Ban-Bay: Bancroft through Bayard

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


BANCROFT, Eleazer, New York, abolitionist leader

(Sorin, 1971)


BANCROFT, George, born 1800, Hampshire County, historian.  Member of the Hampshire County auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 154-156; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 196)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 154-156:

BANCROFT, George, historian, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 3 October, 1800. He is a son of the Reverend Aaron Bancroft. He was prepared for college at Exeter, New Hampshire, was graduated at Harvard in 1817, and went to Germany. At Göttingen, where he resided for two years, he studied German literature under Benecke; French and Italian literature under Artaud and Bunsen; Arabic, Hebrew, and Scripture interpretation under Eichhorn; history under Planck and Heeren; natural history under Blumenbach; and the antiquities and literature of Greece and Rome under Dissen, with whom he took a course of Greek philosophy. In writing from Leipsic, 28 August, 1819, to Mrs. Prescott, of Boston, Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell remarks: “It was sad parting, too, from little Bancroft. He is a most interesting youth, and is to make one of our great men.”
In 1820 Bancroft was given the degree of Ph. D. by the university of Göttin General At this time he selected history as his special branch, having as one of his reasons the desire to see if the observation of masses of men in action would not lead by the inductive method to the establishment of the laws of morality as a science. Removing to Berlin, he became intimate with Schleiermacher, William von Humboldt, Savigny, Lappenberg, and Varnhagen von Ense, and at Jena he made the acquaintance of Goethe. He studied at Heidelberg with the historian Schlosser. In 1822 he returned to the United States and accepted for one year the office of tutor of Greek in Harvard. He delivered several sermons, which produced a favorable impression; but the love of literature proved the stronger attachment. His first publication was a volume of poems (Cambridge, 1823). In the same year, in conjunction with Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell, he opened the Round Hill school at Northampton, Massachusetts; in 1824 published a translation of Heeren’s “Politics of Ancient Greece” (Boston), and in 1826 an oration, in which he advocated universal suffrage and the foundation of the state on the power of the whole people. In 1830, without his knowledge, he was elected to the legislature, but refused to take his seat, and the next year he declined a nomination, though certain to have been elected, for the state senate. In 1834 he published the first volume of his “History of the United States” (Boston). In 1835 he drafted an address to the people of Massachusetts at the request of the young men’s democratic convention, and in the same year he removed to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he resided for three years, and completed the second volume of his history. In 1838 he was appointed by President Van Buren collector of the port of Boston. In 1844 he was nominated by the democratic party for governor of Massachusetts, and received a very large vote, though not sufficient for election. After the accession of President Polk, Mr. Bancroft became secretary of the navy, and signalized his administration by the establishment of the naval academy at Annapolis, and other reforms and improvements. This institution was devised and completely set at work by Mr. Bancroft alone, who received for the purpose all the appropriations for which he asked. Congress had never been willing to establish a naval academy. He studied the law to ascertain the powers of the secretary, and found that he could order the place where midshipmen should wait for orders; he could also direct the instructors to give lessons to them at sea, and by law had power to follow them to the place of their common residence on shore. With a close economy, the appropriation of the year for the naval service would meet the expense, and the secretary of war could cede an abandoned military post to the navy. So when congress came together they found the midshipmen that were not at sea comfortably housed at Annapolis, protected from the dangers of idleness and city life, and busy at a regular course of study. Seeing what had been done, they accepted the school, which was in full operation, and granted money for the repairs of the buildings. Mr. Bancroft was also influential in obtaining additional appropriations for the Washington observatory and in introducing some new professors of great merit into the corps of instructors, and he suggested a method by which promotion should depend, not on age alone, but also on experience and capacity; but this scheme was never fully developed or applied. While secretary of the navy Mr. Bancroft gave the order, in the event of war with Mexico, to take immediate possession of California, and constantly renewed the order, sending it by every possible channel to the commander of the American squadron in the Pacific; and it was fully carried into effect before he left the navy department. No order, so far as is known, was issued from any other department to take possession of California. See “Life of James Buchanan,” by G. T. Curtis, vol. i. During his term of office he also acted as secretary of war pro tem. for a month, and gave the order to march into Texas, which caused the first occupation of Texas by the United States. From 1846 to 1849 Mr. Bancroft was minister to Great Britain, where he successfully urged upon the British ministry the adoption of more liberal laws of navigation and allegiance. In May, 1867, he was appointed minister to Prussia; in 1868 he was accredited to the North German confederation, and 1871 to the German empire, from which he was recalled at his own request in 1874. While still minister at Berlin he rendered important services in the settlement with Great Britain of the northwestern boundary of the United States. In the reference to the king of Prussia, which was proposed by Mr. Bancroft, the argument of the United States, and the reply to the argument of Great Britain, were written, every word of them, by Mr. Bancroft. Great Britain had long refused to concede that her emigrants to the United States, whether from Great Britain or Ireland, might throw off allegiance to their mother country and become citizens of the United States. The principle involved in this question Mr. Bancroft discussed with the government of Prussia, and in a treaty obtained the formal recognition of the right of expatriation at the will of the individual emigrant, and negotiated with the several German states a corresponding treaty. England watched the course of negotiation, resolving to conform herself to the principles that Bismarck might adopt for Prussia, and followed him in abandoning the claims to perpetual allegiance. After the expiration of the English mission in 1849, Mr. Bancroft took up his residence in the city of New York and continued work on his history. The third volume had appeared in 1840, and volumes 4 to 10 at intervals from 1852 to 1874. In 1876 the work was revised and issued in a centenary edition (6 vols., 12mo, Boston). Volumes 11 and 12 were published first under the title “History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States” (New York, 1882). The last revised edition of the whole work appeared in six volumes (New York, 1884-'85).
Mr. Bancroft has been correspondent of the royal academy of Berlin, and also of the French institute; was made D. C. L. at Oxford in 1849, and Doctor Juris by the university of Bonn in 1868, and in September, 1870, celebrated at Berlin the fiftieth anniversary of receiving his first degree at Göttin General His minor publications include “An Oration delivered on the 4th of July, 1826, at Northampton, Massachusetts” (Northampton, 1826); “History of the Political System of Europe,” translated from Heeren (1829); “An Oration delivered before the Democracy of Springfield and Neighboring Towns, July 4. 1836” (2d ed., with prefatory remarks, Springfield, 1836); “History of the Colonization of the United States” (Boston, 1841, 12mo, abridged); “An Oration delivered at the Commemoration, in Washington, of the Death of Andrew Jackson, June 27, 1845”; “The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of the Progress of the Human Race”; “An  Oration delivered before the New York Historical Society, November 20, 1854” (New York, 1854); “Proceedings of the First Assembly of Virginia, 1619; Communicated, with an Introductory Note, by George Bancroft”; “Collections of the New York Historical Society,” second series, vol. iii., part i. (New York, 1857); “Literary and Historical Miscellanies” (New York, 1855); “Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at the request of both Houses of the Congress of America, before them, in the House of Representatives at Washington, on the 12th of February, 1866” (Washington, 1866); and “A Plea for the Constitution of the United States of America, Wounded in the House of its Guardians,” by George Bancroft, Veritati Unice Litarem (New York, 1886). Among his other speeches and addresses may be mentioned a lecture on “The Culture, the Support, and the Object of Art in a Republic,” in the course of the New York historical society in 1852; one on “The Office, Appropriate Culture, and Duty of the Mechanic”; and to the “American Cyclopædia” Mr. Bancroft contributed a biography of Jonathan Edwards. Among those the least satisfied with the historian have been some of the descendants of eminent patriots (Greene, Reed, Rush, and others), whose merits have not, in the opinions of his censors, been duly recognized by Mr. Bancroft. That there should be entire agreement as regards the accuracy and candor of the narrator of the events of so many years, and of those years full of the excitement of party faction, is not to be expected. The merits of the work are considered at length in a biography of Mr. Bancroft by the present writer (see Allibone’s “Dictionary of Authors”), where the following opinions of eminent critics are quoted: Edward Everett says: “A history of the United States by an American writer possesses a claim upon our attention of the strongest character. It would do so under any circumstances; but when we add that the work of Mr. Bancroft is one of the ablest of that class which has for years appeared in the English language; that it compares advantageously with the standard British historians; that as far as it goes it does such justice to its noble subject as to supersede the necessity of any future work of the same kind, and, if completed as commenced, will unquestionably forever be regarded both as an American and as an English classic, our readers would justly think us unpardonable if we failed to offer our humble tribute to its merit.” Prof. Heeren writes: “We know few modern historic works in which the author has reached so high an elevation at once as an historical inquirer and an historical writer. The great conscientiousness with which he refers to his authorities, and his careful criticism, give the most decisive proofs of his comprehensive studies. He has founded his narrative on contemporary documents, yet without neglecting works of later times and of other countries. His narrative is everywhere worthy of the subject. The reader is always instructed, often more deeply interested than by novels or romances. The love of country is the muse which inspires the author, but this inspiration is that of the severe historian which springs from the heart.” William H. Prescott says: “We must confess our satisfaction that the favorable notice we took of Mr. Bancroft’s labors on his first appearance has been fully ratified by his countrymen, and that his colonial history establishes his title to a place among the great historical writers of the age. The reader will find the pages of the present volume filled with matter not less interesting and important than the preceding. He will meet with the same brilliant and daring style, the same picturesque sketches of character and incident, the same acute reasoning and compass of erudition.” George Ripley writes: “Mr. Bancroft is eminently a philosophical historian. He brings the wealth of a most varied learning in systems of thought and in the political and moral history of mankind to illustrate the early experiences of his country. He catalogues events in a manner which shows the possession of ideas, and not only describes popular movements picturesquely, but also analyzes them and reveals their spiritual signification.” Baron Bunsen says: “I read last night Bancroft with increasing admiration. What a glorious and interesting history has he given to his nation of the centuries before the independence!” Von Raumer remarks: “Bancroft Prescott, and Sparks have effected so much in historical composition that no living European historian can take precedence of them, but rather might be proud and grateful to be admitted as a companion.” Mr. Bancroft’s last address was given at the opening of the third meeting of the American historical association, of which he was president, at Washington, 27 April, 1886. It was printed in the “Magazine of American History” for June. In a letter to the author of this article, dated Washington, D. C., 30 May, 1882, he wrote: “I was trained to look upon life here as a season for labor. Being more than fourscore years old, I know the time for my release will soon come. Conscious of being near the shore of eternity, I await without impatience and without dread the beckoning of the hand which will summon me to rest.” Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


