Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 05.djvu/245

 HERBERT

HERBERT

sipations, sought a divorce. On learning this Herbert invited his literary companions to a feast in his rooms in New York city. Only one, David W. Judd, accepted, and in his presence Herbert, standing before a mirror, suddenly shot himself in the heart. His more successful books include these titles: novels — Cromwell (1837), Marma- cluke Wyril (1843), The Roman Traitor (1846), Tlie Puritans of Neio England (1853), Shericood Forest (1855); historical — The Captains of the Old World (1851), The Cavaliers of England and Tlie Knights of England (1853), The Cavaliers of France (1853), Persons and Pictures from French and English History and The Captains of the Great Roman Republic (1854), Memoirs of Henry Vni. and his Six Wives (1855); sports — The Field Sjiorts of the United States and British America of North America (1843), The Deer Stalk- ers (1845), Wartcick Woodlands and My Shooting Box (1846), Fish and Fishing of the United States and British Provinces (1849), Frank Forester and His Friends (1849), Comjilete 3Ianiial for Young Sportsmen (1852), American Game in its Season (1853), Horses and Horsemanship in North Amer- ica (1857). See Frank Forester's Life and Writ- ings, by Col. Thomas Picton (1881). He died in New York city, l\Iay 17, 1858.

HERBERT, Hilary Abner, cabinet officer, was born in Laurensville. S.C., March 12, 1834; son of Thomas E. and Dorothy Herbert. He was taken by his parents to Greenville, Ala., in 1846, where his father was a teacher and planter. He studied at the University of Alabama, 1853-55, and finished his education at the University of Virginia. He was ad- mitted to the Ala- bama bar and prac- tised in Greenville. He was captain in the 8th Alabama regi- ment in tiie army of General Lee, and fought in the battles of the Peninsula from Yorktown to Fair Oaks. At Fair Oaks he was wounded and captured and within two months was ex- changed. He was commissioned lieu- tenant-colonel of the 8th Alabama in 1863, and became its colonel in 1864. He fought at second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Salem Heights, Antietam, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. At the battle of the Wilderness he was wounded and carried from the field by his men. He was re- tired as colonel in 1865, and resumed the prac- tice of law in Greenville. In 1872 he removed to

Montgomery, Ala., and was a representative in the 45th-52d congresses, inclusive, 1877-93. He served on tiie committees of the judiciary and ways and means, and was prominent in the up- building of the new navy, devoting himself with great energy to this work, serving as chairman of the naval committee in the 49th, 50th and 52d congresses, and he was a prominent member of that committee when the house was Republican in the 51st congress. He was secretary of the navy, 1893-97, and during his administration completed and commissioned the Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, Maine, Texas, New York, Brooklyn, Am- phit7'ite, Monadnock, Terror, Katahdin, Cincin- nati, Raleigh, Columbia, Minneapolis, Olympia, Detroit, Marblehead, Montgomery, Castine, Ma- chias and Puritan, all of which had been author- ized by acts originating in the committee on naval affairs while he was on that committee. He also laid down and practically completed the gunboats, Nashville, Helena, Wilmington, Anna- liolis, Wlieeling and Marietta, and laid the keels of the battleships Kearsarge, Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama and Wisconsin, and torpedo boats from No. 3 to No. 18 inclusive. It will thus be seen that of the six vessels belonging regularly to the navy which fought at Manila, May 1, 1898, all except the Boston originated in the committee of which he was a member, and that all the ships that fouglit at Santiago, July 3, 1898, except the converted yacht Gloucester, were authorized in the committee of which Mr. Herbert was a mem- ber, and afterward commissioned by him as sec- retary of the navy. At the close of his official term in 1897 he entered upon the practice of law in Washington, D.C. He was elected a member of the National Geographic society. He pub- lished in the Democratic campaign book of 1888, History of Efforts to Increase the U.S. Navy, and was the largest contributor to and the editor of TT7i?/ the Solid South? or, Reconstruction and its Results (1890).

HERBERT, Victor, comjwser, was born in Dublin, Ireland, Feb. 1, 1859; son of Edward and Fannj' (Lover) Herbert and grandson of Samuel Lover, the Irish novelist, song-writer and minia- turist. At the age of six he was sent to the Stutt- gart, Germany, gymnasium or high school. At the age of fifteen he began to study the 'cello under Bernhard Cossman and composition under Max Seifriz in Stuttgart, German}-. His first important position was that of principal 'cellist in the court orchestra at Stuttgart, and he was afterward heard in concerts in the larger Euro- pean cities. In 1886 he was married to Therese Forester, a talented and beautiful prima donna, and in the same year they came to Ameri''a as members of the Metropolitan Opera House com- pany. Herbert made his first American appear-