USA > Pennsylvania > A biographical album of prominent Pennsylvanians, v. 1 > Part 31
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In the first attempts to capture Charleston young Porter was in the assault made at Secessionville, and received a slight wound in the hand. Soon, there- after, he was transferred to General McClellan's staff, and acted as chief ordnance officer in the transfer of the Army of the Potomac from Harrison's Landing, Va., to Maryland, to take part in the bloody engagements of Antietam and South Mountain.
After Antietam he was made chief ordnance officer of the Department of the Ohio, and sent West. He remained in that position until he was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland. There he was assigned to the staff of Gen. W. S. Rosecrans, joined him at Murfreesboro, Tenn., and served with marked distinc- tion from there to Chattanooga.
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At the battle of Chickamauga Captain Porter, as usual, was credited with dis- tinguished services. At one time he was instrumental in holding a column of the enemy in check at a critical moment in the midst of the retreat by gathering some scattered pieces of artillery on a knoll, and surrounding them with some fragments of demoralized regiments that were pushing off the field. It was a bold stand, and not only served to hold the enemy for a while, but gained some valuable time in which trains could be got out of the way and saved.
When General Grant was assigned to the command of the Western armies, and relieved General Rosecrans at the foot of Missionary Ridge, Captain Porter was transferred to the staff of Gen. George H1. Thomas, and was with him at Chattanooga when General Grant assumed his new duties. He met the distin- guished soldier, with whom he was destined to occupy such important relations, not only in war, but in peace, under peculiar circumstances. Grant had made his famous horseback ride over the mountains in the rain, and had reached Thomas' headquarters in a rather dilapidated condition. He had probably been there half an hour when General Thomas summoned Captain Porter, and there, for the first time, he met the future general of the armies. He was sitting in a chair, apart from the other officers, with his head bent well forward, so that his chin almost rested upon his breast. He had asked enough questions of Thomas to be able to appreciate the desperate condition of affairs, and was in deep thought when General Thomas proceeded to introduce the young officer to his future chief. General Grant's clothes were muddy and wet, and this was a rebuke to General Thomas' idea of hospitality; so he invited him to go to his room and change his garments. General Grant declined, but moved a little closer to the blazing fire on the hearth at Thomas' suggestion. Grant asked Porter but a few questions that night, but requested his presence the next day. He then invited him to accompany him in the inspection of the lines and the location of the artillery.
During the siege of Vicksburg and his other operations along the Mississippi, Grant was desirous that Captain Porter should be sent to him for artillery service. His efficient work at Fort Pulaski had attracted his attention in the earliest days of the conflict. But his request was not granted, and Chattanooga was his first meeting-place with the young artillery officer. There was a reciprocal feeling between them from the first, and Porter was frequently summoned to head- quarters.
In an interview not long after General Grant's arrival he informed Porter that he desired to make him a Brigadier, and give him command of troops in that army. Ile made that recommendation to the War Department, and among the papers and explanations which Porter the next day took to Washington from General Grant was the request for his promotion. But the authorities at the National Capital in those days paid about as much attention to General Grant's wi-hes as to the request of a messenger boy, and his suggestions were " pigcon- holed." Porter, who, in the meantime, had been made a full Captain of Ord-
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nance, after delivering his despatelies, was assigned to duty in that department at Washington.
General Grant was not to remain long at Chattanooga, and Captain Porter did not remain long in a Washington office. The battle of Missionary Ridge brought Grant into the supreme control of all the armies of the Union. When he came East to assume his greater command the young artillery and ordnance officer, who had early in the war attracted his attention, was at once taken as a member of his personal staff, and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. This advancement came a month before General Grant's grapple with Lee in the Wilderness. In this remarkable wrestle in the brush young Porter bore a con- spicuous part ; so gallant, indeed, that for his services on that field he was bre- vetted a Major in the regular army, and the order read: " For gallant and meritorious services."
