Alvin Peterson Hovey was born in Mount Vernon, Indiana on September 6, 1821 to Abiel and Francis Hovey. His father, a native of New Hampshire, was descended from Daniel Hovey who settled at Ipswich, Massachussets, in 1635; his mother was a native of Vermont. The Hoveys moved to Indiana in 1818. Two years later his father died, and when he was fifteen, his mother also died.
He was apprenticed to his brother, a brick-layer.
At nineteen years of age he had so improved his meager opportunities for study that he began teaching school, and two years later, having read law in the office of Judge John Pitcher, was admitted to the bar. He became at once a successful lawyer, winning considerable local fame by ousting the executors of the estate of the eccentric philanthropist, William McClure of New Harmony, and himself becoming the administrator.
On the outbreak of the war with Mexico he became first lieutenant of a company of volunteers but never saw actual service. He was elected a member of the Indiana constitutional convention of 1850, and from 1851 to 1854 served as circuit judge under the appointment of Governor Wright. In the latter year he was chosen a member of the Indiana supreme court, to fill a vacancy, being the youngest man, up to that time, to serve on the Indiana supreme bench. During his service (1854 - 55), he rendered a decision, speaking for the court, which declared unconstitutional a part of the new law establishing the Indiana public school system. This decision was condemned by the friends of the schools and Hovey was characterized by them as narrowminded and reactionary. During this period of his life he was an ardent Democrat and he served as president of the Democratic state convention in 1855.
In 1856 he was appointed United States district attorney by President Pierce, but was removed in 1858 by President Buchanan for his support of Stephen A. Douglas. In that year he ran for Congress as a Republican, but was defeated. At the opening of the Civil War he was made colonel of the 16t Regiment of the Indiana Legion, and later colonel of the 24th Indiana Infantry. He was advanced to the rank of brigadier-general, April 28, 1862, for gallantry at the battle of Shiloh, and in General Grant's official report of the Vicksburg campaign, was credited with winning the key battle, that of Champion's Hill, where his brigade lost one third of its strength in killed and wounded. In July 1864 he was brevetted major-general of volunteers and directed to raise 10, 000 recruits. This he did by asking for the enlistment of unmarried men only, and as a result this command came to be known as "Hovey's Babies. "
In 1864-65 he was placed in command of the district of Indiana, then considered a difficult post because of the supposed danger from the "Sons of Liberty" and "Knights of the Golden Circle" who were thought at the time to be numerous in Indiana. After the war he was appointed (December 1865) minister to Peru, and held that post until 1870, when he returned to his law practice at Mount Vernon, Ind. In 1872 he refused the Republican nomination for governor, but in 1886 was elected to Congress and two years later was chosen to the governorship. In this campaign he was accused of being exclusive, aristocratic, and unpopular. It was said that he claimed to be the reincarnation of Napoleon, and it was his custom to retire to solitary contemplation on the anniversary of Napoleon's death (Dunn, post, I, 481-82). He died in office.
He is remembered as a Union general during the American Civil War, an Indiana Supreme Court justice, congressman, and the 21st Governor of Indiana from 1889 to 1891. During the war he played an important role in the Western theatre, earning high approval from Grant, and uncovered a secret plot for an uprising in Indiana.
(Excerpt from Soldiers' Rights: An Appeal to the Loyal Peo...)
Hovey was a man of distinguished appearance and soldierly bearing, and maintained a reputation throughout his life for integrity and public spirit.
He was married on November 24, 1844, to Mary Ann James, a native of Baton Rouge, La. , the daughter of Col. E. R. James. She was the mother of five children of whom only two lived to maturity. After her death, which occurred in 1863, he married Rosa Alice, daughter of Caleb Smith and widow of Maj. William F. Carey.
