USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of representative men of Chicago, Minnesota cities and the World's Columbian exposition : with illustrations on steel. V. 2 > Part 34
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six thousand strong, and fought them from three o'clock in the afternoon until nine at night. He was assisted after the battle had been in progress for some time, by a few regiments of General Stanley's division, but all accounts agree and all reports show that Sanborn's brigade did by far the greater part of the fighting on the Federal side and saved the day. Though this was his maiden battle, and that of the most of his men, he held his regiments in line with the coolness of a veteran, and directed their movements with the precision of an expert in the science of war. The battle was a series of assaults and counter-assaults, of bayonet charges and hand-to-hand fighting. Three times was his battery taken and recovered. In the end Sanborn held his position, after having lost nearly six hundred men of his command in killed and wounded, but having inflicted a much larger loss on the enemy and really winning the fight. That night the Confederates, commanded by General Price in person, retreated. Sanborn received, in orders; the highest encomiums from General Rosecrans for his skill and gallantry, and won the praise of all his associates and comrades. A few days later, October 3d and 4th, he com- manded in the battle of Corinth, and well sus- tained the brilliant reputation he had already won. Thereafter he was in all of General Grant's campaigns in the valley of the Mississippi. He was on the Oxford expedition in the fall of 1862 and winter of 1863 ; was with the arduous expe- dition down the Yazoo Pass in March following, and took an active part in the Vicksburg cam- paign.
When the seventh division of the Seventeenth Army Corps returned from the Yazoo Pass expe- dition to the Mississippi river, near Helena, Arkan- sas, its commander, General Quimby, was obliged to relinquish his command on account of ill health, and go north. Thereupon Colonel Sanborn be- came the commander of the division by virtue of being the senior colonel, and retained his com- mand in the movements against Vicksburg until the 2d of May, having assumed the command April 15th, during which time he had moved the division from Helena, Arkansas, to Bayou Pierre, Mississippi. He handled the division with the same skill and efficiency that he had his regiment and brigade. He was ordered to the assistance of General McClernand at Port Gibson, Mississippi,
while his command was still on the west side of the Mississippi river, nearly opposite Grand Gulf. He crossed his entire division, composed of three brigades of infantry, four batteries and a squadron of cavalry, upwards of six thousand men, present for duty, from his position on the west bank of the Mississippi river to the east in the almost incredible short time of three hours, and was formed in line of battle across the road, leading by the left flank and to the rear of the main line of battle, by which Generals Grant, Mc- Pherson and McClernand feared their position might be turned by a heavy force of the enemy. This position was reached and the formation of the line of battle made, long before the fighting on the front line of battle had ceased. His com- mand was first, on the next day, to cross the south fork of Bayou Pierre, and that evening drove the rebel forces from the north fork, where they were engaged in burning the bridge. He was then in command of his brigade-a West Point graduate, General Crocker, having been assigned to the command of the division by reason of his rank, and the fact that Colonel San- born's promotion to brigadier general by the President after the battle of Iuka, had been per- mitted to lapse by the adjournment of the Senate without confirmation, on account of some compli- cations relating wholly to the management of affairs at home in Minnesota.
