US Exe Stanton, Edwin M. - U.S. Secretary of War

Edwin McMasters Stanton
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:us34stars:

Born:
December 19, 1814

Birthplace: Steubenville, Ohio

Father: Dr. David Edwin Stanton (1788–1828)
(Buried: Union Cemetery, Steubenville, Ohio)​

Mother: Lucy Latham Norman (1793–1873)
(Buried: Union Cemetery, Steubenville, Ohio)​

1st Wife: Mary Lamson (1818-March 1844)
Married: December 31, 1836 at the home of Trinity Episcopal's rector in Columbus, Ohio​
(Buried: Union Cemetery, Steubenville, Ohio)​

2nd Wife: Ellen Maria Hutchison (1830-1873)
Married: June 25, 1856 at Hutchinson's father's home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania​
(Buried: Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC)​

Children:

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Lucy Lamson Stanton (1837–1841)​
(Buried: Unknown)​

Edwin Lamson Stanton (1842–1877)​
(Buried: Saint James the Less Episcopal Churchyard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)​

Eleanor Adams Stanton (1857–1910)​
(Buried: Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC)​

Lewis Hutchinson Stanton (1860–1938)​
(Buried: Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana)​

James Hutchinson Stanton (1861–1862)​
(Buried: Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, DC)​

Bessie Barnes Stanton (1863–1939)​
(Buried: Tashua Burial Ground, Trumbull, Connecticut)​

Signature:
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Education:


1831 - Attended Kenyon College​

Occupation before War:
1835: Passed the Bar Exam in Ohio, and began work at a prominent law firm in Cadiz, Ohio​
1837: Elected the prosecutor of Harrison County, Ohio, on the Democratic ticket​
1840: Served as a delegate at the Democrats' 1840 national convention in Baltimore​
1840: Featured prominently in Martin Van Buren's campaign in the 1840 presidential election​
1847: Admitted to the bar in Pittsburgh, was now practicing law in Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania​
1850: Admitted to practice in the Supreme Court, for Oral arguments in the Pennsylvania v. Wheeling and Belmont case beginning on February 25​
1852: Argued before a U.S. Senate Committee on a Florida Contested Election of United States Senator, as Published later that year
1859: Joined the defense team for the Sickles' Murder Trial
1860 – 1861: 25th United States Attorney General (Dec 20, '60 – Mar 4, '61)​

Civil War Career:

1862 – 1868: 27th United States Secretary of War (Jan 20, '62 – Aug 12, '67, Jan 14, '68 – May 28, '68)​
1862 – 1864: Stanton's efforts during the war focused on modernizing the country's infrastructure by updating and expanding the rail and telegraph lines​
1862: Ordered the cancellation of all military contracts with foreign powers, helping bolster the wartime industrial output of the north​
1862: After Lincoln's transfer of enforcement of internal security to the War Department on February 14, 1862, Stanton responded by releasing political prisoners contingent upon them taking an oath of loyalty to the United States.​

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Grave of Edwin M. Stanton at Oak Hill Cemetery
Photo CC BY-SA Tim Evanson, Sept 2013

1862: In March, appointed the 57-year old Charles Ellet as colonel of engineers in the Union Army and authorized him to build a fleet of ram ships that eventually helped the Union take control of the Mississippi River.​
1863: Issued General Order No. 143, Creating a Bureau of U.S. Colored Troops, enabling African-American soldiers to fight for the Union​
1865: On April 15, when Stanton arrived at the Petersen House, where President Lincoln passed away following his mortal wounding at the hands of John Wilkes Booth, it is thought that Stanton said of Lincoln, either: "Now he belongs to the ages" or "Now he belongs to the angels."​

Occupation after War:

1868: On May 26, after the final Senate vote on the Johnson Impeachment was completed, Stanton left his War Department office​
1869: Stanton was nominated by President Grant to a position on the Supreme Court on December 19th, it was also Stanton's 55th Birthday​

Died: December 24, 1869

Place of Death: Washington, D.C.

Cause of Death: Congestive heart failure & chronic asthma

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Age at time of Death:
55 years old

Burial Place: Reno Hill Lot 675, Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

Neat Fact: Stanton was only the second non-president, after Benjamin Franklin, to appear on a U.S. postage stamp.
 
Last edited:
Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary by Walter Stahr

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"This exhaustively researched, well-paced book should take its place as the new, standard biography of the ill-tempered man who helped save the Union: It is fair, judicious, authoritative and comprehensive."—The Wall Street Journal

"A welcome and significant addition to the ample literature on the Civil War and Reconstruction." —Ron Chernow, author of The New York Times bestseller Alexander Hamilton

Walter Stahr, award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Seward, tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's indispensable Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, the man the president entrusted with raising the army that preserved the Union.

Of the crucial men close to President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (1814–1869) was the most powerful and controversial. Stanton raised, armed, and supervised the army of a million men who won the Civil War. He organized the war effort. He directed military movements from his telegraph office, where Lincoln literally hung out with him. He arrested and imprisoned thousands for "war crimes," such as resisting the draft or calling for an armistice. Stanton was so controversial that some accused him at that time of complicity in Lincoln's assassination. He was a stubborn genius who was both reviled and revered in his time.

Stanton was a Democrat before the war and a prominent trial lawyer. He opposed slavery, but only in private. He served briefly as President Buchanan's Attorney General and then as Lincoln's aggressive Secretary of War. On the night of April 14, 1865, Stanton rushed to Lincoln's deathbed and took over the government since Secretary of State William Seward had been critically wounded the same evening. He informed the nation of the President's death, summoned General Grant to protect the Capitol, and started collecting the evidence from those who had been with the Lincolns at the theater in order to prepare a murder trial.

Now with this worthy complement to the enduring library of biographical accounts of those who helped Lincoln preserve the Union, Stanton honors the indispensable partner of the sixteenth president. Walter Stahr's essential book is the first major biography of Stanton in fifty years, restoring this underexplored figure to his proper place in American history.



Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Birthday Boy...

Eastern Illinois University
The Keep
Plan B Papers
Student Theses & Publications
1-1-1968

The Life and Career of Edwin McMasters Stanton
Mary Louise Price

This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses & Publications at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Plan B Papers by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected].

INTRODUCTION
Few men in American history have displayed such divergent behavior as Edwin McMasters Stanton, who has been called an unselfish patriot, the greatest war minister the government has known; on the other hand, his fellow cabinet member, Navy Secretary Welles expressed contempt for his character and distrust for his every action. Otto Eisenschiml even suggests that Stanton may have had a hand in the plot which ultimately culminated in Lincoln's assassination. Attorney General Black thought him an "apostate, renegade, a betrayer of country, a crawling sycophant". Lorenzo Thomas said, "Stanton is an enigma to me. He has no manners and treats persons rudely, and yet at times he appears kind." George Templeman Strong said, "Lincoln's right-hand man combined good and evil. He was honest, patriotic, indefatigable, warm-hearted, unselfish as well as arbitrary, capricious, tyrannical, vindictive." There were people who liked Stanton for his efficiency, for his work, without caring much about him personally; and there were also people who liked him personally without relation to this work. Few remained neutral in their appraisal of the man.


Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

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