SELECTED BIOGRAPHIES (PART 4) Personalities from the Crisis Periods Adams, Samuel 1722 -- 1803 Colonial leader. Samuel Adams was born September 27, 1722, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a prosperous brewer and a pious, dogmatic mother. When he graduated from Harvard College in 1740, his ideas about a useful career were vague: he did not want to become a brewer, neither did work in the Church appeal to him. After a turn with the law, this field proved unrewarding too. A brief association in Thomas Cushing's firm led to an independent business venture which cost Adams's family £1,000. Thus fate (or ill luck) forced Adams into the brewery; he operated his father's malt house for a livelihood but not as a dedicated businessman. When his father suffered financial reverses, Adams accepted the offices of assessor and tax collector offered by the Boston freeholders; he held these positions from 1753 to 1765. His tax accounts were mismanaged and an £8,000 shortage appeared. There seems to have been no charge that he was corrupt, only grossly negligent. Adams was honest and later paid off the debts. In 1749, he married Elizabeth Checkley, who died in 1757. In 1764, he married Elizabeth Wells, who was a good financial and household manager. His luck had changed, for he was about to move into a political circle that would offer personal opportunity unlike any in his past. Adams became active in politics, and politics offered the breakthrough that transformed him from an inefficient taxgatherer into a leading patriot. As a member of the Caucus Club in 1764, he helped control local elections. When British policy on colonial revenues tightened during a recession in New England, passage of the Sugar Act in 1764 furnished Adams with enough fuel to kindle the first flames of colonial resistance. Thenceforth, he devoted his energies to creating a bonfire that would burn all connections between the Colonies and Great Britain. He also sought to discredit his local enemies—particularly the governor, Thomas Hutchinson. Enforcement of the Sugar Act was counter to the interests of those Boston merchants who had accepted molasses smuggling as a way of life. They had not paid the old sixpence tax per gallon, and they did not intend to pay the new threepence levy. Urged on by his radical Caucus Club associates, Adams drafted a set of instructions to the colonial assemblymen that attacked the Sugar Act as an unreasonable law, contrary to the natural rights of each and every colonist because it had been levied without assent from a legally elected representative. The alarm "no taxation without representation" had been sounded. During the next decade, Samuel Adams seemed a man destined for the revolutionary times. His essays gave homespun, expedient political theories a patina of legal respectability. Eager printers hurried them into print under a variety of pseudonyms. Meanwhile Parliament unwittingly obliged men of Adams' bent by proceeding to pass an even more restrictive measure in the Stamp Act of 1765. Unlike the Sugar Act, this was not a measure that would be felt only in New England; Adams' audience widened as moderate merchants in American seaports now found more radical elements eager to force the issue of whether Parliament was still supreme "in all cases whatsoever." In one of many results, Governor Hutchinson's home was nearly destroyed by a frenzied anti-Stamp Act mob. Adams' hammering essays and unceasing activities helped crystallize American opinion into viewing the Stamp Act as an odious piece of legislation. Through his columns in The Boston Gazette, he sent a stream of abuse against the British ministry; effigies of eminent Cabinet members hanged from Boston lampposts testified to the power of his incendiary prose. Adams rode a crest of popularity into the provincial assembly. As calm returned, he knew that the instruments of protest were developed and ready for use when the next opportunity showed itself. The Townshend Acts of 1767 furnished Adams with a larger and more militant forum, projected his name into the front ranks of the patriot group, and earned him the hatred of the British general Thomas Gage and of King George III. Working with the Caucus Club, the radicals overcame local mercantile interests and demanded an economic boycott of British goods. This non-importation scheme became a rallying point throughout the 13 colonies. Though its actual success was limited, Adams had proved that an organized, skillful minority could keep a larger but diffused group at bay. Adams worked with John Hancock to make seizure of the colonial ship Liberty seem a national calamity, and he welcomed the tension created by the stationing of British troops in Boston. Almost single-handedly Adams continued his alarms, even after repeal of the Townshend duties. In the succession of events from the Boston Massacre of 1770 to the Boston Tea Party and the Bill, Adams deftly threw Crown officials off guard, courted the radical elements, wrote dozens of inflammatory newspaper articles, and kept counsel with outspoken leaders in other colonies. In a sense, Adams was burning himself out so that, when the time for sober reflection and constructive political activity came, he had outlived his usefulness. By the time of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, when he and Hancock were singled out as Americans not covered in any future amnesty, Adam's career as a propagandist and agitator had peaked. Adams served in the Continental Congress between 1774 and 1781, but after the first session he occupied himself with gossip, uncertain as to what America's next steps should be or where he would fit into the scheme. He failed to perceive the forces loosed by the Revolution, and he was mystified by its results. While serving in the 1779 Massachusetts constitutional convention, he allowed his cousin John Adams to do most of the work. Tired of Hancock's vanity, he let their relationship cool; Hancock's repeated reelection as governor from 1780 on was a major disappointment. Against Daniel Shays's insurgents in 1786-1787, Adams shouted "conspiracy," showing little sympathy for the hard-pressed farmers. As a delegate to the Massachusetts ratifying convention in 1788, Adams made a brief show as an old-time liberal pitted against the conservatives. But the death of his son weakened