BANCROFT, William W., Granville, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-40


BANGS, Nathan, Dr., Reverend, 1778-1862, New York, New York, clergyman, missionary, editor, author.  Officer of the New York auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  President of Wesleyan University. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 157; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, p. 574; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 135)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 157:

BANGS, Nathan, clergyman, born in Stratford, Connecticut, 2 May, 1778; died  in New York city, 3 May, 1862. He received a limited education, taught school, and in 1799 went to Canada, where he spent three years as a teacher and land-surveyor. Uniting with the Methodist church, he labored for six years as an itinerant minister in the Canadian provinces, and, on returning to New York, took a prominent part in the councils of the denomination. In 1820 he was transferred from a pastorate in New York to the head of the Methodist book concern. Under his management debts were paid off and the business much extended. He was also editor of the “Methodist Magazine.” In 1828 he was appointed editor of the “Christian Advocate.” When the “Methodist Quarterly Review” replaced the “Methodist Magazine” in 1832, the general conference continued Dr. Bangs in the editorship. He was the principal founder and secretary of the Methodist missionary society. Besides his editorial labors he exercised the censorship over all the publications of the book concern. When appointed secretary of the missionary society in 1836, he devoted his chief energies to its service, until appointed president of the Wesleyan university, at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1841. In 1842 he resumed pastoral work in New York, and in 1852 retired and employed himself during his remaining years chiefly in literary labors. His most important work was a “History of the Methodist Episcopal Church from its Origin in 1776 to the General Conference of 1840” (4 vols., New York, 1839-'42). His other published works were a volume directed against “Christianism,” a new sect in New England (1809); “Errors of Hopkinsianism” (1815); “Predestination Examined” (1817); “Reformer Reformed” (1818); “Methodist Episcopacy” (1820); “Life of the Reverend Freeborn Garettson” (1832); ‘Authentic History of the Missions Under the Care of the Methodist Episcopal Church” (1832); “Letters to a Young Preacher” (1835); “The Original Church of Christ” (1836); “Essay on Emancipation” (1848); “State and Responsibilities of the Methodist Episcopal Church” (1850); “Letters on Sanctification” (1851); “Life of Arminius”; “Scriptural Vindication of the Orders and Powers of the Ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church”; and numerous occasional sermons. See “Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, D. D.,” by Abel Stevens (New York,   Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


BANKS, Nathanial Prentiss, 1816-1894, Waltham, Massachusetts, statesman, anti-slavery political leader.  Republican U.S. Congressman and Speaker of the House of Representatives.  Union General.  Governor of Massachusetts.  Member of the Free Soil and, later, Republican parties.  He was opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.  He was also opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, as this repeal favored the slave power.  Banks was called, “the very bone and sinew of Free-soilism” (Scribner’s, 1930, p. 578)

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume 1, pp. 158-159; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 577-580; Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 348; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 577-580:

BANKS, NATHANIEL PRENTISS (January 30, 1816-September 1, 1894), congressman, governor of Massachusetts, Union soldier, was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, the eldest of the seven children of Nathaniel P. and Rebecca (Greenwood) Banks. His father was superintendent of the mill in which is said to have been woven the first cotton cloth manufactured in the United States. After only a few years in the common schools the boy had to go to work in the cotton-mill, from which fact in later years there clung to him the nickname, "the Bobbin Boy of Massachusetts." Keenly ambitious, he set to work to remedy the deficiencies in his own education. By his own efforts he obtained some command of Latin, and diligently studied Spanish, early declaring that America some day would be brought into intimate association with peoples of that tongue. He seized every opportunity for practise in public speaking, lecturing on temperance and taking an active part in a local debating society. He soon became a recognized power in town meeting. For a time he studied to become an actor, and made a successful appearance in Boston as Claude Melnotte in The Lady of Lyons, but he soon turned to the law. At twenty-three he was admitted to the bar, but he never practised in the courts. He first entered public service as an inspector in the Boston customs house. For three years he was the proprietor and editor of a local weekly newspaper, the Middlesex Reporter. In March 1847 he was married to Mary I. Palmer. Seven times he was a candidate for the lower branch of the Massachusetts legislature before he became a member of that body in 1849. By the "coalition'' in 1851 Henry Wilson as a Free-Soiler was made president of the Senate, and Banks as a Democrat was made speaker of the House, and he was reelected to that office the following year.

At thirty-seven this self-taught man was chosen president of what has been called "the ablest body that ever met in Massachusetts," the constitutional convention of 1853, over which he presided with rare tact and self-control. Entering Congress in 1853, he served-though not continuously-in ten Congresses, representing five different party alignments. In his first term, though elected as a Democrat, he showed his courage and independence by opposing the Kansas-Nebraska bill. In the Thirty-fourth Congress, to which he had been elected as the candidate of the "Americans" (Know-Nothing party), he was put forward for the speakership in the most stubborn contest in the history of that office. Backed by no caucus, he drew votes from the other Know-Nothing candidates because of his uncompromising record in his first term (H. von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, 1885, V, 204 ff.). As the struggle dragged on, he bluntly declared that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was an act of dishonor, and that under no circumstances whatever would he, if he should have the power, allow the institution of human slavery to derive benefit from the repeal. He thus came to be regarded as "the very bone and sinew of Free-soilism," and his election (February 2, 1856, on the 133rd ballot, and only after the adoption of a resolution calling for election by plurality vote), was hailed as the first defeat of slavery in a quarter of a century, and was later looked back upon as the first national victory of the Republican party. He held that the speaker's office was not political but executive and parliamentary. To the anti-slavery men he gave a bare majority on the various committees, and made several of his most decided opponents chairmen. Historians of the office rate Banks as one of the ablest and most efficient of speakers (M. P. Follett, The Speaker of the House of Representatives, 1902, pp. 36, 58-59; H. B. Fuller, The Speaker of the House, 1909, pp. 102-11, 116-17). He showed consideration and consummate tact, and his decisions were prompt and impartial. Though his service was in a period of the bitterest partisanship, not one of his decisions was overruled.

