Charles Devens

Charles Devens Jr.


35th United States Attorney General
In office March 12, 1877 – March 4, 1881
President	Rutherford B. Hayes
Preceded by	Alphonso Taft
Succeeded by	Wayne MacVeagh
Personal details
Born	(1820-04-04)April 4, 1820 Charlestown, Massachusetts
Died	January 7, 1891(1891-01-07) (aged 70) Cambridge, Massachusetts
Political party	Whig, Republican
Alma mater	Harvard University
Profession	Lawyer, Politician
Military service
Allegiance	United States of America Union
Service/branch	United States Army Union Army
Years of service	1861 - 1866
Rank	Brigadier General Brevet Major General
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Charles Devens Jr. (April 4, 1820 – January 7, 1891) was an American lawyer, jurist and statesman. He also served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Early life and career

Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Devens graduated from Boston Latin School and eventually Harvard College in 1838, and from the Harvard Law School in 1840. He was admitted to the bar in Franklin County, Massachusetts, where he practiced from 1841 to 1849.

In 1848, he was a Whig member of the Massachusetts Senate. From 1849 to 1853, Devens was United States Marshal for Massachusetts, in which capacity he was called upon in 1851 to remand the fugitive slave, Thomas Sims, to slavery. This he felt constrained to do, much against his personal desire; subsequently, he attempted in vain to purchase Sims' freedom, and many years later appointed him to a position in the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C..

Devens practiced law at Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1853 until 1861.

Civil War

On April 16, 1861, Devens gave an impassioned speech at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA. To a large crowd he called upon the young men of Worcester to "rise and go with" him to the "rescue of Washington".

April 19, 1861, his federal military career as a major in the 3rd Battalion, Massachusetts Rifle, began. Devens held the rank of brevet major general in 1866 when it was over.^[1]

He was appointed as colonel of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry in July 1861. He was wounded in action at the Battle of Ball's Bluff in Virginia in October 1861 and nearly killed by a rifle ball.

General Charles Devens (center) and other officers in Richmond, Virginia, April, 1865.

General Charles Devens

Although still recovering, Devens was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in April 1862 and assigned command of the 1st Brigade/1st Division/. He was again wounded in the Seven Days Battles at Harrison's Landing that took place from Wednesday, June 25, 1862 through July 1, 1862 . His brigade was not heavily involved in the Maryland Campaign. Shortly afterwards, it was reassigned to the VI Corps. Devens commanded the 2nd Brigade/3rd Division/VI Corps during the Battle of Fredericksburg that occurred in December 1962.

Three days after the Emancipation Proclamation, in January 1863, Devens was given command of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, VI Corps. In May 1863, Devens commanded the 1st Division of Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard's XI Corps XI Corps. Devens was again wounded, this time at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. He and his men were surprised by General Stonewall Jackson forces with a Flanking maneuver.^[2] According to a report by Gen. Steward L. Woodford, who served with him, Devens remounted his horse, stayed with his men and did not go to the hospital until his men had bivouacked.

Peninsula Campaign March 17 - May 31, 1862

Devens distinguished himself at Battle of Cold Harbor, while commanding the 3rd Division/XVIII Corps in Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign. During final stages of the Siege of Petersburg, he commanded the 3rd Division of the XXIV Corps.

Devens's troops were the first to occupy Richmond after its fall in April 1865.

Postbellum

On January 13, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Devens for the award of the honorary grade of brevet major general, United States Volunteers, to rank from April 3, 1865, for services during the Richmond campaign,^[3] and the U.S. Senate confirmed the award on March 12, 1866.^[4] Devens remained in the army for a year as commander of the military district of Charleston, South Carolina, before mustering out and returning home. He later served as the fifth Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic from 1873–75 and was also a veteran companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

Devens was also a key figure in the investigation into the unlawful execution of Confederate veteran Calvin Crozier by soldiers of the 33rd Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops, at Newberry, SC in September 1865 following an altercation. Over Devens' strong objections the officer who took responsibility for the lynching was exonerated and returned to duty.

He was a judge of the Massachusetts superior court, from 1867 to 1873, and was an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1873 to 1877, and again from 1881 to 1891. From 1877 to 1881, he was Attorney General of the United States in the Cabinet of President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Charles Devens died in Boston, Massachusetts, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Memorials

In 1908, the City of Worcester, MA erected a statue in front of the(former) Worcester Court House, located on Court Hill. The statue was originally located on the front middle of the Courthouse area, it was later relocated to the front side.

Camp Devens was established in 1917 on about 5000 acres of land leased then later purchased from 112 owners who sold 230 parcels of land in the towns of Ayer, Harvard, Lancaster and Shirley, to the United States of America. Some was fine farmland along the Nashua River and other was "sprout" land where trees had been cut leaving stumps.

Construction, by the largest labor force assembled in the United States, to build an entire city for 10,000 requiring barracks, training buildings, water and sewer systems, raced at the rate of 10.4 new buildings every day. As one of 16 temporary cantonments, Camp Devens processed and trained more than 100,000 soldiers of the 76th and 12th Divisions. In 1918, it became a separation center for over 150,000 troops upon their return from France. Put on inactive status, it served next as a summer training camp for National Guardsmen, Reservists and ROTC cadets.

