Thursday, July 16, 2009
On writing
I often find myself going against everything that I was trained to do in historical methods on how to write history. According to the experts, one does research and writes the results on index cards, puts those cards together to form chapters and then writes the narrative from that. Outlines are also a critical part of the process. For me this does not work. For my two regimental histories, I have first started with writing the general outline-the skeleton you might call of a general history of the war, the tactics, strategy, outcomes, major players, etc. Basically just a short history of the war with nothing relating specifically to my regiment of study. I then add on the meat, which is the story of the unit. I do not use index cards, instead I work from one source, a letter, newspaper account, or book at a time. When I am done with that source, it is returned to the shelf and is not touched again until the work is finished. It might seam strange to do this, but it is the method I use, and has worked rather well over the last two years. My quarters are often in an uproar of a mess when I am writing- often I place all of my works for one day on my bed in the morning and do not go to sleep until they are off, although I have, on occasion nodded off at my desk. Writing is an enjoyable part of life, and until my hands can no longer do it, I shall remain.
Captain A.M Channell
Last night while visiting the small library here in the hills- ironically only open two hours a week I picked up the three volume history of Norwich University, a private military college in Vermont. I had long known that Major Babbitt of the Seventh had attended and graduated from the school, but was pleasantly suprised to find on the list of students Captain Alfred M. Channell of the Seventh, who attended from 1850 to 1852, but did not graduate. Channell served in the Seventh Massachusetts and Seventh Rhode Island and was the only line officer in the regiment to be court martialed and dismissed from the service- for stealing government funds. Here is a biography of Captain Channell:
Captain Alfred M. Channell, son of Abraham Fitz John and Jane Taylor Channell, was born in New Hampshire near the Canadian line, March 19, 1829. He had four brothers and one sister, the last dying in infancy. During his youth he attended a military academy in Vermont. Aug. 21, 1861, he was appointed second lieutenant in the Seventh Massachusetts Infantry, but resigned Jan. 17, 1862. By trade he was an iron moulder, and, prior to his enrollment in the Seventh, was employed by the Barstow Stove Company, Providence, R. I. He was mustered as first lieutenant Company G, Sept. 4, 1862, and promoted to be captain of Company D, October 24th. He was dismissed from the service by order of general court-martial Aug. 29, 1864.
A few weeks prior to the collapse of the Rebellion, Mr. Channell went to Camp Nelson, Ky., and purchased from his brother the sutlership of a Kentucky colored regiment. He took up his residence in Cincinnati, O., in 1870, but two years later puchased a farm in Galesburg, Ill., where he died Aug. 19, 1884, of inflammation of the bowels.
Directly after the termination of hostilities, Mr. Channell married in Fredericksbug, Va., a Southern woman, whose given name was Josephine, and whose surname has been reported as Marks. No children were born to them.
Captain Alfred M. Channell, son of Abraham Fitz John and Jane Taylor Channell, was born in New Hampshire near the Canadian line, March 19, 1829. He had four brothers and one sister, the last dying in infancy. During his youth he attended a military academy in Vermont. Aug. 21, 1861, he was appointed second lieutenant in the Seventh Massachusetts Infantry, but resigned Jan. 17, 1862. By trade he was an iron moulder, and, prior to his enrollment in the Seventh, was employed by the Barstow Stove Company, Providence, R. I. He was mustered as first lieutenant Company G, Sept. 4, 1862, and promoted to be captain of Company D, October 24th. He was dismissed from the service by order of general court-martial Aug. 29, 1864.
A few weeks prior to the collapse of the Rebellion, Mr. Channell went to Camp Nelson, Ky., and purchased from his brother the sutlership of a Kentucky colored regiment. He took up his residence in Cincinnati, O., in 1870, but two years later puchased a farm in Galesburg, Ill., where he died Aug. 19, 1884, of inflammation of the bowels.
Directly after the termination of hostilities, Mr. Channell married in Fredericksbug, Va., a Southern woman, whose given name was Josephine, and whose surname has been reported as Marks. No children were born to them.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Providence vs. Vermont
I go to school in Providence, Rhode Island and was shocked to learn this week of four homicides in the city alone, as usual in South Providence, that is why I can never go to Locust Grove or Grace Church Cemetery, without fear of getting shot at, nor can use the superb Arnold Collection at the Knight Library for the same reason. It is quite sad that this is occurring in such a nice city, ohh Buddy come back! There were no murders in Vermont this week, I wonder why four in one city, and none in the entire state- it is something to ponder.