From the Rapidan to the James he followed General Grant's fortunes, winning honors in every subsequent engagement by his quickness of decision, promptness of action, courage and judgment. He was the bright, attentive spirit of the Lieutenant-General's waking and sleeping hours during those terrible days of battle and march which brought Grant's army south of the James. When he decided to make the bold move for City Point and beyond, Porter was one of the two officers he sent forward to select the point where the army was to make the crossing. At the siege of Petersburg Porter was again brevetted for " gallant and meritorious services " in the engagement at Newmarket Heights, Va.
How well he executed the important trusts confided to him during the depress- ing days of 1864, whether of a personal or public character, may be read from the record, which says that on February 24, 1865, he was again brevetted a Colonel of Volunteers for " faithful and meritorious services."
After Grant broke the enemy's lines, and the pursuit of the Confederate Army began, he was a restless and untiring aid, and the sound of the last cannon had hardly ceased to echo over the hills about Appomattox, and the capitulation of Lee's army announced to the world, before he was made a Brevet-Colonel of the regular army. The order which placed this young man so well ahead on the army-roll summed up, as the reasons for this honor: " For gallant and merito- rious services during the rebellion."
A little more than a month later he was made a brevet Brigadier-General for "gallant and meritorious services on the field during the rebellion."
The remarkable sum of his military achievements was now ready to be added up. The total was eight regular appointments and seven brevets-all "for gallant and meritorious services." Besides these substantial results of good deeds done, was " honorable mention " in the official reports of every battle and every can- paign wherein he had borne a part.
General Porter, like many other young officers of ability, had little chance through his years of meritorious service to impress his fame or usefulness upon the history of battles and campaigns. He was a staff officer, and the commander
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of a single regiment frequently had his gallant deeds sent out to the world and printed in the records of battles, while the often higher services of the staff officer were known only to the general he was serving. General Grant felt this, and years after the rebellion put in enduring form his estimate of General Porter's military work and ability. His words can be found in John Russell Young's "Around the World with General Grant." They read :
" We had a good many men in the war who were buried in the staff and did not rise. Horace Porter was lost in the staff. Like Ingalls, he was too useful to be spared. But as a commander of troops Porter would have risen, in my opinion, to a high command."
The demands of peace upon General Porter were fully as great as those of war. He continued the trusted friend of the general of the armies, besides being his confidant and reliable aid in military affairs. The close of the war naturally brought the peaceful conflict of " reconstruction." In this strange condition of national life, General Porter played an important part. His first duty, after the conflict, was in helping to dissolve the great army which the Union had mar- shalled for war. In the plans and purposes of sending back into citizenship the peerless soldiers who had followed Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and other Generals for the preservation of the Union, General Porter performed an important duty. It was General Grant's favorite axiom that, " Next to organizing an army, the dissolution of it was the most difficult thing." Feeling the importance of this work, he intrusted many of its details to General Porter, who in this service bore a conspicuous part.
In the beginning of " reconstruction " he was also charged with various inspect- ing tours in the South, to report upon the condition of the people and the manner in which they were accepting the terms of surrender, and various delicate matters of that description. His reports upon all the subjects were accepted by the general-in-chief with as much confidence as though they had been his own observations. Later, when General Grant became involved in the political con- plications which surrounded the conflict between Andrew Johnson and Congress, General Porter's tact was very frequently called into action with good results.
When General Grant accepted the position of Secretary of War, ad interim, during that difficult and trying time, he made General Porter Acting-Assistant Secretary of War, and entrusted to him some of the most delicate duties of that critical period. Porter was in that crisis not only a friend of the general-in-chief, and a soldier to obey all commands, but acted as the diplomat between the War Office and the White House through all the strained relations that settled about General Grant's connections with the administration then in power. He was afterward sent across the continent to report upon the location and distribution of troops, rendered necessary by the peace footing. His recommendations were always accepted, and the size and location of many of the army posts on the frontier were the results of his recommendations.
