USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 16
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 16
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A man who had proved his ability in such a signal manner at home, could not be spared from the politics of the nation; and in 1855 he appeared as a member of the Philadelphia American Convention, and one of its Committee on Resolutions. As might have been expected, he "bolted" when that convention adopted a pro-slavery platform. In 1856 he was a member of the convention which nominated Fillmore and Donelson. But hc dcelined to support these nominees upon the platform which the convention made for them, and with others who agreed with him (among them the late Scnator Ferry) attended the convention in New York which nominated General Fremont, and afterward labored earnestly for his elcction. In 1864 he was a member of the Baltimore Convention which renomi- nated Abraham Lincoln to be President, and at that time was a member and the secretary of the National Republican Committee. He was one of seven selected by the National Committee to conduct the campaign, and secretary of this com-
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mittee. For many reasons this was one of the most important organizations to which Mr. Sperry has belonged. The history of its deliberations and doings is yet to be told.
During the war his labors were of great value to the administration, the army, and the rank and file. As chairman of the local recruiting committee his time was consumed in work at home and at Washington for both the individual soldier and the government. In actual service he could not have failed to attain a high and responsible position, but as a civilian he was far more helpful than he could have been as a soldier, however prominent he might become in the field. He enjoyed the intimacy and confidence of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, and at the President's special request he visited Washington several times during the war. One of these visits was made when the bill abolishing slavery was before Congress ; the President knew how valuable his influence would be in its favor, and the result justified his trust in him and his call for his assistance. No one. in this section of the country was honored by a closer intimacy with President Lincoln or more potent with his administration.
By President Lincoln Mr. Sperry was appointed Post-master of New Haven in 1861, and he has held that office ever since by a succession of re-appointments to the great satisfaction of his fellow-citizens of all parties. Up to this time he has been Post-master of New Haven for 18 consecutive years, and the number will be so when his present term expires. He is the oldest Post-master by Pres- idential appointment in the United States. The general acquiescence in his retention of the place, the steady and marked advance of the facilities of the office under his administration, and its high rank among the other post-offices of the country, are strong arguments for that feature of civil service reform which calls for the selection of the fittest and retains them in the service of the nation. The esteen: in which he has been held as a post-master was shown by his selection, when ex-Governor A. W. Randall was Post-Master General, as a member of the commission (Hon. John A. Kasson being chairman) to go abroad and examine the methods of foreign postal systems, in order to discover if they contained any features which might with profit be engrafted upon our own. He was to continue to be Post- master of New Haven during his absence; but he felt compelled to decline the appointment.
Recently the ability which he displayed in the political field, the days of civil strife, and in the postal service, has been enlisted in the service of peace, he hav- ing been made by Governor Andrews one of the State's Commissioners to the World's Fair to be held in New York, in 1883, in commemoration of the beginning of the peace which followed the war of the revolution.
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This record would be incomplete if it did not contain a reference to a victory of which Mr. Sperry is as proud as of any other achievement of his eventful life. In the year 1878, a majority of the New Haven Board of Education voted to discontinue the religious exercises in the public schools. Mr. Sperry became aroused, and he conducted a most vigorous campaign against this majority. The teachings which he received in his country homc, in the district school, and in the church of his youth, impelled him to a most energetic championship of the retention of the time-honored religious instruction which had been so suddenly thrust aside. Fortifying his position by strong arguments he addressed with great force and power large audiences in many of the New Haven churches in favor of the Bible, and used his pen with vigor second only to that of his voice and presence. So strong a public sentiment did he arouse, that at the school election which very soon fol- lowed, it was voted, almost three to one, to restore to the schools these religious exercises, Protestant's and Roman Catholics uniting upon his side.
He is now in the full vigor and maturity of his powers, a tower of strength to his friends-to so many of whom he lent the helping hand in their youth or in their need-and a man whom his opponents cannot fail to respect. The ser- vices he has already rendered to his city and his country, and the party which repre- sents his principles, can never be forgotten, and they will be his monument when he shall have passed away, if indeed, still greater honors are not in storc for him.
