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Georges Clemenceau (September 28, 1841–November 24, 1929) Born in the Vendée region of northeastern France. Studied medicine in Paris, 1861–65. Became active in republican opposition to Napoleon III. Traveled to New York in summer of 1865 to observe American politics and began writing dispatches for Paris newspaper Le Temps. Taught French and riding at the Catherine Aitken Seminary, girls’ school in Stamford, Connecticut. Married Mary Plummer, one of his students, in June 1869, then returned to France with her. (They separated in 1876 and were divorced in 1891.) Served on the Paris municipal council, 1871–76, in the chamber of deputies, 1876–93, and in the senate, 1902–10. Premier of France and minister of the interior, 1906–9; premier and minister of war, 1917–20.
Richard Henry Dana (August 1, 1815–January 6, 1882) Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Published travel narrative Two Years Before the Mast (1840). Established successful legal practice in Boston. Defended fugitive slaves Shadrach Minkins and Thomas Sims (1851) and Anthony Burns (1854), as well as several abolitionists charged for their involvement in the rescue of Shadrach Minkins. Helped found Massachusetts Republican Party in 1855. Served as U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, 1861–66. Appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1863 as lead government attorney in the Prize Cases and argued for the legality of the Union blockade of Confederate ports; the Court subsequently ruled 5–4 for the government. Member of the Massachusetts house of representatives, 1867–68. Ran for Congress in 1868 as independent Republican but was overwhelmingly defeated by the Republican incumbent, Benjamin F. Butler. Appointed U.S. minister to Great Britain by President Grant in March 1876, but nomination was rejected by the Senate.
Sarah A. Dickey (April 25, 1838–January 23, 1904) Born near Dayton, Ohio. Began teaching in 1857. Joined the Church of the United Brethren in Christ in 1858. Taught at school for freed people established by the United Brethren in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1863–65. Graduated from the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in 1869. Returned to Mississippi and taught school in Raymond, 1869–70, and Clinton, 1870–71. Enlisted support in Mississippi and the North for a new school for black women. Opened Mount Hermon Seminary for Colored Females in 1875 and served as its principal until her death. Ordained as minister in the United Brethren in 1896.
Frederick Douglass (February 1818–February 20, 1895) Born in Talbot County, Maryland. Escaped from slavery in Baltimore in 1838. Became lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1841. Published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave in 1845. Edited and published series of antislavery newspapers, 1847–63. Published My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855. Edited and published The New National Era, 1870–73. Served as U.S. marshal, 1877–81, and recorder of deeds, 1881–86, for the District of Columbia. Published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881. Served as minister to Haiti, 1889–91.
Charles A. Eldredge (February 27, 1820–October 26, 1896) Born in Bridport, Vermont. Admitted to bar in 1846. Member of the Wisconsin state senate, 1854–56. Served in Congress as a Democrat, 1863–75.
Robert Brown Elliott (August 11, 1842?–August 9, 1884) Born and educated in England. Moved to South Carolina in 1867. Delegate to the South Carolina constitutional convention in 1868. Served as a Republican in the state house of representatives, 1868–70. Admitted to the bar in 1868. Elected to Congress in 1870 and served, 1871–74. Speaker of the South Carolina house of representatives, 1874–76. Elected state attorney general in 1876, but was forced out of office in 1877. Worked as a treasury department inspector in Charleston, 1879–81, and New Orleans, 1881–82.
Joseph S. Fullerton (December 3, 1835–March 20, 1897) Born in Chillicothe, Ohio. Practiced law in St. Louis at outbreak of Civil War. Served as assistant adjutant general (staff officer) in the Union army, 1863–65. Adjutant to Major General Oliver O. Howard, commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, 1865. Served as acting assistant commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau for Louisiana in the fall of 1865. At direction of President Johnson, made inspection tour of Freedmen’s Bureau operations in the South with Major General James Steedman in spring and summer of 1866. Mustered out of army in September 1866. Postmaster of St. Louis, 1867–69. Chairman of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Commission, 1890–97.
James A. Garfield (November 19, 1831–September 19, 1881) Born in Orange, Ohio. Graduated from Williams College in 1856. Principal of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College), 1857–61. Admitted to bar, 1861. Served as officer in the Union army, 1861–63, and was promoted to major general of volunteers. Republican congressman from Ohio, 1863–80. Elected president of the United States, 1880. Fatally wounded by assassin in Washington, D.C., July 2, 1881, and died two months later.
