American soldier and ethnologist, born in Wilkes-Barre, PA, on the 23rd of April 1831. He graduated from Yale, and took his degree in law at the University of Pennsylvania; practiced until 1861, when he entered the Union army as first lieutenant; rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was confined for some time in Libby prison. When the regular army was reconstructed he was made captain, with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel; served as judge-advocate to several generals, and was secretary of state in Virginia during the reconstruction period; was made brigadier-general in 1870; during this year he was detailed to meteorological service; in charge of the Weather Bureau for several years; placed in command of Fort Rice, Dakota (1876); detailed for duty in connection with the ethnology of the North American Indians in 1877; was retired from active service on account of wounds in 1879. He was placed in charge of the Bureau of Ethnology, in Washington, a post which he occupied until his death. He was, at various times, president of the anthropological section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; vice-president of the main body; and president of the joint commission of the six scientific societies of Washington. Among his works are A Calendar of the Dakota Indians (1877); Introduction to the Study of the Sign-Language Among the North American Indians, as Illustrating the Gesture-Speech of Mankind (1880); Photographs of the North American Indians (1886); Israelite and Indian, a Parallel in Planes of Culture (1889); and Picture-Writing of American Indians (1893). He died in Washington, DC, on the 24th of October 1894.
