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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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