Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/669

Rh time editing and publishing a periodical called &quot;The Farm and Home.&quot; Afterward he was elected professor of history and political economy in the university of Georgia, and he filled this chair with great credit until his death at Macon, Ga., in 1884.

Robert G. H. Kean, chief of the bureau of war, was born in Caroline county, Virginia, in October, 1828, and was educated at the university of Virginia. He engaged in the practice of law at Lynchburg until April, 1861, when he entered the service of Virginia as a private in the Eleventh regiment of infantry. In February, 1862, he was appointed to the staff of General G. W. Randolph, with the rank of captain, and the duties of assistant adjutant-general. When General Randolph became secretary of war in March, 1862, Mr. Kean was appointed by President Davis chief of the bureau of war, an office in the Confederate war department blending the duties of chief clerk and assistant secretary, which he held until the war ended, his final service being rendered at Charlotte, N. C. Since the close of the war he has been occupied with the practice of his profession at Lynchburg.

John M. Brooke, chief of the bureau of ordnance and hydrography, navy department, was born at Tampa Bay, Florida, in 1826. He became a midshipman in the United States navy in 1841, was graduated at Annapolis in 1847, and from 1851 to 1853 was stationed at the naval observatory, where he invented the deep-sea sounding lead, an achievement which brought to him the gold medal of science of the university of Berlin. He served subsequently with Ringgold s exploring expedition in the Pacific ocean, and engaged in marine surveys off the coast of Japan. In 1861 he resigned his commission as lieutenant, was commissioned lieutenant, C. S. N., and assigned to the ordnance department. He submitted