his spirit, and in the end he was intimidated by powerful Federalists. He served as the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1789 to 1793, when he became governor. As the candidate of the rising Jeffersonian Republicans, he was able to exploit the voter magnetism of the Adams name and was reelected for three terms. He did not seek reelection in 1797 but resisted the tide of New England federalism and remained loyal to Jefferson in 1800. He died in Boston on October 2, 1803. Revere, Paul 1735 – 1818 American patriot, silversmith, engraver. Born January 1, 1735, in Boston, Massachusetts. Revere is best remembered for his ride before the Revolutionary War to warn American patriots of a planned British attack. The third of 12 children, Revere was the son of Apollos De Revoire, a French Huguenot who had come to Boston at the age of 13 to apprentice in the shop of a silversmith. Once Revoire had established his own business, he anglicized his name. Paul learned silversmithing from his father. As early as 1765, Revere began to experiment with engraving on copper and produced several portraits and a songbook. He was popular as a source for engraved seals, coats of arms, and bookplates, and he began to execute engravings which were anti-British. In 1768 Revere undertook dentistry and produced dental devices. The same year he made one of the most famous pieces of American colonial silver--the bowl commissioned by the Fifteen Sons of Liberty. It is engraved to honor the "glorious Ninety-two Members of the Honorable House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Bay, who, undaunted by the insolent Menores of Villains in Power ... Voted not to rescind" a circular letter they had sent to the other colonies protesting the Townshend Acts. Revere's virtuosity as a craftsman extended to his carving picture frames for John Singleton Copley, who painted the famous portrait of Revere in shirt sleeves holding a silver teapot. Revere became a trusted messenger for the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. He foresaw an attempt by the British troops against the military stores which were centered in Concord, and he arranged a signal to warn the patriots in Charlestown. During the late evening of April 18, 1775, the chairman of the Committee of Safety told him that the British were going to march to Concord. Revere signaled by hanging two lanterns in the tower of the North Church (probably the present Christ Church). He crossed the river, borrowed a horse in Charlestown, and started for Concord. He arrived in Lexington at midnight and roused John Hancock and Samuel Adams from sleep; the two fled to safety. Revere was captured that night by the British, but he persuaded his captors that the whole countryside was aroused to fight, and they freed him. He returned to Lexington, where he saw the first shot fired on the green. It is this ride and series of events which have been immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem "Paul Revere's Ride." In the same year, 1775, the Massachusetts provincial congress sent Revere to Philadelphia to study the only working powder mill in the Colonies. Although he was only allowed to walk through the mill and not to take any notes about it, he remembered enough to establish a mill in Canton. During the Revolutionary War, he continued to play an active role. He was eventually promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war Revere became a pioneer in the process of copper plating, and he made copper spikes for ships. In 1795, as grand master of the Masonic fraternity, he laid the cornerstone of the new statehouse in Boston. As a craftsman, Revere produced silver works spanning two major styles. His earliest work is in the rococo style, which is characterized by the use of asymmetric floral and scroll motifs and repousse decoration; this was done before the Revolution. From this, he evolved a neoclassic style after the Revolution. This style, developed in England, was based on the straight lines and severe surfaces of Roman design. In 1792 Revere produced one of the acknowledged American masterpieces in this style--a complete tea set commissioned by John and Mehitabel Templeman of Boston. The type of ornamentation employed in this tea set was being used in Massachusetts architecture by Charles Bulfinch and Samuel Mclntire. Revere's silver is marked with the initials "P R" in a block. This was the usual type of marking on American silver of the 18th century. Revere commanded a very distinguished Boston clientele and was called on to make a number of memorial and commemorative pieces. Like many silversmiths of the period, he also worked in brass. Revere was also a master of engraving. An on-the-spot reporter, he recorded the events leading up to and during the Revolution with great accuracy. These engravings were advertised in Boston newspapers and were eagerly purchased by the public. In 1770 the Boston Gazette advertised for sale Revere's engraving A View of Part of the Town of Boston in New England and British Ships of War Landing Their Troops, 1768. Revere added to the print a description of the troops, who paraded "Drums beating, Fifes playing ... Each Soldier having received 16 rounds of Powder and Ball." Today, all his silver and engravings are eagerly sought by collectors. On August 17, 1757, he married Sarah Orne and eventually became the father of eight children. Revere died in Boston on May 10, 1818. Morris, Robert 1734 -- 1806 Merchant, banker, public official; born in or near Liverpool, England. He came to Maryland about 1747 to work for his father, a tobacco exporter, then went to Philadelphia where he joined the Willings' shipping firm; by 1754 he had formed a partnership with Thomas Willing, and their mercantile firm became one of the most prosperous in the colonies. Although by no means a radical patriot, he objected to the Stamp Act of 1765; by 1775 he was recognizing a need for some action, but sent to the Continental Congress he only reluctantly signed the Declaration of Independence (1776). During the war, he remained in Philadelphia and provided crucial support, both moral and material, to George Washington; although Morris personally ended up profiting, he risked much of his own money in buying needed armaments for the colonial forces; he was acquitted (1779) by a congressional