Amos Beebe Eaton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amos Beebe Eaton (May 12, 1806 - February 21, 1877) was born in Catskill, New York. He graduated from West Point in 1826; he was an infantry lieutenant until the Florida campaigns of the late 1830s. After that, his only fighting experiences took place in the Mexican War, for which service he was brevetted a major. Eaton served for 12 years as an officer in the US Army, then joined the commissary department for 23 years.
Appointed a lieutenant colonel and assistant commissary general in 1861, he was given the task of creating an effective supply system. The large number of troops entering the US Army at the beginning of the war were overloading the existing system. His work provisioning and distributing supplies to the troops earned him the rank of brigadier general.
Eaton took over the position of commissary general of the US Army upon Brigade General Joseph P. Taylor's retirement, and was brevetted a major general on March 13, 1865. He held the brevet until he retired in 1874, and moved to New Haven. Eaton died in New Haven, Connecticut, on February 21, 1877.
His daughter Frances Spencer Eaton married Charles Atwood White, the great-grandson of American founding father Roger Sherman. They were the parent of US Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's wife Mabel Wellington Stimson and Women's suffrage leader Elizabeth Selden Rogers.