Civil War Union Brigadier General. Born in Madison, Indiana, he entered the United States Navy as a midshipman in 1848, serving on 4 different vessels before resigning 6 years later. The son of a justice of the Indiana supreme court, he studied law and practiced his profession until the outbreak of war in 1861. He helped recruit and organize the 6th Indiana. Commissioned a Captain, he fought with his unit at Philippi, in western Virginia, on June 3. When his 3-month regiment mustered out, he became, on June 19, Colonel of the 13th Indiana, leading his new command at Cheat Mountain and Rich Mountain, Western Virginia, later that year. In spring 1862 the Colonel commanded a brigade in the Shenandoah Valley, fighting with it at Kernstown on March 23. He was then commissioned Brigadier General. In June he was sent to the West, assuming command of a brigade in the Army of the Mississippi. He fought at Iuka and Corinth, Mississippi, before being appointed commander of the District of Jackson, Tennessee. There his garrison forces unsuccessfully battled Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Confederate cavalry. During the early phases of the Vicksburg Campaign in 1863, he served as acting inspector general on the staff of Major General Ulysses S. Grant. From July to September he was Major General James B. McPherson's chief of staff. In autumn 1863 he returned from the Western theater, serving under his father-in-law, Brigadier General Benjamin F. Kelley, in Western Virginia. His division guarded the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Western Maryland. As a result of his poor performance against Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early's Confederate raiders, he was succeeded on July 16, 1864, by Brigadier General George Crook. He held no important post for the remaider of the war, resigning his commission on May 11, 1865. After the war he resided in Maryland, moving in 1878 to California. He did not practice law but held a few minor clerical jobs. He later would die in Oakland.