Mr. Sperry was married in 1847, to Eliza H., daughter of Willis and Catherine Sperry of Woodbridge. Mrs. Sperry died in 1873, leaving two daughters as the fruit of this union. In the winter of 1875, Mr. Sperry was married to Minnie, daughter of Erastus and Caroline Newton, of Lockport, N. Y.
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INGSLEY, JAMES LUCE, Professor of the Latin Language and Litera ture in Yale College, after having been a member of the academical faculty for over fifty years, died July 31st, 1852.
The name of Professor Kingsley is not so well known to the public as that of some of the other college officers who were his contemporaries. But, at the time of his death, Professor Thatcher said "No man had been more concerned than he in the internal progress of the institution." Professor Thatcher said fur- ther, that he was " a master in nearly every department of learning," and that he was " one of the main elements of strength in the college." President Woolsey also gave it as his testimony that "in the variety of his acquirements he had rarely been equalled by American scholars."
Professor Kingsley was born August 28th, 1778, in Scotland, a parish of the town of Windham, Conn. After spending a year in the college at Williamstown, Mass., he entered Yale College in May, 1797, and graduated in 1799. In 1801 he became a tutor ; and in 1805, when President Dwight developed his plans for the establishment of per- manent professorships, he was chosen Professor of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Languages, and of Ecclesiastical History. This appointment he held unchanged till a separate professorship of Greek having been established in 1831, the duties of his chair were limited to instruction in the Latin language and literature.
It was a fortunate circumstance for the college that its first permanent professor of the learned languages was a man who had a proper appreciation of the importance of thorough training. Distinguished as he was himself for elegant scholarship and the variety and exactness of his knowledge, he never grew wearied in his exertions to elevate the standard of scholarship among the students. When he commenced his duties as an instructor, the only Greek which was required during the academical course was the New Testament. He at once introduced the Iliad as a text-book. In 1804, the "Græca Minora" having been published in this country, he gave it to the first class which was admitted to college after he became professor; and a few years later the "Græca Majora" having appeared in Edinburgh, containing copious selections from the best Greek authors, he imported the work, and was the first to introduce it for the use of college classes. In the department of the Latin language hc also prepared himself editions of several Latin authors for the use of the students. These efforts made at the beginning of his career were never intermitted, and to the last he showed undiminished interest in the advance of the college in all liberal cul- ture. President Woolsey said that he, perhaps, had introduced more new text-books into the college course of study than any other person. Professor Thatcher adds that it should not be forgotten that all this was accomplished when "from first to last there was no proficient in the languages above him or before him, whom he might
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consult, and thus obtain the guidance of another's experience in those branches of instruction, or the fruit of another's greater learning. Nor did he enjoy those facilities of intercourse with foreign countries which are now so eommon, which bring to our hands, with so little delay, all the results of European scholarship." With a scanty supply of books, with almost no society in his studies, and diverted also by the necessity of giving instruction in whatever other branches of literature or science his elass might be pursuing, he yet succeeded in awakening an interest in elassieal study which it is not too much to say was felt far beyond the college, and which extended to all the institutions of learning throughout the country.
It was not, however, alone by his successful efforts in his own proper department that Professor Kingsley served the college. He gave a course of lectures to the senior class on philology; and another course to the same class on chronology and various other topies introductory to the study of history. These lectures were greatly valued, and President Woolsey said that in the department of history Professor Kingsley always seemed to him to be "strongest and to surpass himself."
Early in his career, also, when he was called upon to teach the various branches of mathematies, and afterwards, at the time of the death of Professor Alexander M. Fisher, when he was looked to for aid in maintaining that department, Professor Thateher says, "he earried into these studies the same wakeful mind, as ready to be interested in the facts and investigations of seienee, and the skilful processes in mathematies, as in the more elegant pursuits of literature." When the study of Euclid was first introduced into the curriculum it was at his instance. He was the first instructor in the college who ever heard a elass reeite fluxions, and his last service as a teacher was rendered in assisting to examine in algebra some of the candidates for admission to the Freshman elass at the Commencement of 1852, a few days before his death.
