Eads through Encampment

EADS, James Buchanan, engineer, born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 23 May, 1820; died in Nassau, N. P., Bahama Islands, 8 March, 1887. He early showed a great interest in machinery, and at the age of ten constructed models of saw-mills, fire-engines, steamboats, and other machines. In 1833 he settled in St. Louis, where, besides being variously employed, he acquired considerable knowledge of civil engineering and cognate subjects. He constructed a diving-bell boat in 1842 to recover the cargoes of sunken steamers, and soon afterward designed larger boats, with novel and powerful machinery, for pumping out the sand and water, and lifting the entire hull and cargo. Many valuable steamers were set afloat and restored to usefulness by his methods. He disposed of his interests in these inventions in 1845, and then established in St. Louis the first glass-works west of the Ohio River. In 1866 he made a proposition to Congress to keep the channels of the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Arkansas Rivers clear of snags, wrecks, and other obstructions for a term of years, but this offer was not accepted. In 1861 he was called to Washington and consulted by the president and his cabinet in relation to the practicability of using light iron-clad vessels on the Mississippi and its tributaries. Soon afterward he designed and constructed eight iron-clad steamers, fully equipped, within 100 days. These were employed in the capture of Fort Henry in February. 1862, a month earlier than the conflict between the "Merrimac" and " Monitor." Subsequently, in 1862, he constructed numerous other iron-clads and mortar-boats, which proved of great value in the campaigns of Grant and in the capture of Mobile by Farragut. From 1867 till 1874 he was engaged in the construction of the steel arch bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis. The central arch of this bridge has a clear span of 520 feet, and has been pronounced the finest specimen of metal arch construction in the world. This structure ranks among the noted bridges of the world. On the completion of this enterprise, Mr. Eads turned his attention to the deepening of the Mississippi by means of jetties. His plans, which were strongly opposed by the Chief Engineers of the U. S. Army, to whom the government naturally looked for official advice, were submitted to Congress, and finally a bill was passed granting him permission to attempt the improvement of the South Pass. Four years after he began work the U. S. inspecting officer reported that the maximum depth proposed hail been secured throughout the jetty. This was a great triumph for Mr. Eads. as it was a practical demonstration of his theories. Subsequently he outlined one of the grandest plans that hydraulic engineering has ever undertaken, having for its object the extension of the deep water from the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Ohio, into the very heart of the Mississippi valley. This magnificent channel was to be made permanent by practically putting an end to the caving of its" banks. In 1880 Congress reported in favor of the adoption of the jetty system, as devised by him, and appointed a commission, of which he was made a member. A large sum of money was appropriated by Congress for the work, and along a small portion of the river the improvement was constructed. Congress afterward discontinued its appropriations, but enough had been done to establish the entire practicability of the plan. More recently Mr. Eads proposed a ship-railway to be constructed across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and after failing to induce the government to attempt the execution of this work, he formed a private company, for the incorporation of which a bill was passed by the U. S. Senate in 1887. Such an undertaking was shown by him to be entirely feasible, and he considered it far more economical than a canal. It was Mr. Eads's purpose to devote the remaining energies of his life to the prosecution of this scheme. He also examined and reported upon the bar at the mouth of the St. John's River, Florida, the improvements of the Sacramento River, the Harbor of Toronto, the port of Vera Cruz, the Harbor of Tampico, the Harbor of Galveston, and the estuary and port of the Mersey, in England. Mr. Eads was president of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences for two terms, and in 1872 was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by the University of Missouri. In 1881 he addressed the British Association for the Advancement of Science at York on the improvement of the Mississippi, and also upon the Tehuantepec ship-canal. Three years later he received the Albert medal of the Society of Arts in token of its appreciation of the services he had rendered to the science of engineering. Mr. Eads was the first citizen of the United States upon whom this medal has teen conferred. Occasional technical papers on bridge construction and the application of the jetty system to rivers were contributed by him to engineering journals.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 287


EAGLE, Henry, naval officer, born in New York City, 7 April, 1801; died 26 November, 1882. His father was from Dublin, Ireland, and was major of an Irish Brigade in New York, and during the war of 1812 assisted in preparing earthworks near Fort Greene. The son entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on 1 January, 1818, and was commissioned as a lieutenant to the West Indies in 1827. After service in Brazil and on the Pacific Coast, he was made commander in 1844, and superintended the construction of the Stevens iron battery at Hoboken, New Jersey, to which he devoted several years, acting as inspector in New York in 1846. He commanded the bomb-vessel "Etna" and a division of the squadron during the Mexican War, and was civil and military governor, and collector of the ports of Tabasco, Mexico, in 1847-8. In September, 1855, he was commissioned captain. He was the bearer of important communications from Brooklyn to Washington at the outbreak of the Civil War, volunteered for the command of the gun-boat "Monticello," made the first naval attack of the war, and silenced the guns of Sowell's Point battery, Virginia, 19 May, 1861. Subsequently he commanded the frigate " Santee," of the Gulf Blockading Squadron, and during his service a boat-expedition from that vessel captured and destroyed the privateer " Royal Yacht, in the Harbor of Galveston. Texas. He was promoted commodore in 1862, and on 1 January, 1863, was placed on the retired list. In 1864 and 1865 he was engaged as prize commissioner, and in that year became light-house inspector, which office he held for one year.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 287-288.


EAGLE ISLAND, NORTH CAROLINA, February 21, 1865. (See Wilmington.)


EAGLE PASS, TEXAS, June 19, 1864. A Confederate report states that a party of 80 Federal recruits attempted to take the town of Eagle Pass and were only repulsed after a sharp fight in which 5 Confederates were wounded. The Federal assailants captured all the horses of the garrison.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 373.


EAGLEVILLE, TENNESSEE, March 2, 1863. 15th, 16th, 18th and 19th U. S. Infantry.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 373.


EAGLEVILLE, TENNESSEE, March 31-April t, 1863. Detachments of 3d Division, 14th Army Corps. A report of Brigadier-General James B. Steedman states that the mounted battalion of the 1st brigade of his division had a skirmish on the 31st with Confederate cavalry in which 4 of the Federal participants were captured and 3 wounded. Next day Steedman sent out two regiments of infantry in anticipation of a movement on the part of the enemy. This force pursued some Confederates who had retreated upon the approach of the Federals, but no casualties are mentioned in connection with the affair.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 373.


EAGLEVILLE, TENNESSEE, April 16, 1863. U. S. Troops of Brigadier-General James B. Steedman's command. A report of Major-General Gordon Granger states that "Steedman says he had sharp skirmishing south of Harpeth today; killed some and took some prisoners." The Confederate report of the affair is made by Brigadier-General William T. Martin who says: "A skirmish occurred between the reserve of Colonel Patterson's pickets on the Chapel Hill and Union pike. The enemy in force (about 300) advanced upon the pickets and were driven back 3 miles. We lost none in killed, but 4 were decoyed into an ambuscade and captured."  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 373.


EAGLEVILLE, TENNESSEE, June 23, 1863. (See Rover, same date.)


EARLE, John Milton, 1794-1874, Leicester, Massachusetts, businessman, abolitionist, statesman, political leader, newspaper publisher, pioneer and leader in the anti-slavery/abolitionist movement.  Member of Whig and Free Soil parties.  Husband of abolitionist Sarah H. Earle.  (Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 347)


EARLE, Pliny, inventor, born in Leicester, Massachusetts, 17 December, 1762; died there, 19 November, 1832. He was a descendant of Ralph Earle, who, with nineteen others, successfully petitioned Charles I., in 163, for a charter to form themselves into a body-politic of Rhode Island. In 1785 he became connected with Edmund Snow in the manufacture of hand-cards for carding cotton and wool, and in 1786 he established himself in the business. Among the many obstacles encountered by Samuel Slater in the introduction into the United States of the manufacture of cotton by machinery was the difficulty of procuring card-clothing for his machines. After unsuccessful applications to several other persons, he went, in 1790, to Mr. Earle, who, although it was a new and untried work, agreed to make the cards. He succeeded, but to achieve that success he was obliged to prick the holes for the teeth with two needles fastened in a handle. This led him to the invention of the machine for pricking " twilled " cards, by which the labor of a man for fifteen hours could be performed in as many minutes. This machine was in general use for years, until it was superseded by the machine that both pricks the leather and sets the teeth. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and, apart from his inventive genius, made extensive attainments in science and literature.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 288.


EARLE, Thomas, 1796-1849, Worcester, Massachusetts, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist leader, journalist, lawyer, political leader, Philadelphia, PA.  Edited Pennsylvania Freeman.  Petitioned Congress to amend U.S. Constitution to compensate slaveholders in the South who freed their slaves.  Earle joined the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery in 1820, and in 1821 was a Delegate to the American Convention of Abolition Societies.  As a lawyer, he represented the Society in defense of African Americans.  Vice presidential candidate for abolitionist Liberty Party. Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 1839-1840.  He actively supported Black suffrage. (Bonner, 1948; Drake, 1950, p. 149; Dumond, 1961, p. 297; Goodell, 1852, p. 471; Sinha, 2016, pp. 97, 119-120, 174, 263, 465, 470; Pennsylvania Freeman, April 23, 1840; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 288-289; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 597; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 7, p. 231)

EARLE, Thomas, lawyer, born in Leicester, Massachusetts, 21 April, 1796; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 14 July, 1849, was educated at Leicester Academy. In 1817 he moved to Philadelphia, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits for a few years, but subsequently studied law and practised his profession. He became distinguished also as a journalist, editing in succession the "Columbian Observer," "Standard," "Pennsylvanian," and "Mechanics' Free Press and Reform Advocate." In 1837 he took an active part in calling the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, of which he was a prominent member, and it is supposed that he made the original draft of the new constitution. He lost his popularity with the Democratic Party by advocating the extension of the right of suffrage to Negroes. He was the candidate of the  Liberty Party for vice-president in 1840, but the nomination was repudiated by the abolitionists, whom that party was supposed to represent. Mr. Earle subsequently took little part in political affairs. He devoted his time principally to literary work, and published an "Essay on Penal Law "; an "Essay on the Rights of States to Alter and to Annul their Charters"; "Treatise on Railroads and Internal Communications" (1830); and a" Life of Benjamin Lundy." At the time of his death he was engaged in a translation of Sismondi’s "Italian Republics," and in the compilation of a "Grammatical Dictionary of the French and the English Languages."  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 288-289.


EARLE, William B., abolitionist, Worcester, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1841-51.


EARLY, Jubal Anderson, soldier, born in Franklin County, Virginia, 3 November, 1816. He was graduated at the U S. Military Academy in 1837, appointed a lieutenant of artillery, and assigned to duty at Fort, Monroe, Virginia He served in the Florida War in 1837-8, resigned from the army in July, 1838, and began the practice of law in Virginia. He served in the legislature in 1841-'2, and was commonwealth attorney in 1842-'7, and again in 1848-'52. During the Mexican War he was major of a Regiment of Virginia Volunteers, serving from January, 1847, till August, 1848, was acting governor of Monterey in May and June, 1847, and after the disbanding of the army returned to the practice of law. At the beginning of the Civil War he entered the Confederate Service as a colonel, commanded a brigade at Bull Run, and in the battle of Williamsburg, 5 May, 1862, was supposed to be mortally wounded. He was promoted brigadier-general, and in May, 1863, commanded the division that held the lines at Fredericksburg, while Lee was fighting the battle of Chancellorsville. He also commanded a division at Gettysburg. In 1864 he was ordered to the valley of the Shenandoah, where his operations were at first successful. In July he crossed the Potomac, gained the battle of Monocacy, and threatened Washington, but was obliged to retreat. Toward the end of the month a portion of his cavalry advanced into Pennsylvania as far as Chambersburg, which, by his orders, they burned. He was afterward, 19 September, defeated by Sheridan on the Opequan, and again at Fisher's Hill three days later. On 19 October, General Early surprised the National forces at Cedar Creek in the absence of General Sheridan; but the latter, having arrived in the afternoon, rallied his army and gained a decisive victory, General Early losing the greater part of his artillery and trains. In March, 1865, he was totally routed by General Custer at Waynesboro, and a few days later he was relieved by Lee from the command in the valley; that general saying in his letter, 30 March, 1865: "Your reverses in the valley, of which the public and the army judge chiefly by the results, have, I fear, impaired your influence both with the people and the soldiers, and would greatly add to the difficulties which will, under any circumstances, attend our military operations in S. W. Virginia. While my own confidence in your ability, zeal, and devotion to the cause is unimpaired, I have nevertheless felt that I could not oppose what seems to be the current opinion without injustice to your reputation and injury to the service." After the close of the war he spent some time in Europe, and on his return resumed the practice of law in Richmond. He subsequently took up his residence in New Orleans (alternately with Lynchburg), where, with General Beauregard, he became a manager of the Louisiana State Lottery. He is president of the Southern Historical Society, and has published a pamphlet entitled "A Memoir of the Last Year of the War for Independence in the Confederate States" (Lynchburg, 1867).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 290.


EAST MACON, GEORGIA, November 20, 1864. (See Walnut Creek.) East Point, Georgia, November 15, 1864. 2nd Brigade, Kilpatrick's Cavalry. When General Sherman was preparing to begin his advance on Savannah the brigade, commanded by Colonel S. D. Atkins, broke camp near East Point on the morning of the 15th and moved on  the road to Jonesboro, with the gth Michigan in advance. This regiment soon came in contact with the enemy's pickets and drove them all day, the command going into camp about 4 miles from Jonesboro. No casualties reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, pp. 373-374.


EAST RIVER BRIDGE, FLORIDA, March 4-5, 1865. Detachments of 2nd Florida Cavalry and 30 Sailors. This affair was an incident of certain operations about Saint Mark's. A force under Acting Ensign Whitman was landed from the U. S. gunboat Magnolia and proceeded up the river to the bridge, surprising but not capturing the picket. During the night Major Edmund C. Weeks moved up to the bridge with his detachment of the 2nd Florida. At sunrise the Confederate cavalry attacked the position, but was easily repulsed with a loss of several wounded. Later in the day the Federals fell back to the lighthouse, the enemy following in a running fight in which no one was hurt.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 374.


