Frederick W. Lander

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Frederick William Lander
Frederick W. Lander cph.3b18363.jpg
Frederick W. Lander
Born(1821-12-17)December 17, 1821
Salem, Massachusetts [1]
DiedMarch 2, 1862(1862-03-02) (aged 40)
Paw Paw, Virginia (now West Virginia)
AllegianceUnited States
Union
Service / branch United States Army
Union Army
Years of service1861–1862
Rank Union Army brigadier general rank insignia.svg Brigadier General
Battles / wars American Civil War
Signature Signature of Frederick William Lander.png

Frederick William Lander [2] [1] [3] (December 17, 1821 – March 2, 1862) was a transcontinental United States explorer, general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and a prolific poet.

Contents

Birth and early years

Lander was born in Salem, Massachusetts, [3] [4] the son of Edward and Eliza West Lander; his sister was the sculptor Louisa Lander. He was educated at Governor Dummer Academy, Phillips Academy, Andover and Norwich Military Academy in Vermont and thereafter took up the profession of civil engineering as an army officer.

While attending Governor Dummer Academy as a child, Lander began a longtime friendship with later Massachusetts State Senator William Dummer Northend, father to Mary Harrod Northend and William Wheelwright Northend. [5]

The United States government employed him on transcontinental surveys to select a route for a Pacific railroad. Later he undertook a survey for the same purpose at his own expense and was the only man of the party to survive. He constructed the overland wagon route in the face of great difficulties and constant hostility of the Indians. After its completion in 1859, the Lander Road became popular with wagon trains as an alternate route from Burnt Ranch in the Wyoming Territory to Fort Hall in the Oregon Territory.

His expedition to survey the Lander Road in 1859 included artists Albert Bierstadt, Henry Hitchings, and Francis Seth Frost, who photographed, sketched, and painted some of the earliest images that people could see of the West.

Civil War service

Gen. Lander in The champions of the Union, lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1861 Currier & Ives - The champions of the Union 1861.jpg
Gen. Lander in The champions of the Union, lithograph by Currier & Ives, 1861

During the early part of the Civil War, Lander served with distinction on secret missions as a volunteer aide de camp on the staff of General McClellan. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on May 17, 1861, and served on the staff of General Thomas A. Morris during the battles of Philippi and Rich Mountain and many minor skirmishes. Lander published a popular poem on the Battle of Ball's Bluff, as well as several other patriotic poems that drew national attention.

At the conclusion of the Western Virginia campaign, General Lander was assigned to command a brigade in Charles Pomeroy Stone's Division of the Army of the Potomac. After just a short time in command of a brigade he was assigned to command the District of Harpers Ferry & Cumberland, Maryland where he was involved in a small engagement at Edward's Ferry, the day after the Battle of Ball's Bluff and was badly wounded in the leg. He was now given the command of a division in the Army of the Potomac with the task of protecting the upper Potomac River. When Confederate forces under Stonewall Jackson bombarded Hancock, Maryland, Lander refused to surrender the town, forcing the Confederates to withdraw towards, Romney, West Virginia. He led a successful charge against a Confederate camp at Bloomery Gap on February 14, 1862. About 2 weeks later he was stricken by a "congestive chill."

Death and legacy

Lander died from complications of pneumonia at Camp Chase, Paw Paw, Virginia (later West Virginia) on March 2, 1862, after receiving no response to his requests for relief from command due to poor health for over two weeks. [6] President Lincoln attended his funeral at the Church of the Epiphany in Washington. [7]

Lander had married English-born stage actress Jean Margaret Davenport in San Francisco in October 1860, but the couple had no children. Davenport served as a Union military nurse and supervisor for two years in South Carolina after her husband's death. He is buried at the Broad Street Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts.

Namesakes

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1863. p. 543.
  2. Ecelbarger, Gary L. (January 2001). Frederick W. Lander. LSU Press. ISBN   9780807125809. The surviving Lander siblings refused to accept the change in their martyred brother's name. ... Mysteriously, Frederick W. Lander's middle name was entered as "West" rather than "William." ... In 1904 Edward composed an eight-page biography of his brother for the Essex Institute in Salem. ... He noted his middle name to be "William," ...
  3. 1 2 Houston, Alan Fraser; Houston, Jourdan Moore (October 3, 2006). "The 1859 Lander Expedition Revisited". Montana Official State Website. Montana Historical Society. Archived from the original on October 3, 2006. Retrieved February 27, 2023. Frederick William Lander was born in the seaport of Salem on December 17, 1822, the son of Edward Lander and Eliza West
  4. Branch, E. Douglas (1929). "Frederick West Lander, Road-Builder". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 16 (2): 172–187. doi:10.2307/1902900. ISSN   0161-391X.
  5. Gary L. Ecelbarger (January 2001). Frederick W. Lander: The Great Natural American Soldier. LSU Press (published 2001). p. 9. ISBN   9780807125809 . Retrieved July 25, 2019.
  6. Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders, pp. 274–275. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1964. ISBN   0-8071-0822-7
  7. "History of the Diocese". Archived from the original on April 14, 2011. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  8. Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. Government Printing Office. p. 180.
  9. "Grand Army of the Republic Museum". City of Lynn Massachusetts. Retrieved June 30, 2022. The Grand Army of the Republic Hall, also known as the General Frederick W. Lander Post No. 5, Grand Army of the Republic

