<p style="text-align:center"><strong>OLIVER OTIS HOWARD</strong></p><p style="text-align:center"><strong>No. 1634 · Class of 1854</strong></p><p style="text-align:center"><strong>Died October 26, 1909, at Burlington, Vt., aged 79 years.</strong></p><p style="text-align:center"><strong>Interred at Lake Champlain shore, Burlington, Vt.</strong></p><p>Major General Oliver Otis Howard, the last of the great army commanders of the Civil War, died suddenly at his home in Burlington, Vermont, at the above date.</p><p>He had returned the day before from Canada, where he had been delivering a lecture upon Abraham Lincoln. While at work in his office he was suddenly taken ill, and passed away in a few hours. He died as he wished to go, without long illness, in the midst of his work and with his harness on.</p><p>General Howard was born on the farm of his father and grandfather, at Leeds, Maine, on November 6th, 1830.</p><p>His father was Rowland Bailey Howard, and he died when the General was ten years old.</p><p>He came of sterling Puritan stock on both sides of his family, and his ancestors were prominently identified with the early history of New England and the Colonial period of the country. On the paternal side he was a direct descendant from John Howard, one of the Plymouth Colony and the companion and assistant of Miles Standish in the military defense of the infant colony. His great-grandfather, Captain Jesse Howard, was an officer in the Revolutionary Army, entering the service as a lieutenant in the company of Captain Ames, and later succeeding to the command of that company. His grandfather, Captain Seth Howard, was also a soldier of the Revolutionary Army and later captain of a company in the Indian wars in New England.</p><p>On his mother's side he was a descendant of that family that produced that distinguished patriot and orator, James Otis, of the Revolutionary period, and Harrison Gray Otis, the noted statesman and jurist of a later period.</p><p>His boyhood days were spent upon the old hillside farm, upon which his grandfather had settled at the close of the Revolutionary War, and from which his father and grandfather had plucked but a bare living, and his early education was obtained from the schools in its vicinity.</p><p>At the age of sixteen he entered Bowdoin college, adding to the small means obtained from home by teaching schools during the winter months, as did so many college students in those early days. Among his college-mates were Chief Justice Fuller of the United States Supreme Court, Senator W. B. Frye, of Maine, and others who have distinguished themselves in various professions.</p><p>Immediately upon his graduation from college he was appointed a cadet at the Military Academy by his maternal uncle, Honorable John Otis, a member of Congress from Maine.</p><p>At college he made his mark in mathematics, and this acquirement at once gave a good standing at the Military Academy, a standing which he held during his entire course, graduating in June 1854, fourth in a class of forty-six.</p><p>In his class are found many names which have become prominent on both sides during the Civil War, and in the Army since that period. On the Confederate side are Generals G. W. Custis Lee, John Pegram, J. E. B. Stewart, Stephen D. Lee and William D. Pender. On the Union side are Generals Henry L. Abbott, Thomas H. Ruger, Judson Bingham, Michael R. Morgan, Oliver D. Greene, Stephen H. Weed, George A. Gordon, Charles G. Sawtelle, Zena R. Bliss, Henry W. Closson, Loomis L. Langdon, John T. Greble, and other familiar names.</p><p>His standing upon graduation gave him the choice of Topographical Engineers, Ordnance, Cavalry, Artillery and Infantry. He elected the Ordnance Department, and was at once assigned to duty at Watervliet Arsenal, New York, later being transferred to Augusta Arsenal, Maine. While stationed at the latter place he married Miss Elizabeth Waite, a native and resident of Portland, Maine.</p><p>In 1856 he was ordered to Florida as Chief Ordnance Officer for General Harney, then actively engaged in the Seminole Indian War, and, aside from his duties as ordnance officer, rendered important services in that campaign. He was during this active service intimately associated with his Classmate Stephen D. Lee, and warm and intimate friendship ripened there, and continued until death separated them.</p><p>In September 1857, he was assigned to duty as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Military Academy, and continued on that duty until the outbreak of the Civil War.</p><p>On the commencement of that war he at once tendered to his native state his services, and upon the solicitation of James G. Blaine, then the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, and of other prominent men of that state, he was appointed Colonel of the Third Maine Regiment of Infantry. As the War Department had up to this time uniformly refused all leaves of absence to accept commissions in the volunteers, he at once tendered his resignation as an officer of the Regular Army, and proceeded at once to Maine to take command of his regiment.</p><p>Early in June 1861, he reached Washington with his regiment and was immediately placed in command of a brigade of which his regiment formed a part. He was placed in Heintzelman's division and with it participated in the Battle of Bull Run.