Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

< Portal:American Civil War

To-do list for Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography:

edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:

1 Instructions
2 Selected articles list
3 Nominations

[edit] Instructions

The layout design for these subpages is at Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/Layout.

Add a new Selected biography to the next available subpage.
- Only biography articles that have been given a "B" class rating or higher should be added.
The "blurb" for all selected biographies should be approximately 10 lines, for appropriate formatting in the portal main page.
This portal uses a dynamic queue, and this Selected biography section is rotated weekly. After display, the selection is archived here.

[edit] Selected articles list

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/1

George Brinton McClellan (December 3, 1826 – October 29, 1885) was a major general during the American Civil War. He organized the famous Army of the Potomac and served briefly (November 1861 to March 1862) as the general-in-chief of the Union Army. After his military service, he was an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States in 1864 and was a Democratic Party politician, who served as the 24th Governor of New Jersey from 1878-1881.

Early in the war, McClellan played an important role in raising a well-trained and organized army for the Union. However, although McClellan was meticulous in his planning and preparations, these attributes may have hampered his ability to challenge aggressive opponents in a fast-moving battlefield environment. He chronically overestimated the strength of enemy units and was reluctant to apply principles of mass, frequently leaving large portions of his army unengaged at decisive points.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/2

Pierre Gustave Toutant de Beauregard (May 28, 1818 – February 20, 1893), best known as a general for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, was also a writer, civil servant, and inventor. He was the first prominent Confederate general, commanding the defenses of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Battle of Fort Sumter, and was the victor at the First Battle of Bull Run. He commanded armies in the Western Theater for the Battle of Shiloh and Siege of Corinth. His arguably greatest achievement was in saving the city of Petersburg, Virginia (and thus, also the Confederate capital of Richmond) from assaults by overwhelmingly superior Union Army forces in June 1864. However, his influence over Confederate strategy was marred by his poor professional relationships with President Jefferson Davis and other senior generals and officials.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/3

Allan Pinkerton (August 25, 1819 – July 1, 1884) was a U.S. detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton Agency, the first detective agency. Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to William Pinkerton and his wife Isabell, in 1819. Prior to his service with the Union Army, he developed several investigative techniques that are still used today. Among them are "shadowing" (surveillance of a suspect) and "assuming a role" (undercover work). Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Pinkerton served as head of the Union Intelligence Service in 1861–62 and foiled an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland, while guarding Abraham Lincoln on his way to his inauguration. His agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers, in an effort to gather military intelligence. Pinkerton served several undercover missions under the alias of Major E.J. Allen.

Following Pinkerton's service with the Union Army, he continued his pursuit of train robbers and also sought to stem the infiltration of secret terrorist labor organizations. Pinkerton died in Chicago, Illinois on July 1, 1884 as a result of infection after biting his tongue when he slipped on a sidewalk. At the time of his death, he was working on a system that would centralize all criminal identification records, a database now maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Buried in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Pinkerton is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/4

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist, the first white abolitionist to advocate and to practice insurrection as a means to the abolition of slavery. He has been called "the most controversial of all nineteenth-century Americans." His attempt to start a liberation movement among enslaved blacks in Virginia in 1859 electrified the nation. He was tried for treason (to the state of Virginia) and hanged, but his behavior at the trial seemed heroic to millions of Americans.

Brown first gained attention when he led small bands of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis. Unlike other Northerners, who advocated peaceful resistance to the pro-slavery faction, Brown demanded violent action. His belief in confrontation led him to murder five pro-slavery southerners in what became known as the Pottawatomie Massacre in May 1856. Brown's most famous deed was the 1859 raid he led on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (in modern-day West Virginia). Brown's subsequent capture by federal forces, his trial for treason to the state of Virginia, and his execution by hanging were an important part of the origins of the American Civil War, which followed sixteen months later. His role and actions prior to the Civil War, as an abolitionist, and what tactics he chose still makes him a controversial personality today.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/5

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. Most famous for his audacious Valley Campaign of 1862 and as a corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee, he was accidentally shot by his own troops at the battle of Chancellorsville and died of complications several days later.

Military historians consider Jackson to be one of the most gifted tactical commanders in United States history. His Valley Campaign and his envelopment of the Union Army right wing at Chancellorsville are studied worldwide even today as examples of innovative and bold leadership. He excelled as well at the First Battle of Bull Run (where he received his famous nickname), Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. Jackson was not universally successful as a commander, however, as displayed by his weak and confused efforts during the Seven Days Battles around Richmond in 1862. His death was a severe setback for the Confederacy, affecting not only its military prospects, but the morale of its army and the general public; as Jackson lay dying, General Robert E. Lee stated, "He has lost his left arm; I have lost my right."

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/6

David Dixon Porter (June 8, 1813 – February 13, 1891) was a United States admiral who became one of the most noted naval heroes of the Civil War. Porter was one of the first U.S. Navy officers to bear the rank of admiral; prior to the Civil War, no officer had held a rank higher than commodore, as admiral was considered to have royalist connotations. Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, Porter was the son of Commodore David Porter, USN (1780–1843), a hero of the War of 1812; brother-in-law of Carlile Pollock Patterson; foster brother of David G. Farragut; cousin of Fitz John Porter; and brother-in-law of Confederate general Thomas A. Harris. He started his sea career as a cadet in the Mexican Navy in 1826, then attended Columbia College in New York. He entered the U.S. Navy as Midshipman on February 2, 1829.

