<p style="text-align:center"><strong>CHARLES D. JORDAN</strong></p><p style="text-align:center"><strong>No. 1154 · Class of 1842</strong></p><p style="text-align:center"><strong>Died January 5, 1876, at Canton, Mass., aged 55 years.</strong></p><p>Major Charles D. Jordan was born in Canton, Mass., 17th of September 1820. He was descended from military ancestors, and some of the members of the collateral branches of his family belonged to the Navy. His maternal great-great-grandfather served in the French and Indian War, and was killed on the frontier in 1756; his maternal great-grandfather was an officer in the Revolutionary War, and his son, the grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was a sergeant in the same war, though only seventeen years of age; his maternal uncle, Captain Albert Downes, was lost on the Grampus off the coast of Boston. He was grave and reserved as a child, and remarkable for his generous disposition. At the age of eleven years he embarked on a voyage to China, with two cousins of the same age, in the U.S. Frigate Potomac, under the care of his uncle, Commodore Downes, who commanded the Squadron. After an absence of three years, during which time he studied under a tutor, he returned and lived with his uncle two years, at the Navy Yard in Boston, where his studies were continued. At the age of sixteen he entered a wholesale dry goods store in Boston, where he remained for more than a year, though his duties were peculiarly disagreeable to him, as he had inherited the tastes of his forefathers, and aspired to a military education. During this time his father died, leaving his family in somewhat straitened circumstances. Though still in his early boyhood, he was the eldest child of the family, and felt a great weight of responsibility resting upon him. The welfare of his mother and other members of his family became his all absorbing thought. His total abnegation of self, and loyalty to his relatives at this time, was continued throughout his after life. For many years he was the sole support of his mother, while he was at the same time contributing largely to the assistance of other members of his family. He received an appointment at large to the Military Academy in 1838, and graduated with the class of 1842. Owing to his retiring disposition, his intimate associates were not numerous during his cadet life; but the few who were attracted to him, by his sincerity and sterling worth, were soon impressed by his great depth of character, and became his ardent and steadfast friends. On his graduation he was assigned to the Eighth Infantry, as a Brevet Second Lieutenant, and joined his regiment at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1842. He served in that country at Forts Shannon, Marion and King till 1845.</p><p>He was promoted to a Second Lieutenancy in the First Infantry, 31st January 1844, and transferred to the Eighth Infantry, 31st July 1844. Although laboring under the most aggravated form of asthma, from the commencement of his army life, he then established a reputation for being in every sense a duty officer, which he maintained till its close. In 1845 he joined the Army of Occupation under General Taylor, and was engaged in the Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. His conduct in those battles was marked with conspicuous intrepidity; in the latter battle, whilst charging on the right of the Eighth Infantry, which extended into the chapparal, he, with a portion of his company, became separated from his regiment, and soon encountered the enemy in a ravine, under cover of its banks. In leaping from the bank into the ravine, about six feet, he fell from catching his foot in a root, and before he could recover he was shot under the right arm pit and bayoneted. Whilst on the ground parrying the bayonet thrusts of the Mexican Infantry, he was rescued by Lieutenant George Lincoln, son of Ex-Governor Lincoln of Massachusetts, who, with one cut of a dragoon sabre, laid open the head of his most dangerous assailant, instantly slew another by a right rear cut, and carried off Lieutenant Jordan, faint and bleeding, in his arms.</p><p>He received a Brevet for gallant and meritorious conduct in those battles, and as brevets of this kind were not then distributed promiscuously, it was a sure evidence of distinction. But he earned his honors at the expense of wounds, from which he suffered till the end of his life, and which blighted his prospect for advancement in his profession, which had so auspiciously begun. The notice of his fellow-townsmen was attracted to him by the reports of those battles, and on the 13th July 1846, those of them residing in New York City presented him a sword of elegant workmanship, at the house of Geo. Endicott, Esq., formerly of his native town. The presentation was made by General Sandford, in a very eloquent and flattering speech; Lieutenant Jordan's reply was entirely characteristic of him, he claimed only to have done his duty, attributed the notice he received to the circumstance of his being wounded, and the partiality of his friends. He was sent home from Resaca, not only totally disabled by his wounds, but a victim to chronic diarrhoea, from which he never recovered, and which was the immediate cause of his death. The wound in his shoulder never healed, the ball being imbedded so near the main artery that surgeons considered it dangerous to attempt its extraction.