| Charles Ewing | |
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General Charles Ewing |
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| Born | March 6, 1835 Lancaster, Ohio |
| Died | June 20, 1893 (aged 58) Washington, D.C. |
| Allegiance | United States of America Union |
| Service/branch | United States Army Union Army |
| Years of service | 1861 – 1867 |
| Rank | Brigadier General |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War *Battle of Shiloh *Battle of Vicksburg *Atlanta Campaign *Battle of Bentonville |
| Other work | Lawyer |
Charles Ewing, (March 6, 1835 – June 20, 1893) was an attorney and Union Army general during the American Civil War. He was the son of Interior Secretary Thomas Ewing, the brother of Thomas Ewing, Jr. and Hugh Boyle Ewing, and the foster brother & brother-in-law of William T. Sherman. Ewing's sister and Sherman's wife was Ellen Ewing Sherman.
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He was educated at the Dominican College, and at the University of Virginia. He studied law, was admitted to practice and was so engaged at St. Louis, Missouri, when the civil war occurred.
He then joined the U.S. Army and was commissioned in 1861 captain in the 13th infantry, of which William T. Sherman, his brother-in-law, was colonel, and was appointed inspector-general on the staff of General Sherman, when in command of the western army.
At the Battle of Vicksburg he planted the flag of his battalion on the parapet of the Confederate fort, and received in the accomplishment a severe wound. For this action he was brevetted major in 1863; for his action at Jackson, Colliersville and Missionary Ridge and in the Atlanta campaign he was made lieutenant-colonel by brevet in 1864, and for gallant conduct in the march to the sea and thence through the Carolinas to Washington he was brevetted colonel in 1865. He was made brigadier-general of volunteers, March 8, 1865.
In 1867 General Ewing resigned his commission in the army, and opened a successful law practice in Washington, D.C.. Beginning in 1874, he served as the Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions (later known as the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions), which involved defending Roman Catholic mission interests and Native American rights. Based on its prior missionary initiatives the Catholic Church felt justified to operate schools at 34 of the 72 agencies, but the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant allowed them at only seven. Ewing served as Catholic Commissioner until his death in Washington on June 20, 1883.[1]