After serving in the Mexican-American War, Porter joined the Navy's Gulf Squadron in command of the USS Powhatan. Promoted to commander on April 22, 1861, and to captain on February 7, 1863, Porter took part in the 1862 expedition up the Mississippi River against New Orleans, in command of 21 mortar boats and several steamers. Aboard his flagship, USS Black Hawk, he commanded the Mississippi River Squadron during the Vicksburg Campaigns in 1862–63 and during the Red River Campaign in 1864. Porter was conspicuous in the siege of Vicksburg, was wounded in his head during the amphibious operations at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, on April 20, 1863, and received promotion to rear admiral on July 4, 1863, the day of the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg. He received the Thanks of Congress in April 1864, "for all the eminent skill, endurance, and gallantry exhibited by him and his squadron, in cooperation with the Army, in the opening of the Mississippi River."

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/7

Alexander Hamilton Stephens (February 11, 1812 – March 4, 1883) was Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Born near Crawfordville, Taliaferro County, Georgia, Stephens grew up poor and acquired his education through the generosity of several benefactors. He attended the Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in Athens, where he was roommates with Crawford W. Long. He graduated at the top of his class in 1832. As a national lawmaker during the crucial two decades before the Civil War, Stephens was involved in all the major sectional battles. He began as a moderate defender of slavery, but later accepted all of the prevailing Southern rationales used to defend the institution.

On the brink of the Civil War, Stephens gave his famous Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861. In it he reaffirmed that "African Slavery ... was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution". He went on to assert that "...(Jefferson's) ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. ... Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner–stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.", and also: "With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system."

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/8

Harriet Tubman (c. 1820 – 10 March 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the U.S. Civil War. After escaping from captivity, she made thirteen missions to rescue over three hundred slaves using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women's suffrage.

When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid on the Combahee River, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African-Americans she had helped open years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/9

Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career U.S. Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close association with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who transferred Sheridan from command of an infantry division in the Western Theater to lead the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac in the East. In 1864, he defeated Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley and his destruction of the economic infrastructure of the Valley, called "The Burning" by residents, was one of the first uses of scorched earth tactics in the war. In 1865, his cavalry pursued Gen. Robert E. Lee and was instrumental in forcing his surrender at Appomattox.

Sheridan prosecuted the latter years of the Indian Wars of the Great Plains, tainting his reputation with some historians, who accuse him of racism and genocide. Both as a soldier and private citizen, he was instrumental in the development and protection of Yellowstone National Park.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/10

James Ewell Brown Stuart (February 6, 1833 – May 12, 1864) was an American soldier from Virginia and a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb".

Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use of cavalry in offensive operations. While he cultivated a cavalier image (red-lined gray cape, yellow sash, hat cocked to the side with a peacock feather, red flower in his lapel, often sporting cologne), his serious work made him Robert E. Lee's eyes and ears and inspired Southern morale. He was killed in May 1864 during the Overland Campaign, at the Battle of Yellow Tavern.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/11

William Henry Seward, Sr. (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Seward was born in Florida, New York, a community (which since has incorporated as a village) in Orange County, New York. He was elected United States Senator from New York from 1849 through 1861. With the decline in the fortunes of the Whig Party, Seward joined the Republican Party in 1855 and was reelected senator from New York. By this time Seward had moderated his views and became less associated with the group known as the Radical Republicans. Seward lost the presidential nomination to John C. Frémont in 1856. He was expected to get the nomination in 1860 but many of the delegates feared that his radical past would prevent him from winning the election.

Abraham Lincoln appointed him Secretary of State in 1861 and he served until 1869. As Secretary of State, he fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska which he finally negotiated to acquire from Russia for $7,200,000 on March 30, 1867.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/12

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, born (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an abolitionist and writer of more than 13 books, the most famous being Uncle Tom's Cabin which describes life in slavery, and which was first published in serial form from 1851 to 1852 in an abolitionist organ, the National Era, edited by Gamaliel Bailey. Although Stowe herself had never been to the American South, she subsequently published A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, a non-fiction work documenting the veracity of her depiction of the lives of slaves in the original novel. Her second novel was Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp: another anti-slavery novel.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/13

Braxton Bragg (March 22, 1817 – September 27, 1876) was a career U.S. Army officer and a general in the Confederate States Army, a principal commander in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. Born in Warrenton, North Carolina, the younger brother of future Confederate Attorney General Thomas Bragg, Braxton Bragg graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, served in the Second Seminole War in Florida and Mexican-American War, earning a reputation for being a strict disciplinarian and one who adhered to regulations literally.

Initially a colonel of state militia, Bragg quickly rose to one of the Confederacy's eight full generals, commanding the invasion of Kentucky in 1862, at Stone's River, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga. Despite the close and full support of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Bragg proved a rash and unsuccessful field commander who often developed personal conflicts with officers under his command.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/14

Winfield Scott (June 13, 1786 – May 29, 1866) was a United States Army general, diplomat, and presidential candidate. Known as "Old Fuss and Feathers" and the "Grand Old Man of the Army", he served on active duty as a general longer than any other man in American history and most historians rate him the ablest American commander of his time. Over the course of his fifty-year career, he commanded forces in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and, briefly, the American Civil War, conceiving the Union strategy known as the Anaconda Plan that would be used to defeat the Confederacy.

