GENERAL W. W. BELKNAP

BELKNAP, LOWE, REED, MCPHERSON, SHERMAN, GRANT

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 10/12/2019 at 20:43:12

GENERAL W. W. BELKNAP graduated from the College of New Jersey at Princeton, in the class of 1848. He studied law with H. Caperton, Esq., at Georgetown, D. C., and was the partner of the Hon. Ralph P. Lowe, afterwards Governor of Iowa, and Judge of the Supreme Court, and practiced his profession successfully at Keokuk, Iowa where he located in 1851. He was elected to serve one term-that of 1857 and 1858 - in the Iowa Legislature, as a Democrat. Being unwilling to give countenance to the “Lecompton Swindle.” he separated from the radical wing of his party, and was known as a “Douglas Democrat” up to the outbreak of the rebellion.

He entered the army as Major of the Fifteenth Iowa Infantry, commanded by Colonel (afterwards, General) Hugh T. Reed, about the 19th of October, 1861, and engaged in his first battle at Shiloh, in the Army of the Tennessee.

He served on General McPherson's staff as Provost Martial Seventeenth Army Corps, and in other capacities. He figured in the campaigns in Tennessee under both Generals Sherman and Grant, and by the latter his services were highly esteemed.

At the battle of Atlanta, on the 22d July, 1864,--where General McPherson was killed—he distinguished himself so highly as a commander that he was promoted to be Brigadier-General of Volunteers.

After the capture of Atlanta he marched with Sherman to the sea, and finally to Washington, taking a prominent part in all the actions of the brilliant campaigns of Sherman.

Since his appointment as Secretary of War he has served in the Cabinet of President Grant with great acceptation, both to the Administration and the country; and his administration of the affairs of the War Office is regarded, both by the officers of the army—who experience is practical results – and by the country at large, as one of the most successful of the Secretaries of War.
At the commencement of the second presidential term of General Grant, General Belknap was reappointed Secretary of War, and still holds the portfolios of that office.

Source:
Illustrated Historical ATLAS of Lee County, IOWA
A. T. Andreas
Chicago, ILL.
1874

Transcription by Mary H. Cochrane, Volunteer