</p><p>For his services in that battle he was made a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, on September 3, 1861. and assigned to a brigade in General Casey's division, and was engaged in numerous expeditions and reconnaissances in Maryland and Virginia, in the vicinity of the Capitol of the nation.</p><p>Upon the organization of the Army under General McClellan, his brigade became a part of General Sumner's division, and with it he took part in Peninsular Campaign, and in the several battles and engagements that took place in the advance on Richmond, including the Siege of Yorktown, and the Battles of Williamsburg and Fair Oaks. In the latter battle, while leading a portion of his command in a charge upon the enemy, he was wounded in the forearm. Binding up the wound with his handkerchief he continued upon the field, but another musket ball shattering the elbow of the same arm, he was obliged to leave his command, and submit to amputation. During the battle he had two horses shot under him.</p><p>For his gallantry and exceptional conduct in this battle he was awarded the Medal of Honor.</p><p>While recovering from his wound, he devoted his energies to assisting his state in raising its quota of troops called for by the President, traveling all over the state and making numerous addresses.</p><p>On August 27, 1862, he returned to duty, and was assigned to the command of a brigade in General Sedgewick's Division of the Second Army Corps. He commanded this brigade in the second Battle of Bull Run; was engaged with his brigade in the Battle of South Mountain and in the Battle of Antietam. during which latter battle he succeeded to the command of his division, General Sedgewick being wounded and borne off the field.</p><p>He commanded this division, the Second of the Second Corps, until April 1862, when he was assigned to the command of the Eleventh Corps, and with it was engaged in the campaign and Battle of Chancellorsville. Upon arrival upon the battle field his corps was assigned to the extreme right of the army. With no cavalry to guard his flank, and with only a skirmish line thrown out as far as the dense growth of underbrush would allow, his command occupied that position when Stonewall Jackson, having marched entirely around the main army. attacked him on flank and rear, and produced a rout that terminated in a panic for his command. This movement of Jackson's had been seen from time to time, as it progressed along the front of Hooker's army, but supposing it to be a retreat of the enemy, General Hooker had moved to the front a portion of Sickles' command with the intention of capturing this body of the enemy. In support of this movement General Howard was required to send to General Sickles his corps reserve, consisting of his largest brigade, composed entirely of American troops, in distinction from the German soldiers of the corps, and commanded by one of the most efficient of his officers, General Frank Barlow. This moving force was the entire corps of Stonewall Jackson, 20,000 strong. The dense growth of the woods concealed the near approach of this body, and when it fell upon the flank and rear of the line. the Eleventh Corps had to bear the whole brunt of the attack, and that without sufficient reserve to support the main line. The suddenness of the attack by the overwhelming force, and the absence of the reserve, threw the entire command into confusion and a rout and panic ensued.</p><p>This disaster was by some charged to the cowardice and inefficiency of the German troops which largely composed the Eleventh Corps. On the other hand the Germans laid it to the inefficiency of the corps commander, and the charge, that the loss of the battle was mainly due to this disaster, was permitted by those in high authority to go forth uncontradicted. The student of that battle knows better. The attack of Stonewall Jackson upon the right flank of the army was but an incident of that battle, and in no way interfered with the fulfilment of the original plans of that campaign and battle. While the left flank of General Hooker's army at Fredericksburg fought its whole force gallantly and energetically, opposed by the larger part of Lee's army, the left wing at Chancellorsville was engaged in detail, but portions of it being engaged at any one time, and never as a whole, fighting together, allowing the enemy to move his troops from point to point and fight the Union forces in detached portions.</p><p>In June 1863, General Howard commanded his corps in the campaign which terminated in the Battle of Gettysburg. On July 1st he reached Gettysburg where the First Corps, under General Reynolds, and Buford's Cavalry were hotly engaged with the enemy. Just as he reached the village he received word of the death of General Reynolds, leaving him in command of the field. Placing a portion of his command upon Cemetery Heights, he fortified that position, and as his forces were pressed back from the front by the ever-increasing force of the enemy, he withdrew his troops to the position thus selected, and held it awaiting the arrival of reinforcements. The line thus selected by him was the one maintained by the Union forces during that battle, and proved to be the key to the strong position.</p><p>For his management of the Union forces on that day, and his wisdom in the establishment of his line, he received the thanks of Congress in a joint resolution as follows:</p><blockquote><p>"That the gratitude of the American people and the thanks of their representatives in Congress are due and are hereby tendered to * * * Major General Oliver 0. Howard and the officers and soldiers of the army for the skill and heroic valor which at Gettysburg repulsed, defeated and drove back, broken and dispirited, beyond the Rappahannock, the veteran army of the rebellion."