburn carried on his now extensive operations alone. Even politics and the Civil War did not interfere seriously with the normal growth of this pioneer fortune. Proud of his honesty, and of the record of his bank, which never suspended specie payments and liquidated by meeting every obligation in full, Washburn rarely won the ill will of his neighbors; but his judgment on business matters was sound, and the opportunities for making money in a rapidly developing country were abundant. Washburn's excellent reputation, and his early adherence to the principles upon which the Republican party was founded, brought him an unsolicited nomination and election to Congress in 1854. He sat in three successive congresses, in each of which, by an odd coincidence, his brother Israel [q.v.] represented a Maine district, and his brother Elihu an Illinois district. The three brothers, to the satisfaction of their respective constituencies, lent one another much aid, particularly on local matters, but the representative from Wisconsin achieved no very great national prominence. His outstanding act was to oppose vigorously a House plan to pacify the South by so amending the Constitution as to continue slavery indefinitely; but his participation in the Washington Peace Convention of 1861 showed his desire to prevent war. When war came nevertheless, his record was admirable. He raised the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry, became its colonel, and by the encl of 1862 was a major-general. His command saw hard service in most of the campaigns west of the Mississippi River, and participated in the fighting around Vicksburg. When the war ended, he was in charge of the Department of Western Tennessee, with headquarters at Memphis. After the war, as a rich man and a former major-general of volunteers, Washburn was clearly marked for a political career if he desired it, but politics never absorbed his chief interest. He served two more terms in Congress, 1867-71, as a thoroughly regular Republican, and one term,  January 1, 1872, to December 31, 1873, as governor of Wisconsin. He would probably have welcomed a seat in the United States Senate, or a cabinet appointment, but these honors were denied him, and he was content to devote his later years to the operation and expansion of his vast industrial enterprises. His pine lands brought him into the lumber business and his shrewd acquisition of water-power rights at the Falls of St. Anthony (Minneapolis) on the upper Mississippi enabled him to become one of the nation's foremost manufacturers of flour. In 1856 he helped organize the Minneapolis Mill Company, of which his younger brother, William D. Washburn [q.v.] became secretary. Some fifteen years later C. C. Washburn was one of the first to adopt the "New Process" of milling, which created a demand for the spring wheat of the Northwest and completely revolutionized the flour industry in the United States. Like his great rival, Charles A. Pillsbury [q.v.], he was prompt in substituting rollers for millstones. In 1877 Washburn, Crosby & Company was organized, and two years later reorganized, with Washburn, John Crosby, Charles J. Martin, and William E. Dunwoody [q.v.], as partners. Naturally Washburn's wealth drew him into many other lines of business. He was, for example, one of the projectors and builders of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad. His private life was saddened, though not embittered, by the insanity of his wife, Jeannette Garr, a visitor to the West from New York City, whom he married  January 1, 1849. She became an invalid after the birth of their second child in 1852, and although she survived her husband by many years her mind was never restored. Perhaps as an outlet to his feelings, Washburn took much satisfaction in his philanthropies, among which were the Washburn Observatory of the University of Wisconsin, the Public Library at La Crosse (his residence after 1859), and an orphan asylum in Minneapolis. He suffered a stroke of paralysis in 1881, and died a year later at Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

[A manuscript sketch of C. C. Washburn's life, prepared by his brother Elihu, together with an extensive collection of Washburn and Woodman papers, is in the possession of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. See also Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu and Cadwallader Washburn (1925); David Atwood and others, "In Memoriam: Hon. Cadwallader C. Washburn," Wisconsin Historical Society Collection, volume IX (1882); C. W. Butterfield, "Cadwallader C. Washburn," Northwest Review (Minneapolis), March 1883; Biographical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties, Wisconsin (1892); C. B. Kuhlmann, The Development of the Flour-Milling Industry in the U. S. (1929); W. C. Edgar, The Medal of Gold (1925); New York Times, May 1s, 1882; Republican and Leader (La Crosse), May 20, 27, 1882.]

J. D. H-s.



WEBB, ALEXANDER STEWART (February 15, 1835-February 12, 1911), soldier, college president, was born in New York, the son of James Watson Webb [q.v.] and his first wife, Helen Lispenard Stewart. After training in private schools Webb was appointed a cadet in the United States Military Academy, where he was graduated in 1855 and commissioned second lieutenant of artillery. In this same year he married Anna, daughter of Henry Rutgers Remsen. In 1856 he saw dangerous and exacting duty in Florida during the war against the Seminole Indians. After a year of garrison duty at Fort Independence, Massachusetts, and Fort Snelling, Minnesota, he returned to the Academy, November 10, 1857, as assistant professor of mathematics. At the beginning of the Civil War he was commissioned first lieutenant, 2nd Artillery, and returned to duty in the field. Having distinguished himself at Fort Pickens and in the first battle of Bull Run, he was appointed assistant to the chief of artillery of the Army of the Potomac. From March to November 1862 he was inspector general on the staff of General William F. Barry [q.v.] and served with distinction in the battles of Yorktown, the Seven Days, and Malvern Hill. At the end of the Peninsula campaign, he was sent to Washington as inspector of artillery in the camp of instruction, but in January 1863 was reassigned to duty in the field as assistant inspector general of the V Corps. Relieved of this duty in May, he assumed command of the 2nd (Philadelphia) Brigade, Second Division, II Corps, which he led at Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg. In the latter action Webb's brigade occupied the Bloody Angle, where it bore the brunt of Pickett's charge and had a decisive part in his repulse. For distinguished personal gallantry in the battle of Gettysburg Webb was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, September 28, 1891. After Gettysburg he served continuously, commanding the Second Division, II Corps, until the battle of Spotsylvania Court House (May 1864), where he was severely wounded. After his recovery he did court-martial duty in New York until January 1865, when he became chief-of-staff to General Meade. At the end of six months he was appointed assistant inspector general, Division of the Atlantic, which duty he relinquished in February 1866. From June of that year until October 1868 he was principal assistant professor of history, ethics, and constitutional and international law at the Military Academy, then rejoined his regiment for service in Washington. He was unassigned for a year, and honorably discharged from the army at his own request, December 31, 1870, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. During his career in the service he occupied every rank to that of major-general, either by appointment or by brevet. The honors that came to him in recognition of personal gallantry indicate his importance as a soldier; he had little experience in leading masses of men or in planning large-scale military activities, but he was an inspiring commander under fire and an intrepid fighter. He enjoyed the highest respect and admiration of his men, who, in later years, delighted to honor him by election to high office in veteran organizations, and after his death took a leading part in causing the State of New York to erect a statue of him at the Bloody Angle. On July 21, 1869, Webb was elected president of the College of the City of New York, in succession to Horace Webster, also a graduate of West Point, and in accordance with the custom then prevailing was appointed also to the chair of political philosophy. He continued in active service until failing powers forced his retirement on December 1, 1902. Though much admired by faculty and students for his personal qualities, he made no original contribution as an educator. He rigidly maintained the fixed curriculum set by his predecessor, and expended a disproportionate amount of his own time and of that of the faculty on routine matters of administration. During his tenure of the presidency, the College maintained the high standards of scholarship set from the beginning, without significant advancement in the scope of its work, but the picturesqueness of his personality and the dignity of his bearing brought to the life of the institution an impressiveness that in some measure made up for his lack of leadership in scholarly attainment. In 1881 he published The Peninsula: McClellan's Campaign of 1862. After his retirement Webb lived quietly at Riverdale, going to the city only occasionally for patriotic celebrations or to fulfill his duties as a member of the New York Monuments Commission (1895-1911) and member of the council of the Military Service Institution. He died at the end of his seventy-sixth year, survived by four daughters and a son.

(Who's Who in America, 1910-11; F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903); The City College: Memories of Sixty Years (1907), pp. 107-36; City College Quart., March 1910, March, June 1911; In Memoriam, Alexander Stewart Webb, 1835-1911 (Albany, 1916); Forty-second Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1911); New York Times, February 12, 13, 14, 1911.

J D.A.R.



