Background
Gustavus Vasa Fox was born on June 13, 1821 in Saugus, Massachusetts, the son of Dr. Jesse and Olivia (Flint) Fox.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
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(BCR's Shelf2Life American Civil War Collection is a uniqu...)
BCR's Shelf2Life American Civil War Collection is a unique and exciting collection of pre-1923 titles focusing on the American Civil War and the people and events surrounding it. From memoirs and biographies of notable military figures to firsthand accounts of famous battles and in-depth discussions of slavery, this collection is a remarkable opportunity for scholars and historians to rediscover the experience and impact of the Civil War. The volumes contained in the collection were all written within 60 years of the end of the war, which means that most authors had living memory of it and were facing the effects of the war while writing. These firsthand accounts allow the modern reader to more fully understand the culture of both the Union and Confederacy, the politics that governed the escalation and end of the war, the personal experience of life during the Civil War, and the most difficult and polarizing question in the history of the United States: slavery. The American Civil War Collection allows new readers access to the contemporary arguments and accounts surrounding the war, and is a vital new tool in understanding this important and pivotal chapter in American history.
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(Gustavus Vasa Fox had, among the men of his day, the repu...)
Gustavus Vasa Fox had, among the men of his day, the reputation of being a great man, yet he occupied a minor position, and the only expedition that he commanded—namely, the expedition for the relief of Fort Sumter—failed, although through no fault of his own. But he commanded the boat that brought away the embattled garrison from that fort. The great value and interest of these letters are that they were written in confidence during a time of great national peril—the American Civil War. Fox is frank about his hopes and anxieties, his opinions of the talents of other men, and the overwhelming events of his day. As a sailor in the Mexican-American War he served in the brig Washington in the squadron of Commodore Matthew Perry. He knew and understood the technology of his era and when Civil War came, he was brought into the administration of Abraham Lincoln as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Gideon Welles.
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(The Shelf2Life American Civil War Collection is a unique ...)
The Shelf2Life American Civil War Collection is a unique and exciting collection of pre-1923 titles focusing on the American Civil War and the people and events surrounding it. From memoirs and biographies of notable military figures to firsthand accounts of famous battles and in-depth discussions of slavery, this collection is a remarkable opportunity for scholars and historians to rediscover the experience and impact of the Civil War. The volumes contained in the collection were all written within 60 years of the end of the war, which means that most authors had living memory of it and were facing the effects of the war while writing. These firsthand accounts allow the modern reader to more fully understand the culture of both the Union and Confederacy, the politics that governed the escalation and end of the war, the personal experience of life during the Civil War, and the most difficult and polarizing question in the history of the United States: slavery. The American Civil War Collection allows new readers access to the contemporary arguments and accounts surrounding the war, and is a vital new tool in understanding this important and pivotal chapter in American history.
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Gustavus Vasa Fox was born on June 13, 1821 in Saugus, Massachusetts, the son of Dr. Jesse and Olivia (Flint) Fox.
After spending two years at Phillips Academy, Andover, he received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he graduated in 1841.
For the next fifteen years after the graduation from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Gustavus Fox had an adventurous life in various governmental assignments, being occupied during the Mexican War in the transportation of troops to Vera Cruz. The Civil War offered Fox the great opportunity of his career. In February 1861, when it became obvious that Major Anderson and the garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor were in grave danger, Montgomery Blair, who had married Mrs. Fox’s sister, urged General Winfield Scott to consult Fox.
The latter promptly went to Washington and submitted a plan for relieving Anderson, but it was vetoed by the vacillating President Buchanan. When Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, he at once asked Fox to prepare a scheme for reinforcing Fort Sumter, and sent Fox to Charleston for an interview with Anderson.
On April 9, although a volunteer with no regular standing in the navy, Fox set out from New York with a formidable squadron, but, because of unavoidable delays, he did not reach Charleston until April 12, just in season to observe the opening bombardment of the fort. Unable to intervene until the other vessels of his fleet arrived, Fox had no alternative except to take Anderson and his seventy men on board when Sumter was evacuated, and return to New York. For his part in the affair he was given high praise by President Lincoln.
Remaining in Washington, Fox was appointed on May 9, 1861, chief clerk of the Navy Department under the irascible Secretary Gideon Welles, and on August 1 he was made assistant secretary of the navy, the post having been created for him.