</p></blockquote><p>In September 1863, at the close of the Gettysburg campaign, he was sent with his corps, together with the Twelfth, both under command of General Hooker, to the Army of the Cumberland, and opened up the supply route to that army besieged in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In the Battle of Wauhatchie, October 28, 1863, in which his command took part, a victory was gained over Bragg's troops, and the supply route from Nashville to Chattanooga opened and maintained.</p><p>The Battle of Missionary Ridge was fought late in December, General Grant being in command, his troops, comprising the Military Division of the Mississippi, being the Army of the Cumberland under General Thomas, the Army of the Tennessee under General Sherman, and the Army of the Ohio under General Schofield. These three armies had all been brought to that point. In that battle General Howard was closely associated with General Sherman, and acted with him. This association laid the foundation for an intimate personal friendship which ever after existed between these two officers.</p><p>At the termination of the Battle of Missionary Ridge General Sherman was ordered to the relief of Knoxville, where Burnside was besieged by Longstreet, and on this expedition he took with him General Howard and his command.</p><p>Upon the assignment of General Grant to the command of the Armies of the United States, General Sherman succeeded to the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, and thereupon he assigned General Howard to the command of the Fourth Army Corps.</p><p>The campaign against Atlanta begun in May 1864, and General Howard's command participated in all the important engagements resulting through those hundred days of fighting, including those of Tunnel Hill, Rocky Face Ridge, Buzzard Gap, Resaca, Adairsville, Pickett's Mill, where he was wounded, the several engagements around Kenesaw Mountain, Smyrna Camp Ground, Chattahoochie River, Peach Tree Creek, and the battles around Atlanta.</p><p>Upon the death of General McPherson, who was killed in the battle of the 22nd of July, General Howard, upon the recommendation of General Grant and General Sherman, was assigned by the President to the command of the Department and Army of the Tennessee.</p><p>On the morning of the day upon which he assumed command of that army, the enemy fiercely attacked his line, and the Battle of Ezra Church was fought, resulting in a complete victory for General Howard's command.</p><p>By the celerity of his movement, from his line at Atlanta to Jonesboro, General Howard compelled the enemy to divide his force at Atlanta, and with the combined forces of General Howard and General Thomas, a complete victory was gained in the battle at the latter place, and Atlanta was won, and the long campaign brought to a successful end.</p><p>For his services in these engagements he was brevetted a Brigadier-General in the Regular Army.</p><p>In the March to the Sea General Howard commanded the right wing of Sherman's army, and was the intimate confidant of all the plans of the distinguished commander of that famous campaign. His command was constantly engaged with the enemy, and fought the more important engagements of Griswoldville and Savannah.</p><p>Upon arriving near the coast the communication with the fleet was entrusted to him, and, with Hazen's division of his command, he captured Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee River, opening the way for the entrance of the fleet of Admiral Dahlgren, and the supply vessels for the troops. The battles before Savannah resulted in the capture of that city on December 22, 1864.</p><p>For his successful work in these affairs General Howard was made a Brigadier-General in the Regular Army.</p><p>The Campaign of the Carolinas was opened by General Howard's command which penetrated the interior of South Carolina by way of Beaufort, and he successfully fought the Battle of Pocataligo, near that place, thus cutting the Savannah and Charleston railroad, and opening the way for the march of the rest of the command out of Savannah.</p><p>During this campaign his command fought engagements at Whippy Swamp, Salkehatchie, Orangeburg and Columbia, resulting in the capture of the latter city. He was also engaged in the battles at Cheraw, S.C., and Fayetteville, N.C., and in the final battle of campaign at Bentonville, on March 21, 1865.</p><p>After the surrender of the Confederate armies, while on the march northward, he was summoned to appear at Washington at once, and upon reporting to the Secretary of War he was tendered the appointment as the head of the newly created Freedmen's Bureau, for which position he had been selected by President Lincoln.</p><p>At the Grand Review of Sherman's army before the President at Washington, General Howard's Christian character was put to a severe test. General Sherman asked him to resign the command of the Army of the Tennessee and permit General Logan to command that body in the final review.</p><p>At the death of General McPherson, General Logan was the ranking officer of the Army of the Tennessee, and he and his friends were deeply disappointed that he was not promoted to its command.