A national hero after the Mexican-American War, he served as military governor of Mexico City. Such was his stature that, in 1852, the United States Whig Party passed over its own incumbent President of the United States, Millard Fillmore, to nominate Scott in the U.S. presidential election. Scott lost to Democrat Franklin Pierce in the general election, but remained a popular national figure, receiving a brevet promotion in 1856 to the rank of lieutenant general, becoming the first American since George Washington to hold that rank.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/15

General Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, GMCG, CB (November 1835 – 25 September 1901) was a British soldier, a member of Her Majesty's Coldstream Guards, known for being a notable British witness to the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. While in the rank of lieutenant colonel he spent three months (from April 2 until July 16, 1863) in the Confederate States of America. Contrary to popular belief, Colonel Fremantle was not an official representative of the United Kingdom; instead, he was something of a tourist.

Upon returning to England, he wrote a book on his experiences in America, Three Months in the Southern States, which was published three months before the end of the war. The book predicted a certain Southern victory. A young man, Fremantle married upon his return and embarked upon several years of military service in the later part of the nineteenth century, including a mission to the Sudan. His career ended on a high note, seeing service as Governor-General of Malta between 1894 and 1899. General Fremantle died on the Isle of Wight at the age of 65. On the centenary of his funeral, a ceremony marking the restoration of his grave in Brighton was conducted by his descendants and Civil War reenactors from the United States.

In Michael Shaara's historical novel The Killer Angels, concerning the events of the Battle of Gettysburg, Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle appears as an important character, providing a neutral (if sympathetic) viewpoint on the struggle for Southern independence. In the 1993 film adaptation of the novel, retitled Gettysburg, Fremantle is played by the actor James Lancaster. In both versions of the story, Fremantle is a genial, if somewhat naive, observer who engages in important discussions with General Longstreet and his officers on the Confederacy's relations with the United Kingdom.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/16

Rose O'Neal Greenhow (1817–October 1, 1864) was a renowned Confederate spy. As a leader in Washington, D.C. society during the period prior to the American Civil War, she traveled in important political circles and cultivated friendships with presidents, generals, senators, and high-ranking military officers, using her connections to pass along key military information to the Confederacy at the start of the war. Born in the Port Tobacco, Maryland, as Maria Rosatta O'Neale and orphaned as a child, Greenhow was invited to live with her aunt in Washington, D.C. as a teenager. Her aunt ran a stylish boarding house at the Old Capitol building, and Greenhow was introduced to important figures in the Washington area. When she was a young woman, Greenhow was considered beautiful, educated, loyal, compassionate, and refined. Nicknamed "Wild Rose," many were surprised when she accepted a marriage proposal from Dr. Robert Greenhow. Greenhow served as her mentor during the early part of their marriage.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/17

Abner Doubleday (June 26, 1819 – January 26, 1893), was a career U.S. Army officer and Union general. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter, the opening battle of the war, and had a pivotal role in the early fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg might have been his finest hour, but his relief by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade caused lasting enmity between the two men. In San Francisco, California, after the war, Doubleday obtained a patent on the cable car railway that still runs there. In his final years in New Jersey, he was a prominent member and later president of the Theosophical Society. Doubleday published two important works on the Civil War: Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie (1876), and Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (1882), the latter being a volume of the series Campaigns of the Civil War.

Doubleday's most lasting claim to fame is that some believe he should be credited with the invention of baseball, although he himself made no such claim. Doubleday Field is a minor league baseball stadium named for Abner Doubleday, located in Cooperstown near the Baseball Hall of Fame. It hosts the annual Hall of Fame Game, originally between "old-timers" teams, but currently an exhibition game between two major league teams.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/18

John Bankhead Magruder (May 1, 1807 – February 19, 1871) was a career military officer who served in the armies of three nations. He was a U.S. Army officer in the Mexican-American War, a Confederate general during the American Civil War, and a postbellum general in the Imperial Mexican Army. Known as "Prince John" to his army friends, Magruder was most noted for his actions in delaying Federal troops during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign and in successfully defending Galveston, Texas, against the Union Army and Navy early in 1863. After the war, Magruder fled to Mexico and entered the service of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico as a major general in the Imperial Mexican Army. However, by May 1867, the emperor's forces had succumbed to a siege and the emperor had been executed. Magruder returned to the United States and settled in Houston, Texas, where he died in 1871. He is buried in the Episcopal Cemetery at Galveston, the scene of his greatest military success.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/19

Charles Francis Adams (August 18, 1807 – November 21, 1886), the son of President John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Johnson-Adams, was an American lawyer, politician, diplomat and writer. Born in Boston, and attended Boston Latin School and Harvard College, where he graduated in 1825, Adams then studied law with Daniel Webster, practiced in Boston, and became known as a writer of works about American and British history for the North American Review. Elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1831, Adams served in the state senate, was the unsuccessful nominee of the Free Soil Party for Vice President of the United States in 1848, and as a Republican Adams was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1858, resigning to become Lincoln's minister (ambassador) to the Court of St. James (Britain) from 1861 to 1868.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/20

Edwin Cole Bearss (born June 26, 1923), a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of World War II, is a military historian and author notable for his work on the American Civil War and World War II eras and is an extremely popular tour guide of historic battlefields. Born in Billings, Montana, Bearss enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, and afterwards attended Georgetown University on the G.I. Bill, eventually gaining his masters in history from Indiana University.