WEBSTER, JOSEPH DANA (August 25, 1811-March 12, 1876), soldier and engineer, was born at Hampton, New Hampshire, the son of Josiah Webster, a Congregational minister, and Elizabeth (Wright) Webster. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1832 and studied law, but in 1835 entered the government service as a civil engineer. He was commissioned in the army, July 7, 1838, as a second lieutenant of topographical engineers and was promoted first lieutenant, July 14, 1849, and captain, March 3, 1853. Resigning, April 7, 1854, he settled in Chicago-where he had connections through his marriage in 1844 to a Miss Wright of that city and acquired a considerable interest in a company manufacturing agricultural implements. In 1855 he was chosen as one of the three members of the Chicago sewerage commission, which was charged both with the construction of an extensive sewer system and with the raising of the level of a great part of the city. He was appointed major and paymaster in the volunteer army, July 1, 1861, but never performed duty as a paymaster, for he was sent at once to Cairo, Illinois, and employed on fortification and other engineering duties until his appointment, February 1, 1862, as colonel, 1st Illinois Light Artillery. Meanwhile, Grant had selected him as his chief of staff; he served with him at Belmont, Forts Henry and Donelson, and Shiloh. His position was not precisely what the title now suggests. The chief of staff, according to Grant's instructions, was to act as his adviser, and also to look after anything not otherwise attended to. He was a general utility man. On the first day at Shiloh, for example, when the Union troops were being forced back on the river, Grant sent Webster to collect artillery for a last stand, if necessary, on the heights above the landing, and here he assembled one hundred guns. Grant repeatedly recommended his promotion. On December 3, 1862, President Lincoln wrote to the secretary of war: "Let Colonel James [sic] D. Webster, of Illinois, be appointed a Brigadier General of Volunteers"; but in some way this order was overlooked until Lincoln repeated it. The appointment was not finally made until April 1863, with rank, however, from November 29, 1862. Shortly before, Webster had been put in charge by Grant of all the military railways in the area of his operations. Webster managed them before, during, and after the Vicksburg campaign. He was then designated as Sherman's chief of staff, remaining at the administrative headquarters in Nashville while his commanding general was in the field during the Atlanta campaign and the march to the sea. Thus he was with Thomas at the battle of Nashville. After Sherman reached Savannah the headquarters were transferred, and Webster joined his chief in the Carolinas. He was brevetted major general of volunteers, March 13, 1865, and on November 6 of that year resigned from the army. His entire military service had been passed in close association either with Grant or with Sherman, both of whom had profound confidence in him. Some years after the war, when General William Sooy Smith [q.v.], in personal correspondence with Sherman, complained that statements published by the latter had done him injustice, Sherman proposed that the whole case be submitted to Webster as a competent and impartial judge. After leaving the army Webster returned to Chicago and spent the rest of his life there. He was assessor of internal revenue from 1869 to 1872, assistant United States treasurer from 1872 to 1875, and collector of internal revenue from 1875 until his death. He was survived by his wife and three children.

[War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903); Biographical Sketches of Illinois Officers (1862); W. T Sherman, Memoirs (1875); Chicago Daily Tribune, March 13, 1876; unpublished records in the War Department]

T.M.S.



WEITZEL, GODFREY (November 1, 1835-March 19, 1884), soldier, engineer, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Louis and Susan Weitzel, recent arrivals from the Bavarian Palatinate. After preparatory education in the local schools, he entered the United States Military Academy in 1851, graduated July 1, 1855, as second in a class of thirty-four, and was commissioned brevet second lieutenant of engineers. He became second lieutenant July 27, 1856, and first lieutenant, July 1, 1860. His first duty was on the fortifications of New Orleans, 1855-59. Subsequently, until January 1861, he was assistant professor of engineering at the Military Academy. During this period his wife died as the result of burns sustained when her dress caught fire. Early in 1861 Weitzel was assigned to the engineer company on duty in Washington, and with this company he took part in the expedition to Pensacola, Florida (April 19-September 17, 1861), which saved Fort Pickens to the Union. In the fall of the same year he was chief engineer of the fortifications of Cincinnati, then returned to Washington in command of an engineer company. On account of his familiarity with the defenses of New Orleans, in the spring of 1862 he was made chief engineer of General Butler's force, which cooperated with Admiral Farragut in the operations against that place. After the surrender, April 30, he served as assistant military commandant of the city. Made brigadier-general of volunteers on August 29, 1862, he was thereafter continuously engaged in field operations in Louisiana until December 1863. He commanded a brigade and provisional division in the siege of Port Hudson, and in the assaults of May 27 and June 14, 1863. During this period he became captain in the regular engineer corps, and received the brevets of major and lieutenant-colonel for gallantry at Thibodeaux and Port Hudson. In May 1864 he assumed command of the Second Division, XVIII Army Corps, in Butler's Army of the James, but was soon detached to become chief engineer of that army. In this capacity he supervised the construction of the defenses of Bermuda Hundred. In August he became brevet major-general of volunteers, and in September returned to troop duty, commanding first the XVIII and later the XXV Army Corps. He received the brevet rank of colonel in the regular service September 29, 1864, for gallantry at the capture of Fort Harrison, Virginia, and on November 17, 1864, was promoted major-general of volunteers. In December he was second in command to Butler in the first expedition against Fort Fisher, and exercised the active command of the troops sent ashore. During the final operations against Richmond his command occupied the line between the James and the Appomattox rivers, and took possession of the city upon its evacuation, April 3, 1865. For service in this campaign he received the brevets of brigadier-general and major-general in the regular army. General Butler relied greatly upon him, and General Grant spoke of him as a thoroughly competent corps commander (John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant, 1879, II, 304). He had much experience in command of colored troops. When first assigned to this duty, in 1862, he vigorously opposed the idea of arming slaves, and accepted the command under strong protests; but he was successful with these troops, and in 1864 and 1865 all the infantry regiments of his XXV Corps were colored. After Lee's surrender, in the concentration of troops in Texas incident to the Maximilian episode, Weitzel commanded the Rio Grande district; but the emergency there having been terminated, he was mustered out of the volunteer service March 1, 1866, and returned to duty with the Corps of Engineers, in which he became a major, August 8, 1866. Thereafter until his death he was engaged in the constructive work of his corps, notably in river and harbor improvement. Of the numerous projects with which he was connected, the most important were the ship canals at the falls of the Ohio and at Sault Sainte Marie, Mich., and the lighthouse at Stannard's Rock in Lake Superior. Taking over the first of these enterprises in 1867 after much work had been done, he carried it to completion in 1873. At Sault Sainte Marie he supervised the building of what was at the time the largest lock in the world-515 feet long and eighty wide, with a lift of eighteen feet. The lighthouse, with a tower rising roi feet above the water, involved the construction below water level of a solid concrete foundation, sixty-two feet in diameter, on top of a rock situated thirty miles from shore. In connection with his various enterprises, Weitzel made and published translations of several German works dealing with hydraulic engineering and canal construction. He was made a lieutenant-colonel June 23, 1882, and shortly afterward, because of failing health, was transferred from the Great Lakes to less arduous duty at Philadelphia, where he died in his forty-ninth year. He was married, shortly before the close of the Civil War, to Louisa Bogen of Cincinnati, and was survived by his wife and a daughter.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; 15th Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1884); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); J. F. Brennan, A Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery ... of Ohio (1879); Cincinnati Past and Present (1872); The Biographical Encyclopedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth Century (1876); The Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery ... of Ohio, volume III (1884); Charles Moore, The Saint Marys Falls Canal (1907); Army and Navy Journal, March 22, 1884; Phila. Press, March 20, 1884.)

O. L.S., Jr.



WHEATON, FRANK (May 8, 1833-June 18, 1903), soldier, was born at Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Dr. Francis Levison Wheaton and Amelia S. (Burrill) Wheaton. On his father's side he was a descendant of Robert Wheaton, who emigrated from Wales to Massachusetts between 1630 and 1636. Young Wheaton attended the public schools, and studied engineering for one year at Brown University, leaving college in 1850 to accept a position with the United States and Mexico Boundary Commission, with which he passed five years in border surveying. In 1855 he accepted an appointment as a first lieutenant, 1st United States Cavalry. He was engaged in Sumner's campaign against Indians in 1857, in the Mormon expedition in 1858, and in fighting in the Indian Territory in 1859. On March 1, 1861, preceding the outbreak of the Civil War, he became a captain in the 4th Cavalry, and in July the lieutenant-colonel of the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry. This regiment suffered heavily in the battle of Bull Run; its colonel was among the killed and Wheaton was promoted to succeed him. For "admirable conduct" in the battle Wheaton was commended by General Burnside. In 1862 the 2nd Rhode Island joined McClellan's army in the Peninsula campaign, and was reported for efficiency in the battle of Williamsburg (May 5). Late that year, as of November 29, Wheaton was appointed a brigadier-general, United States Volunteers, and assigned to command a brigade in the VI Corps, which he led in December in the attack on Fredericksburg. In May following he again assisted in an attack on that town, incidental to the campaign of Chancellorsville. Wheaton's brigade arrived late at Gettysburg, but participated in the final action on July 3, 1863. Commanding the same brigade of the VI (Sedgwick's) Corps, he had a prominent part in the Wilderness Campaign in the spring of 1864. He had important missions at Spotsylvania and at Cold Harbor, and was one of the first to cross the James River and arrive in front of Petersburg on June 18. He assaulted the outer works of that city, but was unable to seize the main position. Shortly afterward, Wheaton, now commanding a division, was rushed by water to Washington, D. C., to repel a threatened attack by the Confederate General Jubal A. Early. Debarking at noon, July 11, he marched to Fort Stevens, D. C., where an extemporized force of clerks and veterans had been skirmishing with the enemy. By evening Washington was safe, and on the day following, Wheaton definitely repulsed the attackers. He was rewarded by being appointed a brevet major-general. Returning to Petersburg, he had great success in the assault on April 2, 1865, which did much to win the final campaign. On April 30, 1866, he was mustered out of the volunteer service, and on July 28, 1866, was appointed a lieutenant-colonel of infantry in the Regular Army. He received the honorary degree of A. M. from Brown University in 1865, and was presented with a sword of honor by the state of Rhode Island. In 1872 he successfully commanded the expedition against the Modoc Indians. Appointed a brigadier-general in 1892, he was assigned to command the Department of Texas. In 1897 he was promoted to major-general, and in the same year, May 8, was retired for age. Thereafter, he made his home in Washington. At his death he was survived by his wife and two daughters.

