USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 38
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After the battle of Peach Tree Creek the rebels withdrew to their works around Atlanta. Within a week from his brilliant victory, Hooker, who felt that he was slighted in the presence of the army in not being assigned to the command made vacant by the death of McPherson, to which he felt entitled by seniority and by experience, was relieved at his own request, and left the army. Colonel Fessenden being on his personal staff, came North with him.
On arriving in Washington Colonel Fessenden received on the 8th of August the appointment of brigadier-general for his services in the Atlanta campaign. In October he received orders to report for duty to Major-General Sheridan at Winchester, Virginia. General Sheridan had defeated the rebels under Early at the battle of Winchester in Sep- tember, and his army was in camp north of Cedar Creek. Sheridan himself had been absent in Washington in consultation with the Secretary of War. On the 18th of October he was at Winchester on his return to the army. General Fessenden arrived in Winchester on that day, and reported for duty to General Sheridan, who directed him to report to the commanding officer of the Nineteenth Corps, and invited him to ride up to the army in his company on the following morning. On the morning of the 19th cannonading had been heard since sunrise, but it occasioned no surprise, as it was known that a reconnaissance had been ordered for that day. General Sheridan left Winchester at eight o'clock, accom- panied by General Forsyth, his chief of staff, General Fessenden, several other officers, and an escort of cavalry. The party was proceeding leisurely up the Winchester turnpike when on ascending an elevation in the road the sound of guns indicating a battle struck the ear, and an orderly bearing a despatch rode hastily up to General Sheridan. On reading the despatch, General Sheridan gave hurried orders to his staff to form the escort across the road to stop stragglers, and exclaiming that he was going through on the gallop, put spurs to his famous black horse, and went off at headlong speed. General Fessenden, whose own horse was a blooded animal of speed and endurance, galloped after General Sheridan, and
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was the next after him to reach the field of battle. Such was the effect of Sheridan's appearance and his encouraging shouts, that the retreating soldiers turned about and has- tened back to the army. In the night before the rebel commander had secretly placed four divisions on the flank and rear of the army, surprised the Eighth Corps, and driven the whole army several miles from its camps. Sheridan found his army discomfited but not demoralized, and he at once determined to attack. General Fessenden reported to General Emory, commanding the Nineteenth Corps, participated in the repulse of the rebels at midday, and took part in the grand advance in the afternoon, when the defeat of the morning was turned into the glorious victory of Cedar Creek.
General Fessenden was temporarily assigned to the command of the Second Brigade, but on the 3d of November was placed in command of the Third Brigade of the First Division of the Nineteenth Corps. On the 21st he moved with his command to Middle- town, in support of the cavalry. During the winter he also commanded the important post of Winchester, then the headquarters of the department. Besides his military duties, the post-commander had the trying and responsible labor of regulating the civil affairs of the neighborhood, watching the disaffected, and protecting and supplying the loyal people. In April he marched his command to Camp Stoneman, near Washington. The surrender of Lee and Johnston soon occurred. The armies were concentrated at Washington, and General Fessenden marched his brigade with the Army of the Potomac in the grand review of the 23d of May. In June he was ordered to proceed with his brigade to Savannah, where he remained till the middle of July, when he was ordered to the command of the Western District of South Carolina, with headquarters at Winnsborough. The duties of commanding officers of the Southern districts were at this time exceedingly unpleasant and difficult. There was no recognized government except the military authorities, and the commanding officers were overwhelmed with demands to settle disputes, and keep the country in order. This they endeavored to do with scarcely any troops, and almost by their own personal efforts. General Fessenden was occupied in this difficult work until the last of August, when he was ordered to the command of the District of Maryland. For services during the war he was promoted to brevet major-general of volunteers. In December, 1865, he was, with the other general officers, mustered out, as the Government no longer required their services.
After leaving the army, General Fessenden returned to Portland, and in 1866 he re- sumed the practice of the law. On the passage of the Bankrupt Act by Congress in 1868 he was appointed the Register in Bankruptcy for the First District of Maine, and held that office until the repeal of the law. He represented his city in the Legislature of Maine during the three years of 1872-73-74. He died very suddenly on the morning of Novem- ber 18, 1882. He was married in 1856 to Miss Frances C. Greely of Topsham, Maine, by whom he had two sons-James D. Fessenden, a lawyer in New York, and Harry M. Fessenden of Portland.