Bearss served the National Park Service for over 40 years, the last fourteen as the service's chief historian. Published widely and even after retirement maintaining an active career as a battlefield guide, Bearss is perhaps most recognized for his interview segments in Ken Burns' acclaimed public television documentary mini-series "The Civil War."

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/21

Raphael Semmes (September 27, 1809 – August 30, 1877) was an officer in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1860 and the Confederate States Navy from 1860 to 1865. During the American Civil War he was captain of the famous commerce raider CSS Alabama, taking a record fifty-five prizes. Late in the war he was promoted to admiral and also served briefly as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army.

Semmes was born in Charles County, Maryland, the cousin of future Confederate general Paul Jones Semmes. He entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1826. While serving in the navy, he studied law and was admitted to the bar. During the Mexican-American War, he commanded the brig USS Somers in the Gulf of Mexico. The ship was lost in a storm off of Vera Cruz, Mexico, in December 1846. Semmes was commended for his actions during the loss of the Somers.

After the war, Semmes went on extended leave at Mobile, Alabama, where he practiced law. He was promoted to the rank of commander in 1855 and was assigned to lighthouse duties until 1860. When Alabama seceded from the Union, Semmes resigned from the United States Navy and sought an appointment from the Confederate States Navy.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/22

Ambrose Everett Burnside (May 23, 1824 – September 13, 1881) was a railroad executive, an industrialist, and a politician from Rhode Island, serving as governor and a U.S. Senator. As a Union Army general in the American Civil War, he was defeated in the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg. Born in Liberty, Indiana, Burnside graduated from the U.S. Military Academy, in 1847, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery. He accompanied Braxton Bragg's Battery throughout the Mexican-American War, and with it entered Mexico City.

Personally, Burnside was always very popular—both in the army and in politics—but he was out of his depth as a senior army commander, a fact no one knew better than Burnside himself. Knowing his capabilities, he twice refused command of the Army of the Potomac until finally being forced under orders to accept it. And despite bitter disappointments in high command, he willingly and loyally served his country in lesser roles for the remainder of the war.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/23

Luke Pryor Blackburn (June 16, 1816 – September 14, 1887) was a doctor and philanthropist who, despite only meager previous political experience, served as Governor of Kentucky from 1879 to 1883. He spent much of his life combating yellow fever in the southern states and is credited with establishing the first successful quarantine against the spread of the disease in the Mississippi River valley.

Blackburn was the first doctor elected governor of the Commonwealth and was the only one until the election of Ernie Fletcher in 2003. His major issue as governor was prison reform. He was called the "father of prison reforms in Kentucky" for his efforts in improving conditions in the state's penal system.

One incident stands in dark contrast to the rest of Blackburn's life. During the Civil War, he deliberately shipped trunks of clothing and linens contaminated with yellow fever to Northern cities in order to begin a pandemic of the disease and cripple the Union economy. Though it was later discovered that mosquitos are responsible for the spread of yellow fever, the plot is believed to be one of the earliest attempts at biological warfare in the United States.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/24

Barbara Fritchie (nee Hauer), also known as Barbara Frietchie, and sometimes spelled Frietschie, (December 3, 1766 – December 18, 1862) was an American patriot during the Civil War. She was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and married John Casper Fritchie, a glove maker, on May 6, 1806.

She was a friend of Francis Scott Key and they participated together in a memorial service at Frederick, Maryland, when George Washington died. A central figure in the history of Frederick, she lived in a house that was to become a stop on the town's walking tour. In stories it is said that at 95 years of age she waved the Union flag out of her window despite opposition from Stonewall Jackson's troops, who were passing through Frederick in the Maryland Campaign. This event is the subject of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem of 1864, Barbara Frietchie. When Winston Churchill passed through Frederick in 1943, he stopped at the house and recited the poem from memory.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/25

Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (May 3, 1816 – January 2, 1892) was a career U.S. Army officer, civil engineer, construction engineer for a number of facilities in Washington, D.C., and Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army during and after the American Civil War. His management of the immense logistical requirements of the war was a significant contribution to the Union victory.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/26

Sterling "Old Pap" Price (September 20, 1809 – September 29, 1867) was an antebellum politician from the U.S. state of Missouri and a Confederate major general during the American Civil War. He led an army back into Missouri in 1864 on an ill-fated expedition to recapture the state for the Confederacy. He took his remaining troops to Mexico following the war rather than surrender to the Union Army.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/27

Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American politician and statesman from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer but a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. He jumped from party to party, gaining fame as a Republican. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, working closely with Abraham Lincoln. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power, that is the conspiracy of slave owners to seize control of the federal government and block the progress of liberty. His severe beating in 1856 by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks on the floor of the United States Senate helped escalate the tensions that led to war. After years of therapy Sumner returned to the Senate to help lead the Civil War. Sumner, who specialized in foreign affairs, was a leading exponent of abolishing slavery to weaken the Confederacy. Although he kept on good terms with Abraham Lincoln, he was a leader of the hard-line Radical Republicans.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/28

Benjamin William Brice (November 30, 1809 – December 4, 1892) was a lawyer, soldier, and graduate of the United States Military Academy who served in the United States Army during the Black Hawk War. Brice left the Army in 1832 and moved to Ohio to practice law, and in 1846 was elected an associate judge of the court of Licking County, Ohio. Later in 1846, Brice was appointed Adjutant General of the state militia by Governor William Bebb and served until 1847, when he resigned to re-enter the army to serve in the Mexican War.