At Raymond, Mississippi, May 12th, he was ordered by his corps and division commander, to move directly forward towards a rebel battery, the fire of which covered his entire line of march until he had passed the right flank of the rebel line of battle. General Logan's division formed the line of battle and its right had been turned at this time. This movement forced the rebel com- mander to abandon his position, and the move- ment was made with a prospect of terrible loss. The fire from the rebel battery enfiladed the entire line of Colonel Sanborn's command, but the aim was so high that there was scarcely any loss of men ; to this day he bears on his person marks of the cannon shot that passed under his arm during this advance. At Jackson, Missis- sippi, two days afterwards, he and his command rendered still more conspicuous service. Though his brigade was second in the line of march, and the last to receive the orders to charge the en-
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emy's line and batteries, the charge was made with such impetuosity that it gained the advance of the whole army and led this advance into Jack- son, his adjutant carrying one of the flags of his regiment, by his orders, to the dome of the capitol and raising it there. At Champion Hills his command captured the standards of a Missis- sippi regiment and took many prisoners. In the assault upon the rebel fortifications at Vicksburg, on the 22d of May, his command, after terrible loss, reached the ditch under the enemy's lunettes. He was in command of the seventh division during the time it made the assault in the after- noon of that day. He participated in all the im- portant operations in the siege of Vicksburg, and when the stronghold surrendered, General Grant announced to General McPherson that he would recognize the seventeenth corps as entitled to the honors of the campaign, and that he might desig- nate such portions of the corps, not exceeding three brigades, as he considered most entitled to enter and occupy Vicksburg. General Sanborn's brigade was one of the brigades thus designated, and led the advance into Vicksburg, July 4th, where it remained and paroled the prisoners of war. His name heads the list of colonels men- tioned by General McPherson, in his report of that campagin, of those entitled to special men- tion for conspicuous gallantry and valuable services during the campaign.
After the close of this campaign he was again commissioned brigadier general of volunteers, to take rank from August 4, 1863. . After this promotion, and while en route to the Army of the Cumberland at that point, with a view of re- gaining what had been lost at the battle of Chickamauga, and while waiting a day at a hotel in Memphis where General Grant and staff were stopping at the same time, he was advised by General Grant that he had been requested by the authorities at Washington to send at least one general officer, and if possible two, to St. Louis to report to General Schofield for temporary service in the department of Missouri, stating at the same time that there was a rebel raid in Mis- souri and the government was desirous of restor- ing order to such an extent that an election about to take place might be fairly conducted. This service was to be brief, and General Grant stated : " Whoever is to go I will see to it that he is back
to his command before I am ready to fight at Chattanooga," and first requested and then ordered General Sanborn to go to Missouri for this service. That he never got back to his old command was not on account of any failure or fault of General Grant. He requested the return of the general time and time again. But General Schofield and the commanding officers of the department of the Missouri protested against it, and between them and the authorities at Washington the gen- eral was prevented from ever returning to his old command in the field, which disappointment ex- ceeded all others that he met in the war. On the 20th of October he was assigned to the command of the district of southwest Missouri, with head- quarters at Springfield ; here he remained until the close of the war. His position was one of great responsibility and hard work, and required con- summate address, decision of character and high administrative qualities. His district was in a sad plight with scarce a semblance of law and order within its borders. Confederate guerrillas and Federal jawhawkers overran the country, and mur- ders and outrages for opinions' sake were of daily occurrence in every county. Practically the black flag was the banner on both sides. Soon after General Sanborn's arrival at Springfield the leader of a guerrilla band captured a party of six Federal soldiers, hung five and sent the survivor, a mere boy, to the general with a note stating what they had done, and notifying him that the guerrillas neither gave nor expected quarter. It was not long thereafter until this band was literally exter- minated by the Federal scouting parties sent against it. General Sanborn restored and pre- served peace-at least the undisputed authority of the Federal government throughout his dis- trict. He put down the bad of both sides, and was as severe on his own scoundrels as on those of the enemy. At the same time, too, he had to keep closed the principal gateway from Arkansas into Missouri against the entrance of Confederate raiding expeditions, and keep the Federal army of the frontier supplied. He discharged all of his duties to the complete satisfaction of the com- manders of the departments, Generals Rosecrans, Schofield and Dodge. Of his administration of affairs at Springfield, the "History of Green county, Missouri," the county in which Springfield is situated, says, on page 475 : "Among all of the
