American soldier, born in Brooklyn, Windham County, CT, on the 7th of January 1799. His mother was a granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards, and his father an officer in the Revolutionary War. Graduated from West Point (1819) as a second lieutenant of artillery; promoted first lieutenant (1824); and in command of the Pikesville arsenal, Baltimore (1826); visited the French School of Artillery and Engineering at Metz (1829), and was allowed to collect valuable information and make drawings. He translated (from the French) Maneuvers of Artillery and School of the Driver. On his return he was appointed on the committee for reorganizing national armories. He resigned in 1834, and entered business as president of a coal and iron company. After a trip to England, he erected the first coke hot-blast furnace ever built in this country. In 1840 he completed the Norwich and Worcester railroad; in 1843 ne was president and engineer of the Morris Canal Company, and later was much interested in the construction of railroads. He served in the Civil War, first as colonel of the First Connecticut; brigadier-general of volunteers (March 1862), and engaged in the siege of Corinth; in 1863 was in command of Harper’s Ferry and Maryland Heights, and resigned in 1864. After traveling abroad, he founded large cotton and iron manufactories in Alabama (1872), and founded the town of Anniston, in that state. He also invested in a twenty-thousand-acre ranch in Texas. He was a man of extraordinary activity, even in his old age. He died in New York City on the 30th of November 1882.