Following years of debate regarding preparedness for another global war, passage of the National Defense Act in 1920 established an important role for the citizen army. Appropriations were made for permanent construction of buildings in 1927 but the stock market crash nearly called a halt. Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers, of Lowell, recognized the economic significance of Camp Devens to this largely agricultural community. Through her efforts, Camp Devens became Fort Devens, a permanent US Army post in 1931. However, during the depression, construction was slow; most of the work was done by the Works Progress Administration.^[5]

Citations

↑ http://www.fortdevensmuseum.org/GeneralDevens.php
↑ http://www.fortdevensmuseum.org/GeneralDevens.php
↑ Eicher, 208
↑ Eicher, 711
↑ http://www.fortdevensmuseum.org/history.php

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

References

Eicher, John H. and Eicher, David J. Civil War High Commands. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.

External links

Media related to Charles Devens at Wikimedia Commons

Political offices
Preceded by Ambrose Burnside	Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic 1873–1875	Succeeded by John F. Hartranft
Legal offices
Preceded by Alphonso Taft	U.S. Attorney General Served under: Rutherford B. Hayes 1877–1881	Succeeded by Wayne MacVeagh
Preceded by Horace Gray	Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 1873–1877	Succeeded by Augustus Lord Soule
Preceded by Augustus Lord Soule	Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 1881–1891	Succeeded by John Lathrop

United States Attorneys General

18th Century	Randolph Bradford Lee

19th Century	Lincoln Breckinridge Rodney Pinkney Rush Wirt Berrien Taney Butler Grundy Gilpin Crittenden Legaré Nelson Mason Clifford Toucey Johnson Crittenden Cushing Black Stanton Bates Speed Stanbery Evarts Hoar Akerman Williams Pierrepont Taft Devens MacVeagh Brewster Garland Miller Olney Harmon McKenna Griggs

20th Century	Knox Moody Bonaparte Wickersham McReynolds Gregory Palmer Daugherty Stone Sargent W D Mitchell Cummings Murphy Jackson Biddle T C Clark McGrath McGranery Brownell Rogers Kennedy Katzenbach W R Clark J N Mitchell Kleindienst Richardson Saxbe Levi Bell Civiletti Smith Meese Thornburgh Barr Reno

21st Century	Ashcroft Gonzales Mukasey Holder Lynch

Cabinet of President Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–81)

Secretary of State	William M. Evarts (1877–81)

Secretary of the Treasury	John Sherman (1877–81)

Secretary of War	George Washington McCrary (1877–79) Alexander Ramsey (1879–81)

Attorney General	Charles Devens (1877–81)

Postmaster General	David M. Key (1877–80) Horace Maynard (1880–81)

Secretary of the Navy	Richard W. Thompson (1877–80) Nathan Goff, Jr. (1881)

Secretary of the Interior	Carl Schurz (1877–81)

Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Chief justices (1692–present)	Stoughton Winthrop Addington Winthrop Samuel Sewall Lynde, Sr. Dudley Stephen Sewall T. Hutchinson Lynde, Jr. Oliver Adams Cushing Sargent Dana Parsons Sewall Parker Shaw Bigelow Chapman Gray Morton W. Field Holmes Knowlton Rugg F. Field Qua R. Wilkins Tauro Hennessey Liacos H. Wilkins Marshall Ireland Gants

Provincial period Associate justices (1692–1775)	Danforth Richards Samuel Sewall Winthrop Cooke Walley Saffin Hathorne Leverett Curwin Lynde, Sr. Thomas Davenport Quincy Dudley J. Cushing, Sr. Remington Saltonstall Graves Stephen Sewall Hubbard Lynde, Jr. J. Cushing, Jr. Russell Oliver Trowbridge F. Hutchinson Ropes W. Cushing Brown

Revolutionary period Associate justices (1775–80)	Sargent Reed Paine Warren Foster Sullivan D. Sewall

Commonwealth period Associate justices (1780–present)	Sumner Dana N. Cushing Paine Dawes Bradbury Sewall Strong Thatcher Sedgwick Parker Jackson D. Dewey Putnam Wilde C. Dewey Lincoln M. Morton, Sr. Hubbard Fletcher Forbes Metcalf Bigelow C. Cushing Merrick Thomas Hoar Chapman Gray Colt Foster Ames Wells M. Morton, Jr. Devens Endicott Lord Soule W. Allen Devens W. Field C. Allen Colburn Holmes Gardner Knowlton J. Morton Barker Lathrop Hammond Loring Braley Sheldon Rugg Decourcy Crosby Pierce Carroll Jenney Wait Sanderson F. Field Donahue Lummus Qua Cox Dolan Ronan Spalding R. Wilkins Williams Counihan Whittemore Cutter Kirk Spiegel Reardon Quirico Braucher Hennessey Kaplan H. Wilkins Liacos Abrams Lynch Nolan O'Connor Greaney Fried Marshall Ireland Cowin Spina Sosman Cordy Botsford Gants Duffly Lenk Hines

Italics indicate individuals who were offered seats on the court, but refused

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 70377163 LCCN: n85239112

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