[War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903); J. R. Bartlett, Memoirs of Rhode Island Officers (1867); The Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Rhode Island (1881); Who's Who in America, 1901-02; Army and Navy Journal, June 20, 1903; Washington Post, June 19, 1903.

J C. H.L.



WHIPPLE, AMIEL WEEKS (1816-May 7, 1863), soldier and topographical engineer, a descendant of Matthew Whipple, who came from England to Ipswich, Massachusetts, about 1638, was born in Greenwich, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, the son of David and Abigail (Pepper) Whipple. (The year of his birth is usually given as 1818, but his own statements fix the date approximately as October or November 1816.) He applied for appointment to the United States Military Academy as early as 1834, when he was teaching in a district school in Concord, Massachusetts Unsuccessful at that time, he entered Amherst College, but finally received a cadetship in 1837, under the name, through a curious clerical error, of Aeriel W. Whipple. He graduated in 1841 and was commissioned second lieutenant of artillery, but was shortly afterward transferred to the topographical engineers, then a separate corps of the army. His early assignments were at Baltimore, Maryland, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On September 12, 1843, he married Eleanor, daughter of John Nathaniel Sherburne of Portsmouth. From 1844 to 1849 he was engaged in the survey of the northeastern boundary of the United States, and from 1849 to 1853 in the survey of the boundary between the United States and Mexico. In commemoration of his services in that part of the country the military post maintained from 1869 to 1884 at Prescott, Arizona, was called Whipple Barracks. From 1853 to 1856 he was employed in locating the route for a railroad to the Pacific, and from then until the beginning of the Civil War, beside s supervision of lighthouses, he worked at the channels through the St. Clair flats and the St. Mary's River, opening the Great Lakes to navigation by larger craft. He had been promoted first lieutenant in 1851 and captain in 1855. As chief topographical engineer he served at the battle of Bull Run, and continued in that capacity on the staff of General Irvin McDowell until the spring of 1862. He was made major in the regular army in September 1861 and brigadier-general of volunteers in April 1862. From April to September he commanded a brigade, and for the following month a division, in the defenses of Washington. His headquarters were near Arlington, and a fort erected in 1863 on the heights there, within the present Fort Myer reservation, was named Fort Whipple. An exceptionally fine example of fortification of its type, it had a perimeter of 659 yards, and provided emplacements for forty-three guns, behind parapets fifteen feet thick on the exposed fronts. In October 1862 Whipple was assigned to command the third division of the III (Stoneman's) Corps. This was used in support of Sumner's "grand division" in its attack on the Confederate left at the battle of Fredericksburg in December, but was not heavily engaged. Both Burnside and Hooker recommended Whipple's promotion to major-general in January 1863. The III Corps, now under Sickles, was on the right on the second day (May 3, 1863) of the battle of Chancellorsville, after Jackson had routed the XI Corps. The Confederates attacked that flank repeatedly in an effort to roll up the Union line, and here Whipple was mortally wounded. He was removed to Washington, where he died. His appointment as major-general of volunteers was hastily made out just before his death.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; C. J. Couts, From San Diego to the Colorado in 1849 (1932), ed. by Wm. McPherson; Baldwin Mollhausen, Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Coasts of the Pacific (1858), tr. by Mrs. Percy Sinnett; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); T. E. Farish, History of Arizona, volume I (1915); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); Daily National Intelligencer (Washington), May 9, 1863; unpublished records in the War Department]

T. M. S.



WILLCOX, ORLANDO BOLIVAR (April 16, 1823-May 10, 1907), soldier, was born in Detroit, Mich., the son of Charles and Almira (Rood) Powers Willcox. The family traces its descent from William Wilcoxson, one of the founders of Stratford, Connecticut. Orlando was appointed a cadet at West Point in 1843, graduated in 1847, ranking eighth in a class of thirty-eight, and was promoted second lieutenant in the 4th Artillery. He joined his regiment in Mexico, and returned home with it in 1848. His next service was on the southern and western frontier, including campaigns against the Seminole Indians in 1856 and 1857; he was promoted first lieutenant April 30, 1850. On September 10, 1857, he resigned his commission, and entered upon the practice of law in Detroit with his brother, Eben N. Willcox. When the Civil War began he was commissioned colonel of the 1st Michigan Infantry. At Bull Run, where he commanded a brigade, he was wounded and captured, and remained a prisoner for over a year, for several months in close confinement as a hostage for Confederate privateersmen in the hands of the United States, whose status as prisoners of war was under question. Exchanged August 19, 1862, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers, his rank dating from July 21, 1861, the date of the battle of Bull Run. He was assigned to Burnside's IX Corps, with which he served with marked distinction in the Antietam campaign and throughout the rest of the war, commanding a division. While Burnside was in command of the Army of the Potomac, and at various other times, Willcox commanded the corps; he was actively employed at Fredericksburg, Knoxville, and in the final campaigns from the Wilderness to Petersburg. For distinguished service he received the brevet rank of major-general of volunteers, August 1, 1864, and of brigadier-general and major-general in the regular service, March 2, 1867. Mustered out of the service,  January 15, 1866, he returned to Detroit to resume the practice of law; but on July 28, 1866, he was reappointed in the regular army as colonel, 29th Infantry, and assigned to duty in Virginia. In March 1869 he was transferred to the 12th Infantry, joining it at San Francisco, where he served until February 1878, except for a brief tour as superintendent of recruiting in New York. For over four years (March 1878-September 1882), he commanded the Department of Arizona, and received the thanks of the territorial legislature for his conduct of operations against the Apache Indians. His next station was Madison Barracks, New York, where he was in command until 1886. On October 13 of that year he was promoted brigadier-general, and assumed command of the Department of the Missouri, where he remained until his retirement, April 16, 1887. In 1889 he was made governor of the Soldiers' Home in Washington, and after completing this tour of duty resided for a time in that city. In 1905 he took up his residence in Coburg, Ontario, where he remained until his death. Willcox was twice married; first, in 1852, to Marie Louise, daughter of Chancellor Elon Farnsworth of Detroit; second, to Julia Elizabeth (McReynolds) Wyeth, widow of Charles J. Wyeth of Detroit. He had six children, five by his first marriage and one by the second. He was the author of an artillery manual, and of two novels dealing with army life and with Detroit. Both of the novels were published under the pen name of "Walter March"-Shoepac Recollections: A Way-side Glimpse of American Life in 1856, and Faca, an Army Memoir, in 1857.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; Thirty-Eighth Annual Rebellion, Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1907); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); Who's Who in America, 1906-07; Army and Navy Journal, May 18, 1907; Detroit Free Press, May 11, 1907.]

O.L.S., Jr.  