In 1856 Banks declined a nomination for the presidency from the convention of "North Americans," anti-slavery seceders from the "American" convention which had nominated Fillmore. Though he had been the candidate of the "Americans" in his second campaign for Congress and though he had just received this further evidence of their favor, he had already outgrown that nativist association, and in 1857 he cast aside his promising career in Congress to accept the Republican nomination for governor of Massachusetts. To the dismay of conservatives, he adopted the innovation of stumping the state in person, and against the seemingly invincible incumbent of three terms he won the election by a large majority. He held the governorship for three successive years, 1858-60, and proved an effective and progressive executive. He was a pioneer in urging the humane and protective features of modern probation laws, and di splayed a great and intelligent interest in all movements for educational progress. His wise forethought as to the militia enabled his successor, Governor John A. Andrew, to respond at once to Lincoln's call, sending troop after troop of Massachusetts militia, well trained and fully equipped for service.

At the end of his term (January 1861) Banks removed to Chicago, to succeed George B. McClellan as president of the Illinois Central Railroad. But Sumter had hardly fallen when he tendered his services to President Lincoln, and on May 16 he was commissioned major-general of volunteers. His first service was in the Department of Annapolis, where he cooperated in measures to prevent the seemingly imminent secession of Maryland. He was next assigned to the 5th corps in the Department of the Shenandoah. Here the transference of Shields's division to McDowell left Banks isolated with a command diminished to 10,000 to cope with " Stonewall" Jackson's greatly superior force s. The Confederates' capture of Front Royal, May 23, 1862, left no course open to Banks-his force now outnumbered two to one-but precipitate retreat. A race for Winchester, a vigorous battle, in which Banks's command bore itself well, and then a hasty crossing of the Potomac at Harper's Ferry rescued his army, but with a loss of some 200 killed and wounded and more than 3,000 prisoners (J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, 1868, II, 393). In June, Banks's force was brought into the new consolidation, the Army of Virginia, placed under General Pope. From Culpeper, August 9, 1862, Pope ordered Banks, in case the enemy approached, to "attack him immediately." Acting upon this explicit order, late in the afternoon, Banks's little army, in mood to avenge the humiliations they had suffered in the Shenandoah Valley, charged the enemy with such suddenness and vehemence that the whole of Jackson's left was driven from its position before his reserves could be brought into action. But some lack of tactical skill, the wounding of two of Banks's general officers, and the weight of opposing numbers after the first shock of surprise soon turned the tide of battle, and the Federals were forced into disorderly retreat. Banks was severely blamed for making this attack at Cedar Mountain, and Pope denied that his order authorized the action which Banks took ("Report of the Joint Committee on Conduct of the War," Senate Report No. 142, 38 Congress, 2 Session, part III, pp. 44-54). But "it will be hard to prove, if language means anything, that he at all transgressed his [Pope's] orders. Of course the order should not have been given" (William Allan, The Army of Northern Virginia, 1892, p. 171, n.). For a short time in the fall of 1862 Banks was in charge of the defenses of Washington. In the closing months of the year, at New Orleans he succeeded General B. F. Butler in command of the department. He was assigned the tasks of holding New Orleans and the other parts of the state which had been reduced to submission, and of aiding Grant to open the Mississippi. After placing his garrisons he had hardly 15,000 men left for aggressive action. In April 1863 he succeeded in regaining considerable territory for the Union, and in May he reached Alexandria. His next objective was Port Hudson. On May 25 and 27 he made costly attempts to capture the place by assault, bringing into action negro troops, who, he declared, showed the utmost daring and determination. Repulsed with heavy losses, he began siege. Though hard pressed by famine, the garrison repelled another assault, June 13, but within a week after the fall of Vicksburg it found itself forced to unconditional surrender, July 9, with loss of 6,200 prisoners, a large number of guns, and a great mass of military supplies. The thanks of Congress were tendered to Banks and his troops (January 28, 1864) "for the skill, courage, and endurance which compelled the surrender of Port Hudson, and thus removed the last obstruction to the free navigation of the Mississippi River" (United States Statutes at Large, 38 Congress, 1 Session, Resolution No. 7).

The later movements of the year proved ineffective: although with the cooperation of a naval force Banks had advanced along the coast as far as Brownsville, capturing some works of importance, he found his force inadequate to extend the movement and withdrew to New Orleans. Here in the difficult task of dealing with the civilian population he inherited the unpopularity of his predecessor, and his assassination was attempted. He opposed the admission of Confederate attorneys to practise in the courts. With no legal authority for his action, in January and February 1864, Banks issued orders prescribing the conditions of suffrage and other details as to elections, under which state officers and delegates to a constitutional convention were chosen and a constitution adopted. Although hardly one in seven of the voters of the state voted upon the question of ratifying this constitution, Banks went to Washington, where for months he pressed the recognition of the Louisiana state Government (E. L. Pierce, Memoir of Charles Sumner, 1893, IV, 215, 221).

In the opening months of 1864 preparations were made for the ill-starred Reel River Expedition. General Grant had strenuously opposed this movement, and later declared that it was "ordered from Washington," and that Banks had opposed the expedition, and was in no way responsible, except for the conduct of it (Personal Memoirs, 1886, II, 139-40). The State Department insisted that the flag must be restored to some one point in Texas, as a counter to the movements of the French in Mexico; the President was eager to establish a loyal government in Louisiana; and the agents of the Government and speculators were lured by the great stores of cotton along the river. Starting in the early spring, the only season when the Reel River was navigable, Banks advanced with a land force of 27,000 men, Admiral Porter being in command of a supporting fleet of gunboats. When within two days' march of his objective, Shreveport, Banks's army, extending for miles along a single road, encountered the main body of the enemy at Sabine Crossroads, April 8, and was routed. On the following clay at Pleasant Hill a fierce battle was fought, in which both parties claimed the victory. Failure of his supplies of ammunition, rations, and water compelled Banks to fall back. Meantime the fleet had been placed in imminent peril by the unprecedentedly early subsidence of the Red River, and was saved only by the brilliant engineering feat of Colonel Joseph Bailey in constructing a series of dams that secured enough depth of water to send the gunboats over the shallows (J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, 1870, III, 235-38). The army followed the naval force down the river, repelling rear attacks. Grant's peremptory recall of 10,000 men left Banks facing a serious crisis. On May 13 he evacuated Alexandria. Though left in nominal command, he was soon virtually superseded by the arrival of General E. R. S. Canby, who had been appointee to the command of all forces west of the Mississippi. A majority of the Committee on the Conduct of the War placed upon Banks a large measure of responsibility for the disasters which befell this expedition, but a minority member, D. W. Gooch, defended him on the ground that the major causes of failure, i. e. the unforeseeable difficulties of navigation, and the shortness of the time for which nearly half of the force were "lent" by Sherman, were beyond his control (Senate Report No. 142, 38 Congress, 2 Session, part II, pp. 3-401). Although repeatedly in this humiliating expedition Banks showed a lack of military skill, in the main he had to "bear the blame of the blunders of his superiors," who for alleged reasons of state ordered a movement which had little military justification, and doomed it to failure by so organizing it that, while four forces were supposed to cooperate, the commander of no one of them had the right to give an order to another (Asa Mahan, Critical History of the Late American War, 1877, p. 407).

Honorably mustered out of military service, August 24, 1865, Banks returned to his native city, and was almost immediately elected as a Republican to fill a vacancy in the House, caused by the death of D. W. Gooch, where he continued to serve from the Thirty-ninth to the Forty-second Congress. During this period he voted for the act stopping further contraction of the currency, and was a member of the committee of five to investigate the Credit Mobilier charges. He was chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs at the time Maximilian was in Mexico and war with France seemed likely to follow. He advised a bold policy in regard to the Alabama Claims, advocated our acquisition of Alaska, and reported a bill asserting the right of every naturalized American citizen to renounce all allegiance to his native land, and authorizing the President, if such right should be denied, in reprisal to suspend trade relations with such a Government, and to arrest and detain any of its citizens. In the campaign of 1872, because of a personal quarrel with President Grant; he supported Greeley's candidacy, and as a consequence was himself defeated for reelection. At the beginning of the short session, the month following this defeat, he tendered his resignation from the Committee on Military Affairs in order that the House might be "represented by some member more unequivocally committed to its policy," but the House by a substantial vote refused to excuse him from such service (December 2, 1872, Congressional Globe, p. 10). During the two-year interruption of his congressional career he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate for the session of 1874, but in the following November he was returned to Congress as a Democrat. Two years later he was reelected as a Republican. At the expiration of this term, he was appointed by President Hayes to the position of United States marshal for Massachusetts, and served from March II, 1879, to April 23, 1888. In that year he was reelected to Congress as a Republican, defeating Colonel Thomas W. Higginson. Before the end of the term his health became seriously impaired; he retired to his home in Waltham, where he died, September 1, 1894. He was survived by a son and two daughters,   one of whom, Maude Banks, attained some distinction as an actress. By resolution of the Massachusetts General Court provision was made for the erection of a bronze statue of General Banks upon the grounds of the State House. This statue, by Henry H. Kitson, was unveiled September 16, 1908.

