[William Augustus]. American editor and author, born at Redding, CT, on the 29th of January 1835, and in 1861 enlisted as a private in the United States army, attaining the rank of corporal. After the war he resumed the journalistic work in which he had previously been engaged, and which he was able to prosecute at times during his experience in the Civil War. He had editorial charge of journals in the East and West, including some of the leading dailies of New York City, Chicago and Washington, DC. He traveled extensively in Europe and in Asia, Mexico, Cuba and Yucatan, and wrote syndicate articles and letters of his experiences. From 1888 until 1891 he was executive officer of the United States Geological Survey, and afterward had editorial charge of the bureau. With John M. Morris he published The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861–65 (1868); and is the author of A Helping Hand (1868); Bourbon Ballads, a series of political rhymes (1880); Deseret, an opera, with music by Dudley Buck, the motive for the work being drawn from life among the Mormons (1881); A Midsummer Lark, a humorous account of a tour in Europe (1882); The Vanderbilts and the Story of Their Fortune (1886); Folks Next Door (1892); and two volumes of Poems. He was invited to contribute an original ode on the opening of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, May 1, 1893. See also “A Living Memory” and “Mount Hope.”