His knowledge of naval matters was an important element in the success of his department during the war. He was largely responsible for important changes in personnel and procedure; he suggested Admiral Farragut as commander of the New Orleans expedition; he was an early advocate of the “turret vessel, ” or Monitor, invented by John Ericsson, and he persuaded Welles to let it be used in action. His chief thought that Fox was occasionally too officious, but honesty compelled him to admit that his subordinate was indispensable.
Although Welles’s diary is sometimes critical of Fox’s manner, it gives the impression that the secretary relied on him unreservedly. In the judgment of James Ford Rhodes, Fox “joined to probity ex- working with machinery. At the age of eighteen he was apprenticed to learn the machinist’s trade in his native town. Two years later he was sent out with a steam-excavator, said to have been the first one built, to work on the Northern New Hampshire Railroad.
By his success in handling it he soon became the chief operator and thus began a long career of excavation by steam.
During the next ten years he was employed by several railroads, including the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada. Fox went to Chicago in 1856 and formed a partnership with John P. Chapin, then mayor of the city. They began to widen and deepen the channel of the Chicago River with a special steam-dredge which Fox had brought with him. Although the contract required the firm to carry the dredged earth out into the lake, Fox quickly saw that this material could be used to raise the grade of the city. This was the beginning of the work of raising the city several feet above the old prairie level and was for many years an important feature of the Chicago improvements.
The partnership between Chapin and Fox came to an end in 1860 and Fox, to increase the scope of his activities, formed a new partnership with William B. Howard, a noted bridge-builder. For the next fifteen years the history of the firm of Fox & Howard is the history of the topographical improvement of Chicago.
They first opened up and made navigable the north and south branches of the river. Having completed this they deepened the old river channel, straightened the banks, and built more than fifteen miles of dock line along the river. By their dredging and construction of piers they were able to create a satisfactory harbor for Chicago. They built the dozen bridges which spanned the Chicago River. They constructed many railroad bridges in the South and in the Middle West; they built the fourteen-hundred-foot bridge over the Fox River at Green Bay and the bridge across the Illinois River at Pekin. The partnership of Fox & Howard ended in 1875; Fox later became connected with the firm of FitzSimons & Connell.
Among the numerous works executed by Fox are the Baraboo extension of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway system and the extension of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe up the Grand Canon of the Arkansas River in Colorado. Meanwhile Fox had been selected by President Johnson as the bearer of a congratulatory resolution passed by Congress, expressing the satisfaction of the American people at the escape of Alexander II, Czar of Russia, from the attack of an assassin; and he went, escorted by a fleet, to Russia, stopping at European ports to display the turreted ironclad, Miantonomoh, the first monitor to cross the Atlantic.
On his return on December 13, 1866, after a hospitable and elaborate reception by the Czar, Fox became agent of the Middlesex Company, in Lowell, Massachusetts. There, on December 9, 1871, he was paid the honor of a state visit by the Grand Duke Alexis, third son of the Czar. He later resigned to join the firm of Mudge, Sawyer & Co. , in Boston, and died shortly afterwards in New York City. A narrative of his experiences on the Russian expedition was prepared by his secretary J. F. Loubat, and published in 1873 fully illustrated with engravings of the eminent personages who entertained the American representatives.
His official papers were bequeathed by his widow to the three sons of Montgomery Blair, by whom they were afterward published. The documents which they contain are of significance to students of the Civil War period.
(Gustavus Vasa Fox had, among the men of his day, the repu...)
(BCR's Shelf2Life American Civil War Collection is a uniqu...)
(The Shelf2Life American Civil War Collection is a unique ...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
In his prime, Fox was a large, rather corpulent man, with a full beard and a confident bearing. His sanguine temperament and sanity of outlook were refreshing to those who had to meet him officially.
Quotes from others about the person
At the close of hostilities, Fox resigned (May 22, 1866), and the unsentimental Welles made this entry in his diary: “His manner and ways have sometimes given offense to others, but he is patriotic and true”.
After having earned his promotion to the rank of lieutenant in 1852, Gustavus Vasa Fox resigned in 1856, married Virginia Woodbury, a daughter of Judge Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, and settled down as agent of the Bay State Mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He was an affectionate and considerate husband.