Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne

Background

Augustine Joseph Hickey Duganne was born in 1823 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Career

After the appearance of Massachusetts (1843) and Home Poems (1844) Duganne migrated to Philadelphia and set up as an author. His income, which in a few years was sufficient for him to marry and to live with apparent happiness in marriage, came chiefly, it is probable, from his stories of adventure, which he produced in quantity lots for several publishers, including Erastus Beadle.

He also compiled books on philosophy, economics, and government and ventured into tragedy with The Lydian Queen, which was produced at the Walnut Street Theatre in 1848. His address in 1849 (McElroy’s Philadelphia Directory) was the southeast corner of Fourth and Walnut Sts. He moved to New York sometime around 1850. There he continued to concoct paper-backed novels ; wrote book reviews that kindled the enthusiasm of Thomas Holley Chivers (information from Dr. Lewis Chase) for John Sartain’s Union Magazine and other periodicals; lampooned his contemporaries in Parnassus in Pillory (1851) ; advanced the cause of Americanism in literature with A Sound Literature the Safeguard of our National Institutions (1853), and Art’s True Mission in America (1833); won a hundred-dollar prize in 1854 with a turgid “Ode to Powers’ Greek Slave”; agitated in prose and verse for free land in the West; declaimed, also in both prose and verse, before meetings of fraternal orders and workingmen’s organizations; and between 1847 and 1854 brought out seven volumes of his poems. While he was seriously ill in 1855, a Philadelphia friend, James Lesley, Jr. , edited a sumptuous volume of his Poetical Works, with a portrait engraved by Sartain. The head, with its broad, unfurrowed brow, full beard, and flowing hair, bears a simultaneous resemblance to Alfred Tennyson and E. Z. C. Judson. In the prefatory matter the poet alludes to recent bereavements. In the autumn of 1855 the success of the Know-Nothing party landed him in the Assembly as the member for the sixth district of New York, but his career as a statesman lasted for only one term. In the autumn of 1862 Duganne helped to raise the 176th New York Volunteers and was commissioned immediately as its lieutenantcolonel. The regiment was sent to Louisiana. Through no fault of his he and his command were compelled to surrender to a superior force at Brashear (now Morgan) City, Louisiana, June 23, 1863, and the rest of his military life was spent ingloriously in prison camps near Hempstead and Tyler, Texas. Ilis Camps and Prisons: Twenty Months in the Department of the Gulf (1865), largely autobiographical, is honest, vivid, and packed with detail. Its account of life in Texas during the w'ar is of historical value.

Duganne was paroled July 24, 1864, and, having suffered much during his captivity, w'as mustered out for disability, September 10. At the close of the war, Governor R. E. Fenton appointed him chief of the bureau of military statistics, and thereafter he w'as connected with the New York Tribune, and the Sunday Dispatch, a Masonic sheet of sensational proclivities. Utterances (1865) and Ballads of the War (complete ed. , 1865) contain his martial verse. Fighting Quakers (1866), Governments of the World (1882), and In jure soul (1884), a dull satire addressed to both Inger- soll and Beecher, are among- his last books. Duganne was affable, kindly, and of studious habits. During his last years he was afflicted with tuberculosis.

Achievements

• Duganne is the author of Camps and Prison (1865), a vivid account of his Civil War experiences as a Union officer.

Works

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  • Duganne's Poetical Works: Autograph Edition (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Duganne's Poetical Works: Autograph Edition ...)

  • Governments of the World : Their History and Structure

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • A History Of Livingston County, New York: From Its Earliest Traditions, To Its Part In The War For Our Union (1876)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Duganne's Poetical Works: -1865

    (Originally published in 1865. This volume from the Cornel...)

Personality

Duganne was affable, kindly, and of studious habits.

Connections

Friend:

James Lesley