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Federal military commanders at Springfield, Gen- cral John B. Sanborn seems now to be most kindly remembered. His administration was at the most critical period in 1864-5, when the pas- sions of men were most violently inflamed by the war, and they were the most difficult to control. The soldiers had become accustomed to scenes of violence and disorder, and the citizens were as hard to manage as the soldiers. Some loyalists were fanatical, and some secessionists were desperate. Ofttimes the general was assaulted by extreme radical Union men for his protection of persons and property of rebels, from those who wished to vex the ' Midianites,' to spoil them and spare not, and again the Confederate partisans would de- nounce him for his unrelenting pursuit of bush- whackers, who were rendering so much property insecure and so many lives unsafe. But General Sanborn kept steadily on his course of repressing and repelling the violent of both factions, of pro- tecting the good and punishing the bad; and, with wise conservatism, so managed affairs that at last all but the most disreputable indorsed him, and to-day he is given great praise by men of all parties and former shades of opinion. In the fall of 1864 when General Price made his famous raid into Missouri, entering in the south- eastern part of the state, General Sanborn was at Springfield. He hastily organized his mounted brigade, composed of state militia and volunteers, and marched to Rolla, one hundred and twenty- five miles distant, in a little more than two days. From Rolla he marched northwesterly across the country to Jefferson City, reaching that point in advance of the Confederates, and saving the capi- tal of Missouri from capture. He was in com- mand of the defenses of the city during the days it was menaced by the rebels, and when they de- clined to attack and moved to the westward, he was, by the order of General Pleasanton, given command of all the troops in the field, four brigades, and conducted the pursuit of the enemy from Jefferson City to Independence. In the discharge of this duty he was engaged in severe skirmishes with the enemy near California, Ver- sailles and Booneville, and took an active part in the battles of Independence, Little Blue, Big Blue, and the Marais du Cygne. He set in motion the troops that gave the rebels their coup de grace at Mine Creek, where Generals Marmaduke and
Cable and six hundred other Confederate prison- ers were captured, and it was his brigade that came to the assistance of General Blunt at New- tonia, the last battle of the raid, and changed the fortunes of the day from a decided repulse to a complete victory. Then, after the rebels had been driven from the state and far into the Indian ter- ritory, he returned to Springfield, where he was given an enthusastic reception by the loyal citi- zens. No other commander had a clearer or more proper conception of his duties as a soldier. While he believed that in many instances, in time of war, the laws should be silent, yet he also be- lieved that when the principle could be recognized with safety, the military should be subordinate to the civil power, and just as soon as possible he gave this principle a practical recognition. May 8, 1865, immediately after the rebel armies in north- ern Arkansas and southern Missouri had sur- rendered or disbanded, he issued his somewhat famous general order, number thirty-five, the sub- stance of which was the relinquishment of martial law, and the refusal to longer control and govern the country thereby, except in two classes of offenses, viz., " efforts and attempts to intimidate the civil officers, and any refusal of these officers to act at once upon the proper complaint or infor- mation of any citizen," and at the same time he placed the whole Federal force of the district at the command of the officers of the civil law. General Sanborn's course in issuing "order number thirty-five " was commended by the loyal Governor ยท of Missouri, General Thomas C. Fletcher, who in his letter to him, dated June Ist following, said : " The order is most admirably conceived, clearly expressed and has throughout the right tone. In it I recognize and greatfully acknowledge the most effective assistance I have yet received towards the re-establishment of order in Missouri. Be assured that when peace and the arts of industry shall once more have assumed their legitimate sway in this state, which you have done so much to save, your name will be cherished with increasing reverence as our prosperity flows on in an uninterrupted tide."
In June, 1865, the war of the rebellion having closed, General Sanborn was ordered to the dis- trict of the upper Arkansas along the plains and in the regions of the Smoky Hill river, to open the long lines of travel to Colorado and New
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Mexico, which had been closed for two years, and to operate against the hostile Indians in that quarter. On the 4th of July, in command of six thousand troops, he set out for the scene of his operations, established his headquarters at Fort Riley, Kansas, and in ninety days he had com- pletely fullfilled the objects of his expedition. The commission appointed by the government to treat with the Indians and arrange the details of peace was composed of General W. S. Harney, General Sanborn, William Bent, "Kit" Carson, and Judge Brown of the Interior Department. After the conclusion of that treaty he was sent by order of President Johnson, in November 1865, to the Indian Territory to settle the differences between the loyal and disloyal tribes, and to establish amicable relations between the ex-slaves and their former Indian masters, and at the same time to settle certain disturbances about Fort Smith and Fort Gibson, and at the end of four months he had fully accomplished his mission. In June, 1866, he was mustered out of the service, closing a military career which throughout had been able, efficient, valuable and brilliant. Returning to St. Paul, General Sanborn resumed his law practice, establishing, in connection with his business in in this city, an office in Washington, under the firm-name of Sanborn and King. The latter was discontinued in July, 1878, upon General San- born's retirement.
