Background

James was born on October 1, 1850 at Roxbury, Massachussets, United States, son of John James and Elvira Codman Soley. He was a descendant of John Soley, an English settler at Charlestown, Massachussets, in the seventeenth century, and (through both parents) of Judge James Russell of Charlestown.

Education

After preparation in the Roxbury Latin School, he entered Harvard College and graduated in 1870. Then he had a year's instructorship in St. Mark's School, Southborough, Massachussets.

He had studied law in Annapolis and continued at Columbian (later George Washington) University, receiving his law degree in 1890.

Career

On October 1, 1871 Soley was appointed as professor of ethics and English at the United States Naval Academy. Two years later, despite his youth and juniority to other instructors, he was made head of the department of English studies, history, and law, a position he held until 1882. From August 18, 1876, until his resignation in 1890 he was a member of the naval corps of professors of mathematics, rising from lieutenant to commander.

He was abroad from April to December 1878 on duty connected with the American educational exhibit at the international exposition in Paris. He had also been commissioned to make a study of foreign systems of naval education, and his Report on Foreign Systems of Naval Education appeared as a government document in 1880. Between 1882 and 1890 he had duty in Washington, collecting and arranging the Navy Department library, and, as superintendent of the office of naval war records, supervising the publication of Civil War naval records.

He also lectured on international law at the Naval War College, 1885-89, and was Lowell Institute lecturer in 1885 on American naval history and in 1888 on European neutrality in the Civil War.

On July 16, 1890, he resigned his naval commission to become assistant secretary of the navy, and occupied this position until March 1893 with special administration of labor in naval shore establishments. Therafter he practised law in New York City with his former naval chief, Benjamin Franklin Tracy, in the firm of Tracy, Boardman, and Platt (later Boardman, Platt, and Soley).

He was orator in 1890 at the unveiling of the monument in Annapolis commemorating the Jeannette expedition, and in 1891 at a memorial service for Admiral David Dixon Porter in Tremont Temple, Boston.

He died on September 11, 1911.

Achievements

• James Russell Soley served as Superintendent of the naval war records office and he headed the Navy Department Library, thus he collected the naval documents of the American Civil War and published them in his famous work The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. As a lawyer, his special field was international law, and his most notable legal service was as counsel for Venezuela in the boundary dispute with Great Britain in the Venezuela Crisis of 1895.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Blockade and the Cruisers / Y James Russell Soley...

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

  • Report on Foreign Systems of Naval Education

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

  • Historical Sketch of the United States Naval Academy

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

Connections

He was married, December 1, 1875, to Mary Woolsey Howland, daughter of the Rev. Robert Shaw Howland of New York; they had a son who died in infancy and two daughters.

Father:

John James Soley

Mother:

Elvira Codman Soley

Spouse:

Mary Woolsey Howland

father-in-law:

Robert Shaw Howland

coworker:

W. S. Schley

coworker:

Benjamin Franklin Tracy