WILLIAMS, ALPHEUS STARKEY (September 20, 1810-December 21, 1878), soldier, congressman, was born at Saybrook, Connecticut, the son of Ezra and Hepzibah (Starkey) Williams. His father was a prosperous manufacturer. The son was graduated from Yale College in 1831 and studied for three years in the Yale law school, spending his vacations in travel which took him into every state of the Union and into Texas (then Mexican territory). From 1834 to 1836 he traveled in Europe in company with Nathaniel P. Willis and Edwin Forrest [q.v.], and after his return to the United States he was admitted to the bar of the state of Michigan and established a practice in Detroit. He was county probate judge from 1840 to 1844. He then bought a controlling interest in the Detroit Daily Advertiser, the leading Whig newspaper in Michigan, but he disposed of it when he entered the volunteer army late in 1847 as lieutenant-colonel, 1st Michigan Infantry. The regiment had garrison duty in Mexico, experienced some guerrilla warfare, and was mustered out in July 1848. Williams was postmaster of Detroit from 1849 to 1853, then president of the Michigan Oil Company, member of the city council and board of education, and president of the state military board. In April 1861 he was appointed brigadier-general of state troops and had charge of the camp instruction of Fort Wayne (Detroit) until appointed brigadier-general of volunteers in August. He commanded a division in the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862 and a division of the XII Corps at the battle of South Mountain. It was to his headquarters that Lee's famous lost order was brought, giving full information as to the location and plans of the Confederate forces. When General Joseph K. F. Mansfield [q.v.] was killed early in the battle of Antietam, Williams succeeded to the command of the corps. He returned to his division when superseded by Slocum, and led it with conspicuous ability at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. On the consolidation of the XI and XII Corps, he received the 1st division of the new XX Corps in the Army of the Cumberland, one of Sherman's armies, and served with it through the Atlanta campaign. During the march to the sea and the campaign of the Carolinas he commanded the XX Corps. He was in charge of a military district in Arkansas until his muster out,  January 15, 1866. He had proved a competent division and corps commander, large responsibility had been thrown early upon him, and his superiors trusted him. To his men he was always known as "Old Pap" Williams, perhaps because he wore a beard even more luxuriant than was customary in those days. In 1866 he received a political appointment as minister resident to the republic of Salvador, and served for three years. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1870, but in 1874 and again in 1876 was elected to congress as a Democrat. He died in Washington during his second term of office. He was, at the time, chairman of the committee on the District of Columbia, a more than ordinarily responsible position at that time, when the government of the District was in the throes of reorganization. He was twice married; first, in January 1838, to Mrs. Jane Hereford (Larned) Pierson of Detroit, and, after her death in 1848, on September 17, 1873, to Martha Ann (Conant) Tillman, the widow of James W. Tillman, of Detroit. He had three children by his first wife and four by his second.

[Joseph Greusel, General Alpheus S. Williams (1911); Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Alpheus S. William’s (1880); Representative Men of Michigan (1878); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Obit. Record of Graduates of Yale College Deceased During Academy Year Ending June 1879; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (4 volumes, 1887-88); S. E. Pittman, Operations of General Alpheus S. Williams and His Command in the Chancellorsville Campaign (1888); F. O. Conant, A History and Genealogy of th e Conant Family (1887); W. L. Learned, The Learned Family (2nd ed., 1898); Evening Star (Washington, D. C.), December 21, 1878.)

T. M. S.



WILSON, JAMES GRANT (April 28, 1832- February 1, 1914), editor, author, and soldier, was born in Edinburgh, the son of William Wilson [q.v.] by his second wife, Jane (Sibbald) Wilson. The father left Scotland in December 1833 and settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, as bookseller and publisher. There the son received his education and became his father's partner. After a trip to Europe in 1855, he moved to Chicago, where he edited and published several periodicals. The Evangel and the Chicago Examiner (1857) seem to have been failures (cf. Fleming, post, p. 392); one number of the Northwestern Quarterly Magazine appeared in October 1858; the monthly Chicago Record; a Journal, Devoted to the Church, to Literature; and to the Arts lived from April 1, 1857, to March 15, 1862, when it passed into other hands and became the Northwestern Church.  

On December 25, 1862, Wilson was commissioned major in the 15th Illinois Cavalry, and on September 14, 1863, colonel of the 4th United States Colored Cavalry. He took part in various movements in the Mississippi Valley, and in the later years of the war served as military agent for New York state in Louisiana. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers Resigning on June 16, 1865, he thereafter made New York City his home. On November 31 1866, he married in New Brunswick, N. J., Jane Emily Searle Cogswell. They had one daughter, who married Frank Sylvester Henry, and from whom the father was estranged in later years.  

His writings were mainly biographical. Seven volumes of newspaper clippings in the New York Public Library testify to his care in preserving news about those whose careers appealed to him. His most extensive work was Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (6 volumes, 1886- 89; revised, with supplementary volume, 1898-99), which he edited jointly with John Fiske [q.v.]. An active churchman throughout his life, he edited The Centennial History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of New York, 1785-1885 (1886). In 1892-93 appeared The Memorial History of the City of New York, from Its First Settlement to the Year 1892, in four volumes. He also edited The Presidents of the United States, by John Fiske and others, which was published in 1894, with later issues in 1898, 1902, 1914. 

His interest in military affairs is suggested by his Biographical Sketches of Illinois Officers Engaged in the War against the Rebellion of 1861 (1862). His Life and Campaigns of Ulysses Simpson Grant appeared in 1868, and a revision of the same under a slightly different title in 1885. In 1874 he published Sketches of Illustrious Soldiers, a second edition of which appeared in 1880. With Titus Munson Coan he edited Personal Recollections of the War of the Rebellion: Addresses Delivered Before the New York Commandery of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 1883-1891 (1891). In 1897 two studies of Grant by him were published-General Grant, in the Great Commanders Series edited by Wilson, and General Grant's Letters to a Friend. He also furnished a life of Grant in 1904 for the Makers of American History Series. 

From his father, a poet as well as business man, he acquired a fondness for literature. In 1867 he published, under the pseudonym of Allan Grant, Love in Letters: Illustrated in the Correspondence of Eminent Persons, which he revised and issued under his own name in 1895; also, in 1867, under the same pseudonym, Mr. Secretary Pepys; with Extracts from His Diary. In 1869 appeared his Life and Letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck and The Poetical Writings of Halleck, with Extracts from Those of Drake. In 1876 he wrote the memoir of the author in Anne Grant's Memoirs of an American Lady. He was the author of a two-volume work entitled The Poets and Poetry of Scotland from the Earliest to the Present Time (1876). In 1877-78 he added a sketch of Bryant to an edition of Bryant's New Library of Poetry and Song and in 1886 issued Bryant and His Friends: Some Reminiscences of the Knickerbocker Writers. His commencement address at St. Stephen's College, Annandale, was published as The World's Largest Libraries (1894). In 1902 he provided an introduction to Mrs. Audubon's Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist. His Thackeray in the United States, 1852-53, 1855-56 appeared in two volumes in 1904. He wrote much for the periodical press, and made many addresses on characters in American history and literature, most of which appeared also as reprints. 

Tall, erect, of soldierly bearing, he enjoyed speaking or presiding at public meetings. He was a life member of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society and its president, 1886-1900; president of the American Ethnological Society, 1900-14; president of the American Authors' Guild (Society of American Authors), 1892-99. After the death of his first wife he married, May 16, 1907, Mary (Heap) Nicholson, widow of James W. A. Nicholson [q.v.]. By his will he left to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City his collection of signed photographs of rulers and other notables, sleeve links worn by Washington and by Grant, rings with hair from Washington, and other similar trinkets; the legacy was declined by the Museum, and the collection went to the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. In 1894 he was knighted by the Queen Regent of Spain for his services in connection with the erection of a statue of Columbus in New York.  

[New York Genealogy and Biographical Record, July 1914; American Anthropologist, January-March 1914; New York Times, February 2, 1914; Who's Who in America, 1912-13; Who's Who in New York (City and State), 1914; F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U.S. Army (1903); H. E. Fleming, Magazines of a Market-Metropolis (1906); F. W. Scott, "Newspapers and Periodicals of Ill., 1814-1879," Ill. State Historical Lib. Collections, volume VI (1910); Irving Garwood, American Periodicals from 1850 to 1860 (1931).] 

H.M.L.   



WILSON, JAMES HARRISON (September 2, 1837-February 23, 1925), engineer, cavalryman, author, was born near Shawneetown, Illinois, the fifth child of Harrison and Katharine (Schneyder) Wilson. His father, a native of Virginia, was related to the Harrisons of the James River district; his family had emigrated from the Shenandoah Valley to Kentucky, and the Schneyders, from the vicinity of Strasbourg, Alsace, to Indiana, both moving later to southern Illinois. James H. Wilson attended school at Shawneetown, and completed one academic year at McKendree College. He entered the United States Military Academy July 1, 1855, and was notably proficient in horsemanship, rifle practice, and drill. Graduating sixth among forty-one in the class of 1860, he was commissioned second lieutenant of topographical engineers and assigned to duty at Fort Vancouver until ordered East in the summer of 1861. He was chief topographical engineer with General Thomas W. Sherman on the Port Royal expedition and with General David Hunter took part in the reduction of Fort Pulaski. Subsequently, as volunteer aid to General McClellan, he served in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam.