[No general biography of Banks has been published. The story of his early career is told by William M. Thayer in The Bobbin Boy (1860). The main features of his military career are presented in the books and reports above cited; see also Official Records. Certain phases are discussed by G. F. R. Henderson,   in Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (1898), I, 388 ff., and by Geo. C. Eggleston, in History of the Confederate War (1910), I, 208. Frank M. Flynn's Campaigning with Banks in Louisiana (1887) contains little of value.]

G. H. H.


BANKSON, Andrew, Tennessee, state senator in Illinois, 1808, anti-slavery activist in the senate.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 93)


BANNEKER, Benjamin, 1731-1806, free African American, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, author, humanitarian.

(Allen, 1971; Bedini, 1972; Green, 1985; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 18, 27, 31, 186-187;

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 159:

BANNEKER, Benjamin, mathematician, born at Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, 9 November, 1731; died  in Baltimore, in October, 1806. He was of African descent, and learned to read from his grandmother, a white woman who had freed and married one of her slaves. He studied mathematics and astronomy while working in the field, when past middle life, and prepared and published almanacs for Maryland and the adjoining states in 1792 and subsequent years until his death. He assisted Ellicott in surveying the site of Washington and the boundaries of the District of Columbia. His biography, by J. H. B. Latrobe, was published in 1845, and another by J. S. Norris in 1854. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 159.


BAQUAQUA, Mahommah Gardo, born c. 1824, African American abolitionist. Wrote slave narrative, An Interesting Narrative: Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua in 1854. 

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 1, p. 355)


BARBADOES, James G., 1796-1841, Boston, Massachusetts.  African American abolitionist, community activist.  Helped organize the Massachusetts General Colored Association (MGCA). Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. 

(Newman, 2002, pp. 100-102, 105, 114, 115, 126; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 161; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 2, p. 127; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 1, p. 362)


BARBER, Edward D., Middlebury, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-1840, 1840-1841.


BARBOUR, Isaac R., New York, New York, American Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1855-59.


BARBOUR, John N., Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1853-55.


BARD, David, U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania, opposed slavery, proposed a tax on slavery on February 14, 1804.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 82, 109; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)


BARKER, Joseph, 1806-1875, English clergyman, author, controversialist, lecturer, abolitionist.  Supporter of abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison.  Vice President of the Anti-Slavery Party, 1852-1859.  Moved permanently to the United States in 1857.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, opposed slavery in the House. 

(Larsen, 2006; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 93, 150; Annals of Congress; Dictionary of National Biography, London, 1885-1900)


BARKLEY, Thomas, New York, abolitionist leader

(Sorin, 1971)


BARNABY, James, W. Harwich, Massachusetts, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1833-40.


BARNES, B.H., Chelsea, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Treasurer, 1839-, Executive Committee, 1842-, Auditor, 1843-


BARNES, Marcus, New York, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


BARNETT, James, 1810-1875, Oneida, Madison county, New York.  Political leader.  Member, Liberty party, Republican Party, 1856.  Friend of abolitionist Gerrit Smith.

(New York Civil List)


BARNEY, Eliza, abolitionist

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 332)


BARROW, David, 1753-1819, Baptist clergyman, abolitionist, founded Portsmouth-Norfolk Church in 1795.  Had Black pastor assistant.  Had mixed race congregation.  President of the Kentucky Abolition Society.  Wrote: “Involuntary, Unlimited, Perpetual, Absolute, Hereditary Slavery Examined on the Principles of Nature, Reason, Justice, Policy, Scripture,” (1807), published Abolition Intelligencer and Missionary Magazine. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 90, 95, 133-134; Goodell, 1852; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 44, 90; Mason, 2006, pp. 171, 176)


BARRY, C. C., abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1835-37.


BARSTOW, Amos C., Providence, Rhode Island, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1861-64.


BARTLETT, Luther, Hartford, Connecticut, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-1853.


BASCOM, Bishop Henry Bidleman, 1796-1850, clergyman. Methodist pastor.  Wrote Methodism and Slavery, 1847.  Chaplain of Congress.  President of Madison College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania.  Active and successful agent for the American Colonization Society, 1829-1831. 

(Henkle, Life of Bascom, 1856; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 189-190; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 30-32)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 30-32:

BASCOM, HENRY BIDLEMAN (May 27, 1796-September 8, 1850), college president and Methodist bishop, was born at Hancock, New York, the son of Alpheus Bascom of French Huguenot stock and Hannah (Houk) Bascom of German ancestry. His parents were very poor, and it was only by the assistance of his mother's brother, after whom he was named, that he was enabled to attend school from his sixth to his twelfth year, at which time his education ended, so far as schools and teachers were concerned. His father moved to Little Valley in western New York in 1808, and it was while residing here that young Henry was converted and joined the Methodist Church at fifteen years of age. In 1812 the family moved to Maysville, Kentucky, on the southern bank of the Ohio River, but after only a short residence there they moved to the north side of the river and settled permanently in Brown County, Ohio. At an early age Bascom manifested unusual gifts for public speaking and leadership. He was given license to preach when he was only seventeen and the presiding elder immediately appointed him assistant to the pastor of the Brush Creek Circuit in bounds of which the country home of the Bascoms was located. When the Ohio Annual Conference met on September 1, 1813, Bascom was one of the ten young ministers "admitted on trial." The Methodist Circuits of those days embraced as a rule from twenty to thirty preaching places, each of which had preaching once a month. After spending three years on circuits in the Ohio Conference he was transferred to the Tennessee Conference (which at that time had within its bounds a considerable portion of Kentucky) and was appointed two years in succession to Danville, Kentucky, followed by two years at Louisville. When the Kentucky Annual Conference was organized in 1820, and took over the Kentucky territory then held by the Tennessee Conference, he became a member of the newly established conference, but after preaching for two years on large circuits, he was transferred back to the Ohio Conference and was put in charge for that year of the Brush Creek Circuit where he had begun his ministry nine years before. While pastor at Steubenville, Ohio, in 1823, he was, on the nomination of Henry Clay, elected chaplain to the Congress of the United States. During and following his residence in Washington, 1824-26, he traveled extensively and preached in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, making a profound impress ion by his oratory and drawing vast crowds wherever he went. He was next stationed for a short time at Pittsburgh and later at Uniontown, Pennsylvania; the seat of a newly organized Methodist school called Madison College, of which he was president from 1827 to 1829. He was agent for the American Colonization Society, 1829-31, during which time he traveled far and wide, pleading eloquently for the objects to be accomplished by that society. In 1832 he was elected professor of moral science in Augusta College, Kentucky, and was thereupon transferred from the Pittsburgh to the Kentucky Conference. Ten years later he was selected for the presidency of Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, which office he filled from 1842 until 1849, dividing his time after 1846, between duties in this university and his work on the new Southern Methodist Quarterly Review to the editorship of which he was elected by the General Conference of 1846. In the meantime, he had taken an active part in the trying struggle between the Northern and Southern delegates in the General Conference of 1844 over slavery, the outcome of which was the division of the Church. It was he who wrote, at the request of his fellow delegates from the South, the "Protest" of the southern representatives against the action of that Conference with reference to Bishop Andrew of Georgia, excluding him from the exercise of his episcopal office because his wife was a slaveholder. In the "Convention" that met at Louisville, in 1845, to consider and perfect the method and plans for the organization of the Southern Church he wrote the able report of the committee to whom this important matter was referred. These and other state papers showed that he was not only American Methodism's foremost pulpit orator, but one of her greatest ecclesiastical statesmen. In addition to his election as editor of the Quarterly Review, the General Conference of 1846 had made him chairman of the commission charged with arranging and settling with representatives of the Methodist Episcopal [Northern] Church all matters relating to, and growing out of, the division of the church. At the meeting of the second General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, held in St. Louis in May 1850, when it was decided that only one new bishop was needed, he was elected on the second ballot by a large majority. He lived to preside over only one Annual Conference, the St. Louis, which met at Independence, Missouri, on July 10, only six weeks after his ordination as bishop. Returning to his home at Lexington, Kentucky, he was taken ill in Louisville, where he died.