January 1, 1871, he associated with himself his nephew, Hon. Walter H. Sanborn, form- ing the well-known law firm of John B. and W. H. Sanborn. In 1881 another nephew, Mr. Ed- ward P. Sanborn, was added to the firm without changing the name.
In 1867 General Sanborn was appointed one of the peace commissioners to treat with the hostile tribes of Indians, including the Cheyennes, Caman- ches, Kiowas, Navajoes, Shoshones, Northern Arapahoes, Crows, and the numerous bands com- prising the Sioux nations; the special commis- sion consisted of Generals Sherman, Sanborn, Harney, Terry, Senator John B. Henderson, of Missouri, and Colonel Samuel Tappan. The commission made a thorough investigation of the needs and demands of the Indians, and fixed upon the humane and just policy to be pursued by the government towards these " wards of the nation," which has resulted in the educa-
tion and civilization of numbers of them, and on the whole has been successful.
In 1872 he was elected to the legislature, and again in 1882; on the latter occasion he con- sented to serve in order to assist in restoring the somewhat impaired credit of the state. He was largely instrumental in having the two million five hundred thousand dollars of state railroad bonds issued in 1858 (which had stood repudiated since that time) taken up and canceled, and the stain upon the state's good name and financial credit removed and obliterated. He has never been an office seeker or place hunter, but has fre- quently been put forward for the most exalted positions. In 1860 he was before the caucus of his party for nomination as a candidate for United States senator, and was defeated by Hon. Morton S. Wilkinson by only two votes. In 1884 he was recommended for the appointment to the position of judge of the United States circuit court for the eighth district to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Hon. George W. McCrary. His recommendations, which were wholly unsolicited, were acknowledged by Presi- dent Arthur to be the strongest before him, but geographical position controlled the selection and the appointment was given to Judge Brewer, of Kansas.
General Sanborn has been closely and promi- nently connected with the business and commercial interests of St. Paul. For several years he was president of the Chamber of Commerce, director and vice-president of the German-American Bank and vice-president and trustee of the Bankers' Life Assurance Association. He has been presi- dent of the St. Paul Roller Mill Company, and connected with other business enterprises. He has also been commander of the Minnesota Com- mandery of the Loyal Legion, a member of the executive council of the Historical Society, etc.
It goes without saying that, as a lawyer, he is in the front rank of his profession. His legal at- tainments are of the highest order. His client- age comes from the best classes, and the general success of the firm, of which he is the head, is most marked.
As a citizen he is public spirited, liberal and philanthropic ; and in all of the relations of life he is faithful, honorable and true to himself and his fellow-men.
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General Sanborn has been thrice married. His first wife was Miss Catharine Hall, of Newton, New Jersey, whom he married in March, 1857, and who died in 1860, leaving a daughter, Hattie F. Sanborn, who died December 5, 1880. His second wife, to whom he was married in Novem- ber, 1865, and who died in June, 1878, was Miss
Anna Nixon of Bridgeton, New Jersey, a sister of the Hon. John T. Nixon, of the Federal Dis- trict Court of New Jersey. April 15, 1880, he married his present wife, who was Miss Rachel Rice, daughter of the Hon. Edmund Rice, of St. Paul. To the last union there have been born three children.
HON. HENRY T. WELLES,
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
N O resident of Minneapolis has done more for the city and the northwest than has Henry T. Welles. He is virtually the father of Minneapolis. He was president of the first council held in what is now the city, but several years before Minneapolis was incorporated. He was also the first mayor of St. Anthony.
