Ames, Adelbert (31 October 1835–13 April 1933), soldier and politician, was born in Rockland, Maine, the son of Jesse Ames, a sea captain, and Martha B. Tolman. After spending some time at sea as a teenager, Ames entered the U.S. Military Academy, graduating in 1861. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to the Fifth Artillery. During the Civil War he was wounded at First Bull Run (First Manassas) on 21 July, and he later received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism there in refusing to leave his post despite the wound. He served with the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula campaign of 1862, and for his actions at Malvern Hill he was brevetted lieutenant colonel. On 8 August 1862 he was named colonel in command of the Twentieth Maine Volunteer Infantry, with ...
Article
Ames, Adelbert (1835-1933), soldier and politician
Brooks D. Simpson
Image
Ames, Adelbert (1835-1933)
In
Article
Bate, William Brimage (1826-1905), Confederate general, governor, and U.S. senator
Thomas C. Mackey
Bate, William Brimage (07 October 1826–09 March 1905), Confederate general, governor, and U.S. senator, was born in Bledsoe’s Lick (now Castalian Springs), Sumner County, Tennessee, the son of James Henry Bate and Amanda Weathered, planters. William Bate received the rudiments of education at a local school, later named the Rural Academy, which he attended until age sixteen. At that time, 1842, his father died, and Bate took a job as a clerk on the steamboat ...
Article
Bouligny, Dominique (1773-1833), soldier, planter, and U.S. senator
Carolyn E. De Latte
Bouligny, Dominique (23 August 1773–05 March 1833), soldier, planter, and U.S. senator, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Francisco Bouligny, the lieutenant governor of Louisiana, a colonel in the Fixed Louisiana Regiment, and the acting governor of Louisiana, and Marie Louise le Sénéchal d’Auberville. He spent his childhood in the comfort that his father’s influence and wealth provided. Surrounded by a large extended family and a full complement of house servants, Bouligny developed a strong attachment to his family, an even stronger admiration for the military that commanded his father’s devotion, and pride in being a citizen of Spain. Louisiana offered few opportunities for the sons of army officers outside of military service. Sons of officers entered the army at an early age, and as a senior officer in the Fixed Louisiana Regiment, Bouligny’s father arranged an appointment for his twelve-year-old son as a cadet in the regimental school in March 1786. His father’s influence assured Bouligny’s rapid promotion to the first officer rank of sublieutenant at the age of fourteen....
Article
Burr, Aaron (06 February 1756–14 September 1836), revolutionary soldier, U.S. senator, and vice president of the United States
Steven E. Siry
Burr, Aaron (06 February 1756–14 September 1836), revolutionary soldier, U.S. senator, and vice president of the United States, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Aaron Burr, a theologian and the second president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), and ...
Image
Burr, Aaron (06 February 1756–14 September 1836)
In
Article
Butler, Matthew Calbraith (1836-1909), Confederate general and U.S. senator
William L. Barney
Butler, Matthew Calbraith (08 March 1836–14 April 1909), Confederate general and U.S. senator, was born in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of William Butler (1790–1850), a U.S. naval surgeon, and Jane Tweedy Perry. The eleventh of sixteen children, Butler spent his early youth in the South Carolina upcountry and attended Greenville Academy. In 1848 he accompanied his father, who had been appointed an agent to the Cherokee Indians, to Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory. His father died in 1850, and in 1851 Butler returned to South Carolina, settling in Edgefield, where he lived with U.S. senator ...
Article
Chandler, John (1762-1841), soldier, U.S. congressman, and senator
Charles D. Lowery
Chandler, John (01 February 1762–25 September 1841), soldier, U.S. congressman, and senator, was born in Epping, New Hampshire, the son of Joseph Chandler and Lydia Eastman. His father, a subsistence farmer and soldier, died in 1776, leaving a destitute widow and ten children. To help support the family, John, upon turning fifteen, enlisted in the Continental army, engaging in the 1777 Saratoga campaign that resulted in the defeat and capture of General ...
Article
Cocke, William (1748-1828), legislator, soldier, and Indian agent
Robert E. Corlew
Cocke, William (1748–22 August 1828), legislator, soldier, and Indian agent, was born in Amelia County, Virginia, the son of Abraham Cocke, a member of the tobacco gentry. As a young man, Cocke studied law and soon became prominent in public affairs. After moving in the early 1770s with his wife, Sarah Maclin (whom he married in 1773 or earlier), and the first of their nine children to a settlement in the Holston Valley near the present Virginia-Tennessee boundary, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates and was an officer in the Virginia militia. Sometime later, he married Keziah (or Kissiah) Sims; they had no children. While in the Holston Valley, he participated in the formation of Sullivan and Washington counties and held several minor positions. In 1776 he raised a company of troops, was commissioned captain, and established “Cocke’s Fort” in the nearby wilderness. He took part in several military encounters with the British and Indians and in 1780 led his troops—along with ...