J. Weeden Burdick
A group of brothers-in-law joined the Seventh from the rural mill village of Rockville, in northern Hopkinton; J. Weeden Burdick had two sisters, who married Isaac N. Saunders and Abel B. Kenyon. Together the three men went to war. Of the three, only one came back. J. Weeden died of disease in Mississippi, and Isaac was shot in the heart at Spotsylvania, along with fellow Rockville resident Benjamin K. Austin. Today at Fredericksburg National Cemetery, Austin and Saunders are buried side by side. Abel had several close scrapes, including being shot in the hand at both Jackson and Spotsylvania. He returned to his wife Julia and lived out a full life. It is the little stories like these that make studying the Seventh so fascinating. Here is a biography of J. Weeden:
Joseph Weeden Burdick, son of Gardner and Elizabeth Crandall Burdick, was born in Hopkinton, Oct. 18, 1836. He married Martha Jane Wilbur, also of Hopkinton, Jan. 1, 1858. Two sons were born to them, who died in 1860, about two months before the demise of their mother Adelbert M., the one aged eighteen months, the other an infant of but a few days. He again married April 18, 1861, Mary Kenyon, of Rockville, who, childless, survived him. Abel B. Kenyon, of Co. K, is her brother.
Joseph enlisted Aug. 7, 1862. At Pleasant Valley, Md., he contracted the measles from which he never fully recovered. The following June when on picket duty he experienced a sunstroke, and for quite a while was ill from congestion of the brain. At one time he was reported dead, yet he recovered sufficiently to write to his wife. He also assisted in caring for invalid comrades in the hospital. On July 19, 1863, he sat whittling in the regimental hospital at the Milldale camp conversing with the doctor and the steward, when, without warning, he fell backward and immediately expired. The cause was said to be heart disease aggravated by Yazoo fever. Comrade Burdick was possessed of an active, cheerful temperment, and was popular with his associates. He left a brother, Deacon Leander C. Burdick, and four sisters, Mrs. Abel B. Kenyon, Mrs. Jared G. Barber, Mrs. Albert S. Babcock (all these are residents of Rockville), and Mrs. Nathan H. Lamphier, of Westerly; also a half-brother, Henry C. Burdick, and a half-sister, Fidelia Kenyon, both of Hope Valley.
Joseph Weeden Burdick, son of Gardner and Elizabeth Crandall Burdick, was born in Hopkinton, Oct. 18, 1836. He married Martha Jane Wilbur, also of Hopkinton, Jan. 1, 1858. Two sons were born to them, who died in 1860, about two months before the demise of their mother Adelbert M., the one aged eighteen months, the other an infant of but a few days. He again married April 18, 1861, Mary Kenyon, of Rockville, who, childless, survived him. Abel B. Kenyon, of Co. K, is her brother.
Joseph enlisted Aug. 7, 1862. At Pleasant Valley, Md., he contracted the measles from which he never fully recovered. The following June when on picket duty he experienced a sunstroke, and for quite a while was ill from congestion of the brain. At one time he was reported dead, yet he recovered sufficiently to write to his wife. He also assisted in caring for invalid comrades in the hospital. On July 19, 1863, he sat whittling in the regimental hospital at the Milldale camp conversing with the doctor and the steward, when, without warning, he fell backward and immediately expired. The cause was said to be heart disease aggravated by Yazoo fever. Comrade Burdick was possessed of an active, cheerful temperment, and was popular with his associates. He left a brother, Deacon Leander C. Burdick, and four sisters, Mrs. Abel B. Kenyon, Mrs. Jared G. Barber, Mrs. Albert S. Babcock (all these are residents of Rockville), and Mrs. Nathan H. Lamphier, of Westerly; also a half-brother, Henry C. Burdick, and a half-sister, Fidelia Kenyon, both of Hope Valley.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Two things I hate on writing
If there are two things that irritate me about writing history, they are the use of "sic" and "ibid." Yes, they are in the Turabian manual, but I refuse to use them. On sic, I always place in my introduction that all spelling remains the same as the person who wrote it intended it to be, I never change what the person wrote, even if the modern audience can not explain it- I will use a note to explain what it should be. As to ibid, for the love of Job, use a full citation, just the author's last name and a brief italicized name of the book, and page number work just fine. Ibid is really distracting when there are many citations being used, even with just one, it is annoying beyond repair to find the original if used over and over. As to this writer, I will never use ibid or sic in my writings. So please fellow historians, stop using these two annotations, they drive your humble servant crazy
Save the Date