All his life Bascom was hampered and embarrassed by poverty, having early gone in debt to help support his father and family, who were always in financial straits. During one of the early years of his ministry he traveled 5,000 miles, preached 400 times, and received for the year's service only $12.10! His salary at the institutions which he served as professor or president was inadequate to his necessities. This in part accounts for his postponement of all thought of matrimony until late in life. On March 7, 1839, when he was nearly forty-three years of age, he was married to Miss Van Antwerp of New York City, by whom he had two children.

Bascom possessed the elements that go to make a great orator. Whenever and wherever he preached, he easily and powerfully swayed vast audiences, but his type of oratory, though well suited to impress the typical American of seventy-five or a hundred years ago, would doubt less be accounted too florid, rhetorical, and emotional to impress in an equal degree an audience of the present day.

His published works were: Methodism and Slavery (1847); two volumes of Sermons (1849), of which 20,000 copies were sold; Works in four volumes, published posthumously (1855).

[M. M. Henkle, Life of Bascom (1856); H. H. Kavanaugh, "Memoir" in Volume I of the bound copies of General Minutes of M. E. Church, South, pp. 8, 1-1 s; H. N. McTyeire, History of Methodism (1884), pp. 655-58; Gross Alexander, History of the M. E. Church, South (1894), pp. 60-61; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (1857- 69), VII, 534-40; Southern Methodist Quarterly Review for 1850 and 1852.

W.F.T.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 189-190:

BASCOM, Henry Bidleman, M. E. bishop, born in Hancock, Delaware county, New York, 27 May, 1796; died  in Louisville, Kentucky, 8 September, 1850. He was descended from a Huguenot family. He had but little education, but before the age of eighteen he was licensed to preach, and admitted to the Ohio conference, where he did hard work on the frontier, preaching in one year 400 times, and receiving a salary of $12.10. His style being too florid to suit the taste of those to whom he preached, he was transferred, in 1816, to Tennessee; but, after filling appointments there and in Kentucky, he returned to Ohio in 1822, and in 1823 Henry Clay obtained for him the appointment of chaplain to congress. At the close of the session of that body he visited Baltimore, where his fervid oratory made a great sensation. He was first president of Madison college, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1827-'8, and from 1829 till 1831 was agent of the colonization society. From that time until 1841 he was professor of moral science and belles-lettres at Augusta college, Kentucky. He became president of Transylvania university, Kentucky, in 1842, having previously declined the presidency of two other colleges. Dr. Bascom was a member of the general conference of 1844, which suspended Bishop Andrew because he refused to manumit his slaves; and the protest of the southern members against the action of the majority was drawn up by him. In 1845 he was a member of the Louisville convention, which organized the Methodist Church South, and was the author of its report; and he was chairman of the commission appointed to settle the differences between the two branches of the church. In 1846 he became editor of the “Southern Methodist Quarterly Review,” and in 1849 he was chosen bishop, being ordained in May, 1850, only a few months before his death. Dr. Bascom was a powerful speaker, but was fond of strong epithets and rather extravagant metaphors. He was the author of “Sermons from the Pulpit,” “Lectures on Infidelity,” “Lectures on Moral and Mental Science,” and “Methodism and Slavery.” A posthumous edition of his works was edited by Reverend T. N. Ralston (Nashville, Tennessee, 1850 and 1856). See “Life of Bishop Bascom,” by Reverend Dr. M. M. Henkle (Nashville, 1854). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 189-190.


BASCOM, Elisha, Shoreham, Vermont, abolitionist.  Manager, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. 

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


BASCOM, Flavel, Chicago, Illinois, co-founder of the Chicago chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).


BASSET, William, Lynn, Massachusetts, Society of Friends, Quaker, radical abolitionist, president Requited Labor Convention.  Member and manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839-1840, 1843-1853; Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1841, 1842-1846. 

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 157, 160, 178n, 159; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 73, 120, 121, 209, 210)


BASSETT, Richard, 1745-1815, founding father, political leader, lawyer, jurist, Revolutionary War soldier.  Delegate to the Continental Convention of 1787.  Governor of Delaware and senior U.S. Senator from Delaware during First Congress.  Strong advocate of anti-slavery cause.  Freed his slaves. 

(Conrad, 1908; Hoffecker, 2004; Martin, 1984; Martin, 1995; Munroe, 1954; Scharf, 1888: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 190-191; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, p. 39

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 190-191;

BASSETT, Richard, governor of Delaware, born in Delaware; died  in September, 1815. He was a lawyer, and a member of congress under the old confederation in 1787, and was also a member of the convention that framed the federal constitution. From 1789 to 1793 he was a U. S. senator, and was the first member that cast his vote in favor of locating the capital on the Potomac. Chosen presidential elector in 1797, he voted for John Adams; from 1798 till 1801 he was governor of his state. In 1801 and 1802 he was a U. S. circuit judge. His daughter became the wife of James A. Bayard, signer of the treaty of Ghent. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 190-191.


BASSETT, Thomas D., Barnestable, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1842-43.


BASSETT, William, Boston, Massachusetts, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40, 1843-53.


BASSETT, Zenas D., Barnstable, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1841-42


BATES, Abner, Syracuse, New York, American Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1858-59.


BATES, Edward, 1793-1869, Virginia, statesman, lawyer, Society of Friends, Quaker.  Congressman.  U.S. Attorney General, Lincoln’s cabinet.  Member, Free Labor Party, Missouri.  Anti-slavery activist. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 193; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 48-49)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 48-49:

BATES, EDWARD (September 4, 1793-March 25, 1869), statesman, was the son of Thomas Fleming Bates, a Virginia planter and merchant, who on August 8, 1771, had married Caroline Matilda Woodson. The young couple first lived in Henrico County and their three children were born. About 1776 the family moved to Goochland County, where a home called "Belmont" was established, and where nine more children were born, of whom Edward was the youngest. Thomas F. Bates fought as a volunteer soldier under Lafayette at the siege of Yorktown, but, as a Quaker, paid the price of this patriotic service by being read out of meeting. He also suffered heavy financial losses during the Revolutionary War and died leaving his family in straitened circumstances. Edward was taught to read and write by his father and at the age of ten was placed under the instruction of a cousin, Benjamin Bates of Hanover, Virginia, and by him was prepared to enter Charlotte Hall Academy in St. Mary's County, Maryland. He had hoped to attend Princeton, but a serious injury cut short his course at the academy and caused him to give up the idea of a college education. Through the influence of a relative, James Pleasants, a member of Congress, he was then appointed a midshipman in the navy; but because of his mother's objections he declined the appointment. In February 1813 he joined a volunteer militia company which was raised in Goochland County to assist in repelling a threatened attack on Norfolk; and he remained in the army until October, serving successively as private, corporal, and sergeant.

At the suggestion of his brother, Frederick Bates [q.v.], then secretary of Missouri Territory, Edward went out to St. Louis in 1814 and began the study of law under Rufus Easton, the foremost lawyer of the territory. In November 1816 he took out a license to practise law, and two years later formed a partnership with Joshua Barton, the brother of David Barton, one of the first United States senators from Missouri. The partnership continued until June 30, 1823, when Barton was killed in a duel. On May 29, 1823, Bates married Julia Davenport Coalter, the daughter of David Coalter, a South Carolinian who had moved to Missouri in 1817. She bore him seventeen children, eight of whom survived him.

Until he was elected to Congress in 1826, Bates held only minor public offices, though he had served acceptably as a member of the state constitutional convention of 1820, as attorney-general, and as a member of the state legislature. In the Twentieth Congress he was the sole representative of Missouri in the lower house, and already the choice of the Whig party for the United States Senate. The followers of Thomas H. Benton, however, had a majority in the state legislature, and Bates was defeated by a few votes. So strong was Jacksonian democracy in Missouri, indeed, that Bates was defeated for reelection to Congress in 1828. He was still regarded as the leader of his party, but he led a forlorn hope. About this time he moved to St. Charles County and located on a farm on Dardenne Prairie. He continued the practise of law, his services being in demand in all of the neighboring counties. There he remained until 1842 when he resumed practise in St. Louis. In 1830 he was elected to the state Senate, where he served for four years, and in 1834 was again elected to the Missouri House of Representatives. The door to more important offices seemed closed to him, but in 1847 his opportunity came. As president of the River and Harbor Improvement Convention which met at Chicago, he made an eloquent speech which attracted the attention of the public and made him a national figure (Niles' Register, LXXII, 366-67). In 1850 President Fillmore appointed him secretary of war, but for personal and domestic reasons he declined the appointment.