He was later employed as the Paymaster General of the Union Army during the American Civil War and postbellum periods, Brice had on his retirement in 1872 risen to the rank of brevet major general. According to all reports and diaries, the paymaster's department was grossly inefficient at the beginning of the war in 1861. When Brice took charge, his efforts brought regulations up to date, eliminated nearly all the fraud, waste, and corruption, and officially established competitive examinations for paymaster candidates decades before civil service reform was enacted nation wide.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/29

William Mahone (December 1, 1826 – October 8, 1895), of Southampton County, Virginia, was a civil engineer, teacher, soldier, railroad executive, and a member of the Virginia General Assembly and U.S. Congress.

As a civil engineer, he helped build Virginia's roads and railroads in the antebellum and postbellum (Reconstruction) periods of the 19th century.

During the American Civil War, as a leader eventually attaining the rank of major general of the Confederate States Army, Mahone is best known for turning the tide of the Battle of the Crater against the Union advance during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864.

Mahone became a political leader in Virginia, led the Readjuster Party, and helped obtain funding, in 1881, for a teacher's school that later grew to become Virginia State University. Small of stature, he was nicknamed "Little Billy".

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/30

George Sears Greene (May 6, 1801 – January 28, 1899) was a civil engineer and a Union general during the American Civil War. He was part of the Greene family of Rhode Island, which had a distinguished military record for the United States. His greatest contribution during the war was his defense of the Union right flank at Culp's Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg. As a civilian, he was a founder of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects and was responsible for numerous railroads and aqueduct construction projects in the northeastern United States.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/31

Maria Isabella Boyd (May 4, 1844 – June 11, 1900), best known as Belle Boyd, was a Confederate spy in the American Civil War. She operated from her father's hotel in Front Royal, Virginia, and provided valuable information to Confederate commanders Turner Ashby and Stonewall Jackson during the 1862 Valley Campaign.

Boyd was arrested on July 29, 1862, and held for a month in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington before being released. She was later arrested and imprisoned a second time, but again was set free.

In 1864, she went to England where she met and married a Union naval officer, Samuel Wylde Hardinge, who died shortly after the war's end. After the war, Belle Boyd became an actress in England before returning to the United States. She then married John Swainston Hammond (1869) in New Orleans and, after a divorce in 1884, married Nathaniel Rue High (1885). A year later, she began touring the country giving dramatic lectures of her life as a Civil War spy.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/32

Christian Abraham Fleetwood (July 21, 1840 - September 28, 1914), was a non-commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, editor, musician, and a government official. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the American Civil War.

Fleetwood enlisted in the Union Army (August 17, 1863). For heroism in the critical Battle of Chaffin's Farm on the outskirts of Richmond (September 29, 1864) he was awarded the Medal of Honor. Although every officer of the regiment sent a petition for him to be commissioned an officer, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton did not recommend appointment. After rising to the rank of Sergeant Major, he was honorably discharged on May 4, 1866.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/33

George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Promoted at an early age to brigadier general, he was a flamboyant and aggressive commander during numerous Civil War battles, known for his personal bravery in leading charges against opposing cavalry. He led the Michigan Brigade whom he called the "Wolverines" during the Civil War. He was defeated and killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn against a coalition of Native American tribes led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/34

Edward Porter Alexander (May 26, 1835 – April 28, 1910) was an engineer, an officer in the U.S. Army, a Confederate general in the American Civil War, and later a railroad executive, planter, and author. He is best known as the officer in charge of the massive artillery bombardment preceding Pickett's Charge on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, but he is also noted for his early use of signal and observation balloon intelligence in combat and is well regarded for his postwar memoirs and analyses of the war.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/35

Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808 – May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist in the Civil War era who served as Senator from Ohio, Governor of Ohio, as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln, and Chief Justice of the United States. Chase articulated the "slave power conspiracy" thesis well before Lincoln did, and he coined the slogan "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men." He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what he considered the Slave Power, the conspiracy of slave owners to seize control of the federal government and block the progress of liberty.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/36

Nathaniel "Nat" Turner (October 2, 1800 – November 11, 1831) was an American slave whose failed slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, was the most remarkable instance of black resistance to enslavement in the antebellum southern United States. His methodical slaughter of white civilians during the uprising made him a controversial figure, but he is still considered by many to be a heroic figure of black resistance to oppression.

Turner was born in Southampton County, Virginia. He was singularly intelligent, picking up the ability to read at a young age and experimenting with homemade paper and gunpowder. He grew up deeply religious and was often seen fasting and praying. He frequently received visions which he interpreted as being messages from God, and which greatly influenced his life; for instance, when Turner was 21 years old he ran away from his master, but returned a month later after receiving such a vision. He became known among fellow slaves as "The Prophet".