EASTMAN, Seth, soldier, born in Brunswick, Maine, 24 January, 1808; died in Washington, D. C, 31 August, 1875. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1829 and assigned to the infantry. After frontier and topographical duty he was assistant teacher of drawing at West Point from 1833 to 1840, served in the Florida War in 1840-'l. and afterward on the western frontier. From 1850 to 1855 he was employed in the Bureau of the Commissioner of Indian affairs to illustrate the national work on the "History, Condition, and Future Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States" (Washington, 1850-'7). He then returned to the frontier, he was retired with the rank of lieutenant-colonel on 3 December, 1863, on account of disability from exposure in the line of duty, and on 9 August, 1866, was brevetted brigadier-general. General Eastman was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1838. He was the author of a "Treatise on Topographical Drawing" (1837). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 292.


EASTON, Langdon Cheves, soldier, born in St. Louis, Missouri, 10 August, 1814; died in New York City, 29 April, 1884. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1838, and was assigned to the 6th U.S. Infantry. He was promoted to be 1st lieutenant, 23 July, 1839, and held the commission till 15 April, 1851, becoming assistant quartermaster, with the rank of captain, 3 March, 1847, and quartermaster, with the rank of colonel, 2 August, 1864. He served in the Florida and Mexican Wars, and during the Civil War. He was chief quartermaster of the Army of the Cumberland from 15 December, 1863, till 4 May, 1864, and of the armies commanded by Major-General Sherman from 4 May, 1864, till 27 June, 1865, being present during the operations of the campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and subsequently at the capture of Savannah. On the march from the latter city to Goldsborough, North Carolina and thence to Washington, D. C, via Raleigh and Richmond, General Easton acted in the same capacity. After the close of the war he was stationed in Mississippi and Missouri. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general, 17 September, 1864, " for distinguished and important service in the quarter-master's department in the campaign terminating in the capture of Atlanta, Georgia," and major-general, 13 March, 1865, " for meritorious service during the war." He was promoted to be colonel and assistant quartermaster-general, 6 June, 1872, retiring from active service, 24 January, 1881. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 292.


EATON, Amos Beebe, soldier, born in Catskill, New York, 12 May, 1806; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 21 February, 1877, was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1820. He took part in the Seminole War, was appointed chief commissary of subsistence of General Taylor's army at the beginning of the Mexican War, and was brevetted major after the battle of Buena Vista. He was depot purchasing commissary in New York from 1861 till 1864. when he was appointed commissary-general of the Subsistence Bureau in Washington, D. C. After being promoted successively to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general, he was brevetted major-general in 1865, and was placed on the retired list in 1874.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 296.


EATONTON, GEORGIA, November 21, 1864. 3d Brigade, 1st Division, 20th Army Corps. About 1 p. m. as the corps was on its march to the sea, the rear-guard was attacked at Eatonton by a detachment of Confederate cavalry, but the attack was repelled by the 61 st Ohio veteran volunteers, commanded by Captain John Garrett. No losses reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 374.


EBENEZER CHURCH, ALABAMA, April 1, 1865. 2nd Division Cavalry Corps, District of the Mississippi (Wilson's Raid). After breaking camp at Montevallo the division moved out on the main Selma road and first encountered the enemy near Randolph. The 72 Indiana mounted infantry was in the lead and four companies followed the enemy closely until they reached Ebenezer Church on Bogler's creek, near Maplesville. where a larger force was located. The other companies of the 72nd were brought forward, dismounted, and the whole regiment soon broke the enemy's lines. The 17th Indiana mounted infantry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Frank White, then charged, following the fleeing Confederates over a mile, where they came up with, a battery of artillery which had been firing on them as they advanced. A second line of battle was here encountered and the Indiana men were forced to turn to their left and cut their way out. The charge resulted in the loss of 17 men killed or captured. The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 374.


EBENEZER CREEK, GEORGIA, December 7-8, 1864. 3d Division. 14th Army Corps, and Kilpatrick's Cavalry. In the march of the 14th corps from Sister's ferry toward Savannah the 3d division, commanded by Brigadier-General Absalom Baird, and Kilpatrick's cavalry constituted the rear-guard, skirmishing almost constantly with the enemy's cavalry. Late on the afternoon of the 7th Morgan's division, with the pontoon train, which formed the advance, reached Ebenezer creek and immediately began clearing the road of the fallen timber which the Confederates had placed there to obstruct the march. About 4 p. m., while the rear-guard was waiting at Cypress swamp for the advance to cross the creek, Ferguson's Confederate cavalry made a desperate attack on the 9th Michigan (Colonel Acker), which occupied the extreme rear. Colonel Hamilton took Companies A and B, 9th Ohio cavalry, and deployed to the left to cover a road over which the enemy was advancing in an effort to cut off and capture the 9th Michigan A volley from these two companies checked the enemy, but he soon rallied and was preparing to charge when another company of the 9th Ohio delivered an effective fire on his flank. This gave Hamilton an opportunity to form his detachment in an open field between the swamp and the main road and bring up reinforcements. Two battalions were deployed and the enemy was thus held in check until Acker extricated his regiment. The bridge was completed on the morning of the 8th, but the work of crossing was so slow that the entire corps was not over at dark that evening. The rear-guard spent the greater part of the day in repelling the attacks of the enemy. Baird sent Colonel Briant with the 88th Indiana well to the rear, where he threw up a barricade of logs and repulsed several assaults, holding his position until ordered to withdraw at 11 p. m. and cross the creek with the division. About the same hour Wheeler shelled the camp, driving back the infantry pickets in some confusion, but the 5th Ohio cavalry and 92nd Illinois mounted infantry held their line firmly, covering the crossing of the infantry. After Baird had crossed the creek these two regiments followed and destroyed the bridge, Wheeler meanwhile keeping up a furious cannonade, which did no injury to the Union troops. This midnight movement led Wheeler to report that he had driven the Federals from their camp and captured a good part of their equipage, etc. Although the fighting was severe at times during the day the casualties were comparatively slight on both sides.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 375.


ECHELON. An arrangement of battalions, so that each has a line of battle in advance or in rear of its neighboring battalion. (Consult Infantry Tactics, vol. 3. See also MANOEUVRES IN COMBAT.) (Scott, Military Dictionary, Van Nostrand, 1862, p. 253).


ECKERT, Thomas Thompson, telegrapher, born in St. Clairsville, Ohio, 23 April, 1825. In 1849 he was appointed postmaster at Wooster, Ohio, and as he had learned telegraphy, the wires were brought into his office. In 1852 he supervised the construction of the telegraph line between Pittsburg and Chicago, over the Fort Wayne route, and was offered the superintendency. When the lines under his management were made a part of the Western Union Telegraph Company, his jurisdiction became largely extended. In 1859 he left this to superintend the affairs of a gold-mining company in Montgomery County, North Carolina, where he remained until the Civil War began, when he moved to Cincinnati. He was called to take charge of the military telegraph office at the headquarters of General McClellan, and in 1862 accompanied that officer to the peninsula as superintendent of the military telegraph, Department of the Potomac, with the rank of captain and assistant quarter- master. In September he was called to Washington to establish the military telegraph headquarters in the war department buildings, and was promoted to the rank of major. From this time till the close of the war he was on intimate terms with President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton. In 1864 he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, and afterward brigadier-general. The same year he was appointed assistant Secretary of War, retaining the office till 1866, when he resigned and became general superintendent of the eastern division of the lines of the Western Union Telegraph Company. In 1875 he became president of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, and in 1880 president of the American Union Telegraph Company. On the consolidation of these companies with the Western Union Telegraph Company, in 1881, he returned to the service of the latter company as vice-president and general manager. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 298.


EDDY, Norman, Congressman, born in Seipio, Cayuga County, New York, 10 December, 1810; died in Indianapolis, Indiana, 28 January, 1872. He was graduated in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 1835, and moved in 1836 to Mishawaka, Indiana. where he practised for several years, but finally gave up his profession for that of the law, and was admitted to the bar in April, 1847, removing to South Bend, Indiana, in the same year. He was elected sole senator on the Democratic ticket in 1850, and in 1852 was elected to Congress over Schuyler Colfax, but was defeated by him in 1854. President Pierce appointed Mr. Eddy district attorney for Minnesota in 1855, and in 1856-'7 he was commissioner of the Indian trust lands in Kansas. In the autumn of 1861 he organized the 48th Indiana Regiment, was commissioned its colonel, and continued in command till July, 1863, when he resigned because of disability resulting from wounds received in the battle of Iuka, Mississippi. In that engagement the 48th lost 119 killed or wounded out of 420 that entered the fight. Colonel Eddy was appointed collector of internal revenue by President Johnson in 1865, and in 1870 was elected Secretary of State of Indiana, which office he held till his sudden death from heart disease.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 300.


EDENBURG, VIRGINIA, September 23, 1864. (See Mount Jackson, same date.)


EDENBURG, VIRGINIA, February 16, 1865. Detachment of the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac. Lieutenant-Colonel George R. Maxwell, of the 1st Michigan cavalry, with 300 men, left Camp Russell near Winchester on the 13th to scout in the direction of Strasburg. He left Strasburg about 11:30 p. m. on the 15th and moved toward Edenburg, where the enemy's pickets were encountered and strenuous efforts made to capture them, but without success. From this point Maxwell sent 100 men to destroy an iron furnace at Little Fort Valley. At 11 a. m. on the 16th he started to return to camp, but he had hardly got under way when his rear-guard was attacked by a party of McCausland's cavalry. The enemy was repulsed, but the skirmishing was kept up until Woodstock was reached, when the Confederates tried to cut off the rear-guard, which cut. through the lines and joined the main column. Maxwell then charged and drove the enemy back to within a mile of Edenburg, killing 3, wounding several and capturing to. The Union loss was 1 man mortally wounded.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 375.


EDEN STATION, GEORGIA, December 7-9, 1864. (See Jenks Bridge.)


EDENTON ROAD, VIRGINIA, April 13-May 5, 1863. At the beginning of the siege of Suffolk and as the Confederates withdrew from \hat place to the Blackwater river, there was considerable skirmishing on the Edenton road. (See Suffolk, siege of.)  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 376.


EDGEFIELD JUNCTION, TENNESSEE, August 20, 1862. (See Louisville & Nashville R. R.)


EDGERTON, Sidney, 1818-1900, U.S. Congressman from Ohio, Chief Justice of the Idaho Territorial Supreme Court, and Territorial Governor of Montana. 1818-1900, abolitionist. (Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 20).


EDISTO ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, April 18, 1862. Crew of the U. S. S. Crusader, 3d New Hampshire and 55th Pennsylvania Volunteers. Edisto Railroad Bridge, South Carolina, February 7, 1865. 11th Iowa Infantry. As the 17th army corps was marching toward Columbia. General Belknap, commanding the 3d brigade, 4th division, sent this regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Beach to drive away the Confederate force stationed at the Edisto bridge. Beach moved from Midway and successfully executed his mission, but not until the enemy had destroyed the bridge. No casualties reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 376.


EDMONTON, KENTUCKY, June 7, 1863. Detachment of 5th Indiana Cavalry. A scouting party of this regiment was attacked by a largely superior force of Confederates near Edmonton. The Union troops were compelled to withdraw, after having lost 20 of their 70 men in killed, wounded or captured.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 376.


EDMUNDS, George Franklin, statesman, born in Richmond. Vermont, 1 February, 1828. He was educated at the common schools and by a private tutor; studied law at an early age, and began practice in 1849, removing in 1851 to Burlington, Vermont.  He was a representative in the Vermont legislature in 1854-'9, serving as speaker for three years, and in 1861-"2 was a member of the state senate, and its president pro tempore. At the beginning of the Civil War he was a member of the state convention that formed a coalition between the Republicans and war Democrats, and drew up the resolutions adopted there. He was appointed to the U. S. Senate in March, 1866, by the governor of Vermont, to fill the vacancy made by the death of Solomon Foot, and was then elected by the legislature unto fill the unexpired term, and three times reelected. Mr. Edmunds was active in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, sided with President Grant against Charles Sumner, and acted an influential part in the passage of the reconstruction measures, adopting a conservative course. In 1876-'7 he was one of the members of the electoral commission, having been previously chairman of the committee which, in concert with a similar committee of the House of Representatives, prepared the bill creating that commission. The passage of the Pacific Railroad Funding Act was also largely due to his influence and exertions. At the National Republican Conventions, held in Chicago in 1880 and 1884, Mr. Edmunds received thirty-four and ninety-three votes respectively for the presidential nomination, each on the first ballot. He was elected president pro tempore of the Senate after Mr. Arthur became President of the United States. In the Senate he has served on the committees on commerce, public lands, appropriations, pensions, retrenchment, private land claims, the library, and the judiciary, and has served as chairman of the last-named committee for several successive congresses. As a legislator, Senator Edmunds is noted for his legal acumen, his readiness in repartee, and his love of strictly parliamentary procedure. He  has been a fearless foe of political jobs and legislative intrigues. He was the author of the act of 22 March, 1882, for the suppression of polygamy in Utah and the disfranchisement of those who practice it. This is known as the " Edmunds Act,' and was upheld by the supreme court in decisions that were rendered on 22 March, 1884, in a series of five cases. He was also the chief author of the similar act passed in 1887; and of the act of 1886 prescribing the manner in which electoral votes for president shall be counted. In 1886 he was the leader in the Senate in the attempt to compel President Cleveland to furnish that body with all documents necessary to show cause for recent removals from office.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 304-305.


EDSON, Theodore, soldier, born in Massachusetts in 1838; died in Rock Island, Illinois, 16 November, 1870. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1860, and served with honor in the Civil War, being chief of ordnance in General Rosecrans's Tennessee campaign. He was brevetted captain on 31 December, 1862, for services at the battle of Stone River, given his full rank on 3 March, 1863, and commanded various arsenals and ordnance depots, being chief of ordnance in the Department of Virginia and North Carolina in 1864-5. He was promoted to major in 1867, and in 1869- 70 was instructor in gunnery at West Point.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 305.


EDWARDS, John, lawyer, born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, 24 October, 1815. He received a common-school education, studied law, and entered upon the practice of his profession. He was a member of the legislature of Indiana from 1845 till 1849, when he emigrated to California, and was at once made alcalde (Mayor). He returned to Indiana in 1852, and was in the same year elected to the state senate. He moved subsequently to Iowa, was chosen a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1855, and was in the legislature from 1856 till 1860, serving the last two years as speaker of the house. On 21 May, 1861, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel and aide-de-camp on the governor's staff. He organized and commanded state troops until May, 1862, when he became colonel of the 18th Iowa Infantry. On 26 September, 1864, he was promoted to be brigadier-general of volunteers, and was mustered out of the service, 15 January, 1866. After the close of the war he settled at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and was appointed U. S. assessor, 6 August, 1866. He was also elected a member of the 42d Congress as a literal Republican, but his election was successfully contested by Thomas Boles, who took his seat, 9 February, 1872. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 306.


