Biography

"Civil War Union Army Officer. Born in Ayrshire, Scotland, he migrated to the United States as a young man and settled in upper New York. At the advent of the Civil War, he was recruited by the Union Army and commissioned a First Lieutenant in the 1st New York Artillery Battery. Assigned to a division of the VI Corps, he was promoted Captain during the Peninsula Campaign. He also participated in the Battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. In May 1863, his battery was assigned to the Artillery Brigade of the VI Corps. At the Battle of Gettysburg, on July 3, 1863, his battery was placed just south of the copse of trees on Cemetery Ridge. There he resisted Confederate General George Pickett's Charge by ordering his men to fire double canister on the Confederates trying to penetrate the federal line. For the remainder of the war he distinguished himself in many actions and was honorably discharged from the volunteer services as a brevet Lieutenant Colonel. After the war, he became a successful leather merchant and was a delegate to conventions of the Grand Army of the Republic."