Well comrades, it took nearly three years, but I am proud to announce that The Boys of Adams' Battery G: The Civil War through the eyes of a Union light artillery unit is finally a reality. The national release of the book will be on July 28, 2009. Please join me at 7:00 pm at the Barnard Historical Society, Rt. 12, Barnard, Vermont as we examine the effect of supporting artillery fire as experienced by the men of the Vermont Brigade at such important battles as Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, and Petersburg. Looking forward to seeing you on the 28th.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Lt. Col. George E. Church
After Lieutenant Colonel Welcome B. Sayles was blown apart at Fredericksburg, Colonel Bliss appointed Captain George E. Church of Company C as the lieutenant colonel. The men instantly took a disliking to the new colonel; perhaps as a result, Church was promoted out of the regiment in March of 1863 to colonel of the Eleventh Rhode Island and was mustered out in July of 1863.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Earl Church, son of George Washington and Margaret Fisher Church, was born at New Bedford, Mass., Dec. 7, 1835. His father dying at Mobile, in 1838, his mother removed to Providence, R.I., and sent him to the Arnold Street School. At thirteen years of age he entered the Providence High School and graduated at sixteen. He then commenced the study of civil and topographical engineering, and for a time was engaged in the survey of townships in Massachusetts for the state map, and afterward as assistant engineer upon several railway enterprises in Iowa. Before he was twenty-one he received the appointment of resident engineer of the great Hoosac tunnel in Massachusetts. When the work stopped on account of financial difficulties, he accepted the position of chief assistant engineer on a western railway, but he was invited not long after to go to the Argentine Republic, where he became a member of the scientific commission sent by the government of Buenos Ayres to explore the southwestern frontier of the country and report upon the best system of defense against the fierce inroads of the Patagonians and other savages living upon the pampas and the Andean slopes. For this wild and dangerous expedition, the government detailed a covering force of 400 cavalry. The commission rode over 7,000 miles in nine months and fought two severe battles with the savages, one of which on May 19, 1859, was a midnight attack upon the little force by 1,500 picked warriors of the Huelches, Puelches, Pehunches, Pampas, Araucanians and Patagones. The attack was a surprise; naked and mounted bareback on their splendid horses and with their long lances in line, they poured down upon the expedition in a magnificent charge by moonlight. Then for three hours it was a hand-to-hand fight, where no quarter was given nor asked. The savages finally retired in good order with 3,000 head of cattle and horses as the fruit of their daring raid. On the return of the commission to Buenos Ayres each member presented a plan for the defense of the frontiers; that of Mr. Church was published and adopted by the government.
On hearing of the outbreak of the Rebellion, Mr. Church, who was then engaged as engineer on the construction of the Great Northern Railway of Buenos Ayres, resigned his position, returned home and made application to the Secretary of War, to go before the West Point Examining Board to be examined for a commission as second lieutenant of the United States Engineers. The application being refused as contrary to regulations, he went to Providence and was appointed captain in the Seventh Rhode Island July 26, 1862; lieutenant-colonel Jan. 7, 1863; colonel of the Eleventh Rhode Island (a nine months regiment), Feb. 11, 1863; colonel of the the Second Rhode Island, Dec. 31, 1864, but was never mustered into service as such, for that famous regiment was not recruited up to the strength required before the close of the war. After the death of the lieutenant-colonel and major at Fredericksburg, Captain Church was put in command of the regiment, Colonel Bliss having charge of the brigade. He participated in the defense of Suffolk when besieged by Longstreet, and afterward led the van with a brigade of four regiments, part of a force of 14,000 men, in a successful raid for the tearing up of the Seaboard and Roanoke, and the Norfolk and the Petersburg railways. He then, with his brigade, covered the rear, fighting several skirmishes as the force retired upon Suffolk. During the Gettysburg campaign, in June, 1863, he was placed in command of the fortifications of Williamsburg on the Peninsula, having under him beside his own regiment, the Second Wisconsin Battery, Battery E, of the First Pennsylvania Artillery, and a squadron of the Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry. Pending the refilling of the Second Rhode Island, Colonel Church accepted the position of chief engineer for the construction of the branch of the Providence, Warren, and Bristol Railroad, to Fall river, which he completed in April, 1865.