committe of charges that he had engaged in improper financial transactions. When the colonies realized they were on the brink of bankruptcy, the Continental Congress appointed him superintendent of finance and for three and one-half years (1781--84) he instituted strict financial policies--collecting taxes from the colonies, arranging for a loan from France, and securing the money to transport Washington's army to Yorktown, Va.; again, though, he mixed his own finances with those of the government--buying military supplies, for instance, with notes backed only by his own fortune. He remained active in public life, attending the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and then serving a term as one of Pennsylvania's first two senators (Fed., 1789--95). His speculations in western land led to the collapse of his financial empire and he spent three and one-half years in debtors' prison in Philadelphia (1798--1801). On his release he lived out his final years in poor health and was all but forgotten by his countrymen. Hancock, John 1737 -- 1793 Merchant, patriot; born in Braintree, Mass. He inherited his uncle's merchant business in 1764, and entered the patriot ranks in 1765 in opposition to the Stamp Act. He engaged in smuggling and one of his ships was seized in 1769. He served as the president of the Massachusetts Provisional Congress (1774--75) and as president of the First and Second Continental Congresses (1775--77). He was the first member to sign the Declaration of Independence. Following his period in Congress (1775--80), he helped to frame the Massachusetts constitution and was elected as the first governor of that state (1780--85; 1787--93). He presided at the state convention which ratified the Constitution and he died during his ninth term as governor. Shays, Daniel c. 1747 -- 1825 Soldier, insurrectionary; probably born in Hopkinton, Mass. His origins were humble and little is known of his early life. He fought at Bunker Hill (1775) and at Saratoga (1777); he resigned from the army in 1780 and settled in Pelham, Mass., where he held several town offices. He led the insurrection in western Massachusetts (1786--87) that grew out of a severe economic depression; armed groups threatened courts charged with the collection of debts, and in January 1787 Shays directed an assault on the Springfield Arsenal. Militia forces repulsed his band and pursued it to Petersham, where the remnants were captured. Shays himself fled to Vermont. Massachusetts authorities condemned him to death for being a leader of the rebellion that bears his name; he received a pardon in 1788. Shays migrated to western New York, where he passed the remainder of his years in obscurity. Buchanan, James 1791 -- 1868 Fifteenth US president, born near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, USA. Building on a successful law career, he entered politics and served as a Federalist in the Pennsylvania legislature (1815--17) and the US House of Representatives (1821--31), where he went over to the Democratic Party. In 1832--3 he served as ambassador to Russia and returned to serve Pennsylvania in the US Senate (1834--45) until becoming a most effective secretary of state under President Polk (1845--9). After a period of retirement and as ambassador to Great Britain (1854--6), he showed a willingness to accommodate slavery that gained him the presidency in 1856 with the solid backing of the South. During his term (1857--61) he supported laws protecting slavery in the attempt to establish Kansas as a slave state; when pressed by antislavery Americans, he fell back on narrow legal defences such as the Compromise of 1850 and the Dred Scott decision (1857). All this split the Democratic Party, allowing Lincoln to win the election of 1860. As a "lame duck' president, Buchanan professed the government's helplessness to prevent secession and turned the problem over to his successor. He returned to his Pennsylvania estate but he did support Lincoln throughout the war. Scott, Dred c. 1795 -- 1858 Dred Scott, in an effort to gain his freedom, waged one of the most important legal battles in the history of the United States. Dred Scott was born a slave in Southampton County, Virginia in 1795. Industrious and intelligent, he was employed as a farmhand, stevedore, craftsman, and general handyman. In 1819, his original owner moved to Huntsville, Alabama, and later to St. Louis, Missouri. In 1832 he died, and Scott was sold for $500 to a surgeon in the U.S. Army who took Scott to the free state of Illinois in 1834 and on to Wisconsin Territory. Later the doctor returned with Scott to Missouri. When the surgeon died, Scott was passed to John Sanford. During these years he had married and had two daughters. Scott had tried unsuccessfully to escape from slavery and later to buy his freedom. In 1846 he filed suit in the Missouri state courts for his freedom on the grounds that residence in a free territory had liberated him. Scott's suit finally came before the U.S. Supreme Court. On March 6, 1857, in Dred Scott v. John Sanford, after much debate the Supreme Court ruled against Scott 7 to 2, with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney giving the majority opinion. According to Taney, Scott could not sue Sanford because he was not a U.S. citizen. The justice argued that Scott was not a citizen because he was both a black man and a slave. Taney's remarks that black men "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" came as a severe blow to abolitionists. This crucial decision electrified the country, for Taney had ruled that African Americans were not citizens of the United States and that an act of Congress (the Missouri Compromise of 1820) was unconstitutional. He also had redefined the relationship between the states and the Federal government, making possible the expansion of slavery into the territories. Southerners rejoiced at the verdict; abolitionists denounced it and even went as far as discrediting the legitimacy of the Court itself. A few months after the decision, on May 26, 1857, Scott's owner freed him. Scott continued to live in St. Louis until his death on September 17, 1858. Although African Americans would not become citizens of the United States until the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, Scott's bid for freedom remained the most