Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/219

Rh a work on "Manoeuvres of Artillery," which led I to his being sent to Europe in January, 1828, to obtain data for a more comprehensive work for the regular army. In April, 1829, he was admitted into the artillery-school of practice at Metz, and began a translation of the latest French system of artillery. The task was completed at the end of a year, and 300 lithographed copies in three volumes were sent to the war department in Washington, D. C. He also collected copies of every drawing and memoir connected with the French system of field, siege, sea-coast, and mountain artillery at a personal expense of about $2,000, which he offered to the government at Washington, provided a board should adopt the system for the U. S. artil- lery. This was not done, but he received from the government $1,600 for his collection of drawings. After his return in 1829 he was kept on ordnance duty to prepare a translation of the "School of the Driver," which in the French service is separate from the artillery. In 1830 he was sent to the Springfield armory to report upon the manufacture of small arms, and he was a member of the board that met to reorganize the. national armories. In 1832 he was made superintendent of the inspectors of contract arms. lie resigned on 31 May, 1834, became president of an iron and coal company in Lycoming county, Pa., and was sent to Great Britain to examine the methods of coal -mining and operating furnaces and rolling-mills. On his return in 1835 he erected the first coke hot-blast furnace that was built in this country, and suc- ceeded in making pig-iron, but the operations of the company were suspended. In 1840 he became president of the Norwich and Worcester railroad, and completed the road. In 1843 he was appointed E resident and engineer of the Morris canal and anking company. In 1845-'9 he was president of the Macon and Western railroad, and he was afterward superintending engineer of the Dauphin and Susquehanna railroad and coal company and of the Auburn and Allentown railroad, and presi- dent and engineer of the Schuylkill and Susque- hanna railroad company. At the beginning of the civil war he became colonel of the 1st Connecti- cut volunteers, 23 April, 1861, and commanded a division at the battles of Blackburn's Ford and Bull Run, 18-21 July, 1861. He was mustered out at the expiration of service on 11 Aug., 1861, but was reappointed in the U. S. volunteer service, with the rank of brigadier-general, on 13 March, 1862. He served with the Army of the Mississippi, engaged in the siege of Corinth from 29 April till 8 June, 1862, organized volunteer regiments in Connecticut from 13 Aug. till 15 Sept., 1862, served on the military commission that investigated Gen. Don Carlos Buell's campaign in Kentucky and Tennessee, 24 Nov., 1862, till 10 May, 1863, and guarded the upper Potomac, and was in command of Harper's Ferry and Maryland Heights in June. Afterward he was in command of troops in Balti- more, Md., and of the district of Delaware, and resigned his commission on 6 April, 1864. Gen. Tyler then travelled extensively in the south, in Cuba, and in Europe, and on his return in 1872 founded large cotton and iron manufactories in Alabama, and built the town of Anniston, Ala. In 1873-'9 he was president of the Mobile and Mont- f ornery railroad. Subsequently he invested in 'exas land, and established the " Capote farm " of 20,000 acres, which was his winter residence. TYLER, Erastus B., soldier, b. in West Bloom- field, Ontario co., N. Y., 24 April, 1822. He re- moved to Ohio, and was educated at Granville col- lege. In 1845 he engaged in business, which he continued until the beginning of the civil war. He was commissioned colonel of the 7th Ohio vol- unteers in April, 1861, and led his men into west- ern Virginia, where he was assigned by Gen. Fred- erick W. Lander to a brigade, which he command- ed with credit at Cross Lanes, W. Va., 26 Aug., 1861, Winchester, Va., 23 March, 1862, and Port Repub- lic, Va., 9 June, 1862. He commanded a brigade at the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., where he was wounded, 13 Dec, 1862. On 14 May, 1862, he was made brigadier-general, and on 24 Aug., 1865, was mustered out of service.

TYLER, John, tenth president of the United States, b. at Greenway, Charles Citv co., Va., 29 March, 1790 ; d. in Richmond, Va., 18 Jan., 1862. He was the second son of Judge John Tyler and Mary Armistead. In early boyhood he attended the small school kept by a Mr. McMurdo, who was so diligent in his use of the -birch that in later years Mr. Tyler said " it was a wonder he did not whip all the sense out of his scholars." At the age of eleven young Tyler was one of the ring- leaders in a rebellion in which the despotic Mc- Murdo was overpowered by numbers, tied hand and foot, and left locked up in the school-house until late at night, when a passing traveller effected an entrance and released him. On complaining to Judge Tyler, the indignant school-master was met with the apt reply, " Sic semper tyrannis ! " The future president was graduated at William and Mary in 1807. At college he showed a strong interest in ancient history. He was also fond of poetry and music, and, like Thomas Jefferson, was a skilful performer on the violin. In 1809 he was admitted to the bar, and had already begun to obtain a good practice when he was elected to the legislature, and took his seat in that body in De- cember, 1811. He was here a firm supporter of Mr. Madison's administration, and the war with Great Britain, which soon followed, afforded him an opportunity to become conspicuous as a forci- ble and persuasive orator. One of his earliest pub- lic acts is especially interesting in view of the famous struggle with the Whigs, which in later years he conducted as president. The charter of the first Bank of the United States, established in 1791, was to expire in twenty years; and in 1811 the question of renewing the charter came before congress. The bank was very unpopular in Vir- ginia, and the assembly of that state, by a vote of 125 to 35, instructed its senators at Washington, Richard Brent and William B. Giles, to vote against a recharter. The instructions denounced the bank as an institution in the founding of which congress had exceeded its powers and grossly violated state rights. Yet there were many in congress who, without approving the principle upon which the bank was founded, thought the eve of war an in- opportune season for making a radical change in the financial system of the nation. Of the two Virginia senators, Brent voted in favor of the re- charter, and Giles spoke on the same side, and al- though, in obedience to instructions, he voted con- trary to his own opinion, he did so under protest. On 14 Jan., 1812, Mr. Tyler, in the Virginia legis- lature, introduced resolutions of censure, in which the senators were taken to task, while the Virginia doctrines, as to the unconstitutional character of the bank and the binding force of instructions, were formally asserted.

Mr. Tyler married, 29 March, 1813, Letitia, daughter of Robert Christian, and a few weeks afterward was called into the field at the head of a company of militia to take part in the defence of Richmond and its neighborhood, now threatened