About this time the French invasion of Mexico was deeply agitating the American mind. It drew from the pen of Colonel Church 'A Historical Review of Mexico and its Revolutions', which the 'New York Herald' paid him the compliment of publishing entire in sixteen columns of its edition of May 25, 1866. This review was by Mr. Romero, then Mexican Minister at Washington, sent to our state department with the request to archive it as the best outline of Mexican history ever written, and, with the permission of the author, he published it in pamphlet form, and caused a copy to be laid upon the desk of every senator and member of Congress. It has been translated into German and French, and twice into Spanish. One of the results of this publication was that its author went to Mexico to support the Liberal causes under President Juarez, who, shorn of his army, and with the mere shreds of a government, had been driven northward even to within sight of the frontier of the United States. Colonel Church, accompanied by General Lew Wallace, rode 900 miles from Matamoras to Chihuahua via Monterey, Saltillo, and Parras, running the gauntlet of imperial raiding parties, bandits, and, an incursion of Apaches from New Mexico. The latter killed 126 Mexicans in three days along the route taken by our adventurous travelers, and, finally drove them to take refuge for one night in a loopholed mescal building. Safely reaching his destination Oct. 21, 1866, he found President Juarez and his cabinet and about 1,200 disorganized troops. Their artillery consisted of two small howitzers, differing in calibre. For lack of iron they were casting copper balls for them. He remained seven months with them, during which time he was quartered with General Ygnacio Mejia, Minister of War. He shared their privations, their defeats, their long marches, and their successes, until the capture of Maximilian at Queretero. The campaign which hemmed in the ill-fated emperor and resulted in his capture was planned by Colonel Church at Du Rango, and, within an hour after it had been presented to the Minister of War, it had been discussed at the cabinet meeting and orders hurried off to the several forces in the field to carry it into execution. Two days before the storming of Zacatecas (Jan. 27, 1867), the Imperialist General Miramon sent word to Colonel Church that he would shoot him in the Plaza if he caught him. On the morning of the assault of that ablest of Imperial generals, he was nearly captured for having given his own fast horse to President Juarez; he was the last to dash clear of the Plaza under a shower of bullets from a battalion of French Zouaves, while only 300 yards distant down the Bufa mountain road came Miramon thundering along at the head of 700 cavalry. The race was for life, especially through the streets encumbered with the debris of the Liberal army, but across the country south of the city, himself described his ride as 'a grand steeplechase for forty-two miles, in which he constantly gained ground until Miramon gave up the pursuit and returned to Zacatecas'. Three days later the Liberals took it. San Louis Potosi struck off five medals to commemorate the recapture of that important city, one in gold for President Juraez, a silver one for each of the cabinet ministers, and a silver one for Colonel Church, which was presented to him with considerable ceremony. During his stay in that country he wrote some forty-nine letters to the 'New York Herald' detailing his experiences and describing the varying fortunes of the Liberal cause from the day of his arrival to the surrender of Maximilian. When that occurred, Colonel Church rode 600 miles in six days to the Rio Grande frontier and hastened thence to Washington to induce, if possible, our Government to use its influence to save the life of Maximilian; but his efforts were fruitless. Mr. Seward, who had been advised of his purpose, denied him an interview.
Colonel Church now accepted employment on the editorial staff of the 'New York Herald', where he remained for more than a year, but while thus engaged, the Bolivian Government sent General Quintin Quevedo, a prominent member of its diplomatic corps, to invite him to undertake the long-cherished, national project to open to navigation the 3,000 miles of Bolivian tributaries of the Amazon. These are separated from the navigable waters of the lower River Madeira by about 300 miles of formidable cataracts and rapids, principally in the territory of Brazil. He accepted the invitation, but proceeded to Bolivia via Buenos Ayres, opposite which city, on the Rio de la Plata, he selected and prepared a proper site for a marine slip for an American company. Then with one servant he rode overland 2,000 miles to La Paz the capital of Bolivia, where the required concesion for the navigation of the Bolivian waters was secured. He then returned to New York via Panama, but soon after his arrival at the request of the Bolivian government, he returned to La Paz, whence he repaired to Rio de Janeiro via the Straits of Magellan to obtain the right to construct a railway to avoid the falls of the River Madeira, which that government had failed to negotiate, as it had agreed. The desired concession from Brazil was granted to Colonel Church with but little delay. He went at once to New York and organized the National Bolivian Navigation Company in June, 1870, under a charter from the United States government and became its president. Next, in London he organized the Madeira and Mamore Railway Company under his Brazilian concession of which himself was chairman. He then raised over $6,000,000 cash to carry out the two enterprises and contracted for the railway works with a powerful English Company. Again he went to Bolivia, via Peru, and the Tacora pass of the Andes, reached the southern capital, Suere, via Oruro, went to Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a town at the headwaters of a tributary of the Amazon, organized a canoe