EDWARDS, Landon Brame, physician, born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, 20 September, 1845, was educated at Randolph Macon College. In 1863 he enlisted in the artillery corps of the Confederate Army, in which he served until the end of the war. He was graduated at the medical department of the University of the City of New York in March. 1867, and until October of that year served as house physician in the Charity Hospital, Blackwell's Island, and then as assistant physician to the Hospital for Nervous Diseases at Lake Mahopac, New York  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 306.


EDWARDS, Ninian Wirt, lawyer, born in Frankfort, Kentucky, 15 April, 1809, was taken by his father, when an infant, to Kaskaskia, then the capital of Illinois Territory. He was graduated at the Transylvania University, and at its law department in 1833. Before his graduation he was married to Elizabeth P. Todd, a sister of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Edwards began the practice of law in 1833, and in 1834 was appointed attorney-general of Illinois, but resigned in 1835, and moved to Springfield. In 1836 he was elected to the legislature, and with Abraham Lincoln and others was active in securing the removal of the capital to Springfield. Mr. Edwards remained a member of the legislature continuously till 1852. During that period he was also a member of the convention that framed the state constitution in 1848. In 1854 he was appointed by, the governor attorney before the board of commissioners whose duty it was to investigate the claims of canal contractors against the state, amounting to over $1,500,000. From 1854 till 1857 he served as superintendent of public instruction, and drafted a bill regarding free schools, which afterward became a law. In August, 1861, he was appointed by President Lincoln captain commissary of subsistence, which appointment he held until 22 June, 1865. In the latter year Mr. Edwards retired almost entirely from the practice of his profession. At the request of the State Historical Society, he prepared a volume entitled "The Life and Times of Ninian Edwards, and History of Illinois," which is considered an authority (1870).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 308.


EDWARDS, Oliver, soldier, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, 30 January, 1835. He was graduated at the Springfield high-school in 1852. At the beginning of the Civil War Mr. Edwards was commissioned 1st lieutenant and adjutant of the 10th Massachusetts Regiment, and in January, 1862, was appointed senior aide-de-camp on the staff of General Darius N. Couch. He was commissioned major of the 37th Massachusetts on 9 August, and was promoted colonel on 27 August. On 19 October, 1864, he was brevetted brigadier-general "for gallant and distinguished services at the battle of Spottsylvania Court-House, and for meritorious services at the battle of the Opequan." He was brevetted major-general, 5 May, 1865, "for conspicuous gallantry in the battle of Sailors Creek, Virginia" and was made a full brigadier-general, 19 May, 1865. After serving through the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, and those of Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, General Edwards was ordered to New York City in command of a picked provisional brigade, to quell the draft riots in July, 1863, and placed in command of Fort Hamilton and Fort Lafayette. At the end of the enforcement of the draft, General Edwards returned to the Army of the Potomac, and took part in the battle of Rappahannock. During the second day of the battle of the Wilderness, when in command of the 4th Brigade, 2d Division , 6th Army Corps, he made a charge at the head of the 37th Massachusetts Regiment, and succeeded in breaking through the Confederate lines. At Spottsylvania, Virginia, 12 May, 1864, he held the "bloody angle" with his own brigade from 5 A. M. till 4 P. M. and was at the head of twenty regiments from that hour until 5 a. m., when the enemy withdrew, making twenty-four hours of continuous fighting. He subsequently participated in all the battles of the overland Campaign, and accompanied the 6th Corps when sent to the defence of Washington against the advance of Early. He was afterward with General Sheridan in his campaign in the Shenandoah valley, and took part in the battle of Winchester, of which town he was placed in command by that officer. The latter also offered him the provost-marshal-generalship of the Middle Military Division, but he declined it, preferring a direct command. In the final assault on Petersburg, General Edwards's brigade captured the guns in front of three of the enemy's brigades, and he received the surrender of the city from the hands of its mayor, 3 April, 1865. At the battle of Sailor's Creek, on 6 April, General Edwards, with the 3d Brigade of the 1st Division , captured General Custis Lee and staff, with his entire brigade, Lieut.-General Ewell and staff, and many others.   He was mustered out of the army on 16 January, 1866, and has been since engaged in mercantile pursuits, both in this country and in England. He invented the Florence oil-stove.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 308-309.


EDWARDS' FERRY, MARYLAND, June 18, 1861. 14th U. S. Infantry. Confederate troops, numbering 800 or 900 men, arrived opposite Edwards' ferry in the afternoon and attempted to cross Goose creek, in the ferry-boat drawn from the Potomac river for the purpose. Lieutenant Hasbrouck fired from his 12-pounder howitzer a spherical case shot which burst directly over the boat and caused great confusion. The boat was immediately drawn back to the shore and the enemy drew up in battle line, but were dispersed by a fire of spherical case shot and sent flying toward Leesburg. No casualties were reported from either side.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 376.


EDWARDS' FERRY, VIRGINIA, October 4, 1861. Detachment of Stone's Division, Army of the Potomac. Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone reported from Poolesville, Maryland, on this date as follows: "The enemy opened fire on our lookout near Edwards' ferry at 9 a. m. His firing was wild and without effect. I returned his fire with three Parrott 10-pounders, and he retired. At the time of the firing a battalion or more of infantry and some artillery were visible going toward Leesburg on the turnpike."  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 376.


EDWARDS' FERRY, VIRGINIA, October 22, 1861. Gorman's and Abercrombie's Brigades, Army of the Potomac. After the battle of Ball's bluff on the 21st, Brigadier-General Willis A. Gorman, with his brigade of Stone's division, took position on the Virginia side of the Potomac river in front of Edwards' ferry. About 8 o'clock that evening Brigadier-General John J. Abercrombie left Seneca Mills, Maryland, with the 16th Indiana and 30th Pennsylvania, of his brigade of Banks' division, and at 4 a. m. on the 22nd.reached the ferry. Owing to limited means of transportation the last of his troops were not over the river until about 2 p. m., when he assumed command of all the forces there assembled. Brigadier-General Evans, commanding the Confederates in that vicinity, ordered Colonel Barksdale to take his regiment, the 13th Mississippi, reconnoiter in the direction of the ferry, and attack any force he might find there, if in his judgment he considered such a movement expedient. Abercrombie had his men in position by 2 p. m. and about 2 hours later Barksdale was seen cautiously advancing. A company of sharpshooters, supported by the 1st Minnesota and 16th Indiana, was thrown forward to meet the enemy and a battery was placed in position to open the engagement. When the Confederates came within range the artillery opened fire and a few well directed shots caused Barksdale to hurriedly retrace his steps toward Leesburg. The Union troops held their position until the afternoon of the 23d, when they retired to the Maryland side. No casualties reported on the Federal side and the enemy's loss was not learned.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 376-377.


EDWARD'S STATION, MISSISSIPPI, May 16, 1863, and February 4, 1864. (See Champion's Hill.)  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 377.


Eel River, California, May 31, 1862. Detachment of 3d California Infantry. Lieutenant J. F. Staples with 20 men encountered a band of Indians on Eel river and routed them, killing 1 man and 12 squaws.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 377.


EEL RIVER, CALIFORNIA, March 28, 1864. (See Red Mountain.)


EGAN, Thomas W., soldier, born in New York City in 1836; died there, 24 February, 1867. He entered the 40th New York Regiment at the beginning of the Civil War, and was made lieutenant-colonel, 14 June, 1861. In June, 1862, he was promoted colonel, and participated in all the battles of the Army of the Potomac. During General Grant's Overland Campaign of 1864 he commanded a brigade, receiving his commission 8 September, 1864, and was wounded at Petersburg. At the battle of Boydton plank-road he commanded the division, and was brevetted major-general. He was seriously wounded in November, and on recovery was given a division in the Army of the Shenandoah. General Egan was mustered out of the service, 15 January, 1866, and subsequently lived in New York.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 314.


EGLE, William Henry, historian, born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 17 September, 1830. After receiving a public-school education he spent three years as a printer in the office of the "Pennsylvania Telegraph," and subsequently had charge of the state printing. In 1853 he became editor of the "Literary Companion," and also of the "Daily Times," both of which were soon discontinued. He then turned his attention to medicine, and was graduated at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1859, after which he settled in Harrisburg. He served during the Civil War as surgeon of Pennsylvania volunteers, and in the Appomattox Campaign was chief medical officer of General David B. Birney's division in the 24th Army Corps. Since 1870 Dr. Egle has been surgeon of militia, and is now (1887) senior medical officer of the National Guard of Pennsylvania He turned his attention to historical research in 1871, and has been elected corresponding member of various historical and learned societies in the United States and England. In March, 1887, he was appointed state librarian of Pennsylvania. Among his works are " History of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania"  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. (Harrisburg, 1876); " Notes and Queries relating to Interior Pennsylvania" (3d series, 18H1—'7); "History of the County of Dauphin " (1883); " History of. the County of Lebanon" (1883); "Historical Register" (2 vols., 1883-'4); "Pennsylvania Genealogies, Scotch, Irish, and German" (1880); "Centenary Memorial of the Founding of the city of Harrisburg" (1886); and "Pennsylvania in the Revolution" (2 vols., 1887). He has also edited, with John Blair Linn, "Pennsylvania Archives" (2d series, 12 vols., 1874-'80).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 315.


EGYPT STATION, MISSISSIPPI, February 19, 1864. 1st Cavalry Brigade, 16th Army Corps. This skirmish was an incident of the Meridian expedition. Waring's brigade reached Egypt between 8 and 9 a. m. after some slight skirmishing and destroyed all the Confederate government property at that place.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 377.


EGYPT STATION, MISSISSIPPI, December 28, 1864. 7th Indiana, 4th and 11th Illinois, 4th and 10th Missouri, 2nd Wisconsin, 2nd New Jersey, 1st Mississippi, and 3d U. S. Colored Cavalry. As an incident of the expedition sent out from Memphis to destroy the Mobile & Ohio railroad, the Union troops attacked the enemy at Egypt Station on the morning of December 28. The Confederate force was about 1.200 strong and consisted of infantry, cavalry and 4 guns mounted on platform cars. Two trains of Confederate troops under Major-General Gardner were in sight when the attack was made, but a Federal force being thrown between them and the stockade, which was taken by assault in 2 hours, they were unable to do anything. The entire garrison, numbering 500, were made prisoners. The casualties are not given, but it is noted that Confederate Brigadier-General Gholson was killed. The Union force also captured or destroyed 300 army wagons, 4.000 new carbines, an immense amount of ammunition, two trains of cars and a large amount of commissary and quartermaster's stores.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 377.


EIGHT-MILE POST, Mississippi, September 6, 1864. Detachment of 4th Illinois Cavalry. In pursuance of orders Captain Harvey H. Merriam with 50 men moved out from Natchez on the Liberty road to ascertain the whereabouts of the enemy. Their pickets were encountered at Eight-mile post and slowly driven for 2 miles, when Merriam's men charged. A running fight ensued for a distance of 3 miles, resulting in the capture of 1 man, 6 horses and mules, 4 stands of arms, etc. No casualties were reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 377.


EKIN, James Adams, soldier, born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 31 August, 1819. He was a ship-builder prior to 1861, but at the beginning of the Civil War entered the 12th Pennsylvania Infantry as 1st lieutenant and regimental quartermaster, and at the expiration of three months was made captain and assistant quartermaster in the volunteer army, being stationed in Pittsburg as acting assistant commissary of subsistence. In October, 1861, he was made assistant quartermaster and stationed in Indianapolis until December, 1863, when he was admitted to the regular army with similar rank, to date from March, 1863, and assigned to duty as quartermaster of the cavalry bureau in Washington till February, 1864. He was then promoted to lieutenant-colonel and made chief quartermaster of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Potomac, remaining as such until August, when he was advanced to colonel and given charge of the 1st Division  of the quartermaster-general's office in Washington, where he continued till 1870, holding various appointments in  that office. Subsequently he  was chief quartermaster of the 5th Military District and the Department of Texas, then chief quartermaster of the Department of the South, and in similar capacity in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and finally disbursing agent of the quartermaster's department in Louisville, Kentucky, being assistant quartermaster-general of the army from February, 1882. He received the brevet of brigadier-general in the volunteer army, and those of major to brigadier-general in the regular army, for his services during the war. In August, 1883, he was retired, and has since resided in Louisville.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 317-318.


EDGERTON, Sidney, 1818-1900, U.S. Congressman from Ohio, Chief Justice of the Idaho Territorial Supreme Court, and Territorial Governor of Montana. 1818-1900, abolitionist. (Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 20).


ELDRIDGE, Charles A., politician, born in Bridport. Vermont. 27 February, 1821. He moved with his parents to New York, where he studied and began the practice of law, and in 1848 settled in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He was a member of the state senate in 1854-'5. In 1862 he was elected a member of Congress as a Democrat, and was five times re-elected, serving from 7 December, 1863, to 3 March, 1875. On 1 February. 1864, he offered a resolution condemning the draft as contrary to the genius of republican government, and on 21 March of the same year one calling upon the president to furnish the names of all persons that had been arrested for political cause.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 319


ELDRIDGE, Hamilton N., soldier, born in South Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 23 August, 1831; died in Chicago, Illinois, 27 November, 1882. He was graduated at Williams in 1856, in the same class with James A. Garfield, and at the Albany law Institute in 1857, and began practice in Chicago. In July, 1862, with his partner, Colonel F. W. Tourtellotte, he raised the 127th Illinois Regiment, and was made its lieutenant-colonel. He commanded the regiment in the operations of General Sherman from Memphis to Grenada and Chickasaw Bayou, distinguished himself at Arkansas Post, was promoted colonel, and took part in the siege of Vicksburg, where he bore the colors with his own hand, after several color-bearers had been shot, and led his regiment, in advance, to the fortifications of the enemy. After the surrender, he  was compelled by sickness to resign, and was brevetted brigadier-general for gallantry. After a slow recovery he resumed the practice of law in Chicago. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 319.


ELEVATION. The elevation of a work is the projection of its face on a vertical plane by horizontal rays. It shows the height or depth of a work, and also its length, when the plane of projection is parallel to the face. Applied to a piece of ordnance, the elevation is the inclination of the axis of the piece above the plane on which the carriage stands. (Scott, Military Dictionary, Van Nostrand, 1862, p. 253).