Article
Cockrell, Francis Marion (1834-1915), Confederate general and U.S. senator
William E. Parrish
Cockrell, Francis Marion (01 October 1834–13 December 1915), Confederate general and U.S. senator, was born in Johnson County, Missouri, the son of Joseph Cockrell, a sheriff, and Nancy Ellis. He attended local schools and then Chapel Hill College in adjoining Lafayette County, from which he graduated in 1853. That same year he married Arethusa Dorcas Stapp. He taught at the college the following year while studying law. Admitted to the bar in October 1855, Cockrell returned to Johnson County to establish his practice in Warrensburg. He had inherited considerable land holdings from his father and, by special act of the Missouri legislature in 1852, had been granted his legal majority to manage these. His wife died in 1859, leaving him with two small children. He actively participated in Democratic politics and in 1860 received appointment to the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri....
Article
Daniel, John Warwick (1842-1910), Confederate soldier, legal scholar, and U.S. senator
Thomas E. Gay
Daniel, John Warwick (05 September 1842–29 June 1910), Confederate soldier, legal scholar, and U.S. senator, was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of William Daniel, Jr., a lawyer and judge, and Sarah Ann Warwick. He attended private schools in the Lynchburg area; after attending Lynchburg College from 1855 to 1859, he enrolled in a classical school administered by Dr. Gessner Harrison. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, Daniel interrupted his education to enlist in the cavalry. He rose to major and fought in several battles, including Gettysburg. At the battle of the Wilderness in 1864 he received a wound that put him on crutches for the remainder of his life and earned him the sobriquet of the “Lame Lion of Lynchburg.”...
Article
Dodge, Henry (1782-1867), soldier, governor of Wisconsin Territory, and U.S. senator
Margaret Horsnell
Dodge, Henry (12 October 1782–19 June 1867), soldier, governor of Wisconsin Territory, and U.S. senator, was born at Post Vincennes (now Vincennes), Indiana, the son of Israel Dodge, a farmer and businessman, and Nancy Ann Hunter. His father moved the family to Kentucky and then to Ste. Genevieve on the Missouri frontier in 1796. By the time Henry was born his father had become a wealthy landowner. Henry had little formal education, but worked on his father’s farms and in his mills, distilleries, and mines. In 1800 Henry Dodge married Christina McDonald; they had thirteen children, but only nine survived infancy. He succeeded his father as sheriff of the Ste. Genevieve district in 1805....
Article
du Pont, Henry Algernon (1838-1926), soldier and U.S. senator
Christopher D. Felker
du Pont, Henry Algernon (30 July 1838–31 December 1926), soldier and U.S. senator, was born at the Eleutherian Mills, near Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Henry du Pont, a manufacturer, and Louise Gerhard. He was educated at the Reverend Dr. Lyon’s boarding school in West Haverford, Pennsylvania, and at the University of Pennsylvania. He left in his junior year to enter the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. He graduated first in his class in 1861 and was appointed second lieutenant of engineers. His first service was in the defense of Washington, with Company D, Fifth Pennsylvania Volunteers, in May and June 1861. During the course of his service, du Pont was promoted several times: in 1861 to a first lieutenancy in the Fifth U.S. Artillery, a unit he served with at Harrisonburg, Pennsylvania, in 1861 and 1862 and at Fort Hamilton, New York, until 4 July 1863; to captain in 1864 and acting assistant adjutant general of the troops in New York harbor from April to July 1862; and to chief of artillery of the army of West Virginia, known as Crook’s corps, in 1864. He commanded the artillery brigade of Crook’s corps until the end of 1864....
Article
Hampton, Wade (1818-1902), Confederate general, governor of South Carolina, and U.S. senator
William L. Barney
Hampton, Wade (28 March 1818–11 April 1902), Confederate general, governor of South Carolina, and U.S. senator, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Wade Hampton II and Ann FitzSimons. Named after his father, an immensely wealthy South Carolina planter, Hampton was raised at “Millwood,” the family estate on the Congaree River near Columbia. Privately tutored in his youth, he graduated from South Carolina College in 1836. He married Margaret Preston in 1838, and the couple settled at “Sand Hills,” Hampton’s estate on the outskirts of Columbia. They had four children before Margaret’s death in 1855. In 1858 Hampton married Mary McDuffie, daughter of Senator ...
