American author, better known as “Edmund Kirke,” born in Boston on the 10th of September 1823. He became a partner in a counting-room before he was of age, and in 1848 became the head of a cotton and shipping firm in New York City, from which he retired before the beginning of the Civil War. In 1862 he founded the Continental Monthly, but soon discontinued his connection with it. In 1873 he again engaged in business, but retired in 1883, and devoted himself to literature. Among his books are Among the Pines (1863); Adrift in Dixie (1863); My Southern Friends (1863); Down in Tennessee, and Back by Way of Richmond (1864); Patriot Boys and Prison Pictures (1865); Among the Guerrillas (1866); On the Border (1867); The Rear-Guard of the Revolution (1866); John Sevier as a Commonwealth Builder, a sequel to the former (1887); The Advance Guard of Western Civilization (1888). In July 1864, he, with Colonel Jaquess, was intrusted by President Lincoln with an unofficial mission to Jefferson Davis with the object of bringing about a peace, the mission eliciting from the Confederate government the declaration that no terms could be concluded which did not secure the independence of the Confederate States. This had the effect of obliterating the peace desire in the North. Lincoln offered Gilmore the post of minister to Switzerland, in acknowledgment of his services, but the office was declined. See also “Three Days.”
