Category: Generals Wives

Wife of Union General Benjamin Grierson Alice Kirk Grierson left a remarkably frank correspondence describing the problems of raising a family in the frontier army. Her letters were published by Shirley Anne Leckie as The Colonel’s Lady on the Western Frontier: The Correspondence of Alice Kirk Grierson (1989). Alice Kirk, daughter of John and Susan (Bingham) Kirk, was born at Youngstown, Ohio, on May 3, 1828, the oldest of thirteen children. Alice’s father, a well-to-do merchant and real estate developer, was an abolitionist who participated in the Underground Railroad. Alice had the advantage of a good education at a female academy, and taught school in her hometown, as well as in Indiana and Illinois. Benjamin Henry Grierson was born on…

Wife of Union General George Thomas Frances Lucretia Kellogg was born at Troy, New York, on January 25, 1821. Frances’ mother, Abigail Paine Kellogg, had been a widow for many years. Her father Warren Kellogg was a prosperous hardware and grocery merchant. Image: General George Thomas George Henry Thomas was born July 31, 1816, on a farm called Thomaston in Southampton County, Virginia, five miles from the North Carolina line. He was one of nine children born to John and Elizabeth Rochelle Thomas. There were six girls and three boys; George was the youngest son. The family led an upper-class plantation lifestyle. By 1829, they owned 685 acres and 24 slaves. John Thomas died in a farm accident April 20,…

Wife of Brigadier General Joshua Chamberlain Frances Caroline Adams was born on August 12, 1825, in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were rather old at the time of her birth. Fanny, as she was called, was passed around to different family members, finally living with her cousin Reverend George Adams in Brunswick, Maine. Adams was the pastor of the First Parish Congregationalist Church, and he often ministered to the students of nearby Bowdoin College, where he was a member ofthe Board of Overseers. Image: Joshua and Fanny Dale Gallon, Artist Fanny grew up in this strictly religious home,and received a good education. She was an intelligent and artistic girl with a talent for music and singing. She made…

Wife of Union General John Pope John Pope was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War with a reputation for outspokenness and arrogance. He had a brief but successful career in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) in the East. After decades of blaming General Fitz John Porter, an 1879 Board of Inquiry concluded that Pope himself bore most of the responsibility for the loss of that battle. Image: Major General John Pope Born on March 16, 1822, in Louisville, Kentucky, John Pope was raised in Kaskaskia, Illinois, located on the Mississippi River. His father, Nathaniel Pope was the…

Wife of Union General Joseph Hooker Olivia Augusta Groesbeck was born in 1825 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was a member of the prominent Groesbeck family, the daughter of John and Mary Groesbeck, and the sister of U.S. Congressman William Slocum Groesbeck. Joseph Hooker was born on November 13, 1814, the son of a store owner in Hadley, Massachusetts. He grew up on the banks of the Connecticut River. His initial schooling was at the local Hopkins Academy. Image: General Joseph Hooker Hooker’s mother and a schoolteacher brought Joe to the attention of George Grennell, then a member of the House of Representatives. Grennell backed the youth in his quest to enter the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he…