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Civil War Soldiers - Slocum
| Slocum, Henry W., major-general, U.S.
Army, was born in Delphi, Onondaga county, N. Y., Sept 24, 1827. He
was graduated at West Point in 1852 and became second lieutenant in
the 1st artillery. After serving in the Seminole war in Florida he was
promoted first lieutenant on March 3, 1855, and was on duty at Fort
Moultrie, S. C., till Oct. 31, 1856, when he resigned his commission.
He then settled in Syracuse; began practicing law, which he had
studied while in the army; entered political life; was elected to the
legislature as a Democrat in 1859, and from 1859 till 1861 was also
instructor of artillery in the state militia with the rank of colonel.
On May 21, 1861, he became colonel of the 27th N. Y. volunteers. The
regiment left Elmira for the front on July 10, and eleven days
afterward it passed through the first battle of Bull Run, where its
commander was wounded in the thigh. On Aug. 9, while confined to the
hospital, he was promoted brigadier-general of volunteers. On his
recovery he was assigned to the command of a brigade in Franklin's
division, Army of the Potomac. In the Peninsular campaign of 1862 he
took part in the siege of Yorktown and the engagement at West Point;
succeeded Gen. Franklin in command of the division on May 15;
reinforced Gen. Fitz John Porter in the battle of Gaines' mill, June
27; and, with his division, occupied the right of the main line in the
battles of Glendale and Malvern hill. On July 4, 1862, he was promoted
major-general of volunteers; on Aug 30 was engaged in the second
battle of Bull Run; Sept. 14 was in the battle of South mountain; and
Sept. 17 added much to his brilliant record in the battle of Antietam,
in the latter part of which he was assigned to the command of the 12th
corps, succeeding Gen. Mansfield, who had been killed. He further
distinguished himself at Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg, where his
command was on the right of the army, and repelled a charge made by
Ewell's corps at daylight on July 3. In October, after the drawn
battle at Chickamauga, the 11th and 12th corps were detached from the
Army of the Potomac and hastened to reinforce the army in the
Department of the Cumberland. In April, 1864, Gen. Sherman
consolidated the two corps into what was afterward known as the 20th
corps, and assigned Gen. Hooker to the command. On this consolidation
Gen. Slocum was given command of a division and of the district of
Vicksburg. In August Gen. Hooker was succeeded by Gen. Slocum. When
Gen. Sherman made his movement around Atlanta to the Macon road, he
assigned Gen. Slocum to guard the communications, and when the
Confederates left their intrenchments about Atlanta to meet the
Federal army, Gen. Slocum threw his corps directly into the city. In
the march to the sea and through the Carolinas, Gen. Slocum commanded
the left wing of the army, comprising the 14th and 20th corps. From
June 29 till Sept. 16 he commanded the Department of the Mississippi,
and on Sept. 28, 1865, he resigned his commission, returning to civil
life in Brooklyn. In the election of 1865 he was defeated as
Democratic candidate for secretary of state of New York; in 1868 was a
presidential elector; and in 1868 and 1870 was elected to Congress. He
was defeated by Grover Cleveland in the Democratic convention of 1882
as a candidate for the nomination for governor of New York, and in the
same year was elected Congressman at Large. Gen Slocum died at
Brooklyn, N. Y., April 14, 1894. Source: The Union Army: A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal
States 1861-1865, Volume 8 Biographical, 1908
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