momentous judicial event of the century. Brown, John 1800 -- 1859 Abolitionist, born in Torrington, Connecticut. Son of an itinerant tradesman, he grew up in Hudson, Ohio, and received little formal schooling. His mother died insane when he was eight years old; several of her nearest relations were also seriously disturbed. He became a tanner, one of his father's trades, then successively a land surveyor, shepherd, and farmer. He married in 1820 and again in 1831 after the death of his first wife, fathering 20 children altogether. He migrated from place to place in the 1830s and 1840s, failing in several businesses and engaging in unprofitable land speculations. He had been an abolitionist from his youth, but he was in his fifties before he began to plot emancipation by main force. By 1855 he and six of his sons and a son-in-law had moved to Osawatomie, Kansas, to participate in the struggle to keep it a non-slave state. After proslavery forces attacked and burned the town of Lawrence, Kansas, Brown led a small force, including four of his sons, to nearby Pottawatomie Creek where on the night of May 24, 1856, they killed five proslavery men; he took full responsibility for the killings. Returning to the East, now dangerously obsessed with abolition through violence, he gained the patronage of northern activists such as Gerrit Smith, who supplied him with money, arms, and moral support. Dreaming of setting up a free state for liberated slaves in the Virginia mountains, he planned a raid on the Harpers Ferry, Va, armory. He and his men seized the armoury on October 16, 1859, but were captured when a detachment of US Marines under Col Robert E Lee stormed the building. Tried for treason and hanged on December 2, he became the stuff of legend, a martyr to Northern supporters such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a dangerous fanatic to most Southerners. Lee, Robert E. 1807 -- 1870 General in chief of the Confederate armies in the American Civil War. Born in Virginia's Westmoreland County on January 19, 1807, the third son of Henry ("Light Horse Harry") and Ann Hill Carter Lee. Declining fortunes forced the family's removal to Alexandria, where Robert distinguished himself in local schools. His father's death in 1811 increased responsibilities on all the sons; Robert, especially, cared for his invalid mother. Lee graduated number two in his class from the U.S. Military Academy in 1829. Commissioned a brevet lieutenant of engineers, he spent a few years at Fort Pulaski, Georgia, and Fort Monroe, Virginia. At Fort Monroe on June 30, 1831, he married Mary Ann Randolph Custis, with whom he had seven children. Lee worked in the chief engineer's office in Washington, D.C., from 1834 to 1837. He was transferred to Fort Hamilton, New York, where he remained until 1846. In August 1846 Lee joined General John E. Wool's army in Texas. In the battle of Buena Vista, Lee's boldness drew his superiors' attention. Transferred to General Winfield Scott's Veracruz expedition, in the battle at Veracruz and in the advance on Mexico he won additional acclaim. Following American occupation of the Mexican capital, he worked on maps for possible future campaigns. Already a captain in the regular service, he was made brevet colonel for his gallantry in the war. Lee returned to engineer duty at Baltimore's Fort Carroll until 1852, when he reluctantly became superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. In 1855 he was made lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Cavalry, one of the Army's elite units. The years 1857-1859 were bleak. Lee had to take several furloughs to deal with family business and seriously thought of resigning his commission. However, in 1859 he and his men successfully put down John Brown's insurrection at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. In 1860 he became commander of the Department of Texas. Talk of secession in the South grew strident during Lee's Texas sojourn. No secessionist, he was loyal to the Union and the U.S. Army; yet he had no doubts about his loyalties if Virginia departed the Union. Ties of blood bound him to the South. Lee accepted a commission as colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry in March 1861. But offered command of the entire U.S. Army a month later, he hesitated. If he accepted, he might have to lead the Federal Army against Southern states and, if Virginia seceded, he might have to lead troops across its borders. He could do neither. Painfully, Lee resigned his army commission in April 1861. Appointed commander of Virginia forces, Lee devoted himself to building an effective state army. He was so efficient that the new president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, asked him to become a full general in the Confederate Army and serve as presidential military adviser. The Confederate Senate confirmed this appointment. A bad brush with field command in western Virginia—in a campaign marked by military rivalries, lack of supplies, wretched weather, and overly ambitious strategy on Lee's part—tarnished the new general's reputation. Davis still regarded him highly and sent him to organize southern Atlantic coastal defenses. Lee pursued this task efficiently until recalled to the Confederate capital, Richmond. In his role as presidential adviser, he tried to smooth the abrasive personalities of Davis and General Joseph E. Johnston and to utilize the daring of General Stonewall Jackson to frustrate Federal plans for sending aid to General George B. McClellan's army, which was approaching Richmond. When Johnston was wounded in May 1862, Davis gave Lee command of Johnston's army. Lee renamed his force the "Army of Northern Virginia." The new commander looked the part: 5 feet 10 1/2 inches tall, robust at 170 pounds, Lee had graceful, almost classic features. He attracted men and women alike, was easy in manner, courteous and kind as a friend, and was a loving husband and father. Though Lee's was the largest Confederate army in the field, it was outnumbered almost three to two by McClellan's Federal Army of the Potomac, which was preparing for siege operations on Richmond. While Lee struggled to fortify Richmond, he and Jackson planned a daring campaign, which Stonewall executed brilliantly and victoriously in the battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic, June 