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B OUTELLE, CHARLES A., of Bangor, was born at Damariscotta, Lincoln County, Maine, February 9, 1839, and is the grandson of Dr. John Boutelle, born at Hancock, New Hampshire, and the eldest child of Captain Charles Boutelle, born at Monmouth, Maine, May 31, 1813, and Lucy Ann Curtis, born at Newcastle, Maine, August 19, 1820, second daughter of Captain Christopher S. Curtis of Nobleborough. His family early removed to Brunswick, where, in the public schools and at Yarmouth Academy, he received his education. He early adopted the profession of his father, who was a prominent ship-master, and after rising through the various grades of sea-service to command, he returned from a foreign voyage in 1862, and at once volunteered and was appointed an Acting-Master in the U. S. Navy. He was first assigned to service on board the U. S. steamer Paul Jones, commanded by Captain, afterward Rear-Admiral, Charles Steedman, then attached to the South Atlantic Squadron. In this vessel he took part in the blockade of Charleston, South Carolina, and other portions of that coast ; in the ill-fated Pocotaligo expedition ; in the engagement with the batteries of St. John's Bluff, and the capture and occupation of Jacksonville, Florida, at which he commanded a battery of marine howitzers, landed to co-operate with the troops. He subsequently took part in engagements with the enemy at Morris Island, Brunswick, Georgia, and elsewhere, on the same vessel, under command of Lieutenant-Commander E. P: Williams (lost in the Oneida), and Commander, now Commodore, A. C. Rhind. In the autumn of 1863 he was attached to U. S. steamer Sassacus, commanded by Lieutenant- Commander, now Commodore, Francis A. Roe, which captured and destroyed the blockade- runners Wild Dayrell and Nutfield off the coast of North Carolina ; and on May 5, 1864, as navigating officer, he handled that vessel in her memorable engagement with the rebel iron- clad ram Albemarle, in Albemarle Sound, North Carolina. In this remarkable battle the Sassacus, a'wooden side-wheel gunboat, ran into the side of the ironclad at full speed with the hope of sinking her, which was nearly accomplished ; but in the duel that ensued both vessels were disabled, the Sassacus having her boiler exploded by a one-hundred-pounder Brooks rifle-shot from the ram, while the latter had one of her guns disabled, her flag shot away, and her stearing-gear damaged by the shock of collision and the heavy firing of the Sassacus, and retreated in a leaking condition to the shelter of the rebel batteries in the Plymouth River, where she was afterward blown up at her wharf by the intrepid Lieutenant Cushing. In the official report of Lieutenant-Commander Roe he commended the " fine conduct" of Acting-Master Boutelle, who, he said, was " as cool and fearless as at a general exercise," and he recommended him for "promotion to the grade of Lieutenant, deserved for good behavior and ability before the enemy in battle." The Navy Department promptly made the promotion to the highest rank then open to a volunteer officer-that of
E1. Boulette.
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Acting. Volunteer Lieutenant, and the commission was phrased in the complimentary terms, "In consideration of your gallant conduct in the action with the rebel ram Albemarle on the 5th inst." Mr. Boutelle afterward served in command of U. S. steamer Nyanza, in the West Gulf Squadron, participating in the capture of Mobile, Alabama ; in the chase of the retreating Confederate vessels; in the expedition nearly five hundred miles up the river to Montgomery ; and finally was assigned to the command of the naval forces in Mississippi Sound, upon which devolved important duties in re-establishing civil order and commercial relations at the close of the war. At his own request he was honorably discharged from the naval service on January 14, 1866, having received from every officer under whose command he served throughout the war official commendation, which is now on file at Washington.
