Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/62

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\'1RG1XIA BIOGRAPHY

from the United States Military Academy, where he had Robert E. Lee as a class- mate and personal friend. After two years service on the plains, he resigned from the army. He then began to study law under his uncle, Samuel Taylor, in Richmond, Virginia, but forsook it to accept a position a? a tutor in Renyon (Ohio) College. After two years he took up the study of the- ology, and took orders in the Episcopal church, and became an assistant of Bishop Smith, of Kentucky, but conscientious scruples as to infant baptism led him to leave the ministry, though he remained a zealous churchman. He then went to Springfield. Illinois, where he was admitted to the bar and practiced in the same courts with Lincoln and Douglas, and then in Washington City. In 1848, he became a professor in the University of Mississippi, leaving it in 1854 to take a chair in the Uni- versity of Virginia, and where he remained until the breaking out of the civil war. He was at first a strong Union man, but when Virginia seceded he changed his views. Commissioned colonel, he was soon made assistant secretary of war. When he re- turned, Jefferson Davis was imprisoned, and in 1866 Col. Bledsoe published his work, "Is Davis a Traitor ; or was Seces- sion a Constitutional Right?" He went to Baltimore the same year, and conducted the Louisa School. At the same time he edited the "Southern Review," which was after- ward made the organ of the Methodist Episcopal church, with which Col. Bled- soe connected himself, and some years later became one of its ministers. He published several scholarly works. He died suddenly, at Alexandria, Virginia, December 8, 1877.

Brooke, John Mercer, born December 18, 1826, son of Gen. George Mercer Brooke and Lucy Thomas, his wife. He was born at Tampa Bay, Florida, where his father, a distinguished officer of the United States army, was on duty. From his early youth he became familiar with army life, and he received such schooling as officers could then provide their children at army posts, his training being principally at Fort How- ard, Wisconsin, one of the extreme northern stations. At the age of fifteen he was ap- pointed to the United States Naval Acad- emy, from which he graduated in 1847, hav- ing previously seen some service as mid- shipman on board the Delaware. He served on the Coast Survey, 1849-50, and was sta- tioned at the Naval Observatory, 1851-53. He was assigned to the duty of surveying the route between California and China, and with special reference to the islands in the Pacific ocean. His deep-sea soundings measured from 6,000 to 20,400 feet. It was then that he put to practical use the deep- sea sounding apparatus, which was so use- ful when the submarine telegraph cable came to be laid, and in recognition of his scr\ices to science, he received from King William I, of Prussia, the gold science medal of the Academy of Berlin. In 1861 he resigned his commission, and entered the service of the state of \'irginia. His inven- tive genius was of inestimable value to the struggling Confederacy, which was particu- l.-irly weak in na\al resources. One of his most important achievements, and which ga\e to the navies of the world a hitherto unknown offensive device, was the sub- merged bow on ship construction, which came to be known as the ram, and which he applied to the Confederate States ship Vir-