Adalbert Ames. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-B8172-1728).
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Ames, Adelbert (1835-1933)
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Ames, Adelbert (1835-1933), soldier and politician
Brooks D. Simpson
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
Babcock, Orville Elias (1835-1884), soldier, engineer, and presidential secretary
Brooks D. Simpson
Babcock, Orville Elias (25 December 1835–02 June 1884), soldier, engineer, and presidential secretary, was born in Franklin, Vermont, the son of Elias Babcock, Jr., and Clara Olmstead. Graduating third in his class from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1861, he was commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers. During the first year of the Civil War he gained promotion to first lieutenant, serving successively in the Department of Pennsylvania and the Department of the Shenandoah. He was then transferred to the Army of the Potomac, where he served on the staff of ...
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Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss (1816-1894)
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Nathaniel Prentiss Banks. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-4780).
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Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss (1816-1894), congressman and Civil War general
Phyllis F. Field
Banks, Nathaniel Prentiss (30 January 1816–01 September 1894), congressman and Civil War general, was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, the son of Nathaniel P. Banks, a textile mill foreman, and Rebecca Greenwood. He attended a school for factory children until he began work in the mills as a bobbin boy at age eleven. At seventeen he left factory work to assist his father in carpentry and to learn the machinist’s trade....
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Barksdale, William (1821-1863), congressman and Confederate officer
Harry P. Owens
Barksdale, William (21 August 1821–03 July 1863), congressman and Confederate officer, was born in Rutherford County, Tennessee, the son of William Barksdale and Nancy Hervey Lester, farmers. He was educated in the local schools and briefly attended the University of Nashville. After his father’s death, William and his three brothers moved in 1837 to Mississippi, where they began separate careers. William settled near Columbus, read law, was admitted to the bar, and invested in land and a small number of slaves before he was twenty-five years old. During the Mexican War, he was appointed captain and served as a commissary officer under General ...
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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 ...
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Beatty, John (1749-1826), physician, army officer, and government official
Sheldon S. Cohen
Beatty, John (19 December 1749–30 April 1826), physician, army officer, and government official, was born in Warwick, Pennsylvania, the son of Charles Clinton Beatty, a Presbyterian minister, and Anne Reading. John attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he was one of twenty graduates in the class of 1769. He received an A.M. there three years later. As an undergraduate, he was an original member of the school’s literary club, the American Whig Society. During the interval between his two degree awards, Beatty studied medicine under Dr. ...
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Bedinger, George Michael (1756-1843), soldier, legislator, and businessman
Ellen T. Eslinger
Bedinger, George Michael (10 December 1756–08 December 1843), soldier, legislator, and businessman, was born in York County, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Bedinger and Magdalene von Schlegel, innkeepers. In 1737 his grandfather had moved to Pennsylvania from the vicinity of Strasbourg in Alsace-Lorraine. At the time of George Michael’s birth, the family name was spelled Biedinger and German was the language spoken at home. Late in life Bedinger was described by a contemporary as a “full blooded Virginia Dutchman.”...
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Belknap, William Worth (22 September 1829–12 or 13 Oct. 1890)
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William W. Belknap. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-B8172-2034).
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Belknap, William Worth (22 September 1829–12 or 13 Oct. 1890), secretary of war
W. Bruce Bowlus
Belknap, William Worth (22 September 1829–12 or 13 Oct. 1890), secretary of war, was born in Newburgh, New York, the son of William Goldsmith Belknap, a career army officer, and Ann Clark. Following his graduation from Princeton in 1846, he studied law at Georgetown University. Belknap moved to Keokuk, Iowa, in 1851 and became the law partner of Ralph P. Lowe, who later became the governor of Iowa and a state supreme court justice....
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Bonham, Milledge Luke (1813-1890), governor, congressman, and soldier
Edward G. Longacre
Bonham, Milledge Luke (25 December 1813–27 August 1890), governor, congressman, and soldier, was born in South Carolina’s Edgefield District, the son of James Bonham and Sophie Smith, planters. His father died when he was two, and his mother saw to his education. Bonham attended private academies before graduating from South Carolina College in 1834. He entered the legal profession, engaged in local politics, and became prominent in state military affairs, rising to the rank of major general of militia. He led a brigade of Palmetto State volunteers in the Seminole War of 1836, a position that helped win him a stint in the state house of representatives (1840–1844). In 1845 he married Ann Griffin; they had fourteen children....
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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....
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Bragg, Edward Stuyvesant (1827-1912), Civil War general, congressman, and diplomat
Mike William Beattie
Bragg, Edward Stuyvesant (20 February 1827–20 June 1912), Civil War general, congressman, and diplomat, was born in Unadilla, Otsego County, New York, the son of Joel Bragg, a rural businessman, and Margaretha Kohl. Bragg received his early education at local schools and went on to study law at Geneva College (now Hobart College) in Geneva, New York. He was admitted to the New York bar in 1848. After briefly practicing in Unadilla, he migrated to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, at the age of twenty-three. He was admitted to the Wisconsin bar and began a lifetime practice of arguing cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In 1854 he was elected district prosecuting attorney. That same year he married Cornelia Coleman; they had four children....
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Breckinridge, John Cabell (1821-1875)
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John Cabell Breckinridge. Hand-colored lithograph on paper, c. 1865, by Currier & Ives Lithography Company. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
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Breckinridge, John Cabell (1821-1875), vice president of the United States and Confederate general
William L. Barney
Breckinridge, John Cabell (21 January 1821–17 May 1875), vice president of the United States and Confederate general, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Joseph Cabell Breckinridge and Mary Clay Smith. Breckinridge was an only son born into a devoutly Presbyterian family that was distinguished by its leading role in the early history of the Jeffersonian Republican party in Kentucky. His grandfather was a U.S. senator, and his father was a lawyer and Kentucky state representative whose death in 1823 left the young Breckinridge to be raised by his mother and a grandmother at a family estate near Lexington. Breckinridge graduated from Centre College, Kentucky, in 1839, read law at the College of New Jersey in Princeton, and returned home to finish his legal studies at Transylvania University. He received his law degree in 1841 and moved to Burlington, Iowa, to start his law practice. Two years later he was permanently back in Kentucky, where he married Mary Cyrene Burch in 1843; they had six children....
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Burr, Aaron (06 February 1756–14 September 1836)
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Aaron Burr. Engraving on paper, c. 1793 - 1814, by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.
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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 ...
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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
Butler, William (1759-1821), revolutionary war soldier and congressman
Paul David Nelson
Butler, William (17 December 1759–23 September 1821), revolutionary war soldier and congressman, was born in Prince William County, Virginia, the son of James Butler and Mary Simpson, farmers. He attended grammar schools in his early years, and when he was about twelve years old his family moved to Ninety Six District, in western South Carolina. At the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, although he was only fifteen, he declared for the rebels and joined the South Carolina militia. Late that fall he accompanied Colonel Richard Richardson on a campaign into the backcountry of South Carolina to disperse a powerful concentration of Loyalists under the leadership of Patrick Cuningham. On 22 December he took part in a battle against Cuningham’s forces at Great Canebrake on Reedy Creek, in which the Loyalists were dispersed. Because heavy snow fell during the last days of this operation, it came to be known as the “Snow Campaign.” From July to September 1776 he served in Major ...
