Brunswick,Maine & The Civil War |
Oliver Otis Howard
Courtesy George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909) is a graduate of Bowdoin College (Class
of 1850) who later graduated from and taught at the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point. At the start of the Civil War, Howard resigned his regular
commission in the Army in order to be named colonel of the Third Maine
Volunteers in the Union Army. Howard was an early opponent of slavery who
went on to fight at First Bull Run, Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredericksburg,
Chancellorville, and Gettysburg. He was severely wounded at Fair Oaks and
had to have his right arm amputated. He was promoted to the rank of major
general and commanded the Army of Tennessee under William Tecumseh Sherman
during the Atlanta Campaign. After the war, Howard was appointed head of
the Freedman’s Bureau, which supervised relief and educational activities
for newly-freed slaves, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine.
The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the
former Confederacy. In 1867 Howard helped to found and later served as
president of Howard University, the nation’s first all-black college.
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