The Biographer

Samuel Adams 1722-1803

Overview Among those who signed the Declaration of Independence, and were conspicuous in the revolution, there existed, of course, a great diversity of intellectual endowments; nor did all render to their country, in those perilous days, the same important services.…

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John Adams 1735-1826

John Adams, Jr., the eldest of three sons, was born on October 30, 1735 (October 19, 1735 Old Style, Julian calendar), in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts (then called the “north precinct” of Braintree, Massachusetts), to John Adams, Sr., and…

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Abraham Lincoln

Overview Born near Hodgenville, Ky. on February 12, 1809, Lincoln was the central figure of the Civil War, and is regarded by many historians and laymen as not only the foremost of our presidents but also the greatest American of…

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Robert Edward Lee

Overview The idol of the South to this day, Virginian Robert E. Lee had some difficulty in adjusting to the new form of warfare that unfolded with the Civil war, but this did not prevent him from keeping the Union…

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Philip Kearny

Overview Kearny was born in New York, 2 June 2, 1815 and after his mother died when he was 9, he spent his childhood and youth with his maternal grandfather, a man of wealth and high social position. Kearny’s uncle,…

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Stonewall Jackson

Overview Next to Robert E. Lee himself, Thomas J. Jackson is the most revered of all Confederate commanders. A graduate of West Point (1846), he had served in the artillery in the Mexican War, earning two brevets, before resigning to…

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Jedediah Hotchkiss

Overview A transplanted New Yorker, Jedediah Hotchkiss became the most famous of Confederate topographers. After a tour of Virginia in the late 1840s he settled there and founded an academy. In 1861 he gave up teaching and offered his services…

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Joseph Hooker

Overview One of the most immodest and immoral of the high Union commanders, “Fighting Joe” Hooker frequently felt slighted by his superiors and requested to be relieved of duty. The Massachusetts native and West Pointer (1837) had been posted to…

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