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Rh county, Ohio, 1858-59; studied privately for the ministry, was ordained by the Orange association, 1859, and attended Andover theological seminary, 1860-61.

He was made chaplain of the 27th Ohio volunteers in August, 1861; and during his service was twice taken prisoner; he served as brigade sanitary inspector; and in November, 1862, was appointed by General Grant superintendent of the Negroes seeking a refuge within his lines. He continued this supervision over freedmen and white refugees by order of the secretary of war, his field extending from Cairo to Natchez and west to Fort Smith. He was appointed colonel of the 63d United States colored infantry, October, 1863. He retained this position of supervisor over freedmen until appointed assistant commissioner of the Freedman's bureau with jurisdiction over the District of Columbia and Alexandria, Virginia, in 1865. He was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers, March 13, 1865, and was mustered out of the volunteer service, December, 1866. He returned to Tennessee where he edited and published the "Memphis Post," daily, tri-weekly and weekly, 1866-67, and in its columns supported the Republican administration. He was a member of the Republican state convention and of the state committee; state commissioner of immigration and state superintendent of schools for Tennessee, 1867-69.

He was appointed by President Grant in 1870 commissioner of the United States Bureau of Education and held the position, 1870-86. In connection with this office he represented the Interior Department at the Centennial exposition of 1876, where he organized the International Conference on Education. He also had charge of the Educational exhibit at New Orleans in 1885, and at the Paris and the Vienna expositions, and was president of the National Congress on Education at these expositions. He attended the International Congress on Sanitation at London, England, as representative of the American Bureau of Education. When General Eaton became commissioner of the Bureau of Education the appropriation was only large enough to support two clerks; when he resigned in 1886, the regular working office force was thirty-eight besides special experts engaged in investigating the sanitary conditions of schools and obtaining statistical data as to health, ventilation, mental conditions of pupils, and other pertinent subjects connected with the school system. The library had grown to 18,000 bound volumes besides pamphlets