General McPherson Biography

AUGUST 13, 1864.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

517

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC—GENERAL HANCOCK AND STAFF.---[PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRADY.]

(Previous Page) ARTILLERY BY GENERAL AMES, as seen from General SMITH'S head-quarters. This regiment is one of the largest in the service, numbering, when it left Washington, over three thousand men. It is commanded by Colonel A. A. GIBSON, who has the rank of Major in the Third United States Artillery. On this page two illustrations ate given, taken from photographs by BRADY ; they represent Generals HANCOCK and WARREN surrounded by officers of their staff.

On pages 520 and 521 we publish a view of PETERSBURG as seen from Captain DAVIS'S Battery, First Connecticut Artillery—a portion of the battery appearing in the fore-ground. This battery is situated on the Appomattox River in front

of the Eighteenth Corps; it is armed with 30-pound Parrott guns and eight-inch mortars, and completely commands the city. The woods in front and on the flanks are occupied by the enemy's sharp-shooters. The Eighteenth Corps up to Thursday, July 28, held the extreme right of GRANT'S lines.

MAJOR-GENERAL McPHERSON.

JAMES B. McPHERSON, Major-General of Volunteers and Brigadier-General of the Regular Army, whose Portrait we give on our first page, was born in Sandusky, Ohio, November, 1828. He graduated at West Point in the year 1853, standing at the

head of a class which numbered among its members the rebel Generals HOOD, WALKER, and ROSS ; General SCHOFIELD, Commander of the Army of the Cumberland; General W. S. SMITH, General R. O. TYLER, General SHERIDAN, General TERRIL, who fell at Perryville; and GILL, who was killed at Stone River. Entering the army as Second Lieutenant of Engineers, he was immediately, although hardly twenty-five years of age, appointed as an assistant instructor of practical engineering at West Point. In 1854 he was employed as assistant-engineer on the New York harbor defenses; in 1857 he superintended the construction of Fort Delaware; also the fortifications on Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California. December 13, 1858, he was

appointed First Lieutenant, and until August, 1861, was engaged as Chief of Engineers on the Pacific Coast.

When General HALLECK assumed the command of the Department of the West he selected M'PHERSON as an Aid-de-Camp, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was GRANT'S Chief Engineer in the operations against Forts Henry and Donelson, and also against Vicksburg. May 15, 1862, be was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and during the following summer superintended the military railroads in the Department of West Tennessee. When our army at Corinth was cut off from its supplies, in October of that year, he succeeded in bringing up reinforcements to its as- (Next Picture)

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC—GENERAL WARREN AND STAFF.—[PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRADY.]