ELEVEN POINTS RIVER, MISSOURI, October 25, 1862. (See Pike Creek, same date.)  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 377.


ELIOT, Thomas Dawes, 1808-1870, lawyer.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, 1854-1855, 1859-1869.  Founder of the Republican Party from Massachusetts.  Opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as a member of Congress.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Active in the Free soil Party.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 325; Congressional Globe)

ELIOT, Thomas Dawes, Congressman, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 20 March, 1808; died in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 12 June, 1870. He was graduated at Columbian College, Washington, D. C, in 1825, studied law in Washington and New Bedford, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. After being a member of both houses of the legislature, he was elected to Congress as a Whig, to fill the unexpired term of Zeno Scudder, serving from 17 April, 1854, till 3 March, 1855, and making an eloquent speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which was published (Washington, 1854). He was prominent in the Free-Soil convention at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1855, and on the dissolution of the Whig Party was active among the founders of the Republican Party in Massachusetts, he declined its nomination for attorney-general in 1857, but was afterward elected to Congress again for five successive terms, serving from 1859 till 1869. Mr. Eliot took an active part in the proceedings of the house, particularly in the legislation on the protection and welfare of the Negroes.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 325.


ELIOT, William Greenleaf, 1811-1887, educator, clergyman, opponent of slavery.  Active in Sanitary Commission in the Civil War.  (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 325)

ELIOT, William Greenleaf, educator, born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 5 August, 1811; died at Pass Christian, Mississippi, 23 January, 1887. His great-grandfather was brother to the great-grandfather of Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard. He was graduated at Columbian College, Washington, D. C., in 1831, and at Harvard divinity-school in 1834. In the latter year he was ordained pastor of the Church of the Messiah (Unitarian) in St. Louis, Missouri, a place which he held until 1872. During all this time he was energetically employed in improving the condition and advancing the interests of the public schools of St. Louis. A man of untiring energy and rare administrative ability, he was engaged in all sorts of public and philanthropic enterprises, and has probably done more for the advancement of St. Louis and all the southwest than any other man that has lived in that section. He was always a bold and outspoken opponent of slavery. In 1861 he was found among the small band of resolute men who assisted Generals Nathaniel Lyon and Francis P. Blair in preserving Missouri to the Union; and during the war he was active in the western Sanitary Commission. In 1872 he was chosen to succeed Dr. Chauvenet as chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, and held the office until his death. He has published a “Manual of Prayer” (Boston, 1851); “Discourses on the Doctrines of Christianity” (Boston, 1852; 22d ed., 1886); “Lectures to Young Men” (1853; 11th ed., 1882); “Lectures to Young Women” (1853; 13th ed., enlarged, with the title “Home Life and Influence,” St. Louis, 1880); “The Unity of God” (Boston, 1854); “Early Religious Education” (1855); “The Discipline of Sorrow” (1855); “The Story of Archer Alexander, from Slavery to Freedom” (Boston, 1885); and a great number of pamphlets, tracts, discourses, and review articles. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888. Vol. II, p. 325


ELIZABETH CITY, NORTH CAROLINA, February 10, 1862. Union Gunboats. After the capture of Roanoke Island by the Federals on the 8th, the Confederate fleet withdrew through Albemarle sound and up the Pasquotank river to Elizabeth City, which place was then garrisoned by part of the 59th Virginia (Confederate) infantry, under Colonel C. F. Henningsen. Sometime' was spent in removing the obstructions from Croatan sound (See Roanoke Island) but at daylight on the 10th the Union flotilla, under Com. S. C. Rowan, started in pursuit. About 8:30 a. m. the Confederate vessels, under Com. Lynch. were sighted, drawn up under the protection of the Cobb's Point battery, which mounted 4 heavy 32-pounders. The Union vessels opened with 80-pounders at long range and when within three-quarters of a mile the signal was given "Dash at the enemy." The firing now became more rapid and effective, completely demoralizing the enemy. The fort was quickly evacuated, and of their vessels the Black Warrior was fired and abandoned; the Sea Bird was sunk by the Commodore Perry; the Beaufort was cut off and captured by the Underwriter; the Ceres steamed ahead and captured the Ellis, and the Delaware captured the Fanny which had been set on fire and deserted. The flotilla then ran up to the wharves of Elizabeth City, where Henningsen had ordered his troops to fire the town and make their escape. The conflagration was confined by the efforts of the Union men to the buildings already fired. The result of this action was the complete destruction of the Confederate fleet, and it played an important part in opening the passages along the coast to the Union fleet. (See also Naval Volume.)  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 377-378.


ELIZABETHTOWN, KENTUCKY, December 27, 1862. 91st Illinois Infantry. As an incident of General Morgan's second Kentucky raid he was met at this place by a flag of truce demanding unconditional surrender. Morgan refused, demanded the surrender of the town in turn, and when refused opened fire from his batteries. After three-quarters of an hour the place was surrendered and eight companies of the Illinois regiment were taken prisoners. Three bridges were also burned and the railroad track destroyed for several miles.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 378.


ELIZABETHTOWN, KENTUCKY, December 24. 1864. 1st Wisconsin Cavalry.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 378.


ELK CHUTE, MISSOURI, August 4, 1864. Detachments of the 1st, 2nd, 3d and 6th Missouri State Militia Cavalry. As an incident of an expedition into Arkansas, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel John T. Burris, the Union advance guard came upon the enemy's pickets early in the morning of August 4, and drove them into a heavy forest 2 miles south of Elk Chute, in Pemiscot county, Missouri When the Federal forces came up they found the Confederates formed in line of battle. After the first volley, which broke the enemy's line, a charge was made and the Confederates fell back 2 miles, keeping up a running fight until within 200 yards of the chute, where they again formed, but another charge drove them in a panic into the dense forests. Many of them, unable to gain the shelter of the woods, took to the river. The Union loss was 1 killed and 2 wounded, while the Confederate loss was 30 killed, 6 mortally and 28 slightly wounded and 28 captured.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 378.


ELK CREEK, INDIAN TERRITORY, July 17, 1863. (See Honey Springs.)


ELK FORK, TENNESSEE, December 28, 1862. (See Perkins' Mill, same date.)


ELKINS' FERRY, ARKANSAS, April 3-4, 1864. (See Camden, Arkansas, Expedition to.)


ELK MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA, November 10, 1863. 10th West Virginia and 28th Ohio Infantry. After the capture of Lewisburg. General Averell ordered Colonel Augustus Moor, with the two regiments of infantry and Keeper's battery, to return to Beverly, taking a lot of captured cattle and the prisoners taken at Lewisburg and Droop Mountain. On the 10th Moor reached Elk mountain, where a party of some 60 bushwhackers, under one McCoy, fired upon his advance, but did no damage except to wound some of the cattle. The incident checked the march, however, until one company of each regiment was sent up the mountain and attacked the enemy on flank and rear, driving him headlong down the other side of the mountain. No casualties reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 378.


ELK RIVER, TENNESSEE, July 2, 1863. 3d Division, 20th Army Corps. As an incident of the Middle Tennessee campaign, this division, Major- General P. H. Sheridan commanding, arrived at the ford of the Elk river, about 3 miles from Winchester, and found the river too swollen to ford. Sheridan led the division up stream to Rock creek, and after fording the latter stream found the Rock creek ford of the Elk river guarded by a regiment of Confederate cavalry. After a sharp little skirmish the enemy was driven off and the crossing of the river effected. No casualties reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 378.


ELK RIVER, TENNESSEE, July 14, 1863. Advance of the 14th Corps, Major- General George H. Thomas, Army of the Cumberland.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 379.


ELK WATER, VIRGINIA, September 12-14, 1861. 1st Brigade. Army of West Virginia. The brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Joseph J. Reynolds, operating in the vicinity of Cheat mountain, had two posts, one at Elk Water and the other at Cheat Summit. By a bridle path over the mountain they were 7 miles apart, but by wagon-road, via Huttonsville, the distance was about 18 miles. On the morning of the 12th a Confederate force, under command of General R. E. Lee, advanced against the camp at Elk Water by way of the Huntersville pike. The advanced pickets were driven back upon the main body, after which the enemy threw three regiments into the woods on the left front of the Union position. This detachment made its way to the right and rear of Cheat mountain, gained possession of the Huttonsville road and cut the telegraph wire, cutting off communications with Cheat Summit, where Colonel Kimball was stationed with the 14th Indiana The Confederates then advanced towards the pass, by which the rear of the Elk Water camp could be reached, but were there met by three companies of the 13th Indiana, sent from Elk Water for that purpose, and one company of the 14th sent from Cheat Summit. These four companies held the enemy in check and foiled him in his designs upon the rear of the Federal camp. Lee then attacked the post at Cheat Summit, but was repulsed by detachments of the 14th Indiana, 24th and 25th Ohio, who deployed in the woods and kept the Confederate force from approaching near enough to give the battery at the post a chance to fire on them. The enemy lost heavily in this action and finally withdrew. The next morning Reynolds sent the 13th Indiana by the main road, and the greater part of the 3d Ohio and 2nd Virginia by the path, to open up communications with the post at Cheat Summit. These parties started at 3 a. m. and soon after daylight Lee appeared before Elk Water. A 10-pounder Parrott gun from Loomis' battery was run to the front and fired a few shots into the Confederate ranks, when they withdrew. About the same time another skirmish occurred on the mountain, in which the enemy was repulsed, many of the men throwing away their arms and surplus clothing in their flight. On the 14th the enemy again appeared at Elk Water. The same piece of artillery was brought into requisition, supported by one company of the 15th Indiana, and again the Confederates retired. Communications were then opened with Kimball, and the next morning the enemy disappeared from the neighborhood. In the several skirmishes the Union loss was 9 killed, about the same number wounded, and 62 missing. Most of the latter were captured, but managed to make their escape from their guards and returned to the Union camp. The enemy lost in killed and wounded about 100, among whom was Colonel J. A. Washington, Lee's aide-de-camp, and 20 captured.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 379.


ELKINS, Stephen Benton, politician, born in Perry County, Ohio, 26 September, 1841. He moved to Missouri when very young, was graduated at Missouri University in 1860, and studied law. He served in 1862-'3 as a captain in the 77th Missouri Regiment, and in the latter year went to New Mexico, where he was admitted to the bar in 1864. He also engaged in mining and stock-raising there, and accumulated a fortune. He was a member of the territorial legislature in 1865-'6, attorney-general of the territory in 1868-'9, and U. S. District Attorney in 1870-'2. He was then elected a delegate to Congress as a Republican, and served two terms, from 1873 till 1877, making a speech in 1874 on the admission of New Mexico to the Union, which attracted much attention. In 1875 he became interested in the West Virginia system of railroads, and has lately resided in New York. Mr. Elkins was a member of the National Republican Committee from 1872 till 1884. He took an active part in the Chicago convention of 1884 that nominated James G. Blaine for the presidency, and earnestly supported him in the canvass.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 325-326.


ELKTON, KENTUCKY, December 12, 1864. 1st Cavalry Division, commanded by Brigadier-General McCook.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 379.


ELKTON STATION, ALABAMA, May g, 1862. Company E, 37th Indiana.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 379.


ELLERY, Frank, naval officer, born in Newport, Rhode Island, 23 July, 1794; died in Castleton, Vermont, 24 March, 1871, entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman on 1 January, 1812, and served in the frigate "President" on all her cruises, being wounded in the action with the " Belvidere " by the bursting of the gun at which he was stationed. He. received a sword and the thanks of Congress for his services on Lake Champlain, was in the "Constellation" in the Mediterranean in 1815, at the capture of an Algerine frigate and a Turkish flag-ship, and assisted in expelling McGregor's band of adventurers from Amelia Island, Florida, in 1817, capturing one of their privateers with her prize. He became lieutenant, 28 March, 1820, commanded the "Cyane," of the Brazil Squadron, in 1827, and was on duty at the Boston and New York rendezvous in 1829-'37. He commanded the steamer "Enterprise" in 1840, was put on the reserved list, 13 September, 1855, commanded the Boston rendezvous again in 1861, and was commissioned commodore on the retired list, 4 April, 1867.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 326.


ELLET, Charles, engineer, born in Penn's Manor, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1 January, 1810; died in Cairo, Illinois, 21 June, 1862. He was destined by his father for the life of a farmer, but his inclinations led him to mathematical and engineering pursuits. First as a rodman, then as a volunteer, and subsequently as a paid assistant on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, he soon acquired means to visit Europe, and completed his education in the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He became an engineer on the Utica and Schenectady Railroad, then on the Erie, and subsequently chief engineer of the James and Kanawha Canal. In 1842 he planned and built the first wire suspension bridge in this country, across the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia. He designed and built the railroad suspension bridge across the Niagara River below the falls in 1847, and afterward built a suspension bridge at Wheeling, Virginia. He then engaged in many important engineering works, constructed a remarkable temporary track across the Blue Ridge, improved the navigation of the Kanawha River, and aided in laying out the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and in 1846-'7 he was president of the Schuylkill Navigation Company. He was among the first to advocate the use of steam rams, and suggested a plan to the Russian government by which the allied fleet before Sebastopol might be destroyed. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 he became interested in military matters, and devoted much attention to the use of rams in naval warfare. He sent a plan for cutting off the Confederate Army at Manassas to General McClellan, who rejected it, and Ellet then wrote two pamphlets censuring McClellan's mode of conducting the campaign. He urged upon the government the construction of steam rams, for use on the large rivers of the west, and after his plans had been rejected by the navy department he presented them to the Secretary of War, by whom they were approved. He was then commissioned colonel of engineers, and converted several powerful light-draught steamers on the Mississippi River into rams. With these he engaged in the naval battle off Memphis on 6 June, 1862, and sank and disabled several of the Confederate vessels, but during the battle he was struck above the knee by a musket-ball, and died from the effects of his wound. Among his most noteworthy labors was his investigation of the hydraulics of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the result of which he published in a paper entitled the " Physical Geography of the Mississippi Valley, with Suggestions as to the Improvement of the Navigation of the Ohio and other Rivers," printed in the "Smithsonian Transactions" (Washington, 1851). His other publications are "An Essay on the Laws of Trade”, (1839); "The Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, containing Plans for the Protection of the Delta from Inundation" (Philadelphia, 1853); a pamphlet on "Coast and Harbor Defences, or the Substitution of Steam Battering-Rams for Ships of War" (Philadelphia, 1855). and many other scientific papers.— His brother Alfred W.. held a commission under him as lieutenant-colonel in the same fleet, and was appointed brigadier general of volunteers, 1 November, 1862. He ordered the burning of Austin, Mississippi, on 24 May, 1863, in retaliation for information furnished by citizens to Confederates of General Chalmers's command, which enabled them to fire upon a Federal transport. He resigned on 31 December, 1864.—Charles's son, Charles Rivers, soldier, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1841; died in Bunker Hill, Illinois, 29 October, 1862, was engaged at the beginning of the war in studying medicine, and became assistant surgeon in one of the military hospitals. In 1862 he commanded one of his father's rams in the action at Memphis. After his father's death, on the organization of the Mississippi brigade by his uncle, Alfred W. Ellet, he was appointed colonel, and when his uncle was commissioned brigadier-general he was placed in command of the marine brigade. Choosing the ram " Queen of the West" for his headquarters, he made many daring expeditions on the Mississippi, and succeeded in running the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg as he was cruising between that stronghold and Port Hudson. On 10 February, 1863, he made an expedition up the Red River and captured the Confederate steamer "Era" and some other vessels. After ascending the river with success the pilot ran his vessel aground, placing her in such a difficult position that she was disabled by the fire from the Confederate fort, and fell into the hands of the enemy. Colonel Ellet made his escape on a bale of cotton, and was rescued by the " De Soto." During the siege of Vicksburg, and afterward, he rendered valuable assistance to General Grant in keeping open his communications, but in the course of this duty his health failed, owing to the influence of the climate, and he died suddenly in Illinois, where he had retired for rest. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 326-327.