After engaging for a time in commercial business in New York, Mr. Boutelle, in the spring of 1870, became managing editor of the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, and four years later he purchased the controlling interest in its ownership, and became associated with Benjamin A. Burr in its publication, under the firm name of Boutelle & Burr. He has continued the editorial management under which the Whig and Courier has been a prominent factor in the politics of the State, and a recognized exponent of Maine Repub- licanism. In 1876 he was a delegate to the National Republican Convention, and was continuously chosen as a member of the Republican State Executive Committee from 1876 to 1884, when he declined, as he also did an election to the National Committee, on account of the civil-service rules. In 1879-80 he took a leading part in the exposure and defeating of the notorious counting-out conspiracy of the Garcelon Executive Council, and in the spring of 1880 was unanimously nominated as Republican candidate for Congress in the Fourth Maine District. At the ensuing election he reduced the adverse majority of nearly three thousand to 885. In 1882 he was nominated by the State Convention, and elected as a Representative-at-Large to the Forty-eighth Congress, receiving 72,383 votes against 63,301 votes for George W. Ladd, Greenback-Democrat, and obtaining a majority of about two thousand in the counties of his old Congressional District. In 1881 he was appointed by President Garfield a member of the Board of Visitors at West Point Military Academy.
In the Forty-eighth Congress, first session, he served on the Committee on Naval Affairs, taking an active part in the investigation of the Jeannette Polar Expedition. During the session he made speeches against the repeal of the ironclad oath, against the restoration of Fitz-John Porter to the U. S. Army, in favor of liberalizing the pension laws, and in behalf of the restoration of our navy.
At the National Republican Convention at Chicago in June, 1884, Mr. Boutelle, who attended as President of the Maine Blaine Club, and represented Maine on the National
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Committee, was actively influential in promoting the nomination of Hon. James G .. Blaine and General John A. Logan as the Republican standard-bearers.
In the spring of 1884, at the Republican Convention of the new Congressional Dis- trict, composed of the counties of Penobscot, Piscataquis, Aroostook, and Washington, Mr. Boutelle was a third time unanimously nominated for Representative, and at the election of September 8 was re-elected by the remarkable majority of more than fifty-five hundred over John F. Lynch of Machias, his Democratic competitor.
In 1880, 1882, and 1883, Mr. Boutelle was called to the stump in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, and elsewhere; and in 1884, after the successful September canvass in Maine, he spoke in other States almost continuously until the November election.
Charles A. Boutelle was married on the 16th day of May, 1866, to Lizzie H., second daughter of Hon. John L. Hodsdon of Bangor. They have three children : Grace Hodsden, born March 27, 1869 ; Lizzie, born December 20, 1875 ; and Anne Curtis, born July 17, 1877. His family residence is a comely old-style mansion on Broadway, Bangor.
R ICH, HOSEA, M.D., was born in Charlton, Worcester County, Massachu- setts, October 1, 1780. He was the son of Paul and Mary Rich, and grand- son of Deacon Jonathan Dennis, who was a Representative for twe ny successive years in the Massachusetts Legislature. In his childhood he was inured to labor on the paternal farm, and thus by his physical training he laid the foundation of that vigorous constitution, that robust health, which continued to the late evening of life, so that he always possessed a sound mind in a sound body.
He early manifested a decided predilection for the study of medicine, but as he was the only surviving son his parents desired to retain his services on the farm; yet by the advice of his grandfather they at last reluctantly yielded to his importunity, and after at- tending a common-school and receiving instruction from a clergyman of his native town, he became a medical student of Dr. John Elliot Eaton, a skilful physician of Dudley, Mas- sachusetts, who was a graduate of Harvard University, and had been a student of Dr. Gardi- ner of Boston. During the latter part of his pupilage he also rode upon horseback with Dr. Thomas Babbitt, an eminent surgeon of Sturbridge, who had been a student of Dr. John Warren, and was a graduate of Harvard, Class of 1784, and saw him perform several im- portant operations which made a deep impression upon his mind, and which were of great utility to him afterward.
Dr. Rich, January 6, 1803, married Mrs. Fanny Goodale, whose maiden name was Barker, and who died in May, 1864. By her he became the father of eight children, one of whom was an able physician. Two only, at this date, survive.
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In 1803, at the age of twenty-five, he began to seek a favorable location. He first went to Thompson, Connecticut ; thence to Cumberland, Rhode Island ; thence to New Jersey ; and afterward embarked from New York on an expedition for Port-au-Prince as a surgeon's assistant, but soon returned.
He was soon induced by the late John Barker, Esq., a brother of Mrs. Rich, who preceded him to Bangor, then a small village in the wilderness of Maine, to establish him- self in that place, where he arrived on July 4, 1805. There, for more than sixty years, he actively and successfully practised medicine and surgery, and until August 14, 1865, when he contracted his last sickness, which terminated in his death, January 30, 1866, at the ripe age of eighty-five years. His remains repose in Mount Hope Cemetery, in that city.