William Lloyd Garrison (December 12, 1805–May 24, 1879) Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Coedited The Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore with Benjamin Lundy, 1829–30. Convicted of libel for accusing a local merchant of involvement in the domestic slave trade and spent forty-nine days in the Baltimore jail. Founded abolitionist weekly The Liberator in Boston, 1831. Helped found the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832 and the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. Served as president of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1843–65. Ended publication of The Liberator in December 1865 after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified. Wrote public letters in support of the Fifteenth Amendment, women’s suffrage, temperance, and the rights of Chinese immigrants.
Ulysses S. Grant (April 22, 1822–July 23, 1885) Born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Graduated West Point in 1843. Fought in U.S.-Mexican War. Resigned from U.S. army in 1854. Served in Union army as colonel, 1861, brigadier general, 1861–62, and major general, 1862–64. Promoted to lieutenant general, 1864, and general, 1866; general-in-chief of the army, 1864–69. Secretary of war ad interim, August 1867–January 1868. Nominated for president by the Republican Party in 1868; defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour, and won reelection in 1872 by defeating Liberal Republican Horace Greeley. President of the United States, 1869–77. Made world tour, 1877–79. Wrote Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, published posthumously in 1885–86.
Horace Greeley (February 3, 1811–November 29, 1872) Born in Amherst, New Hampshire. Moved to New York City in 1831. Founded and edited literary weekly New-Yorker, 1834–41. Edited Whig newspapers Jeffersonian, 1838–39, and Log Cabin, 1840. Founded New-York Tribune in 1841 and edited the newspaper until his death. Served as Whig congressman, 1848–49. Nominated for president by the Liberal Republicans and the Democrats in 1872 but was defeated by Ulysses S. Grant.
Andrew J. Hamilton (January 28, 1815–April 11, 1875) Born in Huntsville, Alabama. Admitted to bar in 1841. Moved to Texas in 1846. Member of the Texas house of representatives, 1851–53. Served in Congress as an Independent Democrat, 1859–61. Opposed secession. Fled to Mexico in 1862. Military governor of Texas, November 1862–June 1865. Provisional governor of Texas, June 1865–August 1866. Associate justice of the state supreme court, 1867–69. Delegate to the state constitutional convention, 1868–69. Unsuccessful moderate Republican candidate for governor, 1869.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (September 24, 1825–February 22, 1911) Born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland. Taught school in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Published Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854). Toured New England, Canada, and the western states as an antislavery lecturer, 1854–60. Married Fenton Harper in 1860, but was widowed in 1864. Resumed lecturing and made several tours of the South during Reconstruction. Published narrative poem Moses: A Story of the Nile (1869), Poems (1871), and poetry collection Sketches of the South (1872). Founded YMCA Sabbath School in Philadelphia, 1872. Active in temperance and women’s suffrage movements. Published novel Iola Leroy (1892). Helped found National Association of Colored Women in 1896.
Lewis Hayden (c. 1811–April 7, 1889) Born into slavery in Kentucky. Lost contact with his first wife, Esther, and his child after they were sold by Henry Clay. Escaped from slavery in 1844 with his second wife, Harriet. Mov
ed in 1846 to Boston, where the Haydens opened a clothing store and gave shelter to scores of fugitive slaves. A member of the Boston Vigilance Committee that resisted the Fugitive Slave Law, Hayden played a leading role in the rescue of Shadrach Minkins from the Suffolk County Courthouse in 1851 and the unsuccessful attempt to rescue Anthony Burns in 1854. Appointed messenger in the office of the Massachusetts secretary of state, 1858. Helped recruit black soldiers for the Massachusetts 54th and 55th Regiments during the Civil War. Elected to the Massachusetts house of representatives in 1873 and served a single one-year term.
Rutherford B. Hayes (October 4, 1822–January 13, 1893) Born in Delaware, Ohio. Admitted to bar in 1845. Served as officer in the Union army, 1861–65, and was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers. Republican congressman from Ohio, 1865–67. Governor of Ohio, 1868–72 and 1876–77. Republican candidate in disputed presidential election, 1876. President of the United States, 1877–81.
