Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/198

172 part on boai'd the "Andrea Doria" in the defence of the " Delaware." He was lieutenant of the frigate "Virginia," which, before she got to sea, ran aground in Chesapeake bay and was captured by the enemy on 30 March, 1778. After having been again ex- changed in Au- gust, 1778, he joined a pri- vateer which brought into Philadeljihia a valuable prize In 1779. He was again cap- tured and ex- changed in 1779, and after- ward served on board the sloop- of-war "Sarato- ga," and, in the capture of the ship " Charm- ing Molly "with two brigs, he led the board- ing-party. The day after, when he was in charge of one of the prizes, the three vessels were re-taken by the "Intrepid," of 74 guns. He was confined in Portsmouth prison until May, 1781, when he made his escape. He was re-taken, but again escaped, and reached Phila- delphia in March, 1782. He was placed in com- mand of the " Hyder Ally," of 16 guns, fitted out by the state of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of clearing the Delaware of British privateers. On 8 April, 1783, he captured a British sloop of war, the " General Monk," of 18 guns, off Cape May, after a severe engagement. For this exploit Capt. Bar- ney was voted a sword by the Pennsylvania legis- lature. He was made commander of the captured ship. He sailed for France in the " General Monk," in November, 1782, with despatches for Dr. Franklin, and returned with the information that preliminaries of peace had been signed, and bringing a large sum lent by the French govern- ment. After the war he engaged in commerce and travelled in the west. In 1793 he was cap- tured by an English 'brig and imprisoned as a pirate. He declined the command of one of the frigates built to resist the depredations of the Al- gerine corsairs. In 1794 he accompanied Monroe to France, was the bearer of the American flag to the national convention, and entered the service of the French government, which gave him a captain's commission and made him comm^ander of a squadron. In 1800 he resigned and re- turned to America. In the first year of the war of 1812-'15 he engaged in privateering. On 24 April, 1814, he was commissioned a captain in the navy and appointed to the command of the flotilla for the defence of Chesapeake bay. He was ordered to the defence of Washington in July, and severely wounded and taken prisoner in the battle of Bladensburg. For his gallant conduct in the defence of the capital he received a sword from the city of Washington and a vote of thanks from the Georgia legislature. The ball in his thigh was never extracted, and the distress from the wound obliged him to return from a mission to Europe in October, 1815. He resided on his farm at Elk- ridge until 1818, when, after a visit to the west, he purchased a large tract in Kentucky, and was on the way thither when he was taken ill at Pitts- burg and died. See " Memoirs of Commodore Barney " by Mary Barney (Boston, 1832). — His son, John, member of congress from Baltimore from 1825 to 1829, d. in Washington, D. C, 26 Jan., 1856, aged seventy-two years. He left unfinished a record of " Personal Recollections of Men and Things " in America and Europe.

BARNS, William, clergyman, b. near Cooks- town, county Tyrone, Ireland, about 1795; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 25 Nov., 1865. He received his early education from excellent schools in his native country, but before he attained his majority he came to the United States and settled in Balti- more, where for a time he was an ornamental painter. At the age of nineteen he united with the Methodist church, and, believing it to be his duty to preach, studied under the Rev. George Roszel, presiding elder of the Baltimore district, and in 1817 was licensed to preach. His ministry for the first eight years was in the bounds of the Baltimore conference ; then he passed to the Pitts- burg conference, whence he was transferred to the Philadelphia conference, in which he spent the re- mainder of his ministry, closing it in charge of the cliurch in Bristol, Pa. He was very successful in his preaching, and during his various pastorates large accessions were inade to the churches under his direction. Among these charges were several of the largest in Philadelphia and Harrisburg.

BARNUM, Henry A., soldier, b. in Jamesville, Onondaga co., N. Y., 24 Sept., 1833 ; d. in New York city, 29 Jan., 1892. In 1856 he became a tutor in the Syracuse institute. He then studied law and was admitted to the bai'. He enlisted as a private in the 12th New York volunteers in April, 1861, was elected captain of company I, and went to the front with his regiment, which was the first under fire at Blackburn's Ford in the fighting prelimi- nary to the battle of Bull Run. He was promoted to major in October, 1861, and, after being for a short time on Gen. Wadsworth's staff, rejoined his regiment and served through the peninsular cam- paign. When on Gen. Butterfield's staff at ]\lal- vern Hill, he received a wound from which he has never fully recovered, and was left for dead on the field. A body, supposed to be his was buried, and a funeral oration was delivered at his home. He was taken to Libby prison, where he remained till 18 July, 1862. He was on leave till the following December, when he was commissioned colonel, and led his regiment at Gettysburg and at Lookout Mountain, where he was wounded again, and where his regiment captured eleven battle-flags. He was again wounded in the Atlanta campaign, com- manded a brigade on Sherman's marcia to the sea, and was the flrst officer to enter Savannah. He was brevetted major-general on 13 March, 1865. On 9 Jan., 1866, he resigned, having declined a colonelcy in the regular army, and became inspector of prisons in New York. He was deputy tax com- missioner from 1869 till 1872, and was for five years harbor-master of New York. In 1885 he was elected as a republican to the state assembly.

BARNUM, Phineas Taylor, exhibitor, b. in Bethel, Conn., 5 July, 1810; d. in Bridgeport, Conn., 7 April, 1891." His father was an inn-keeper, who died in 1825, and from the age of thirteen to eighteen the son was in business in various places, part of the time in Brooklyn and New York city. Having accumulated a little money, he returned to Bethel and opened a small store. Here he was very successful, especially after taking the agency for a year of a lottery chartered by the state for building theGroton Monument, oppo-