A few weeks later Wilson joined Grant's headquarters, and early in 1863 was named inspector-general, Army of the Tennessee, with duties still mainly in the engineers. He was engaged in the action at Port Gibson and the capture of Jackson, Mississippi, in the battles of Champion's Hill and Big Black Bridge, and in the siege and capture of Vicksburg. Late in September 1863 he carried dispatches to the telegraph at Cairo, and received War Department orders, following the defeat of Rosecrans at Chickamauga, for Grant to proceed to Chattanooga. He was advanced, October 31, to brigadier-general of volunteers-"the only officer ever promoted from Grant's regular staff to command troops" (Under the Old Flag, post, I, 267). He participated in the battle of Missionary Ridge, was chief engineer on the expedition for the relief of Knoxville, and in January 1864 was appointed chief of the cavalry bureau at Washington.

By Grant's request at the opening of the spring campaign, Wilson was assigned to command the third division in Sheridan's cavalry corps, Army of the Potomac. He led the advance across the Rapidan, marched through the Wilderness, and during that battle had sharp encounters in the more open country beyond. The division was in the combat of Yellow Tavern, covered Grant's passage to the Chickahominy, formed part of Sheridan's first Richmond expedition, and late in June fought off or eluded greater numbers, mainly of Hampton's cavalry. After a few days in front of Petersburg, Wilson was sent to Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and took part in the battle of the Opequon (Winchester), September 19. In October he was appointed chief of cavalry, Military Division of the Mississippi, with brevet rank of major-general, on a practical equality with Sheridan in the East. The statement, "I believe Wilson will add fifty per cent to the effectiveness of your cavalry" (Grant to Sherman, October 4, 1864), Wilson considered "the greatest compliment of my life" (Under the Old Flag, II, 4). He first outfitted Kilpatrick's division for the march to the sea, and then consolidated the remaining cavalry and mounted infantry into a compact corps to operate against Hood's invasion of Tennessee.

Encountering Forrest's cavalry at Franklin, November 30, 1864, Wilson drove it back across the Harpeth River, enabling Schofield to repulse Hood and withdraw to Nashville, where Thomas, greatly assisted by mass formations of the cavalry, defeated Hood on December 15-16. Wilson established winter cantonments north of the Tennessee and had 17,000 men in the saddle for review when Thomas came down from Nashville. With greater numbers present and better equipment, he defeated Forrest at Ebenezer Church, April 1, 1865, and the next day broke through and surmounted the fortifications of Selma, Alabama; in the charge, which he led with the 4th Cavalry, his gelding, "Sheridan," was struck down. Wilson dispersed the defense, demolished or burned the ordnance and ammunition bases, and severed railway communications. He entered Montgomery without resistance, took Columbus, Georgia, by assault, destroying its military supplies and shipyard; on April 20 he reached Macon, and there ceased hostilities, but kept military control. Detachments from his command intercepted Jefferson Davis and brought him to Macon.

Gross figures for maximum numbers of cavalry under Sheridan and Wilson in the spring of 1865 are somewhat in Wilson's favor. He was unsurpassed in the cavalry for organizing ability, administration, and steadiness; it is doubtful if Sheridan, Kilpatrick, or Custer ever really excelled his outstanding exploit at Selma. "Of all the Federal expeditions of which I have any knowledge, his was the best conducted," said Richard Taylor (Destruction and Reconstruction, 1879, p. 220). His restraint, tact, and good judgment left a favorable impression upon the people of Georgia. In the army reorganization after the war he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 35th Infantry, July 28, 1866, but reassigned to the engineers. For four years he superintended navigation improvements, mainly on the Mississippi, resigning from the army December 31, 1870, to engage in railway construction and management. Settling at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1883, he gave fifteen years to various business enterprises, public affairs, travel, and writing.

As senior major-general in civil life under the retiring age, Wilson volunteered for the Spanish American War and was designated to command the VI Corps, which, however, was not organized. In July 1898 he conducted part of the I Corps to Puerto Rico, and was appointed military governor of the city and province of Ponce; while marching toward the interior he was apprised of the protocol, and was soon ordered back to the United States. He prepared the I Corps for Cuba, took one division to Matanzas, and in the military occupation was assigned the Matanzas department and later the Santa Clara department and the city of Cienfuegos. Knowing something of China from nearly a year's investigation in 1885-86 of possible railway developments there, he was appointed second in command to General Adna R. Chaffee [q.v.] of forces sent to cooperate in suppressing the Boxer uprising; he reached Peking after the allies had rescued the legations, but led the American-British contingent against the Boxers at the Eight Temples. Returning to the United States in December 1900, he was placed by special act of Congress upon the retired list as brigadier-general in the regular service. On March 4, 1915, he was advanced to major-general, a rank he had received twice (1865 and 1898) in the volunteers. By presidential appointment he represented the army at the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. He never held political or civil office.

Wilson was about five feet, ten inches in height, though his erect, military bearing made him appear a trifle taller; he was somewhat overweight in middle and later life. He stood and walked like a cavalryman who never forgot that he had served with distinction under Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and Thomas, and as an independent commander had led the longest and greatest single cavalry movement in the Civil War. He was a striking personification of the "old army"; the last survivor of his West Point class, he outlived every other member of Grant's military staff and all other Federal corps commanders. Bold initiative, an adventurous and dauntless spirit, aggressive temper, and invariable confidence were his predominant characteristics. He managed widespread and diversified interests with ease, dispatch, and efficiency. Though reserved, often blunt, and sometimes imperious, he was a man of generous nature, on rare occasions sentimental and romantic. Many friendships, notably with John A. Rawlins and Emory Upton [qq.v.] were broken only by death. He was a thorough and progressive student of history, with a long, clear view and considerable legal knowledge; an outspoken but fair critic. Among his more significant publications were a number of military biographies, beginning with The Life of Ulysses S. Grant (1868), edited somewhat by Charles A. Dana, and including lives of Andrew J. Alexander (1887), William Farrar Smith (1904), his friend John A. Rawlins (1916), and articles, for the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy, on Philip H. Sheridan (1889) and A. McDowell McCook (l904). He contributed "The Union Cavalry in the Hood Campaign" to Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (volume IV, 1888). After his first trip to China he published China; Travels and Investigations in the "Middle Kingdom" (1887), of which a third edition was issued in 1901, extended to include an account of the Boxer episode. Long personal acquaintance and war-time association formed the basis for The Life of Charles A. Dana (1907), and his own reco11ections of service in the Civil War, the war with Spain, and the Boxer trouble for the two colorful volumes, Under the Old Flag (1912). On January 3, 1866, Wilson married Ella Andrews, who was fatally burned at Matanzas, Cuba, April 28, 1900; three daughters were born to them. He died in Wilmington and his interment was in Old Swedes churchyard there.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891) and Supplements; Sixty-second Annual Report, Association Graduates U. S. Military Academy (1931); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); memoirs of Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, and histories and narratives of the Army of the Tennessee; John Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War (1900); J. A. Wyeth, Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest (1899); W. F. Scott, The Story of a Cavalry Regiment (1893); E. N. Gilpin, "The Last Campaign," Journal U. S. Cavalry Association, April 1908; A. R. Chaffee, "James Harrison Wilson, Cavalryman," Cavalry Journal, July 1925; Official Army Register, 1925; New York Times, February 24, 1925; Every Evening (Wilmington), February 2,-26, 1925; Army and Navy Journal, February 28, 1925; Who's Who in America, 1924-25; correspondence with Wilson's daughter, Mary Wilson Thompson; personal acquaintance.]

R. B-e.



WINSLOW, EDWARD FRANCIS (September 28, 1837-0ct. 22, 1914), soldier, railroad builder, was born in Augusta, Maine, the son of Stephen and Elizabeth (Bass) Winslow, and a descendant of Kenelm Winslow who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, from Droitwich, England, about 1629. When Edward was about nineteen he left his native place and made his way to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, with the expectation of entering the banking business. Becoming interested in railroad construction, however, he associated himself with the builders of the St. Louis, Vandalia, & Terre Haute Railroad.

When the Civil War interrupted this enterprise, Winslow, in August 1861, recruited at Ottumwa, Iowa, Company F, 4th Iowa Cavalry, of which he became captain. The regiment was mustered into the service November 3, 1861, and, after being equipped in St. Louis, was sent to join the Army of the Southwest, commanded by General Samuel R. Curtis [q.v.]. Winslow's first engagement was at Little Rock. At Helena he acted as assistant provost marshal of the district of eastern Arkansas, and received his majority January 3, 1863. In April his regiment was attached to General Sherman's XV Army Corps, and from then until after the investment of Vicksburg was the only cavalry regiment in Grant's army. On May 12, 1863, Winslow was wounded at Fourteen-mile Creek. He was appointed colonel, July 4, 1863, and given command of the cavalry forces of the XV Corps; with the rank of chief of cavalry. His command was always on the outer lines of the army at Vicksburg. In February 1864 it repulsed General Polk, advancing from Jackson, destroyed the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, and took the city of Jackson, Mississippi. In April 1864 Winslow was given command of a brigade, consisting of the 3rd and 4th Iowa and the 10th Missouri cavalry regiments, together with a battery of four guns. This brigade conducted itself with distinction at the battle of Brice's Cross Roads, June 10, 1864. Winslow was then given command of the Second Division of the Cavalry Corps of the district of West Tennessee. He took part in all the operations against General Price and was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers, December 12, 1864, for gallantry in action. His brigade took active part in the expedition against Selma, Montgomery, Columbus, and Macon in the spring of 1865, and alone took the city of Columbus by assault against a superior force. After hostilities ceased he was in command of the Atlanta military district. He was honorably discharged on August 10, 1865.