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/37

Johnston Livingston de Peyster (June 14, 1846 – May 27, 1903) was a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War and later a member of the New York State Assembly from Dutchess County, New York. The son of a wealthy old Dutchess County family, de Peyster joined the Union Army at the age of eighteen as a lieutenant. He saw service in the eastern theater, and is best remembered for raising the first Union flag over the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia after its fall in 1865.

The Richmond diarist Sallie Putnam wrote of de Peyster's exploits, that "Lieutenant John Livingston de Peyster, riding with General Weitzel's staff proceeded directly to the Capitol, and planted once more the "Stars and Stripes" - the ensign of our subjugation - on that ancient edifice. As its folds were given to the breeze, while still we heard the roaring, hissing, crackling flames, the explosions of an old, familiar tune floated upon the air - a tune that, in days gone by, was wont to awaken a thrill of patriotism. But now only the most bitter and crushing recollections awoke within us, as upon our quickened hearing fell the strains of "The Star Spangled Banner." For us it was a requiem for buried hopes."

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/38

George Henry Thomas (July 31, 1816 – March 28, 1870) was a career U.S. Army officer and a Union general during the American Civil War, one of the principal commanders in the Western Theater.

Thomas served in the Mexican-American War and later chose to remain with the United States Army for the Civil War, despite his heritage as a Virginian. He won one of the first Union victories in the war, at Mill Springs in Kentucky, and served in important subordinate commands at Perryville and Stones River. His stout defense at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863 saved the Union Army from being completely routed, earning him his most famous nickname, the "Rock of Chickamauga." He followed soon after with a dramatic breakthrough on Missionary Ridge in the Battle of Chattanooga. In the Franklin-Nashville Campaign of 1864, he achieved one of the most complete victories of the war, destroying the army of Confederate General John Bell Hood, at the Battle of Nashville.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/39

James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831–September 19, 1881) was the twentieth President of the United States. He had also served as a major general in the United States Army, and as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield was the second U.S. President to be assassinated — Abraham Lincoln was the first. Garfield had the second shortest presidency in U.S. history, after William Henry Harrison's. In office for six months and fifteen days, President Garfield, a Republican, served for less than four months before being shot and fatally wounded on July 2, 1881. He is the only member of the House of Representatives to have been in office when elected President.

With the start of the Civil War, Garfield enlisted in the Union Army, and was assigned the task of driving Confederate forces out of eastern Kentucky in November 1861. He later served as a brigade commander at the Battle of Shiloh and during in the subsequent Siege of Corinth. His most notable service to the field was as Chief of Staff for William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/40

Basil Wilson Duke (May 28, 1838 – September 16, 1916) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, perhaps most noted for his service as a brigade commander in the 1863 Morgan's Raid, of which Duke later wrote a popular account. Duke also fought at the Battle of Shiloh. He was the brother-in-law of John Hunt Morgan, and took over Morgan's command after Morgan was shot by Union soldiers in 1864. Toward the end of the war, Duke was among Jefferson Davis's bodyguard after the Confederate president's flight from Richmond, eventually parting ways with him at Philomath, Georgia, after being at the last war council at the Burt-Stark Mansion.

In postbellum Louisville, he served as chief counsel for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad from 1882 to 1894. He was slightly-built, with a resonant voice. A relative described him as "essentially a man of the 17th century, that century in half armor, torn between chivalry and realism."

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/41

Henry Wager Halleck (January 16, 1815 – January 9, 1872) was a United States Army officer, scholar, and lawyer. A noted expert in military studies, he was known by a nickname that became derogatory, "Old Brains." He was an important participant in the admission of California as a state and became a successful lawyer and land developer. Early in the American Civil War, he was a senior Union Army commander in the Western Theater and then served for almost two years as general-in-chief of all U.S. armies. He was "kicked upstairs" to be chief of staff of the Army when Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Halleck's former subordinate in the West, whose battlefield victories did much to advance Halleck's career, replaced him in 1864 as general-in-chief for the remainder of the war.

Halleck was a cautious general who believed strongly in thorough preparations for battle and in the value of defensive fortifications over quick, aggressive action. He was a master of administration, logistics, and the politics necessary at the top of the military hierarchy, but exerted little effective control over field operations from his post in Washington, D.C. President Abraham Lincoln once described him as "little more than a first rate clerk."

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/42

Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a career United States Army officer, an engineer, and the most celebrated general of the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. A top graduate of West Point, Lee distinguished himself as an exceptional soldier in the U.S. Army for 32 years, during which time he fought in the Mexican-American War.

Lee's greatest victories were the Seven Days Battles, the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Chancellorsville, but both of his campaigns to invade the North ended in failure. Barely escaping defeat at the Battle of Antietam in 1862, Lee was forced to return to the South. In early July 1863, Lee was decisively defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. However, due to ineffectual pursuit by the commander of Union forces, Major General George Meade, Lee escaped again to Virginia.

