Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/607

 . 22, 1862.] up to the very walls of the capital. He resigned his commission in 1851. He was a fiery and energetic soldier, of fine personal appearance, and greatly admired by the soldiery.

, of New Hampshire, a cadet of 1841; received two brevets for services in Mexico, where he was once wounded; and was sometime one of the professors at Westpoint. He was in 1861 a brevet-major and assistant-adjutant-general.

, of Pennsylvania, a cadet of 1822; passed in 1832 from the 3rd Infantry to the General Staff, but on the breaking out of the Mexican war relinquished his appointment, returned to the line, and was once brevetted for his services in the campaign. In 1861 he was major of the 1st Infantry.

, of Indiana, a cadet of 1843; retired from the 2nd Artillery at some date subsequent to 1851.

, of Maryland, a cadet of 1824, and successively in the 4th, 7th, 5th, and 2nd Infantry; served with distinction through the Mexican war, and was in 1861 colonel of the last-named corps. He was a tall, fine-looking man, benign and generous, a father to his men, and greatly beloved by them, but of mediocre ability. Those who knew him, know how little he deserved the obloquy ungenerously cast on his memory. His death has expiated to the full his lack of success.

, of Massachusetts, an Engineer graduate of 1835, long engaged on the fortifications of the coast of Maine; was severely wounded in the Mexican campaign, and received three brevets for “distinguished services.” For several subsequent years he was attached to the U. S. Coast Survey, whence he was promoted to the military command of Washington territory on the Pacific, and becoming afterward governor of it retired from the army. He was an officer of great professional ability and distinguished bravery, of pleasing person and fascinating manners, universally beloved and esteemed.

, a South Carolinian of French descent, was in 1838 irregularly appointed from civil life to a lieutenantcy in the Topographical Engineers, and entrusted with the command of two successive expeditions to explore the wild region traversed by the Rocky Mountains, and intervening between the western frontier and the territory claimed on the Pacific. In the course of these, he was exposed to great perils and hardships; and displayed such courage, fortitude, and enterprise, that the Federal Government appointed him, ignorant as he was of military matters, lieutenant-colonel of the Mounted Rifles; and, giving him with a latent political intent a military detachment far larger than could be needed for peaceful purposes as an escort, again despatched him to the far West. Reaching California, then forming part of Mexico, with which the States were at war, he abandoned his scientific pursuits, crossed the frontier, formed the American residents into a battalion, and co-operating with Commodore Sloat’s squadron, after going through the farce of declaring California an independent state under the protection of the Union, overran and subdued it. While this was being effected, General Stephen Kearney, a distinguished officer fresh from the conquest of New Mexico, reached the scene of action with a small force; and an unseemly squabble for supremacy ensued between the naval and military authorities, and between the General and the Lieutenant-Colonel, who claimed exemption from his jurisdiction as being on “particular service.” The altercation ended in Kearney’s being confirmed in the command and in Freemont’s being sent home under arrest for trial, which he avoided by resigning in 1848. Notwithstanding this evidence of an unwillingness to obey indicating unfitness for command, which yet later brought disaster on the Federal arms, his political influence was such as immediately to obtain for him his appointment as commissioner to define the boundary between the U. S. and Mexico. This office he relinquished on being elected senator for California, where his influence was great from his having availed himself of his former temporary authority to possess himself of large estates, whereto the subsequent gold discoveries gave immense value, and which have since been the subject of multitudinous law-suits. Freemont is now about fifty-one years of age; wiry, spare, sunburnt, and weather-beaten; with that look of vigilant sagacity characteristic of the hunter or backwoods man, whose perceptive faculties have been sharpened by the habit of peril and adventurous emergencies. The scientific attainments whereto he lays claim, and which are popularly imputed to him, are contemptuously denied by his quondam military brethren of the Engineers. His arrogant incompetence and malversation were amply exemplified by his late career in Missouri; and were the occasion presented to him, it is probable that his overweening vanity and restless ambition would prompt him to grasp at a supremacy, he would not have ability to retain.

, of Massachusetts, a cadet of 1828, and afterwards of the 5th Infantry, managed to avoid the perilous contingencies incident to the military profession by absenting himself from his regiment during the entire war with Mexico; cheerfully resigning its command to his juniors, conduct which would have for ever disgraced an officer in any other service. When it became safe to emerge from his retreat, fired by the achievements of Freemont, he importuned the authorities at Washington for the command of an expedition to explore a shorter route across the prairies to Utah and California; and being backed by influential friends, he eventually obtained it. His account of these two expeditions having been recently eulogised by a part of the English press, it may not be irrelevant to observe that the book is a refacciamento of other books, containing nothing about the regions traversed which was not known before, while by discreet suppression of the names of those who constructed his maps and plans, he disingenuously leaves it to be inferred that they are his own. These expeditions and the compilation of these reports having relieved him of military duty for several years, he eventually retired from the line on obtaining a lucrative appointment on the staff. Whilst it may be hard to discern what there was in such antecedents to qualify this man