From this time on his views on social and constitutional questions and on national politics were sought and frequently expressed in speeches and newspaper articles. He opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, a stand which aligned him with the "free labor" party in Missouri, though he still considered himself a Whig and in 1856 acted as president of the Whig national convention which sat at Baltimore. He drew closer to the Republican party when he opposed the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. His upright and clear-headed course attracted nation-wide attention, and in 1858 Harvard University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D., an unusual honor for a Missourian of that day. Early in 1860 a Bates for president movement was launched in Missouri. His supporters contended that a Free-Soil Whig from a border state, if elected on the Republican ticket, would avert secession. The movement received the support of many leaders, particularly in the border states. But the decision of the national Republican committee to hold the convention at Chicago instead of at St. Louis was a serious setback to the Bates supporters and added strength to the candidacy of Lincoln. On the first ballot Bates received only 48 votes; on the second ballot 35; and on the third and deciding ballot only 22.

Soon after the Chicago convention Lincoln decided to offer Bates a cabinet position. Some of Bates's friends had urged, indeed, that he should be appointed secretary of state, but the President felt that the first place in the cabinet should go to Seward. He gave Bates his choice of any other cabinet position and the latter wisely chose that of attorney-general. He was the first cabinet officer to be chosen from the region west of the Mississippi River. For a time he had much influence in the cabinet. It was at his suggestion that the Navy Department began the equipment of a fleet on the Mississippi River. In the Trent affair, he urged that the question of legal rights be waived and that every effort be made to avert a war with Great Britain. He differed with Lincoln on the question of the admission of West Virginia to the Union. As attorney-general he filed an elaborate opinion in which he contended that the West Virginia Government represented and governed but a portion of the state of Virginia and that the movement for separate statehood was "a mere abuse, nothing less than attempted secession, hardly veiled under the flimsy forms of law."

From this time Bates's influence in the cabinet gradually waned. He disagreed with many of the military policies. He felt that as the war progressed constitutional rights were giving way before the encroachments of the military authorities. He resented the interference of Seward in matters which belonged to the attorney-general's office. He had little confidence in Stanton, Seward, or Chase, and he felt that Lincoln lacked the will-power to end what Bates considered abuses. In Missouri, moreover, the radical Republicans got control of the state government in 1864, and this meant the end of law in his home state. Weary of a cabinet position in which his views had little weight, and in the belief that he could best serve his country and his state as a private citizen, he tendered his resignation as attorney-general on November 24, 1864.

On January 6, 1865, a radical state constitutional convention assembled in St. Louis and drew up a new state constitution. It also passed an ordinance emancipating the slaves and an ouster ordinance, the intention of which was to place the state judiciary in the hands of the radicals. It also adopted a stringent test oath for voters. Bates fought the radicals by publishing a series of newspaper articles in which he pleaded for a government of law instead of a government of force. By many letters to prominent men all over the North he attempted to arouse them to the dangers of radical rule, insisting that the extreme radicals were nothing less than revolutionists who had seized upon the general zeal for putting down the rebellion and had perverted it into a means of destroying all government by law. This struggle against the Missouri radicals was his last great contest. A few months after his return to Missouri his health began to break. It steadily declined and on March 25, 1869, he died. In person Edward Bates was small. His early portraits show a strong countenance with clean cut features, piercing eyes, and a well-formed chin. Until middle life he was clean-shaven, but in his later years he wore a full beard. He was modest and unpretending, but a courageous fighter for law and justice.

[The largest collection of Bates papers, including letters and diary (June 3, 1846-December 25, 1852), is deposited with the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis. His diary (April 20, 1859-July 30, 1866) is deposited in the MS. Division of the Library of Congress See Charles Gibson, " Edward Bates," in Missouri Historical Society Collections, II, 52-56 (1900); F. W. Lehman, "Edward Bates and the Test Oath," Ibid., IV, 389- 401 (1923); " Letters of Edward Bates and the Blairs," Missouri Historical  Review, XI, 123-46 (1917); Nicolay and Hay,   Lincoln (1890); Gideon Welles, Diary (1911); Onward Bates, Bates, et al. of Virginia and Missouri (1914).]

T.M.M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 193:

BATES, Edward, statesman, born in Belmont. Goochland county, Virginia, 4 September, 1793; died  in St. Louis, Missouri, 25 March, 1869. He was of Quaker descent, and received most of his education at Charlotte Hall, Maryland, finishing under the care of a private tutor. In 1812 he received a midshipman's warrant, and was only prevented from going to sea by his mother's influence. From February till October, 1813, he served in the Virginia militia at Norfolk. His elder brother, Frederick Bates, having been appointed secretary of the new territory of Missouri, Edward emigrated thither in 1814, and soon entered upon the practice of law. As early as 1816 he was appointed prosecuting attorney for the St. Louis circuit, and in 1820 was elected a delegate to the state constitutional convention. Toward the close of the same year he was appointed attorney-general of the new state of Missouri, which office he held for two years. He was elected to the legislature in 1822, and in 1824 became state attorney for the Missouri district. About this time he became the political friend of Henry Clay. In 1826, while yet quite a young man, he was elected a representative in congress as an anti-democrat, serving but one term. For the next twenty-five years he devoted himself to his profession, but served in the legislature again in 1830 and 1834. In 1847 Mr. Bates was a delegate to the convention for internal improvement, held in Chicago, and here made a favorable impression upon the country at large. In 1850 President Fillmore offered him the portfolio of secretary of war, which he declined. Three years later he accepted the office of judge of the St. Louis land court. In 1836 he presided over the whig convention held in Baltimore. When the question of the repeal of the Missouri compromise was agitated, he earnestly opposed it, and thus became identified with the “free-labor” party in Missouri, opposing with them the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. Mr. Bates became more and more prominent as an anti-slavery man, until in 1859 he was mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. He was warmly supported by his own state, and for a time it seem that the opposition to Governor Seward might concentrate upon him. In the National republican convention of 1860 he received 48 votes on the 1st ballot; but when it became apparent that Mr. Lincoln was the favorite, his name was withdrawn. When Mr. Lincoln, after his election, decided upon selecting for his cabinet the leading men of the republican party, including those who had been his principal competitors, Mr. Bates was appointed attorney-general. In the cabinet he played a dignified, safe, and faithful, but not conspicuous, part. In 1864 he resigned his office and returned to his home in St. Louis. From this time he never again entered into active politics. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 193. 


BATES, Elisha, Mount Pleasant, Ohio, newspaper publisher, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist, aided fugitive slaves in Ohio. 

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 117, 128; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 136-137)


BATES, Merrit, Swanton, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40.


BAUMFREE, Isabella, see Truth, Sojourner


BAXTER, Porter, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Congressional Globe; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)


BAYARD, James Ashton, 1767-1815, statesman, diplomat, leader of Federalists, member of U.S. Congress from Delaware, opposed slavery as a member of U.S. House of Representatives.

(Appletons, 1888, Volume 1, pp. 196-197; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 64-66; Goodell, 1852, p. 97; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, p. 93, 171; Annals of Congress, 1795-1815)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 64-66:

BAYARD, JAMES ASH(E)TON (July 28, 1767-August 6, 1815), statesman, diplomat, was a leader among the Federalists of the United States during the first quarter-century. Of old Huguenot stock, he was descended from Petrus Bayard, whose mother Anna, widow of Samuel Bayard and sister of Peter Stuyvesant, came with three children on The Princess to New Amsterdam May 11, 1647. Petrus obtained land in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and his son Samuel in 1698 chose Bohemia Manor, Maryland, for his home. Here James, of the third generation, brought Mary Ashton, his wife, and here on August 11, 1738, the first James Ashton Bayard was born. He was a surgeon in Philadelphia until his death in Charleston, South Carolina, January 8, 1770. In 1760 he married Agnes Hodge, who on July 28, 1767, gave him a second son, James Ashton (as the name was originally spelled, although custom has fixed the modern spelling as Asheton).