Abram Hewitt (July 31, 1822–January 18, 1903) Born in Haverstraw, New York. Became a successful iron manufacturer and philanthropist. Democratic congressman from New York, 1875–79 and 1881–86. Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, 1876–77. Mayor of New York City, 1887–88.
William W. Holden (November 24, 1818–March 1, 1892) Born near Hillsborough, North Carolina. Publisher and editor of the Raleigh North Carolina Standard, 1843–68. Opposed secession in 1861 until the outbreak of hostilities at Fort Sumter. Advocated negotiated peace with the Union in 1863. Ran for governor in 1864 as a peace candidate, but was defeated. Appointed provisional governor of North Carolina by President Johnson in May 1865. Defeated in November 1865 election. Helped found Republican Party in North Carolina and was elected governor in 1868. His use of state militia to suppress the Ku Klux Klan in 1870 led to his impeachment and removal from office by the state legislature in 1871. Served as postmaster of Raleigh, 1873–81.
Marcus S. Hopkins (November 18, 1840–March 4, 1918) Born near Berlin Heights, Ohio. Enlisted in 7th Ohio Infantry in 1861 and was commissioned as first lieutenant in 1862. Seriously wounded at Cedar Mountain and spent remainder of war on garrison duty. Served with Freedmen’s Bureau in Virginia as officer in charge of Prince William County, Virginia, 1865–67, and Orange and Louisa Counties, 1867–68. Received law degree from Columbian College (now George Washington University), 1871. Served with Department of the Interior, 1871–75. Practiced law in Washington, D.C., from 1875 until his death. The diary he kept in 1868 while serving with the Freedmen’s Bureau was published in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (1978).
Oliver O. Howard (November 8, 1830–October 26, 1909) Born in Leeds, Maine. Graduated from West Point in 1854. Officer in U.S. army, 1854–61. Brigadier general of volunteers, 1861–62. Major general of volunteers, 1863–69. Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, 1865–72. President of Howard University, 1869–74. Returned to active military service in 1872 and served as negotiator with the Apaches. Commanded troops during the Nez Percé War, 1877. Retired from army in 1894.
Robert G. Ingersoll (August 11, 1833–July 21, 1899) Born in Dresden, New York. Admitted to Illinois bar in 1854. Served as officer in Union army, 1861–62. Appointed attorney general of Illinois in 1867 and served until 1869. Campaigned for Republican candidates and became a popular orator and lecturer, known as the “Great Agnostic” for his advocacy of freethinking.
Harriet Jacobs (1813–March 7, 1897) Born in Edenton, North Carolina. Escaped from slavery in 1842. Published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself under pseudonym in 1861. Engaged in Quaker-sponsored relief work among former slaves in Washington, D.C.; Alexandria, Virginia; and Savannah, Georgia, 1862–68.
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808–July 31, 1875) Born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Moved to Tennessee in 1826 and worked as tailor in Greenville. Served as a Democrat in Congress, 1843–53, and in the Senate, 1857–62. Military governor of Tennessee, 1862–65. Elected vice president of the United States on National Union ticket, 1864. Succeeded Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States, April 15, 1865, and served until 1869. Impeached in 1868 but was acquitted by the Senate. Elected to the Senate as a Democrat in 1875 and served until his death.
Eugene Lawrence (October 10, 1823–August 17, 1894) Contributed several articles on Reconstruction to Harper’s Weekly during the 1870s, along with a series of nativist attacks on the Roman Catholic Church. Published several books, including The Lives of British Historians (1855), Historical Studies (1876), The Jews and their persecutors (1877), and A Primer of American Literature (1880).
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809–April 15, 1865) Born near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Moved to Illinois in 1830. Served as a Whig in the state legislature, 1834–41, and in Congress, 1847–49. Helped found the Republican Party of Illinois in 1856. Campaigned unsuccessfully in 1858 for Senate seat held by Stephen A. Douglas. Received Republican presidential nomination in 1860 and won election in a four-way contest; his victory led to the secession of the southern states. Issued final emancipation proclamation on January 1, 1863. Won reelection in 1864 by defeating Democrat George B. McClellan. Died in Washington, D.C., after being shot by John Wilkes Booth.