Article
Hardin, Martin D. (1780-1823), lawyer, soldier, and U.S. senator
Thomas E. Stephens
Hardin, Martin D. (21 June 1780–08 October 1823), lawyer, soldier, and U.S. senator, was born near the Monongahela River in southwestern Pennsylvania, the son of John Hardin, a revolutionary war soldier and Indian fighter, and Jane Daveiss. The Hardins were a somewhat prosperous Virginia family of French Huguenots who immigrated in 1706 and settled beyond the Virginia border on the Pennsylvania frontier about 1765. In 1786 John Hardin moved the family to Nelson County in the Kentucky District (now Washington County, Ky.) along Pleasant Run, a branch of Beech Fork, near the present-day county seat of Springfield. John Hardin was murdered by Shawnee Indians in May 1792, near present-day Hardin, Ohio, while serving as a peace emissary; he became a celebrated martyr and the namesake of counties in Kentucky and Ohio....
Article
Howard, John Eager (1752-1827), revolutionary soldier, governor of Maryland, and U.S. senator
Gary Browne
Howard, John Eager (04 June 1752–12 October 1827), revolutionary soldier, governor of Maryland, and U.S. senator, was born at “The Forrest,” in Baltimore County, Maryland, the son of Cornelius Howard and Ruth Eager. His English ancestor, Joshua Howard, had emigrated to Maryland after serving in the army of James II during Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1685 and had received a grant of land in Baltimore County. Because subsequent generations had added to this plantation, Cornelius could provide John with a good education under private tutors. John served in Maryland’s militia for the duration of the War of Independence, first as captain in the “Flying Camp” of 1776, as major of the Fourth Regiment from late February 1777 onward, then as lieutenant colonel of the Fifth Regiment after early March 1778, until transfer to the Second Regiment in October 1779. He served in the battles of White Plains, Germantown, and Monmouth in the North and Camden, Guilford Court House, Hobkirk’s Hill, Cowpens, and Eutaw Springs in the South, where he was severely wounded on 8 September 1781 and was forced to resign his commission and return home. Singled out for a heroic charge at Cowpens, Congress awarded him a silver medal, which he wears in a portrait by ...
Article
Hunton, Eppa (1822-1908), soldier and U.S. congressman and senator
Edward G. Longacre
Hunton, Eppa (22 September 1822–11 October 1908), soldier and U.S. congressman and senator, was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, the son of Eppa Hunton, brigade inspector of the Virginia militia, and Elizabeth Marye Brent. Educated at a private academy, he taught school, read law, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1843. Moving to Brentsville in Prince William County, he pursued his profession and joined the militia. By 1847 he was a general officer of state troops. The following year he married Lucy Carolina Weir; they had one son....
Article
Logan, John Alexander (1826-1886), Union general and U.S. senator
John Y. Simon
Logan, John Alexander (09 February 1826–26 December 1886), Union general and U.S. senator, was born in Jackson County, Illinois, the son of John Logan, a physician and politician, and Elizabeth Jenkins. He was educated in local schools and at an academy in adjoining Randolph County before serving as second lieutenant in an Illinois regiment during the Mexican War, service that took him as far as Santa Fe but involved no combat. Afterward he studied law at the University of Louisville (1850–1851), won election as prosecuting attorney for Jackson and Franklin counties, Illinois, moved to Benton, Illinois, and then successfully campaigned for the Illinois legislature. At the age of twenty-six, the fiery Jacksonian Democrat won popularity as the chief proponent of legislation effectively banning blacks from Illinois. In 1855 he married Mary Simmerson Cunningham, who, well educated and vivacious, furthered his career with her charm and writing ability. The couple had three children. Prominence in the law, both in private practice and as prosecutor, and another term in the legislature (1857) prepared the way for his election to Congress in 1858....
Image
Logan, John Alexander (1826-1886)
In
Article
Mahone, William (1826-1895), soldier, railroad executive, and politician
Ethan S. Rafuse
Mahone, William (01 December 1826–08 October 1895), soldier, railroad executive, and politician, was born in Monroe, Virginia, the son of Fielding Mahone, a merchant, and Martha Drew. After studies at Littletown Academy, William entered the Virginia Military Institute in 1844. He graduated in 1847 and afterward taught at the Rappahannock Academy. At the end of the 1848–1849 academic year, he was appointed surveyor of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. He remained in this post until 1852, when he was appointed chief engineer of the Fredericksburg and Valley Plank Road. He left that company one year later to accept the post of chief engineer of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad; in April 1860 he was elected president of the company. In 1855 he married Otelia Butler. Only three of the couple’s thirteen children reached maturity....
