Montgomery Sicard was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
Background
Montgomery Sicard was born September 30, 1836 in New York City, son of Stephen and Lydia (Hunt) Sicard. His father, of a French émigré family settled in Philadelphia, was engaged, before his marriage, in a mercantile business that necessitated considerable residence in Mexico; his mother was a daughter of Montgomery Hunt of Utica, New York, and sister of Justice Ward Hunt of the United States Supreme Court.
Education
After Stephen Sicard's death, in 1840, the family moved to Utica, where Montgomery lived until his appointment to the Naval Academy, October 1, 1851.
Career
Following cruises after graduation on the Mediterranean and China stations, he was promoted to lieutenant, May 31, 1860, and saw active service throughout the Civil War.
He was executive in the Oneida of Farragut's squadron during the engagements with the forts and flotilla below New Orleans and the ensuing campaign around Vicksburg; then, having been promoted to lieutenant commander, July 1862, in the Susquehanna off Mobile, from the spring of 1863 until late in 1864 he served in the Ticonderoga, hunting Confederate cruisers.
He commanded the gunboat Seneca in both attacks on Fort Fisher, and had charge of the left wing, Second Naval Division, in the severe fighting of the final land assault, January 15, 1865. After post-war duty as head of the Ordnance Department, Naval Academy, he commanded the Saginaw in the Pacific, and was wrecked, October 29, 1870, on Ocean Island, remaining there two months with his crew while Lieutenant Talbot and four men - of whom but one survived - sailed for aid 1200 miles to Hawaii in the ship's gig.
Subsequently, his distinctive achievements were in the field of ordnance, and to his patient work and scientific attainments is chiefly credited the development of modern high-power naval guns before the war with Spain.
He was on ordnance duty at the New York Navy Yard, 1871-72, and afterward at Washington until 1877, designing and constructing the first steel breech-loading guns for the navy.
With Richard W. Meade he also prepared a revised edition of the Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy (1880). Having been advanced through the grade of commander (March 2, 1870) to that of captain in 1881, he was head of the Bureau of Ordnance for ten years following, during which period the Washington Gun Factory was established and rapid progress made in ordnance manufacture. He was president of the Steel Inspection Board, 1890-91, and in command of the monitor Miantonomah, 1891-93.
On July 10, 1894, he was made commodore, and subsequently his duties included administration of the New York Navy Yard, 1894-96, and, after his promotion to rear admiral, April 1897, command of the North Atlantic Squadron until March 1898. Despite his declining health, he had hoped to retain the squadron in the impending war with Spain, but on the adverse verdict of a medical survey he was forced to relinquish it to his senior captain, William T. Sampson.
The sacrifice was bitter; "I remember no more pathetic scene, " writes a newspaper correspondent, "than the hurried departure from Key West of this white-haired old man. "
Regaining strength in the North, he was made president, with A. T. Mahan and A. S. Crowninshield as associates, of the strategy board which largely directed the naval war. He was retired for age September 30, 1898.
After his retirement, his winters were spent in Washington and his summers in the old Floyd home at Westernville, near Utica, New York. His death from apoplexy occurred at Westernville, and he was buried in the Westernville cemetery.
Achievements
Connections
By his marriage, May 20, 1863, to Elizabeth Floyd, great-grand-daughter of William Floyd, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, he had three children.