</p><p>Though General Logan had continued with his command, and had given loyal and distinguished service during the entire period since that occurrence, still it had been generally understood that the disappointment had rankled in his mind, and in the hearts of his many friends in and out of the army. This matter was freely discussed between Generals Sherman and Howard, and it was thought by General Sherman that his feelings would be gratified and his disappointment allayed by tendering him the command of the Army in the grand final review to take place. General Howard candidly admitted that it would be a great disappointment to him not to march at the head of the troops, with whom he had been so long associated, and whom he had commanded in so many hard-fought battles. General Sherman said:</p><blockquote><p>"I know it, but it will be everything to Logan to have this opportunity. * * * Howard, you are a Christian, and won't mind such a sacrifice."</p></blockquote><p>To which General Howard replied, "Surely, General, if you put it on such ground, I submit," and in the final review he rode by the side of his old commander and warm friend who could ask such a sacrifice of him.</p><p>Forty years after the above event, the following letter was given to General Howard by the son of a former clerk at Sherman's headquarters. It had never been delivered to him for whom it was intended, and had never before been heard of by him. How it had been lost was never explained, and the writer had been long dead before it came into General Howard's possession. It had evidently been written immediately after the conversation above alluded to, and the cordial invitation to General Howard at the time to accompany his chief in that review had rendered its delivery of little consequence at the time. It is as follows:</p><blockquote><p>"Headquarters, Mil. Div. of the Miss. Camp near Alexandria, Va. In the field, May 20, 1865. Dear General. I am this minute in receipt of your communication of this date and thank you for your generous act. I do think it but just to Logan, and notwithstanding his modest reply to us last night, I know he will prize the act most highly. I will deem it a special favor and pleasure if you will ride with me at the Review of Wednesday next. I will be at the head of the column at 9 A. M. Wednesday, near the Capitol, and beg that you will join me there. Your personal staff can ride with mine. As ever your friend, W. T. SHERMAN, Major General."</p></blockquote><p>General Sherman's friendship for, and confidence in, General Howard was never failing, and in the report of the Court of Inquiry which was instituted by Secretary of War Belknap, and of which General Sherman was the head, his words of commendation for the work and services General Howard had rendered the country were incorporated as the findings of the court.</p><p>In a letter to General Grant, written during the war. recommending General Howard for promotion, General Sherman said of him:</p><blockquote><p>"I find a polished and Christian gentleman, exhibiting the highest and most chivalrous traits of character."</p></blockquote><p>On May 12th he was placed on duty as Commissioner of the Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees and Abandoned Lands. His work was of the most complex character, and arduous in the extreme, but gradually, order was extricated out of the direst confusion, and the thousands of the late slaves were distributed from the camps and large cities where they had been collected, and sent to places of employment; the various industrial questions which had arisen under the new conditions settled, and the sick and disabled taken care of. He paid much attention to educational matters, and gave to the freedmen a system of schools out of which has grown such institutions as Hampton Institute, Howard, Straight, Atlanta and Fisk Universities, and many others of less importance, all of which were aided by the Bureau and fostered by his labors.</p><p>In 1872, at the personal request of President Grant, he visited the wild Apache tribes of Arizona and New Mexico, and induced them to go upon reservations and become the wards of the government.</p><p>He went in person into the camp of Cochise, the chief of the Chiricahua Apaches and induced him to give up his hostile life and make peace with the government. He was successful in this, and during the life of Cochise, and of his son who succeeded him, the treaty was religiously kept, and for the first time in its history, Eastern Arizona and Western New Mexico became open to settlers.</p><p>In 1874 the Freedmen's Bureau was terminated by law, and General Howard was assigned to the command of the Department of the Columbia.</p><p>The numerous bands of Indians of that department were troublesome and restless, and the troops were kept busy in the settlement of troubles growing out of these conditions. In 1877, a portion of the Nez Perces, under Chief Joseph, broke out into open war, murdering settlers and committing various outrages in Northern Idaho. Gathering together, as soon as possible, his scattered troops, General Howard attacked the hostiles and fought the Battle of Clearwater, Idaho, defeating the Indians, and following them in their flight over the Lolo trail into Montana. Troops in the latter territory were put under General Howard's orders, and he called upon them for assistance in blocking the path of the fleeing hostiles, and at Big Hole, Montana, General Gibbon, with his regiment, the Seventh Infantry, fought a severe battle with them, inflicting considerable loss upon them. As the Indians pushed on before General Howard's forces could reach the field. he called upon General Miles, commanding the Sixth Infantry, to intercept their march, and the latter overtook them at Bear Paw Mountain where he gave them battle General Howard arrived upon the field, and through his interpreter negotiated their surrender, and Joseph and his band gave themselves up. The march of these troops after these fleeing Indians, for fourteen hundred miles, is without parallel in Indian warfare, and the persistent, relentless pursuit finally wore out the savages and compelled their final surrender.