first brigade of General Sigel's division, and was wounded and compelled to leave the field. He, however, soon rejoined his regiment and took part in the arduous march of General Curtis' troops through Arkansas to Helena, where the forces arrived in July, 1862. On the 9th of June, 1862, he was promoted to be a brigadier-general of volunteers, and in that capacity took part, as we have already seen, in command of a brigade, in Sherman's attempt on Vicksburg, in December, 1862, at the head of a division of the Thirteenth Army Corps, in the capture of Arkansas Post, the siege of Vicksburg, where he was again wounded, and subsequently in Sherman's capture of the town of Jackson. From that time, as the commander of the first division of the Fifteenth Army Corps, his history has been fully traced in these pages. It may be said of General Osterhaus, that no officer of foreign birth and education so successfully exercised, during the late war, commands of equal extent and responsibility.

Henry Wadsworth Slocum was born in Syracuse, in Onondaga County, in the State of New York. Entering the Military Academy at West Point as a cadet in June, 1848, he graduated four years later, seventh in the general standing of his class, and on the 1st of July, 1852, was commissioned a brevet second-lieutenant and attached to the First Regiment of Artillery. In the following year he attained, by regular promotion, to a full second-lieutenancy in the same regiment, and in March, 1855, became a first-lieutenant. On the 31st of October, 1856, he resigned his commission in the army, settled in his native place, and embarked in the practice of the law as a profession, at the same time taking an active part in political affairs. His resignation was accepted in the height of the excitement attending the contest of 1856 between Buchanan and Breckinridge and Fremont and Dayton, as opposing candidates for the Presidency and VicePresidency of the United States. Slocum became a warm supporter of the principles and nominees of the Republican party, then just organized, and continued from that time to act with it..

On the outbreak of the war, Slocum applied for a commission as captain of artillery in the regular army, that being the highest grade for which, as he then considered, his experience qualified him; but failing to receive the appointment, he shortly afterwards yielded to the current of events, and accepted the colonelcy of the Twenty-seventh Regiment of New York Volunteers, raised in Onondaga County. This regiment was among the first troops sent from the State for three years, or during the war. At the battle of Bull Run it formed a part of Franklin's brigade of Hunter's division, and did good service. In the organization of the Army of the Potomac, in the fall of 1861, by General McClellan, Franklin received the command of a division on the left of the line, in front of Alexandria, and Colonel Slocum, being promoted to be a brigadier-general of volunteers, succeeded to the command of Franklin's brigade. In March, 1862, when the army was divided into army corps, Franklin's division became a part of McDowell's first corps, and remained with it on the lines of the Potomac and the Rappahannock, but in April was sent to join the main army before Yorktown.

Arriving there just before the conclusion of the siege, General Franklin was presently placed by General McClellan in command of the Sixth Provisional Army Corps, afterwards regularly constituted the Sixth Army Corps, consisting of W. F. Smith's division detached from Keyes' fourth corps and of Franklin's own, to the command of which Slocum succeeded. The division took part on the Peninsula in the battles of West Point, Goldings' Farm, Gaines' Mill, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Glendale, and Malvern Hill. For his services in this campaign Slocum was promoted to be a major-general from the 4th of July, 1862. In the Maryland campaign, in the fall of the same year, Slocum led the division with great distinction in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. After the latter he was selected, in consideration of the high qualities he had displayed, for the command of the Twelfth Army Corps, made vacant by the fall of General Mansfield, and continued to command it with ability and gallantry

throughout the campaigns of Burnside, Hooker, and Meade of 1862 and 1863, including the three great battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. At Chancellorsville, Slocum, by his bold and rapid change of front, saved the army from the disastrous consequences that might have followed the rout of the Eleventh Corps. In the fall of 1863, when the Eleventh and Twelfth corps, united under Hooker, were sent to Nashville to re-enforce Thomas' army at Chattanooga, General Slocum, preferring not to serve again under General Hooker, was, at his own request, relieved from command of the corps and ordered to Vicksburg. Here he fell under the keen eye and appreciating judgment of General Sherman, and was wisely selected by him for the command of the Twentieth Corps, when Hooker, indignant in his turn at the promotion of Howard, quitted the Army of the Cumberland.*

On the 9th of November, at Kingston, Sherman issued the following orders for the government of his subordinate commanders :

"I. The habitual order of march will be, whenever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible, and converging at points hereafter to be indicated in orders. The cavalry, Brigadier-General Kilpatrick commanding, will receive special orders from the commander-in-chief.

"II. There will be no general trains of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition and provision train, distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition wagons, provision wagons, and ambulances. In case of danger, each army corps commander should change this order of march by having his advance and rear brigade unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns will start habitually at seven A. M., and

* General Slocum, having been nominated by the Democratic party of New York for Secretary of State, resigned his commission in the army.