8-9, 1862. Lee promptly called Jackson to Richmond and added his 18,000-man force to the Army of Northern Virginia. Inexperience and haste led Lee to plan an overelaborate attack on McClellan's lines. Coordination failed, as Lee's campaign stuttered onward in a series of actions. McClellan was defeated in the Seven Days Battles and finally retreated to the Federal gunboats on the James River. Richmond was freed of threat, but Lee's planned annihilation of the Federal force had failed. Lee was unhappy with his results; but his men, almost completely rearmed with superior Federal arms, had developed great confidence in him. Meanwhile another Federal army appeared in Virginia under General John Pope. Lee sent Stonewall Jackson against Pope early in August. Jackson defeated part of Pope's force, then joined Lee for a combined campaign to destroy the rest. Lee planned more simply this time. Jackson captured Pope's supply base at Manassas Junction. Near the battlefield of First Manassas (Bull Run), Jackson stood off Pope's entire army while Lee's remaining force under General James Longstreet concentrated close to Jackson's lines. On August 30 a sweeping assault by all Confederate troops won the Battle of Second Manassas. Lee had hoped for annihilation, but Pope's remnants escaped. Lee's army could not subsist in war-ravaged northern Virginia, so he determined to carry the war into the North. With Virginia cleared of invaders and his army's morale superb, this seemed a likely time to force European recognition of the South by threatening Washington, D.C., and changing the locale of the war. In a campaign distinguished for daring—Lee broke his army into segments, each with a specific task—he crossed the Potomac River and reached Frederick, Maryland, sending Jackson's men to capture Harpers Ferry and open a supply route through the Shenandoah Valley. However, McClellan, restored to Federal command, was fighting with unexpected skill. Lee sought to concentrate his scattered men near Sharpsburg, Maryland, behind Antietam Creek. There on September 17, 1862, with badly reduced strength he withstood searing assault; the arrival of General A. P. Hill's division saved him from defeat. Several lessons had been learned, but Lee had lost 13,000 men in Maryland, and replacements were the scarcest commodity in the Confederacy. Reorganizing his forces occupied Lee until December 13, when his men, holding high and virtually impregnable ground overlooking Fredericksburg, Virginia, beat off gallant attacks by the Army of the Potomac (now commanded by General Ambrose Burnside). During the rest of the winter Lee tried to increase ranks and supplies. Jackson and Longstreet, his two corps commanders, improved their commands, new men were elevated to leadership, and Lee's army was ready by the time a new Federal general, Joseph Hooker, started his campaign in April 1863. Jackson clashed with Hooker in Virginia's Wilderness at the end of April. When Hooker withdrew to entrenchments near Chancellorsville, the initiative passed to Lee. He sent Jackson to a flanking position from which he almost destroyed Hooker's force. Jackson might have completed the destruction had he not been wounded, and his death later robbed the victory of any savor as the whole Confederacy mourned. Lee mourned especially, for there were no officers to match Jackson. With the initiative in his grasp, Lee had to decide how to use his army. Vicksburg, Mississippi, the South's last bastion on the Mississippi River, was under siege; its loss would cut the South in two. Food supplies in northern Virginia were scarce. However, Europeans were becoming convinced of the South's right to recognition, and peace sentiment was growing in the North. All these factors influenced Lee's summer strategy. Another invasion of the North might relieve Vicksburg, feed his men, and win recognition. Lee reorganized his army into three corps: one under Longstreet, a second under Richard S. Ewell, and the third under Hill. Subordinate commands were shaken up, so a new command structure guided the Confederate Army as it moved toward Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Lee's vanguard encountered opposition near Gettysburg and on July 1 won modest spoils. Lee wanted to push the advantage. But Ewell delayed, and the next day Longstreet, convinced of defeat, also delayed attacking the Federal leFort On July 3, General George Pickett charged against the Federal center and was repulsed. For the first time Lee's army had been defeated, and Lee assumed all blame. Questions still arise over why he ordered the attack on July 3. But Lee seems to have had no choice. To miss this chance would have been a miserable compromise. Typically, he did not lament for long; instead, he planned to refit his army and renew the offensive. But the loss of 20,000 men and as many arms was unrecoverable. Vicksburg's loss, with a 30,000-man garrison, on July 4 confronted the South with a double disaster in men and supplies. Lee could not resume the offensive; his army was divided, with Longstreet moving west to help General Braxton Bragg and the rest committed to holding Richmond. Lee maneuvered against General George Meade throughout the remainder of 1863, and in spring 1864 he met the advance of Meade and Ulysses S. Grant. A series of bloody engagements followed. On June 3 at Cold Harbor the Federal assault on Lee's entrenchments was repulsed. Meade and Grant moved south of the James River, hoping to take Petersburg and enter Richmond from the south. General P. G. T. Beauregard saved Petersburg, with help from Lee. The formal siege of Petersburg ran from June 18, 1864, to April 2, 1865. In those months, attrition cut Lee's ranks. Daily casualties and desertion whittled down his strength; dwindling food for men and animals almost immobilized the army. Heavy actions through the summer, combined with the necessity of keeping Richmond's southern rail connections open, sapped Lee's resources. The Confederacy's military situation worsened throughout the summer as Federal general William T. Sherman forced the Army of Tennessee backward through Georgia to the sea. Lee, appointed general in chief of all Confederate armies in February 1865, could give only general direction to lingering disaster. Sherman marched upward through the Carolinas, threatening