(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
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Manning Ferguson Force was a lawyer, judge and soldier from Ohio.
Background
Manning Ferguson Force was born in Washington, D. C. , the son of Peter and Hannah (Evans) Force. His father’s ancestors were French Huguenots who came to America upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; his mother’s family was Welsh and emigrated to Pennsylvania.
Education
He prepared for West Point at a boarding school in Alexandria, Virginia, but a change in his plans caused him to go to Harvard, where he entered as a sophomore.
In 1845 he received his bachelor’s degree and three years later he graduated from law school.
Career
In January 1849 he removed to Cincinnati where he spent a year in the office of Walker & Kebler studying law. Upon his admission to the bar in 1850 he became one of the firm of Walker, Kebler & Force.
He practised law until the commencement of the Civil W ar, when he entered the volunteer service as major of the 20th Ohio Regiment. He was rapidly promoted to lieutenant-colonel and colonel of this regiment; took part in the capture of Fort Donelson and the battle of Pittsburg Landing; and campaigned with General Grant in 1862-63 in southwestern Tennessee and northern Mississippi.
When Gen. Sherman marched on Jackson during the siege of Vicksburg, Force was placed in command of the 2nd Brigade and “was employed to guard the road as far back as Clinton.
During General Sherman’s Meridian and Atlanta campaigns, he commanded a brigade, which on July 21, 1864, attacked and carried a fortified hill in full view of Atlanta.
The next day General Hood endeavored to capture this hill and in the terrible battle which ensued, Force was shot through the upper part of his face. For a time it was thought the wound was mortal but on October 22, he was able to report for duty although he carried throughout life the marks of the wound.
In recognition of his “especial gallantry before Atlanta, ” he was brevetted major-general on March 13, 1865.
He commanded a division in General Sherman’s army assortment of material.
during the latter’s march from Atlanta to Savannah and across the Carolinas. At the close of the war he was appointed commander of a military district in Mississippi where he remained until mustered out of the volunteer service on January 11, 1866. Although he was tendered a civil office and appointed colonel of the 32nd Regular Infantry, he declined both offers. He resumed the practise of law in Cincinnati and in 1866 was elected judge of the common pleas court. At the expiration of his term in 1871 he was reelected.
In the fall of 1876 he was nominated by the Republican party for Congress but was defeated. He was elected judge of the superior court of Cincinnati the following year and in 1882 received the nomination of both parties for that office and was unanimously reelected. In 1887, owing to ill health, he declined a renomination.
The following year he was appointed commandant of the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home of Sandusky, which position he held until his death.
From his father Force inherited a fine literary taste and throughout his life he was deeply interested in historical and archeological studies. He was the author of Pre-Historic Man. Darwinism and the Mound Builders (1873); From Fort Henry to Corinth (1881); Some Observations on the Letters of Amerigo Vespucci (1885), and other works. He prepared the eighth edition of Walker’s Introduction to American Law (1882), the third edition of Harris’s Principles of Criminal Law (1885), and at the time of his death was engaged upon his General Sherman, published in 1899.