expedition of eighty-three Indians and a few white men, and descended the River Piray, the Mamore and the falls of the Madeira. At the last fall, San Antonio, he was met by a small exploring steamer which he caused to be taken up the cataracts, she being hauled three miles overland en route. At the fall of Pedermeira he saved the lives of sixteen Indians who were clinging to a wrecked canoe in midriver, while at another rapid his own canoe was wrecked, and again at the 'Cauldron of Hell', he nearly lost his entire expedition. He returned to Europe via the River Madeira and the Amazon. The magnitude and the promise of this project evoked the bitter jealousy and opposition of the merchants of the Pacific coast, who held a commercial monopoly of the district it was proposed to open by the new route. It was suddenly discovered that an American company held in hand an enterprise which promised to penetrate South America through its centre, turn its commerce from the old forced channels into natural ones and powerfully affect the political and intertrade relations of several of the Spanish-American states. The fierce jealousies combined on all sides. The English Construction Company threw up its contract and joined the bondholders in an attack upon the railway trust fund, which they tied up by the injuction in the Court of Chancery. The Bolivian government then entered the lists and tried to seize the fund. Colonel Church fought these heavy odds as long as there was an inch of ground left to stand on and gained suit after suit from 1873 to 1878. The bondholders' committee then bribed the Bolivian President, Daza, with L20,000 to take sides with them, and instituted a new suit with the Bolivan concession revoked. Even this new suit Colonel Church gained in the Court of the First Instance. The House of Lords finally settled the question by declaring the enterprise impracticable, although the Brazilian government, which, throughout, had given its unwavering support to the colonel, had months before, at his request, issued a decree offering to supplement the existing fund with all the money necessary to complete the railway work. At the time the enterprise was broken up, there were 1,200 men at work on the railroad, and a locomotive was running on the first section.
A few months after the wreck of this, his great undertaking, which unquestionably would have accomplished all its detractors alleged against it, but for the proverbial Spanish treachery exhibited by the official heretofore referred to, and which still inevitably be accomplished in a few years at most, for pigmies cannot forever block the inexorable progress of commerce, we find Colonel Church en route from Washington to Quito under instructions from Secretary James G. Blaine to make a report to the United States government upon the political, social, commercial, and general condition of Ecuador. He was also in in that voyage, entrusted by the English holders of that peoople's bonds with full power to negotiate the re-adjustment of their national debt. He proceeded to Guayaquil via Panama, crossed the Chimborazo pass of the Andes, remained at Quito three months, rode north as far as the frontier of Colombia, and afterward went to Lima, where he tarried for a time to write his report which is entitled 'Ecuador in 1881'. This was published (Ex. Doc. No. 69 of forty-seventh Congress), as a special message of President Arthur to Congress. The extensive data it contains is widely and often quoted. Colonel Church then went to Chili and via the Straights of Magellan, to Uruguay and the Argentine Republic, and thence to Brazil, returning to the United States by way of England. Later in London, he engaged in financial operations of considerable magnitude connected with public works, and in 1889 contracted to build a railway in the Argentine Republic for one million sterling. This he completed in two years, in the midst of the Baring crisis which ruined so many contractors for public works in South America. In 1895 he spent three months in Costa Rica in behalf of the foreign bondholders of that country, and also during his stay there made an elaborate report to the Costa Rica Railway Company upon the condition of its line.
Although still engaged in the construction of railways in the Argentine Republic, Colonel Church devotes much time to literary pursuits.
He is a member of several scientific and learned societies, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, and has been a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society for four years, being the first foreigner, not an English citizen ever admitted to that honor. In 1891 he represented the former Society at the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, held in London, and, in 1898, at the Bristol meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he, as president of the Geographical Section, read a paper on 'Argentine Geography, and the Ancient Pampean Sea', which attracted great attention, and was pronounced by 'The Times' 'one of the most scientific papers ever read before that Section.' Numerous and extensive articles have appeared in the 'Geographic Journal' from his pen, and, reently, one of the its monthly numbers have almost entirely occupied by his 'Outline of the Physical Geography of South America'. To his fine library of books in several foreign languages with which he is familiar he devotes all his spare time, for he is still a close student of history, geography, and travel, but to fill in the details of his life would require a large volume. Extensive travels in Europe, and in most parts of our own continent and among the North and South American Indians, as well as numerous exciting adventures where the stake was life, have partially toned down the almost tireless physical forces of this representative of an old Pilgrim family.
Colonel Church married in 1882, Alice Helena Cartner, nee Church, a very distant relative, who died without issue in November, 1898.