Dr. Rich was President of the Penobscot County Medical Association and of the Maine Medical Association. He received the honorary degree of M.D. from Bowdoin Col- lege in 1851. He was surgeon of the Fourth Maine Regiment under General Blake at the battle of Hampden in 1814, when about 750 British attacked 450 Americans and wounded eleven. He was permitted by the English officers to take care of the American wounded.
At the time Dr. Rich began his professional career in Bangor he had a competitor in the person of Dr. Balch, who was a gentleman of popular manners and respectable profes- sional skill, but with strong inclinations for political honors. Dr. Rich, on the other hand, had one object only in view, and that object was his profession. The result, as might be expected, was in every respect favorable. His science and his reputation were ever advancing.
He loved the practice of medicine and also of surgery with an intensity unsurpassed. For this he sacrificed everything that stood in its way. Its duties to him were always para- mount in importance, its emoluments subordinate. His services could always be com- manded alike by the poor and the rich. No pestilence that walketh in darkness, no destruction that wasteth at noon-day, neither summer's heat nor winter's cold, neither darkness nor distance, ever appalled or impeded him in the discharge of his beneficent work ; but with him the path of duty was ever the path of pleasantness.
As a surgeon, he was cautious and conservative. Though fond of operating, he was more desirous to preserve than to amputate. His hand was firm and steady, without a tremor, to the last day of his life. He performed important operations very frequently, and was remarkably successful. His circuit extended fifty miles in every direction, and he often rode one hundred miles to remove some morbid structure for those who could not come to him. His first capital operation was the amputation of a leg in 1809; and his last operation was the delicate one of couching for cataract, June 27, 1865, when at more than fourscore years, with natural force unabated, with clear eye and steady hand, he then gave the inestimable blessing of sight to a blind old man.
He was an universally popular man, and that is much to say. He saw nothing but his
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profession, and was constantly serving his fellow-men. He was very agreeable in his man- ners, and courteous to and honorable with all men. He was a very fine and impressive- looking man.
After his death, his life was briefly described and its merits and usefulness beautifully portrayed by the Rev. Dr. Charles C. Everett, then of the Unitarian pulpit in Bangor, and now a Professor in the Theological Department of Harvard College, Massachusetts. Shortly afterward a biographical sketch of Dr. Rich was read by Dr. J. C. Weston before the Penobscot County Medical Association, from which we have taken the leave in this brief review to liberally extract. Rev. Dr. Everett's allusions and descriptions were in- teresting and touching, and the following passage is quoted therefrom :
"One has gone from us whose usefulness is bound up with the history of our city almost from its beginning. For sixty years it has known no pause or rest. His usefulness was not the service of a slave or hireling, but it was a service of love. It was the outgrowth of an enthusiasm for the work he had chosen, and of a genial and hearty interest in those about him. His profession was a life and not a livelihood. Rich and poor shared alike the blessing of its unselfish zeal. He accepted with a certain pride the most difficult and toilsome accompaniments of these great duties. All honored this simple and earnest life. All loved to see the venerable form, erect beneath the burden of years and of cares, pass through the streets on its errands of mercy. All took a certain pride in the hale and hearty age, and in the fine form of one whose life was thus identified with their own city."
The death of no man in Bangor was ever more generally mourned than that of Dr. Hosea Rich.
ELLEN, PRENTISS, of Portland, Maine. Born in Sterling, Massachu- setts, on the 11th of October, 1764. He was eighth of the nine children of the Rev. John Mellen of that town. His grandfather, Thomas Mellen, was a farmer in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. His father was a native of Hopkinton, a graduate of Harvard College in 1741, and a faithful minister of the Gospel for many years at Sterling and Hanover, in the Old Colony. He died at Reading, Massachusetts, in 1807. The mother of Prentiss Mellen was Rebecca, daughter of the Rev. John Prentiss of Lancaster, who gave the Christian name to his grandson.