Petersburg. Lee failed to split Grant's front. On April 2, Grant's attack snapped Lee's lines; the Confederates began evacuating Petersburg and Richmond. Lee was compelled to surrender his shadow force of no more than 9,000 soldiers at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Arlington, the Custis family seat, was gone now; the Lees had no real home. They remained in Richmond, well treated by the Federals. In September Lee accepted the presidency of Washington College, in Lexington, Virginia, where he remained until his death. Devoted to education and to resurrecting the South, Lee became a symbol of reunification. He refused to abandon his distressed country, hoped for Southern reassimilation, and set a lofty example. Without bitterness, he obeyed the law and counseled all Southerners to do the same. Indicted for treason, he never stood trial; and although never granted a pardon, he lived in comfort and in great honor. In September 1870 he was stricken, probably with an acute attack of angina, and died on October 12. Davis, Jefferson (Finis) 1808 -- 1889 President of the Confederate States of America, U.S. senator, cabinet member, soldier; born in Fairview, Ky. After graduating from West Point (1828) he served on the frontier for seven years. Then, shattered by the death of his wife of three months (she was the daughter of Zachary Taylor), he secluded himself on his Mississippi plantation. He married Varina Howell in 1845. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (Miss., Dem.; 1845--46), but resigned to volunteer for service in the Mexican War and was credited with securing the victory at Buena Vista. He returned to serve in the U.S. Senate (1847--51) and then as U.S. secretary of war (1853--57). He returned to the U.S. Senate in 1857 but resigned in 1861 when Mississippi seceded from the Union. Expecting to be given command of the Confederate armies, he was instead chosen president of the Confederate government (provisional, 1861--62; elected, 1862--65). He drew much criticism for intervening in the military's policies and for assuming near-dictatorial executive powers. His intolerance of disagreement, inability to build a national consensus, and failure to select quality subordinates further handicapped his effectiveness as a war president. Nevertheless, historians have judged him the best candidate for a difficult if not impossible job, for he constantly found himself opposed by Southerners who embraced extreme states' rights positions. He fled the capital, Richmond, rather than surrendering, but was captured in Georgia on May 10, 1865; after two years' imprisonment (the first months in shackles), he was released without trial. He retired to his Mississippi plantation, traveled some in Europe, and failed at various business ventures. Refusing to request amnesty, he resolutely defended the Southern cause in speeches and books including The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (2 vols. 1878--81). Johnson, Andrew 1808 – 1875 Seventeenth U.S. president. Born December 29, 1808, in Raleigh, N.C. Poor, self-educated but ambitious, he moved to Tennessee in 1826 to pursue the tailor's trade. He saved enough money and soon entered politics, becoming an advocate of labor and popular democracy against the claims of birth and wealth. Beginning as an alderman, he worked his way up to represent Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives (Dem.; 1843--53), and became governor (1853--57), then U.S. senator (1857--62). Although he had defended slavery, he refused to accept secession; his courageous stand led Lincoln to appoint him military governor of Tennessee and then to select him as vice president for the 1864 election; his presence on the ticket undoubtedly helped the beleaguered Lincoln get reelected. Becoming president on Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Johnson attempted to pursue the conciliatory reconstruction policies Lincoln had envisioned but Johnson was increasingly thwarted by Radical Republican desires for revenge. The conflict finally led to an 1868 congressional impeachment of Johnson, but he survived by one vote. He left office embittered and in disgrace, but later found a measure of exoneration, and, five months before his death, regained his Senate seat. Greeley, Horace 1811 -- 1872 Journalist, politician; born in Amherst, N.H. After working as a job-printer and typesetter in New York, he started a literary and news journal and then edited two weekly Whig publications. He founded the New York Tribune in 1841 and, aided by a fine staff, built it into a highly regarded, prosperous paper, but also a mouthpiece for his broadly liberal views, often expressed in signed editorials. Greeley served briefly in the U.S. House (1848--49), but later repeatedly failed to win election to Congress. An abolitionist and supporter of the Free Soil movement, he became a prominent Republican but failed to support Lincoln for a second term in 1864 and bucked Northern public opinion by signing a bail bond for the imprisoned Jefferson Davis in 1867. The indefatigable Greeley traveled widely and often made speeches at lyceums and local gatherings; he was a familiar figure known for his shambling appearance, absentminded manner, and blend of seeming naivete and homespun wisdom. His words of advice, "Go West, young man," became famous. In 1872 he was nominated for president by Republican liberals and endorsed by the Democratic Party, but in a bitter campaign he was badly defeated by the regular Republican candidate, Ulysses S. Grant. He also lost effective control of the Tribune. Devastated as well by his wife's death, he died soon afterward in an unbalanced state of mind. Breckinridge, John (Cabell) 1821 -- 1875 Vice-president, Confederate; born in Lexington, Ky. He served as James Buchanan's vice-president during 1857--61. In 1861, he joined the Confederate cause, and was indicted for treason by the federal government. He became major-general and was Confederate secretary of war in 1865. Following the war, he lived in Europe and Canada until an amnesty was declared in 1868. He returned to Lexington, Ky., and resumed his law practice. Grant, Ulysses S. 1822 -- 1885 Eighteenth president of the United States, Civil War general. Born April 27, 1822, in a cabin at Point Pleasant, Ohio. He attended district schools and worked at