About the middle of October and after a portion of this volume had been printed Colonel Church spent a few hours in Providence, consulting the John Carter Brown Library of American History. He was direct from the Dominion, where he had completed the negotiations preliminary to the full construction of the Canadian Trans-Continental Railroad and had inspected its first section. This is to connect Port Simpson on the Pacific coast with Quebec, and will not only be 350 miles shorter than the Canadian Pacific Railroad, but will cross the Rockies at 2,500 feet less elevation. It unquestionably will prove his masterpiece. The full page portrait is from a photograph taken in Boston the day before he visited these Plantations. He is at present vice-president of the Royal Geographic Society of England.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Earl Church, son of George Washington and Margaret Fisher Church, was born at New Bedford, Mass., Dec. 7, 1835. His father dying at Mobile, in 1838, his mother removed to Providence, R.I., and sent him to the Arnold Street School. At thirteen years of age he entered the Providence High School and graduated at sixteen. He then commenced the study of civil and topographical engineering, and for a time was engaged in the survey of townships in Massachusetts for the state map, and afterward as assistant engineer upon several railway enterprises in Iowa. Before he was twenty-one he received the appointment of resident engineer of the great Hoosac tunnel in Massachusetts. When the work stopped on account of financial difficulties, he accepted the position of chief assistant engineer on a western railway, but he was invited not long after to go to the Argentine Republic, where he became a member of the scientific commission sent by the government of Buenos Ayres to explore the southwestern frontier of the country and report upon the best system of defense against the fierce inroads of the Patagonians and other savages living upon the pampas and the Andean slopes. For this wild and dangerous expedition, the government detailed a covering force of 400 cavalry. The commission rode over 7,000 miles in nine months and fought two severe battles with the savages, one of which on May 19, 1859, was a midnight attack upon the little force by 1,500 picked warriors of the Huelches, Puelches, Pehunches, Pampas, Araucanians and Patagones. The attack was a surprise; naked and mounted bareback on their splendid horses and with their long lances in line, they poured down upon the expedition in a magnificent charge by moonlight. Then for three hours it was a hand-to-hand fight, where no quarter was given nor asked. The savages finally retired in good order with 3,000 head of cattle and horses as the fruit of their daring raid. On the return of the commission to Buenos Ayres each member presented a plan for the defense of the frontiers; that of Mr. Church was published and adopted by the government.
On hearing of the outbreak of the Rebellion, Mr. Church, who was then engaged as engineer on the construction of the Great Northern Railway of Buenos Ayres, resigned his position, returned home and made application to the Secretary of War, to go before the West Point Examining Board to be examined for a commission as second lieutenant of the United States Engineers. The application being refused as contrary to regulations, he went to Providence and was appointed captain in the Seventh Rhode Island July 26, 1862; lieutenant-colonel Jan. 7, 1863; colonel of the Eleventh Rhode Island (a nine months regiment), Feb. 11, 1863; colonel of the the Second Rhode Island, Dec. 31, 1864, but was never mustered into service as such, for that famous regiment was not recruited up to the strength required before the close of the war. After the death of the lieutenant-colonel and major at Fredericksburg, Captain Church was put in command of the regiment, Colonel Bliss having charge of the brigade. He participated in the defense of Suffolk when besieged by Longstreet, and afterward led the van with a brigade of four regiments, part of a force of 14,000 men, in a successful raid for the tearing up of the Seaboard and Roanoke, and the Norfolk and the Petersburg railways. He then, with his brigade, covered the rear, fighting several skirmishes as the force retired upon Suffolk. During the Gettysburg campaign, in June, 1863, he was placed in command of the fortifications of Williamsburg on the Peninsula, having under him beside his own regiment, the Second Wisconsin Battery, Battery E, of the First Pennsylvania Artillery, and a squadron of the Fifth Pennsylvania Cavalry. Pending the refilling of the Second Rhode Island, Colonel Church accepted the position of chief engineer for the construction of the branch of the Providence, Warren, and Bristol Railroad, to Fall river, which he completed in April, 1865.