In the spring of 1864, the new Union commander, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, began a series of campaigns to wear down Lee's army. In early April 1865, Lee's depleted forces were turned from their entrenchments near the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and he began a strategic retreat. Lee's subsequent surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865 represented the loss of only one of the remaining Confederate field armies, but it was a psychological blow from which the South could not recover. By June 1865, all of the remaining Confederate armies had capitulated.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/43

Hugh Boyle Ewing, (October 31, 1826 – June 30, 1905), was a diplomat, author, attorney, and Union Army general during the American Civil War. He a member of the prestigious Ewing family, and the foster brother and brother-in-law of William T. Sherman. General Ewing was an ambitious, literate, and erudite officer who held a strong sense of responsibility for the men under his command. After the war, Ewing spent time as an Ambassador and became a noted author.

Ewing's wartime service was characterized by several incidents which would have a unique impact on history. In 1861, his political connections helped save the reputation of his brother-in-law, William T. Sherman, who went on to become one of the north's most successful generals. Ewing himself went on to become Sherman's most trusted subordinate. His campaigning eventually led to the near-banishment of Lorenzo Thomas, a high ranking regular army officer who had intrigued against Sherman. He was present at the Battle of Antietam, where his brigade saved the flank of the Union Army late in the day. During the Vicksburg campaign, Ewing accidentally came across personal correspondence from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to former President Franklin Pierce which eventually ruined the reputation of the latter. Ewing was also present in Kentucky during Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge's "reign of terror", where he worked to oppose Burbridge's harsh policies against civilians, but was hampered by debilitating rheumatism. He ended the war with an independent command, a sign he held the confidence of his superiors, acting in concert with Sherman to trap Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/44

Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe (August 20, 1831 - January 16, 1913), was an American Civil War aeronaut, scientist and inventor. Lowe lived a life that was full of claims to fame. Despite being born of poor pioneer farming stock, Lowe showed an interest in meteorology with his intent study of the winds and cloud movements. He particularly recognized the strong easterly, high altitude wind which gave him a notion of flying in it. As an older teenager Lowe became fascinated with the properties of lighter-than-air gases, in particular, hydrogen. By age 21 he took up aviation, which at the time was piloting balloons. Between his chemistry lecturing and giving balloon rides he was able to put enough money together for a formal education thus furthering his studies in chemistry, meteorology, and aviation. By the late 1850s he was well known for his advanced theories in the meteorological sciences as well as his balloon building. Among his aspirations he made plans for a transatlantic flight via the high lofting winds, known today as the Jet Stream.

Lowe's scientific endeavors were cut short by the onset of the American Civil War. He recognized his patriotic duty in offering his services as an aeronaut for the purposes of performing aerial reconnaissance on the Confederate troops on behalf of the Union Army. In July 1861 Lowe was appointed Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps by President Abraham Lincoln. Though his work was generally successful, it was not fully appreciated by all members of the military, and disputes over his operations and pay scale forced him to resign in 1863. Lowe returned to the private sector and continued his scientific exploration of hydrogen gas manufacturing. He invented the water gas process by which large amounts of hydrogen gas could be produced from steam and charcoal. His inventions and patents on this process and ice making machines made him a millionaire.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/45

Grenville Mellen Dodge (April 12, 1831 – January 3, 1916) was a Union army officer on the frontier and during the Civil War and Indian campaigns including the Powder River Expedition, a U.S. Congressman, businessman, and railroad executive who helped construct the Transcontinental Railroad. He is considered one of the earliest pioneers of military intelligence. He was one of the founders of the General Mills Corporation.

Prior to the war, he was involved in surveying for railroads, including the Union Pacific. His wartime service began in the western theater, where he commanded a brigade at the the Battle of Pea Ridge, followed by command District of the Mississippi, where he was involved in protecting and building railroads. He then began Chief of Intelligence for Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. He was appointed major general in June of 1864 and commanded the XVI Corps during William T. Sherman's Atlanta campaign. During the ensuing siege of Atlanta, while looking through an eyehole in the Union breastworks a Confederate sharpshooter spotted him and shot him in the head. After recovering, he was to complete the war as commander of the Department of the Missouri.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/46

Henry Alexander Wise (December 3, 1806 – September 12, 1876) was an American statesman from Virginia. He served in the United States Congress from 1833 to 1844, and elected to Congress in as a Jacksonian Democrat, but broke with the Jackson administration, and became a Whig. In 1855, he was elected governor of Virginia, and Wise County, Virginia was named after him. One of his last official acts as Governor was to sign the death warrant of John Brown.

After Virginia's secession, Wise served as a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army. He commanded the District of Roanoke Island during the Battle of Roanoke Island. He commanded a brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia during the siege of Petersburg, and was promoted to the rank of Major General after the Battle of Sailor's Creek. He was with Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House, where he fought bravely but urged Lee to surrender. He was the brother-in-law of Union General George G. Meade.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/47

Jubal Anderson Early (November 3, 1816 – March 2, 1894) was a lawyer and Confederate general in the American Civil War. His post war articles written for the Southern Historical Society helped to establish the lost cause mythos.

