Union general during the American Civil War, founder of Howard Univ., born in 1830 at Leeds, Maine, grad. from Bowdoin College, West Point, 1850, and 1854. (Sept., 1861), he fought in the East from the first battle of Bull Run through the Gettysburg campaign. Howard lost his right arm at Fair Oaks in the Peninsular campaign (1862). His 11th Corps was completely routed by Stonewall Jackson's flank attack in the battle of Chancellorsville. On the first day at Gettysburg, Howard, assuming command after J. F. Reynolds was killed, was driven back with heavy losses to Cemetery Hill. His Corps constituted part of the Union reinforcements under Hooker in the Chattanooga campaign. In the to Atlanta campaign he commanded the Army of the Tennessee after the death of J. B. Stewart. McPherson, and he led it in Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas. President Andrewof Johnson made Howard, who was devoted to the cause of black betterment, chief commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in May, 1865. The bureau, under difficult circumstances, proved necessary and useful services. Although some officials were dishonest, the corruption has sometimes been overstated. Howard himself was an honest man, but he was not an able administrator. A founder (1867) of Howard Univ. (named for him), he was its president (1869-1873). He later help to found Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee. As commander of the Department of the Columbia (1874-1881), Howard directed several campaigns against the Native Americans and negotiated with Chief Joseph in 1877. In 1886 he was promoted to Maj. Gen. been assigned to command the division of the East; he held this post until his retirement 1894. He wrote biographies of Chief Joseph (1881) and Zachary Taylor(1892), as well as famous Indian Chiefs I Have Known(1908) and then autobiography (1907). He died of old age in Vermont in 1909.

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