Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/330

308 courses, he was the author of " Materials toward a History of the Baptists of Pennsylvania" (1772), and " Materials toward a History of the Baptists in Jersey" (1792). He also left a large body of manuscript records, which have proved of great value to subsequent writers. He received the de- gree of A. M. from the College of Philadelphia in 1762, and from Rhode Island college in 1769.

EDWARDS, Ninian, senator, b. in Montgomery county, Md., in March, 1775; d. in Belleville, ni., 20 July, 1883. His education was at one time directed by William Wirt, and was completed at Dickinson college, Pa. At the age of twenty he removed to the Green river district in Kentucky. He studied both medicine and law, but, deciding in favor of the latter, was admitted to the bar in 1798 in Kentucky, and in 1799 in Tennessee. He had previously been elected to the Kentucky legis- lature before he was twenty-one. He rose rap- idly in his profession, and was appointed first clerk, and then judge, of the general court of Kentucky, judge of the circuit court in 1803, of the court of appeals in 1806, and in 1808 chief justice of the state, before he had attained his thirty-sec- ond year. In 1809 President Madison appointed him, governor of Illinois, on the organization of that territory, and he retained the office till its admission to the •Union in 1818. Before congress had adopted any measures on the subject of volun- teer rangers, he organized com- panies, supplied them with arms, built stockade forts, and estab- lished a line of posts from the mouth of the Missouri to the Wabash river. He was thus prepared for defence, and during the war of 1812 and the frontier wars with the Indians, his precautionary measures were greatly appreciated. In 1816 he was appointed one of three commission- ers to treat with the Indian tribes. He was one of the first two United States senators from Illinois, having been elected as a Democrat, and serving from 4 Dec, 1818, till 4 March, 1824, when he re- signed, to accept the appointment of minister to Mexico. He had reached New Orleans on his way to his post, when he was recalled, in consequence of charges made against him by William H. Craw- ford, then secretary of the treasury. He was again elected governor of Illinois and served from 1826 to 1830. See " History of Illinois and Life of Ninian Edwards," by Ninian W. Edwards (1870) ; and " The Edwards Papers," being vol.iii. of theChi- cago historical society's collections (Chicago, 1884). —His son, Ninian Wirt, lawyer, b. in Frankfort, Ky., 15 April, 1809 : d. in Springfield, 111., 2 Sept., 1889. He was taken by his father, when an infant, to Kaskaskia, and was graduated at the Transyl- vania imiversity, and at its law department in 1833. Before his graduation he was married to Elizabeth P. Todd, a sister of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Edwards began the practice of law in 1833, and in 1834 was appointed attorney-general of Illinois, but resigned in 1835, and removed to Springfield. In 1836 he was elected to the legislature, and with Abraham Lincoln and others was active in secur- ing the removal of the capital to Springfield. Mr. Edwards remained a member of the legislature continuously till 1852. During that period he was also a member of the convention that framed the State constitution in 1848. In 1854 he was ap- pointed by the governor attorney before the board of commissioners whose duty it was to investigate the claims of canal contractors against the state, amounting to over $1,500,000. From 1854 till 1857 he served as superintendent of public instruc- tion, and drafted a bill regarding free schools, which afterward became a law. In August, 1861, he was appointed by President Lincoln captain commissary of subsistence, which appointment he held until 22 June, 1865. In the latter year Mr. Edwards retired almost entirely from the practice of his profession. At the request of the State historical society, he prepared a volume entitled " The Life and Times of Ninian Edwards, and His- toiy of Illinois," which is considered an authority (1870). — Another son, Benjamin Stevenson, lawyer, b. in Edwardsville, Madison co.. 111., 3 June, 1818 : d. in Springfield, Ill., 5 Feb., 1886. was graduated at Yale in 1838, and at the law department in the following year. In politics he was first a Whig, and subsequently a strong Democrat, being several times chosen to the state legislature. In 1869 he was elected circuit judge of Sangammon county. 111., bvit resigned after eighteen months' service, preferring the active practice of his pro- fession. At the time of his death he was president of the state bar association.

EDWARDS, Oliver, soldier, b. in Springfield, Mass., 30 Jan., 1835. He was graduated at the Springfield high-school in 1852. At the beginning of the civil war Mr. Edwards was comniissinned 1st lieutenant and adjutant of the 10th Massachu- setts regiment, and in January, 1862, was appointed senior aide-de-camp on the staff of Gen. Darius N. Couch. He was commissioned major of the 37th Massachusetts on 9 Aug., and was promoted colo- nel on 27 Aug. On 19 Oct., 1864, he was brevetted brigadier-general " for gallant and distinguished services at the battle of Spottsylvania Court-House, and for meritorious services at the battle of the Opequan." He was brevetted major-general, 5 May, 1865, " for conspicuous gallantry in the battle of Sailor's Creek, Va.," and was made a full brigadier- general, 19 May, 1865. After serving through the Peninsula campaign of 1862, and those of Freder- icksburg and Grettysbui-g, Gen. Edwards was or- dered to New York city in command of a picked provisional brigade, to quell the draft riots in July, 1863, and placed in command of Fort Hamilton and Fort Lafayette. At the end of the enforce- ment of the draft. Gen. Edwards retui-ned to the Army of the Potomac, and took part in the battle of Rappahannock. During the second day of the battle of the Wilderness, when in command of the 4th brigade, 2d division, 6th army corps, he made a charge at the head of the 37th Massachusetts regiment, and succeeded in breaking through the Confederate lines. At Spottsylvania. Va., 12 May, 1864, he held the " bloody angle " with his own -brigade from 5 a. m. till 4 p. M. and was at the head of twenty regiments from that hour until 5 a. m.. when the enemy withdrew, making twenty-four hours of continuous fighting. He subsequently par- ticipated in all the battles of the overland cam- paign, and accompanied the 6th corps when sent to the defence of Washington against the advance of Early. He was afterward with Gen. Sheridan in his campaign in tlic Slicuandoah valley, and took part in the battle of Winchester, of which town he