During the interval which elapsed between the death of Dr. Dwight and the appointment of his successor he instrueted the senior elass in the moral sciences and in the other studies which devolve upon the President. From the first to the last, also, during his whole life he was always ready to devote himself in the most unselfish manner to the interests of the college in all ways that were within his power. Among the important services which he rendered, mention should be made of the fact that for many years almost every college document was the production of his ready pen.
Professor Kingsley was a frequent contributor to the periodical literature of the country, and rendered signal service to the cause of letters by rectifying errors and exposing false pretences to scholarship. He was deeply interested in the history of his native State; and at the time of his death it was said no person was better
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acquainted than he with its written and unwritten history. His published contri- butions on this subject are not numerous, yet his address on the occasion of the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of New Haven and a sketch which he prepared of the history of Yale College, will ever be considered of great value.
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EDGWICK, JOIIN, Major-General of Volunteers in the United States Army. Born in Cornwall, Conn., September 13th, 1813. On the ist of July, 1833, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, as a cadet from his congressional district, and graduated from that institution on the Ist of July, 1837, when he was promoted in the army to the rank of Second Lieutenant of the Second Artillery. In 1837-8 he served in the Florida war against the Seminole Indians; was engaged in the skirmish near Fort Clinch, on May 20th, 1838; in service with the Cherokee nation in 1838, during their enforced emigration to the West; on recruiting service in 1838-9; on the northern frontier at Buffalo N. Y., during the Canadian border disturbances in 1839, and was commissioned First Lieutenant of the Second Artillery, on April 19th of the same year. Garrison duty in different forts followed until 1846, when he was called upon to take part in the war with Mexico.
In Mexico Lieutenant Sedgwick shared in the siege of Vera Cruz, the battle of Cerro Gordo, the skirmish of Amazoque, the capture of San Antonio, the battles of Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec, and the assault and capture of the City of Mexico. For gallant and meritorious services in these several engage- ments, he received the brevet, first, of captain, on the 20th of August, and second, of major, on the 13th of September, 1867. On the 26th of January, 1847, he was commissioned Captain of the Second Artillery, and Major of the First Cavalry on March 8th, 1855. In the latter ycar active and stirring duties broke up the monot- ony of garrison life. In 1855-6 he was occupied in quelling the border disturbances in Kansas; in 1857 he took part in the Cheyenne expedition, and was engaged in the action on Solomon's Fork of the Kansas River, July 29th, 1857, and again in the skirmish near Grand Saline, on the 6th of August of the same year. Ile was
Lucky wiel5
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also a member of the military expedition to Utah in 1857-8, and in 1860 com- manded the expedition against the Kiowas and Comanches.
Commissioned as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Cavalry on March 16th, as Colonel of the First Cavalry, April 25th ; and in command of the Fourth Cavalry, August 3d, 1861; he served, during the rebellion of the seceding States, in the defences of Washington from June to August 3d, 1861 ; as Acting Inspector-General of the Department of Washington, August 3-12, 1861 ; and in command of a brigade in the defences of Washington, August 12, 1861, to February 20th, 1862. On the 3Ist of August, 1861, he received his commission as Brigadier-General of United Volunteers.
In February and March, 1862, General Sedgwick was in command of the division guarding the Potomac, about Poolsville, Md. He also commanded a division of the army of the Potomac in the Virginia Peninsular campaign, March-August, 1862, being engaged in the siege of Yorktown, April 5th-May 4th, 1862, and in the battles of Fair Oaks, Peach Orchard, Savage Station, and Glendale, in thc latter of which he was wounded, June 30th, 1862.
On the 4th of July, 1862, Sedgwick received his well-carned commission as major-general of United States Volunteers.