About this time the French invasion of Mexico was deeply agitating the American mind. It drew from the pen of Colonel Church 'A Historical Review of Mexico and its Revolutions', which the 'New York Herald' paid him the compliment of publishing entire in sixteen columns of its edition of May 25, 1866. This review was by Mr. Romero, then Mexican Minister at Washington, sent to our state department with the request to archive it as the best outline of Mexican history ever written, and, with the permission of the author, he published it in pamphlet form, and caused a copy to be laid upon the desk of every senator and member of Congress. It has been translated into German and French, and twice into Spanish. One of the results of this publication was that its author went to Mexico to support the Liberal causes under President Juarez, who, shorn of his army, and with the mere shreds of a government, had been driven northward even to within sight of the frontier of the United States. Colonel Church, accompanied by General Lew Wallace, rode 900 miles from Matamoras to Chihuahua via Monterey, Saltillo, and Parras, running the gauntlet of imperial raiding parties, bandits, and, an incursion of Apaches from New Mexico. The latter killed 126 Mexicans in three days along the route taken by our adventurous travelers, and, finally drove them to take refuge for one night in a loopholed mescal building. Safely reaching his destination Oct. 21, 1866, he found President Juarez and his cabinet and about 1,200 disorganized troops. Their artillery consisted of two small howitzers, differing in calibre. For lack of iron they were casting copper balls for them. He remained seven months with them, during which time he was quartered with General Ygnacio Mejia, Minister of War. He shared their privations, their defeats, their long marches, and their successes, until the capture of Maximilian at Queretero. The campaign which hemmed in the ill-fated emperor and resulted in his capture was planned by Colonel Church at Du Rango, and, within an hour after it had been presented to the Minister of War, it had been discussed at the cabinet meeting and orders hurried off to the several forces in the field to carry it into execution. Two days before the storming of Zacatecas (Jan. 27, 1867), the Imperialist General Miramon sent word to Colonel Church that he would shoot him in the Plaza if he caught him. On the morning of the assault of that ablest of Imperial generals, he was nearly captured for having given his own fast horse to President Juarez; he was the last to dash clear of the Plaza under a shower of bullets from a battalion of French Zouaves, while only 300 yards distant down the Bufa mountain road came Miramon thundering along at the head of 700 cavalry. The race was for life, especially through the streets encumbered with the debris of the Liberal army, but across the country south of the city, himself described his ride as 'a grand steeplechase for forty-two miles, in which he constantly gained ground until Miramon gave up the pursuit and returned to Zacatecas'. Three days later the Liberals took it. San Louis Potosi struck off five medals to commemorate the recapture of that important city, one in gold for President Juraez, a silver one for each of the cabinet ministers, and a silver one for Colonel Church, which was presented to him with considerable ceremony. During his stay in that country he wrote some forty-nine letters to the 'New York Herald' detailing his experiences and describing the varying fortunes of the Liberal cause from the day of his arrival to the surrender of Maximilian. When that occurred, Colonel Church rode 600 miles in six days to the Rio Grande frontier and hastened thence to Washington to induce, if possible, our Government to use its influence to save the life of Maximilian; but his efforts were fruitless. Mr. Seward, who had been advised of his purpose, denied him an interview.
Colonel Church now accepted employment on the editorial staff of the 'New York Herald', where he remained for more than a year, but while thus engaged, the Bolivian Government sent General Quintin Quevedo, a prominent member of its diplomatic corps, to invite him to undertake the long-cherished, national project to open to navigation the 3,000 miles of Bolivian tributaries of the Amazon. These are separated from the navigable waters of the lower River Madeira by about 300 miles of formidable cataracts and rapids, principally in the territory of Brazil. He accepted the invitation, but proceeded to Bolivia via Buenos Ayres, opposite which city, on the Rio de la Plata, he selected and prepared a proper site for a marine slip for an American company. Then with one servant he rode overland 2,000 miles to La Paz the capital of Bolivia, where the required concesion for the navigation of the Bolivian waters was secured. He then returned to New York via Panama, but soon after his arrival at the request of the Bolivian government, he returned to La Paz, whence he repaired to Rio de Janeiro via the Straits of Magellan to obtain the right to construct a railway to avoid the falls of the River Madeira, which that government had failed to negotiate, as it had agreed. The desired concession from Brazil was granted to Colonel Church with but little delay. He went at once to New York and organized the National Bolivian Navigation Company in June, 1870, under a charter from the United States government and became its president. Next, in London he organized the Madeira and Mamore Railway Company under his Brazilian concession of which himself was chairman. He then raised over $6,000,000 cash to carry out the two enterprises and contracted for the railway works with a powerful English Company. Again he went to Bolivia, via Peru, and the Tacora pass of the Andes, reached the southern capital, Suere, via Oruro, went to Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a town at the headwaters of a tributary of the Amazon, organized a canoe expedition of eighty-three Indians and a few white men, and descended the River Piray, the Mamore and the falls of the Madeira. At the last fall, San Antonio, he was met by a small exploring steamer which he caused to be taken up the cataracts, she being hauled three miles overland en route. At the fall of Pedermeira he saved the lives of sixteen Indians who were clinging to a wrecked canoe in midriver, while at another rapid his own canoe was wrecked, and again at the 'Cauldron of Hell', he nearly lost his entire expedition. He returned to Europe via the River Madeira and the Amazon. The magnitude and the promise of this project evoked the bitter jealousy and opposition of the merchants of the Pacific coast, who held a commercial monopoly of the district it was proposed to open by the new route. It was suddenly discovered that an American company held in hand an enterprise which promised to penetrate South America through its centre, turn its commerce from the old forced channels into natural ones and powerfully affect the political and intertrade relations of several of the Spanish-American states. The fierce jealousies combined on all sides. The English Construction Company threw up its contract and joined the bondholders in an attack upon the railway trust fund, which they tied up by the injuction in the Court of Chancery. The Bolivian government then entered the lists and tried to seize the fund. Colonel Church fought these heavy odds as long as there was an inch of ground left to stand on and gained suit after suit from 1873 to 1878. The bondholders' committee then bribed the Bolivian President, Daza, with L20,000 to take sides with them, and instituted a new suit with the Bolivan concession revoked. Even this new suit Colonel Church gained in the Court of the First Instance. The House of Lords finally settled the question by declaring the enterprise impracticable, although the Brazilian government, which, throughout, had given its unwavering support to the colonel, had months before, at his request, issued a decree offering to supplement the existing fund with all the money necessary to complete the railway work. At the time the enterprise was broken up, there were 1,200 men at work on the railroad, and a locomotive was running on the first section.