his father's tannery and farm. In 1839 Grant's father secured an appointment to West Point for his unenthusiastic son. Grant excelled as a horseman but was an indifferent student. When he graduated in 1843, he accepted an infantry commission. Although not in sympathy with American objectives in the war with Mexico in 1846, he fought courageously under Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, emerging from the conflict as a captain. In subsequent years Captain "Sam" Grant served at a variety of bleak army posts. Lonely for his wife and son (he had married Julia Dent in 1848), the taciturn, unhappy captain began drinking. Warned by his commanding officer, Grant resigned from the Army in July 1854. He borrowed money for transportation to St. Louis, Missouri, where he joined his family and tried a series of occupations without much success: farmer, realtor, candidate for county engineer, and customshouse clerk. He was working as a store clerk at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. This was a war Grant did believe in, and he offered his services. The governor of Illinois appointed him colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteers in June 1861. Grant took his regiment to Missouri, where, to his surprise, he was promoted to brigadier general. Grant persuaded his superiors to authorize an attack on Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland in order to gain Union control of these two important rivers. Preceded by gunboats, Grant's 17,000 troops marched out of Cairo, Illinois, on February 2, 1862. After Fort Henry surrendered, the soldiers took Fort Donelson. Here Confederate general Simon B. Buckner, one of Grant's West Point classmates (and the man who, much earlier, had loaned the impecunious captain the money to rejoin his family), requested an armistice. Grant's reply became famous: "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." Buckner surrendered. One of the first important Northern victories of the war, the capture of Fort Donelson won Grant promotion to major general. Grant next concentrated 38,000 men at Pittsburgh Landing (Shiloh) on the Tennessee River, preparing for an offensive. He unwisely neglected to prepare for a possible Confederate counteroffensive. At dawn on April 6, 1862, the Confederate attack surprised the sleeping Union soldiers. Grant did his best to prevent a rout, and at the end of the day Union lines still held, but the Confederates were in command of most of the field. The next day the Union Army counterattacked with 25,000 fresh troops, who had arrived during the night, and drove the Southerners into full retreat. The North had triumphed in one of the bloodiest battles of the war, but Grant was criticized for his carelessness. Urged to replace Grant, President Abraham Lincoln refused, saying, "I can't spare this man—he fights." Grant set out to recoup his reputation and secure Union control of the Mississippi River by taking the rebel stronghold at Vicksburg, Miss. Several attempts were frustrated; in the North criticism of Grant was growing and there were reports that he had begun drinking heavily. But in April 1863 Grant embarked on a bold scheme to take Vicksburg. While he marched his 20,000 men past the fortress on the opposite (west) bank, an ironclad fleet sailed by the batteries. The flotilla rendezvoused with Grant below the fort and transported the troops across the river. In one of the most brilliant gambles of the war, Grant cut himself off from his base in the midst of enemy territory with numerically inferior forces. The gamble paid off. Grant drove one Confederate Army from the city of Jackson, then turned and defeated a second force at Champion's Hill, forcing the rebels to withdraw to Vicksburg on May 20. Union troops laid siege to Vicksburg, and on July 4 the garrison surrendered. Ten days later the last Confederate outpost on the Mississippi fell. Thus, the Confederacy was cut in two. Coming at the same time as the Northern victory at Gettysburg, this was the turning point of the war. Grant was given command of the Western Department, and in the fall of 1863 he took command of the Union Army pinned down at Chattanooga after its defeat in the Battle of Chickamauga. In a series of battles on November 23, 24, and 25, the rejuvenated Northern troops dislodged the besieging Confederates, the most spirited infantry charge of the war climaxing the encounter. It was a great victory; Congress created the rank of lieutenant general for Grant, who was placed in command of all the armies of the Union. Grant was at the summit of his career. A reticent man, unimpressive in physical appearance, he gave few clues to the reasons for his success. He rarely communicated his thinking; he was the epitome of the strong, silent type. But Grant had deep resources of character, a quietly forceful personality that won the respect and confidence of subordinates, and a decisiveness and bulldog tenacity that served him well in planning and carrying out military operations. In the spring of 1864 the Union armies launched a coordinated offensive designed to bring the war to an end. However, Lee brilliantly staved off Grant's stronger Army of the Potomac in a series of battles in Virginia. Union forces suffered fearful losses, especially at Cold Harbor, while war weariness and criticism of Grant as a "butcher" mounted in the North. Lee moved into entrenchments at Petersburg, Virginia, and Grant settled down there for a long siege. Meanwhile, Gen. William T. Sherman captured Atlanta and began his march through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, cutting what remained of the Confederacy into pieces. In the spring of 1865 Lee fell back to Appomattox, where on April 9 he met Grant in the courthouse to receive the generous terms of surrender. After Lincoln's death Grant was the North's foremost war hero. Both sides in the Reconstruction controversy, between President Andrew Johnson and congressional Republicans, jockeyed for his support. A tour of the South in 1865 convinced Grant that the "mass of thinking men" there accepted defeat and were willing to return to the Union without rancor. But the increasing defiance of former Confederates in 1866, their persecution of those who were freed (200,000 African Americans had fought for the Union, and Grant believed they had