At the death of his father, James Ashton Bayard was placed under the guardianship of his father's twin brother, John Bayard [q.v.] of Philadelphia, which continued until James's graduation from Princeton College, September 29, 1784. During these fourteen years, and especially after the death of his mother in 1774, his immediate surroundings did much to determine the young man's future. His education was essentially conservative, whether at Piqua in Lancaster County from his uncle, at Princeton, or in the circle of Pennsylvania society in which he moved. Upon the completion of his college work he studied law with Joseph Reed and after 1785 with Jared Ingersoll, each of whom strengthened the conservative tone of his earlier training. When, therefore, he was admitted to the New Castle bar in August 1787, and at Philadelphia in September, and began the practise of his profession at Wilmington the same year, he was welcomed as a useful member of the Federalist party. And when on February 11, 1795, he married Ann, daughter of Chief Justice Richard Bassett [q.v.] of Delaware, he acquired an important political and social position among the Federalist leaders.

The election of 1796 demonstrated Bayard's vote-getting ability in Delaware, sending him to the House of Representatives, which he entered May 15, 1797. An excellent opportunity to demonstrate his strength came soon after he had taken his seat. On July 3, 1797, Adams sent Congress a message and papers disclosing a plan of certain United States citizens to aid Britain in seizing Spanish territory in Louisiana. Earlier fears of a British attack in this section had been brought to the notice of Timothy Pickering, secretary of state since December 10, 1795, by the Spanish, but such intentions had been denied by the British minister. Now a letter of William Blount [q.v.], senator from Tennessee, to James Carey, interpreter to the Cherokee Indians, dated April 21, 1797, had come to light involving the British minister and Blount himself in the plan. The manuscripts were laid before Congress and Blount's guilt seemed plain. No one claimed his innocence, but Gallatin and other Republicans declared that as a senator he was exempt from impeachment. The real criminal, continued Gallatin, was Robert Liston, the British minister, or President Adams, who had had "improper understandings" with him. In this crisis Bayard managed the case against Blount so ably that the latter was expelled from the Senate in July 1797.

Bayard played a decisive part in the disputed presidential election of 1800 when the decision between Jefferson and Burr, both Republicans, was thrown into the House of Representatives. The Federalists, on the principle that any one was preferable to Jefferson, supported Burr for thirty-five inconclusive ballots. Then their leaders decided to shift to Jefferson if they could obtain from him certain assurances as to the future. Bayard's position as the most important Federalist in a border state, as well as his work for Federalist financial measures, 1798-1800, made him the most fitting negotiator for that impartial treatment desired by business interests as well as by office-holders in the National Government. His first approach was through John Nicholas, representative from Virginia and a particular friend of Jefferson. To him Bayard stated that "if certain points of the future administration could be understood and arranged with Mr. Jefferson ... three states would withdraw from any opposition to his election." They sought only assurance of support for the public credit, the maintenance of the naval system, and security for minor office-holders in their government positions. "I explained," continued Bayard, "that I considered it not only reasonable but necessary, that offices of high discretion and confidence should be filled by men of Mr. Jefferson's choice." In the latter group he placed cabinet officers, and as examples of the former he mentioned collectors at ports of entry. He was assured by Nicholas that the points seemed reasonable, and that Jefferson with the men about him would undoubtedly be of the same opinion. Bayard replied that he "wanted an engagement," and if this were conceded by Jefferson, "the election should be ended." He was unable to obtain a direct promise from Nicholas, but in his deposition of April 3, 1806 (Bayard Papers, pp. 128-29), he states that General Samuel Smith took the same three points to the Virginian and was authorized by Jefferson "to say that they corresponded with his views and intentions and that he might confide in him accordingly." Although no Federalist voted for Jefferson, by absence or refusing to vote "the opposition of Vermont, Maryland, South Carolina and Delaware was immediately withdrawn and Mr. Jefferson was made President by the votes of ten states," on the thirty-sixth ballot (Bayard's letter of February 17, 1801, pub. in Niles' Weekly Register, November 16, 1822). Shortly afterward, Bayard wrote to President Adams declining the proffered ministry to France as he would have to hold it during Jefferson's term to make it worth while, and if he did so he would be accused of having made an agreement with him.

In the discussions of "the judiciary reform measure" of 1801 and its repeal, Bayard ably defended the Federalist position. The fact that his father-in-law, Richard Bassett, was one of the new judges involved, was unnecessarily invoked to explain his stand. The personal factor may have added vigor to his words, but Bayard's belief in the need for the law and in the increased importance it gave to Delaware (Bayard to Bassett, January 25, 1800) as well as his conviction that the repeal was "a most flagrant violation of the Constitution" and "prostrated the independence of the judicial power," were in all probability quite genuine.

Bayard's work in the Senate began January 15, 1805, and continued until May 3, 1813. Much of his time was occupied with legal business, for while he disagreed thoroughly with the administration which "distinguishes itself only by its weakness and hypocrisy," he was equally certain that "no Federal prescription" would ever be taken to end the "political malady" of the period (to Andrew Bayard April 2, 1805; January 30, 1806; Bayard Papers, pp. 164-65). Sane and moderate in his views, Bayard strove to uphold the dignity of his country against Britain or France as readily as he opposed the fitting out of the Miranda Expedition against Spain in 1806. A stanch believer in the superior abilities of an educated leadership, he was willing to subordinate himself if he could thereby be useful. An excellent illustration of Bayard's position was his national service under a hostile administration before and during the War of 1812. In 1808 he was willing to give Gallatin the credit of securing the renewal of the charter of the United States Bank expiring in 18u, or to join in obtaining a charter for a new one. The former was his preference, but during 1810-11 when renewal seemed impossible Bayard willingly served as chairman of the committee to secure a charter for a new institution. Defeated at this time by the vote of Vice-President Clinton, Bayard sought to keep the nation from the war into which she seemed to be drifting. He had little confidence in Napoleon's promises and saw clearly that Britain could not be coerced by commercial regulations (Bayard to Andrew Bayard July 3, 1809; March 5, 1811; to Wells January 12, 1812; Bayard Papers, pp. 177,179,188). He therefore joined Adams in urging that United States vessels be allowed to defend themselves and was pleased when our war-ships did so in the skirmishes with the Barbary States. He advised Federalist agreement in defensive measures and earnest support for all acts strengthening the army and navy. As late as May 2, 1812, he hoped the fear of additional free states from conquered Canada might induce the South to favor a naval war with Britain rather than land campaigns, a hope which had an unexpected measure of fulfilment in the war which followed. During this war Bayard is said to have "helped with his own hands to build a fort almost on the site of Fort Christina," the old Swedish fortress of 1638. Meanwhile necessity compelled the Republican leaders to abandon many of the methods used by Jefferson to obtain popularity. This brought Bayard and the President more in harmony as to the means of carrying on the war. A careful and judicious man devoted to his nation as well as to family and friends, Bayard was regarded as representing at this time both Federalist and Republican sentiment. The death of his sister Jane, September 30, 1809, after serious mental derangement requiring much care from Bayard, allowed him more time for national service in those trying years, while his wife, who survived him until 1854, helped her husband during the war period by assuming many of the family cares.

With the European crisis of 1813 and the ability of the United States to maintain her rights upon the sea demonstrated, both Britain and the United States wished peace. Adams, Bayard, and Albert Gallatin, from different sections of the country, were appointed by President Madison to represent the United States. Bayard sailed from New Castle, Delaware, on May 9, 1813. By August 1814 when the representatives of the two nations met at Ghent, Napoleon had been captured, three armies had been sent to America, and Castlereagh, British foreign secretary, was willing to show the contempt he felt for the United States. A description of the negotiations is out of place here. Suffice it to say that eventually a treaty resulted, giving to neither party what it proposed but securing for the United States the control of the Mississippi River, eliminating from discussion certain questions which time alone could settle and others which the war itself had decided. In Bayard's opinion no power in Europe would soon disturb America again (Papers, pp. 366-67). On February 27, 1815, Bayard was nominated minister to Russia, but he declined the position as he considered his services at that court unnecessary. His diplomatic ability was recognized in 1814-15, when he was chosen to continue with Adams, Clay, and Gallatin in negotiations for a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. Ill health prevented the completion of this mission, and on June 18, 1815, Bayard sailed from England for Wilmington, where he died six days after his arrival.