A few months after the wreck of this, his great undertaking, which unquestionably would have accomplished all its detractors alleged against it, but for the proverbial Spanish treachery exhibited by the official heretofore referred to, and which still inevitably be accomplished in a few years at most, for pigmies cannot forever block the inexorable progress of commerce, we find Colonel Church en route from Washington to Quito under instructions from Secretary James G. Blaine to make a report to the United States government upon the political, social, commercial, and general condition of Ecuador. He was also in in that voyage, entrusted by the English holders of that peoople's bonds with full power to negotiate the re-adjustment of their national debt. He proceeded to Guayaquil via Panama, crossed the Chimborazo pass of the Andes, remained at Quito three months, rode north as far as the frontier of Colombia, and afterward went to Lima, where he tarried for a time to write his report which is entitled 'Ecuador in 1881'. This was published (Ex. Doc. No. 69 of forty-seventh Congress), as a special message of President Arthur to Congress. The extensive data it contains is widely and often quoted. Colonel Church then went to Chili and via the Straights of Magellan, to Uruguay and the Argentine Republic, and thence to Brazil, returning to the United States by way of England. Later in London, he engaged in financial operations of considerable magnitude connected with public works, and in 1889 contracted to build a railway in the Argentine Republic for one million sterling. This he completed in two years, in the midst of the Baring crisis which ruined so many contractors for public works in South America. In 1895 he spent three months in Costa Rica in behalf of the foreign bondholders of that country, and also during his stay there made an elaborate report to the Costa Rica Railway Company upon the condition of its line.
Although still engaged in the construction of railways in the Argentine Republic, Colonel Church devotes much time to literary pursuits.
He is a member of several scientific and learned societies, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, and has been a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society for four years, being the first foreigner, not an English citizen ever admitted to that honor. In 1891 he represented the former Society at the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, held in London, and, in 1898, at the Bristol meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he, as president of the Geographical Section, read a paper on 'Argentine Geography, and the Ancient Pampean Sea', which attracted great attention, and was pronounced by 'The Times' 'one of the most scientific papers ever read before that Section.' Numerous and extensive articles have appeared in the 'Geographic Journal' from his pen, and, reently, one of the its monthly numbers have almost entirely occupied by his 'Outline of the Physical Geography of South America'. To his fine library of books in several foreign languages with which he is familiar he devotes all his spare time, for he is still a close student of history, geography, and travel, but to fill in the details of his life would require a large volume. Extensive travels in Europe, and in most parts of our own continent and among the North and South American Indians, as well as numerous exciting adventures where the stake was life, have partially toned down the almost tireless physical forces of this representative of an old Pilgrim family.
Colonel Church married in 1882, Alice Helena Cartner, nee Church, a very distant relative, who died without issue in November, 1898.
About the middle of October and after a portion of this volume had been printed Colonel Church spent a few hours in Providence, consulting the John Carter Brown Library of American History. He was direct from the Dominion, where he had completed the negotiations preliminary to the full construction of the Canadian Trans-Continental Railroad and had inspected its first section. This is to connect Port Simpson on the Pacific coast with Quebec, and will not only be 350 miles shorter than the Canadian Pacific Railroad, but will cross the Rockies at 2,500 feet less elevation. It unquestionably will prove his masterpiece. The full page portrait is from a photograph taken in Boston the day before he visited these Plantations. He is at present vice-president of the Royal Geographic Society of England.
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