Prentiss Mellen and his elder brother Henry were fortunate in having a father who was abundantly able and willing to prepare his sons for college. This he did. Together the brothers entered Harvard in 1780, and together they graduated in 1784. John Abbott, afterward Professor in Bowdoin College ; Silas Lee, who became a distinguished lawyer ; and other bright, capable young men-were their classmates. Henry Mellen, a witty and brilliant scion of the Prentiss stock, afterward practised law at Dover, New Hampshire,
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and died there in 1809. Prentiss passed a year, after his graduation, as private tutor in the family of Joseph Otis, at Barnstable. There he also pursued his legal studies in the office of the eccentric lawyer Shearjashub Bourne. Admitted to the bar at Taunton in October, 1788, he observed the ancient custom of treating the court and bar with half a pail of punch. The punch, or the ceremony, or both punch and ceremony, was entitled "the colt's tail." Such customs he afterward learned to honor in the breach rather than in the observance. Commencing practice in his native town of Sterling, he spent eight months there, and then removed to Bridgewater, where he remained until November, 1791. Not satisfactorily successful there, he next spent a few months with his brother Henry at Dover, New Hampshire. In July, 1792, he removed to Biddeford, Maine, advised thereto by his true and trusted friend Judge Thacher, who was then Representa- tive in Congress from Maine. There he began that course of splendid and successful practice which placed him at the head of the Maine bar, and on the chief seat of its Supreme Judicial Court.
Prentiss Mellen's beginning at Biddeford was a day of small things. Subsequently describing it, he said : " I opened my office in one of old Squire Hooper's front chambers, in which were then arranged three beds, and half a table, and one chair. My clients had the privilege of sitting on some of the beds. In this room I slept, as did also sundry travellers frequently, the house being a tavern." His library probably presented similar characteristics to those of his office apparatus. Biddeford then contained about eleven hundred inhabitants, and the county about twenty-eight thousand. The legal needs of all these were ministered unto by three attorneys, of whom Mellen was one. Governor Sullivan had formerly resided and practised at Biddeford, but had removed to Boston, and when Mr. Mellen settled in Biddeford was Attorney-General of Massachusetts.
From 1804 until the date of his appointment as Chief Justice in 1820, Prentiss Mellen practised in every county in the State, and was arrayed on one side or other in every important cause. In 1806 professional duties dictated his removal to Portland, where a large amount of commercial business was transacted. Competition in that city was formidable. Parker, Chase, Symmes, Whitman, Longfellow, and Hopkins were resident practitioners, and men of high legal attainments, of great natural abilities, and famous for eloquence as able advocates. Wilde, Lee, and Orr were his rivals in other parts of the State. " His most constant opponent," said Professor Greenleaf, "was Judge Wilde. Their forensic warfare, adopted by tacit consent, was to place the cause on its merits, produce all the facts, and fight the battle in open field. ... A generous warfare like this could not but create a generous friendship. They have often been heard to speak of each other and of those scenes in animating terms."
Occasionally Wilde and Mellen were associate counsel on the same side. One notable trial, in which such was the case, was that of some settlers who had squatted on the
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unoccupied lands of unknown proprietors in Maine. Their possessions were endangered by contending claimants, and their lives harassed by ceaseless and expensive litigation. Made desperate by their wrongs, they resisted all attempts by the proprietors to survey their lands. In one of these attempts Paul Chadwick, an assistant surveyor, lost his life by the hands of a party of squatters disguised as Indians. Seven persons suspected of the crime were arrested and thrown into jail. Rescue was attempted ; the militia was called out, and the whole community thrown into a state of excitement. The prisoners were indicted and tried for murder. Mellen and Wilde skilfully defended them. Popular feeling was strongly in favor of the accused, who were acquitted. The "Betterment" Act, as it was called, subsequently neutralized the causes of these agrarian excesses.
Of these competitors Mr. Mellen became the acknowledged leader. The bar of Cumberland was the best in the Commonwealth.
When pleading at the bar, Mr. Mellen was fervid and impassioned. His countenance gleamed with bright intelligence. His intuitions were quick, and of necessity not always accurate. When urgently pressing a point on one occasion, Chief Justice Parsons re- marked, " You are aware, Mr. Mellen, that there are authorities on the other side." " Yes, yes, your Honor," was the impatient rejoinder, " but they are all in my favor." His client's cause he made his own. He never forgot or neglected it, nor failed to avail himself of an antagonist's errors or weakness to achieve a victory. His musical voice, tall and imposing appearance, and fascinating manner were all elements of professional power that he well knew how to utilize.
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