He fought in most of the major battles in the Eastern Theater, including the First Battle of Bull Run, Seven Days Battles, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and numerous battles in the Shenandoah Valley. Early's most important service was in the Valley Campaigns of 1864, when he commanded the Confederacy's last invasion of the North. Grant, losing patience and realizing Early could attack Washington any time he pleased, dealt with the threat by sending out an army under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan. At times outnumbering the Confederates three to one, Sheridan defeated Early in three battles starting in early August and laid waste to much of the agricultural properties in the Valley, denying their use as supplies for Lee's army.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/48

Lewis "Lew" Wallace (April 10, 1827 – February 15, 1905) was a lawyer, governor, soldier in the Mexican War, Union, general in the American Civil War, American statesman, and author, best remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. At the start of the Civil War, he saw brief service in western Virginia, and was promoted to brigadier general, and later promoted to major general to rank from March 21 for service at Fort Donelson. He actions at the Battle of Shiloh are debated to this day.

In 1864, Wallace's most crucial service came at the Battle of Monocacy. Although the force under his command was defeated by Confederate General Jubal A. Early, he was able to delay Early's advance toward Washington, D.C., to the point that the city defenses had time to organize and repel Early. General Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs assessed Wallace's delaying tactics at Monocacy, stating "General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory."

Wallace also participated in the military commission trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators as well as the court-martial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the Andersonville prison camp. After the war, he served as governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881, and as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire from 1881 to 1885.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/49

Zebulon Baird Vance (May 13, 1830 – April 14, 1894) was a Confederate military officer in the American Civil War, twice Governor of North Carolina, and U.S. Senator. A prodigious writer, Vance became one of the most influential southern leaders of the Civil War and postbellum periods. At the age of twenty-four, Vance ran for a seat in the State House of Commons as a Whig, beating a man twice his age. At the age of twenty-eight, Vance, a member of the American Party became the youngest member of United States Congress. In September 1862, Vance won the gubernatorial election in North Carolina. In the Confederacy Vance was a major proponent of individual rights and local self-government, often putting him at odds with the Confederate government of Jefferson Davis.

In 1870, the state legislature elected him to the United States Senate, but as he was on federal parole, he was not allowed to serve. In 1876, Vance was elected Governor once again and in 1879 the legislature again elected him to the United States Senate and he served in the Senate until his death in 1894.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/50

Matthew Fontaine Maury (January 14, 1806 – February 1, 1873), USN was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, historian, oceanographer, meteorologist, cartographer, author, geologist, and educator. He was nicknamed Pathfinder of the Seas and Father of modern Oceanography and Naval Meteorology and later, Scientist of the Seas, due to the publication of his extensive works in his books, especially Physical Geography of the Sea 1855, the first extensive and comprehensive book on oceanography to be published. Maury made many important new contributions to charting winds and ocean currents, including pathways for ships at sea.

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Maury, born in Virginia, resigned his commission as a U.S. Navy Commander to serve on the Confederate side as Chief of Seacoast, River and Harbor Defences. He also went abroad in England, Ireland France, acquiring ships and supplies for the Confederacy. Through speeches and newspaper publications, Maury attempted to get other nations to stop the Civil War. Maury also perfected an electric torpedo which raised havoc with northern shipping. The torpedoes, similar to present-day contact mines, were said by the Secretary of the Navy in 1865 to have cost the Union more vessels than all other causes combined.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/51

Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay (April 19, 1822–September 3, 1875) was a member of the Confederate Secret Service and the inventor of the coal torpedo, a bomb disguised as a lump of coal that was used to attack Union steam-powered warships and transports. In August 1863, Courtenay approached Sterling Price with a plan to attack Union shipping by means of an explosive device disguised as a lump of coal, the coal torpedo. The coal bombs would be planted in the coal piles used to fuel Union steamships and locomotives by a team of operatives working behind enemy lines. When a coal bomb was shovelled into the firebox, it would explode, resulting the explosion of the pressurized steam boiler and the destruction of the vessel.

Courtenay was motivated by a Confederate Bounty Law that offered a reward of up to 50% of the value of Union shipping destroyed by means of new inventions. However, the Confederacy had not established a legal framework that would allow private citizens to conduct attacks that were essentially military in nature. A secret bill authorizing the formation of independent secret service corps was passed by the Confederate Congress on February 15, 1864. Courtenay was given a Captain's commission in the Confederate Army and permission to form a Secret Service Corps of up to 25 men. The Corps was authorized to attack any Union military vessel or transport carrying military goods found in Confederate waters, but was forbidden to attack civilian shipping or Union shipping in Northern waters. Courtenay would not draw a regular Army salary, but would receive up to 50% of the value of ships and cargo destroyed or captured, payable in Confederate war bonds.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/52

John Armor Bingham (January 21, 1815 – March 19, 1900) was a Republican congressman from Ohio, judge in the trial of the Abraham Lincoln assassination and a prosecutor in the impeachment trials of Andrew Johnson. He is also the principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

During the Civil War, he strongly supported the Union and became a Radical Republican. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Judge Advocate of the Union Army with the rank of Major in 1864, and he became Solicitor of the United States Court of Claims in 1865. He was also elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress, which first met on March 4, 1865. Bingham, along with Joseph Holt, and Henry Lawrence Burnett were the three judges in charge of the Lincoln assassination trial.

Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/53

Powhatan Beaty (October 8, 1837–December 6, 1916) was an African American soldier and actor. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army and received America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm. After the war, he became an orator and actor, appearing in amateur theater productions in his home of Cincinnati, Ohio. His most well-known stage performance was an 1884 appearance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., opposite Henrietta Vinton Davis.