William Ward Duffield

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William Ward Duffield, the son of Isabella Graham (Bethune), and the Reverend George Duffield, a prominent minister in the Presbyterian Church, was born at Carlisle, Pa., Nov. 19, 1823. Although he would call Michigan home after 1836, throughout his life William worked and traveled widely. He graduated from Columbia College, New York, in 1842, as a civil engineer, and two years later receiver a Master of Arts. He later studied law and was admitted to the Detroit bar. At the onset of the Mexican-American War he entered the Army as Adjutant of the Second Tennessee Infantry. Later during the war he served on the staff of General Gideon Pillow. He went to California as an Army paymaster after the war and qualified as a founding member in the Society of California Pioneers. During this service he became well enough versed in the military sciences to author two books on the subject.

After leaving the Army he worked as engineer and superintendent of railroads in New York; surveyed the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad from Pontiac to Grand Haven, from Detroit to Port Huron, and from Mendota to Galesburg, Illinois. When the Civil War erupted Duffield joined the Forth Michigan Infantry as its Lieutenant Colonel, and participated with the regiment in the battle of Bull Run. In September he resigned from the Forth and accepted a commission as colonel of the Ninth Michigan Infantry. On 21 November he was appointed acting brigadier general and placed in command of the Twenty-third Brigade. On 9 January 1862 he was ordered to Bardstown, Kentucky, to head an officer examining board. He resumed command of the Twenty-third Brigade on 11 March 1862, and held it until 9 May 1862, when he was appointed acting military governor of Kentucky. On 12 July 1863, Duffield arrived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where he was to resume command of the Twenty-third Brigade. The following day the brigade was attacked and defeated by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Duffield was twice seriously wounded during the attack.

The Ninth Michigan's encampment at the time of the raid was “The Oaklands,” the plantation and home of Major Lewis M. Maney, a Mexican War veteran and slave owner, then medically unfit for service (he suffered from Tuberculosis). In May Maney had become one of the “twelve prominent citizens” arrested and “held as hostages to prevent further outrages” against Union forces. According to some sources, Major Maney also had a date with the gallows, only forestalled by Forrest's Raid. His subsequent attitude toward Duffield is not without irony, then, for it was Maney and his family that took the Colonel into their home and nursed him back to health. The Maneys' compassion and kindness engendered a friendship between the two families that lasted for years.

Duffield resigned from the Army on 6 February 1863 and returned to Michigan. After the war he had charge of coal mines in Pennsylvania and iron mines in Kentucky, and was chief engineer of the Kentucky Union Railroad. In 1879-1880 he served as a Michigan State Senator. He was appointed by President Cleveland as Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1894-1898. He spent his last years in Washington, D.C., where he died, in 1907. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

1 References
2 Primary sources
3 Books
4 Journal Articles
5 References

[edit] References

[edit] Primary sources

Burton Historical Collection. Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Michigan. Duffield Family Papers.
Detroit, Michigan Advertiser & Tribune, 1861-1865
Detroit, Michigan Free Press, 1861-1865.
Oakland Historical House Museum, Murfreesboro, TN. Duffield Letters.

[edit] Books

American Biographical History of Eminent Self-Made Men, Michigan Edition Cincinnati, OH: Western Biographical Publishing Company. (1878)
Bennett, Charles Historical Sketches of the Ninth Michigan Infantry Coldwater, MI: Daily Courier. (1913)
Bingham, Steven D. Early History of Michigan with Biographies of State Officers, Members of Congress, Judges and Legislators Lansing: Thorp and Godrey, State Printers (1888).
Michigan Biographies: Including Members of Congress, Elective State Officers, Justices of the Supreme Court, Members of the Michigan Legislature, Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, State Board of Agriculture and State Board of Education 2 vols. Lansing, MI: Michigan Historical Commission (1924).
Wyeth, John Allan. That Devil Forrest: the Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest 1899. Reprint. NY: Harpers, 1959.