Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/47

ADAMS.ADAMS. Peninsula he was conspicuous for his bravery, and at its close his gallantry had won for him a second lieutenant's commission. At Fredericksburg, eight color bearers of his regiment had been shot, and the ninth, Lieut. Edgar M. Newcomb, in command of the color company, was killed as he took the colors in his hand. Adams seized the two standards, one in either hand, and led the charge over an open space swept by the confederate battery. He gained the cover of a shot-riddled house, but the confederate position was impregnable and Marye's Heights were stormed but not captured. This placed him among the recognized heroes of the war. At the battle of Gettysburg, the 19th Massachusetts was sent to support General Sickles in his terrible peach-orchard and wheat-field fray on the second of July. In this battle Lieutenant Adams was the ranking first lieutenant in his regiment and took command of Company I. While leading his men he received two severe wounds in the groin, either of which was supposed to be fatal. He was borne from the field to die, the surgeons giving up his case as hopeless. Yet in November he was again with his command. His wounds never fully healed, and incapacitated him for active lucrative positions. After Gettysburg he was promoted captain, and during the Wilderness campaign of 1864 he served with distinguished bravery. It was the ill-fortune of most of the 19th Massachusetts to be captured at Cold Harbor early in June, 1864, and Captain Adams was among the prisoners. For nine months he suffered in Confederate prisons. He was sent to Libby, and after three months was transferred to Andersonville. He was removed to Macon; thence to Charleston, where for five months he was kept under the fire of Gillmore's guns, a retaliation to which the Confederate authorities subjected a large number of Union officers. He was then sent to Columbia, where he remained until he was exchanged. After the civil war he was employed in the Boston custom house, as postmaster of Lynn for eight years, and as deputy superintendent of the Concord reformatory. In 1885 he was made sergeant-at-arms for the commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was for many years president of the association of survivors of Confederate prisons, president of the trustees of the Soldiers' home, and a delegate to the national conventions of the G. A. R. He has held other positions of honor and responsibility, and in 1895 was elected commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic. On Dec. 11, 1896, the war department at Washington announced that a medal of honor had been awarded to Capt. J. G. B. Adams for most distinguished gallantry in action at Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 18, 1862. He died suddenly in Boston, Mass., Oct. 19, 1900. ADAMS, John Quincy, sixth president of the United States, was born in Braintree (Quincy), Mass., July 11, 1767, son of John and Abigail Smith Adams. Many unusual circumstances and influences conspired to train his mind and form his character on a broad and heroic plan. The air he breathed was charged with patriotism. His father was one of the foremost leaders in all the stirring events of those most stirring times, and "liberty," "freedom," and "independence" were household words in the family. He was named for John Quincy, his maternal great-grandfather. His early schooling was received at the knee of a mother whose strength and poise of mind and character were exceptional. When he was ten years of age his father was appointed by Congress joint commissioner with Benjamin Franklin to negotiate an alliance with France. He accompanied his father to Paris, where he not only attended school, but enjoyed the benefit of the daily instruction and conversation of Benjamin Franklin, and some of the most scholarly men of the court. After a residence of eighteen months in France, father and son returned to America; but their stay was destined to be brief, for in three months the father was again despatched on a foreign mission, this time to negotiate a treaty of peace with England; and again the son accompanied him to France, where the business was to be transacted. They arrived in Paris in February, 1780, after a tempestuous and most eventful voyage, and remained until the following summer, when they proceeded to Holland, the elder Adams having been commissioned to arrange a treaty with that country. John Quincy was placed at school in Amsterdam, and afterward entered the academical department of the Leyden university. In July, 1781, when but a boy of fourteen, he became private secretary and interpreter to Francis Dana, minister plenipotentiary to the court of St. Petersburg, retaining the position until Mr. Dana's relinquishment of the office in October, 1783.