ELLIOT, George Henry, military engineer, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, 31 March, 1831. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1855 as a lieutenant of artillery, served on the Texas frontier, and entered the Engineer Corps in 1857. He was engaged in constructing the works on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Harbor, and other fortifications on the Pacific Coast till 1870, was promoted major on 3 March, 1867, chief engineer of the Washington aqueduct in 1870-'l, engineer secretary of the Light-house Board, and in 1873 went to Europe to examine light-house systems there. He became assistant to the chief of engineers at Washington in 1884, and was advanced to the grade of lieutenant-colonel on 8 August, 1882. He superintended the improvement of Connecticut River in 1882-3. and in 1883-'7 Harbor improvements at Nantucket, Newport, Providence, New Bedford, and other places on the coast of New England. He published "Light-House Systems in Europe " (1874), and " The Presidio of San Francisco " (1874).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp.


ELLIOTT, Gilbert Molleson, soldier, born in Thompson, Windham County, Connecticut, 7 October, 1840; died on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, 24 November, 1863. He moved to New York in early childhood and studied at the Free Academy (now the College of the City of New York), received the gold medal for excellence as the leader of his class at four successive commencements, and delivered the valedictory oration at his graduation in 1861. He also took the Burr gold medal for mathematics, the Cromwell gold medal for history and belles-lettres, and the Ward bronze medals for excellence in logic, philosophy, law, Greek, Latin, and Spanish, oratory, composition, and engineering. In April. 1861, when Fort Sumter was fired upon, he unfurled the stars and stripes from the college building, and in his address declared he would defend his country's honor with his life's blood. Full of loyalty and patriotism, he gave up his purpose of studying law and entered the United States service in October, 1861, as 1st lieutenant in the 102d New York Volunteers. He took part in Banks's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, distinguished himself at Antietam, was soon afterward promoted to captain, and a little, later was attached to the staff of General John W. Geary. He acted as ordnance officer in the 2d Division of the 12th Army Corps, and rendered effective service during the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. When his commission as major was received, he returned to his regiment and snared its fortunes. The 12th Corps was transferred to Chattanooga in 1863. His regiment was directed to lead the assault at Lookout Mountain, and he was placed in actual command of it. While leading the skirmishers, he was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter. The government gave him the posthumous brevets of lieutenant-colonel and colonel.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 330.


ELLIOT, Samuel Mackenzie, 1811-1857, physician, abolitionist leader, Union Army officer.  Active in the New York abolition movement.


ELLIOT, Washington Lafayette, soldier, born in Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, 31 March, 1831, accompanied his father in cruises in the West Indies in 1831-'2, and on board the " Constitution" on a cruise in the Mediterranean. He studied at Dickinson College, and in 1841 entered the U. S. Military Academy. In May, 1846, he was commissioned as 2d lieutenant of mounted rifles. He served with his regiment in Mexico till the surrender of Vera Cruz, was promoted 1st lieutenant on 20 July, 1847, and after the war was stationed at Fort Laramie and in Texas and New Mexico, becoming a captain in July, 1854. In September, 1858, he distinguished himself in conflicts with the Navajos in New Mexico. In the beginning of the Civil War he took part in the actions at Springfield and Wilson's Creek, Missouri, was appointed colonel of the 2d Iowa Cavalry  in September, 1861, and on 5 November, 1861, was promoted major in the regular army. He afterward commanded a brigade of cavalry in the Army of the Tennessee, was engaged at the capture of Madrid, brevetted for gallantry at the capture of Island No. 10, and again for services at the siege of Corinth, and in a raid on the Mississippi and Ohio Railroad in May, 1862. He was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers in June, 1862, became chief of cavalry in the Army of Virginia in August, 1862, and was wounded at the second battle of Bull Run. He commanded the Department of the Northwest in the beginning of 1863, was placed in command of a division in the Army of the Potomac in the summer of that year, then in the Army of the Cumberland, and was engaged in re-enforcing General Burnside, and commanded in the action of Mossy Creek, Tennessee. He was subsequently chief of cavalry in the Army of the Cumberland, and took part in the Atlanta Campaign and in the pursuit of General Hood. In 1865 he commanded a division of the 4th Corps, and was in the battles around Nashville. For services at Nashville he received the brevets of major general of volunteers and brigadier-general in the regular army. He was also brevetted major-general, U. S. Army, for gallant and meritorious services during the war. He became lieutenant-colonel in August, 1866, colonel in April, 1878, and on 20 March, 1879, was retired at his own request.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 330-331.


ELLIOT, Stephen, soldier, born in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1832; died in Aiken, South Carolina, 21 March, 1866. At the beginning of the war he raised and equipped a battery of light artillery, known as the Beaufort Artillery. At Pinckney Island, in August, 1862, he commanded three batteries, and was promoted for his gallantry. Shortly afterward he was placed in command of Fort Sumter, where he continued during the long bombardment to which it was subjected by General Gillmore. In July, 1864, he was wounded by the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, and was disabled for the rest of the war. He attained the grade of brigadier-general. In 1865 he took the oath to support the Constitution of the state and of the United States, and later was a candidate for Congress, being opposed by ex-Governor  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 332.


 ELLIS, John Millott, 1831-1894, anti-slavery advocate, clergyman, educator.  Proponent of emancipation of enslaved individuals during the Civil War.


ELLIS, John Willis, governor of North Carolina, born in Rowan County, North Carolina, 25 November, 1820; died in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1861. He was graduated at the University of North Carolina in 1841, was admitted to the bar in 1842, and soon acquired a large practice. He was a member of the state house of commons from 1844 till 1848, when he was elected a judge of the superior court of North Carolina. This office, in which he succeeded his former preceptor. Judge R. M. Pearson, who was elevated to the supreme bench, he held until 1858, when he was chosen governor of North Carolina. He was re-elected in I860, and died in office. On 2 January, 1861, Governor Ellis took possession of Fort Macon, at Beaufort, the works at Wilmington, and the U. S. Arsenal at Fayetteville, professedly on behalf of the state. On the 20th of April he ordered the seizure of the U. S. Mint at Charlotte. He was active in promoting the passage of the Secession Ordinance in North Carolina.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 333-334.


ELLIS, Theodore Gunville, soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 25 September, 1829; died in Hartford, Connecticut, 8 January, 1883. He became a civil engineer, was chief engineer of the Sackett's Harbor and Saratoga Railroad, subsequently had charge of silver mines in 1856-'58 in Mexico, and in 1859 became engineer of the Hartford Dyke. He entered the Federal Army as adjutant of the 14th Connecticut Infantry, was engaged at Antietam and Fredericksburg, was promoted major in April, 1863, and at the battle of Chancellorsville commanded the regiment. At Gettysburg his regiment was hotly engaged, and captured five battle-flags in a bayonet charge. In September, 1863, he became lieutenant-colonel, and in October colonel, of the regiment. He was engaged at Mine Run, and in the battle of the Wilderness and the subsequent conflicts commanded a brigade. During the summer of 1864 he commanded the camp at Annapolis, Maryland His regiment had become greatly reduced in numbers by many severe engagements. In the winter of 1864-7 he was a member of a general military court, at Washington, he was mustered out on 8 June, 1865, with the brevet rank of brigadier-general. In 1867 he became surveyor-general of Connecticut, He was for several years vice-president of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 1874 he conducted hydraulic experiments with large apertures at Holyoke, Massachusetts. At the time of his death he had charge of the government works on the Connecticut River. He was the author of many important papers on engineering published in the "Transactions" of the American Society of civil engineers, and elsewhere. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 334.


ELLIS' BRIDGE, MISSISSIPPI, February 21, 1864. 2nd Iowa Cavalry. When Smith in the Meridian expedition ordered his column to fall back from before West Point Major Datus E. Coon with the 2nd Louisiana was sent to make a demonstration at Ellis' bridge over the Sakatonchee river. This was done by dismounting four rifle companies as skirmishers under cover of a fence and two 12-pounder guns brought to bear soon drove the sharpshooters back. After 2 hours of skirmishing Coon retired. No casualties reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 379.


ELLISON'S MILL, VIRGINIA, June 26, 1862. The action here on this date was a part of the Seven Days' battles, a detailed account of which appears under that head.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, pp. 379-380.


ELLISTOWN, MISSISSIPPI, July 16, 1864. 3d Division, 16th Army Corps; 3d Iowa and 7th Kansas Cavalry. This affair was an incident of the expedition to Tupelo under command of Major-General A. J. Smith. On this date the division commanded by Colonel David Moore, and the two cavalry regiments, were ordered to move toward Ellistown, followed by a train bearing the sick and wounded. Moore was several times attacked during the day but each time the enemy was driven off by the cavalry. About the time the men were going into camp at Ellistown that evening the pickets of the 3d la. were furiously attacked. Moore ordered the 7th Kansas to the support of the Iowa regiment and directed the 2nd Illinois battery to throw a few shells into the enemy's hues. Finding that the Federals were prepared to receive them the enemy withdrew. No casualties reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 380.


ELLSWORTH, Ephraim Elmer, soldier, born in Mechanicsville, Saratoga County, New York, 23 April, 1837; died in Alexandria, Virginia, 24 May, 1861. Alter entering mercantile life in Troy and New York City, he moved at an early age to Chicago, where he studied law, and became a solicitor of patents. In 1860 he organized a regiment of Zouaves, which became renowned for the perfection of their discipline, and of which he was commissioned colonel. He accompanied Lincoln to Washington in 1861, and proceeded thence to New York, where in April he organized a Zouave regiment composed of firemen. Of this regiment he was appointed colonel, and sent to Alexandria, Virginia. Seeing a Confederate flag floating above a hotel owned by a man named Jackson, Ellsworth rushed to the roof and tore down the flag. On his way from the roof he was met and shot dead by Jackson, who in turn was immediately killed by one of Ellsworth's men, Frank E. Brownell.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 335


ELM SPRINGS, ARKANSAS, July 30-31, 1863. Detachment of 2nd Arkansas Cavalry. Lieutenant John E. Phelps of the 3d U. S. cavalry, with 28 men of the 2nd Arkansas cavalry, came upon the Confederate rear-guard 6 miles from Elm Springs. A skirmish ensued in which the enemy had 1 man killed and 4 wounded. Next day the same command had another fight 8 miles from Elm Springs, in which 4 of the enemy were killed and 5 wounded.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 380.


ELROD'S TAN-YARD, ALABAMA, January 27, 1865. Detachments of 68th New York, 18th U. S. Colored Infantry, 1st and 9th Ohio Artillery. The expedition, led by Colonel Felix Prince Salm, came in sight of a portion of Captain Sparks' Confederate company encamped for the night at Elrod's tan-yard about 7 p. m. Salm divided his force to surround and capture the entire party (of about 40), but owing to a misunderstanding only a part of his command heard the order to charge and the larger portion of the enemy managed to escape into surrounding woods. The Union loss was 1 killed, while the Confederates had 1 killed, 8 wounded and 3 taken prisoners.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 380.


ELTHAM'S LANDING, VIRGINIA, May 7, 1862. (See West Point.)


ELY, Alfred, lawyer, born in Lyme, New London County, Connecticut, 18 February, 1815. He received an academic education, moved to Rochester, New York, in 1835, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1841, and began practice in Rochester. Mr. Ely was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1858, and served from 5 December, 1859, till 3 March, 1863. He went as a civilian spectator to the battle-field of Bull Run in July, 1861, where he was captured by the Confederates and put into Libby Prison, Richmond. After nearly six months' confinement he was exchanged for Charles J. Faulkner, the American minister to France, who had been imprisoned for disloyalty. During his term of imprisonment he kept a diary, which was edited by Charles Lanman, with the title "Journal of Alfred Ely, A Prisoner of War in Richmond " (New York, 1862).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 339.


ELY, William G., soldier, born about 1835. At the beginning of the Civil War he enlisted as a private for the three months' call, went out again as lieutenant-colonel of the 6th Connecticut Infantry, and was afterward elected colonel of the 18th Regiment. On 13 June, 1863, in charge of the 2d Brigade, he advanced upon the Fort Royal pike, and, while in action, was made a prisoner. He was confined in Libby prison, Richmond, Virginia, till the following February, when, with 108 other officers, he escaped through the famous tunnel dug under Twentieth Street. About fifty of the party were recaptured, among them Colonel Ely, in a state of great exhaustion. He was taken by cavalry forty-two miles out, after being absent four days, and returned to the prison. A few weeks later he was paroled, and returned north, his exchange following. On 17 May, 1864. he rejoined his regiment, and commanded it at the battle of Piedmont on 4 June. 1864. On 18 June, in the advance toward Lynchburg, he was wounded in the throat and temporarily disabled. In August he was assigned to the command of a brigade, and in September was brevetted a brigadier-general.  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 340


ELY'S FORD, VIRGINIA, February 28, 1864. (See Kilpatrick's Expedition against Richmond.)