</p><p>The following year, 1878, occurred the Bannock and Piute Indian war, during which General Howard pursued and attacked these Indians with such persistency and force that he finally captured the entire band, and ended the last Indian troubles of the Northwest.</p><p>In December 1880, he was assigned to duty as Superintendent of the Military Academy, which position he held for nearly two years.</p><p>In September 1882, he took command of the Department of the Platte, which command he retained until March 1886, when he was promoted Major General, and assigned to the command of the Military Division of the Pacific. with headquarters at San Francisco, and in November 1888, he was transferred to the command of the Military Division of the Atlantic, with headquarters at Governor's Island, New York, which command he retained until November 8, 1894, when he was retired at the age of sixty-four.</p><p>He did not cease the activities of life with his retirement from the Army. His mind was as vigorous and his energy as restless as ever, and he devoted himself to literary work, to lecturing and kindred occupations, with all the force and persistency that had characterized his entire life. He edited the military portion of the Standard Dictionary; wrote a series of monograms upon the war for the National Tribune of Washington, and many articles of history and military matters for the current magazines and periodicals of the day. He published several works of a more pretentious and lasting character, among them are Donald's School Days; Henry in the War; Nez Perce Joseph or the Nez Perces in Peace and War; My Life and Experiences Among Hostile Indians; Agenor de Gasparin, a Biographical Sketch; Life of General Taylor, in the Great Commander series; Isabella of Castille, a Biography; Fighting for Humanity, and his own Biography.</p><p>During the Summer of 1884 he was sent to represent this country at the French Military Maneuvers, and while there was decorated by that government with the Cross of the Legion of Honor with the rank of Commander, for his distinguished military services and his work for humanity.</p><p>He received the degrees of A.B. and A.M., as well as that of LL.D. from his Alma Mater, Bowdoin College of Maine, and also that of LL.D. from Waterville College of Maine, from Shurtcliffe College of Indiana, and from the Gettysburg Theological Seminary of Pennsylvania.</p><p>His lectures on Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Thomas and various other topics, were delivered before numerous audiences in all parts of our country, and were received with great interest.</p><p>The dominating influence of his whole life was his Christian character, and his religious faith and belief pervaded his every act and thought. His mind was unconscious of malice or hatred, and no thought of retaliation of revenge ever suggested itself to him. He was ever thinking of the good in others. and not of evil, and his belief in a personal God was the guiding influence in his daily life. In his autobiography is found not one word of unkindness of others, or of uncharitable criticism. He led a simple life and was as approachable to the lowest as to the highest.</p><p>To his associates in the military service he was ever the kind, thoughtful friend, frank and sincere, sympathetic and generous, and always with a high chivalrous sense of duty that required no work or sacrifice of others that he was not always ready to perform himself.</p><p>His military career is an inspiration to the young graduate. He was the youngest officer to hold so large a command as was his during the Civil War. He was a Brigadier-General of Volunteers at 30, a Major General at 31 and at 33 he commanded an army and a military department of the largest proportions, and when the war closed and the Volunteers were discharged, he was a Brigadier-General in the Regular establishment.</p><p>He was buried with military honors, the Tenth Cavalry serving as the escort, and the obsequies were attended by a score of military and civic societies, and his body was laid to rest upon a beautiful mound on the shores of Lake Champlain, the gift of the city of Burlington, Vermont, the home of his choice and affection.</p><p>He leaves a widow, four sons and two daughters. Two of his sons followed him in the army; one, Lieutenant-Colonel Guy Howard, the eldest, being killed in battle in the Philippines, and the other, John W., being now a captain in the Nineteenth Infantry.</p><p style="text-align:right">� J. A. S.</p><p style="text-align:center"><a href="https://usmalibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/aogreunion/id/15031">Annual Report, June 14, 1910, pp. 105�119 · U.S. Military Academy Library</a></p>