When General Grant became President General Porter was assigned to duty
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with the executive at the White House, with his full military rank, and in the administration of public affairs, so far as the executive was concernedl, no man wielded a more important influence with and for him. Ilis tact, judgment, dis- cretion and alert powers of mind and speech rendered him as valuable an assist- ant in the highest realm of civil life as in the discharge of the broadest military duties. Of all the soldier element which General Grant called about him, or kept within his reach, during the years from the close of the war until he ceased to be President, no man occupied a higher or broader position than Horace Porter. In the attacks which were made upon General Grant's administration of civil affairs, no reflections were ever cast upon General Porter, and he filled the full measure of his usefulness to his chief by standing close to him in those exciting days, and keeping true to his trust and friendship to the last. When the measure of his public life was filled to the brim, and he had witnessed the weakness and the strength of men in official position in war and peace, he parted company with the intrigues, disputes and shallowness of public life. He resigned a high place in the army only when his full duty to General Grant had been done, to accept a position in civil life which he had had under consideration for some time. He then entered the business world to become a successful man in the trades and traffics of life.
Few soldiers have lived who have done this. He had, before this, rejected the solicitations of politicians who sought to nominate him for Governor of his native State. It was something of a trial to turn away from the sentiment of succeeding to the same high office his father had so worthily filled. But this he did, and positively declined to allow his name to be used in the convention.
His first business position was that of Vice-President of the Pullman Palace Car Company. Into this famous organization he came as a new power with a fresh purpose. He seemed to drop readily from the realm of high public concerns into the routine of careful railroad management. His duties with the Pullman Company brought him to New York, and he branched out into a financial power at a very early period. He was one of the projectors of the Metropolitan Ele- vated Railroad of that city, and was chairman of the Finance Committee that raised the money to build it, and Chairman of the Executive Committee that erected and put it into operation. In the work of this railroad his power of invention came again into play, and he devised the ticket-boxes now used on the elevated roads and other appliances for caring for the fruits of the company's expenditures. In many of the railroad enterprises of the day he has had more or less of a place. He was the first President of the West Shore Railroad; built and followed its fortunes until it passed into the hands of the New York Central. He is still Vice-President of the Pullman Palace Car Co., and besides the exacting duties of that position, is a prominent factor in other great interests. He is a Director of the Continental Bank of New York, and a Director in the Equitable Life Assurance Society. He has served as an active Director in the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad; Scioto Valley, St. Louis and San Francisco; Cedar
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Rapids; Atlantic and Pacific; the Ontario and Western, and others of less note.
In addition to his multifarious duties, both as soldier and citizen, he has studied much and travelled to great purpose. He has thoroughly inspected his own country, and familiarized himself with its material and intellectual development, as well as its powers and complexion. He has studied French and Spanish, and is well versed in the literature of those countries. Unlike most business men, he, with all his work, has never neglected the graces of life, but cultivated them. He has always taken, and still takes, a great interest in art, literature and music. During the several tours he has made through Europe, he has gratified his fond- ness for art by studying the works of all the old masters, and in inspecting most of the fruits of human ambition of which the Old World can boast. Music is a part of his daily life, as well as study and labor. He is a great patron of the Opera, and a conspicuous figure about all musical and dramatic entertainments of the higher order.
The full sum of his life cannot now be made up. He is yet comparatively a young man, having but just passed his fiftieth year. It is an old adage that " Life is not a multitude of years, but a multitude of experiences." If this be true, his career has lifted him both in usefulness and knowledge far above his years. His life has been, in many respects, a romance, running from the primi- tive condition of Pennsylvania to the very summit of political, social and business influence, both in war and in peace. In the long range of human endeavor he never lost the confidence of his associates, and his friendship with and for General Grant was never dimmed. He saw a great deal of his old chief, even after they were separated. He lived beside him at Long Branch in the summer, and in the social life of his later years was always a conspicuous figure. General Porter was beside his coffin after death, and followed his remains to their final resting- place. He was selected as the orator of several of the most important memorial services that were held, and spoke words of culogy to the sorrowing soldiers. lle also wrote brilliantly of his old commander, both before and after he was dead.