contributed heavily to Northern victory), and harassment of Unionist officials and occupation troops gradually pushed Grant toward support of the punitive Reconstruction policy of the Republicans. He accepted the Republican presidential nomination in 1868, won the election, and took office on March 4, 1869. Grant was, to put it mildly, an undistinguished president. His personal loyalty to subordinates, especially old army comrades, prevented him from taking action against associates implicated in dishonest dealings. Government departments were riddled with corruption, and Grant did little to correct this. Turmoil and violence in the South created the necessity for constant Federal intervention, which inevitably alienated large segments of opinion, North and South. In 1872 a sizable number of Republicans bolted the party, formed the Liberal Republican party, and combined with the Democrats to nominate Horace Greeley for the presidency on a platform of civil service reform and home rule in the South. Grant won reelection, but as more scandals came to light during his second term and his Southern policy proved increasingly unpopular, his reputation plunged. The economic panic of 1873 ushered in a major depression; in 1874 the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 16 years. Yet Grant's two terms were not devoid of positive achievements. In foreign policy the steady hand of Secretary of State Hamilton Fish kept the United States out of a potential war with Spain. The greenback dollar moved toward stabilization, and the war debt was funded on a sound basis. Still, on balance, Grant's presidency was an unhappy aftermath to his military success. Nevertheless, in 1877 he was still a hero, and on a trip abroad after his presidency he was feted in European capitals. In 1880 Grant again allowed himself to be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination but fell barely short of success in the convention. Retiring to private life, he made ill-advised investments that led to bankruptcy in 1884. While slowly dying of cancer of the throat, he set to work on his military memoirs to provide an income for his wife and relatives after his death. Through months of terrible pain his courage and determination sustained him as he wrote in longhand the story of his army career. The reticent, uncommunicative general revealed a genius for this kind of writing, and his two-volume Personal Memoirs is one of the great classics of military literature. The memoirs earned $450,000 for his heirs, but the hero of Appomattox died on July 23, 1885, at Mount McGregor before he knew of his literary triumph. Stuart, (James Ewell Brown) Jeb 1833 -- 1864 Soldier; born in Patrick County, Va. An 1854 West Point graduate, he fought against Indians on the frontier and was Robert E. Lee's aide in the assault against John Brown and his men at Harpers Ferry. He began his career as the Confederacy's best-known cavalry commander with a well-timed charge that stopped a federal assault at First Bull Run (1861). In June 1862 he led 1,200 troopers in a famous ride around McClellan's army; as often turned out to be the case with Stuart, the raid was more spectacular than productive. He led his cavalry in most of the other famous campaigns in northern Virginia, but received much criticism for losing contact with Lee, who called him "the eyes of the army," for a critical week during the Gettysburg campaign (June 1863). A dramatic figure in his gaudy uniforms and famous plumed hat (he was called "Beauty" by fellow officers), he was mortally wounded in a clash with Sheridan's troopers at Yellow Tavern on May 11, 1864. Marshall, George C. (Catlett), Jr. 1880 -- 1959 Soldier, secretary of state; born in Uniontown, Pa. Son of a well-to-do coal dealer, he graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (1901), received a commission in the army the next year, saw service in the Philippines insurrection campaign (1902--03), and proved himself to be an outstanding staff officer in a series of appointments leading up to World War I. One of the first officers to go to France, he was chief of operations of the 1st Infantry Division and then held the same post with the First Army; his brilliant transfer of troops in the Meuse-Argonne campaign caught the attention of Gen. John Pershing, and Marshall became his principal aide (1919--24). Tall, confident, soft-spoken, and politically adept, Marshall continued to advance his reputation as an administrator; he served in China (1924--27), organized the Civilian Conservation Corps, and was chief of the war plans division and deputy chief of staff (1938--39). As World War II commenced, he became the chief of staff of the U.S. Army, a post he held until 1945; although not the most glamorous of jobs, all recognize that Marshall played a crucial role in training the massive new army, drawing up strategic plans, appointing top military personnel (it was Marshall who advanced Dwight Eisenhower to command the operations in North Africa and Sicily), and balancing out the competing goals of Allied political and military leaders. Marshall wanted to direct the invasion of France but President Franklin Roosevelt preferred to use his talents in Washington; by the war's end, he had earned Winston Churchill's accolade, "the true organizer of victory." After an unsuccessful effort to establish a coalition government in China (1946), he was named secretary of state by President Harry Truman (1947--49), in which post he implemented the postwar recovery plan for war-ravaged Europe that was known as "the Marshall Plan" (although he himself never claimed to have initiated it). He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his many contributions to the postwar world (the only professional soldier to be so honored). Resigning in 1949 because of poor health, he served as head of the American Red Cross (1949--50). With the outbreak of the Korean War, he returned to government service as secretary of defense (1950--51). In 1951, Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that Marshall had been "soft on Communism" in connection with his effort to mediate the civil war in China (1945--47), but members of both parties and numerous other prominent Americans defended Marshall vigorously and he has retained his reputation as one of the finest individuals ever to serve America.