ELYTON, ALABAMA, March 28, 1865. 2nd Brigade, 4th Cavalry Division, Military Division of the Mississippi. Just as Wilson's cavalry entered Elyton during the raid from Chickasaw to Selma, Alabama, the advance brigade under Bvt. Brigadier-General Andrew J. Alexander drove out the Confederate rear-guard. No casualties were reported.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 380.


ELZEY, Arnold, soldier, born in Somerset County, Maryland, 18 December, 1816; died in Baltimore, Maryland, 21 February, 1871. His name was originally Arnold Elzey Jones, but he dropped the last name shortly after his graduation at the U. S. Military Academy in 1837. He  was assigned to the 2d U.S. Artillery , and served in the Florida War of 1837-'8 and in the Canada border disturbances. During the Mexican War he was brevetted captain for gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco, and was also at Fort Brown, Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, San Antonio, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, and the capture of the city of Mexico. He became captain in the 2d U.S. Artillery , 14 February, 1849, and served against the Seminoles in 1849-'50 and 1856. On 25 April, 1861, he resigned and entered the Confederate service, with the rank of colonel. At the first battle of Bull Run he was senior colonel of Kirby Smith's Brigade, and in the afternoon after General Smith was wounded, led a successful charge, for which he was complimented by General Beauregard, and promoted on the field to a brigadier-generalship by Jefferson Davis. He commanded a brigade through Stonewall Jackson's valley campaign, was wounded and had his horse shot under him at Port Republic, and at Cold Harbor was shot through the head. This last wound prevented him from seeing any more active service, but after his recovery he was promoted to major-general, and commanded the Department of Richmond till just before the close of the war, when he joined Hood in Georgia, and was with him at Chattanooga. After the close of the war he retired to a farm near Jessup's Cut, Anne Arundel County, Maryland Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 340.


EMBARKATION. Field-batteries should always be embarked by the officers and men belonging to them, who will then know where each article is stowed. Articles required to be disembarked first, should be put in last. When there are several vessels laden with ordnance and ordnance stores for an expedition, each vessel should have on each quarter, and on a signal at mast head, a number that can be easily distinguished at a distance. The same numbers should be entered on the list of supplies shipped in each vessel. The commander will then know exactly what resources he has with him. Articles shipped must be divided among vessels according to circumstances; but, as a general rule, place in each vessel every thing required for the service at the moment of disembarkation, so that there will be no inconvenience, should other vessels be delayed.

If boats are to be employed in the embarkation, and the boats are much lower than the top of the wharf, the guns and ammunition boxes will be lowered into the boat by means of cranes; but when the gunwales are nearly level with the wharf, the ammunition boxes may be more expeditiously put on board by hand, and if there are no cranes, the guns may be parbuckled into the boats. Men told off to the carriages, will prepare them for embarkation. Each carriage, when called for, is to be run forward to the boat or crane; the gun unlimbered and dismounted; the ammunition boxes, shafts, wheels, &c., &c., to be taken off; the washers and lynch-pins carefully put away. If they are left in the axle-tree they are liable to be lost. When a battery is embarked in different vessels, every part should be complete, and a proportion of general stores on each. Should two batteries be on the same vessel, they should be stowed on different sides of the vessel.

The embarkation of horses is more difficult than that of guns, particularly if it be necessary first to take them alongside the vessel in boats. In bad weather the guns and carriages are easily hoisted, but not the horses. If the embarkation of both cannot go on, therefore, at the same time, the horses should be embarked first. Horse ships are always provided with slings for hoisting in the horses; they are made of stout canvas, and are about 6 or 7 feet long, and from 2 to 2 feet wide. It may be necessary to embark horses: 1st, when the transports can come alongside the wharf, and the horses are taken on board at one operation; or, 2d, when the transports cannot come alongside the wharf, and the horses are embarked first in boats; or, 3d. when the horses are embarked in boats, from an open beach.

The first case is the best, easiest, and most expeditious resembling in all respects the hoisting a cask in and out of the hold of a vessel. Horses should generally be blindfolded, for this purpose, as this prevents their being frightened or troublesome. In the second case there are two operations: first, lowering the horse into the boat, and, after the passage of the boat to the vessel, hoisting the horse into the transport. Sheers or derricks are absolutely necessary for this purpose, because the tackle must be of such a description as to raise the horse off the ground instantaneously, which a crane cannot do. The head of the derrick must incline inwards while the horse is rising; but when he is high enough, the head of the derrick or sheers must be forced out, to bring the horse directly, over the boat. Horses may, in this way, be embarked in boats from a beach. Sand or straw must be put into the boats to preserve their bottoms, and to prevent the horses from slipping. The horses should stand athwart, the head of one horse being on the starboard side, and the head of the next to him on the larboard side. The conductors must sit on the gunwale or stand between the horses. Decked gun-boats or coasting vessels are very convenient for this purpose when there are time and materials for the necessary preparation, as they not only hold a greater number of horses, but can come alongside of a wharf, and the horses, by means of a ramp, may be walked aboard. The disembarkation of horses is carried on by the same means as their embarkation. (See DISEMBARKATION. Consult Army Regulations for the rules governing troops embarked on transports.) (Scott, Military Dictionary, Van Nostrand, 1862, p. 253-255).


EMBEZZLEMENT either of public property or money, punishable in the case of an officer with cashiering, and making good the loss; if a non-commissioned officer, by reduction to the ranks, corporal punishment, and making good the loss; (ART. 36 and ART. 39.) By SEC. 16 of Act approved Aug. 6, 1846, using in any manner for private purposes, loaning or depositing in bank any public money, and any failure to pay over or to produce public money intrusted to persons charged with its safe keeping, transfer, and disbursement, is made prima facie evidence of embezzlement, and declared to be felony. The taking of receipts and vouchers without paying the amount which they call for, and all persons advising or participating in said act, are also declared guilty of embezzlement by the same section. (Scott, Military Dictionary, Van Nostrand, 1862, p. 255).


EMBRASURE. An embrasure is an opening cut through the parapet to enable the artillery to command a certain extent of the surrounding country. The space between every two of these openings, called the merlon, is from 15 to 18 feet in length. The opening of the embrasure at the interior is two feet, while that towards the country is usually made equal to half the thickness of the parapet. The interior elevation of the parapet, which remains after cutting the embrasure, is called the genouillere, and covers the lower part of the gun carriage. The plongee, or slope given to the sole, is generally less than the inclination given to the superior slope of the parapet, in order that the fire from the embrasure may meet that of the musketry from the parapet at a point within a few feet from the top of the counterscarp.

Fig. 108 represents the rear elevation of a two-gun portion of an elevated battery revetted with gabions. In this figure the two gabions at the necks of the embrasures are made to assume a small degree of slope which may usually be done, because the gabions, one with another, occupy rather less than the regular average space of 2 feet each, when placed very close together, so that those of the upper tier will generally admit of being closed at top, and eased at bottom, to favor this arrangement. If not, the neck of the embrasure may be made of equal width throughout, without attempting the kind of slope alluded to; but the gabions which form the cheeks of the embrasures should have a slope gradually increasing from the neck towards the front, until the fifth gabion (more than five will seldom be used) has a slope of at least one-third of its height.

Fig. 109 is the plan of a portion of parapet and embrasure, showing the arrangement of gabions above adverted to.

Fig. 110 shows in elevation the arrangement of the gabions and of the sand-bags above them, as well as the genonillere or solid part of the FIG.

109. FIG. 110. embrasure, below the sole of it, in a construction that frequently arises in sieges, especially in the offensive crowning batteries on the crest of the glacis, where the depression of the sole of the embrasure is considerable, to allow of the guns being pointed to spots of the wall some distance below them. (Scott, Military Dictionary, Van Nostrand, 1862, pp. 255-256).


EMERSON, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882, author, poet, essayist, transcendentalist, abolitionist. Wrote antislavery poetry.  Founder of the Transcendentalist Club.  Became active in the abolition movement in the mid-1830s.  Emerson opposed the annexation of Texas, and signed petitions to that effect.  Also against the forced removal of Cherokee Indians during the Van Buren administration.  He addressed meetings of abolition societies calling for emancipation, and aiding and defending fugitive slaves.  Called for disobeying immoral laws that supported slavery.  In 1851, in his speech opposing the Fugitive Slave Law, he declared “an immoral law makes it a man’s duty to break it at every hazard.” (Sinha, 2016, pp. 328, 488-489, 519-520, 550, 557, 562; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 132; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 343-348)

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo, author, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 25 May, 1803; died in Concord, Massachusetts, 27 April, 1882. He was the second of five sons of the Reverend William Emerson, minister of the 1st Church, Boston. His grandfather at the sixth remove, Reverend Joseph Emerson, of Mendon, Massachusetts, married the granddaughter of Reverend Peter Bulkeley, who was one of the founders of Concord, Massachusetts, and minister of the first church there. Joseph's grandson, of the same name, was pastor at Malden, and married a daughter of the Reverend Samuel Moody, of York, Maine, and three of the sons of this union were clergymen; among them William, Ralph Waldo's grandfather, who presided over the church in Concord at the time of the first battle of the Revolutionary war, which took place close by the minister's manse. This grandfather also had married the daughter of a minister, the Reverend Daniel Bliss, his predecessor in the pulpit at Concord. Thus the tendency and traditions of Ralph Waldo Emerson's ancestry were strong in the direction of scholarly pursuits and religious thought. His family was one of those that constitute, as Dr. Holmes says, the “academic races” of New England. His father (see Emerson, William) was a successful but not popular preacher, whose sympathies were far moved from Calvinism. He published several sermons, and was editor of the “Monthly Anthology” from 1805 till 1811, a periodical that had for contributors John Thornton Kirkland, Joseph S. Buckminster, John S. J. Gardiner, William Tudor, and Samuel C. Thacher. It was largely instrumental in developing a taste for literature in New England, and led to the establishment of the “North American Review.” The mother of Waldo was a woman “of great patience and fortitude, of the serenest trust in God, of a discerning spirit, and the most courteous bearing.” He strongly resembled his father. His aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, a woman of high intellectual attainments, was one of his early companions; and in some printed extracts from her journals a mode of thought and expression remarkably similar to that of the now celebrated essayist is traceable. His youngest brother, Charles Chauncey, who died young, in 1834, was distinguished by a singularly pure and sweet character, and contributed to the “Harvard Register” three articles in which there are passages strikingly like portions of the essays afterward produced by Ralph Waldo. The latter concentrated in himself the spiritual and intellectual tendencies of several generations. He entered the grammar-school at the age of eight, and the Latin-school, under Master Gould, in 1815; but neither here nor at Harvard did he show unusual ability. After leaving college he engaged in teaching, and began the study of theology under the direction of Dr. Channing, although not regularly enrolled at the Cambridge divinity-school. He read Plato, Augustine, Tillotson, Jeremy Taylor, and had from boyhood been an enthusiast regarding Montaigne's essays, of which he said: “It seems to me as if I had myself written the book in some former life.” In 1826 he was “approbated to preach” by the Middlesex Association of Ministers; but his health forced him to pass the winter in South Carolina and Florida. He was ordained in March, 1829, as colleague of Reverend Henry Ware. Jr., in the pastorate of the 2d Church, Boston, and succeeded to Ware's place within eighteen months. His preaching was eloquent, simple, and effective. He took part actively in the city's public affairs, and showed a deep interest in philanthropic movements, opening his church, also, to the anti-slavery agitators. In 1832, however, he resigned his pastorate, and did not thereafter regularly resume ministerial labors. Having decided that the use of the elements in the communion was a mistaken formality — the true communion, as he thought, being purely spiritual — he refused to make the compromise proposed, that he should put his own construction on the Lord's supper, leaving his congregation to retain their view. The parting with his flock was friendly, and, although long misunderstood in certain quarters, he always maintained a strong sympathy with Christianity. For several years he had been writing poetry, but he published no literary work during the term of his pastorate. The poem “Good-bye, Proud World,” incorrectly attributed to the date of his resignation, was written before he entered the ministry. Excepting this piece, little poetry of his early period has been given to the world. He had married, in 1829, Miss Ellen Louisa Tucker, who died in February, 1832. In 1833 he went to Europe for his health, visiting Sicily, Italy, and France, and preaching in London and Edinburgh. At this time he met Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle, forming with the last-named writer an enduring friendship, which is one of the most interesting in literary annals. It resulted in a correspondence, which was continued for thirty-six years, and has been published under the editorship of Charles Eliot Norton (Boston, 1883). Returning to the United States in 1834, Mr. Emerson preached in New Bedford, declined a call to settle there, and went to Concord, where he remained. In the next winter he began lecturing, the subjects of his choice being, curiously enough, “Water” and “The Relation of Man to the Globe.” But he soon found themes better suited to his genius, in a course of biographical lectures given in Boston, discussing Luther, Milton, Burke, Michael Angelo, and George Fox. Two of these were published in the “North American Review.” This course was followed by ten lectures on English literature in 1835, twelve on the philosophy of history in 1836, and in 1837 ten on human culture. Much of the matter embraced in them was afterward remoulded and brought out in his later volumes of essays, or condensed into the rhythmic form of poems. Mr. Emerson married, in September, 1835, Miss Lidian Jackson, of Plymouth, Massachusetts. He then left the “Old Manse,” where he had been staying with Dr. Ripley, and moved into a house on the old Lexington road, along which the British had retreated from Concord in 1775. In this “plain, square, wooden house,” surrounded by horse-chestnut and pine trees, with pleasant garden-grounds attached, he made his home for the rest of his life; and, through his presence there, the village became “the Delphi of New England.” On 19 April, 1836, the anniversary of the Concord fight, Emerson's hymn, composed for the occasion and containing those lines which have since resounded almost as widely as the fame of the deed,

“

Here once the embattled farmers stood,
     And fired the shot heard round the world,”

was sung at the dedication of the battle-monument. In September of the same year his first book, “Nature,” an idealistic prose essay in eight chapters — which had been written in the same room of the “Old Manse” in which Hawthorne afterward wrote his “Mosses” — was published anonymously in Boston. During the summer he had supplied the pulpit of the Concord Unitarian Church for three months, and in the autumn he preached a while for a new society at East Lexington; but he refused to become its pastor, saying: “My pulpit is the lyceum platform.” Doubts had arisen in his mind as to the wisdom of public prayer, the propriety of offering prayer for others, and the rightfulness of adhering to any formal worship. From this time his career became distinctively that of a literary man, although for several years he confined himself mainly to lecturing, and most of his prose writings were first given to the public orally. Carlyle had said to Longfellow that when Emerson came to Craigenputtock it was “like the visit of an angel.” In 1836 he edited early sheets of Carlyle's “Sartor Resartus,” and in 1838 three volumes of the same author's essays, all of these appearing in book-form in this country before they did so in England, and netting a comfortable sum for Carlyle. “Nature,” similarly, met with considerable appreciation in England, but in the United States it took twelve years to sell 500 copies. The character of the book was both methodical and rhapsodical. It taught that the universe consists of nature and the soul, and that external nature serves four purposes — viz.: commodity, beauty, language, and discipline. It ministers to the senses; then to the love of beauty; then it gives us language — i. e., supplies words as the signs of natural facts, by which we interpret our own spirits. Natural laws applied to man become moral laws; and thus we perceive the highest use of nature, which is discipline. It trains reason, develops the intellect, and becomes the means of moral culture. Thus nature speaks always of spirit, suggests the idea of the absolute, teaches worship of God, whom we cannot describe, and shows us that nature itself is only an apparition of God. “The mind is a part of the nature of things,” and God is revealed directly to the soul, spirit being present all through nature, but acting upon us through ourselves and not from without. In verbal style this treatise has great beauty, and rises to the plane of a prose poem; but the contents perplexed theologians. The author was accused of pantheism, though it is hard to see how the belief so named differs from the professed Christian doctrine of the omnipresence of God. Most of the practical people in the community regarded Emerson as crazy, revolutionary, or a fool who did not know his own meaning. Ex-president John Quincy Adams wrote concerning him in 1840: “After failing in the every-day vocations of a Unitarian preacher and school-master, he starts a new doctrine of transcendentalism, declares all the old revelations superannuated and worn out, and announces the approach of new revelations.”