Returning to civil life, Winslow resumed construction work on the St. Louis, Vandalia & Terre Haute Railroad, and built fifty miles of it. In 1870, with General James H. Wilson [q.v.], he constructed the St. Louis & South-Eastern Railway. Under appointment from President Grant he served as expert inspector of the Union Pacific Railroad upon its completion and acceptance by the government. From July 1874 to March 1880 he was vice-president and general manager of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids, & Northern. He then became president of the New York, Ontario & Western and formed an association to build the West Shore Railroad. On November 1, 1879, he became vice-president and general manager of the Manhattan Elevated Railway in New York City. Subsequently, he served as president of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Company, and vice-president of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company. Under this double responsibility his health failed and he was compelled to retire. Later he made his home in Paris. On September 24, 1860, he married Laura-Laseur Berry, daughter of Reverend Lucien Berry of Greensburg, Indiana; they had no children. Winslow died from heart disease at Canandaigua, New York

[D. P. and F. K. Holton: Winslow Memorial (2 volumes, 1877- 88); J. H. Wilson, Under the Old Flag (1912); W. F. Scott; Th e Story of a Cavalry Regiment (1 893); Annals of Iowa, April 1915; F. B. Heitman, H ist. Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903); New York Times, October 24, 1914.]

P. D.J.



WOOD, THOMAS JOHN (September 25, 1823- February 25, 1906), soldier, was born in Munfordville, Ky., the son of Colonel George T. and Elizabeth (Helm) Wood. After a country schooling, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1841. His first roommate was Ulysses S. Grant. Following his graduation in 1845 he gave up his graduation leave to join General Taylor's staff at Palo Alto. During this campaign he brought Taylor's guns opportunely into action with ox-teams, and distinguished himself at Buena Vista by penetrating the Mexican lines in a brilliant reconnaissance. Though commissioned in the engineers, Wood, craving activity, transferred on October 19, 1846, into the 2nd Dragoons. In that regiment and with the 1st, 4th, and 2nd Cavalry he rose through grades to colonel on November 12, 1861. Almost continuously on the frontier, he participated in Indian campaigns, the Kansas border troubles, and Colonel Johnston's expedition to Utah. Enjoying a well-earned leave, he toured Europe in 1859--60, an, news of secession reached him in Egypt in January 1861.

He returned home and within six months had mustered 40,000 Indiana troops into Federal service at Indianapolis. Here he met, and on November 29, 1861, was married to Caroline E. Greer daughter of James A. and Caroline (King) Greer of Dayton, Ohio. Appointed brigadier-general of volunteers on October 11, he was giver an Indiana brigade, and, in the spring of 1862, a division. At Stone's River his brigades alone retained their position throughout the battle, and on December 31, 1862, although he was wounded, he refused to quit the field until night ended the fighting. The next year at Chickamauga, the removal of his division from the line on September 20 permitted the Confederates to break through and demoralized the Union right. A bitter controversy concerning responsibility for this disaster ensued between Rosecrans and Wood (War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Army, I series, volume XXX, part 1, 1902), but the latter retained his command and the implicit confidence of Rosecrans' successor, General Thomas.

On November 25, in the brilliant capture of Missionary Ridge, his troops were the first to overrun the main Confederate defenses. The Atlanta campaign afforded him play for his tactical as well as his fighting abilities. At Lovejoy's Station, September 2, 1864, he was again badly hurt, but declined a sick leave. His shattered leg wrapped in a buffalo robe, he continued commanding his troops, and General Sherman declared that his example of fortitude was worth 20,000 men to the army (Annual Reunion, post, p. n9). Thus he endured the last Tennessee campaign, and taking command of the IV Corps in December he conducted the infantry pursuit of Hood's broken army after Nashville. Tardily appointed major-general of volunteers on January 27, 1865, immediately after the war, he won the gratitude of Mississippians by his humane military administration of their state. Owing to his injuries, he was retired as major-general, United States Army, June 9, 1868. He passed his later years at Dayton, Ohio, where he was conspicuously active in veteran organizations. He assisted in marking the battle lines at Chickamauga. He was appointed to the Board of Visitors at West Point in 1895 and lived to become the last survivor of the class of 1845.

[Who's Who in America, 1906-07; G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register... U.S. Military Academy (1891); Annual Reunion, Association of Graduates U. S. Military Academy, 1906; War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), see index volume; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1887-88), volumes I, III, IV; M. F. Steele, American Campaigns, vol. I 1909); T. B. Van Horne, History of the Army of the Cumberland (2 volumes, 1875), and The Life of Major-General George H. Thomas (1882); Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman (2nd ed., 1886), volume I; Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, volume II (1886); Ohio State Journal (Columbus), February 26, 1906.]

J. M. H.



WOODBURY, DANIEL PHINEAS (December 16, 1812-August 15, 1864), soldier and engineer, the son of Daniel and Rhapsima (Messenger) Woodbury, was born in New London, Merrimack County, New Hampshire, and received his early education at Hopkinton Academy, in the same county. He then entered Dartmouth College, but left in 1832 upon his appointment as a cadet at the United States Military Academy. He was graduated in 1836 and commissioned second lieutenant in the 3rd Artillery, but was transferred soon afterwards to the engineers. For some years he was employed on the construction of the Cumberland road in Ohio, then in the construction and repair of fortifications in Boston and Portsmouth harbors, and in the War Department in Washington. From 1847 to 1850 he was engaged in building Fort Kearny, on the Missouri River, and Fort Laramie, which later developed into the city of Laramie, Wyoming. These were two of the military posts established to guard the route to Oregon. Later he served in North Carolina and Florida, where among other duties he supervised the construction of Fort Jefferson in the Tortugas and Fort Taylor at Key West. Both of these fortifications were regarded as of immense importance for the maintenance of naval control of the Gulf of Mexico, and they afterwards came within Woodbury's command during the Civil War. He was promoted first lieutenant in 1838 and captain in 1853.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he was stationed in Washington, D. C., the early defenses of which he had a share in planning. He helped to make the reconnaissance on which McDowell's orders for the battle of Bull Run were based, and personally conducted Hunter's and Heintzelman's troops on their march to turn the Confederate left flank. Commenting on the causes of the defeat, in his official report, he remarked: "An old soldier feels safe in the ranks, unsafe out of the ranks, and the greater the danger the more pertinaciously he clings to his place. The volunteer of three months never attains this instinct of discipline. Under danger, and even under mere excitement, he flies away from his ranks, and looks for safety in dispersion" (Official Records, post, II, Part I, 344). Woodbury was promoted major of engineers in August 1861, appointed lieutenant-colonel in the volunteer army in September, and on March 19, 1862, was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers. In the Peninsular Campaign he commanded the engineer brigade of the Army of the Potomac, constructing the siege works before Yorktown and the immense system of roads and bridges necessary for the army's passage over the Chickahominy River and through the White Oak Swamp. He was in the defenses of Washington through the autumn of 1862, returning to the field before the battle of Fredericksburg, where he was responsible for the throwing of the pontoon bridges over the Rappahannock by which the army crossed to the attack and retreated after the battle. In March 1863 he was assigned to command the district including Tortugas and Key West. He died at the latter place of yellow fever.

Woodbury was the author of two engineering treatises: Sustaining Walls (1845; 2nd ed., 1854), and Elements of Stability in the Well-Proportioned Arch (1858). On December 12, 1845, he was married, at Southville, N. C., to Catharine Rachel Childs, the daughter of Thomas Childs [q.v.]. She and their four children survived him.

[Elias Child, Genealogy of the Child, Childs and Childe Families (1881); M. B. Lord, History of the Town of New London, N. H. (1899); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register ... U. S. Military Academy (1891); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army), see index volume; Army and Navy Journal, September 3, 1864.]