Rejoining the army on December 22d, 1862, he took part in the Rappahan- nock campaign, in command of the Ninth Corps. On the 5th of February, 1863, he assumed command of the Sixth Corps, in the army of the Potomac, and won a signal victory over General Early at the storming of Marye's Hill, on May 3d, 1863. Forming powerful assaulting parties, he determined to storm the Confederate works along their entire occupied line. " The storming parties moved at near cleven o'clock in the morning. The onset was furious, and was gallantly resisted. Steadily the Nationals moved on, in defiance of a galling fire from artillery and small- arms, driving Barksdale from his shelter at the stone wall, scaling Marye's Hill, seizing the rifle-pits and batteries, and capturing full two hundred prisoners, at the cost to Sedgwick of about a thousand men-the Sixth Maine First planting the National Flag upon the captured works in token of triumph." Lossing's Civil War in America, vol. iii. p. 35. In the battle of Salem, which followed this triumph, he was overmatched by the superior forces and advantages of the enemy, and compelled to re-cross the Rappahannock. The desperate character of the fight- ing in which he had been engaged, may be inferred from the fact that in the brief space of two days he had lost more than one-fifth of his entire command.
In the Pennsylvania campaign General Sedgwick commanded the Sixth corps in the army of the Potomac; was engaged-after a forced march-in the battle of Gettysburgh, July 2-3, 1863 ; in the pursuit of the enemy to Warrenton, Virginia ;
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in the Rapidan campaign, from September to December, 1863, and was in com- mand of the right wing, consisting of the Fifth and Sixth Corps of the army of the Potomac, in the combat of Rappahannock station, November 7th, 1863. There he "found the strong works thrown up previously by the Nationals on the north side of the river, and now covering a pontoon bridge occupied by about two thousand men of Early's division of Ewell's corps. These works, consisting of a fort, two redoubts, and lines of rifle-pits, were on a ridge, with an open lowland, traversed by a muddy ditch, and a dry moat deep and broad, between them and the approaching Nationals. Sedgwick reached the vicinity at noon, and behind a hill, a mile away, he formed a battle-line, and then gradually advanced toward the river on each flank of the works." Just before sunset, orders were given to storm, and the troops gallantly performed the task. "With fixed bayonets the van of the stormers rushed through a tempest of canister shot and bullets." The slaughter was fearful, but the onsct was irresistible. "Over sixteen hundred prisoners, with four guns, eight battle-flags, two thousand small-arms, and the pontoon bridge, were the fruits of the National victory," achieved at a loss of about three hundred in killed and wounded. He was subsequently engaged in the operations at Mine Run from November 26th to December 3d, in 1863.
General Sedgwick's last campaign was in command of the fighting Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, May 4-9th, 1864, in which he bore a distinguished and heroic part in the battle of the Wilderness, May 5th and 6th. "The Wilderness, henceforth to be historic, stretches westward from Chancellorsville. The region for a space of a dozen miles is seamed with veins of iron ore. These have been wrought for five generations. Here, indeed, were erected the first regular iron furnaces in North America. The forests had been cut down to furnish fuel for these furnaces. The soil, being generally too poor to repay culture, the region was left to Nature, which soon covercd it with a dense mass of dwarf pines, scrubby oaks, chinquapins, and the likc. Every stump left by the woodman's axe sent up a cluster of sprouts in place of the parent trunk. Whortleberrics and brambles of every kind, availing themselves of the temporary flood of sunshine, turned and mattcd themselves into thickcts, through which the solitary huntsman could make his way only by dragging his rifle after him. The surface was an elevated plateau, swelling cverywhere into low hills and ridges, with swampy intervals between, along which sluggish brooks make their way toward the Rapidan on the North and the Mattapony on the South." Harpers' History of the Great Rebellion, p. 488.