The term transcendentalists was somewhat vaguely applied to a number of writers, among whom Emerson was the chief; but they did not constitute a regularly organized group, and had no very well-defined aims in common that could warrant the classification. Emerson himself disclaimed it later, saying “there was no concert of doctrinaires to establish certain opinions or to inaugurate some movement in literature, philosophy, or religion . . . but only two or three men and women, who read alone, with some vivacity. Perhaps all of these were surprised at the rumor that they were a school or a sect, but more especially at the name of 'Transcendentalism.'” Nevertheless, the scholars and writers of the period under notice, who numbered considerably more than two or three, finally adopted the name that had been forced upon them by changing the name of a periodical gathering held by them from the “Symposium” to “The Transcendental Cluborn” A period of new intellectual activity had begun about 1820, on the return of Edward Everett from Europe, laden with treasures of German thought, which he put into circulation. Gradually his influence, and that of Coleridge and Carlyle in England, produced a reaction against the philosophy of Locke and Bentham, which, denying all innate ideas, and insisting upon purely mechanical revelation, had hitherto ruled Unitarians in Old and New England. The reactionists affirmed the existence of innate ideas, and a faculty in man that transcends the senses and the understanding. Supported by Goethe's deep love of nature as a companion of man, and Wordsworth's conception of it as interfused with spirit, Emerson made a new advance, reiterated the idea of a transcendent faculty, intuitive religion, and perception of God, and embodied in an original form the spiritual interpretation of nature. The Symposium, or Transcendental Club, began to meet in 1836, first at the house of Dr. George Ripley. Among the members were Emerson, Frederic H. Hedge, James Freeman Clarke, Convers Francis, Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, Reverend Cyrus A. Bartol, Orestes A. Brownson, Margaret Fuller, and Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody. Dr. Channing once attended, and was in sympathy with the club, which discussed religion, impersonality, justice, truth, mysticism, pantheism, and the development of American genius. In this last theme perhaps lay the germ of Emerson's oration, “The American Scholar,” delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge in August, 1837. This has been well called “our intellectual Declaration of Independence,” an event without any former parallel in our literary annals. After eloquently describing the education and duties of the scholar, it protested against the prevailing subserviency to European taste, suspected the American freeman of being “timid, imitative, tame,” and demanded that the individual man “plant himself indomitably on his instincts and there abide. . . . We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. . . . A nation of freemen will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which inspires all men.” His friend, Bronson Alcott, having set up a school in Boston for teaching young children by methods based on a new theory of education, published in 1837 a book reporting his own conversations with the children on the gospels, which excited severe criticism, and Emerson defended him in the Boston “Courier.” He was destined to rouse a much greater hostility himself by his address to the senior class in the Divinity College, Cambridge, 15 July, 1838. With great force and beauty of language he attacked the formalism of contemporary religion, and the traditional limited way of using the mind of Christ. “Men have come to speak of the revelation as somewhat long ago given and done, as if God were dead. . . . The soul is not preached. . . . It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was; that he speaketh, not spake. The true Christianity — a faith like Christ's in the infinitude of man — is lost.” To each of the graduates he said: “Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hands with the Deity.” The address, pronounced with strong conviction, led to lively controversy, in which Emerson took no part. Ten lectures were given by him, in the winter of 1838-'9, on “The Doctrine of the Soul,” “Home,” “The School,” “Love,” etc., followed later by “Man the Reformer,” “The Method of Nature,” and a “Lecture on the Times.” In these he treated some of the reforms then agitated — temperance, anti-slavery, non-resistance, no government, and equal labor. Having come to hold the position of a religious reformer, he was looked to for sympathy with other reforms; but he dealt with them in the same spirit as with religion, and proceeded to reform the reformers. He pointed out that “reforms have their higher origin in an ideal justice, but they do not retain the purity of an idea.” Their work “is done profanely, not piously; by management, by tactics, and by clamor.” Any end pursued for itself, by the practical faculty, must become an offence. The end should be “inapprehensible to the senses”; then it would always be a good, always giving health. Briefly, it was Emerson's mission not to do practical work for reforms, but to supply impulses and a high inspiration to the workers. In 1841 he lectured on “The Conservative,” and the next year on " The Transcendentalist," saying that “transcendentalism ” was simply modern idealism, and that the “new views” were the oldest of thoughts cast in a new mold. Yet, seven years before, he had consulted with others about establishing a journal to be known as “The Transcendentalist,” and in July. 1840, it was begun, under the name of “The Dial.” Emerson succeeded Margaret Fuller as the editor, and during its continuance, until April, 1844, published more than forty of his own pieces, prose and verse, in its columns. The poems included such famous ones as “The Problem,” “Wood-notes,” “The Sphinx,” and “Fate.” This periodical contained much delicate and valuable writing, but failed of pecuniary support. Associated as he was with the idealists, in the capacity of chief intellectual leader, he took a cordial interest in the semi-socialistic experiment at Brook Farm (1840 to 1847), with which some of the brightest New England men and women of that day were connected; but he did not join the community. Hawthorne, who was actually a member and lost money in the undertaking, has been much criticised for having viewed it independently; but Emerson, outside, held a similar neutral attitude, and wrote an account of the affair, in which, touching it humorously at points, he called it “a French Revolution in small, an Age of Reason in a patty-pan.” In 1841 appeared the first volume of his essays, made up from lectures. It embraced “History,” “Compensation,” “Self-Reliance,” “Heroism,” “The Over-Soul,” “Spiritual Laws,” “Love,” “Friendship,” “Prudence,” “Intellect,” “Circles,” and “Art.” A second series was published in 1844, containing “Character,” “Gifts,” “Manners,” “The Poet,” “Politics,” “New England Reformers,” and a new one on “Nature.” These made a favorable impression in France and England, and laid the basis of his lofty reputation in this country as a prose-writer. Two years later he collected in a volume of “Poems” his scattered metrical pieces, many of which had been printed in periodicals. He did not escape sharp criticism, but the circle of his admirers rapidly widened. A new periodical, “The Massachusetts Quarterly Review,” began its career at Boston in 1847, edited by Theodore Parker, a disciple of Emerson, who expounded the “new views” in a more combative way; and Emerson wrote for it an “Editor's Address,” inculcating a wise and sincere spirit in meeting the problems of the state, of slavery, and socialism. In October of that year he sailed to England on a lecturing tour, repeated a course on “Representative Men” in various places, read a special series in London on “The Mind and Manners in the Nineteenth Century,” and lectured frequently in Scotland. He was enthusiastically received by large audiences, met a great number of the foremost men and women of the time, and was a guest in many private houses. In 1849 he returned home and published “Representative Men” (1850). Here he contributed to the “Memoirs” of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852) an account of her conversations in Boston and her Concord life. He also, having visited Paris while abroad, gave a lecture on “France,” which has never been printed; and at the Woman's Rights convention in 1856 delivered an address that took advanced ground, for that date, in favor of larger liberty for women. In this year the result of his observations in England was published in the volume entitled “English Traits,” which gained cordial recognition both at home and abroad, and has been translated into several foreign languages. It is certainly the best analysis of the English people that has been written by an American, and probably the best produced in any country. The style is succinct and exact, sown with epigram, as in most of Emerson's writings; but, the purpose being more objective than that of his essays, the saving common sense that underlies all of his thinking is here brought constantly and predominantly into view. Previously to this publication he had given seven lectures in Freeman place chapel, Boston, and another in New York, and had also made addresses before the Anti-slavery Society in both cities. While in the ministry he alone had opened a church to abolition speakers, and his sympathies were always on the side of emancipation. In 1835 he countenanced Harriet Martineau in her outspoken condemnation of slavery, and in the height of her unpopularity invited her to his house. Again, in 1844, he spoke stirringly on the anniversary of West Indian emancipation, and scourged his countrymen for tolerating Negro servitude. His own plan was to buy the slaves, at a cost of $2,000,000,000, and he put faith in moral and spiritual influences to remove the evil, rather than in legislation. He never formally united with the abolition Party, but he encouraged it, and his influence was great. As the contest grew warmer, he rose to the emergency and took a more active part, even making campaign speeches for John G. Palfrey, who, having missed re-election to Congress on account of his anti-slavery course in that body, was nominated as Free-Soil candidate for governor of Massachusetts. The assault on Charles Sumner by Preston S. Brooks called forth another vigorous speech. In November, 1859, he said before the Parker fraternity that John Brown, were he to be hanged, would “make the gallows glorious, like the cross.” A few days afterward he spoke at a John Brown meeting at Tremont temple, with Wendell Phillips, and took part in another at Concord, and in still a third at Salem, Massachusetts. In January, 1861, also, he addressed the Anti-slavery Society at Boston, in the face of disturbance by a mob. Though he was not a chief agitator of the cause, these efforts, so alien to his retired habits as a student, poet, and meditative writer, made him a marked advocate of freedom.
The “Atlantic Monthly” made its first appearance in November, 1857, with James Russell Lowell as the editor, and Emerson became, a contributor, printing in all twenty-eight poems and prose articles in the first thirty-seven volumes. “The Romany Girl,” “Days,” “Brahma,” “Waldeinsamkeit,” “The Titmouse,” “Boston Hymn,” “Saadi,” and “Terminus,” which are among his best-known poems, belong to this period; and in the “Atlantic” in 1858 appeared his essay on Persian poetry, which is instructive as to the influence of oriental verse upon Emerson's. He continued to lecture in different parts of the country, and at the Burns festival in Boston in January. 1859, made an after-dinner speech which is described as imbued with a passion uncommon in his utterances. Its effect on the assembly was said, by a competent judge who had heard the chief orators of the time, to have surpassed anything accomplished by them, and it seems to have indicated a reserve power in Emerson seldom suspected. In 1860 and 1862 he lost by death his friend Theodore Parker and his intimate companion Thoreau, both of whom he celebrated in memorial addresses. The “Conduct of Life” was published in the former year — a series of essays on fate, power, wealth, culture, behavior, worship, considerations by the way, beauty, and illusions. With a diminished admixture of mysticism, it offered a larger proportion of practical philosophy, and stated the limitations of fate in life, while but reaffirming the liberty of the individual. Hitherto Emerson's books had sold very slowly; but of the “Conduct of Life” the whole edition, 2,500 copies, was sold in two days. This is an index of the great change that had occurred in the popular estimate of him since the issuing of his first volume, “Nature,” twenty-seven years before. He who had been feared as a revolutionist, or laughed at as erratic, was now, at the age of fifty-seven, accepted as a veritable prophet and sage. The people and the times had, in a measure, grown up to him. A new “Dial” having been established in Cincinnati about this time, he wrote for its pages. During the Civil War he delivered a lecture on “American Civilization” at the Smithsonian institution in February, 1862; an address in Boston on the emancipation proclamation, September of the same year; and at Concord, 19 April, 1865, he pronounced a brief eulogy on Abraham Lincoln.
On 30 May, 1867, he attended at the organization of the Free religious Association in Boston, and stated his view as to religion briefly thus: As soon as every man is apprised of the Divine presence in his mind, and sees that the law of duty corresponds with the laws of physical nature — that duty, social order, power of character, wealth of culture, perfection of taste, all draw their essence from this moral sentiment — “then we have a religion that exalts, that commands all the social and all the private action.” Emerson passed many severe criticisms on his countrymen, publicly accused America of wanting in faith, hope, enthusiasm, and in a letter to Carlyle called it an intelligent but sensual, avaricious America. The war, with its heroisms and exhibitions of moral strength, gave him new courage, new belief in the national future. His Phi Beta Kappa oration of 1867 on “The Progress of Culture” expressed even more sanguine expectation than “The American Scholar,” thirty years before. He received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard in 1866, and was elected to the board of overseers in 1867. He began to feel the approach of age, and in 1866 wrote the noble poem “Terminus.”

“

It is time to be old,
To take in sail;
. . . . .


I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime.”