T. M. S.



WOODS, CHARLES ROBERT (February 19, 1827-February 26, 1885), soldier, was born at Newark, Ohio. He was a descendant of a family that originated in Ulster and settled successively in Virginia and Kentucky. His father, Ezekiel S. Woods, moved in 1818 from Kentucky to Ohio, where he engaged in farming and in general merchandising. His mother was Sarah Judith (Burnham) Woods of Zanesville, Ohio. He spent his boyhood on the farm, for a time was apprenticed to a cooper, and received only a common education from a tutor. In 1848 he was appointed a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and he was graduated in 1852 as a second lieutenant, 1st Infantry. He then served three years in Texas, four more in Washington, and was engaged in minor Indian warfare. In 1860 he returned to his home and was married to Cecilia Impey. He commanded the expedition of 200 men on the Star of the West, in a futile attempt to relieve Fort Sumter at the beginning of the Civil War. He served in the Shenandoah Valley and in West Virginia during the early part of the war, and in November 1861 was appointed colonel of the 76th Ohio Infantry, organized in his home town. This regiment he led at the capture of Fort Donelson in February 1862, and later at. Shiloh. Assigned to command a brigade, he participated in the advance on Corinth, and in expeditions along the Mississippi River. His attacks at Milliken's Bend and at Island No. 65 resulted in the destruction of much enemy property. For serving gallantly in the subsequent Vicksburg campaign, he was appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers in August 1863.

Renewing his expeditions in the Mississippi Valley, he destroyed the Confederate transport Fairplay, and large stocks of stores, and in the autumn marched east to take part in the Chattanooga campaign. His brigade constructed a bridge over Lookout Creek, and led the assault that captured Lookout Mountain. He served throughout the Atlanta campaign in 1864 and played a prominent part at Resaca and at Atlanta, where after his flank had been turned he faced about, rolled back the enemy, and retook guns previously lost. He participated in Sherman's march to the sea and the subsequent advance north through the Carolinas. For these services he was brevetted major-general. He was then employed in reconstruction duty in the South until he was mustered out of the volunteer service in September 1866. He rejoined the regular army as a colonel of infantry and served mostly in the West. He led an expedition against Indians in Kansas in 1870, and in the Kit Carson fight. In 1871 his health declined, and he was retired for disability three years later. He returned to Ohio to engage in farming and gardening on his estate, "Woodside," until his death. He was of great physical strength, and was widely esteemed both as a soldier and as a citizen. He was a brother of William Burnham Woods [q.v.].

[R. H. Burnham, The Burnham Family (1869); G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register U.S. Military Academy (1891); War of the Rebellion : Official Records (Army), see index volume; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1887-88), volumes I, Ill, IV; Weekly Advocate (Newark, Ohio), March 5, 9, 1885.)

C.H.L.



WOODS, WILLIAM BURNHAM (August 3, 1824-May 14, 1887), jurist, brother of Charles Robert Woods [q.v.], was born in Newark, Licking County, Ohio. His father, Ezekiel S. Woods, a native of Kentucky, was a farmer and merchant of Scotch-Irish extraction; his mother, Sarah Judith (Burnham) Woods, was of New England stock. After three years at Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio, Woods transferred to Yale, where he graduated with honor in 1845. Returning to Newark, he began the study of law in the office of S. D. King, an able attorney with a large practice. After admission to the bar in 1847, he formed a partnership with his preceptor which continued until the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1856 he was elected mayor of Newark and in 1857, being elected as a Democrat to the General Assembly of Ohio, was chosen speaker of the House. Two years later he was returned and became the leader of his party, now the minority. He was bitterly opposed to President Lincoln and his policies and even after the firing upon Fort Sumter counseled delay in passing the "million dollar loan" bill designed to put the state in position to defend itself and to carry out the requests of the President. Very soon, however, he committed himself completely to the cause of the Union and his eloquent speech declaring his intention to stand by the government and urging the unanimous passage of the bill marks the change in the policy of the Democratic party in Ohio. He also successfully urged the passage of a bill exempting the property of volunteers from execution for debt during their service at the front.

In February 1862 he entered military service as lieutenant-colonel of the 76th Ohio Infantry, and during the war, except for three months, was constantly in the field, taking part in the battles of Shiloh, Chickasaw, Bayou Ridge, Arkansas Post (where he was slightly wounded), Jonesville, Lovejoy Station, and Danville. He was also at the sieges of Vicksburg and Jackson and participated in Sherman's march to the sea. When he was mustered out, February 17, l866, he was a brigadier-general and a brevet major-general.

After the war he settled in Alabama, taking up the practice of law first in Mobile and then in Montgomery, where he also engaged in cotton planting nearby. He was now an ardent Republican and as such was active in the reconstruction program of the government, being elected in 1868 as chancellor of the middle chancery division of Alabama. Appointed by President Grant, in 1869, a judge of the United States circuit court for the fifth circuit, which included Georgia and the Gulf states, he moved to Atlanta, where he lived for eleven years. Because of the disorganization of the state courts in these states the work of the federal courts was unusually heavy and difficult. Woods's opinions as circuit judge were reported by himself in the four volumes (1875- 83) of Woods' s Reports of the fifth circuit.

In 1880, upon the resignation of William Strong [q. v.] from the Supreme Court of the United States, it seemed generally agreed that his successor should come from the South. "The proper South is now without any representative on the bench," said the Albany Law Journal; " She certainly ought to have one, if not two" (December 11, 1880). Accordingly, Woods was appointed by President Hayes and in December 21, 1880, was commissioned as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. His service on this bench was only a little over six years but during that time he wrote 218 opinions. During his tenure of office the Supreme Court was determining the question of the civil rights of the negro under the new amendments to the Constitution. Woods wrote the opinion in U. S. vs. Harris (106 U.S., 629) which finally determined that the protection of these rights was not to be found in federal statutes or by indictments in the federal courts. He also wrote the opinion in Presser vs. Illinois (I 16 U. S., 252) which definitely decided that the Bill of Rights to the federal Constitution including the second amendment in regard to the right to keep and bear arms, was a limitation on the power of the federal government only and in no way applied to the states. Many of his opinions were in patent and equity cases involving intricate details and a mass of testimony, and in these cases he showed an unusual ability in analyzing the complicated record. His. opinions, never lengthy, were cogent and free from all display of rhetoric.

Woods died in Washington, D. C., survived by his wife, Anne E. Warner of Newark, Ohio, whom he had married June 21, 1855, and by a son and a daughter.

[Woods's opinions appear in 103-119 U. S. Reports. For biographical data see: " In Memoriam," 123 U.S. Reports, 761; American Law Rev., February 1881; H. L. Carson, The History of the Supreme Court of the U. S. (1902), It; 480; N. N. Hill, History of Licking County, Ohio (1881); Obit. Record Graduates Yale Univ., 1880-90 (1890); R. H. Burnham, The Burnham Family (1869); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903), volume I; Washington Law Reporter, June 8, 1887; Washington Post, May 15, 1887.]

A.H.T.



WOODWARD, JOSEPH JANVIER (October 30, 1833-August 17, 1884), army medical officer, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., the son of Joseph Janiver and Elizabeth Graham (Cox) Woodward. He was a brother of Annie Aubertine Woodward Moore [q.v.]. After graduation from the Central High School, Philadelphia, he entered the University of Pennsylvania, where.he received the degree of M.D. in 1853. He began practice in Philadelphia, and associated himself with the University of Pennsylvania as demonstrator in operative surgery and clinical surgical assistant. Later he was placed in charge of the surgical clinic of the school dispensary. With the onset of the Civil War he entered the medical corps of the army as an assistant surgeon in June 1861. He participated in the first battle of Bull Run as surgeon of an artillery regiment and took part in all the engagements of the Army of the Potomac until May 1862, when he was assigned to the office of the surgeon general in Washington. Here, in addition to the duty of planning hospital construction, he was surgical operator for major cases in the Judiciary Square and Church military hospitals, and had charge of medical records. When the Army Medical Museum was established, he became assistant to John Hill Brinton [q.v.], the curator. In 1869 he was put in charge of the preparation of the medical section of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, for which George Alexander Otis [q.v.] prepared the surgical section. This monumental work appeared in six volumes (1870-88), the first two under Woodward's name. For careful and painstaking research in the literature of the subjects covered they are unsurpassed. On June 26, 1876, he became a major.