llis has indeed been a singular career. Few men have combined so many strong qualities. His literary work has stood well alongside of his other achieve- ments, and his editorial articles and sketches in the old Galaxy and the present Century and Harper's Magasines show a high order of literary talent. His gifts as a speaker are broader even than his power with the pen. His wit and humor have enlivened many a social occasion, and his pathos and logic have instructed many an audience, who have listened to his addresses and lectures in most of the larger cities of the Union.
He is at the present day in the very fulness of all his mental and physical powers, having apparently many years of usefulness yet before him
FRANK A. BURR.
GEN ISAAC J. WISTAR.
GEN. ISAAC JONES WISTAR.
G ENERAL ISAAC J. WISTAR, Brigadier-General of Volunteers, United States Army, was born in Philadelphia, on the 14th of November, 1827. His parents were Dr. Caspar Wistar, a physician of high standing, and his wife, Lydia Jones, eldest daughter of Isaac C. Jones. Dr. Wistar was a consistent member of the Society of Friends, and was descended from Caspar Wistar, who settled in Philadelphia in 1714, and became a large owner of real estate, and from whom many city titles are derived. He was the eldest son of Hans Caspar Wistar, who held a small public office near Heidelberg, under the Grand Duke of Baden, which had been hereditary for many generations.
General Wistar was educated first at the Friends' boarding school at West- town, Chester county, and afterwards at Haverford College, Pennsylvania. In 1849 he went to California, overland, losing one-fourth of the party by attacks from hostile Indians on that long and then almost unknown road. He served as a foremast hand on the Pacific for several voyages, and afterwards passed two years in the service of the Hudson Bay Company as a " free trapper," or courier des bois, mostly in the far Northwest, wintering during one season as far north as the head waters of the Mackenzie river. Having been severely wounded in a conflict with the Rogue River Indians, he returned to San Francisco and studied law with Crockett & Page, who were distinguished lawyers of that day, the for- mer afterwards becoming Chief Justice of that State. He was admitted to the bar in 1853, and formed an association with the famous Col. Edward D. Baker, of Illinois, acquiring a large and important practice, both civil and criminal.
In 1859, Baker having been elected from Oregon to the Senate of the United States, their professional connection was dissolved, and Wistar returned to Phila- delphia, where he recommenced the practice of the law; but in April, 1861, in conjunction with Baker, he raised and organized, under a special order of the President, the so-called "California Regiment" of sixteen companies, sixteen hundred strong, of which Baker became the Colonel and Wistar the Lieutenant- Colonel.
On the 21st of October, 1861, the right battalion of that regiment, with por- tions of the Fifteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts Regiments, owing to some confusion of orders, were attacked in an untenable position at Ball's Bluff, Va., by an overpowering Confederate force, and, after a prolonged and desperate defence, were cut to pieces, the California battalion saving its colors, but losing over sixty per cent. of its force engaged, including Baker killed and Wistar severely wounded in three places. After a long illness Wistar recovered, but with his right arm permanently crippled, and became Colonel of his regiment, which was then, at the request of the State authorities, taken over from the roster of the United States and placed upon that of the State of Pennsylvania ; and thus,
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although the first three years' regiment that was enlisted in the volunteer service, it became the Seventy-first of the Pennsylvania line. It was brigaded in Sedg- wick's famous division of the Second Corps, and soon became well known throughout the gallant Army of the Potomac.