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horatio Wright</span> United States Army general (1820–1899)

Horatio Gouverneur Wright was an engineer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He took command of the VI Corps in May 1864 following the death of General John Sedgwick. In this capacity, he was responsible for building the fortifications around Washington DC, and in the Overland Campaign he commanded the first troops to break through the Confederate defenses at Petersburg. After the war, he was involved in a number of engineering projects, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the completion of the Washington Monument, and served as Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William B. Franklin</span> American general

William Buel Franklin was a career United States Army officer and a Union Army general in the American Civil War. He rose to the rank of a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac, fighting in several notable battles in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War. He also distinguished himself as a civil engineer before and after the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Barnes (general)</span> American army general (1806–1869)

James Barnes was a railroad executive and a Union Army general in the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Namozine Church</span> Battle of the American Civil War

The Battle of Namozine Church was an engagement in Amelia County, Virginia, between Union Army and Confederate States Army forces that occurred on April 3, 1865, during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War. The battle was the first engagement between units of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after that army's evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, on April 2, 1865, and units of the Union Army under the immediate command of Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, who was still acting independently as commander of the Army of the Shenandoah, and under the overall direction of Union General-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The forces immediately engaged in the battle were brigades of the cavalry division of Union Brig. Gen. and Brevet Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer, especially the brigade of Colonel and Brevet Brig. Gen. William Wells, and the Confederate rear guard cavalry brigades of Brig. Gen. William P. Roberts and Brig. Gen. Rufus Barringer and later in the engagement, Confederate infantry from the division of Maj. Gen. Bushrod Johnson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip St. George Cooke</span>

Philip St. George Cooke was a career United States Army cavalry officer who served as a Union General in the American Civil War. He is noted for his authorship of an Army cavalry manual, and is sometimes called the "Father of the U.S. Cavalry."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesse L. Reno</span> United States Army general (1823–1862)

Jesse Lee Reno was a career United States Army officer who served in the Mexican–American War, in the Utah War, on the western frontier and as a Union General during the American Civil War from West Virginia. Known as a "soldier's soldier" who fought alongside his men, he was killed while commanding a corps at Fox's Gap during the Battle of South Mountain. Reno, Nevada; Reno County, Kansas; Reno, Ohio; El Reno, Oklahoma; Reno, Pennsylvania; Fort Reno (Oklahoma); and Fort Reno Park in Washington, D.C. were named after him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James H. Ledlie</span> American military officer and engineer (1832–1882)

James Hewett Ledlie was a civil engineer for American railroads and a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He is best known for his dereliction of duty at the Battle of the Crater during the Siege of Petersburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuvier Grover</span>

Cuvier Grover was a career officer in the United States Army and a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William H. Seward Jr.</span>

William Henry Seward Jr. was an American banker and brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was the youngest son of William H. Seward, the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Hays (general)</span> Union army general

William Hays was a career officer in the United States Army, serving as a Union Army general during the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John G. Barnard</span> US Army general and polymath (1815–1882)

John Gross Barnard was a career engineer officer in the U.S. Army, serving in the Mexican–American War, as the superintendent of the United States Military Academy and as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He served as Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac, 1861 to 1862, Chief Engineer of the Department of Washington from 1861 to 1864, and as Chief Engineer of the armies in the field from 1864 to 1865. He also was a distinguished scientist, engineer, mathematician, historian and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Tyler</span> American iron manufacturer, railroad president and Union Army general

Daniel P. Tyler IV was an iron manufacturer, railroad president, and one of the first Union Army generals of the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Leonard Andrews</span>

George Leonard Andrews was an American professor, civil engineer, and soldier. He was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and was awarded the honorary grade of brevet major general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Livermore Abbott</span> Union Army general (1842–1864)

Henry Livermore Abbott was a Major in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Abbott was posthumously awarded the grade of brevet brigadier general, United States Volunteers, to rank from August 1, 1864, and the grades of brevet lieutenant colonel, brevet colonel and brevet brigadier general, United States Army, all to rank from March 13, 1865 for gallant and meritorious services at the Battle of the Wilderness, where he was killed in action. Abbott was engaged at the center of several key Civil War battles and was widely known and admired for his leadership, courage and composure under fire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Winslow Hincks</span> American politician

Edward Winslow Hincks was a career United States Army officer who served as a brigadier general during the American Civil War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Francis Bartlett</span> Union Army general

William Francis Bartlett was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and, later, an executive in the iron industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Goodell Griffin</span> United States Army general

Simon Goodell Griffin was a Union Army brigadier general during the American Civil War, farmer, teacher, lawyer and New Hampshire state legislator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Baillie McIntosh</span> Union Army officer in the American Civil War

John Baillie McIntosh was a Union Army brigadier general during the American Civil War. His brother, James M. McIntosh, served as a Confederate general until he was killed in the Battle of Pea Ridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G.A.R. Hall and Museum</span> United States historic place

The G.A.R. Hall and Museum is a historic museum at 58 Andrew Street in Lynn, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oliver Edwards</span> American major general in the Union Army

Oliver Edwards was a machine company executive, an inventor, and a volunteer officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

References