While practising in Philadelphia Woodward had developed an interest in pathological histology and microscopy, and in the museum he was assigned to work of a similar character. He soon began experimentation with the new science of photo-micrography, which he was one of the first to apply to the uses of pathology and in which he attained an international reputation. The results of his earlier experiments are recorded in a paper "On Photomicrography with the Highest Powers, as Practiced in the Army Medical Museum" (American Journal of Science and Arts, September 1866). He was instrumental in developing many improvements in the photomicrographic camera and its lighting. The results of his later observations are covered by numerous journal articles and a series of letters to the surgeon general, notable among the latter the Report on the Magnesium and Electric Lights as Applied to Photo-micrography (1870) and the Report on the Oxy-Calcium Light as Applied to Photo-micrography (1870). Other writings include The Hospital Steward's Manual (1862) and the medical section of the Catalogue of the United States Army Medical Museum (1866-67). He is credited with the authorship of Ada, a Tale, published in 1852 under the pseudonym of Janvier. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Washing· ton Philosophic Society, and the fir st army officer to hold the presidency of the American Medical Association (1881). He was in constant attendance upon President Garfield during the long weeks that intervened between the shooting and his death in September 1881. Woodward was of a sensitive, high-strung organization, and the confinement, anxiety, and labor incident to this duty proved too much for a mind and body already overstrained by incessant work. His Official Record of the Post Mortem Examination of the Body of Pres. James A. Garfield (1881) is practically his last writing. The last several years of his life were spent on sick leave, the earlier part in Switzerland. An ever-deepening melancholia was terminated by his death in a sanitarium at Wawa, Pa., from injury due to a fall.

Woodward was twice married. A son of the first marriage, Janvier Woodward, became an officer in the navy. His second wife, who survived him, was Blanche Wendell of Washington, D, C.

[J. M. Toner, Journal American Medic. Association, August 1884; J. S. Billings, in National Academy of Science, Biographical Memoirs, volume II (1886); G. V. Henry, Military Record of Civilian Appointments in the U. S. Army; J. C. Hemmeter, in Military Surgeon, June 1923; Medic, News, August 30, 1884; D. S. Lamb, A History of the Army Medical Museum, 1862-1917 (n.d.); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register, … U. S. Army (1903); obituary, War Dept., Surgeon General's Office, 1884; obituary in Press (Phila.), August 19, 1844; War Deptartment records.]

J.M. P.



WOOL, JOHN ELLIS (February 29, 1784- November 10, 1869), soldier, was born in Newburgh, New York. He was only four years old at the death of his father, who had been a soldier under General Wayne in the storming of Stony Point. The mother may have died also about this time, for the child was removed to Troy to live with his grandfather, James Wool, of Schaghticoke, New York. His formal education was limited to that of a country school, and at the age of twelve he entered the store of a Troy merchant and remained with him six years. During the next decade he worked at various places and was largely his own schoolmaster; he spent one year reading law in the office of John Russell, an eminent lawyer. When the War of 1812 broke out, he raised and headed a company of volunteers in Troy, and on April 14, 1812, he was commissioned a captain in the 13th Infantry. He was severely wounded at the battle of Queenstown, and was promoted a major in the 29th Infantry on April 13, 1813. For gallant conduct in the battle of Plattsburg he was brevetted a lieutenant-colonel on September 11, 1814. He was made colonel and inspector-general of the army on April 29, 1816, and maintained this grade for more than a quarter of a century. Concurrently he nominally had the grade for several years of lieutenant-colonel of the 6th Infantry, and from April 29, 1826, the brevet rank of brigadier-general for ten years of faithful service in one grade.

In 1832 he was sent by the government to visit the military establishments of Europe for the benefit of the army, and in 1836 he personally aided Winfield Scott [q.v.] in the delicate mission of transferring the Cherokee nation westward. On June 25, 1841, he was made a full-fledged brigadier-general, his rank at the opening of the Mexican War. On May 15, 1846, he was ordered to Washington, D. C., whence he was sent to Cincinnati to receive the disorganized volunteers of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Mississippi. Working and traveling incessantly, without a proper staff, he prepared and mustered-in 12,000 volunteers in six weeks. On August 14 he arrived in San Antonio to take over his new command for the intended march through Chihuahua. Immediately he set about obtaining information on the surrounding country, disciplining and training his dispirited and unsoldierly force of 1,400 men, and collecting supplies, so that he was able to start on September 26. After traversing 900 miles of thick, unbroken, hostile country, he arrived in Saltillo ort December 22, even though his command had been rendered immobile for twenty-seven days by Taylor's unfortunate armistice. But Wool took advantage of this delay to drill and discipline his men in the wilderness. When orders were received to proceed, he was on his way in two hours. Throughout the march, the men had been forced to level hills, fill ravines, construct bridges, scale mountains, and make roads, but because of Wool's watchfulness and preparedness there was little ill-health and no bloodshed. For sheer audacity and control, his march ranks with that of Xenophon. His celerity and efficiency were largely responsible for the victory of Buena Vista. It was he who selected the fine position at La Angostura and who held the Mexicans while Taylor went back to Saltillo. He was Voted a sword and thanks by the Congress "for his distinguished services in the War with Mexico and especially for the skill, enterprise and courage" at Buena Vista. He was also brevetted a major-general, and was presented with a sword by the State of New York.

From 1848 to 1853 he commanded the Eastern Military Division, and from 1854 to 1857 the Department of the Pacific, where in 1856, by active campaign, he suppressed Indian disturbances in Washington and Oregon. From then on he commanded the Department of the East. At the opening of the Civil War he saved Fortress Monroe by timely reënforcements and was afterwards in command of the Department of Virginia. On May 16, 1862, he was regularly made a major-general, and was successively in command of the Middle Military Department and the Department of the East until July 1863. Because of age and infirmity he was retired from active service ort August l, 1863. He died at the age of eighty-five in Troy, New York, was given a large military funeral, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Although Wool was a rigid disciplinarian and was superior in organizing' ability, he had great personal benignity. He left a bequest of $15,000 to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In Troy a seventy-five-foot monument on which is an inscription by William Cullen Bryant, was erected to his memory and that of his wife, Sarah Moulton, to whom he had been married on September 27, 18ro. She survived him only four years.

[H. W. Moulton, Moulton Annuals (1906); A. J, Weise, Troy's One Hundred Years (1891); Francis Baylies, A Narrative of Major General Wool's Campaign in Mexico (1851); J. H. Smith, The War with Mexico (2 vol.) vols., 1919); W. H. Powell, List of Officers of the Army of the U. S., 1779 to 1900 (1900); U. S. Mag. and Democratic Review, November 1851; F. B. Heitman, Historical Register U. S. Army (1903); John Frost, American Generals (1848); L. B. Cannon, Personal Reminiscences of the Rebellion (1895); Troy Daily Times, November 10, 1869.) WA. G. J.K;



WRIGHT, HORATIO GOUVERNEUR (March 6, 1820-July 2, 1899), soldier and engineer, was a native of Clinton, Connecticut, his parents being Edward and Nancy Wright. He entered the United States Military Academy, graduated second in his class, and was appointed second lieutenant, Engineer Corps, July 1, 1841. Before 1846 he had served as assistant to the board of engineers and as instructor at the military academy, and had accompanied the secretary of war on a military inspection tour. The following ten years he spent in Florida, superintending river and harbor improvements at St. Augustine and on the St. John's River, and constructing fortifications at Tortugas and Key West. Having become a captain, July l, 1855, he was assistant to the chief engineer at Washington when the Civil War began.

In a daring attempt to destroy the Norfolk navy yard dry dock on the night of April 20, 1861, Wright was captured but was soon released. Late in May he began building Fort Ellsworth and other defenses of the capital, and at Bull Run was chief engineer of the division under Samuel Peter Heintzelman [q.v.]. Shortly after that disastrous battle he became chief engineer for the brilliantly successful Port Royal expedition, and commanded the 3rd Brigade, which occupied Fort Walker on November 7. Promoted brigadier-general of volunteers on September 14, 1861, in the following February he headed the expedition which seized Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and other points in Florida, going thence to Morris Island, South Carolina, and leading a division in the attack on Secessionville, June 16, 1862. The Department of the Ohio was now (August 19) entrusted to him, and he cooperated efficiently with Generals Don Carlos Buell and William S. Rosecrans [qq.v.] in their Kentucky and Tennessee campaigns until again ordered east, May 18, 1863. Here he took the 1st Division of Gen. John Sedgwick's VI Corps. His brigades saw little fighting at Gettysburg, but on November 7 following, they carried the Confederate redoubts at Rappahannock Bridge in a dashing assault, and forced the river crossings, subsequently taking an important share in the Mine Run campaign. Beginning May 4, 1864, Wright participated in every battle of the Wilderness campaign. After the death of General Sedgwick at Spotsylvania, May 9, he took the VI Corps, which he commanded thereafter, and his troops bore the brunt of the terrible fighting in the Bloody Angle on May 12. Commissioned major-general of volunteers from this date, in July with his corps he was hurriedly sent to save Washington from Early's raid, and repelled the enemy, July 12, at the very edge of the capital. He fought under Sheridan in the autumn campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, and on October 19 at Cedar Creek, where he was wounded, he commanded the army until Sheridan's arrival. Returning to Petersburg, his troops were the first to penetrate the …



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