Trivia 9-3-2021 Saving the Navy and Labor Day Bonus

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Question: What civil engineer, serving in the Union Army, was one of only 15 to whom Congress voted Thanks of the Nation, for his engineering feat, and is the only one not commanding a Corps or an Army at the time.

credit: @bayouace

bonus:
Who am I?
Before the war I was an entrepreneur with several financial failures and very little success
I entered the war as a private, but was soon appointed, not elected, as an officer. Later I became a “politically appointed” Brigadier General, impressive since I had no military experience prior to 1861. As a military leader my record is not impressive, I certainly was no Grant or Sherman. That’s probably why I am not very well known today.
Unlike most Federal soldiers, I was a true abolitionist and promoted the rights of African Americans.
My wife accompanied me on several military expeditions and campaigns. She came along to minister to the spiritual needs of the troops under my command, sometimes to act as a nurse and at least on one occasion, to write a long, tearful letter to the family of a soldier who died of wounds received in battle.
After the war I was a strong supporter of the Prohibition movement.
A school is named for me, but if I told in which state that school is located, this question would too easy. But I will tell you that the school is private and has a very low racial diversity.

credit: @Biscoitos
 
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Question: What civil engineer, serving in the Union Army, was one of only 15 to whom Congress voted Thanks of the Nation, for his engineering feat, and is the only one not commanding a Corps or an Army at the time.

credit: @bayouace
Joseph Bailey (1825- 1867), honored for devising and building a winged dam with a center spillway that saved ten gunboats stranded by low water levels on the Red River in 1864.
Source: "Joseph Bailey (May 6, 1825 – March 21, 1867)", Ohio Civil War Central.
https://www.ohiocivilwarcentral.com/entry.php?rec=919


bonus:
Who am I?
Before the war I was an entrepreneur with several financial failures and very little success
I entered the war as a private, but was soon appointed, not elected, as an officer. Later I became a “politically appointed” Brigadier General, impressive since I had no military experience prior to 1861. As a military leader my record is not impressive, I certainly was no Grant or Sherman. That’s probably why I am not very well known today.
Unlike most Federal soldiers, I was a true abolitionist and promoted the rights of African Americans.
My wife accompanied me on several military expeditions and campaigns. She came along to minister to the spiritual needs of the troops under my command, sometimes to act as a nurse and at least on one occasion, to write a long, tearful letter to the family of a soldier who died of wounds received in battle.
After the war I was a strong supporter of the Prohibition movement.
A school is named for me, but if I told in which state that school is located, this question would too easy. But I will tell you that the school is private and has a very low racial diversity.

credit: @Biscoitos
Clinton Bowen Fisk (1828-1890). In 1866, he endowed what is now Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Source: Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr., "Clinton Bowen Fisk", Tennessee Encyclopedia. https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/clinton-bowen-fisk/
Source: Mabel Ward Cameron, "Fisk, Janette (Mrs. Clinton B. Fisk)", Biographical Cyclopaedia of American Women. (Halvord Publishing Company, 1924), Vol. 1, pp. 383-384.
 
Col. Joseph Bailey, who engineered what was known as Bailey's Dam on the Red River at Alexandria, Louisiana, which allowed the U.S. Navy fleet of David D. Porter to escape damage or capture during Nathaniel Banks' 1864 Red River Campaign.
 
Regular question:

Wild guess: John G. Barnard ?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Barnard

Snip-it_1630737425397.jpg


https://www.jstor.org/stable/40066778?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents
 
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Main question: Joseph Bailey

Bonus: There are a lot of clues here, but the only one that leads me close to a guess is the clue that the school named after the general has a low racial diversity. That makes me think of Howard University, named for O. O. Howard.

I don't think there's much chance that this guess is correct, given that Howard U. is not located in a state (it's in D. C.) and Oliver O. was a West Point graduate who spent his entire career in the Army.
 
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