Edward Stuyvesant Bragg was an American Union soldier and congressman. He is remembered for his military services during the Civil War, as well as for his service in the United States House of Representatives from 1877 to 1883, and also for his diplomatic service in Mexico, Cuba, and Hong Kong.
Background
Edward Stuyvesant Bragg was born on February 20, 1827 in Unadilla, New York, and was descended from one of the Vermont settlers who had been ousted from his lands in the dispute between New Hampshire and New York during the Revolutionary period and who pushed out into the Chenango Valley of New York.
His father, Joel Bragg (1784 - 1870), grew up in what was then a frontier environment, married a German woman, Margaretha Kohl of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and became the owner of a sawmill, a gristmill, and a tavern at Unadilla, Otsego County, New York. In the country made known to the world by James Fenimore Cooper, Edward Stuyvesant was born and grew to manhood.
Education
Edward Bragg attended not less than four of the neighboring academies, which in those days held the place later occupied by high schools, and then spent several years at Geneva (later Hobart) College.
Career
Since from the early age of twelve Edward had fixed on the law, his calling and at twenty was "reading" in the office of Judge Charles C. Noble at Unadilla. In 1848 Bragg was admitted to the bar on court examination. He had been in practise only two years when the pioneering instinct that had moved his father and grandfather impelled him to seek his fortune in the tide of westward migration and he chose the new state of Wisconsin as the scene of his future activities. He settled at Fond du Lac, on the southern end of Lake Winnebago, and that was his home for more than six decades.
Within four years he had been elected district attorney of the county. In June 1861 he raised a company and was commissioned captain in the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. This regiment was destined to see as much active service in the war as any other Wisconsin organization. In its period of training it was one of the regiments whose "watch-fires of a hundred circling camps" helped to inspire Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic. " Bragg's promotions to major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel quickly followed the reports of his superiors on the battles in which the Sixth was engaged, following one another in rapid succession--Gainesville, South Mountain, Antietam (where he was severely wounded), Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness (where he temporarily commanded a Pennsylvania regiment), Spotsylvania, Laurel Hill, North Anna, and Cold Harbor.
On June 8, 1864, he commanded the Iron Brigade, leading in the assault on Petersburg. In this long series of engagements, his conduct and bravery had been extolled by the commanding officers and his exploit at Fitz-Hugh's Crossing, when he crossed the Rappahannock with his troops in boats under the enemy's fire and captured their works, made him a brigadier-general of volunteers. He had taken part in everyone of the Iron Brigade's major battles except Gettysburg, from which he was kept by illness.
While serving in the field he was nominated for Congress in his district and defeated. After the war he was a delegate to the Union national convention of 1866, was elected state senator in 1867, and was a delegate to the national Democratic convention that nominated Greeley for president in 1872. His district sent him to Congress for four terms (1877-83 and 1885 - 87). Twice (1884 and 1896) he was chairman of the Wisconsin delegation to national Democratic conventions.
In a canvass when every Democratic vote was needed it was audacity to the verge of recklessness, but it went to the heart of a situation that in Bragg's opinion required bloodletting. At such a time no consideration of political expediency had weight with him.
Twelve years later, when the Democrats nominated Bryan for president on a Free-Silver platform he was among the outstanding "Gold Democrats" of the country who refused Bryan their support. In 1900, again, similar reasons led Bragg, a life-long Democrat, to support McKinley and the Republican ticket. After the expiration of his last term in Congress, Bragg had been named by President Cleveland as minister to Mexico, but this appointment expired with the Cleveland Administration in 1889. In 1902 President Roosevelt appointed him consul general at Hong Kong, China. Bragg remained there four years, returned to America in 1906, supported Taft for the presidency in 1908, and died at Fond du Lac on June 20, 1912.
Achievements
Politics
Bragg was in no sense one of the "political generals" so numerous in the war (he did not belong to the national party that was dominant in the North); but he was always keenly interested in politics. A Douglas Democrat, he was a delegate to the Charleston Convention of 1860. The opening of the Civil War found him a "War Democrat, " intensely devoted to the Union cause and eager to take the field.
After the Civil War came to an end, Bragg found himseld among the outstanding "Gold Democrats" of the country. It was a time when the Democrats nominated Bryan for president on a Free-Silver platform, but "Gold Democrats" refused Bryan their support. It was a main reason why later in 1900, being a life-long Democrat, Bragg supported McKinley and the Republican ticket.
Membership
While attending Geneva College (today Hobart College) in Geneva, New York, he was a member of The Kappa Alpha Society.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
In seconding the nomination of Cleveland for president in 1884, "the little General" hurled at the New York delegation, controlled by Tammany, a piercing epigram that was to be remembered and repeated in three campaigns: "We love him for the enemies he has made!"
Connections
Edward Bragg was married on January 2, 1854 to Cornelia Colman, a granddaughter of one of the founders of Rochester, New York, and had been elected district attorney of the county.