Nevertheless, in the following year he brought out “May-Day,” a long poem, the freshest and most youthful in tone of any that he had written, accompanied by many other pieces, some of which had appeared previously. In the next three years, 1868-'70, he read at Harvard a number of lectures on “The Natural History of the Mind,” which have not been collected. The essays entitled “Society and Solitude” were published in 1870. They are noticeable for an easy, almost conversational tone, differing remarkably from the earlier published essays and “English Traits.” The same is true of “Letters and Social Aims” (1875). Emerson's method of composition was to jot down notes from reading and observation, which were entered in a commonplace book, with a memorandum on the margin. From this he drew the material for his lectures, which, heard from the platform, were flowing in style and clear in sequence. When he prepared them for publication, much of the incidental matter and connecting links were struck out. The latest two volumes were arranged for the press when the author, growing old, gave them a less rigorous revision, and relied upon help from others. In 1870 and 1871 he wrote introductions to a translation of Plutarch's “Morals” and W. E. Channing's poem “The Wanderer.” “Parnassus,” a collection of poems by British and American authors, was brought out, with a short introduction, in 1874. Emerson was nominated in the latter year for the lord-rectorship of Glasgow University by the independents, and was defeated by a vote of 500 in his favor against 700 for Benjamin Disraeli. In 1875 he made a short address at the unveiling of French's statue of “The Minute-Man” on the Concord battle-field. He responded to an invitation from two societies of the University of Virginia in 1876 by lecturing to them on “The Scholar.” In March, 1878, he read a paper at the Old South Church, Boston, on “The Fortune of the Republic,” in which, commenting with sagacity on current tendencies in the national life, he said: “Let the passion for America cast out the passion for Europe.” The same year he printed in the “North American Review” “The Sovereignty of Ethics”; in 1879 he read “The Preacher” in Divinity College, Cambridge, and an essay on “Superlatives” was published in “The Century” magazine for February, 1882, shortly before his death. Two posthumous volumes of essays and reminiscences have appeared: “Miscellanies,” and “Lectures and Biographical Sketches”; and many brief poems heretofore unpublished have been included in a new edition.





In July, 1872, Emerson's house at Concord was partly destroyed by fire. This shock hastened the decline of his mental powers, which had already set in, and impaired his health. His friends spontaneously asked to be allowed to rebuild the house, and deposited in bank for him over $11,000, at the same time suggesting that he go abroad for rest and change. With his daughter Ellen he visited England and the Nile, and returned to Concord in May, 1873, to find his house rebuilt, and so perfectly restored to its former state that few could have discovered any change (see view on page 346). Welcomed by the citizens in a mass, he drove to his home, passing beneath a triumphal arch erected in his honor, amid general rejoicing.


After 1867 Emerson wrote no poems, and little prose, but revised his poetry and arranged the “Selected Poems.” Always inclined to slow speech, sometimes pausing for a word, he succumbed to a gradual aphasia, which made it difficult for him to converse. He forgot the names of persons and things. He had some difficulty in discriminating printed letters, and for the last five years of his life was unable to conduct correspondence. Yet he read through all his own published works “with much interest and surprise,” and tried to arrange his manuscripts, which he examined thoroughly. He also, following his custom of reading a paper annually before the Concord lyceum, gave there, in 1880, his hundredth lecture to the local audience. On that occasion the several hundred people in the hall spontaneously arose at his entrance and remained standing until he had taken his place on the platform. He took an interest in the Concord school of philosophy, organized in 1880, and supplied to its sessions an essay on “Natural Aristocracy.” Most of these later productions were put together from portions of earlier compositions. Throughout this time of decline he retained the perfect courtesy and consideration for others that had always characterized him. He was apparently quite able to comprehend the essence of things around him, and, to a certain extent, ideas; but the verbal means of communication were lost. He had so long regarded language and visible objects as mere symbols, that the symbols at last melted away and eluded him. He continued to read everything in printed form that he found upon his table, whispering the words over like a child, and was fond of pointing out pictures in books. In April, 1882, he took a severe cold, and, attended by his son, Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson, died of pneumonia. He was buried in the cemetery at Concord, near the graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau, in ground over which he had often walked and talked with them and with Margaret Fuller.
Emerson was tall and slender, not of robust physique, rather sallow in the face, with an aquiline nose, brown hair, and eyes of the “strongest and brightest blue.” His head was below the average in circumference, long, narrow, but more nearly equal in anterior and posterior breadth than most heads. His appearance was majestic. He was calm, kindly in expression, and frequently smiled, but seldom laughed. His manners were dignified but exquisitely simple. He was a ready listener, and often seemed to prefer listening, as if he were to be instructed rather than to instruct. He rarely showed irritation. His hospitality was almost unbounded, and he frequently waited upon the humblest of his guests with his own hands. He was never well-to-do until in his latest years. In 1838 he wrote to Carlyle that he possessed about $22,000 at interest, and could earn $800 in a winter by lecturing, but never had a dollar “to spend on a fancy.” He worked hard every summer writing, and every winter travelling and lecturing. His habits were regular and his diet frugal, the only peptic luxury in which he indulged being pie at breakfast. Every morning was spent in his study, and he would go all day without food unless called to eat. His bed-time was ten o'clock, but, if engaged in literary work, he would sit up until one or two, and was able to do this night after night. He fulfilled the duties of a citizen by attending town-meetings punctiliously. Much question has been made whether Emerson was rather a poet than a philosopher, or whether he was a philosopher at all. An exact philosopher he was not; but all that he wrote and said was based upon philosophic ideas. He was an intellectual rather than an emotional mystic, an idealist who insisted upon the application of idealism to the affairs of daily life. He believed that “Nature is the incarnation of a thought. . . . The world is mind precipitated.” He believed in the Over-Soul as a light guiding man, the light of intuitive perception, in God as the soul of the world, and in the human soul as one with that Over-Soul. He was not able to formulate these or other beliefs of his logically. Writing to his former colleague, Henry Ware, he said: “I could not give an account of myself if challenged. . . . I do not know what arguments are in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men.” This continued to be his position to the end. He relied upon intuition, and thought that every one might bring himself into accord with God on that basis. He expressed what he felt at the moment, and some of his sayings, even in a single essay, seem to be mutually opposed. But, if the whole of his works be taken together, a type of thought may be discerned in the conflicting expressions, coherent and suggestive, like that presented by the photographs of several generations of a family superimposed on one plate. In the beginning he seems to have looked somewhat askance at science; but in the 1849 edition of “Nature” he prefixed some verses that said:

“

And, striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.”

This came out ten years before Darwin's “Origin of Species,” and twenty years sooner than “The Descent of Man.” Lamarck's theories, however, had been popularized in 1844. But Emerson here showed how quick he was to seize upon the newest thought in science or elsewhere if it seemed to be true. Eleven years passed, and he declared in the essay on “Worship,” in “Conduct of Life”: “The religion which is to guide and fulfil the present and coming ages must be intellectual. The scientific mind must have a faith which is science. . . . There will be a new church founded on moral science, at first cold and naked . . . but it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters, science for symbol and illustration. It will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry.” While he thus advanced in viewing science, he advanced also in viewing all other subjects; but it was from the point of view of intuition and oneness with what he called the Over-Soul. Everything that he said must be looked at in the light of his own remark, “Life is a train of moods.” But his moods rest upon the certainty, to him, of his own intuition. Emerson's presentation of his views is generally in a large degree poetic. His poems sum up and also expand his prose. The seeming want of technical skill in his verse is frequently due to a more subtile art of natural melody which defied conventional rules of versification. The irregular lines, the flaws of metre and rhyme, remind us of the intermittent breathings of an Æolian harp. Emerson's poetic instrument may have been a rustic contrivance, but it answered to every impulse of the winds and the sighs of human feeling, from “Monadnoc” to the “Threnody” upon the death of his child-son. Sometimes he unconsciously so perfected his poetic lines that, as Dr. Holmes says, a moment after they were written they “seemed as if they had been carved on marble for a thousand years,” as this in “Voluntaries”:

“

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
    So near is God to man,
When duty whispers low, Thou must,
    The youth replies, I can.”

Matthew Arnold has pronounced his essays “the most important work done in prose” in this century; but Professor C. C. Everett, discussing the qualities of Emerson in the “Andover Review” for March, 1887, describes his philosophy as that of a poet, and adds, “so his ethics is the ethics of a poet.” He regards the poems as the most complete and worthy expression of Emerson's genius. But Dr. Everett's discovery of passion in Emerson's poetry is not generally accepted by other critics. As has been well remarked by another writer, the verse, in general abstractly and intellectually beautiful, kindles to passion only when the chosen theme is distinctly American or patriotic. Emerson constantly preached by life and pen a new revelation, a new teacher of religion and morals, putting himself always in the place of a harbinger, a John crying in the wilderness. Julian Hawthorne has written of him: “He is our future living in our present, and showing the world, by anticipation, what sort of excellence we are capable of.” His own life conformed perfectly to the idealism that he taught; but he regarded himself as a modest link in the chain of progress. He made his generation turn their eyes forward instead of backward. He enforced upon them courage, self-reliance, patriotism, hope. People flocked to him from all quarters, finally, for advice and guidance. The influence that he exercised not only upon persons since grown eminent, such as Professor Tyndall, who found a life's inspiration in his thought, but also upon thousands unknown, is one of his claims to recognition. Another is that, at a time when, it is conceded, the people of the United States were largely materialistic in their aims, he came forward as the most idealistic writer of the age, and also as a plain American citizen. He was greatly indebted to preceding authors. It has been ascertained that he named in his writings 3,393 quotations from 808 individuals, mostly writers. “The inventor only knows how to quote,” said Emerson; and, notwithstanding his drafts upon the treasury of the past, he is the most original writer as a poet, seer, and thinker that America possesses. The doctrine of the “many in one,” which he incessantly taught, is exemplified in himself and his works. The best extant accounts of Emerson are “Ralph Waldo Emerson, his Life, Writings, and Philosophy,” by George Willis Cooke (Boston, 1881); “Ralph Waldo Emerson,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Boston, 1884); “Emerson at Home and Abroad,” by Moncure D. Conway; “Biographical Sketch,” by Alexander Ireland; “The Genius and Character of Emerson, Lectures at the Concord School of Philosophy,” edited by F. B. Sanborn (Boston, 1885). See, also, F. B. Sanborn's “Homes and Haunts of Emerson.” J. E. Cabot, of Boston, has in charge a life authorized by Emerson's family, which may include extracts from his diaries and other unpublished matter. [Appleton’s 1900]


EMILY, STEAMER, Capture of. May 15, 1863. (See Currituck Canal.)


EMMONS, George Foster, naval officer, born in Clarendon, Rutland County, Vermont, 23 August, 1811; died in Princeton, New Jersey, 2 July, 1884. He entered the U.S. Navy as midshipman, 1 April, 1828, was promoted to passed midshipman in 1831, and was attached to Captain Charles Wilkes's exploring Expedition in 1838- 42. He was made lieutenant on 25 February, 1841, and after the loss of his vessel, the "Peacock," off Columbia River, Oregon, in July of that year, had charge of a party that explored the country south of the Columbia to the head-waters of the Sacramento, and went thence to San Francisco. He then served in various vessels, taking part in several engagements on shore in California, during the Mexican War. He became commander on 28 January, 1856, commanded the " Hatteras," of the western Gulf Squadron, in 1862, and in that year captured Cedar Keys, Florida, and Pass Christian, Mississippi, and about twenty prizes. He afterward commanded the " R. R. Cuyler," of the same squadron, and after being commissioned captain, 7 February, 1863, was fleet-captain under Admiral Dahlgren off Charleston. He  commanded the " Lackawanna," and a division of from five to fifteen vessels in the Gulf of Mexico in 1864-'5, and while at New Orleans assisted in destroying the ram "Webb," and preventing the destruction of the city and shipping. In 1866-'8 he commanded the " Ossipee”, carrying the U. S. Commissioners to Alaska, and hoisting the American flag over that country. He was made commodore, 20 September, 1868, appointed senior member of the Ordnance Board in Washington in 1869, and given charge of the Hydrographic Office in 1870. He was promoted to rear admiral, 25 November, 1872, and retired from active service on 23 August, 1873. He published " The Navy of the United States from 1775 to 1858" (Washington, 1853).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 351.


EMMONS, William Hemsley, soldier, born in Queen Anne County, Maryland, 9 September, 1811, was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1831, and appointed lieutenant of artillery and mounted rangers. He was stationed chiefly at sea-ports in 1831-'6, and was in Charleston Harbor during the nullification trouble in South Carolina. He was in the Creek Nation in 1836-'8, was appointed 1st lieutenant of topographical engineers in the latter year, and employed successively on the improvements of Delaware, River, and on the northeast boundary survey. He went with General Stephen W. Kearny to California in 1840, and was on his staff during the Mexican war, when he was successively made captain and brevet-major. He was on the Mexican and California border in 1848-'53, and in those years was commissioner and astronomer to run the boundary between Mexico and the United States, especially under the Gadsden Treaty of 1853. He was in Kansas in 1854, in Utah in 1858, and remained on border duty till 9 May, 1861, when he resigned. He was reappointed as lieutenant-colonel of the 6th U.S. Cavalry  on 14 May, and he took part in the Peninsular Campaign, being engaged at Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Hanover Court-House. He was made brigadier-general of volunteers, 17 March, 1862, commanded a division under Banks in Louisiana in 1863, and, having been raised to the command of the 19th Corps, was with the same commander in 1864 in the Red River Expedition, in which he displayed unwonted bravery and skill, winning distinction especially at Sabine Cross-Roads, at Pleasant Hill, and at Cane River. Later in the same year, at the head of the 19th Corps, he offered a splendid and successful resistance to Early in the Shenandoah valley, especially at Opequan Creek, 19 September, at Fisher's Hill, 22 September, and at Cedar Creek in October. He received the successive brevets of major-general of volunteers, 23 July, 1864, and brigadier-general and major-general in the regular army, 13 March, 1865, and on 25 September, 1865, was commissioned full major-general of volunteers. After the war he was successively in command of the Department of West Virginia in 1865-'6, of the Department of Washington in 1869-'71, and of the Department of the Gulf in 1871-5. He retired in 1876 with the rank of brigadier-general. General Emory has published " Notes of a Military Reconnaissance in Missouri and California" (New York, 1848); and "Report of the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission" (Washington).—His son. William Hemsley, naval officer, was graduated at the U. S. Naval Academy in 1866, became master in 1869, and lieutenant in 1870, and in 1884 commanded the "Bear," of the Greely relief Expedition. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 352.


EMPRESS, U. S. STEAMER, MISSISSIPPI, August 10, 1864. Loss, 6 killed and 12 wounded.  The Union Army, 1908, Vol. 5, p. 380.


ENCAMPMENT. (See CAMP.) ENCEINTE is the body of the place, or the first belt of ramparts and parapets that inclose the place. (Scott, Military Dictionary, Van Nostrand, 1862, p. 256).