Edward Simpson served as an officer in the United States Navy during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War, eventually attaining the rank of rear admiral. His service included being assigned as commanding officer of several Navy ships and serving with distinction in various shore assignments.
Background
Simpson was born on March 3, 1824, in New York City, the son of Edmund Shaw Simpson and Julia Elizabeth (Jones) Simpson. The mother was of Welsh parentage, the father an Englishman who had come to New York in his twenties and was for years manager of the Park Theatre.
Education
Simpson entered the navy as midshipman on February 11, 1840, served five years in the Brazil and Mediterranean Squadrons, and after nine months' study at the United States Naval Academy, then just established at Annapolis, was made passed midshipman, July 1846.
Career
Through the Mexican War Simpson was in the small steamer Vixen "whereever a shot was fired on the east coast, " including the attacks on Tabasco, Tampico, and the siege of Vera Cruz, where the Vixen made a celebrated reconnaissance under the guns of the fort, remaining there till ordered back by Perry. During the next decade he was in the coast survey, 1848-1849 and 1855-1856; in the Congress, Brazil Squadron, 1850-1853; instructor in gunnery, Naval Academy, 1853-1854; and after promotion to lieutenant in 1855, in the Portsmouth, Asiatic Squadron, participating under Andrew Hull Foote in the capture of the barrier forts below Canton.
From September 1858 to May 1862 he had charge of ordnance instruction at the Naval Academy, being made first head of that department in 1860. His Treatise on Ordnance and Naval Gunnery (1859) was long an academy textbook.
After promotion to lieutenant commander in 1862 and another year at the academy as commandant of midshipmen, he secured sea service in command of the Wabash, and shortly afterward of the ironclad Passaic, which figured in the attacks on Forts Wagner and Sumter and in the whole arduous 1863 campaign off Charleston, South Carolina. He commanded the steamer Isonomia on the southeast coast, May-December 1864, and subsequently joined the West Gulf Squadron, with promotion to commander, March 1865, acting as fleet captain under Rear Admiral Henry Knox Thatcher in operations below Mobile until after its capitulation.
His post-bellum sea commands included the Mohican and Mohongo in the Pacific, 1866-1868, Franklin and Wabash in the Atlantic, 1873-1874, and Omaha in the south Pacific, 1875-1877. More noteworthy, in view of his eminence in the field of ordnance, were his shore assignments, especially as assistant chief of the ordnance bureau, 1869-1870. In 1873 he published his Report on a Naval Mission to Europe Especially Devoted to the Material and Construction of Artillery, in two volumes. Made captain in 1870, commodore in 1878, and rear admiral in 1884, he commanded the New London, Connecticut, station, 1878-1880, and the League Island navy yard, 1880-1883. He was president of the gun foundry board, 1883-1884, for which he wrote a report of a mission abroad; president of the naval advisory board, 1884-1885; and president of the board of inspection and survey from October 1885 until his retirement March 3, 1886. His high service reputation is evidenced by his selection as president of the United States Naval Institute, 1886-1888, and of the association of naval academy graduates from its organization until his death. His death from Bright's disease occurred at Washington on December 1, 1888; Simpson was buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery, Long Island.
President of the gun foundry board (1883-1884); president of the naval advisory board, (1884-1885); president of the board of inspection and survey (October 1885 - March 3, 1886); president of the United States Naval Institute (1886-1888)
Personality
Simpson's generous, kindly nature is illustrated by his loan of $100 to surrendered Confederate officers, his former students, with the words "Repay it when you are able; never, if not. "
Connections
Simpson's wife was Mary Ann, daughter of Gen. Charles Sterett Ridgely, whom he married at Oak Ridge, Maryland, in 1853, and by whom he had a son, who became a rear admiral, and four daughters.