Isaac Loveless A former soldier who had served in the 46th U.S. Colored Infantry, 1863–65, Loveless wrote to President Grant in 1874 from Somerville, Tennessee, protesting the intimidation of black voters by white Democrats.
John R. Lynch (September 10, 1847–November 2, 1939) Born in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, the son of an enslaved woman and a white plantation manager. Freed by the Union army in Mississippi in 1863. Studied photography and opened a studio in Natchez. Served as a Republican in the Mississippi house of representatives, 1869–73, and in Congress, 1873–77 and 1882–83. Treasury auditor in the navy department, 1889–93. Admitted to the bar, 1896. Served as an army paymaster, 1901–11, including postings in Cuba and the Philippines. Moved to Chicago in 1912. Published The Facts of Reconstruction (1913) and Some Historical Errors of James Ford Rhodes (1922). Autobiography Reminiscences of an Active Life appeared posthumously in 1970.
Christopher G. Memminger (January 9, 1803–March 7, 1888) Born in Nayhingen, Germany. Immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, as a child. Served in the South Carolina house of representatives, 1836–52 and 1855–60. Delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress, February 1861–February 1862. Secretary of the treasury in the Confederate government, February 1861–July 1864. Pardoned by President Johnson in 1866.
Oliver P. Morton (August 4, 1823–November 1, 1877) Born in Salisbury, Indiana. Admitted to bar in 1847. Served as circuit court judge in Indiana, 1852. Republican governor of Indiana, 1861–67. Served in the Senate as a Republican from 1867 until his death. Member of the commission that resolved the disputed 1877 presidential election.
Levi Nelson An emancipated slave working as a blacksmith in Grant Parish, Louisiana, Nelson was shot and seriously wounded in April 1873 during the Colfax Massacre. He testified for the prosecution in U. S. v. Cruikshank in 1874.
Joseph Noxon A Tennessee Unionist who wrote to President Andrew Johnson from New York City in 1865.
Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811–February 2, 1884) Born in Boston. Admitted to Massachusetts bar in 1834. Began making antislavery speeches in 1837 and became an ally of William Lloyd Garrison. Advocated abolitionism, prohibition, women’s rights, prison reform, and peaceful relations with American Indians while also giving popular lectures on nonpolitical subjects. Criticized Abraham Lincoln as lacking commitment to emancipation and equal rights, and broke with Garrison to oppose Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. Succeeded Garrison as president of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1865 and led the society until 1870, when it dissolved itself following the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment. Ran for governor of Massachusetts in 1870 as the Labor Reform and Prohibition candidate.
Edwards Pierrepont (March 4, 1817–March 6, 1892) Born in North Haven, Connecticut. Admitted to the bar in 1840. Served as judge of the superior cour
t of New York City, 1857–60. Member of the New York state constitutional convention, 1867–68. U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, 1869–70. Attorney general of the United States, May 1875–May 1876. Minister to Great Britain, May 1876–December 1877.
James S. Pike (September 8, 1811–November 29, 1882) Born in Calais, Maine. Edited the Calais Gazette and Advertiser, 1836–37. Engaged in successful land speculation. Washington correspondent for the Boston Courier, 1844–50, and the New-York Tribune, 1850–60. Opposed Kansas-Nebraska Act and helped found Maine Republican Party. U.S. minister to the Netherlands, 1861–66. Resumed position as Washington correspondent for the Tribune, 1866. Visited South Carolina in the winter of 1873 and published series of articles that appeared in expanded form in The Prostrate State: South Carolina Under Negro Government (1873). Published The New Puritan: New England Two Hundred Years Ago (1879), a biography of his ancestor Robert Pike, and The First Blows of the Civil War (1879), collecting his articles and correspondence from the 1850s.
Joseph H. Rainey (June 21, 1832–August 2, 1887) Born into slavery in Georgetown, South Carolina. Father, a barber, was able to buy his family’s freedom in the early 1840s. Learned father’s trade and became successful barber in Charleston. Fled South Carolina in 1862 as steward on blockade runner and spent remainder of the war in Bermuda. Returned to Charleston in 1865. Delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1868. Elected to Congress as a Republican in 1870, becoming the first African American in the House of Representatives, and served from 1870 to 1879. Served as a collector of internal revenue in Charleston, 1879–81.