For many centuries the Welles family has been prominent in affairs of church and state in Eng- land and the United States. The ancestry is traceable back to the eighth century. The Eng- lish branch of the family was established about 1 120, when some of its members came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and the the name (DeWelles) is frequently mentioned in the earlier history as that of a family belonging to the nobility. Henry T. Welles is a direct de- scendant of Thomas Welles, who was governor of Connecticut, and who came over to the colonies in 1636, and founded the American branch of the family. One of its most distinguished members was Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under President Lincoln, who was a relative of our subject.
Henry T. Welles was born at Glastonbury, Con- necticut, April 3, 1821. He was favored in boy- hood with rare educational advantages, and was graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, Con- necticut, in 1843. Among his classmates and fel- low-students were many who have since become famous ; particularly Thomas S. Preston, formerly private secretary of Archbishop Hughes, but afterwards vicar general of the archdiocese of New York ; also William E. Curtis, chief justice of the superior court of New York, and the Honorable Henry Sanford, minister to Belgium. During the college vacations he assisted in tilling
the broad acres of the family homestead, and the first ten years after leaving college were mostly spent upon the farm, though divided with duties of a public character.
In 1850 he was honored with a seat in the leg- islature of his native state. In 1853 he removed to Minnesota, settling at St. Anthony, and be- came interested in the lumber business and in other industries, and also invested largely in real estate. He at once became a leader amongst his fellow citizens, and in 1855 was elected mayor of St. Anthony. He was the first head of a munici- pal government in what is now Minneapolis. In 1856 he removed to Minneapolis, having pre- viously invested largely in real estate there. The first bridge that spaned the Mississippi river was built in 1855 by the Minneapolis Bridge Com- pany, of which Mr. Welles and Mr. Franklin Steele were proprietors. Eight months were spent in its construction, and when completed it was dismantled by a gale on March 19, 1855. On July 4, 1855, the first team that ever drove over the Mississippi river crossed on this bridge. The public spirit of Mr. Welles and Mr. Steele was amply rewarded, for two years later the tolls from the bridge amounted to twelve thousand five hundred dollars per annum. Mr. Welles was president of the first town council that convened in Minneapolis, on July 20, 1855. In 1858 he was president of the Board of Education. In 1863 he was unanimously nominated by the Democratic party for the governorship, but was defeated at the election.
He has always shown a commendable public spiritedness, and the numerous railroads that have so materially aided in developing the city found in him a firm friend. As early as 1853 he
American Bug. Pub.it's Chicago
H. T. Welles
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conducted a large saw-mill in St. Anthony and employed more than a hundred men, and since then he has been actively engaged in many enter- prises that have added to the material prosperity of the city.
In financial institutions he has been a com- manding figure, and assisted in organizing the Northwestern National Bank, of which he was president for a number of years. The high place it holds among financial institutions is largely due to his efforts. He also assisted in organizing the Farmers' and Mechanics' Savings Bank of Minne- apolis, and for many years was prominent in its management and affairs.
In 1853, when Mr. Welles was running his saw- mill in St. Anthony, the water power failed, and he built the first dam across the Mississippi river, a " horse and slab affair," which raised the water two feet ; he constructed this in ten days, and it was the local wonder of the time.
The most important service rendered to Minne- apolis by Mr. Welles was by using his voice and influence to induce the citizens to vote aid to pro- vide some means to prevent the falls from wear- ing away. Mr. Welles had collected valuable data regarding the falls, and proved that they had already been worn to the extent of two feet. The majority of the citizens were opposed to giving any substantial aid, arguing that it would only benefit the millers. Mr. Welles arose in a mass meeting and presented an array of undeniable facts, and when he had finished his arguments and a vote was taken, there was but one person who objected. Through his efforts the apron that protects the falls was constructed, and this saving of the falls did more to enhance the material prosperity of Minneapolis than all other improve- ments combined.
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