In that terrible hand-to-hand struggle, manœuvring, in a military sense, was almost impossible. " By the compass alone, like mariners at murky midnight, the movements of troops werc directed. The three hundred guns of the combatants had
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no avocation there, and the few horsemen not away on outward duty werc compelled to be almost idle spectators. Of the two hundred thousand men there ready to fall upon and slay each other, probably no man's eyes saw more than a thousand at any one time, so absolute were the concealments of the thickets. Never in the history of war was such a spectacle exhibited. Military skill was of little account, and Grant knew it, and so he gave but the single general order-'Attack along the whole line at five o'clock.'" The attack was delivered by the gallant Sedgwick and his men with their wonted courage and resolution; but he lost heavily in unsuccessful attempts to earry Ewell's intrenched positions. At sunset, the entire right wing of the army seemed to be in great peril from the headlong charge of a heavy column of the encmy, led by General Gordon. Sedgwick, however, promptly cheeked the advance of the Con- federates, and the darkness made it impossible for them to do any more. The National army held its ground, and, at the same time, gained the substantial advantage of forcing Lee to retire behind his intrenchments, and to await further developments. There he stood, at bay, on the morning of Saturday, May 7th.
On the 9th, while General Sedgwick was making a personal reconnoisance, and directing the placing of some artillery for the battle of Spottsylvania, one of the rebel sharp-shooters " inflicted irreparable injury upon the Union army, by sending a bullet through the brain of the gallant commander while he was giving directions for strengthening the intrenchments on his front. He fell dead, and there was sincere mourning throughout the army, for the soldiers loved him; and the loyal pcople of the land felt bercaved, for a true patriot had fallen." Lossing's Civil War in America, vol. iii., p. 306.
A life-like statue, representing him with hcad uncovered and at parade rest, surmounts a monument erccted to his memory at the northwest angle of the grassy plain at West Point. The statue is wrought out of cannon captured by the Sixth Corps, and was inaugurated in 1868, on which occasion George William Curtis delivered onc of his most eloquent orations.
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"INCHESTER, OLIVER F., of New Haven, ex-Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, was born in Boston, Mass., November 30th, 1810, of humble parents. Owing to the death of his father, the care of a large family devolved upon the mother; this eireumstance resulted in the subject of our sketch being thrown upon his own resources while still almost an infant.
By various means, on farm, in office, and workshop, he earned his own livelihood for years before he reached the age when he could become an apprentice. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a carpenter and joiner in Boston, succeeding so well in acquiring a knowledge of this trade as to enable him to purchase from his employer the last year of his apprenticeship.
Removing at this time to Baltimore, he followed his trade as journeyman and master-builder for several years. In 1837, a gloomy and disastrous year for merchants, he opened a store for the sale of men's furnishing goods in the same city, prosecuted the new undertaking with success, and revealed his inventive genius in the production of a perfectly fitting dress-shirt, for which he received a patent on the ist of February, 1848. Soon afterward he sold out his establishment, and entered into partnership with John M. Davies, Jones & Co., prominent importers and jobbers of the same class of goods in New York, under the style and title of Winchester & Davies. There he assumed entire direction of the shirt manufacture, and established a factory at New Haven, which furnished employment during later years to six thousand people in and around the city. Successful from the outset, the adoption of the sewing machine in 1852 added at once to the profitableness and to the working capacity of the manufactory.
In 1857 Mr. Winehester beeame purchaser of the assets of the Voleanie Arms Company, of New Haven, then bankrupt, and by his management developed from this unpromising germ the large and successful manufacturing concern bearing the name of the Winehester Repeating Arms Company.
The Winehester repeating rifle had its origin in the Jennings repeating gun, well known prior to 1850, and which about that year passed into the hands of Messrs. Smith & Wesson, then of Norwich, Conn., who after spending about five years' time in making and endeavoring to introduce some valuable improvements, sold it in 1855 to a corporation in New Haven known as the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, which company was organized for the purpose of manufacturing it, but became insolvent ; the assets were purchased by Mr. Winchester, who after two years demon. strated the fact that the Voleanic arms were too deficient in power to meet with active demand, and consequently their production was suspended, and Mr. Winchester formed a new company called the New Haven Arms Company.
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