Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/246

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

1853-54, and from 1856 to i860 was on fron- tier duty; during the years 1861-62 he com- manded a brigade of horse artillery, being attached to the Army of the Potomac and was actively engaged in the battles of An- tietam and Fredericksburg, and in Novem- ber, 1862, was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers ; was wounded and taken pris- oner at Chancellorsville, May 6, 1863, re- joined the army at Gettysburg, and in No- vember was appointed provost marshal of the southern district of New York ; at the expiration of his term in February, 1865, he rejoined his regiment at Petersburg, and served with the Second Corps, and in com- mand of the reserve artillery until the close Of the war, when he was brevetted briga- dier-general in the regular army, the reward of gallant service and meritorious conduct ; was mustered out of volunteer service in 1866 with the rank of major, and served on various posts, commanding Fort Independ- ence from April 29, 1873, until his death, which occurred in Fort Independence, Boston harbor. February 7, 1875, aged fifty-six years.

McCormick, Leander J., born at "Walnut Grove." \'irginia, February 8. 1819, son of Robert and Mary McChesney (Hall) Mc- Cormick; his education was obtained in the public schools of Rockbridge county, after which he devoted his attention to agricul- tural pursuits, assisting his father and brothers in the work of the farm and in per- fecting and constructing the reaping ma- chine invented by his brother Cyrus ; he in- herited in marked degree his father's turn of mind, and helped to make various improve- ments in his brother's reaper, including a seat or stand from which a man could divide the grain in sheaves suitable for binding, an improvement on the divider seat, both in

the year 1845, ^"d later a seat for the driver, who previously had ridden on one of the horses, all of which made the machine rnbre useful and practical ; in 1847 h^ ^^'^s sent by his brother Cyrus to Cincinnati. Ohio, to superintend the construction of one hundred reaping machines, and in the following year removed to Chicago, Illinois, there being joined by his brother in 1849, 3^id they es- tablished a factory, Leander J. McCormick assuming entire charge of the manufactur- ing department, continuing until the year 1879, when the business was incorporated as the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, and Leander J. McCormick re- tired from active participation in .the busi- n^-ss ; in 1871 he presented the University of Virginia with a twenty-six-inch refract- ing telescope constructed by Alvan Clark K Sons, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the time the largest refracting lens in the world, and the observatory building was known as the McCormick Observatory ; he married, in 1845, Henrietta Maria, daugh- ter of John Hamilton, of Rockbridge coun- ty, Virginia; she died in Chicago in No- vember, 1899; their son, Robert S., was sec- retary of legation under United States min- ister, Robert T. Lincoln, in London, and he married a daughter of Joseph Medill, edi- tor of the Chicago "Tribune," and in 1901 was appointed by President McKinley en- voy extraordinary and minister plenipoten- tiary of the United States to Austria-Hun- gary ; Leander J. McCormick died in Chi- coga. Illinois, February 20, 1900.

Walker, Cornelius, clergyman, was born at Richmond. \'irginia, June 12, 1819, son of William Woodson and Mary (Bosher) A\'alker. He attended the Episcopal high school at Fairfax county. \'irginia ; was