</p><p>He next joined his regiment at the mouth of the Rio Grande, in 1847, and participated in the siege of Vera Cruz, the Battle of Cerro Gordo, and the campaign as far as Puebla. On this campaign, though suffering intensely both from wounds and disease, he fully sustained his reputation, and was noted for his eager desire to perform more duty than was warranted by his physical condition. He was promoted to a First Lieutenancy, 21st September 1846. When the army advanced from Puebla he was left in the rear as an invalid, and was sent on the recruiting service till the close of the war. In May 1851, he was promoted to a Captaincy, and was ordered to Texas, where he remained continuously on duty for ten years. In constructing the frontier posts of Texas, in which he was now engaged, it will be remembered that iron and nails were the only building materials furnished by the government. During this rough and difficult service in an Indian country, desolate in the extreme, and totally devoid of any vestige of civilization, Captain Jordan was always a ready volunteer for scouts and explorations. It was during this time that his fellow-officers learned to appreciate his virtues.</p><p>Nothing so thoroughly illustrates his indomitable will as his rigid adherence to the prescriptions and admonitions of his medical advisors. Constantly tempted to social reunions of friends whom he loved, he invariably denied himself such pleasures, and would live for more than a year continuously on the most simple diet, never varying from the prescribed regimen, and yet always ready for duty. In disposition he was kind and gentle as a woman; he was very fond of children, and his tent or hut became their favorite place of resort. He had no extravagant habits, and was entirely free from the vices often generated by a frontier life. In his unostentatious charity, self-denial, and in all that constitutes high moral worth, he was a true type of the christian gentleman; whether in garrison, on marches or on scouts, he was always prompt and zealous in every kind of duty, and ever patient under the increasing afflictions of bodily suffering. Eminently honest, independent and self-reliant, he was universally respected and beloved for his generosity, and the warmth of his heart.</p><p>Such is the concurrent testimony, in a condensed form, of his fellow-officers, who shared with him the hardships, privations and loneliness of his long, honorable exile on the frontier. At the commencement of the Rebellion of the seceding States, he was taken prisoner by the Confederate troops belonging to the command of his classmate, General Van Dorn. This occurred on board of the steamer "Star of the West," off Lavacca Bay, on the coast of Texas. He was paroled as a prisoner of war, and remained in Canton, Mass., until September 1862. On the 27th February 1862, he was promoted to the Majority of the Fifth Infantry. September 3rd, 1862, Major Jordan was appointed Superintendent of Volunteer Recruiting Service at Concord, New Hampshire, in which capacity he served till 6th March 1863, when he was granted a sick leave of absence till August 27th, 1863, and was then retired from active service.</p><p>After his retirement, his life was eventful only in the daily exercise of patience, fortitude and courage, in supporting his unmitigated ills. During the last six years of his life, he was confined almost constantly to his house, on account of extreme debility. For several months before his death dropsy had been superadded to his many ailments. That he lingered so long upon the verge of the grave, was due to his naturally vigorous constitution, and his peculiar temperament, which increased his wonderful capacity for physical endurance. He now ceased to mingle in society, but was always glad to meet his friends at his own house. He retained a lively interest in the government, and a warm affection for the army. He seldom referred to his own experience, and rarely joined in discussions on the current topics of the day; but he was decided in his opinions, and when he was betrayed into an expression of them it was manifest that they were founded upon extensive information and mature reflection. He was never married, and yet he found the chief source of his highest enjoyments in his domestic tastes. The just appreciation of his worth in the community in which he lived, found expression in the local press at the time of his decease, in eloquent eulogies on his life and character, and in a tender of genuine sympathy to the bereaved. He was a worthy son and a kind brother, and he gratefully received, in the last years of his life, the tender care of his aged mother and the sisters who survive him. He had long been hoping for the only possible release from his pains, and when he knew that the fatal hour had arrived, he achieved a conquest over the fear of death, and comported himself in perfect consistency with his character. Thus has passed from our view another of our fellow-graduates, whose active professional career was brought to an untimely end by the fortunes of war. He has illustrated, in his long life of suffering, the soldierly qualities of fortitude and patient endurance, not less worthy of our emulation than his distinguished courage.</p><blockquote><p>"The Lord knoweth the days of the upright; and their inheritance shall be forever."</p></blockquote><p style="text-align:right">� Lieutenant-Colonel S. B. Hayman</p><p style="text-align:center"><a href="https://usmalibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/aogreunion/id/9480">Annual Report, June 15, 1876, pp. 50�54 · U.S. Military Academy Library</a></p>