[The papers of James A. Bayard, American Historical Ass. Reports, 1913, II (1915), ed. by Elizabeth Donnan, and referred to as Bayard Papers; Bayard's letters to Cesar A. Rodney in Delaware Historical Society Papers for 1909 (XXXI); Massachusetts Historical Society Proc., December 1914; J. T. Scharf, History of Delaware (1888); J. G. Wilson, Colonel John Bayard and the Bayard Family (1885); Annals of Congress, 1795-1815; Aurora General Advertiser, and Aurora (Philadelphia, 1795- 1818); the more general histories of the United States, especially those by Adams, Hildreth, McMaster, and Schouler; Writings of John Quincy Adams; Works of John Adams; Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin; Works of Alexander Hamilton; Writings of Thomas Jefferson; Writings of James Madison.]

C.H. L-n.,

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography  Volume 1, pp. 196-197:

BAYARD, James Asheton, statesman, born in Philadelphia, 28 July, 1767; died  in Wilmington, Delaware, 6 August, 1815. He was the son of Dr. James Asheton Bayard, and nephew of Colonel John Bayard, into whose family he was adopted after his father's death, which occurred on 8 June, 1770. He was graduated at Princeton in 1784, studied law under General Joseph Reed and Jared Ingersoll, was admitted to the bar in 1787, and settled in Wilmington, Delaware, where he acquired a high reputation. In 1796 he was elected a representative in congress as a federalist. He was distinguished as an orator and constitutional lawyer and became a leader of the party in the house. In 1797 he distinguished himself by his management of the impeachment of William Blount, of North Carolina, who was expelled from the senate for instigating the Creeks and Cherokees to assist the English in their aim of conquering the Spanish possessions in Louisiana. In 1801, when the choice between Burr and Jefferson in the undecided presidential election of 1800 devolved upon the house of representatives, Bayard stood at the head of the federalists, and his influence, combined with that of Alexander Hamilton, contributed chiefly to bring about the election of Jefferson. President Adams appointed him minister to France before the accession of the new administration in 1801, and the senate confirmed the nomination, but the appointment was declined. In the 8th congress, which met 7 December, 1801, he opposed, with great force, on constitutional grounds, the repeal of the judiciary, bill, enacted by federalist votes in the preceding session. He served in the house of representatives from 15 May, 1797, till 3 March, 1803. In 1804 he was chosen the successor of William Hill Wells when the latter resigned his seat as representative of Delaware in the U. S. senate. He sat in the senate from 15 January, 1805, to 3 March, 1813, and opposed the declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812. In 1813 he was selected by President Madison joint commissioner with Albert Gallatin (who was afterward rejected by the senate), and John Quincy Adams, to conclude a peace with Great Britain, through the mediation of Russia. He left Philadelphia 8 May, 1813, and met his fellow-commissioner, Mr. Adams, at that time envoy to Russia, at St. Petersburg in July of that year. After the refusal of Great Britain to treat at St. Petersburg, he was included in the new commission, constituted 18 January, consisting, besides himself and John Q. Adams, of Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell, Albert Gallatin being added in the following month. Going to Holland, he took a prominent part in the negotiations that resulted in the treaty of peace signed at Ghent, 24 December, 1814. He received the appointment of minister to the court of St. Petersburg, but declined the mission, declaring that he had no desire to serve the administration except where his services were necessary for the good of the country. When about to proceed to London to continue the work of the commission which included the negotiation of a treaty of commerce, he was taken alarmingly ill and returned home, only to die immediately after his arrival. His wife, daughter of Governor Richard Bassett, of Delaware, died 10 December, 1854, aged seventy-six. Senator Bayard's speech on the foreign intercourse bill was published in 1798, and another on the repeal of the judiciary bill in a volume of the speeches of 1802. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 196-197.


BAYARD, Samuel, 1767-1840, Princeton, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, jurist, Member of the New Jersey state legislature.  Vice-President, American Colonization Society, 1833-1841.
 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 199; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 69-70; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 69-70:

BAYARD, SAMUEL (January 11, 1767-May 11, 1840), jurist, was born in Philadelphia, fourth son of John Bayard [q.v.] and Margaret Hodge [for ancestry see James Ashton Bayard]. He was one of a large family of children brought up in a hospitable home where leading men of the period were entertained. At the time of the Revolutionary War, his father early allied himself with the American cause, and Philadelphia consequently was no longer a safe home for his family. For a few years it was a roving life for the boy Samuel; now at the old manor house in Maryland where aged family slaves were still cared for, now in Philadelphia, and now back again to the farm on the Schuylkill where a cottage was fitted up as a school-room and a teacher secured for the Bayard children and those of a few neighbors. A much interrupted education must have been his but it proved sufficient to permit his graduation from Princeton as valedictorian of his class at the age of seventeen. He studied law with William Bradford and became his law partner, practising law in Philadelphia for seven years. In August 1790 he married Martha Pintard of New Rochelle, New York, daughter of Lewis Pintard and Susan (Stockton) Pintard. The following year he was appointed clerk of the United States Supreme Court. When a man was wanted to prosecute United States claims before the British admiralty courts, following the ratification of Jay's treaty with Great Britain, November 19, 1794, Washington chose Bayard to act as the agent of the United States. For four years he with his family was in London in this capacity. The results of his official endeavors indicate the success of his efforts. He with his associates obtained from the British Government, for losses sustained by citizens from illegal and unauthorized captures of their ships on the high seas by English cruisers, the sum of $10,345,000.

When Bayard returned to the United States, he spent several years in New Rochelle and served as presiding judge of Westchester County under appointment of Governor Jay. In 1803 he removed to New York City and resumed his law practise there. The following year, the New York Historical Society was founded, and Bayard was "a hearty cooperator in establishing this Association." He presented to the society "that remarkable series of MSS., the Journals of the House of Commons during the Protectorate of Cromwell." In 1806 he purchased an estate in Princeton where he lived for nearly forty years. During this time he was widely identified with affairs of community, county, and state. He was a trustee of Princeton College and its treasurer for many years and was one of the founders of Princeton Theological Seminary. For a considerable period he was a presiding judge of the court of common pleas of Somerset County, and he served for several years in the legislature of New Jersey. In 1814 he suffered defeat as a Federalist candidate for Congress. For many years he was a delegate to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church; he aided with generous hand St. Clement's Episcopal Church in New York City, of which his eldest son, Reverend Lewis Pintard Bayard, was pastor; and for thirty years he contributed to various religious periodicals. He published a funeral oration on General Washington (1800); A Digest of American Cases on the Law of Evidence, Intended as Notes to Peake's Compendium (1810); An Abstract of the Laws of the United States which Relate to the Duties and Authority of Judges of Inferior State Courts and Justices of the Peace (1834); Letters on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (1825).

[J. G. Wilson, Colonel John Bayard and the Bayard Family (1885); Judge Bayard of New Jersey and His London Diary of I795-96, ed. by J. G. Wilson; F. B. Lee, Genealogy and Memorial History of the State of New York, IV (1910), 1543.]

A.E.P.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 199:

BAYARD, Samuel, jurist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 11 January, 1767; died  in Princeton, New Jersey, 12 May, 1840. He was the fourth son of Colonel John Bayard, and was graduated at Princeton in 1784, delivering the valedictory oration. He studied law with William Bradford, whose law-partner he became, and practised for seven years in Philadelphia. In 1791 he was appointed clerk of the U. S. supreme court. After the ratification of Jay's treaty with Great Britain, signed 19 November, 1794, he was appointed by Washington agent of the United States to prosecute American claims before the British admiralty courts, and in that capacity he lived in London four years. After his return he resided several years at New Rochelle, New York, and while there was appointed by Governor Jay presiding judge of Westchester county. In 1803 he removed to New York city, and resumed the practice of law. He was one of the founders of the New York historical society, organized in 1804. In 1806 he purchased an estate at Princeton, New Jersey. For several years he was a member of the New Jersey legislature, and for a long period presiding judge of the court of common pleas of Somerset county He was interested in religious enterprises, was one of the founders of Princeton theological seminary, and joined with Elias Boudinot in establishing the American Bible society and the New Jersey Bible society. In 1814 he was nominated by the federalists for congress, but was defeated. He published a funeral oration on General Washington (New Brunswick, 1800); “A Digest of American Cases on the Law of Evidence, intended as Notes to Peake's Compendium” (Philadelphia, 1810); “An Abstract of the Laws of the United States which relate to the Duties and Authority of Judges of Inferior State Courts and Justices of the Peace” (New York, 1834); and “Letters on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper” (Philadelphia, 1825; 2d ed., 1840). See “Samuel Bayard and his London Diary, 1791-'4,” by General Jas. Grant Wilson (Newark, 1885). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 199.



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

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.