General Burns, its brigade commander, has declared that at Glendale his bri- gade, with the Nineteenth Massachusetts, held forty thousand Confederates, com- prising the Corps of Longstreet and Hill, with Magruder in supporting distance, at bay during the vital half hour when they attempted to pierce the centre of the Federal army on its march to Malvern Hill. At Gettysburg the Seventy-first and Sixty-ninth Regiments held successfully, though with terrible loss of life, the crucial position at the "Bloody Angle," and it was against their steady front that the memorable assault of Pickett spent its force in vain. Thus on two momentous occasions it was the lot of this regiment, with its gallant brigade associates, to meet and foil two great attempts to pierce the Union centre and cut the army in two. The success of either would, in all probability, have modified materially the issue of the war, and produced far-reaching consequences upon which it is now useless to speculate.
At the great battle of Antietam, after the repulse of the Corps of both Hooker and Mansfield, the division of Sedgwick forded the Antietam creek, and advanced a mile over level ground in column by brigade under artillery fire to the assault of Jackson's position. Here one of the bloodiest actions of the war took place, and in it Wistar was again severely wounded and left on the ground intermedi- ate between the two armies, whence he was rescued twelve hours later under cover of night, speechless but living. For his services on that occasion he was appointed Brigadier-General, and commanded successively a brigade and division in the Eighteenth Army Corps, where he became well known to the country in many celebrated battles and for some enterprising distant expeditions. His effort to surprise the defences of Richmond, in February, 1864, displayed some of the most remarkable infantry marching of the war, and came very near accom- plishing a successful entry by the back door into the Confederate capital.
At Charles City Court-House during the same winter, by a long and rapid march with one brigade of cavalry, he surprised and captured two entire regi- ments of Confederate cavalry, losing scarcely a man. The activity of his opera- tions in the vicinity of Richmond during the winter of 1863-64 attracted public attention, and received special mention in the President's message. At the bloody battle of Drury's Bluff, May 16, 1864, his command was the last on the line of battle of the Eighteenth Corps, from which it retired at leisure under orders to become the rear guard of the Army of the James in the retreat to Bermuda Hundred which ensued.
At the conclusion of the war, shattered by wounds and broken in health, he declined all invitations to a political carcer, and accepted the Presidency of the Union Canal Company, from which, in 1867, he was called to the charge of all the canals controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in Pennsylvania,
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and soon afterwards of those which it acquired in New Jersey, being in all about four hundred and thirty miles. At the present time, and for many years past, he has also had charge of all the coal-mining interests controlled by that great eor- poration, employing in the aggregate about eight thousand men of all ranks, and producing about two million five hundred thousand tons per annum.
At the celebrated reunion of the survivors of the Philadelphia Brigade and Pickett's Division at Gettysburg held at the " Bloody Angle " on the 3d of July, 1887, he took an active part, making his first and only public utterance since the war in the cause of coneord and fellowship. Ilis short address, delivered with a choking voice on that memorable spot in presence of the battered survivors of both armies, with the widow of the gallant Pickett sitting by, presented a unique and thrilling seene. The emotion and feeling of those scanty remnants of the two famous corps who had almost mutually destroyed each other on the same spot a quarter of a century before was indescribable, and the speaker's voice was constantly interrupted by the uncontrollable emotion of himself and others. The following is the address as reported in the Philadelphia Press of July 7, 1887 :
COMRADES AND FRIENDS :- Upon me has been conferred the honor of delivering this completed monument to the custody and pious care of the Battlefield Memorial Association.
We hope it may endure while these surrounding hills shall stand, not simply to mark for posterity this spot on which such momentous events transpired, but as a memorial from us few survivors to commeno- rate the far greater number of our glorious dead.
You must give me a minute to recover myself. I cannot look on your small array-pitiful indeed in numbers, though in nothing else-without contrasting it with the numerous and gallant body I once led, and the feeling is too much for me.
Your regiment, the Seventy-first of Pennsylvania, was mustered in on the 16th of May, IS61, by a captain of engineers, who afterwards became one of the greatest and most distinguished sokliers of our country, and whose great fame and reputation are among the most precious possessions of his fellow- soldiers and countrymen, General William F. Smith.
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