(Published under the direction of The Hon. Russell A. Alge...)
Published under the direction of The Hon. Russell A. Alger, Secretary of War, by Brig. Gen. Fred C. Ainsworth, Chief of the Record and Pension Office, War Department, and Mr. Joseph W. Kirkley. Series III of book. Government Printing Office: 1899. Consists of Civil War correspondence, orders, reports, and returns not included in Series I and II for the Union authorities.
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Frederick Crayton Ainsworth was born on September 11, 1852 in Woodstock, Vermont, United States, a descendant of Edward Ainsworth who settled in Woodstock, Connecticut, about 1702. His father, Crayton Ainsworth, a blacksmith by trade and the owner of several farms, was one of the prosperous and influential members of the community. His mother, Harriet B. (Carroll) Ainsworth, was a native of Massachusetts.
Ainsworth and his younger brother, Frank, the only children, both began the study of medicine with Dr. Orlando Sherwin of Woodstock, and Frederick was graduated from the medical department of the University of the City of New York (later New York University) in 1874.
Ainsworth entered the medical corps of the army in October of 1874. The first ten years of his service were spent in Alaska and in posts of the Southwest. This was a period of considerable Indian warfare in which he had his share of field duty and made a reputation for skill in caring for his soldier and Indian patients.
From Fort McIntosh at Laredo, Texas, he was ordered in 1885 to New York City as recorder of the Army Examining Board. Some quality of his work on this assignment won attention, causing Surgeon-General John Moore, shortly after his appointment, in November 1886, to bring Ainsworth, then a captain, to Washington and to place him in charge of the disorganized Record and Pension Division of his office. Within a year Ainsworth brought up to date the accumulated arrears of work so that information was made available in days where formerly months had been required.
He was soon being hailed by congressmen and by the Grand Army of the Republic as a genius who resolved all their pension troubles. He was always ready to give personal attention to the needs of hardpressed legislators and he soon built up a circle of enthusiastic backers among their numbers. The pressure of pension claims involved also the records of the Adjutant-General's Office and here too the work was belated. In July 1889 the secretary of war created the Record and Pension Division of the War Department, combining therein the records of the Surgeon-General's Office and certain divisions of the Adjutant-General's Office and placed Ainsworth in charge.
In May 1892, now a major, he resigned his commission in the medical corps to accept the appointment as colonel and chief of the newly created Record and Pension Office of the War Department. He was promoted to the grade of brigadier-general in 1899. By this time he was in a position where he was said to have more influence in Congress than any other man in the government, including the president.
Probably at his suggestion, his office was consolidated in 1904 with that of the adjutant-general (excluding that officer himself) and he was made the chief with the title of military secretary, and the grade of major-general. In March 1907, the Military Secretary's Office was renamed the Adjutant-General's Office and the title of the chief changed to adjutant-general. Thus the young medical officer achieved his ambition. His rise to high position was not without its obstacles nor without its conflicts. His office, seething with discontent, was a maze of minor plots and counterplots. He guarded the records of the office with jealous eyes, withholding access to them from all but himself and his obedient clerks. He held that the records in his custody were not public, but government property, and as such were in his safekeeping. Discontent on this score centered in the historical profession, eager for first-hand information bearing on the nation's past. A movement for a "Hall of Records" made some headway but not sufficient to overcome Ainsworth's opposition. To every criticism, his reply was the citation of the millions of dollars that he had saved and was saving for the country. However, though the work was begun by others, he was in charge of the greater part of the publication of The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, relating to the Civil War, and issued between 1880 and 1901.
His prestige suffered a severe strain when in June 1893 the front of the old Ford Theatre building in which he had his office collapsed, carrying down three floors of clerks and filing cases. A score were killed and four times as many badly injured. He was widely charged with responsibility for the calamity, and threats were made against his person, but the feeling soon died away. When General Leonard Wood became chief of staff in 1910, a conflict of these two ambitious and strong-willed men began for the control of the War Department.
It ended suddenly early in 1912 when Henry L. Stimson, secretary of war, called upon Ainsworth for his resignation on account of an intemperate communication sent to General Wood on the subject of changes in army paper-work. With the alternative of a court martial, Ainsworth asked for retirement, which was granted him in February 1912. For twenty years thereafter he lived quietly in Washington.
Ainsworth exercised a certain influence in Congress, particularly in reference to military legislation, and had his part in formulating the first National Defense Act of 1916. He was also noted for revolutionizing methods of government record-keeping. The records of the War were successfully consolidated and published, and became a valuable source of information for Civil War historians and researchers. He was honored by The Army by naming the troopship, USAT Fred C. Ainsworth, after him.
(Published under the direction of The Hon. Russell A. Alge...)
Ainsworth and his family were members of the local Universalist church.
He took an active interest in the National Rifle Association and made a study of corrosion of small arms.
Ainsworth was a tall man of powerful build. He carried an air of self-confidence and of seldom relaxing austerity. He was a man of endless controversies and was implacable toward those with whom he differed. He was extremely arbitrary in the conduct of business, brusque in his contacts with those without influence, and a tyrant to his office personnel. On the other hand he had his share of the warmest friendships.
While a junior medical officer Ainsworth was married on July 26, 1881, to Mary Bacon, the daughter of Samuel Bacon of Washington. She died on May 29, 1925, and was interred in Arlington Cemetery, where her husband was later laid beside her. They left no children.
